The Monkey's Paw
was well dressed, and wore a silk hat of glossy newness. Three times he
paused at the gate, and then walked on again. The fourth time he stood
with his hand upon it, and then with sudden resolution flung it open
and walked up the path. Mrs. White at the same moment placed her hands
behind her, and hurriedly unfastening the strings of her apron, put
that useful article of apparel beneath the cushion of her chair.
She brought the stranger, who seemed ill at ease, into the room. He
gazed at her furtively, and listened in a preoccupied fashion as the
old lady apologized for the appearance of the room, and her husband’s
coat, a garment which he usually reserved for the garden. She then
waited as patiently as her sex would permit, for him to broach his
business, but he was at first strangely silent.
“I—was asked to call,” he said at last, and stooped and picked a piece
of cotton from his trousers. “I come from ‘Maw and Meggins.’”
The old lady started. “Is anything the matter?” she asked,
breathlessly. “Has anything happened to Herbert? What is it? What is
it?”
Her husband interposed. “There, there, mother,” he said, hastily. “Sit
down, and don’t jump to conclusions. You’ve not brought bad news, I’m
sure, sir;” and he eyed the other wistfully.
“I’m sorry—” began the visitor.
“Is he hurt?” demanded the mother, wildly.
The visitor bowed in assent. “Badly hurt,” he said, quietly, “but he is
not in any pain.”
“Oh, thank God!” said the old woman, clasping her hands. “Thank God for
that! Thank—”
She broke off suddenly as the sinister meaning of the assurance dawned
upon her and she saw the awful confirmation of her fears in the other’s
averted face. She caught her breath, and turning to her slower-witted
husband, laid her trembling old hand upon his. There was a long
silence.
“He was caught in the machinery,” said the visitor at length in a low
voice.
“Caught in the machinery,” repeated Mr. White, in a dazed fashion,
“yes.”
He sat staring blankly out at the window, and taking his wife’s hand
between his own, pressed it as he had been wont to do in their old
courting-days nearly forty years before.
“He was the only one left to us,” he said, turning gently to the
visitor. “It is hard.”
The other coughed, and rising, walked slowly to the window. “The firm
wished me to convey their sincere sympathy with you in your great
loss,” he said, without looking round. “I beg that you will understand
I am only their servant and merely obeying orders.”
There was no reply; the old woman’s face was white, her eyes staring,
and her breath inaudible; on the husband’s face was a look such as his
friend the sergeant might have carried into his first action.
“I was to say that ‘Maw and Meggins’ disclaim all responsibility,”
continued the other. “They admit no liability at all, but in
consideration of your son’s services, they wish to present you with a
certain sum as compensation.”
Mr. White dropped his wife’s hand, and rising to his feet, gazed with a
look of horror at his visitor. His dry lips shaped the words, “How
much?”
“Two hundred pounds,” was the answer.
Unconscious of his wife’s shriek, the old man smiled faintly, put out
his hands like a sightless man, and dropped, a senseless heap, to the
floor.
III.
In the huge new cemetery, some two miles distant, the old people buried
their dead, and came back to a house steeped in shadow and silence. It
was all over so quickly that at first they could hardly realize it, and
remained in a state of expectation as though of something else to
happen —something else which was to lighten this load, too heavy for
old hearts to bear.
But the days passed, and expectation gave place to resignation—the
hopeless resignation of the old, sometimes miscalled, apathy. Sometimes
they hardly exchanged a word, for now they had nothing to talk about,
and their days were long to weariness.
It was about a week after that the old man, waking suddenly in the
night, stretched out his hand and found himself alone. The room was in
darkness, and the sound of subdued weeping came from the window. He
raised himself in bed and listened.
“Come back,” he said, tenderly. “You will be cold.”
“It is colder for my son,” said the old woman, and wept afresh.
The sound of her sobs died away on his ears. The bed was warm, and his
eyes heavy with sleep. He dozed fitfully, and then slept until a sudden
wild cry from his wife awoke him with a start.
“_The paw!_” she cried wildly. “The monkey’s paw!”
He started up in alarm. “Where? Where is it? What’s the matter?”
She came stumbling across the room toward him. “I want it,” she said,
quietly. “You’ve not destroyed it?”
“It’s in the parlour, on the bracket,” he replied, marvelling. “Why?”
She cried and laughed together, and bending over, kissed his cheek.
“I only just thought of it,” she said, hysterically. “Why didn’t I
think of it before? Why didn’t _you_ think of it?”
“Think of what?” he questioned.
“The other two wishes,” she replied, rapidly. “We’ve only had one.”
