  It was long past midnight, and between the small hours that usher in the light of a new day, when the stillness of the mansion on the cliff was broken by a piercing shriek. It was an appalling cry of distress that awoke the slumberers and froze the timid ones to their couches with fear. Mr. Heath sprang from his bed, and ran precipitately to his daughter-in-law's apartment, whence the cry proceeded. Poor Mercedita met him at the door in her night-dress, and in answer to his inquiries pointed in speechless horror at the floor of her dressing-room, where lay stiff and stark the body of her husband! Jack Heath had come home the previous night for the first time since his fortnight's debauch. He was in a shocking condition, with filthy clothes, and a bad bruise over one eye, resulting, doubtless, from a fall. His wife, incensed at his conduct, refused to speak or notice him; and Jack, still tipsily stupid, threw himself on a lounge in the dressing-room to sleep. During the night he awoke; tormented by the "horrors," and thirsting for some stimulating liquid, he seized a crystal flask of cologne that lay on the toilet-table, and drank it to appease the infernal craving that possessed him. The congested condition of his brain, super-excited by this fiery draught, induced apoplexy, and the stroke was fatal. His wife, asleep in the adjoining room, awoke soon after, and not hearing his usual heavy breathing, was much surprised. She imagined he must have left the room, and after waiting awhile, arose from her bed, went into the dressing-room, where there was a dim light burning, and found that he had fallen from the lounge and lay on the floor. She shook him without effect; raised his arm—it fell rigidly. She tried to arouse him, called him loudly, but the dull ear heard not, for the sleep that bound him knew no waking; and then, as the truth flashed on her, with a shriek she summoned the household. They led her away, agitated, probably, more by terror than grief, but Mr. Heath remained gazing at the corpse of his only son. What a spectacle to meet a father's eye was this inert bulk, repulsive with the stigmas of dissipation fresh upon it! In the middle ages the heir of the house fell in battle, killed perhaps by the shot of an arquebuse or the blow of a partisan; or he met his death in some midnight encounter, and was brought home with a broken rapier and doublet dripping with blood—there is romance in that. But now he falls a victim to the bottle, and furnishes but a vulgar theme. Nevertheless the drama is none the less real. Mr. Heath's contemplation was sad, but full of worldly reasoning. The curse of unearned wealth, he mused, has fallen on my son. Had he been the child of a bricklayer or born to labor, he would have been alive now; or had not the blood of the Obershaws with its coarse appetites, predominated, he might have been an honor to me. Unmoved remained Mr. Heath as he philosophized thus, until the sight of his daughter's emotion, as she covered her dead brother's face with tears and kisses, stirred the parent within him, and his eyes clouded and cold features relaxed. Another funeral, another solemn procession to the tolling of the bell of St. Jude's, and the body of John Peter Heath was laid beside that of his grandsire in the family vault, in the yard of the little church. |
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