The Bram Stoker Megapack (81 page)

As Malcolmson listened to it he bethought himself of the doctor’s words, ‘It is the rope which the hangman used for the victims of the Judge’s judicial rancour,” and he went over to the corner of the fireplace and took it in his hand to look at it. There seemed a sort of deadly interest in it, and as he stood there he lost himself for a moment in speculation as to who these victims were, and the grim wish of the Judge to have such a ghastly relic ever under his eyes. As he stood there the swaying of the bell on the roof still lifted the rope now and again; but presently there came a new sensation—a sort of tremor in the rope, as though something was moving along it.

Looking up instinctively Malcolmson saw the great rat coming slowly down towards him, glaring at him steadily. He dropped the rope and started back with a muttered curse, and the rat turning ran up the rope again and disappeared, and at the same instant Malcolmson became conscious that the noise of the rats, which had ceased for a while, began again.

All this set him thinking, and it occurred to him that he had not investigated the lair of the rat or looked at the pictures, as he had intended. He lit the other lamp without the shade, and, holding it up went and stood opposite the third picture from the fireplace on the right-hand side where he had seen the rat disappear on the previous night.

At the first glance he started back so suddenly that he almost dropped the lamp, and a deadly pallor overspread his face. His knees shook, and heavy drops of sweat came on his forehead, and he trembled like an aspen. But he was young and plucky, and pulled himself together, and after the pause of a few seconds stepped forward again, raised the lamp, and examined the picture which had been dusted and washed, and now stood out clearly.

It was of a judge dressed in his robes of scarlet and ermine. His face was strong and merciless, evil, crafty, and vindictive, with a sensual mouth, hooked nose of ruddy colour, and shaped like the beak of a bird of prey. The rest of the face was of a cadaverous colour. The eyes were of peculiar brilliance and with a terribly malignant expression. As he looked at them, Malcolmson grew cold, for he saw there the very counterpart of the eyes of the great rat. The lamp almost fell from his hand, he saw the rat with its baleful eyes peering out through the hole in the corner of the picture, and noted the sudden cessation of the noise of the other rats. However, he pulled himself together, and went on with his examination of the picture.

The Judge was seated in a great high-backed carved oak chair, on the right-hand side of a great stone fireplace where, in the corner, a rope hung down from the ceiling, its end lying coiled on the floor. With a feeling of something like horror, Malcolmson recognised the scene of the room as it stood, and gazed around him in an awestruck manner as though he expected to find some strange presence behind him. Then he looked over to the corner of the fireplace—and with a loud cry he let the lamp fall from his hand.

There, in the Judge’s arm-chair, with the rope hanging behind, sat the rat with the Judge’s baleful eyes, now intensified and with a fiendish leer. Save for the howling of the storm without there was silence.

The fallen lamp recalled Malcolmson to himself. Fortunately it was of metal, and so the oil was not spilt. However, the practical need of attending to it settled at once his nervous apprehension. When he had turned it out, he wiped his brow and thought for a moment.

“This will not do,” he said to himself. “If I go on like this I shall become a crazy fool. This must stop! I promised the doctor I would not take tea. Faith, he was pretty right! My nerves must have been getting into a queer state. Funny I did not notice it. I never felt better in my life. However, it is all right now, and I shall not be such a fool again.”

Then he mixed himself a good stiff glass of brandy and water and resolutely sat down to his work.