“Was not that enough?” he demanded, fiercely.
“No,” she cried, triumphantly; “we’ll have one more. Go down and get it
quickly, and wish our boy alive again.”
The man sat up in bed and flung the bedclothes from his quaking limbs.
“Good God, you are mad!” he cried, aghast.
“Get it,” she panted; “get it quickly, and wish—Oh, my boy, my boy!”
Her husband struck a match and lit the candle. “Get back to bed,” he
said, unsteadily. “You don’t know what you are saying.”
“We had the first wish granted,” said the old woman, feverishly; “why
not the second?”
“A coincidence,” stammered the old man.
“Go and get it and wish,” cried his wife, quivering with excitement.
The old man turned and regarded her, and his voice shook. “He has been
dead ten days, and besides he—I would not tell you else, but—I could
only recognize him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you to
see then, how now?”
“Bring him back,” cried the old woman, and dragged him toward the door.
“Do you think I fear the child I have nursed?”
He went down in the darkness, and felt his way to the parlour, and then
to the mantelpiece. The talisman was in its place, and a horrible fear
that the unspoken wish might bring his mutilated son before him ere he
could escape from the room seized upon him, and he caught his breath as
he found that he had lost the direction of the door. His brow cold with
sweat, he felt his way round the table, and groped along the wall until
he found himself in the small passage with the unwholesome thing in his
hand.
Even his wife’s face seemed changed as he entered the room. It was
white and expectant, and to his fears seemed to have an unnatural look
upon it. He was afraid of her.
“_Wish!_” she cried, in a strong voice.
“It is foolish and wicked,” he faltered.
“_Wish!_” repeated his wife.
He raised his hand. “I wish my son alive again.”
The talisman fell to the floor, and he regarded it fearfully. Then he
sank trembling into a chair as the old woman, with burning eyes, walked
to the window and raised the blind.
He sat until he was chilled with the cold, glancing occasionally at the
figure of the old woman peering through the window. The candle-end,
which had burned below the rim of the china candlestick, was throwing
pulsating shadows on the ceiling and walls, until, with a flicker
larger than the rest, it expired. The old man, with an unspeakable
sense of relief at the failure of the talisman, crept back to his bed,
and a minute or two afterward the old woman came silently and
apathetically beside him.
Neither spoke, but lay silently listening to the ticking of the clock.
A stair creaked, and a squeaky mouse scurried noisily through the wall.
The darkness was oppressive, and after lying for some time screwing up
his courage, he took the box of matches, and striking one, went
downstairs for a candle.
At the foot of the stairs the match went out, and he paused to strike
another; and at the same moment a knock, so quiet and stealthy as to be
scarcely audible, sounded on the front door.
The matches fell from his hand and spilled in the passage. He stood
motionless, his breath suspended until the knock was repeated. Then he
turned and fled swiftly back to his room, and closed the door behind
him. A third knock sounded through the house.
“_What’s that?_” cried the old woman, starting up.
“A rat,” said the old man in shaking tones—“a rat. It passed me on the
stairs.”
His wife sat up in bed listening. A loud knock resounded through the
house.
“It’s Herbert!” she screamed. “It’s Herbert!”
She ran to the door, but her husband was before her, and catching her
by the arm, held her tightly.
“What are you going to do?” he whispered hoarsely.
“It’s my boy; it’s Herbert!” she cried, struggling mechanically. “I
forgot it was two miles away. What are you holding me for? Let go. I
must open the door.”
“For God’s sake don’t let it in,” cried the old man, trembling.
“You’re afraid of your own son,” she cried, struggling. “Let me go. I’m
coming, Herbert; I’m coming.”
There was another knock, and another. The old woman with a sudden
wrench broke free and ran from the room. Her husband followed to the
landing, and called after her appealingly as she hurried downstairs. He
heard the chain rattle back and the bottom bolt drawn slowly and
stiffly from the socket. Then the old woman’s voice, strained and
panting.
“The bolt,” she cried, loudly. “Come down. I can’t reach it.”
But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor
in search of the paw. If he could only find it before the thing outside
got in. A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the house,
and he heard the scraping of a chair as his wife put it down in the
passage against the door. He heard the creaking of the bolt as it came
slowly back, and at the same moment he found the monkey’s paw, and
frantically breathed his third and last wish.
The knocking ceased suddenly, although the echoes of it were still in
the house. He heard the chair drawn back, and the door opened. A cold
wind rushed up the staircase, and a long loud wail of disappointment
and misery from his wife gave him courage to run down to her side, and
then to the gate beyond. The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a
quiet and deserted road.