“That is John’s voice,” said the dying man; and the little kindness he
had ever shewed this unfortunate lad rushed on his hard heart at this
moment, and touched it. He saw himself, too, surrounded by heartless and
rapacious menials; and slight as must have been his dependence on a
relative whom he had always treated as a stranger, he felt at this hour
he was no stranger, and grasped at his support like a straw amid his
wreck. “John, my good boy, you are there.--I kept you far from me when
living, and now you are nearest me when dying.--John, _read on_.” John,
affected deeply by the situation in which he beheld this _poor man_,
amid all his wealth, as well as by the solemn request to impart
consolation to his dying moments, read on;--but in a short time his
voice became indistinct, from the horror with which he listened to the
increasing hiccup of the patient, which, however, he struggled with from
time to time, to ask the housekeeper if _the niggers were closed_. John,
who was a lad of feeling, rose from his knees in some degree of
agitation. “What, are you leaving me like the rest?” said old Melmoth,
trying to raise himself in the bed. “No, Sir,” said John; “but,”
observing the altered looks of the dying man, “I think you want some
refreshment, some support, Sir.” “Aye, I do, I do, but whom can I trust
to get it for me. _They_, (and his haggard eye wandered round the
groupe), _they_ would poison me.” “Trust me, Sir,” said John; “I will go
to the apothecary’s, or whoever you may employ.” The old man grasped his
hand, drew him close to his bed, cast a threatening yet fearful eye
round the party, and then whispered in a voice of agonized constraint,
“I want a glass of wine, it would keep me alive for some hours, but
there is not one I can trust to get it for me,--_they’d steal a bottle,
and ruin me_.” John was greatly shocked. “Sir, for God’s sake, let _me_
get a glass of wine for you.” “Do you know where?” said the old man,
with an expression in his face John could not understand. “No, Sir; you
know I have been rather a stranger here, Sir.” “Take this key,” said old
Melmoth, after a violent spasm; “take this key, there is wine in that
closet,--_Madeira_. I always told them there was nothing there, but they
did not believe me, or I should not have been robbed as I have been. At
one time I said it was whiskey, and then I fared worse than ever, for
they drank twice as much of it.”

John took the key from his uncle’s hand; the dying man pressed it as he
did so, and John, interpreting this as a mark of kindness, returned the
pressure. He was undeceived by the whisper that followed,--“John, my
lad, don’t drink any of that wine while you are there.” “Good God!” said
John, indignantly throwing the key on the bed; then, recollecting that
the miserable being before him was no object of resentment, he gave the
promise required, and entered the closet, which no foot but that of old
Melmoth had entered for nearly sixty years. He had some difficulty in
finding out the wine, and indeed staid long enough to justify his
uncle’s suspicions,--but his mind was agitated, and his hand unsteady. He could not but remark his uncle’s extraordinary look, that had the
ghastliness of fear superadded to that of death, as he gave him
permission to enter his closet. He could not but see the looks of horror
which the women exchanged as he approached it. And, finally, when he was
in it, his memory was malicious enough to suggest some faint traces of a
story, too horrible for imagination, connected with it. He remembered in
one moment most distinctly, that no one but his uncle had ever been
known to enter it for many years. Before he quitted it, he held up the dim light, and looked around him
with a mixture of terror and curiosity. There was a great deal of
decayed and useless lumber, such as might be supposed to be heaped up to
rot in a miser’s closet; but John’s eyes were in a moment, and as if by
magic, rivetted on a portrait that hung on the wall, and appeared, even
to his untaught eye, far superior to the tribe of family pictures that
are left to moulder on the walls of a family mansion. It represented a
man of middle age. There was nothing remarkable in the costume, or in
the countenance, but _the eyes_, John felt, were such as one feels they
wish they had never seen, and feels they can never forget. Had he been
acquainted with the poetry of Southey, he might have often exclaimed in
his after-life,

    “Only the eyes had life,
     They gleamed with demon light.”--THALABA. From an impulse equally resistless and painful, he approached the
portrait, held the candle towards it, and could distinguish the words on
the border of the painting,--Jno. Melmoth, anno 1646. John was neither
timid by nature, or nervous by constitution, or superstitious from
habit, yet he continued to gaze in stupid horror on this singular
picture, till, aroused by his uncle’s cough, he hurried into his room. The old man swallowed the wine. He appeared a little revived; it was
long since he had tasted such a cordial,--his heart appeared to expand
to a momentary confidence. “John, what did you see in that room?”
“Nothing, Sir.” “That’s a lie; every one wants to cheat or to rob me.”
“Sir, I don’t want to do either.” “Well, what did you see that you--you
took notice of?” “Only a picture, Sir.” “A picture, Sir!--the original
is still alive.” John, though under the impression of his recent
feelings, could not but look incredulous. “John,” whispered his
uncle;--“John, they say I am dying of this and that; and one says it is
for want of nourishment, and one says it is for want of medicine,--but,
John,” and his face looked hideously ghastly, “I am dying of a fright. That man,” and he extended his meagre arm toward the closet, as if he
was pointing to a living being; “that man, I have good reason to know,
is alive still.” “How is that possible, Sir?” said John involuntarily,
“the date on the picture is 1646.” “You have seen it,--you have noticed
it,” said his uncle. “Well,”--he rocked and nodded on his bolster for a
moment, then, grasping John’s hand with an unutterable look, he
exclaimed, “You will see him again, he is alive.” Then, sinking back on
his bolster, he fell into a kind of sleep or stupor, his eyes still
open, and fixed on John. The house was now perfectly silent, and John had time and space for
reflection. More thoughts came crowding on him than he wished to
welcome, but they would not be repulsed. He thought of his uncle’s
habits and character, turned the matter over and over again in his mind,
and he said to himself, “The last man on earth to be superstitious. He
never thought of any thing but the price of stocks, and the rate of
exchange, and my college expences, that hung heavier at his heart than
all; and such a man to die of a fright,--a ridiculous fright, that a man
living 150 years ago is alive still, and yet--he is dying.” John paused,
for facts will confute the most stubborn logician.