It was nearly an hour when he looked up from his book, disturbed by the sudden stillness. Without, the wind howled and roared louder than ever, and the rain drove in sheets against the windows, beating like hail on the glass; but within there was no sound whatever save the echo of the wind as it roared in the great chimney, and now and then a hiss as a few raindrops found their way down the chimney in a lull of the storm. The fire had fallen low and had ceased to flame, though it threw out a red glow. Malcolmson listened attentively, and presently heard a thin, squeaking noise, very faint. It came from the corner of the room where the rope hung down, and he thought it was the creaking of the rope on the floor as the swaying of the bell raised and lowered it. Looking up, however, he saw in the dim light the great rat clinging to the rope and gnawing it. The rope was already nearly gnawed through—he could see the lighter colour where the strands were laid bare. As he looked the job was completed, and the severed end of the rope fell clattering on the oaken floor, whilst for an instant the great rat remained like a knob or tassel at the end of the rope, which now began to sway to and fro. Malcolmson felt for a moment another pang of terror as he thought that now the possibility of calling the outer world to his assistance was cut off, but an intense anger took its place, and seizing the book he was reading he hurled it at the rat. The blow was well aimed, but before the missile could reach him the rat dropped off and struck the floor with a soft thud. Malcolmson instantly rushed over towards him, but it darted away and disappeared in the darkness of the shadows of the room. Malcolmson felt that his work was over for the night, and determined then and there to vary the monotony of the proceedings by a hunt for the rat, and took off the green shade of the lamp so as to insure a wider spreading light. As he did so the gloom of the upper part of the room was relieved, and in the new flood of light, great by comparison with the previous darkness, the pictures on the wall stood out boldly. From where he stood, Malcolmson saw right opposite to him the third picture on the wall from the right of the fireplace. He rubbed his eyes in surprise, and then a great fear began to come upon him.

In the centre of the picture was a great irregular patch of brown canvas, as fresh as when it was stretched on the frame. The background was as before, with chair and chimney-corner and rope, but the figure of the Judge had disappeared.

Malcolmson, almost in a chill of horror, turned slowly round, and then he began to shake and tremble like a man in a palsy. His strength seemed to have left him, and he was incapable of action or movement, hardly even of thought. He could only see and hear.

There, on the great high-backed carved oak chair sat the Judge in his robes of scarlet and ermine, with his baleful eyes glaring vindictively, and a smile of triumph on the resolute, cruel mouth, as he lifted with his hands a black cap. Malcolmson felt as if the blood was running from his heart, as one does in moments of prolonged suspense. There was a singing in his ears Without, he could hear the roar and howl of the tempest, and through it, swept on the storm, came the striking of midnight by the great chimes in the market place. He stood for a space of time that seemed to him endless still as a statue, and with wide-open, horror-struck eyes, breathless. As the clock struck, so the smile of triumph on the Judge’s face intensified, and at the last stroke of midnight he placed the black cap on his head.

Slowly and deliberately the Judge rose from his chair and picked up the piece of the rope of the alarm bell which lay on the floor, drew it through his hands as if he enjoyed its touch, and then deliberately began to knot one end of it, fashioning it into a noose. This he tightened and tested with his foot, pulling hard at it till he was satisfied and then making a running noose of it, which he held in his hand. Then he began to move along the table on the opposite side to Malcolmson, keeping his eyes on him until he had passed him, when with a quick movement he stood in front of the door. Malcolmson then began to feel that he was trapped, and tried to think of what he should do. There was some fascination in the Judge’s eyes, which he never took off him, and he had, perforce, to look. He saw the Judge approach—still keeping between him and the door—and raise the noose and throw it towards him as if to entangle him. With a great effort he made a quick movement to one side, and saw the rope fall beside him, and heard it strike the oaken floor. Again the Judge raised the noose and tried to ensnare him, ever keeping his baleful eyes fixed on him, and each time by a mighty effort the student just managed to evade it. So this went on for many times, the Judge seeming never discouraged nor discomposed at failure, but playing as a cat does with a mouse. At least in despair, which had reached its climax, Malcolmson cast a quick glance round him. The lamp seemed to have blazed up, and there was a fairly good light in the room. At the many rat-holes and in the chinks and crannies of the wainscot he saw the rats’ eyes; and this aspect, that was purely physical, gave him a gleam of comfort. He looked around and saw that the rope of the great alarm bell was laden with rats. Every inch of it was covered with them; and more and more were pouring through the small circular hole in the ceiling whence it emerged, so that with their weight the bell was beginning to sway.

Hark! it had swayed till the clapper had touched the bell. The sound was but a tiny one, but the bell was only beginning to sway, and it would increase.

