your father! He threatened to kill me if I didn’t
swear to keep it secret; and in terror of my life
I swore. He made me help him to carry the body—we
took it all across the heath—oh! horrible,
horrible, under the bright moon—(lift me
higher, Gabriel). You know the great stones yonder,
set up by the heathens; you know the hollow place
under the stones they call ’The Merchant’s
Table’; we had plenty of room to lay him in that,
and hide him so; and then we ran back to the cottage.
I never dared to go near the place afterward; no,
nor your father either! (Higher, Gabriel! I’m
choking again.) We burned the pocket-book and the
knapsack—never knew his name—we
kept the money to spend. (You’re not lifting
me; you’re not listening close enough!) Your
father said it was a legacy, when you and your mother
asked about the money. (You hurt me, you shake me
to pieces, Gabriel, when you sob like that.) It brought
a curse on us, the money; the curse has drowned your
father and your brother; the curse is killing me;
but I’ve confessed—tell the priest
I confessed before I died. Stop her; stop Perrine!
I hear her getting up. Take his bones away from
the Merchant’s Table, and bury them for the
love of God! and tell the priest (lift me higher, lift
me till I am on my knees)—if your father
was alive, he’d murder me; but tell the priest—because
of my guilty soul—to pray, and—remember
the Merchant’s Table—to bury, and
to pray—to pray always for—”
As long as Perrine heard faintly the whispering of
the old man, though no word that he said reached her
ear, she shrank from opening the door in the partition.
But, when the whispering sounds, which terrified her
she knew not how or why, first faltered, then ceased
altogether; when she heard the sobs that followed
them; and when her heart told her who was weeping in
the next room—then, she began to be influenced
by a new feeling which was stronger than the strongest
fear, and she opened the door without hesitation,
almost without trembling.
The coverlet was drawn up over the old man; Gabriel
was kneeling by the bedside, with his face hidden.
When she spoke to him, he neither answered nor looked
at her. After a while the sobs that shook him
ceased; but still he never moved, except once when
she touched him, and then he shuddered—shuddered
under her hand! She called in his little
sisters, and they spoke to him, and still he uttered
no word in reply. They wept. One by one,
often and often, they entreated him with loving words;
but the stupor of grief which held him speechless
and motionless was beyond the power of human tears,
stronger even than the strength of human love.