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innocent cause of all this torture, and he, gambling with such a savage

thirst for gain as the most insatiable gambler never felt, had not one

selfish thought!

On the contrary, the other three--knaves and gamesters by their

trade--while intent upon their game, were yet as cool and quiet as if

every virtue had been centered in their breasts. Sometimes one would

look up to smile to another, or to snuff the feeble candle, or to

glance at the lightning as it shot through the open window and

fluttering curtain, or to listen to some louder peal of thunder than

the rest, with a kind of momentary impatience, as if it put him out;

but there they sat, with a calm indifference to everything but their

cards, perfect philosophers in appearance, and with no greater show of

passion or excitement than if they had been made of stone.

The storm had raged for full three hours; the lightning had grown

fainter and less frequent; the thunder, from seeming to roll and break

above their heads, had gradually died away into a deep hoarse distance;

and still the game went on, and still the anxious child was quite

forgotten.

CHAPTER 30

At length the play came to an end, and Mr Isaac List rose the only

winner. Mat and the landlord bore their losses with professional

fortitude. Isaac pocketed his gains with the air of a man who had

quite made up his mind to win, all along, and was neither surprised nor

pleased.

Nell's little purse was exhausted; but although it lay empty by his

side, and the other players had now risen from the table, the old man

sat poring over the cards, dealing them as they had been dealt before,

and turning up the different hands to see what each man would have held

if they had still been playing. He was quite absorbed in this

occupation, when the child drew near and laid her hand upon his

shoulder, telling him it was near midnight.

'See the curse of poverty, Nell,' he said, pointing to the packs he had

spread out upon the table. 'If I could have gone on a little longer,

only a little longer, the luck would have turned on my side. Yes, it's

as plain as the marks upon the cards. See here--and there--and here

again.'

'Put them away,' urged the child. 'Try to forget them.'

'Try to forget them!' he rejoined, raising his haggard face to hers,

and regarding her with an incredulous stare. 'To forget them! How are

we ever to grow rich if I forget them?'

The child could only shake her head.

'No, no, Nell,' said the old man, patting her cheek; 'they must not be

forgotten. We must make amends for this as soon as we can.

Patience--patience, and we'll right thee yet, I promise thee. Lose

to-day, win to-morrow. And nothing can be won without anxiety and

care--nothing. Come, I am ready.'

'Do you know what the time is?' said Mr Groves, who was smoking with

his friends. 'Past twelve o'clock--'

'--And a rainy night,' added the stout man.

'The Valiant Soldier, by James Groves. Good beds. Cheap entertainment

for man and beast,' said Mr Groves, quoting his sign-board. 'Half-past

twelve o'clock.'

'It's very late,' said the uneasy child. 'I wish we had gone before.

What will they think of us! It will be two o'clock by the time we get

back. What would it cost, sir, if we stopped here?'

'Two good beds, one-and-sixpence; supper and beer one shilling; total

two shillings and sixpence,' replied the Valiant Soldier.

Now, Nell had still the piece of gold sewn in her dress; and when she

came to consider the lateness of the hour, and the somnolent habits of

Mrs Jarley, and to imagine the state of consternation in which they

would certainly throw that good lady by knocking her up in the middle

of the night--and when she reflected, on the other hand, that if they

remained where they were, and rose early in the morning, they might get

back before she awoke, and could plead the violence of the storm by

which they had been overtaken, as a good apology for their absence--she

decided, after a great deal of hesitation, to remain. She therefore

took her grandfather aside, and telling him that she had still enough

left to defray the cost of their lodging, proposed that they should

stay there for the night.

'If I had had but that money before--If I had only known of it a few

minutes ago!' muttered the old man.

'We will decide to stop here if you please,' said Nell, turning hastily

to the landlord.

'I think that's prudent,' returned Mr Groves. 'You shall have your

suppers directly.'

Accordingly, when Mr Groves had smoked his pipe out, knocked out the

ashes, and placed it carefully in a corner of the fire-place, with the

bowl downwards, he brought in the bread and cheese, and beer, with many

high encomiums upon their excellence, and bade his guests fall to, and

make themselves at home. Nell and her grandfather ate sparingly, for

both were occupied with their own reflections; the other gentlemen, for

whose constitutions beer was too weak and tame a liquid, consoled

themselves with spirits and tobacco.

As they would leave the house very early in the morning, the child was

anxious to pay for their entertainment before they retired to bed. But

as she felt the necessity of concealing her little hoard from her

grandfather, and had to change the piece of gold, she took it secretly

from its place of concealment, and embraced an opportunity of following

the landlord when he went out of the room, and tendered it to him in

the little bar.

'Will you give me the change here, if you please?' said the child.

Mr James Groves was evidently surprised, and looked at the money, and

rang it, and looked at the child, and at the money again, as though he

had a mind to inquire how she came by it. The coin being genuine,

however, and changed at his house, he probably felt, like a wise

landlord, that it was no business of his. At any rate, he counted out

the change, and gave it her. The child was returning to the room where

they had passed the evening, when she fancied she saw a figure just

gliding in at the door. There was nothing but a long dark passage

between this door and the place where she had changed the money, and,

being very certain that no person had passed in or out while she stood

there, the thought struck her that she had been watched.

But by whom? When she re-entered the room, she found its inmates

exactly as she had left them. The stout fellow lay upon two chairs,

resting his head on his hand, and the squinting man reposed in a

similar attitude on the opposite side of the table. Between them sat

her grandfather, looking intently at the winner with a kind of hungry

admiration, and hanging upon his words as if he were some superior

being. She was puzzled for a moment, and looked round to see if any

else were there. No. Then she asked her grandfather in a whisper

whether anybody had left the room while she was absent. 'No,' he said,

'nobody.'