At the sound the Judge, who had been keeping his eyes fixed on Malcolmson, looked up, and a scowl of diabolical anger overspread his face. His eyes fairly glowed like hot coals, and he stamped his foot with a sound that seemed to make the house shake. A dreadful peal of thunder broke overhead as he raised the rope again, whilst the rats kept running up and down the rope as though working against time. This time, instead of throwing it, he drew close to his victim, and held open the noose as he approached. As he came closer there seemed something paralysing in his very presence, and Malcolmson stood rigid as a corpse. He felt the Judge’s icy fingers touch his throat as he adjusted the rope. The noose tightened—tightened. Then the Judge, taking the rigid form of the student in his arms, carried him over and placed him standing in the oak chair, and stepping up beside him, put his hand up and caught the end of the swaying rope of the alarm bell. As he raised his hand the rats fled squeaking, and disappeared through the hole in the ceiling. Taking the end of the noose which was round Malcolmson’s neck he tied it to the hanging-bell rope, and then descending pulled away the chair.

When the alarm bell of the Judge’s House began to sound a crowd soon assembled. Lights and torches of various kinds appeared, and soon a silent crowd was hurrying to the spot. They knocked loudly at the door, but there was no reply. Then they burst in the door, and poured into the great dining-room, the doctor at the head.

There at the end of the rope of the great alarm bell hung the body of the student, and on the face of the Judge in the picture was a malignant smile.

THE MAN FROM SHORROX’

Editor’s note: I realize that many people today will have difficulty with this story, since it is not only told in dialect, but a drunkard’s dialect. But if you stick it out, it’s worth the effort. —John Betancourt

* * * *

Throth, yer ’ann’rs, I’ll tell ye wid pleasure; though, trooth to tell, it’s only poor wurrk telling the same shtory over an’ over agin. But I niver object to tell it to rale gintlemin, like yer ’ann’rs, what don’t forget that a poor min has a mouth on to him as much as Creeshus himself has.

The place was a market town in Kilkenny—or maybe King’s County or Queen’s County. At all evints, it was wan of them counties what Cromwell—bad cess to him!—gev his name to. An’ the house was called after him that was the Lord Liftinint an’ invinted the polis—God forgive him! It was kep’ be a min iv the name iv Misther Mickey Byrne an’ his good lady—at laste it was till wan dark night whin the bhoys mistuk him for another gindeman, an unknown man, what had bought a contagious property—mind ye the impidence iv him. Mickey was comin’ back from the Curragh Races wid his skin that tight wid the full of the whiskey inside of him that he couldn’t open his eyes to see what was goin’ on, or his mouth to set the bhoys right afther he had got the first tap on the head wid wan of the blackthorns what they done such jobs wid. The poor bhoys was that full of sorra for their mishap whin they brung him home to his widdy that the crather hadn’t the hearrt to be too sevare on thim. At the first iv course she was wroth, bein’ only a woman afther all, an’ weemun not bein’ gave to rayson like nun is. Millia murdher! but for a bit she was like a madwoman, and was nigh to have cut the heads from affav thim wid the mate chopper, till, seein’ thim so white and quite, she all at wance flung down the chopper an’ knelt down be the corp.

“Lave me to me dead,” she sez. “Oh mm! it’s no use more people nor is needful bein’ made unhappy over this night’s terrible wurrk. Mick Byrne would have no man worse for him whin he was living, and he’ll have harm to none for his death! Now go; an’, oh bhoys, be dacent and quite, an’ don’t thry a poor widdied sowl too hard!”

Well, afther that she made no change in things ginerally, but kep’ on the hotel jist the same; an’ whin some iv her friends wanted her to get help, she only sez: “Mick an’ me run this house well enough; an’ whin I’m thinkin’ of takun’ help I’ll tell yez. I’ll go on be meself, as I mane to, till Mick an’ me comes together agun.”

An’, sure enough, the ould place wint on jist the same, though, more betoken, there wasn’t Mick wid his shillelagh to kape the pace whin things got pretty hot on fair nights, an’ in the gran’ ould election times, when heads was bruk like eggs—glory be to God!

