With that, as if to change the theme, he led the astoundedlocksmith back to the night of the Maypole highwayman, to therobbery of Edward Chester, to the reappearance of the man at MrsRudge"s house, and to all the strange circumstances whichafterwards occurred. He even asked him carelessly about the man"sheight, his face, his figure, whether he was like any one he hadever seen--like Hugh, for instance, or any man he had known at anytime--and put many questions of that sort, which the locksmith,considering them as mere devices to engage his attention andprevent his expressing the astonishment he felt, answered prettymuch at random.
At length, they arrived at the corner of the street in which thehouse stood, where Mr Haredale, alighting, dismissed the coach.
"If you desire to see me safely lodged," he said, turning to thelocksmith with a gloomy smile, "you can."
Gabriel, to whom all former marvels had been nothing in comparisonwith this, followed him along the narrow pavement in silence. Whenthey reached the door, Mr Haredale softly opened it with a key hehad about him, and closing it when Varden entered, they were leftin thorough darkness.
They groped their way into the ground-floor room. Here MrHaredale struck a light, and kindled a pocket taper he had broughtwith him for the purpose. It was then, when the flame was fullupon him, that the locksmith saw for the first time how haggard,pale, and changed he looked; how worn and thin he was; howperfectly his whole appearance coincided with all that he had saidso strangely as they rode along. It was not an unnatural impulsein Gabriel, after what he had heard, to note curiously theexpression of his eyes. It was perfectly collected and rational;-somuch so, indeed, that he felt ashamed of his momentarysuspicion, and drooped his own when Mr Haredale looked towards him,as if he feared they would betray his thoughts.
"Will you walk through the house?" said Mr Haredale, with a glance towards the window, the crazy shutters of which were closed andfastened. "Speak low."
There was a kind of awe about the place, which would have renderedit difficult to speak in any other manner. Gabriel whispered"Yes," and followed him upstairs.
Everything was just as they had seen it last. There was a sense ofcloseness from the exclusion of fresh air, and a gloom andheaviness around, as though long imprisonment had made the verysilence sad. The homely hangings of the beds and windows had begunto droop; the dust lay thick upon their dwindling folds; and dampshad made their way through ceiling, wall, and floor. The boardscreaked beneath their tread, as if resenting the unaccustomedintrusion; nimble spiders, paralysed by the taper"s glare, checkedthe motion of their hundred legs upon the wall, or dropped likelifeless things upon the ground; the death-watch ticked; and thescampering feet of rats and mice rattled behind the wainscot.
As they looked about them on the decaying furniture, it was strangeto find how vividly it presented those to whom it had belonged, andwith whom it was once familiar. Grip seemed to perch again uponhis high-backed chair; Barnaby to crouch in his old favourite corner by the fire; the mother to resume her usual seat, and watchhim as of old. Even when they could separate these objects fromthe phantoms of the mind which they invoked, the latter only glidedout of sight, but lingered near them still; for then they seemed tolurk in closets and behind the doors, ready to start out andsuddenly accost them in well-remembered tones.
They went downstairs, and again into the room they had just nowleft. Mr Haredale unbuckled his sword and laid it on the table,with a pair of pocket pistols; then told the locksmith he wouldlight him to the door.
"But this is a dull place, sir," said Gabriel lingering; "may noone share your watch?"
He shook his head, and so plainly evinced his wish to be alone,that Gabriel could say no more. In another moment the locksmithwas standing in the street, whence he could see that the light oncemore travelled upstairs, and soon returning to the room below,shone brightly through the chinks of the shutters.
If ever man were sorely puzzled and perplexed, the locksmith was,that night. Even when snugly seated by his own fireside, with Mrs Varden opposite in a nightcap and night-jacket, and Dolly besidehim (in a most distracting dishabille) curling her hair, andsmiling as if she had never cried in all her life and never could-eventhen, with Toby at his elbow and his pipe in his mouth, andMiggs (but that perhaps was not much) falling asleep in thebackground, he could not quite discard his wonder and uneasiness.
So in his dreams--still there was Mr Haredale, haggard andcareworn, listening in the solitary house to every sound thatstirred, with the taper shining through the chinks until the dayshould turn it pale and end his lonely watching.