LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 115, 13 October 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

AN OLD LAWYER’S STORY. Concluded. It was opened for me, when I knocked, by old Hannah. Her eyes were red and swollen. Then I told her that I was a stranger, "and had received Madame Matteau’s address from a gentleman in New York, and I desired to stay under her roof all night. She shook her head. ‘I don’t think you can,’ she said. ‘The lady is away from home. Besides, we are in trouble here. I don’t think Miss Gabrielle would—’

But here Miss Gabrielle herself appeared. ‘ I am an old man, Miss, ’ I said, ‘ and, as you see, quite infirm. I dread another step. I should take it as a kindness if you would accommodate me, and I will pay you any price you ask.’ Miss Gabrielle looked at Hannah.

‘We have only one room,’ she said, ‘ and that—’

I ended the question of my stay by begging to be taken to it. ‘You will have supper, sir?’ asked the girl. But I declared that I had eaten, and wanted rest.

Her reply was: ‘ Hannah, show the gentleman to the blue room, and make a fire. ’ I was in the room, the scene of the three sudden deaths or murders. It was a small apartment, painted blue. It had also blue window curtains, and a blue silk coverlet on the bed ; a neat striped carpet, a set of old mahogany furniture, and a very handsome ewer and basin of costly china. It was at the time almost a universal custom to burn wood. In this room, however, was a small coal fire. I alluded to this as Hannah came in with the scuttle.

‘Yes, sir, 1 she said, ‘Misses does burn coals. Her son is a clerk, or the like, at the new mines at Mauch Chunk, and he sends it cheap to her; but it’s a nasty, dirty smell-

ing thing, and I hate it. Now it’s built and lit; ’twill warm up in fifteen minutes. It takes longer than wood. She went out of the door and came back in a minute with a little tray, on which stood a pot and a cup a saucer, also a bowl and a tiny pitcher, and something in a napkin. ‘ Miss sent a bit and a sip, said she. ‘ Tea rests us old folks mightily. Good night. ’ ‘Good night,’ I said. ‘I expect I shall sleep soon; I must be up very early, though, for I have bills to pay. I have some hundreds of dollars with me to pay out to-morrow, and it’s in this bag. ’ She looked at me in a queer sort of way, and lingered beside me. At last she spoke: ‘ Look ye, sir ; I think that old folks of your age do wrong to lock doors on themselves. You might be ill at night, and who’d get in to you ?’ Was it this "woman’s practice to beg travellers who stopped with her mistress not to lock the door ? Was there some baneful potion in the cup she had given me ?

It was an innocent looking cup enough — an old-fashioned affair, covered with little gilt springs. The tea was fragrant Hyson ; but the suspicion that had crept into my mind had tainted it. I fancied a strange colour, a curious smell. I put it from me, and would not have tasted it for a kingdom.

I had not intended to sleep, and I did not undress myself. I merely removed my disguise, and sat down beside the table with

my pistols beside me. That some attempt might shortly be made to murder me I felt to be possible. I thought of all the old tales that I had heard of trap-doors and sliding panels, and secret entrances to traveller’s rooms. I was not a coward, but I felt strangely nervous ; and singularly enough for a man in my perfect health, my hands were growing cold, and my feet were lumps of ice, while my head was burning hot. Fifteen minutes had passed, and the fire was kindled ; but the room was not warm. The blue flames struggled among the black coals, and flung forked tongues tipped with yellow tints into the room. There was nothing cheerful about the stove, though it was of that open style now called Franklin. Yet I drew a chair toward it from habit, and sat with my feet upon the hearth. Ido not know how long I sat there. Suddenly I became aware that I was not myself. I was losing my senses. If unseen hands had been clasped about my neck, and an unseen knee had been pressed against my chest my sensations could not have been different.

A thought of the evil spirit which my friend had suggested, faintly struggled into my mind. As I staggered to my feet a noise like the roaring of the sea was in my ear. The flames of the candle turned to a great yellow blue. I barely retained strength enough to stagger to the window and fling it open. The fresh, cold winter air rushed in at me. It gave me intense pain, but it relieved me. In a moment more I was able to clamber out of it upon the shed below. There I remained until day dawn. With my returning senses the truth came to me. That which had murdered the three men who slept before me in the blue chamber was nothing more nor less than the coal stove. It was provided with what is called a damper, and this being caught in a manner which closed it, sent the poisonous gas into the room. It had been kindled as a wood fire would have been at the hour of retiring, by some one ignorant of the danger possible from coal gas, and they had slept never to awaken. Had I thrown myself upon the bed, I also should have been found dead at daylight, in all human probability. As for the fact that neither doctor nor coroner discovered the truth, I have but to say that they were not deeply scientific men, that coal-stoves were scarcely used in the place, and that it had not been mentioned that the blue chamber was thus heated.