My! but she was the fine woman, was the Widdy Byrne! A gran’ crathur intirely: a fine upshtandin’ woman, nigh as tall as a modheratesized man, wid a forrm on her that’d warrm yer hearrt to look at, it sthood out that way in the right places. She had shkin like satin, wid a warrm flush in it, like the sun shinun’ on a crock iv yestherday’s crame; an’ her cheeks an’ her neck was that firrm that ye couldn’t take a pinch iv thim—though sorra wan iver dar’d to thry, the worse luck! But her hair! Begor, that was the finishing touch that set all the min crazy. It was jist wan mass iv red, like the heart iv a burnun’ furze-bush whin the smoke goes from aff iv it. Musha! but it’d make the blood come up in yer eyes to see the glint iv that hair wid the light shunun’ on it. There was niver a man, what was a man at all at all, iver kem in be the door that he didn’t want to put his two arrms round the widdy an’ giv’ her a hug immadiate. They was fine min too, some iv thim—and warrm men—big graziers from Kildare, and the like, that counted their cattle be scores, an’ used to come ridin’ in to market on huntin’ horses what they’d refuse hundlireds iv pounds for from officers in the Curragh an’ the quality. Begor, but some iv thim an’ the dhrovers was rare miii in a fight. More nor wance I seen them, forty, maybe half a hundred, strong, clear the market-place at Banagher or Athy. Well do I remimber the way the big, red, hairy wrists iv thim’d go up in the air, an’ down’d come the springy ground-ash saplins what they carried for switches. The whole lot iv thim wanted to come coortun’ the widdy; but sorra wan iv her’d look at thim. She’d flirt an’ be coy an’ taze thim and make thim mad for love iv her, as weemin likes to do. Thank God for the same! for mayhap we min wouldn’t love thim as we do only for their thricky ways; an’ thin what’d become iv the counthry wid nothin’ in it at all except single min an’ ould maids jist dyin’, and growin’ crabbed for want iv chuidher to kiss an’ tache an’ shpank an’ make love to? Shure, yer ’ann’rs, ’tis childher as makes the hearrt iv man green, jist as it is fresh wather that makes the grass grow. Divil a shtep nearer would the widdy iver let mortial man come. “No,” she’d say; “whin I see a man fit to fill Mick’s place, I’ll let yez know iv it; thank ye kindly”; an’ wid that she’d shake her head till the beautiful red hair iv it’d be like shparks iv fire—an’ the man more mad for her nor iver.

But, mind ye, she wasn’t no shpoil-shport; Mick’s wife knew more nor that, an’ his widdy didn’t forgit the thrick iv it. She’d lade the laugh herself if ’twas anything a dacent woman could shmile at; an’ if it wasn’t, she’d send the girrls aff to their beds, an’ tell the min they might go on talkin’ that way, for there was only herself to be insulted; an’ that’d shut thim up pretty quick I’m tellin’ yez. But av any iv thim’d thry to git affectionate, as min do whin they’ve had all they can carry, well, thin she had a playful way iv dalin’ wid thim what’d always turn the laugh agin’ thim. She used to say that she lamed the beginnun’ iv it at the school an’ the rest iv it from Mick. She always kep by her on the counther iv the bar wan iv thim rattan canes wid the curly ends, what the soldiers carries whin they can’t barry a whip, an’ are goin’ out wid their cap on three hairs, an’ thim new oiled, to scorch the girrls. An’ thin whin any iv the shuitors’d get too affectionate she’d lift the cane an’ swish them wid it, her laughin’ out iv her like mad all the time. At first wan or two iv the min’d say that a kiss at the widdy was worth a clip iv a cane; an’ wan iv thim, a warrm horse-fanner from Poul-a-Phoka, said he’d complate the job av she was to cut him into ribbons. But she was a handy woman wid the cane—which was shtrange enough, for she had no childer to be practisin’ on—an’ whin she threw what was left iv him back over the bar, wid his face like a gridiron, the other min what was laughin’ along wid her tuk the lesson to hearrt. Whiniver afther that she laid her hand on the cane, no matther how quietly, there’d be no more talk iv thryin’ for kissin’ in that quarther.

