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

STANZAS

WRITTEN AT BEVERLY, MASSACHUSETTS. BY REV. WILLIAM B. TAPPAN

I

 
In Beverly, the building I sought the other day,
Where forty years ago my sire his infant gave away;
I sought it, for I coveted where he had placed his foot,
My honored, sainted father! mine in filial love to put.
 

II

 
I entered it: most holy appeared the house of prayer;
Yet more than common holiness its beauty seemed to wear;
For there the waters bathed me, and solemn words were said,
And Father, Son, and Paraclete invoked above my head.
 

III

 
Of all the congregation who looked in reverence on,
The elders and the blooming youth, each worshipper was gone;
And he, with hairs of winter, whose office ’twas to lave
My baby brow, and name my name, was hidden in the grave!
 

IV

 
What years have passed of sorrow, that hour and this between!
What moments of enjoyment in that interval I’ve seen!
I wept that I had measured the half of being’s track;
I smiled that worlds were poor to bribe the weary pilgrim back.
 

V

 
I sighed that in the journey where blessings are so few
For even the most favored, I but scanty portion knew;
And chiefly in the season of confidence and pride,
My youth was forced the dangerous way, without my earthly guide.
 

VI

 
Where is my sainted father, who took me in his arms,
And held me to the minister, and kissed away alarms?
I feel his presence near me! he blesses me once more!
Ay, where he gave me up to God, just forty years before!
 

THE QUOD CORRESPONDENCE

Harry Harson

CHAPTER XXII

It was not the failure of his plans, nor the dread of detection, which broke Rust down. He had been prepared for that, and had nerved himself to meet it; but it was a blow coming from a quarter where he had not dreamed of harm, and wounding him where alone he could feel a pang, that crushed him. There was something so abject in the prostration of that iron-willed man, who had often endured what would have wrung the very souls of other men, without exhibiting any other feeling than contempt, that for a moment awed even the hard man who had struck the blow. In proportion as Rust’s control over his emotions had been great, so now the reäction was terrible. He seemed paralyzed in body and mind. No cry escaped him, but his breath rattled as he drew it; his long hair hung loosely over his face, and upon the floor; his eyes were closed; his features livid and distorted; and but for his struggling breath, and the spasmodic jerking of his fingers, he seemed dead.

‘Lift him up, Bill,’ said Grosket, in a subdued tone. ‘It’s been too much for him. Who’d have thought he had a heart?’

Jones smiled grimly, as he said: ‘I’m glad you did it, Mr. Grosket. It was better than murdering him. He wasn’t afeard of dying. Is it a fit he’s got?’

Without waiting for a reply, he placed his arms under him and raised him up. Rust lay heavily against him, his head falling back, and his arms dangling at his side. They carried him to the bench, and placed him on it, Grosket standing behind him, and supporting his back.

‘I guess he’s done for,’ said Jones, pushing the hair from his face; ‘pity it wasn’t three days ago—that’s all.’

‘Get some water, or brandy,’ said Grosket; ‘I suppose we may as well bring him to. It would be an ugly business if he should die on our hands.’

Jones stooped down, and picking up his great coat, commenced fumbling in its pocket, and drew out the bottle from which he and Craig had drank, as they were starting on their expedition on the previous night. He held it up and looked at it, then muttered: ‘It’s no use; it’s no use.’

‘What are you talking about, there?’ demanded Grosket, impatiently: ‘is it empty?’

Jones shook it.

‘No; there’s a drop or two in it. D—n him! I don’t like his drinking out of this bottle, I don’t; I use it myself; and blow me, if I don’t think his mouth ’ud p’ison it.’

Grosket cut his scruples short by taking the bottle from him, uncorking it, and pouring its contents in Rust’s mouth.

‘It’s a waste,’ muttered Jones, eyeing his proceedings with a very dissatisfied look. ‘I begrudged it to poor Tim; and cuss him, it’s going down his gullet! I hope it’ll choke him.’

