Joseph Wilmot, or, The Memoirs of a Man-Servant — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

pn a ee eee thoroughly secured. I was more than half- | wrenched away. It was clear that a burglary had | 24 JOSEPH WILMOT; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A MAN-SERVANT. inclined to rise, seek his chamber, and tell him} been effected. The butler’s pantry was immedi- what I had heard: but I feared to disturb the | ately flown to: the door was broken open, and household for nothing. Besides, I reasoned to | whatsoeyer plate had been left there was carried myself that if any evil-disposed persons were about | off. The bulk of the plate, however, was inyaria- the premises, they would not prosecute their | bly taken up-stairs at night, and only a sufficiency design after the occurrence of a sound so well cal- | left out for the family use. ,A farther search culated to attract the notice of any inmate who | showed how the burglarious murderers had effected might not be asleep: while, on the other hand, if | their departure,—the gate at the servants’ entrance their design were already accomplished and the | having been burst open from the inside ; so that the house was already plundered, it was too late to | presumption was they had in the first instance guard against it. I lay awake for two or three | scaled the wall to accomplish their entry, but had hours, in a condition of feverish neryvousness,— | subsequently availed themselves of the easier me- despairing of being able to woo slumber again: | thod of the gate to issue forth when their work of but it nevertheless stole back upon me—and I slept | plunder and assassination was completed. The ser- till morning was considerably advanced. My usual | vants who discovered these evidences, supposed habit was to rise at six o’clock: I was fond of | that the crime had been limited to mere robbery ; being out early in the fresh air in the fine | and Edward hastened up-stairs to inform his mas- Season of the year;—but on this occasion | ter of what had taken place. He knocked at the it was close on seven ere I opened my eyes. I} door—but no answer was returned: he knocked thought, as I rose and dressed myself, of all that I | again—and, still as no reply was given, some dread- had dreamt, imagined, and heard during the past | ful suspicion flashed to his mind amidst his already night; and I had not finished my toilet when it | excited thoughts. For Mr. Delmar was habitually struck me that considerable noise and confusion | an early riser; and even if he were sleeping later Was going on in the house, with persons rushing to | than usual on this particular morning, Edward had and fro: then, all of a sudden, a piercing scream in | never before known him so difficult to awaken. a female voice rang through the mansion. I felt | He accordingly entered the room,—when a ghastly convinced that those rending accents of ineffable | spectacle burst upon his appalled and horrified anguish came from the lips of Miss Edith; and I| view. His unfortunate master lay stretched in the was smitten with the most awful misgiving.| bed, with his throat cut from ear to ear,—the Footsteps were now heard rushing towards my | sheets and the pillows saturated with blood. Rush- chamber—the door burst open—and Edward, pale | ing wildly from the room, Edward’s looks indi- as death, and his features convulsed with horror, | cated something dreadful to those who had fol- made his appearance, exclaiming, ‘Oh! Joseph, | lowed him up to the landing; and before a word Joseph—our dear master ‘ issued from his lips, the truth was suspected. In But he could not finish the sentence—and stag- | a few moments it was but too fully confirmed, as gered back against the wall, as if about to faint. | some of the servants made their way into the *“ Good heavens !”’ I exclaimed, more than half-| chamber, to which the horror-stricken Edward anticipating the dreadful truth: “what is it? Our | pointed with excited significancy. At that instant dear master ‘i | Miss Edith, hearing the noise and confusion on “Murdered, Joseph — murdered! barbarously | the landing, issued from her own room; and when the terrific tragedy burst upon her knowledge, the anguish of her soul thrilled forth in that rending shriek which I had heard and which had pierced my brain. She was borne back to her chamber in a state of hysterical frenzy; and the reader may imagine the amount of mingled confusion, horror, grief, and dismay which prevailed throughout the household. When our feelings were somewhat composed, — murdered !” I sank upon a chair as if annihilated. At first I could not even weep, nor give utterance to a word: I seemed petrified as to all vital power; and yet with a horrible sense of anguish burning within,—just as if I were converted into marble, but yet preserving the faculties of mind with a frightful vividness. Edward, recovering himself, darted wildly away, scarcely knowing (as he sub- sequently said) what he was doing, but thinking | or rather, when the first paroxysm of scarcely de- that nevertheless there was something to be done. | scribable emotions had a little subsided,—the tra- I know not exactly how long I remained in that gedy began to be spoken of in low shuddering extraordinary state of physical numbness and men- | whispers amongst the domestics. For some time tal keenness—nor how I got down stairs to the | however—at least an hour—I was so overwhelmed storey below,—whether I walked slowly or rushed | with grief and dismay at the barbarous murder of precipitately: but I found myself amidst a throng | my kind benefactor, that I was incapable of deli- of horrified domestics on the landing whence Mr. | berate reflection. My mind alternated between Deimar’s chamber and likewise that of Miss | intervals of stupefaction and fits of inconsolable Edith opened. That shriek—that piercing, pene- | grief. At length, as I heard the servants conyers- trating, rending shriek, which reached my ears— | ing around me, I mentioned the circumstance of had thrilled from the lips of the poor young lady | seeing the two persons near the gate on the pre- when the awfal catastrophe burst upon her. But | ceding evening—and likewise that of hearing in let me explain how the atrocious deed first became | the night the sound of the gate closing. Edward known. corroborated the fact of my having mentioned to It appeared that some of the servants, who were | him the incident of the two men: but when I was the first to descend that morning, about half-past | now asked—and indeed earnestly pressed, to reflect six o'clock, were surprised and alarmed at finding | well whether I could give anything like a definite the shutter of one of the lower back windows open, | description of those persons, I assured my fellow- ' ' and two of the iron bars belonging to that window | servants that so far from being enabled to do so, I gc ee EORMIC OOOKSse (0)