Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from scanned images of public domain
material from the Google Print project.)









                             GREAT GHOST STORIES

                                 SELECTED BY
                             JOSEPH LEWIS FRENCH

                             WITH A FOREWORD BY
                           JAMES H. HYSLOP, LL.D.
               Secretary of the Society for Psychical Research

    NEW YORK
    DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
    1918

    COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
    DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.




FOREWORD


Ghost stories lend themselves well to fiction. They leave the
imagination entirely free. In ordinary fiction, especially of the
realistic type, we expect some concessions to be made to facts but when
it comes to a ghost story we assign no limits to the imagination. This
is because the supernatural world offers us no standards for curbing our
fancy. Icarus is given impunity in that atmosphere and there is no sun
to melt his wings. Whatever our wishes, we do not expect ghosts to be
real, and we are fancy free to invent or distort as we may. But in the
twilight of human knowledge it was not thus. The boundaries of the real
and the unreal were undefined and the belief in the supernatural, while
it allowed the imagination free reins, revealed little difference
between its creations and the ideas men held of the actual world. In
this overlapping of the real and the imaginary, the ghost story arose
and has never lost its interest for men, though the cold judgment of
science deprived the real thing of its terrors.

As knowledge increased and extended its domain ghosts were reduced to
hallucinations, much to the disappointment of lovers of the marvellous,
and cultivated minds could only toy with them as objects either of
literary fancy or of amusement against their less fortunate neighbours
who desired to believe in them. Intellectuals who came into contact
with stories like those in the _Phantasms of the Living_, indulgently
spoke of them with a mixture of humour and tolerance which prevented
them from either believing or denying them. But writers of fiction had
no responsibilities and were not judged by the standards of either
belief or unbelief, while the general public followed its tastes and
imagination, chafed under the restraints of scepticism, and chose the
easy road to satisfaction.

In the present age, which is saturated with psychic research, whatever
the motive or outcome of that movement, ghost stories have been revived
partly because you can invoke interest under the cloak of science and
partly because of an interest in the unknown and the desire to please
our fancies, and fiction, which is art and not science, can escape the
duty of preaching. The psychologist, however, may detect a concealed
realism in the most audacious feats of the imagination or an interest in
the supernatural when the mind struggles to conceal or to ridicule it.
Hence a collection of ghost stories, whatever their nature, may have
their value for every class of readers. Some will want to invoke age and
general human interest in behalf of certain prejudices, and others will
want to quote them as illustrations of superstition. But all will like a
good story well told and appealing to the imagination which always
affords mankind more satisfaction than facts.

Besides a collection of them may reveal disguises which science may
uncover, however deeply concealed by the respectability that will not
offend science, or by the ignorance which suspects that there is more
in them than is dreamt of in our philosophy. At any rate, we may read
them without demanding that they shall conform to our sense of reality
and without expecting science to restrain the imagination. In other
words, literature and its artistic interests will excuse us for an
interest in them while science will not hold us accountable for any
indulgence of that interest. If the knowing can penetrate the veil and
discover any truth in them far beyond the ken of ordinary mortals, all
others may complacently enjoy the illusion that they are superior to
both science and superstition. With Macaulay literature was more than
the consolations of philosophy. This was because philosophy has only to
be true while literature has only to please. Or is it because literature
is nearer the truth and can please at the same time? Perhaps in this age
when we are beginning to break down the barriers which science has set
to the imagination, and this by an expansion of science itself, which is
the Nemesis of its own prejudices and arbitrarily imposed limits, we may
find the salvation of both the intellect and the will. However this may
be, with apparitions as a proved fact, and on any theory not due to
chance in all instances, the fancies of the past may prove to have been
founded in fact, however dressed to suit the purposes of literary art.

JAMES H. HYSLOP.

NEW YORK, _September_ 15, 1917.