Well, at the time I’m comin’ to there was great divarshuns intirely goin’ on in the town. The fair was on the morra, an’ there was a power iv people in the town; an’ cattle, an’ geese, an’ turkeys, an’ butther, an’ pigs, an’ vegetables, an’ all kinds iv divilment, includin’ a berryin’—the same bein’ an ould attorney-man, savin’ yer prisince; a lone man widout friends, lyin’ out there in the gran’ room iv the hotel what they call the “Queen’s Room”. Well, I needn’t tell yer ’ann’rs that the place was pretty full that night. Musha, but it’s the fleas thimselves what had the bad time iv it, wid thim crowded out on the outside, an’ shakin’, an’ thrimblin’ wid the cowld. The widdy, av coorse, was in the bar passin’ the time iv the day wid all that kem in, an’ keepin’ her eyes afore an’ ahint her to hould the girrls up to their wurrk an’ not to be thriflin’ wid the mm. My! but there was a power iv min at the bar that night; warrm farmers from four counties, an’ graziers wid their ground-ash plants an’ big frieze coats, an’ plinty iv commercials, too. In the middle iv it all, up the shtreet at a hand gallop comes an Athy carriage wid two horses, an’ pulls up at the door wid the horses shmokin’. An’ begor’, the man in it was smokin’ too, a big cygar nigh as long as yer arm. He jumps out an’ walks up as bould as brass to the bar, jist as if there was niver a livin’ sowl but himself in the place. He chucks the widdy undher the chin at wanst, an’, taking aff his hat, sez: “I want the best room in the house. I travel for Shorrox’, the greatest long-cotton firrm in the whole worrld, an’ I want to open up a new line here! The best is what I want, an’ that’s not good enough for me!”

Well, gintlemun, ivery wan in the place was spacheless at his impidence; an’, begor! that was the only time in her life I’m tould whin the widdy was tuk back. But, glory be, it didn’t take long for her to recover herself, an’ sez she quitely: “I don’t doubt ye, sur! The best can’t be too good for a gintleman what makes himself so aisy at home!” an’ she shmiled at him till her teeth shone like jools.

God knows, gintlemin, what does be in weemin’s minds whin they’re dalin’ wid a man! Maybe it was that Widdy Byrne only wanted to kape the pace wid all thim min crowdin’ roun’ her, an’ thim clutchin’ on tight to their shticks an’ aiger for a fight wid any man on her account. Or maybe it was that she forgive him his impidence; for well I know that it’s not the most modest man, nor him what kapes his distance, that the girrls, much less the widdies, like the best. But anyhow she spake out iv her to the man from Manchesther: “I’m sorry, sur, that I can’t give ye the best room—what we call the best—for it is engaged already.”

“Then turn him out!” sez he.

“I can’t,” she says—“at laste not till tomorra; an’ ye can have the room thin iv ye like.”

There was a kind iv a sort iv a shnicker among some iv the min, thim knowin’ iv the corp, an’ the Manchesther man tuk it that they was laughin’ at him; so he sez: “I’ll shleep in that room tonight; the other gintleman can put up wid me iv I can wid him. Unless,” sez he, oglin’ the widdy, “I can have the place iv the masther iv the house, if there’s a priest or a parson handy in this town—an’ sober,” sez he.

Well, tho’ the widdy got as red as a Claddagh cloak, she jist laughed an’ turned aside, sayin’: “Throth, sur, but it’s poor Mick’s place ye might have, an’ welkim, this night.”

“An’ where might that be now, ma’am?” sez he, lanin’ over the bar; an’ him would have chucked her under the chin agun, only that she moved her head away that quick.

“In the churchyard!” she sez. “Ye might take Mick’s place there, av ye like, an’ I’ll not be wan to say ye no.”

