Rumsey

“ Good God, Rumsey, fancy looking at a murder which was committed five years ago! It is going on there now all over again. There stand the two men life-size. Can't we stop them? Can we do nothing?"
"No, it is only a vision," said the doctor; "but tell me exactly what you see."
"It is too marvellous," said Awdrey. "The men move, and I hear the sound of the blows. It is extraordinary how that fellow keeps his back to me. I can't see his face if I stand here. Come, let us go downhill—if we get near the pond we can look up, and I shall get a view of him in another position." ”

“ Rumsey, and the warm friendship that existed between the young scion of the Rumseys and her son Harry, with the decided admiration of the former for her daughter Helen. Poor Mrs. Armitage! she began to think this Mrs. Rumsey was an evil-genius sent to persecute her. She disclaimed all knowledge of her tormentor, and asked Mrs. Leonard how she became known to her.
Her friend replied that she had met Mrs. Rumsey at the house of a friend very frequently, and from her apparent familiar acquaintance with many good families, supposed her to be a desirable visiter. ”

“ There you are again—will no one take the Devil's part? Dr. Rumsey, I firmly believe that it is much owing to your influence that I am now in my sane mind. I believe that it is owing to you that the doom of my house has been lifted from my brain. When I think of the path which you now advocate, I could curse the day when you brought me back to health and sanity. A very little influence on the other side, a mere letting me alone, and I should now either be a madman or in my grave; then I would have carried my secret to the bitter end. ”

“ At a late hour that evening Rumsey and his patient arrived at Grandcourt. A telegram had been sent to announce their visit, and all was in readiness for their reception. The old butler, Hawkins, who had lived in the family for nearly fifty years, came slowly down the steps to greet his master. Hawkins' face was pale, and his eyes dim, as if he had been indulging in silent tears. He was very much attached to little Arthur. Awdrey gave him a careless nod.
"I hope all is in readiness, Hawkins," he said, "I have brought my friend, Dr. Rumsey, with me; we should like supper—has it been prepared?" ”

“ It seems to me as if the stupor of death were creeping up my body, gradually day by day, enfeebling all my powers more and more. Rumsey, who quite understands these symptoms, says that they are grave, but not incurable. He suggests that I should leave London and at once. I propose to take the eight o'clock Continental train. Will you come with me?"
"I?" she cried. "I cannot; our child's little body lies upstairs."
"Why will you annoy me by referring to that delusion of yours? You must know how painful it is to listen to you. Will you come, Maggie?" ”

“ Awdrey approached close to Dr. Rumsey, and stared into his eyes. His own eyes were queer and glittering. He seemed instinctively to feel that he had said too much, for he drew back a step, putting his hand again to his forehead and staring fixedly out into vacancy.
"You believe that I am talking nonsense," he said, after a pause.
"I believe that you are a sad victim to your own nervous fears. You need not go to bed unless you like. Dress yourself and sit here by the fire. You will very likely fall asleep in this arm-chair. I shall remain close to you." ”

“ Our noble association brooks no sticklers, nor cowards neither. What were you going to say?"
"That I hope there's not going to be any—any blood-spilling," said Goodenough in a steadier voice.
"Whose blood?" laughed Rumsey. "Charles's, do you mean?"
"Ah, heaven forbid!" fervently ejaculated Goodenough, "and forgive us the bare thought. Of the guards, I meant, or of any with him."
"That they must take their risk of, pretty dears," sneered Rumsey, "so long only as we secure our Blackbird, and our Chaffinch." ”

“ Rumsey is a very interesting man, Robert. He believed in heredity; who does not? but he also firmly believes that the power of will, rightly exercised, can be more powerful than heredity. Now, I don't mean you to be a victim to that old family failing, so please banish the thought from your mind once and for ever."
Awdrey smiled at her.
"You cheer me," he said. "I am a lucky man to have found such a woman as you to be my wife. You will help to bring forward all that is best in me. Margaret, I feel that through you I shall conquer the curse which lies in my blood."
"There is no curse, Robert. ”