Grosket paid no attention to him, but supported Rust, occasionally shaking him by way of stirring up his ideas. Either the liquor or the shakings had an effect; for the deadly paleness gradually disappeared from Rust’s face; his breath grew less short and gasping; and finally he sat up, and looked about him. His eye was wandering and vacant, and sad and heart-broken indeed was his tone.

‘My own dear child!’ said he, in a voice so mild and winning, and so teeming with fondness, that none would have recognized it as Rust’s. ‘I’ve had a strange dream, my poor little Mary, about you, whom I have garnered up in my heart of hearts.’

His voice sank until his words were unintelligible, and then he laughed feebly, and passed his hand backward and forward in the air, as if caressing the head of a child. ‘Your eyes are very bright, my little girl, but they beam with happiness; and so they shall, always. So they shall—so they shall. Kiss me, my own darling!’ He extended his arms, and drew them toward him, as if they enfolded the child, and then bending down his cheek, rocked to and fro, and sang a song, such as is used in lulling an infant to sleep.

‘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.

‘We’ve been hard at work, and have made some progress,’ said he, taking off his hat, and placing it on the table. ‘We’ve got the woman.’

‘What woman?’

‘Blossom,’ replied Harson; ‘I’ve brought her here to answer for herself. She was in Rust’s employ, and received the children from him. She’s below.’

‘What news of the boy?’ inquired Holmes.

‘Grosket is after him. He knows where he is. Would you like to see the woman?’

‘It would be as well,’ said Holmes, drumming on the table. ‘We’ll hear what she has to say. Does she communicate what she knows willingly or under compulsion?’

‘She’s not very talkative;’ answered Harson, ‘and seems terribly afraid of Rust.’

‘I think we can squeeze the truth out of her,’ replied Holmes. ‘Bring her up.’

Harson went out, and in a few minutes reäppeared with Mrs. Blossom at his heels. The lawyer pointed to a chair, into which the lady sank, apparently in a state of great exhaustion and agitation; for she moaned and rocked to and fro, and wrung her hands.

‘Your name’s Blossom, I think,’ said Holmes, evincing no sympathy whatever with her sufferings.

‘Ah’s me! ah’s me! I’m very old! I’m very old!’ exclaimed the lady, moaning from the very bottom of her lungs, but without making any reply to the question.

‘Hark ye,’ said Holmes, in a stern tone, ‘I have not sent for you, to listen to your moaning, nor to be trifled with in any other way. You have come here to disclose the deeds of a scoundrel; and disclose them you must. You shall answer all my questions, truly, honestly, and without equivocation, or it will be the worse for you. I am aware of offences committed by you, which, if punished as they merit, would send you to prison. I tell you this, that you may know exactly how we stand with reference to each other. If you wish to serve yourself, you will find true and prompt replies to whatever I ask. What’s your name?’

Mrs. Blossom oscillated in her chair, glanced at the wall, replied ‘Blossom,’ and buried her face in a rag of a shawl.

‘Good! Where do you live?’ demanded the lawyer. The woman answered, and Holmes wrote it down.

‘Do you know a man by the name of Michael Rust?’

Mrs. Blossom’s chair became very uneasy, and she was seized with a violent cough. The lawyer waited until her cough was better, and repeated the question, accompanying it by a look which produced an answer in the affirmative.

‘What other name did you ever know him to bear?’

Mrs. Blossom suddenly found her voice, and replied boldly: ‘No other;’ and here she spoke the truth; for Rust had trusted her no farther than was absolutely necessary.

‘How long have you known him?’

Mrs. Blossom again lost her voice, but found it instantly on meeting the eye of Holmes; and she answered bluntly, ‘About four years.’

‘What led to your acquaintance?’

The woman cast a shrewd suspicious glance at him, as if calculating how far she might trifle with impunity; but there was something in his manner that was not encouraging, and she replied, ‘that she could not remember.’

