the day that followed the unlooked-for visit of my brother jason to the mill my father spent in bed. when, in the morning, i took him up his breakfast, i could not help noticing that the broad light flooding the room emphasized a change in him that i had been only partly conscious of the evening before. it was as if, during the night, the last gleams of his old restless spirit had died out. i thought all edges in him blunted—the edges of fear, of memory, of observation, of general interest in life.
the immediate cause of this decline was, with little doubt, the shock caused by my brother’s unexpected return. to this i never again heard him allude, but none the less had the last of his constitution succumbed to it, i feel sure.
the midday post brought me a letter, the sight of which sent a thrill through me. i knew zyp’s queer crooked hand, that no dignity of years could improve from its immature schoolgirl character. she wrote:
“dear renny: jason told you all, i suppose. we are back again, and dependant on dad’s bounty, and yours. oh, renny, it goes to my heart to have to wurry you once more. but we are in soar strates, and so hampered in looking for work from the risk of coming across him again. at present he hasn’t found us out, i think, but any day he may do so. if you could send us ever so little it would help us to tide over a terruble crisus. the little one is wanting dainties, renny; and we—it is hard to say it—bread sometimes. but she will only eat of the best, and chocalats she loves. i wish you could see her. she is my own fairy. i work the prettiest flowers into samplers, and try to sell them in the shops; but i am not very clever with my needel; and jason laughs at them, though my feet ake with walking over these endless paving stones. renny, dear, i must be a beggar, please. don’t think hardly of me for it, but my darling that’s so pretty and frale! oh, renny, help us. your loving sister,
zyp.”
“what you send, if annything, please send it to me. that’s why i write for the chief part. jason would give us his last crust; but—you saw him, renny, and must know.”
i bowed my head over the queer, sorrowful little note. that this bold, reliant child of nature should come to this! there and then i vowed that, so long as i had a shilling i could call my own, zyp should share it with me, at a word from her.
i wrote to her to this effect. i placed my whole position before her and bade her command me as she listed; only bearing in mind that my father, old and broken, had the first claim upon me. then i went out and bought the largest and most fascinating box of chocolates i could secure, and sent it to her as a present to my little unknown niece, and forwarded also under cover the order for the £10.
a day or two brought me an acknowledgment and answer to my letter. the latter shall forever remain sacred from any eyes but mine; and, unless man can be found ready to brave the curse of the dead, shall lie with me, who alone have read it, in the grave.
on the morning preceding that of its arrival, a fearful experience befell me, that was like to have choked out my soul then and there in one black grip of horror.
all that first day after jason’s visit my father lay abed, and, whenever i visited him, was cheerfully garrulous, but without any inclination to rise. the following morning also he elected to have breakfast as before in his room; and soon after the meal he fell into a light doze, in which state i left him.
it was about 11 o’clock that, sitting in the room below, i was startled by hearing a sudden thud above me that shook the beams of the ceiling. i rushed upstairs in a panic and found him lying prostrate on the floor, uninjured apparently, but with no power of getting to his feet again.
“what’s this?” i cried. “dad! are you hurt?”
he looked at me a little wondering and confused, but answered no, he had only slipped and fallen when rising to don his clothes.
i lifted him up and he couldn’t stand, but sunk down on the bed again with a blank, amazed look in his face.
“renalt,” he said, in a thin, perplexed voice, “what’s happened to the old man? the will was there, but the power’s gone.”
gone it was, forever. from that day he walked no more—did nothing but lie on his back, calm and unconcerned for the most part, and fading quietly from life.
but in the first discovery of his enforced inertness, some peculiar trouble, unconnected with the certain approach of death, lay on him like a black jaundice. sitting by his side after i had got him back upon the bed, i would not break the long silence that ensued with shallow words of comfort, for i thought that he was steeling his poor soul as he lay to face the inevitable prospect.
suddenly he turned on the bed—for his face had been darkened from me—and looked at me with his lips trembling.
“what is it, dad?”
“i’m down, renny. i shall never rise again.”
“you’ll rest, dad; you’ll rest. think of the peace and quiet while i sit and read to you and the sun comes in at the window.”
“good lad! it isn’t that, though rest has a beautiful sound to me. it’s the thought—harkee, renny! it’s the thought that a task i’ve not failed in for twenty years and more must come to be another’s.”
“what task?”
“there are ears in the walls. closer, my son. the task of oiling the wheel below.”
“shall i take it up, dad? is that your wish?”
i answered stoutly, though my heart sunk within me at the prospect.
“you or nobody, it must be. are you afraid?”
“i wish i could say i wasn’t.”
he clutched my hand in tremulous eagerness.
“master it! you must, my lad! much depends on it. they whisper the room is haunted. not for you, renalt, if for anybody. haven’t i been familiar with it all these years, and yet i lie here unscathed? how can it spare the evil old man and hurt the just son?”
he half-rose in his bed and stared with dilated eyes at the wall.
“you are there!” he cried, in a loud, quavering voice. “out of the years of gloom and torture you menace me still! why, it was just, i say! how could i have clung to my purpose and defied you, otherwise? you will never frighten me!”
he fell back, breathing heavily. in sorrow and alarm i bent over him. suddenly conscious of my eyes looking down upon him, he smiled and a faint flush came to his cheek.
“dreams and shadows—dreams and shadows!” he murmured. “you will take up my task, renalt?”
“must i, dad?”
“oh, be a man!” he shrieked, grasping at me. “i have defied it—i, the sinner! and how can it hurt you?”
“is it so necessary?”
“it’s the key to all—the golden key! were it to rust and stop, the secret would be open to any that might look, and the devil have my soul.”
“do you wish me, then, to learn the secret—whatever it is?”
he looked at me long, with a dark and searching expression.
“i ask you to oil the wheel,” he said at length—“nothing more.”
“very well. i will do what you ask.”
he gave a deep sigh and lay back with his eyes closed. i saw the faint color coming and going in his face. suddenly he uttered a cry and turned upon me.
“my son—my son! bear with me a little longer. it is an old habit and for long made my only joy in a dark world. i find it hard to part with my fetish.”
“i don’t want you to part with it. what does it matter? i will oil the wheel and you shall rest in peace that your task is being faithfully performed by another.”
“hush! you don’t mean it, but every word is a reproach. i’ve known so little love; and here i would reject the confidence that is the sign of more than i deserve. for him, the base and cruel, to guess at it, and you to remain in ignorance! renalt, listen; i’m going to tell you.”
“no, dad; no!”
“renalt, you won’t break my heart? what trust haven’t you put in me? and this is my return! feel under my pillow, boy.”
“oh, dad; let it rest!”
eagerly, impatiently, he thrust in his own hand and brought forth a shining key.
“take it!” he cried. “it opens the box of the wheel. but first lower the sluice and turn the race into the further channel. you will see a rope dangling inside in the darkness. hold on to it and work the wheel round with your hands till a float projecting a little beyond its fellows comes opposite you. in this you’ll find a slit cut, ending in an eye-hole. pass the rope, as it dangles, into this hole, and keep it in place by a turn of the iron button that’s fixed underneath the slit. now step on to the broad float, never letting go the rope, and the weight of your body will turn the wheel, carrying you downward till a knot in the rope stops your descent.”
“what then, dad?”
“my son—you’ll see the place that for twenty years has held the secret of my fortune.”