CONTENTS


    PAGE

    FOREWORD.                         James H. Hyslop                  v

    THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN.          Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton        1

    THE ROLL-CALL OF THE REEF.        A. T. Quiller-Couch             38

    THE OPEN DOOR.                    Mrs. Margaret Oliphant          62

    THE DESERTED HOUSE.               Ernest Theodor Amadeus
                                      Hoffmann                       115

    THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH.            Erckmann-Chatrian              143

    GREEN BRANCHES.                   Fiona Macleod                  166

    THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS.         Amelia B. Edwards              187

    THE WERE-WOLF.                    H. B. Marryatt                 221

    THE WITHERED ARM.                 Thomas Hardy                   246

    CLARIMONDE.                       Théophile Gautier              281

    THE STALLS OF BARCHESTER          Montague Rhodes James          324
    CATHEDRAL.

    WHAT WAS IT?                      Fitz-James O'Brien             346




GREAT GHOST STORIES




THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN

LORD EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON


A friend of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said to me
one day, as if between jest and earnest: "Fancy! since we last met, I
have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London."

"Really haunted?--and by what--ghosts?"

"Well, I can't answer that question; all I know is this: six weeks ago
my wife and I were in search of a furnished apartment. Passing a quiet
street, we saw on the window of one of the houses a bill, 'Apartments,
Furnished.' The situation suited us: we entered the house--liked the
rooms--engaged them by the week--and left them the third day. No power
on earth could have reconciled my wife to stay longer; and I don't
wonder at it."

"What did you see?"

"It was not so much what we saw or heard that drove us away, as it was
an undefinable terror which seized both of us whenever we passed by the
door of a certain unfurnished room, in which we neither saw nor heard
anything. Accordingly, on the fourth morning I summoned the woman who
kept the house and attended on us, and told her that the rooms did not
quite suit us, and we would not stay out our week. She said, dryly: 'I
know why; you have stayed longer than any other lodger. Few ever stayed
a second night; none before you a third. But I take it they have been
very kind to you.'

"'They--who?' I asked, affecting to smile.

"'Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are. I don't mind them; I
remember them many years ago, when I lived in this house, not as a
servant; but I know they will be the death of me some day. I don't
care--I'm old, and must die soon anyhow; and then I shall be with them,
and in this house still.' The woman spoke with so dreary a calmness that
really it was a sort of awe that prevented my conversing with her
further. I paid for my week, and too happy were my wife and I to get off
so cheaply."

"You excite my curiosity," said I; "nothing I should like better than to
sleep in a haunted house. Pray give me the address of the one which you
left so ignominiously."

My friend gave me the address; and when we parted, I walked straight
toward the house thus indicated.

It is situated on the north side of Oxford Street, in a dull but
respectable thoroughfare. I found the house shut up--no bill at the
window, and no response to my knock. As I was turning away, a beer-boy,
collecting pewter pots at the neighbouring areas, said to me, "Do you
want any one at that house, sir?"

"Yes, I heard it was to be let."

"Let!--Mr. J. offered mother, who chars for him, a pound a week just to
open and shut the windows, and she would not."

"Would not!--and why?"

"The house is haunted; and the old woman who kept it was found dead in
her bed, with her eyes wide open. They say the devil strangled her."

"Pooh!--you speak of Mr. J----. Is he the owner of the house?"

"Yes."

"Where does he live?"

"In G---- Street, No. --."

I gave the pot-boy the gratuity earned by his liberal information, and I
was lucky enough to find Mr. J---- at home--an elderly man, with
intelligent countenance and prepossessing manners.

I communicated my name and my business frankly. I said I heard the house
was considered to be haunted--that I had a strong desire to examine a
house with so equivocal a reputation--that I should be greatly obliged
if he would allow me to hire it, though only for a night. I was willing
to pay for that privilege whatever he might be inclined to ask. "Sir,"
said Mr. J----, with great courtesy, "the house is at your service, for
as short or as long a time as you please. Rent is out of the question.
The poor old woman who died in it three weeks ago was a pauper whom I
took out of a workhouse, for in her childhood she had been known to some
of my family, and had once been in such good circumstances that she had
rented that house of my uncle. She was a woman of superior education and
strong mind, and was the only person I could ever induce to remain in
the house. Indeed, since her death, which was sudden, and the coroner's
inquest which gave it a notoriety in the neighbourhood, I have so
despaired of finding any person to take charge of the house, much more a
tenant, that I would willingly let it rent free for a year to any one
who would pay its rates and taxes."