Holmes laid down his pen, and pushing back his chair so that he faced her, said in a quiet but very decided manner:

‘Mrs. Blossom, you have been brought here for the purpose of giving us such information as will enable us to do justice to a person who has been greatly injured by this man Rust. I mention this, not because I suppose the motive will have any great weight with you, but to let you see that the object of our investigation is nothing against yourself. Your answers are important to us; for at present we know no other than yourself, of whom we can obtain the information we require. I do not conceal this, nor will I conceal the fact that unless you do answer me, you shall leave this room for a prison. I told you so before; I repeat it now; I will not repeat it a third time. I already know enough of the matter on which I am interrogating you, to be able to detect falsehood in your answers.’

There was something either in the words of the lawyer or in the formation of her chair that caused Mrs. Blossom to move very uneasily; and at the same time to cast a glance behind her, as if there existed a strong connection between her thoughts and the door. She was however used to trying circumstances, and did not lose her presence of mind. She made no reply, but sat with every faculty, which long training had sharpened to a high degree of cunning, on the alert; but she was not a little taken by surprise when Holmes, after taking from the table a packet of papers, selected one, and having spent a few minutes in examining it, said to her:

‘To convince you that we are perfectly acquainted with the nature of your dealings with Rust, I will enter into a few details, which may perhaps enable you to recollect something more. Four years since, on the sixteenth of December, a man by the name of Blossom, with whom you lived, and whose name you bear, although you are not his wife, proposed to you to take charge of two children, a boy and girl. At first you refused, but finally agreed to do it on receiving five hundred dollars, and the assurance that no inquiry would be made as to the treatment they received at your hands, and that whether they lived or died was a matter of indifference to the person who placed them in your charge, and would not be too closely investigated. The children came. They were quite young. You had them for a week, and were then informed that they must go, for a time, to the country. You asked no questions, but gave them up, and they were sent away, the money for their support being furnished by the same hand that threw them upon your mercy. In a year or so they were brought back, and were again entrusted to you, with instructions to break them down, and if possible to send them to their graves; but if their bodies were proof against cruelty, then so to pollute their very souls, and familiarize them with crime, that they should forget what they had been; and that even those who should have loved them best would blush to see what they were. You began your work well, for you had a stern, savage master over you—Michael Rust. Thus much,’ said he, ‘I know; but I must know more. You must identify the children as the same first delivered to you by Rust. You must disclose the names of the persons with whom they lived in the country. You must also give me such information as will enable us to fasten this crime on Rust. Another person could have proved all this—the man Blossom; but you know he is dead.’

He paused, for Mrs. Blossom’s face grew deadly pale as he spoke. It was momentary, however; and might have passed away entirely, had not a strange suspicion fastened itself on his mind. He added in a slow tone: ‘What ailed him, you know best.’

Mrs. Blossom’s thin lips grew perfectly white; and moved as if she were attempting to speak.

‘Will you give me the information I require? or will you accept the alternative?’ said Holmes, still keeping his eye upon her.

‘Go on; what do you want?’ demanded she, in a quick husky voice.

‘You are acquainted with Michael Rust?’

‘I am,’ replied she, in the same quick, nervous manner.

‘How did you first become acquainted with him?’

‘You know all that,’ was the abrupt reply. ‘Why should I go over it again? It’s all true, as you said it.’

Holmes paused to make a note of it, and then asked:

‘What is the name of the person, in the country, who took charge of the children?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied the woman. ‘Michael Rust sent a man for them, who took them off.’

‘Who was this man?’

‘I don’t know; I never saw him. Mr. Blossom gave the children to him, and never told me his name.’

‘Good,’ said Holmes, in his short, abrupt manner: ‘Where are these children now?’

‘One’s at his house,’ replied she, pointing to Harson. ‘The other, by this time, is with a man named Grosket. He’s been arter him, and I suppose has got him by this time.’