“ At one time Awdrey had been fond of dabbling in art. He sketched a night scene now, with broad effects—a single bar of moonlight lit up everything with vivid distinctness. A man lay on the ground stretched out flat and motionless—another man bent over him in a queer attitude—he held a stick in his hand—he was tall and slender—there was a certain look about his figure! Awdrey dropped his pencil and stared furtively with eyes dilated with horror at his own production. Then he put his sketch face downward on the table, and turned a white and indescribably perplexed countenance to Dr. Rumsey. ”

“ I will promise to look after him. If he does happen to have a bad night I shall be witness to it. Now pray go to bed yourself and enjoy the rest you sorely need."
Margaret tried to smile in reply, but her eyes filled with tears. Rumsey saw them, but Awdrey took no notice—he was staring straight into vacancy, after his habitual fashion.
A moment later he and Rumsey left the house together. Ten minutes afterward Rumsey opened his own door with a latchkey.
"It is late," he said to his guest. He glanced at the clock as he spoke. "At this hour I always indulge in supper—it is waiting for me now. ”

“ Rumsey's lips twitched with the old baleful smile. "There I think you are out, Master Sheriff," he said, as he took the poignard into his hand, and began examining its hilt with a half absent attention. "The puling scruples of a mere handful out of all our forty boys would not go for much;" and he fixed his eyes in a covert glare on Goodenough, who stood thoughtfully gazing into the lamp; "and these must be got rid of, for a 'house divided against itself cannot stand.'"
"'Tis the assassins who must be got rid of," sturdily retorted Goodenough. "For they foully blot our cause." ”

“ Samuel Rumsey, senior, had been a green grocer in an eastern city. He was a thrifty, pains-taking, plain man, who amassed a small fortune by small means. His wife, who was a milliner’s apprentice, never could persuade him to live in any other than the plain manner to which he had always been accustomed. She succeeded, however, in prevailing on him to send his children to fashionable boarding-schools, and upon his death, the delighted widow found herself mistress of her own actions, and a comfortable income. ”

“ Rumsey. "Believe me, my dear sir, the symptoms you have just described are by no means uncommon in the cases of singularly fortunate individuals like yourself. The fact is, you have got too much. You want to empty yourself of some of your abundance in order that contentment and health of mind may flow in."
Awdrey stared at the doctor with lack-lustre eyes. ”

“ The man who is insensate enough not to see the beauty in that woman's face, not to revel in the love she bestows on him—he is a log, not a man—and yet——"
"Are you well?" cried the doctor abruptly. He spoke on purpose with great distinctness, and his words had something the effect of a pistol-shot.
Awdrey sat bolt upright and stared full at him.
"Why do you ask me that question?" he replied, irritation in his tone.
"Because I wish to question you with regard to your health," said Dr. Rumsey. "Whether you feel it or not, you are by no means well."
"Indeed! What do I look like?" ”

“ Her daughters had already vanished, and as for Samuel Rumsey, Esq., he was no where.
Mrs. Armitage was some time in becoming reconciled to the stratagem of Mrs. Grey and Harry, but finding herself no longer haunted by the Rumseys, forgave the two conspirators at last.
The Rumseys found it convenient to leave town immediately. Their furniture was sold—the house rented to another tenant, and “The people who knew every body and whom nobody knew,” ceased to be talked of or remembered. ”

“ He knit his brows.
"If there is any one I love, it is you," he said, "but I do not know that I love any one—it is this inertia, dearest"—he touched his breast—"it buries love beneath it, it buries all emotion. You are not to blame. If I could conquer it my love for you would be as full, as fresh, and strong as ever. Good-by now. Take care of yourself. If those strange symptoms continue pray consult Dr. Rumsey."
He went out of the room.
Margaret was too stricken and stunned to follow him.
A few days later a child's funeral left the house in Seymour Street. ”

