The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844

‘My God! He’s clean gone mad!’ said Jones, staring at him with starting eyes. ‘Dished and done up in ten minutes! That’s what I call going to Bedlam by express.’

Although Grosket uttered not a word of comment, his keen gray eye, bright as a diamond; his puckered brows; his compressed lips, and his hands tightly clasped together, showed that he viewed his work with emotions of the most powerful kind. At length he said, in low tone, as if communing with himself rather than addressing the only person who seemed capable of hearing him: ‘If he goes mad he’ll spoil my scheme. He’ll not reap the whole harvest that I have sown for him. He must live; ay, and in his sane mind, to feel its full bitterness. I, I have lived,’ said he, striking his breast; ‘I have borne up against the same curse that now is on him. I have had the same feeling gnawing at my heart, giving me no rest, no peace. He must suffer. He must not take refuge from himself in madness. He shall not,’ said he, savagely. ‘Ha! ha! who would have thought that the flint which the old fellow calls his heart had feeling in it?’

Whether these remarks reached Rust’s ear, or whether it was that his mind, after the first shock of the intelligence was over, was beginning to rally, is a matter of doubt; but from some cause or other, he suddenly discontinued his singing, passed his hand across his forehead, held his long hair back from his face, and stared about him; his eye wandering from Grosket to Jones, and around the room, and then resting on the floor. He sat for some time looking steadfastly down, his face gradually regaining its stern, unbending character; his thin lips compressing themselves, until his mouth had assumed its usual expression of bitterness, mingled with resolution.

The two men watched, without speaking, the progress of this metamorphosis. At last he rose, and turning to Grosket, said in a calm voice:

‘You’ve done your worst; yet you see Michael Rust can bear it;’ and then bowing to him, he said: ‘Good bye, Enoch. Whatever may have happened to my child, I am blameless. I never sold her happiness to gratify my avarice. If she has become what Enoch’s child was, the sin does not lie at my door. I don’t know how it is with you.’

Turning to Jones, he said, in the same quiet tone: ‘Murderer of your bosom-friend, good bye.’ The door closed, and he was gone.

A bitter execration from the two men followed him. From Jones, it burst forth in unbridled fury, and he sprang forward to avenge the taunt, but was withheld by Grosket, who grasped his arm, then as suddenly relinquished his hold, and said:

‘Quick! quick! Jones. Drag him back! It concerns your safety and my plans to get him back.’

The man dashed to the door and down the stairs. In a moment he reäppeared:

‘It’s too late. He’s in the street.’

‘Curse it! that was a blunder! We should have searched him. He carries all his papers with him.’

But almost at the same moment he seemed to overcome his vexation, for he said: ‘Well, it can’t be helped, so there’s no use in grumbling about it. And now, Bill Jones,’ said he, turning to the other, ‘you know what you’ve done, and who set you on. So do I. He’s worse than you are. If you were him, I’d arrest you on the spot. As it is, I say you had better make yourself scarce. Your neck is in danger, for although the death of Tim, if the rumor is true, was accidental–’

‘It was, it was, Mr. Grosket,’ interrupted Jones. ‘D—n it, if it was Rust, if it was only him, I wouldn’t mind it. I’d die myself, to see him swing.’

‘Well, hear me,’ continued Grosket. ‘You were committing a felony when you killed Craig, and his death, although accidental, is murder. I’m no lawyer, but I know that. You must run for it.’

‘I’d cuss all danger,’ said Jones, gnawing his lip, ‘if I could only lug Rust in it too.’

‘Well, well,’ returned Grosket, ‘you must take your own course; but remember I’ve warned you. You have some good traits about you, Bill, and that’s more than Rust has. Good bye!’ He extended his hand to the burglar. Jones grasped it eagerly.

‘Thank you! thank you, Mr. Grosket,’ said he, the tears starting to his eyes. ‘If you only knew how I was brought up, how I suffered, what has made me what I am, you wouldn’t think so hard of me as some do. But there is blood on me, now; that’s worse than all. I’ll never get over that. I might, if it wasn’t Tim’s. Good bye, God bless ye, Mr. Grosket! My blessing won’t do you much good, but it can’t hurt you.’

Grosket shook his hand, and left the room; and the desperate man, whom he left melted by a transient word of kindness, which had found its way to his rugged heart, buried his face in his hands, and wept.

Once in the street, Rust endeavored to bear up against his fortune. But he could not. His mind was confused, and all his thoughts were strange, fantastic and shadowy. He paused; dashed his hand impatiently against his forehead, and endeavored to shake off the spell. No, no! it would not leave him. Failure in his schemes! dishonor in his child! He could think of them, and of them only. Once on this theme, his mind became more bewildered than ever; and yielding himself to its impulses, he fell into a slow pace, and sauntered on, with his chin bent down on his breast.

From the thickly-settled parts of the town he went on, until he came to streets where the bustle and crowd were less; then to others, which were nearly deserted; then on he went, until he reached a quarter where the houses stood far apart, with vacant lots between them. Still he kept on. Then came fields, and cottages, and farm-houses, surrounded by tall trees. Still on he went, still wading through a mass of chaotic fancies, springing up, and reeling and flitting through his mind; shadows of things that had been, and might be; ghosts of the past; prophets of the future. He had become a very child. At last he stood on the bank of the river; and then for the first time he seemed to awaken from his trance.

It was a glorious day, whose sunshine might have found its way even into his black heart. Oh! how soft, and mellow, and pure, the hurricane of the last night had left it! Not a cloud in the sky, not a breath to ripple the water, or to wave the long trailing locks of the hoary willows, which nodded over its banks.

