The Gold Brick Part 73

A slight noise upon the turf made her look up with some impatience. What servant had dared to follow and disturb her?

It was no servant, but a tall man, with the light from a cl.u.s.ter of lamps lying full upon his face. She arose, stood upright a moment, and fell back again, her lips apart, her eyes closed tight, as if to shut out some terrible object. Her lips trembled as if words were struggling through them, but they gave forth no sound, and she fell away with her head resting against the hard iron fruit and cl.u.s.tering leaves of the garden chair.

The man drew close to her side, when he found that she was insensible, and bent over her with a countenance full of unutterable grief. There she lay beneath his eyes like a broken statue. The mother of his child--the wife of his youth, with the burning shame of a second and illegal marriage flas.h.i.+ng from the jewels on her bosom and in her hair.

But she was the mother of his child, the object of his first and only love, and that pale, cold face was wet with tears. His own hands had aided in separating her from that man. It was a solemn duty, but he had no wish of revenge beyond that. This task accomplished he would go away and struggle against his bereavement as a strong man should. He had not expected, nor perhaps wished to see that woman's face again, but as it lay beneath his gaze so like death, something of the solemn tenderness which death claims came over him. It was not love. It was not forgiveness--he had never condemned her enough for that--but the wronged man could not forget that she had been his wife, and that great sorrow and bitter shame had fallen upon her that night. He knelt upon the gra.s.s, and lifting her head from its iron resting-place, drew it to his bosom. The heart beneath scarcely quickened a pulse. To him she was not a living woman, but a memory that had turned to marble under his eyes and lay like marble against his heart.

It was terrible to see a human being so perfectly lifeless and yet feel that vitality existed in the pulseless heart. He did not touch that forehead with his lips, but pa.s.sed one hand tenderly over it, muttering:

"Poor Ellen--poor lost Ellen."

She did not move; his words failed to reach her. He felt how cold she was growing, and lifting her in his arms carried her into the house; for the window through which she had pa.s.sed was still open, the light of a chandelier poured through it, and was exhausted in the flower beds underneath.

In pa.s.sing through the shrubbery the lace scarf caught on a rose-bush and was torn in fragments. He remembered how the drapery which had shrouded Paul's mother had been swept from the dead, and sighed heavily, as if composing this one also for the grave.

Mason pa.s.sed through the window and stood in the little breakfast room, which has already been described. Through the open doors he caught a glimpse of the supper room, from which the scent of luscious fruits and dying flowers came with sickening force. On the other hand was a long vista of drawing-rooms, with the lights half extinguished, and a host of glittering objects visible through the semi-darkness, as lightning breaks through a cloud surcharged with electricity.

A sadness like that of death fell upon Mason as he saw these things.

They told, in one glance, the history of her involuntary sin. Why should he wait there to cover her with new anguish and more living shame when life came back? He laid her down among the silken cus.h.i.+ons of a couch whose crimson warmth only made her face more deathly, and went away forever. What more was there for him to do? Already he had persuaded Rice to spare that proud woman the last humiliation of her rashness, and keep her name, as it was now recognized, out of all legal proceedings necessary to the conviction of Nelson Thrasher. Beyond this, magnanimity itself was powerless.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

THE TREASURE VAULT.

Meantime Thrasher entered the room which had always been considered as particularly his own. The officers, went after him, found out the iron shutters, and fastened them securely. Then looking complacently around this impromptu prison, they went into the hall, locking the door securely outside.

Thrasher sat down in his easy chair, and leaning one hand on the table, waited patiently till they were gone. When all was quiet, he got up, crossed the room softly, and drew a couple of bolts, hidden in the elaborate carving of the door frame. He fastened the shutters in the same way, so that it was impossible for any one to gain entrance to the apartment against his desire.

When every thing was safe, he pushed the library table aside, and kneeling upon the mosaic floor, wheeled the centre ornament from its place. He descended to a flight of steps that led from the opening, and with a touch of the finger wheeled the pavement into place again, closing himself into a deep vault, apparently of solid mason work.

Casks, evidently filled with choice wines, for the name of some rare vintage was marked on each, were piled on one side of the vault; a rack filled with bottles rose to the ceiling opposite. It was, after all, only a wine vault that he had taken so much pains to conceal. This would have been the first conclusion had any one followed Thrasher into that recess. But his actions spoke of something more.

Previous to entering the vault, he had lighted a lamp, which he now placed on the pavement. With a quick wrench of the hand, he swung the wine rack from its place, and busied himself with one of the slabs of granite which composed the wall. That too swung open, and exposed an inner compartment, or square chamber, from which came a flash of precious metals, and iron-clamped boxes, piled in heaps within. A broad glow, given back to the light, streamed into the outer vault, filling it with golden gleams.