It must have been her fancy then; and yet it was strange, that, without

anything in her previous thoughts to lead to it, she should have

imagined this figure so very distinctly. She was still wondering and

thinking of it, when a girl came to light her to bed.

The old man took leave of the company at the same time, and they went

up stairs together. It was a great, rambling house, with dull

corridors and wide staircases which the flaring candles seemed to make

more gloomy. She left her grandfather in his chamber, and followed her

guide to another, which was at the end of a passage, and approached by

some half-dozen crazy steps. This was prepared for her. The girl

lingered a little while to talk, and tell her grievances. She had not

a good place, she said; the wages were low, and the work was hard. She

was going to leave it in a fortnight; the child couldn't recommend her

to another, she supposed? Instead she was afraid another would be

difficult to get after living there, for the house had a very

indifferent character; there was far too much card-playing, and such

like. She was very much mistaken if some of the people who came there

oftenest were quite as honest as they might be, but she wouldn't have

it known that she had said so, for the world. Then there were some

rambling allusions to a rejected sweetheart, who had threatened to go a

soldiering--a final promise of knocking at the door early in the

morning--and 'Good night.'

The child did not feel comfortable when she was left alone. She could

not help thinking of the figure stealing through the passage down

stairs; and what the girl had said did not tend to reassure her. The

men were very ill-looking. They might get their living by robbing and

murdering travellers. Who could tell?

Reasoning herself out of these fears, or losing sight of them for a

little while, there came the anxiety to which the adventures of the

night gave rise. Here was the old passion awakened again in her

grandfather's breast, and to what further distraction it might tempt

him Heaven only knew. What fears their absence might have occasioned

already! Persons might be seeking for them even then. Would they be

forgiven in the morning, or turned adrift again! Oh! why had they

stopped in that strange place? It would have been better, under any

circumstances, to have gone on!

At last, sleep gradually stole upon her--a broken, fitful sleep,

troubled by dreams of falling from high towers, and waking with a start

and in great terror. A deeper slumber followed this--and then--What!

That figure in the room.

A figure was there. Yes, she had drawn up the blind to admit the light

when it should be dawn, and there, between the foot of the bed and the

dark casement, it crouched and slunk along, groping its way with

noiseless hands, and stealing round the bed. She had no voice to cry

for help, no power to move, but lay still, watching it.

On it came--on, silently and stealthily, to the bed's head. The breath

so near her pillow, that she shrunk back into it, lest those wandering

hands should light upon her face. Back again it stole to the

window--then turned its head towards her.

The dark form was a mere blot upon the lighter darkness of the room,

but she saw the turning of the head, and felt and knew how the eyes

looked and the ears listened. There it remained, motionless as she.

At length, still keeping the face towards her, it busied its hands in

something, and she heard the chink of money.

Then, on it came again, silent and stealthy as before, and replacing

the garments it had taken from the bedside, dropped upon its hands and

knees, and crawled away. How slowly it seemed to move, now that she

could hear but not see it, creeping along the floor! It reached the

door at last, and stood upon its feet. The steps creaked beneath its

noiseless tread, and it was gone.

The first impulse of the child was to fly from the terror of being by

herself in that room--to have somebody by--not to be alone--and then

her power of speech would be restored. With no consciousness of having

moved, she gained the door.

There was the dreadful shadow, pausing at the bottom of the steps.

She could not pass it; she might have done so, perhaps, in the darkness

without being seized, but her blood curdled at the thought. The figure

stood quite still, and so did she; not boldly, but of necessity; for

going back into the room was hardly less terrible than going on.

The rain beat fast and furiously without, and ran down in plashing

streams from the thatched roof. Some summer insect, with no escape

into the air, flew blindly to and fro, beating its body against the

walls and ceiling, and filling the silent place with murmurs. The

figure moved again. The child involuntarily did the same. Once in her

grandfather's room, she would be safe.

It crept along the passage until it came to the very door she longed so

ardently to reach. The child, in the agony of being so near, had

almost darted forward with the design of bursting into the room and

closing it behind her, when the figure stopped again.

The idea flashed suddenly upon her--what if it entered there, and had a

design upon the old man's life! She turned faint and sick. It did.

It went in. There was a light inside. The figure was now within the

chamber, and she, still dumb--quite dumb, and almost senseless--stood

looking on.

The door was partly open. Not knowing what she meant to do, but

meaning to preserve him or be killed herself, she staggered forward and

looked in. What sight was that which met her view!

The bed had not been lain on, but was smooth and empty. And at a table

sat the old man himself; the only living creature there; his white face

pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his eyes unnaturally

bright--counting the money of which his hands had robbed her.

CHAPTER 31

With steps more faltering and unsteady than those with which she had

approached the room, the child withdrew from the door, and groped her

way back to her own chamber. The terror she had lately felt was

nothing compared with that which now oppressed her. No strange robber,

no treacherous host conniving at the plunder of his guests, or stealing

to their beds to kill them in their sleep, no nightly prowler, however

terrible and cruel, could have awakened in her bosom half the dread

which the recognition of her silent visitor inspired. The grey-headed

old man gliding like a ghost into her room and acting the thief while

he supposed her fast asleep, then bearing off his prize and hanging

over it with the ghastly exultation she had witnessed, was

worse--immeasurably worse, and far more dreadful, for the moment, to

reflect upon--than anything her wildest fancy could have suggested.

If he should return--there was no lock or bolt upon the door, and if,

distrustful of having left some money yet behind, he should come back