Rust looked about him, with a bewildered gaze, until his eye became fixed upon the water. ‘It’s very quiet, very quiet,’ said he; ‘I wonder if a man, once engulfed in it, feels peace.’ He pressed his hand to his breast, and muttered: ‘Here it is gone forever!’

He loitered listlessly on, under the trees. His step was feeble; and he stooped and tottered, as if decrepid. He stopped again, shook his head, and went on, looking upon the ground, and at times long and wistfully at the river.

An old man, leaning on a stout cane, who had been watching him, at last came up. Raising his hat, as he did so, he said:

‘You seem, like myself, to be an admirer of this noble river?’

Rust looked up at him sharply, ready to gather in his energies, if necessary. But there was nothing in the mild, dignified face of the speaker to invite suspicion, and he replied in a feeble tone:

‘Yes, yes; it is a noble river.’

‘I’ve seen many, in my long life,’ said the other, ‘and have never met its equal.’

Rust paused, as if he did not hear him, and then continued in a musing tone:

‘How smooth it is! how calm! Many have found peace there, who never found it in life. Drowning’s an easy death, I’m told.’

The stranger replied gravely, and even sternly:

‘They have escaped the troubles of life, and plunged into those of eternity;’ and then, as if willing to give Rust an opportunity of explaining away the singular character of the remark, he said: ‘I hope you do not meditate suicide?’

‘No,’ replied Rust, quietly, ‘not at present; but I’ve often thought that many a wrecked spirit will find there what it never found on earth—peace.’

‘The body may,’ returned the other, ‘but not the soul.’

Rust smiled doubtfully, and walked off. The man watched, and even followed him; but seeing him turn from the river, he took another direction, occasionally pausing to look back. Not so Rust. From the time he had parted with the stranger, he had forgotten him, and his thoughts wandered back to their old theme. It was strange that he should believe so implicitly Grosket’s tale, coming as it did from one whom he knew hated him. Yet he did believe it. There was proof of its truth in Grosket’s manner; in his look; in his tone of assured triumph. Yet although Rust brooded over nothing else that livelong day, he could not realize it; he could not appreciate how desolate and lonely he was. He could only fancy how life would be, if what Grosket had told him had happened. ‘This is not all a dream, I suppose,’ muttered he, pausing as he went, and passing his hand across his forehead. ‘No, no; I’m awake—wide awake; and I am Michael Rust; that’s more strange than all.’

After hours of wandering, he found himself at his office. He ascended the stairs, opened the door, and went in. It was dark, for the lights had been twinkling in the shop-windows before he left the street; but he sat down without observing it; and there he remained until Kornicker came in with a light.

Rust made no reply to the salutation which he received. Kornicker placed the light on the table; and after loitering round the room, and busying himself with a few papers which he had arranged on the table, to give it a business-like appearance, he asked:

‘Do you want me any more, to-night?’

‘No; you may go.’

The dismissal and departure of Mr. Kornicker were almost simultaneous. His heavy foot went thumping from step to step, and finally the street-door banged after him. Rust sat without moving, listening to every tramp of his heavy foot, until the door shut it out.

‘So, he’s gone,’ said he, drawing a long breath, and cuddling himself up on his chair. ‘He’ll be in my way no more to-night.’

He shivered slightly; and then got up and drew his chair nearer the grate, although there was no fire in it. ‘And this is then the end of my scheme,’ muttered he; ‘I have gone on for years in the same beaten track, fighting off all who could interfere with me. The affection of those who would have loved me; friends, relatives, those nearest to me, with the same blood in our veins, nursed in the same arms, who drew life from the same source; this cold heart has repulsed, until they have all abandoned me!’

He leaned his head on his hands, and tears, scalding tears, gushed from his eyes. ‘I did it for her. It was to get gold to lavish on her. I would have chained myself for life to that old man’s daughter, to get wealth; I would have added the murder of those children to the catalogue of my crimes, that I might have grasped their inheritance, to have showered all that I had gathered by toil and crime upon her. She was my hope, my pride, my own dear darling child; but she is shipwrecked now; she has withered my heart. I would have shed its last blood for her. I would—I would; indeed I would! But it’s useless to think of it. She can never be what she was; the bright, pure-souled, spotless child whom I worshipped. Yes, yes; I did worship her; Why deny it? Better, far better, she had died, for then I might still have cherished her memory. It’s too late. She’s become a castaway now.’

He paused. From a state of deep and querulous despondency, he gradually recovered composure; then his mood grew sterner and sterner; until his compressed lips and flashing eye showed that he had passed from one extreme to the other.

‘Is there nothing left to live for?’ exclaimed he; ‘nothing left? One thing can yet be done. I must ascertain her disgrace beyond a doubt. Then atonement can and shall be made, or he had better never have been born!’

Rust stood up, with an expression of bold, honest indignation, such as he had rarely worn, stamped on every feature. ‘This must be accomplished,’ said he. ‘Everything else must be abandoned: this done, let me die; for I cannot love her as I did, and I might hate her: Better die!’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD

Richard Holmes, Esq. was sitting in his office, two days after the events narrated in the last chapter, with his nose within a few inches of a law-book which rested on his knees, when he was aroused by the opening of the door, and the entrance of a man. Holmes was so much out of the world, and out of the current of business, that he did what a practitioner at the bar of his age and standing rarely does; that is, he looked up without waiting till he was addressed.

‘Ah, Harson?—it’s you, is it?’ said he, laying aside his book, but without rising.

Harry walked up, shook hands with him, and seated himself.