"How long is it since the house acquired this sinister character?"

"That I can scarcely tell you, but very many years since. The old woman
I spoke of said it was haunted when she rented it between thirty and
forty years ago. I never had one lodger who stayed more than three days.
I do not tell you their stories--to no two lodgers have there been
exactly the same phenomena repeated. It is better that you should judge
for yourself than enter the house with an imagination influenced by
previous narratives; only be prepared to see and to hear something or
other, and take whatever precautions you yourself please."

"Have you never had a curiosity yourself to pass a night in that house?"

"Yes. I passed not a night, but three hours in broad daylight alone in
that house. My curiosity is not satisfied, but it is quenched. I have no
desire to renew the experiment. You can not complain, you see, sir, that
I am not sufficiently candid; and unless your interest be exceedingly
eager and your nerves unusually strong, I honestly add, that I advise
you _not_ to pass a night in that house."

"My interest _is_ exceedingly keen," said I, "and though only a coward
will boast of his nerves in situations wholly unfamiliar to him, yet my
nerves have been seasoned in such variety of danger that I have the
right to rely on them--even in a haunted house."

Mr. J---- said very little more; he took the keys of his house out of
his bureau, gave them to me--and, thanking him cordially for his
frankness, and his urbane concession to my wish, I carried off my prize.

Impatient for the experiment, as soon as I reached home, I summoned my
confidential servant--a young man of gay spirits, fearless temper, and
as free from superstitious prejudice as any one I could think of.

"F----," said I, "you remember in Germany how disappointed we were at
not finding a ghost in that old castle, which was said to be haunted by
a headless apparition? Well, I have heard of a house in London which, I
have reason to hope, is decidedly haunted. I mean to sleep there
tonight. From what I hear, there is no doubt that something will allow
itself to be seen or to be heard--something perhaps, excessively
horrible. Do you think, if I take you with me, I may rely on your
presence of mind, whatever may happen?"

"Oh, sir! pray trust me," answered F----, grinning with delight.

"Very well; then here are the keys of the house--this is the address. Go
now--select for me any bedroom you please; and since the house has not
been inhabited for weeks make up a good fire--air the bed well--see, of
course, that there are candles as well as fuel. Take with you my
revolver and my dagger--so much for my weapons--arm yourself equally
well; and if we are not a match for a dozen ghosts we shall be but a
sorry couple of Englishmen."

I was engaged for the rest of the day on business so urgent that I had
not leisure to think much on the nocturnal adventure to which I had
plighted my honour. I dined alone, and very late, and while dining read,
as is my habit. I selected one of the volumes of Macaulay's essays. I
thought to myself that I would take the book with me; there was so much
of healthfulness in the style and practical life in the subjects, that
it would serve as an antidote against the influence of superstitious
fancy.

Accordingly, about half-past nine, I put the book into my pocket and
strolled leisurely toward the haunted house. I took with me a favourite
dog--an exceedingly sharp, bold, and vigilant bull-terrier--a dog fond
of prowling about strange ghostly corners and passages at night in
search of rats--a dog of dogs for a ghost.

It was a summer night, but chilly, the sky somewhat gloomy and overcast.
Still there was a moon--faint and sickly, but still a moon--and, if the
clouds permitted after midnight it would be brighter.

I reached the house, knocked, and my servant opened the door with a
cheerful smile.

"All right, sir, and very comfortable."

"Oh!" said I, rather disappointed; "have you not seen nor heard anything
remarkable?"

"Well, sir, I must own I have heard something queer."

"What?--what?"

"The sound of feet pattering behind me; and once or twice small noises
like whispers close at my ear--nothing more."

"You are not at all frightened?"

"I! not a bit of it, sir;" and the man's bold look reassured me on one
point--viz.: that happen what might, he would not desert me.

