Tales of terror
wander among the rocks, when the tides were retiring, for the shellfish
which they had flung among the fissures in their retreat, which she
bore, exhausted with fatigue, to her home, and which her lovely child,
now rising into womanhood, prepared for the luxurious meal. It was
wonderful, too, the settled prudence of the young girl, who made no
comment about the food with which she was daily supplied. If she
suspected the secret of her mother she respected it too much to allow
others to discover that she did so.
Many sad hours did Ruth pass in that dark cave, where the man who had
blighted her life lay in hiding; and many times, by conversing with
him upon the subject of her destiny, did she seek to alleviate the
pangs its recollection gave her. But the result of such discussions
were by no means favourable to her hopes. Morgan had acknowledged that
his threat had originated in malice, and that he intended to alarm and
subdue, but not to the extent that he had effected. ‘I know well,’ said
he, ‘that disgrace alone would operate upon you as I wished, for I
foresaw you would glory in the thought of nobly sustaining misfortune.
I meant to degrade you with the lowest. I meant to attribute to you
what I now painfully experience to be the vilest of vices. I intended
to tell you you were destined to be a thief, but I could not utter the
words I had intended, and I was struck with horror at those I heard
involuntarily proceeding from my lips. I would have recalled them, but
I could not. I would have said, “Ruth, I did but jest,” but there was
something which seemed to withhold my speech and press upon my soul,
and a dumb voice whispered in my ears, “As thou hast said shall this
thing be.” But take comfort, Ruth. My own fortunes have ever deceived
me, and doubtlessly ever will, for I feel as if I should one day return
to this cave, and make it my final home.’
He spoke solemnly, and wept; but his companion was unmoved as she
looked on in wonder and contempt at his grief. ‘You know not how to
endure,’ said she to him, ‘and as soon as night shall again fall upon
our mountains I will lead you forth to freedom. The danger of pursuit
is now past. At midnight be ready for the journey, leave the cave, and
ascend the rocks by the path I showed you, to the field in which its
mouth is situated. Wait me there a few moments, and I will bring you
a fleet horse, ready saddled for the journey, for which you must pay,
since I must declare to the owner that I have sold it at a distance,
and for more than its rated value.’
Midnight came, and Morgan waited with trembling anxiety for the welcome
step of Ruth. At length he saw her, and hastily speaking as she
descended the rock:
‘You must be speedy in your movements,’ said she. ‘When you leave me
your horse waits on the other side of this field, and I would have you
hasten, lest something should betray your purpose. But, before you
depart, there is an account to be settled between us. I have dared
danger and privation for you, that the temptations of the poor may not
assail me. Give me my reward, and go.’
Morgan pressed his leather bag containing his gold to his bosom, but
answered nothing. He seemed to be studying some evasion, for he looked
upon the ground, and there was trouble in the working of his lip. At
length he said cautiously, ‘I have it not with me. I buried it, lest it
should betray me, in a field some miles distant. When I leave here I
will dig it up, for I know the exact spot, and send you your portion as
soon as I reach a place of safety.’
Ruth gave him a glance of scorn. She had detected his meanness, and
smiled at his incapacity to deceive. ‘What do you press to your bosom
so earnestly,’ she demanded. ‘Surely you are not the wise man I deemed
you, thus to defraud me. Your friend alone you might cheat, and safely;
but I have been made wretched by you, guilty by you, and your life is
in my power. I could, as you know, easily raise the village, and win
half your wealth by giving you up to justice. But I prefer reward.
Give me my due, therefore, and be gone.’
But Morgan knew too well the value of the metal of sin to yield one
half of it to Ruth. He tried many miserable shifts and lies, and at
last, baffled by the calm penetration of his antagonist, boldly avowed
his intention of keeping all the spoil he had won with so much hazard.
Ruth looked at him with withering contempt. ‘Keep your gold,’ she said.
‘If it can thus harden hearts, I covet not its possession; but there
is one thing you must do, and that before you move a foot. I have
supported you with hard-earned industry--that I give you; more proud,
it would seem, in bestowing than I could be in receiving from such as
you. But the horse that is to bear you hence to-night I borrowed for a
distant journey. I must return with it, or its value. Open your bag,
pay me for it, and go.’
But Morgan seemed afraid to open his bag in the presence of her he had
wronged. Ruth understood his fears; but, scorning vindication of her
principles, contented herself with entreating him to be honest. ‘Be
more just to yourself and me,’ she persisted, ‘the debt of gratitude I
pardon; but, I beseech you, leave me not to encounter the consequence
of having stolen from my friend the animal which is his only means of
subsistence. I pray you not to condemn me to scorn.’
It was of no avail that Ruth humbled herself to entreaties. Morgan
answered not, and while she was yet speaking cast side-long looks
towards the spot where the horse was waiting, and seemed meditating
whether he should not dart from Ruth and escape her entreaties and
demands by dint of speed. Her stern eye detected this purpose, and,
indignant at his baseness, and ashamed of her own degradation, she
sprung suddenly towards him, made a desperate clutch at the leathern
bag, and tore it from his grasp. He made an attempt to recover it,
and a fierce struggle ensued, which drove them both back towards the
yawning mouth of the cave from which he had just ascended to the world.
