In spite of the tears in your
eyes, you are as angry with me as ever; but don't go to make
mischief between me and Moodie. If you'll say nothing about my
refusing to go with you, I'll milk the cows for you myself
to-night."
"And can you milk?" said I, with some curiosity.
"Milk! Yes; and if I were not so confoundedly low-spirited
and - lazy, I could do a thousand other things too. But now,
don't say a word about it to Moodie."
I made no promise; but my respect for him was not increased by
his cowardly fear of reproof from Moodie, who treated him with
a kindness and consideration which he did not deserve.
The afternoon turned out very wet, and I was sorry that I should be
troubled with his company all day in the house. I was making a shirt
for Moodie from some cotton that had been sent me from home, and he
placed himself by the side of the stove, just opposite, and
continued to regard me for a long time with his usual sullen stare.
I really felt half afraid of him.
"Don't you think me mad!" said he. "I have a brother deranged;
he got a stroke of the sun in India, and lost his senses in
consequence; but sometimes I think it runs in the family."
What answer could I give to this speech, but mere evasive
common-place!
"You won't say what you really think," he continued; "I know you
hate me, and that makes me dislike you. Now what would you say if I
told you I had committed a murder, and that it was the recollection
of that circumstance that made me at times so restless and unhappy?"
I looked up in his face, not knowing what to believe.
"'Tis fact," said he, nodding his head; and I hoped that he would
not go mad, like his brother, and kill me.
"Come, I'll tell you all about it; I know the world would laugh
at me for calling such an act MURDER; and yet I have been such a
miserable man ever since, that I FEEL it was.
"There was a noted leader among the rebel Buenos-Ayreans, whom the
government wanted much to get hold of. He was a fine, dashing,
handsome fellow; I had often seen him, but we never came to close
quarters. One night, I was lying wrapped up in my poncho at the
bottom of my boat, which was rocking in the surf, waiting for two of
my men, who were gone on shore. There came to the shore, this man
and one of his people, and they stood so near the boat, that I could
distinctly hear their conversation. I suppose it was the devil who
tempted me to put a bullet through the man's heart. He was an enemy
to the flag under which I fought, but he was no enemy to me - I had
no right to become his executioner; but still the desire to kill
him, for the mere devilry of the thing, came so strongly upon me
that I no longer tried to resist it. I rose slowly upon my knees;
the moon was shining very bright at the time, both he and his
companion were too earnestly engaged to see me, and I deliberately
shot him through the body. He fell with a heavy groan back into the
water; but I caught the last look he threw upon the moonlight skies
before his eyes glazed in death. Oh, that look! - so full of despair,
of unutterable anguish; it haunts me yet - it will haunt me for ever.
I would not have cared if I had killed him in strife - but in cold
blood, and he so unsuspicious of his doom! Yes, it was murder; I
know by this constant tugging at my heart that it was murder. What
do you say to it?"
"I should think as you do, Mr. Malcolm. It is a terrible thing to
take away the life of a fellow-creature without the least
provocation."
"Ah! I know you would blame me; but he was an enemy after all;
I had a right to kill him; I was hired by the government under
whom I served to kill him; and who shall condemn me?"
"No one more than your own heart."
"It is not the heart, but the brain, that must decide in questions
of right and wrong," said he. "I acted from impulse, and shot that
man; had I reasoned upon it for five minutes, the man would be
living now. But what's done cannot be undone. Did I ever show you
the work I wrote upon South America?"
"Are you an author," said I, incredulously.
"To be sure I am. Murray offered me 100 pounds for my manuscript,
but I would not take it. Shall I read to you some passages from it?"
I am sorry to say that his behaviour in the morning was uppermost
in my thoughts, and I had no repugnance in refusing.
"No, don't trouble yourself. I have the dinner to cook, and the
children to attend to, which will cause a constant interruption;
you had better defer it to some other time."
"I shan't ask you to listen to me again," said he, with a look of
offended vanity; but he went to his trunk, and brought out a large
MS., written on foolscap, which he commenced reading to himself with
an air of great self-importance, glancing from time to time at me,
and smiling disdainfully. Oh, how glad I was when the door opened,
and the return of Moodie broke up this painful tete-a-tete.
From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. The very next day,
Mr. Malcolm made his appearance before me, wrapped in a great-coat
belonging to my husband, which literally came down to his heels.
At this strange apparition, I fell a-laughing.