We were in the hall, the street door closed, and my attention was now
drawn to my dog. He had at first run in eagerly enough but had sneaked
back to the door, and was scratching and whining to get out. After
patting him on the head, and encouraging him gently, the dog seemed to
reconcile himself to the situation and followed me and F---- through the
house, but keeping close at my heels instead of hurrying inquisitively
in advance, which was his usual and normal habit in all strange places.
We first visited the subterranean apartments, the kitchen, and other
offices, and especially the cellars in which last there were two or
three bottles of wine still left in a bin, covered with cobwebs, and
evidently, by their appearance, undisturbed for many years. It was clear
that the ghosts were not wine-bibbers. For the rest, we discovered
nothing of interest. There was a gloomy little back-yard, with very
high walls. The stones of this yard were very damp; and what with the
damp, and what with the dust and smoke-grime on the pavement, our feet
left a slight impression where we passed. And now appeared the first
strange phenomenon witnessed by myself in this strange abode. I saw,
just before me, the print of a foot suddenly form itself, as it were. I
stopped, caught hold of my servant, and pointed to it. In advance of
that footprint as suddenly dropped another. We both saw it. I advanced
quickly to the place; the footprint kept advancing before me, a small
footprint--the foot of a child; the impression was too faint thoroughly
to distinguish the shape, but it seemed to us both that it was the print
of a naked foot.

This phenomenon ceased when we arrived at the opposite wall, nor did it
repeat itself on returning. We remounted the stairs, and entered the
rooms on the ground floor, a dining-parlour, a small back-parlour, and a
still smaller third room that had been probably appropriated to a
footman--all still as death. We then visited the drawing-rooms, which
seemed fresh and new. In the front room I seated myself in an armchair.
F---- placed on the table the candlestick with which he had lighted us.
I told him to shut the door. As he turned to do so, a chair opposite to
me moved from the wall quickly and noiselessly, and dropped itself about
a yard from my own, immediately fronting it.

"Why, this is better than the turning-tables," said I, with a
half-laugh; and as I laughed, my dog put back his head and howled.

F----, coming back, had not observed the movement of the chair. He
employed himself now in stilling the dog. I continued to gaze on the
chair, and fancied I saw on it a pale blue misty outline of a human
figure, but an outline so indistinct that I could only distrust my own
vision. The dog was now quiet.

"Put back that chair opposite to me," said I to F----; "put it back to
the wall."

F---- obeyed. "Was that you, sir?" said he, turning abruptly.

"I!--what?"

"Why, something struck me. I felt it sharply on the shoulder--just
here."

"No," said I. "But we have jugglers present, and though we may not
discover their tricks, we shall catch them before they frighten us."

We did not stay long in the drawing-rooms--in fact, they felt so damp
and so chilly that I was glad to get to the fire upstairs. We locked the
doors of the drawing-rooms--a precaution which, I should observe, we had
taken with all the rooms we had searched below. The bedroom my servant
had selected for me was the best on the floor--a large one, with two
windows fronting the street. The four-posted bed, which took up no
inconsiderable space, was opposite to the fire, which burnt clear and
bright; a door in the wall to the left, between the bed and the window,
communicated with the room which my servant appropriated to himself.
This last was a small room with a sofa-bed, and had no communication
with the landing-place--no other door but that which conducted to the
bedroom I was to occupy. On either side of my fireplace was a cupboard,
without locks, flush with the wall, and covered with the same dull-brown
paper. We examined these cupboards--only hooks to suspend female
dresses--nothing else; we sounded the walls--evidently solid--the outer
walls of the building. Having finished the survey of these apartments,
warmed myself a few moments, and lighted my cigar, I then, still
accompanied by F----, went forth to complete my reconnoitre. In the
landing-place there was another door; it was closed firmly. "Sir," said
my servant, in surprise, "I unlocked this door with all the others when
I first came; it can not have got locked from the inside, for----"

Before he had finished his sentence, the door, which neither of us then
was touching, opened quietly of itself. We looked at each other a single
instant. The same thought seized both--some human agency might be
detected here. I rushed in first--my servant followed. A small blank
dreary room without furniture--a few empty boxes and hampers in a
corner--a small window--the shutters closed--not even a fireplace--no
other door but that by which we had entered--no carpet on the floor, and
the floor seemed very old, uneven, worm-eaten, mended here and there, as
was shown by the whiter patches on the wood; but no living being, and no
visible place in which a living being could have hidden. As we stood
gazing around, the door by which we had entered closed as quietly as it
had before opened; we were imprisoned.