Thrasher stepped into the recess, and dragged out a bronze box, scarcely larger than that which held the jewels entrusted to Captain Mason, and which now blazed on the person of his wife. He opened this box carefully, and took out a heavy block of gold, evidently pure metal, but polished smoothly. It was shaped like a common house brick, and weighed so heavily that the strong hand of Thrasher sunk under it, and it fell to the stone floor, giving out a ringing sound that made him start, notwithstanding all his precautions, and the fact that he was now deep in the bosom of the earth.

There were many lines of fine engraving on one of the flat surfaces of the brick; the writing was in French, with which Thrasher seemed familiar, but he read it over with great care more than once. Then sitting down, with the brick before him, he took out a graver and began to cut some rude letters on the opposite side. The gold was very soft, in its pure state, and he made rapid progress; but the record, whatever it was, took more than two hours in the completion. When it was finished he dropped the brick into its box, leaving it unlocked. This he placed just within the mouth of the recess, muttering, "it will be the first thing to catch the eye."

After this, Thrasher opened another box and took out what seemed, by their glitter, to be some unset diamonds. These he placed in his bosom.

Then filling his pockets with a weight of the gold coin, he stepped into the outer vault, swung the granite slab into place, and proceeded to cement it into the wall with some material which he took from one of the casks.

When this was accomplished he stole softly up the steps again, let himself into the upper room, and proceeded to undraw the bolts, which had given the doors and windows a double fastening. There was nothing more for him to do. Unconsciously the woman who was his fate, had placed him in a position to accomplish all that was needful to protect his wealth, and even if it should be found, to save it from her rapacity.

Once satisfied of this, he became less excited; for during his work, great drops of perspiration had stood on his forehead, and a wild eagerness burned in his eyes; now he sat down in his easy chair for the last time, and sternly awaited the coming of his captors.

About daybreak they opened his prison and took him forth. He turned a fierce look on the paradise his wild love had created for a woman who now loaded his misfortunes with scorn, and muttered such bitter words under his breath that their venom turned his lips white as it pa.s.sed them. In these words the last remnant of his love for Ellen Mason went out, poisoning the sweet breath of the flowers over which it swept.

CHAPTER LXIX.

SIMSBURY MINES.

At the base of Greenstown mountains, in the town of Granby, stands an old ruin, surrounded perhaps by more fearful a.s.sociations than any one spot in the United States. The very tread of a stranger's foot on the soil arouses painful thoughts, for it awakens the reverberations which haunt those cavernous ruins, and every sound seems weighed down with moans, such as were for many years common to the place.

It is an old ruined prison I am writing about--one of the most terrible places of confinement ever known to this free country. A copper mine, which failed to yield its rich metal in the abundance demanded by capitalists, had been abandoned, and over the caverns hollowed out from the bosom of the earth, the authorities of Connecticut erected a prison for criminals. Thank G.o.d the place is a ruin now.

Humanity has dragged the wretched sinners from their burrowing places under ground, and given them at least pure air and the suns.h.i.+ne which G.o.d created alike for the innocent and the guilty. The spot is deathly silent, but you cannot pa.s.s it without an aching heart, for the misery once crowded in those caverns gathers around the imagination, and settles upon it in a heavy cloud, surcharged with groans. You know that human misery has been crowded there in ma.s.ses, without air to breathe, or such light as G.o.d gives to his meanest animal. You think of this till the hollows of the mountains seem gorged with groans, and the cry of suffering souls comes up through the very pores of the earth, making the wild flowers tremble beneath the doleful misery that grew desperate beneath their roots.

A group of rambling wooden buildings thrown promiscuously together, at the foot of a range of hills, standing out bleak and bare, form the ruthless feature of a lovely landscape. One building, lifted from the abrupt descent of the mountain by a double terrace of rocks, commanding a view of the country, which contrasted its rich cultivation, pleasant homesteads, and well-filled barns with that narrow roof and meagre belfry, rose beneath the wild beauty of the mountains. This was the aspect of Newgate built over the Simsbury Mines, at the time Katharine Allen first recognized it from the highway, which she must not tread again for eight weary years.

The front building alone was visible. That long attachment which runs back toward the hills, with its range of narrow windows, and the smaller buildings crowded against it, lay in shadow, but from the distance there was something imposing in the uncouth pile. The sun was approaching its rest, and flung increasing light around the old prison, giving it gleams of false cheerfulness that never entered its walls.

