The trail of the serpent

The old woman nodded assent, and led the way with feeble tottering steps out of the house, and through a gap in a hedge to some broken ground at the back of Blind Peter. Here the old crone seated herself upon a little hillock, Jabez standing opposite her, looking her full in the face. “Now,” said he, with a determined look at the grinning face before him, “now tell me,--what was the _something_ that was put away so safely? And what relation is that man in there to me? Tell me, and tell me the truth, or----” He only finishes the sentence with a threatening look, but the old woman finishes it for him,-- “Or you’ll kill me--eh, deary? I’m old and feeble, and you might easily do it--eh? But you won’t--you won’t, deary! You know better than that! Kill me, and you’ll never know the secret!--the secret that may be gold to _you_ some day, and that nobody alive but me can tell. If you’d got some very precious wine in a glass bottle, my dear, you wouldn’t smash the bottle now, would you? because, you see, you couldn’t smash the bottle without spilling the wine. And you won’t lay so much as a rough finger upon me, I know.” The usher looked rather as if he would have liked to lay the whole force of ten very rough fingers upon the most vital part of the grinning hag’s anatomy at that moment--but he restrained himself, as if by an effort, and thrust his hands deep into his trousers-pockets, in order the better to resist temptation. “Then you don’t mean to tell me what I asked you?” he said impatiently. “Don’t be in a hurry, my dear! I’m an old woman, and I don’t like to be hurried. What is it you want to know?” “What that man in there is to me.” “Own brother--twin brother, my dear--that’s all. And I’m your grandmother--your mother’s mother. Ain’t you pleased to find your relations, my blessed boy?” If he were, he had a strange way of showing pleasure; a very strange manner of welcoming newly-found relations, if his feelings were to be judged by that contracted brow and moody glance. “Is this true?” he asked. The old harridan looked at him and grinned. “That’s an ugly mark you’ve got upon your left arm, my dear,” she said, “just above the elbow; it’s very lucky, though, it’s under your coat-sleeve, where nobody can see it.” Jabez started. He had indeed a scar upon his arm, though very few people knew of it. He remembered it from his earliest days in the Slopperton workhouse. “Do you know how you came by that mark?” continued the old woman. “Shall I tell you? Why, you fell into the fire, deary, when you were only three weeks old. We’d been drinking a little bit, my dear, and we weren’t used to drinking much then, nor to eating much either, and one of us let you tumble into the fireplace, and before we could get you out, your arm was burnt; but you got over it, my dear, and three days after that you had the misfortune to fall into the water.” “You threw me in, you old she-devil!” he exclaimed fiercely. “Come, come,” she said, “you are of the same stock, so I wouldn’t call names if I were you. Perhaps I did throw you into the Sloshy. I don’t want to contradict you. If you say so, I dare say I did. I suppose you think me a very unnatural old woman?” “It wouldn’t be so strange if I did.” “Do you know what choice we had, your mother and me, as to what we were to do with our youngest hope--you’re younger by two hours than your brother in there? Why, there was the river on one side, and a life of misery, perhaps starvation, perhaps worse, on the other. At the very best, such a life as he in there has led--hard labour and bad food, long toilsome days and short nights, and bad words and black looks from all who ought to help him. So we thought one was enough for that, and we chose the river for the other. Yes, my precious boy, I took you down to the river-side one very dark night and dropped you in where I thought the water was deepest; but, you see, it wasn’t deep enough for you. Oh, dear,” she said, with an imbecile grin, “I suppose there’s a fate in it, and you were never born to be drowned.” Her hopeful grandson looked at her with a savage frown. “Drop that!” he said, “I don’t want any of your cursed wit.” “Don’t you, deary? Lor, I was quite a wit in my young days. They used to call me Lively Betty; but that’s a long time ago.” There was sufficient left, however, of the liveliness of a long time ago to give an air of ghastly mirth to the old woman’s manner, which made that manner extremely repulsive. What can be more repulsive than old age, which, shorn of the beauties and graces, is yet not purified from the follies or the vices of departed youth? “And so, my dear, the water wasn’t deep enough, and you were saved. How did it all come about? Tell us, my precious boy?” “Yes; I dare say you’d like to know,” replied her “precious boy,”--“but you can keep your secret, and I can keep mine. Perhaps you’ll tell me whether my mother is alive or dead?” Now this was a question which would have cruelly agitated some men in the position of Jabez North; but that gentleman was a philosopher, and he might have been inquiring the fate of some cast-off garment, for all the fear, tenderness, or emotion of any kind that his tone or manner betrayed. “Your mother’s been dead these many years. Don’t you ask me how she died. I’m an old woman, and my head’s not so right but what some things will set it wrong. Talking of that is one of ’em. She’s dead. I couldn’t save her, nor help her, nor set her right. I hope there’s more pity where she’s gone than she ever got here; for I’m sure if trouble can need it, she needed it. Don’t ask me anything about her.” “Then I won’t,” said Jabez. “My relations don’t seem such an eligible lot that I should set to work to write the history of the family. I suppose I had a father of some kind or other. What’s