“ The two men are fighting. As a rule they stand motionless in the picture, but to-night they seem to have come alive—they struggle, they struggle hard; one stands with his back to me. The face of the other I can recognize distinctly. It is the face of that young fellow who stayed a few years ago at the inn in our village. Ah! yes, of course, I know his name, Frere—Horace Frere. He has met some one on Salisbury Plain. It is night; the moon is hidden behind clouds. Ha! now it comes out. Now I can see them distinctly. Dr. Rumsey, don't you hear the blows? I do. They seem to beat on my brain. ”

“ I then resolved to come to you, and here I am."
"It is good of you, Rumsey, but you can do nothing; I am not really ill. It is simply that something—I have not the faintest idea what—has killed my soul. I believe, before heaven, that I have stated the case in a nutshell. You may be, and doubtless are, a great doctor, but you have not come across living men with dead souls before."
"I have not Awdrey; nor is your soul dead. You state an impossibility."
Awdrey started excitedly. His face, which had been deadly pale, now blazed with animation and color. ”

“ You're a fine shot, and ought to do it at one priming, with such tools as you've got for it; tho' 'tis true you'll be two to one, and your birds have got some blood in them."
"Ay, but their claws will be blunt," laughed Rumsey. "'Tis scarce probable, I mean, that they'll carry so much as a sword between them. They never do."
"Still assistance should be at hand, and close too," said Sir Thomas Armstrong.
Lawrence Lee in the toils. ”

“ But many hundred miles away, in another state, the Rumseys still flourish, and occasionally boast of their charming friend Harry Armitage, and the elegant Mrs. Grey.
Who that mingles in the harlequin crowd of this jostling, restless world, has not known one person at least who might belong to the Rumseys? ”

“ Romsey (usually called Rumsey) is not a good place in which to stay and, apart from the Abbey, is quite uninteresting. In the centre of the town is a statue of Lord Palmerston, who lived at Broadlands, a beautifully situated mansion a short distance away to the south.
A pleasant journey by road or rail can be taken up the valley of the Test between the low chalk hills of Western Hampshire to Stockbridge (or even farther north to Whitchurch or Andover, but these districts must be left until later) . At Mottisfont, four miles from Romsey, was once a priory of Augustinians. ”

“ When he appeared there, the King told him, that nobody suspected him of any design against his person; but that he had good evidence of his being in designs against his government. He was examined upon the information of Rumsey, concerning the meeting at Sheppard's, to which Rumsey pretended to have carried a message, requiring a speedy resolution, and to have received for answer that Mr. Trenchard had failed them at Taunton. Lord Russell totally denied all knowledge of this message. When the examination was finished, Lord Russell was sent a close prisoner to the Tower. ”

“ He is slipping out of life because he has not got grip enough to hold it. Nevertheless, at the present moment, no child could sleep more tranquilly."
The doctor turned off the electric light, and returned to his own bright part of the room. The bed in which Awdrey lay was now in complete shadow. Dr. Rumsey opened a medical treatise, but he did not read. On the contrary, the book lay unnoticed on his knee, while he himself stared into the blaze of the fire—his brows were contracted in anxious thought. He was thinking of the sleeper and his story—of the tragedy which all this meant to Margaret. ”

“ He (Sir William) was born at his father's house, aforesaid, on Monday, the twenty-sixth of May, 1623, eleven hours 42′ 56′′ afternoon. Christened Trinity Sunday.6
Rumsey is a little haven town, and hath most kinds of artificers in it. When he was a boy his greatest delight was to be looking on the artificers, smyths, watchmakers, carpenters, joiners, and at twelve years old he could have worked at any of these trades. Here he went to school, and learned by twelve years a competent smattering of Latin, and was entered into the Greek before he was fifteen. ”

“ The evidence.
"Ay, 'tis indeed," she went on, "and Mistress Ruth has eyes an' ears, an' uses 'em to better purpose than some folks I know"—and she threw a significant glance at her bewildered better half—"as can only stand gaffin' and gawmin' at a body. An' she used 'em to bestest purpose of all, that moment when she hided, poor lamb, inside o' yonder panel that looks into the Warder's Room, an' saw you, Richard Rumsey, commit your foul deed. And so for your witness, if you want one, why here she stands."
"Unbind this young man's arms," said the king. ”