Katharine, who sat in the heavy country wagon, between her guards, chained to the seat, and with her delicate wrists chafed by the iron that weighed those little hands down to her lap, looked toward the gaunt pile with a feeling of sad speculation. Why had she--an innocent woman--been sent to a place like that? for it was terrible, even in the glory of sunset. In her whole life she had committed no wrong worthy of more than gentle punishment. Was it not enough that her husband had abandoned her? that her child was dead? that her name had become a by-word in the land? Not enough that she had gone through the first and most bitter portion of her sentence--had suffered that hour of public scorn on the gallows at New Haven--a more terrible penance than if her life had been exacted, for the memory was with her always? Must the laws be forever warring at her young life? Was that huge pile to be her home for eight long years? They would crowd her down among the desperate criminals who burrowed their lives out in the bosom of that mountain, and leave her to die there.

But could she die? Would the principles of life ever give way? When the sentence had been p.r.o.nounced upon her, and the judge had condemned her to go through all the forms of an ignominious death without its last horrible pangs, she had said to herself, "It is well. I shall not live through that hour. They will not kill me; but I shall drop dead on the scaffold. It is thus our Lord will be merciful, and save me from all this misery."

But, alas! we cannot die of our own will. She had outlived that hour, and now stood before her second fate, and no signs of death came to s.n.a.t.c.h her from it. The anguish of this thought broke upon her as her eyes fell upon that gloomy pile, and she cried out in the depths of her soul.

"My G.o.d! my G.o.d! why hast thou forsaken me?"

As the cry left her lips, she lifted her chained hands to her face, and shut out the prison from her sight, moaning because G.o.d would not let her die.

The two men heard this outburst of misery, and looked on each other in silence. One turned his head aside, and drew the cuff of his coat across his eyes, and the other spoke sharply to his horses and began to lash them; but his voice and arm failed, and he, too, turned away his face.

"Look up, my poor gal," he said, at last, pointing toward the mountain with his whip. "It doesn't look so tarnal gloomy now."

Katharine dropped her hands, and the iron clashed down to her lap again.

The sun was now at its full setting, and flung a thousand gorgeous tints on the old prison. Its windows sent back a blaze of gold, the cupola seemed br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with crimson radiance, and rich lights slanted down the terraces of the mountain.

"Yes," she said, thoughtfully. "G.o.d is everywhere--even in that place.

If He will not let me die it is because there is work for me to do. I shall find it among poor souls yonder--more miserable still than I am, for they struggle under a weight of guilt; and I--G.o.d help us all. I shall find some one to tend and comfort there."

Katharine grew resigned under these good thoughts, and a sweet tranquillity stole into her eyes. She was innocent. G.o.d knew that, and she knew it, for had not her babe gone to Him pure from her own heart?

Why should she question His graciousness? If He permitted her home to be in that prison, what right had she to rebel against it? In this frame of mind she entered Newgate.

It was that sad hour which consigned the prisoners, whose toil lay above ground, to this living tomb, deep in the earth. The crash of hammers and clank of iron had ceased in the workshops, and the prisoners were a.s.sembled in the main building, ready to descend into the mines in search of such rest as that terrible place could afford.

The officers of the prison were occupied. Guards leaned idly on their muskets, and a group of keepers kept strict watch over the terrible group. They had no time for newcomers, so Katharine stood between her guards, drooping wearily under her irons, and looked on, forgetting herself in compa.s.sion for those lost wretches.

A trap-door, scarcely large enough to admit a healthy man, led to the subterranean dungeons. Around this the prisoners crowded, some swearing fiercely, others laughing in fiendish glee, a few humble and brokenhearted, all hustling each other like wild animals crowded on a precipice. The guards and keepers looked on impatiently. The clank of chains and those haggard prison faces were familiar to them. They were only impatient to urge the crowd down that narrow pa.s.sage, and seal the unhappy wretches deep in the bowels of the earth, when their duty ceased till morning.

Down through this narrow trap the prisoners forced themselves, cursing as they went, and jesting at their own misery. At last all had disappeared save a little band of women in "linsey-woolsey" dresses cut very scant, who had waited in one corner of the room, under a guard, for their turn to descend. As they pa.s.sed Katharine, these women lifted their heavy eyes to her face, too miserable for pity or wonder; but her beauty and the strange expression of her features made them pause and look upon her as if they could not believe that she was one of themselves.

Some formalities pa.s.sed. Katharine's name, age, and sentence were written down in the black records of the prison: "Katharine Allen, aged twenty-two, found guilty of manslaughter in the first degree; sentenced to sit upon a gallows in the public square of New Haven for one hour, and serve eight years at hard labor in the State Prison at Simsbury."