become of him? Dead or----” “Hung, eh, deary?” said the old woman, relapsing into the malicious grin. “Take care what you’re about,” said the fascinating Mr. North, “or you’ll tempt me to shake the life out of your shrivelled old carcass.” “And then you’ll never know who your father was. Eh? Ha, ha! my precious boy; that’s part of the golden secret that none but me can tell.” “Then you won’t tell me my father’s name?” “Perhaps I’ve forgotten it, deary; perhaps I never knew it--who knows?” “Was he of your class--poor, insignificant, and wretched, the scum of the earth, the mud in the streets, the slush in the gutters, for other people to trample upon with their dirty boots? Was he that sort of thing? Because if he was, I shan’t put myself out of the way to make any tender inquiries about him.” “Of course not, deary. You’d like him to have been a fine gentleman--a baronet, or an earl, or a marquis, eh, my blessed boy? A marquis is about the ticket for you, eh? What do you say to a marquis?” It was not very polite, certainly, what he did say; not quite the tone of conversation to be pleasing to any marquis, or to any noble or potentate whatever, except one, and him, by the laws of polite literature, I am not allowed to mention. Puzzled by her mysterious mumblings, grinnings, and gesticulations, our friend Jabez stared hard in the old crone’s face for about three minutes--looking very much as if he would have liked to throttle her; but he refrained from that temptation, turned on his heel, and walked off in the direction of Slopperton. The old woman apostrophized his receding figure. “Oh, yes, deary, you’re a nice young man, and a clever, civil-spoken young man, and a credit to them that reared you; but you’ll never have the golden secret out of me till you’ve got the money to pay for it.” CHAPTER IV. JIM LOOKS OVER THE BRINK OF THE TERRIBLE GULF. THE light had gone down on the last of the days through which, according to the doctor’s prophecy, Jim Lomax was to live to see that light. Poor Jim’s last sun sank to his rest upon such cloud-pillows of purple and red, and drew a curtain of such gorgeous colours round him in the western sky, as it would have very much puzzled any earthly monarch to have matched, though Ruskin himself had chosen the colours, and Turner had been the man to lay them on. Of course some of this red sunset flickered and faded upon the chimneypots and window-panes--rare luxuries, by the bye, those window-panes--of Blind Peter; but there it came in a modified degree only--this blessed sign-manual of an Almighty Power--as all earthly and heavenly blessings should come to the poor. One ray of the crimson light fell full upon the face of the sick man, and slanted from him upon the dark hair of the girl, who sat on the ground in her old position by the bedside. This light, which fell on them and on no other object in the dusky room, seemed to unite them, as though it were a messenger from the sky that said, “They stand alone in the world, and never have been meant to stand asunder.” “It’s a beautiful light, lass,” said the sick man, “and I wonder I never cared more to notice or to watch it than I have. Lord, I’ve seen it many a time sinking behind the sharp edge of ploughed land, as if it had dug its own grave, and was glad to go down to it, and I’ve thought no more of it than a bit of candle; but now it seems such a beautiful light, and I feel as if I should like to see it again, lass.” “And you will--you will see it again, Jim.” She drew his head upon her bosom, and stroked the rough hair away from his damp forehead. She was half dead herself, with want, anxiety, and fatigue; but she spoke in a cheerful voice. She had not shed a tear throughout his illness. “Lord help you, Jim dear, you’ll live to see many and many a bright sunset--live to see it go down upon our wedding-day, perhaps.” “No, no, lass; that’s a day no sun will ever shine upon. You must get another sweetheart, and a better one, maybe. I’m sure you deserve a better one, for you’re true, lass, true as steel.” The girl drew his head closer to her breast, and bending over him, kissed his dry lips. She never thought, or cared to know, what fever or what poison she might inhale in that caress. If she had thought about it, perhaps she would have prayed that the same fever which had struck him down might lay her low beside him. He spoke again, as the light, with a lingering glow, brightened, and flickered, and then faded out. “It’s gone; it’s gone for ever; it’s behind me now, lass, and must look straight before----” “At what, Jim?--at what?” “At a terrible gulf, my lass. I’m a-standing on the edge of it, and I’m a-looking down to the bottom of it--a cold dark lonesome place. But perhaps there’s another light beyond it, lass; who knows?” “Some say they do know, Jim,” said the girl; “some say they do know, and that there is another light beyond, better than the one we see here, and always shining. Some people do know all about it, Jim.” “Then why didn’t they tell us about it?” asked the man, with an angry expression in his hollow eyes. “I suppose those as taught them meant them to teach us; but I suppose they didn’t think us worth the teaching. How many will be sorry for me, lass, when I am gone? Not grandmother; her brain’s crazed with that fancy of hers of a golden secret--as if she wouldn’t have sold it long before this if she’d had a secret--sold it for bread, or more likely for gin. Not anybody in Blind Peter--they’ve enough to do to think of the bit of food to put inside them, or of the shelter to cover their unfortunate heads. Nobody but you, lass, nobody but you, will be sorry for me; and I think you will.” He thinks she will be sorry. What has been the story of her life but one long thought and care for him, in which her every sorrow and her