On its very verge, on its very extreme edge, the demon who had so
long ruled his spirit, now instigated him to mischief, and abandoned
him to his natural brutality. He struck the unhappy Ruth a revengeful
and tremendous blow. At that moment a horrible thought glanced like
lightning through her soul. He was to her no longer what he had been.
He was a robber, ruffian, liar--one whom to destroy was justice, and
perhaps it was he----
‘Villain!’ she cried, ‘you predicted that I was doomed to be a
murderess; are you destined to be my victim?’ She flung him from her
with terrific force, as he stood close to the abyss, and the next
instant heard him dash against its sides, as he was whirled headlong
into the darkness.
It was an awful feeling, the next that passed over the soul of
Ruth Tudor, as she stood alone in the pale, sorrowful moonlight,
endeavouring to remember what had chanced. She gazed on the purse, on
the chasm, wiped the drops of agony from her heated brow, and then,
with a sudden pang of recollection, rushed down to the cavern. The
light was still burning, as Morgan had left it, and served to show her
the wretch extended helpless beneath the chasm. Though his body was
crushed, the bones splintered, and his blood was on the cavern’s sides,
he was yet living, and raised his head to look upon her as she darkened
the narrow entrance in her passage. He glared upon her with the visage
of a demon, and spoke like a fiend in pain. ‘You have murdered me!’ he
said, ‘but I shall be avenged in all your life to come. Deem not that
your doom is fulfilled, that the deed to which you are fated is done.
In my dying hour I know, I feel, what is to come upon you. You are yet
again to do a deed of blood!’
‘Liar!’ shrieked the infuriated victim.
‘I tell you,’ he gasped, ‘your destiny is not yet fulfilled. You will
yet commit another deed of horror. You will slay your own daughter. You
are yet doomed to be a double murderess!’
She rushed to him, but he was dead.
Ruth Tudor stood for a moment by the corpse, blind, stupefied, deaf,
and dumb. In the next she laughed aloud, till the cavern rang with
her ghastly mirth, and many voices mingled with and answered it. But
the voices scared her, and in an instant she became stolidly grave.
She threw back her dark locks with an air of offended dignity, and
walked forth majestically from the cave. She took the horse by his
rein, and led him back to the stable. With the same unvarying calmness
she entered her cottage, and listened to the quiet breathings of her
sleeping daughter. She longed to approach her nearer, but some new
and horrid fear restrained her, and held her in check. Suddenly,
remembrance and reason returned, and she uttered a shriek so loud and
shrill that her daughter sprung from her bed, and threw herself into
her arms.
It was in vain that the gentle Rachel supplicated her mother to find
rest in sleep.
‘Not here,’ she muttered, ‘it must not be here; the deep cave and the
hard rock, these shall be my resting-place; and the bed-fellow, lo! now
he awaits my coming.’ Then she would cry aloud, clasp her Rachel to her
beating heart, and as suddenly, in horror, thrust her from it.
The next midnight beheld Ruth Tudor in the cave, seated upon a point
of rock, at the head of the corpse, her chin resting upon her hands,
gazing earnestly upon the distorted face. Decay had already begun
its work, and Ruth sat there watching the progress of mortality, as
if she intended that her stern eye should quicken and facilitate its
operation. The next night also beheld her there, but the current of her
thoughts had changed, and the dismal interval which had passed appeared
to be forgotten. She stood with her basket of food.
‘Will you not eat!’ she demanded; ‘arise, strengthen yourself for your
journey; eat, eat, sleeper; will you never awaken? Look, here is the
meat you love’; and as she raised his head and put the food to his lips
the frail remnant of mortality remained dumb and rigid, and again she
knew that he was dead.
It was evident to all that a shadow and a change was over the senses
of Ruth; till this period she had been only wretched, but now madness
was mingled with her grief. It was in no instance more apparent than
in her conduct towards her beloved child; indulgent to all her wishes,
ministering to all her wants with a liberal hand, till men wondered
from whence she derived the means of indulgence, she yet seized every
opportunity to send her from her presence. The gentle-hearted Rachel
wept at her conduct, yet did not complain, for she believed it the
effect of the disease that had for so many years been preying upon her
soul. Ruth’s nights were passed in roaming abroad, her days in the
solitude of her hut; and even this became painful when the step of her
child broke upon it. At length she signified that a relative of her
husband had died and left her wealth, and that it would enable her to
dispose of herself as she had long wished; so, leaving Rachel with her
relatives, she retired to a hut upon a lonely heath, where she was less
wretched, because there were none to observe her awful grief.
In many of her ravings she had frequently spoken darkly of her crime,
and her nightly visits to the cave; and more frequently still she
addressed some unseen thing, which she asserted was for ever at her
side. But few heard these horrors, and those who did called to mind the
early prophecy and deemed them the workings of insanity in a fierce
and imaginative mind. So thought also the beloved Rachel, who hastened
daily to visit her mother, but not now alone, as formerly. A youth of
the village was her companion and protector, one who had offered her
worth and love, and whose gentle offers were not rejected. Ruth, with