The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices

‘He stood still, with his bill-hook in his hand, looking at the young man.  For, the young man’s look was the counterpart of her last look, and he had not expected ever to see that again.

‘“I am no thief.  Even if I were, I would not have a coin of your wealth, if it would buy me the Indies.  You murderer!”

‘“What!”

‘“I climbed it,” said the young man, pointing up into the tree, “for the first time, nigh four years ago.  I climbed it, to look at her.  I saw her.  I spoke to her.  I have climbed it, many a time, to watch and listen for her.  I was a boy, hidden among its leaves, when from that bay-window she gave me this!”

‘He showed a tress of flaxen hair, tied with a mourning ribbon.

‘“Her life,” said the young man, “was a life of mourning.  She gave me this, as a token of it, and a sign that she was dead to every one but you.  If I had been older, if I had seen her sooner, I might have saved her from you.  But, she was fast in the web when I first climbed the tree, and what could I do then to break it!”

‘In saying those words, he burst into a fit of sobbing and crying: weakly at first, then passionately.

‘“Murderer!  I climbed the tree on the night when you brought her back.  I heard her, from the tree, speak of the Death-watch at the door.  I was three times in the tree while you were shut up with her, slowly killing her.  I saw her, from the tree, lie dead upon her bed.  I have watched you, from the tree, for proofs and traces of your guilt.  The manner of it, is a mystery to me yet, but I will pursue you until you have rendered up your life to the hangman.  You shall never, until then, be rid of me.  I loved her!  I can know no relenting towards you.  Murderer, I loved her!”

‘The youth was bare-headed, his hat having fluttered away in his descent from the tree.  He moved towards the gate.  He had to pass—Him—to get to it.  There was breadth for two old-fashioned carriages abreast; and the youth’s abhorrence, openly expressed in every feature of his face and limb of his body, and very hard to bear, had verge enough to keep itself at a distance in.  He (by which I mean the other) had not stirred hand or foot, since he had stood still to look at the boy.  He faced round, now, to follow him with his eyes.  As the back of the bare light-brown head was turned to him, he saw a red curve stretch from his hand to it.  He knew, before he threw the bill-hook, where it had alighted—I say, had alighted, and not, would alight; for, to his clear perception the thing was done before he did it.  It cleft the head, and it remained there, and the boy lay on his face.

‘He buried the body in the night, at the foot of the tree.  As soon as it was light in the morning, he worked at turning up all the ground near the tree, and hacking and hewing at the neighbouring bushes and undergrowth.  When the labourers came, there was nothing suspicious, and nothing suspected.

‘But, he had, in a moment, defeated all his precautions, and destroyed the triumph of the scheme he had so long concerted, and so successfully worked out.  He had got rid of the Bride, and had acquired her fortune without endangering his life; but now, for a death by which he had gained nothing, he had evermore to live with a rope around his neck.

‘Beyond this, he was chained to the house of gloom and horror, which he could not endure.  Being afraid to sell it or to quit it, lest discovery should be made, he was forced to live in it.  He hired two old people, man and wife, for his servants; and dwelt in it, and dreaded it.  His great difficulty, for a long time, was the garden.  Whether he should keep it trim, whether he should suffer it to fall into its former state of neglect, what would be the least likely way of attracting attention to it?

‘He took the middle course of gardening, himself, in his evening leisure, and of then calling the old serving-man to help him; but, of never letting him work there alone.  And he made himself an arbour over against the tree, where he could sit and see that it was safe.

‘As the seasons changed, and the tree changed, his mind perceived dangers that were always changing.  In the leafy time, he perceived that the upper boughs were growing into the form of the young man—that they made the shape of him exactly, sitting in a forked branch swinging in the wind.  In the time of the falling leaves, he perceived that they came down from the tree, forming tell-tale letters on the path, or that they had a tendency to heap themselves into a churchyard mound above the grave.  In the winter, when the tree was bare, he perceived that the boughs swung at him the ghost of the blow the young man had given, and that they threatened him openly.  In the spring, when the sap was mounting in the trunk, he asked himself, were the dried-up particles of blood mounting with it: to make out more obviously this year than last, the leaf-screened figure of the young man, swinging in the wind?