At that the min round all laughed, an’ the man from Manchesther got mad, an’ shpoke out, rough enough too it seemed: “Oh, he’s all right where he is. I daresay he’s quiter times where he is than whin he had my luk out. Him an’ the Devil can toss for choice in bein’ lonely or bein’ quite.”

Wid that the widdy blazes up all iv a suddunt, like a live sod shtuck in the thatch, an’ sez she: “Who are ye that dares to shpake ill iv the dead, an’ to couple his name wid the Divil, an’ to his widdy’s very face? It’s aisy seen that poor Mick is gone!” an’ wid that she threw her apron over her head an’ sot down an’ rocked herself to and fro, as widdies do whin the fit is on thim iv missin’ the dead.

There was more nor wan man there what’d like to have shtud opposite the Manchesther man wid a bit iv a blackthorn in his hand; but they knew the widdy too well to dar to intherfere till they were let. At length wan iv thim—Mr Hogan, from nigh Portarlington, a warrm man, that’d put down a thousand pounds iv dhry money any day in the week—kem over to the bar an’ tuk aff his hat, an’ sez he: “Mrs Byrne, ma’am, as a friend of poor dear ould Mick, I’d be glad to take his quarrel on meself on his account, an’ more than proud to take it on his widdy’s, if, ma’am, ye’ll only honour me be saying the wurrd.”

Wid that she tuk down the apron from aff iv her head an’ wiped away the tears in her jools iv eyes wid the corner iv it.

“Thank ye kindly,” sez she; “but, guntlemin, Mick an’ me run this hotel long together, an’ I’ve run it alone since thin, an’ I mane to go on running’ it be meself, even if new min from Manchesther itself does be bringin’ us new ways. As to you, sur,” sez she, turnin’ to him, “it’s powerful afraid I am that there isn’t accommodation here for a guntlemin what’s so requireful. An’ so I think I’ll be askin’ ye to find convanience in some other hotel in the town.”

Wid that he turned on her an’ sez, “I’m here now, an’ I offer to pay me charges. Be the law ye can’t refuse to resave me or refuse me lodgmint, especially whin I’m on the primises.”

So the Widdy Byrne drewed herself up, an’ sez she, “Sur, ye ask yer legal rights; ye shall have them. Tell me what it is ye require.”

Sez he sthraight out: “I want the best room.”

“I’ve tould you already,” sez she, “there’s a gintleman in it.”

“Well,” sez he, “what other room have ye vacant?”

“Sorra wan at all,” sez she. “Every room in the house is tuk. Perhaps, sur, ye don’t think or remimber that there’s a fair on tomorra.”

She shpoke so polite that ivery man in the place knew there was somethin’ comin’—later on. The Manchesther man felt that the laugh was on him; but he didn’t want for impidence, so he up, an’ sez he: “Thin, if I have to share wid another, I’ll share wid the best! It’s the Queen’s Room I’ll be shleepin’ in this night.”

Well, the min shtandin’ by wasn’t too well plazed wid what was going on; for the man from Manchesther he was plumin’ himself for all the world like a cock on a dunghill. He laned agin over the bar an’ began makin’ love to the widdy hot an’ fast. He was a fine, shtout-made man, wid a bull neck on to him an’ short hair, like wan iv thim “two-to-wan-bar-wans” what I’ve seen at Punchestown an’ Fairy House an’ the Galway races. But he seemed to have no manners at all in his coortin’, but done it as quick an’ business-like as takun’ his commercial ordhers. It was like this: “I want to make love; you want to be made love to, bein’ a woman. Hould up yer head!”

We all could see the widdy was boilin’ mad; but, to do him fair, the man from Manchesther didn’t seem to care what any wan thought. But we all seen what he didn’t see at first, that the widdy began widout thinkin’ to handle the rattan cane on the bar. Well, prisintly he began agun to ask about his room, an’ what kind iv a man it was that was to share it wid him.

So sez the widdy, “A man wid less wickedness in him nor you have, an’ less impidence.”

“I hope he’s a quite man,” sez he.