‘Enoch Grosket?’ inquired Holmes.

The woman nodded. ‘I told him where he’d find him. He went straight off to fetch him.’

‘Will you swear that they are the same children brought to you four years since?’ said Holmes, pausing in his writing, and running his eye over the notes which he had made. ‘Do you know them to be the same?’

‘The man said so, who brought ’em back at the end of the year. That’s all I know about it. They never left me arter that.’

‘Who was that man?’

‘Tim Craig,’ replied the woman.

‘And he’s dead. The only person who could reveal their place of concealment during that year, and the name of those who had the care of them. The chain is broken, by which to identify them as the lost children of George Colton. Who can aid us in this?’

‘I CAN!’ said a voice.

All three started, for there, at their very elbow, stood Michael Rust; but Rust, fearfully altered, worn down, wan, haggard, with sunken cheeks, and features rigid and colorless, as if cut from wax, and with an eye of fire. But wrecked as he was, there was still that strange sneering smile on his lip, which seemed as if only parting to utter sarcasm and mockery. But now he was serious in his mood, for he repeated:

‘I can, and without my aid the secret must be hid forever.’

Holmes rose, angrily, from his seat.

‘What brought you here?’ demanded he.

‘Be seated, I beg of you,’ said Rust, bowing, and speaking in a low, mocking tone. ‘What brought me here? You called upon me, I think; it was but civil to return the visit. I have come to do so.’

‘This is idle, Sir,’ replied Holmes, coldly. ‘You came for some purpose. Name it. The sooner this interview is over, the more agreeable I suppose it will be for both of us.’

‘For me, certainly,’ said Rust, in a manner so constrained and different from his usual one, that the lawyer was in doubt whether he was in jest or earnest. Then he added, in a bitter tone: ‘You ask what brought me here. Destiny, folly, revenge perhaps against my own heart’s blood. Call it what you will; here I am; and ready to assist in the very matter which now perplexes you. What more do you want?’

Holmes replied with a sarcastic smile: ‘The assistance of Michael Rust is likely to be as great as his sincerity. We certainly should place great reliance on it.’

Rust, perfectly unmoved by the taunt, answered in a tone so bitter, so full of hatred to himself, so replete with the outpouring of a cankered heart, so despairing and reckless, that the lawyer felt that even in him there might be some truth:

‘I care not whether you trust me or not; I care not whether you believe me or not. If Michael Rust could ever have been swayed by the opinions of others, it would have been before this; it’s too late to begin now. I came here because I have failed in all I undertook; because I am beginning to hate the one for whom I have toiled, until I grew gray with the wearing away of mind and body; because the soul of life is gone. I do it out of revenge against that person. There is no remorse; no conscience; but it’s revenge. Look at me; that person has blasted me. Do I not show it in every feature and limb? Now you understand me. My schemes are abandoned; and I shall soon be where neither man nor law can reach me. My secret can do me no good; why should I keep it? Perhaps the recollection of past days and of past favors from one whom I have wronged, may have had its weight; perhaps not. I’ve come to tell the truth. If you will hear it, well; if not, I go, and it goes with me.’

Holmes and Harson exchanged looks, and Harson nodded, as if in acquiescence to some proposition which he supposed the looks of the other to indicate.

‘Well, Sir,’ replied Holmes, ‘we will hear what you have to say.’

‘Stop,’ said Rust; ‘before uttering a word, I must have a promise.’

The lawyer looked at him, and then at Harson, as much as to say: ‘I expected it. There’s some trick in it.’

Rust observed it, and said: ‘Spare your suspicions; I have come here to be frank and honest in word and deed; and Michael Rust can be so, when the fancy seizes him. The promise I require is this; whatever I may reveal, no matter what the penalty, you will not set the blood-hounds of the law on my track within forty-eight hours. I have yet one act to perform in the great farce of life. That accomplished, you may do your worst.’