Of course I rejoiced the household by my discovery next morning, and equally, of course, Madame Matteau, who was not only freed from suspicion, but became the object of universal sympathy. She was always grateful to me, and she proved her gratitude by giving what I soon asked for, the hand of her daughter Gabrielle in marriage. THE INVISIBLE EYE. Chapter I. It was about this time, said Christian, poor as a church rat, I had taken shelter in the roof-loft of an old house in the rue des Minnesiingers, at Nuremberg. I had nestled myself in an angle of the roof. The slates served me for walls, and the roof tree for a ceiling : I had to walk over my straw mattrass to reach the window; but this window commanded a magnificent view, for it overlooked both city and country beyond. From it I watched cats gravely walking along the gutter, storks with beakloads of frogs, carrying food to their devouring young ones ; pigeons with their tails spread fan-like, whirling above the depths of the streets below.

In the evening, when the church-bells called the people to the Angelus, resting my elbows on the edge of the roof, I listened to their melancholy song, and watched the windows lit up one by one ; the good townsmen, smoking their pipes on the pavement; the young girls, in short red petticoats, and with their pitchers under their arms, laughing and chatting about the fountain of Saint Sebalt. Insensibly all these objects faded from my view ; the bats came abroad in the dim air, and I lay me down to sleep in the midst of the soft quietude. The old second-hand dealer, Toubec, knew the road up to my little den as well as I knew it myself, and was not afraid of climbing the ladder. Every week his goat’s head, surmounted by a rusty wig, pushed up the trap-door, his fingers clutched the edge of the floor, and in a noisy tone he cried : ‘Well, well, Master Christian, have we anything new ?” To which I answered ;

‘ Come in : why the deuce don’t you come in?’ I’m just finishing a little landscape, and vant to have your opinion of it. ’ Thin his long thin spine lengthened itself out, until his head touched the roof ; and Lie old fellow laughed silently. I must do justice to Toubec ; he never bargainee with me. He bought all my pictures at 15 torins apiece, one with the other, and sold tlu-m again at 40. He was an honest Jew.

This kind of existence was beginning to please me and 1 was every day finding in it some new charm, when the good city of Nuremberg was agitated by a strange and mysteriousevent.

Not far from my garret window, a little to the left, rose the auherge of the Bccuf-grns, an old public-house much frequented by the country-people. Three or four waggons, loaded with sacks or casks, were always standing before its doors; for before going to market, the countrymen used to take their nip of wine there. The gable of this auherge was conspicuous for the peculiarity of its form: it was very narrow, sharply pointed, and its edges were cut like the teeth of a saw; grotesque carvings ornamented the cornices and framework of its windows. But what was most remarkable was that the house which faced it reproduced exactly the same carvings and ornaments; every detail had been minutely copied, even to the support of the signboard, with its iron volutes and spirals. It might have been said that these two ancient buildings reflected one another; only that, behind the auherge, grew a tall oak, the dark foliage of which served to bring into bold relief the forms of the roof, while the neighbouring house stood bare against the sky. For the rest, the auherge was as noisy and animated as the other house was silent. On the one side was to be seen, going in and coming out, an endless crowd of drinkers, singing, stumbling, cracking their whips; over the other, solitude reigned. Once or twice a day, at most, the heavy door of the silent house opened to give egress to a little old woman, her back bent into a half-circle, her chin long and pointed, her dress clinging to her limbs, an enormous basket under her arm, and one hand tightly clutched upon her chest. The physiognomy of this old woman had struck me more than once ; her little green eyes, her skinny pinched-up nose, the large flower-pattern of her shawl, dating back a hundred years at least, the smile that wrinkled her cheeks till they looked like two cockades, and the lace trimming of her bonnet hanging down upon her eyebrows — all this appeared to me strange, interested me, and made me strongly desire to learn who this old woman was, and what she did in her great lonely house. I had imagined her as passing there an existence of good works and pious meditation. But one day, when I had stopped in the street to look at her, she turned sharply round and darted at me a look, the horrible expression of which I know not how to describe, and made three or four hideous grimaces at me; then dropping again her doddering head, she drew her large shawl about her, the ends of which trained after her on the ground, and slowly entered her heavy door, behind which I saw her disappear. ‘ That’s an old mad-woman,’ I said to myself ; ‘ a malicious cunning old mad-woman ! I ought not to have allowed myself to be so interested in her. But I’ll try and recall her abominable grimace—Toubec will give me 15 florins for it willingly. ’ (To he continued.)