For the first time I felt a creep of undefinable horror. Not so my
servant. "Why, they don't think to trap us, sir; I could break that
trumpery door with a kick of my foot."

"Try first if it will open to your hand," said I, shaking off the vague
apprehension that had seized me, "while I unclose the shutters and see
what is without."

I unbarred the shutters--the window looked on the little back-yard I
have before described; there was no ledge without--nothing to break the
sheer descent of the wall. No man getting out of that window would have
found any footing till he had fallen on the stones below.

F----, meanwhile, was vainly attempting to open the door. He now turned
round to me and asked my permission to use force. And I should here
state, in justice to the servant, that far from evincing any
superstitious terrors, his nerve, composure, and even gaiety amid
circumstances so extraordinary, compelled my admiration, and made me
congratulate myself on having secured a companion in every way fitted to
the occasion. I willingly gave him the permission he required. But
though he was a remarkably strong man, his force was as idle as his
milder efforts; the door did not even shake to his stoutest kick.
Breathless and panting, he desisted. I then tried the door myself,
equally in vain. As I ceased from the effort, again that creep of horror
came over me; but this time it was more cold and stubborn. I felt as if
some strange and ghastly exhalation were rising up from the chinks of
that rugged floor, and filling the atmosphere with a venomous influence
hostile to human life. The door now very slowly and quietly opened as of
its own accord. We precipitated ourselves into the landing-place. We
both saw a large pale light--as large as the human figure, but shapeless
and unsubstantial--move before us, and ascend the stairs that led from
the landing into the attic. I followed the light, and my servant
followed me. It entered to the right of the landing, a small garret, of
which the door stood open. I entered in the same instant. The light then
collapsed into a small globule, exceedingly brilliant and vivid; rested
a moment on a bed in the corner, quivered, and vanished. We approached
the bed and examined it--a half-tester, such as is commonly found in
attics devoted to servants. On the drawers that stood near it we
perceived an old faded silk handkerchief, with the needle still left in
a rent half repaired. The kerchief was covered with dust; probably it
had belonged to the old woman who had last died in that house, and this
might have been her sleeping-room. I had sufficient curiosity to open
the drawers: there were a few odds and ends of female dress, and two
letters tied round with a narrow ribbon of faded yellow. I took the
liberty to possess myself of the letters. We found nothing else in the
room worth noticing--nor did the light reappear; but we distinctly
heard, as we turned to go, a pattering footfall on the floor--just
before us. We went through the other attics (in all four), the footfall
still preceding us. Nothing to be seen--nothing but the footfall heard.
I had the letters in my hand: just as I was descending the stairs I
distinctly felt my wrist seized, and a faint soft effort made to draw
the letters from my clasp. I only held them the more tightly, and the
effort ceased.

We regained the bed-chamber appropriated to myself, and I then remarked
that my dog had not followed us when we had left it. He was thrusting
himself close to the fire, and trembling. I was impatient to examine the
letters; and while I read them, my servant opened a little box in which
he had deposited the weapons I had ordered him to bring; took them out,
placed them on a table close at my bed-head, and he occupied himself in
soothing the dog, who, however, seemed to heed him very little.

The letters were short--they were dated; the dates exactly thirty-five
years ago. They were evidently from a lover to his mistress, or a
husband to some young wife. Not only the terms of expression, but a
distinct reference to a former voyage, indicated the writer to have been
a seafarer. The spelling and handwriting were those of a man imperfectly
educated, but still the language itself was forcible. In the expressions
of endearment there was a kind of rough wild love; but here and there
were dark unintelligible hints at some secret not of love--some secret
that seemed of crime. "We ought to love each other," was one of the
sentences I remember, "for how every one else would execrate us if all
was known." Again: "Don't let any one be in the same room with you at
night--you talk in your sleep." And again: "What's done can't be undone;
and I tell you there's nothing against us unless the dead could come to
life." Here there was underlined in a better handwriting (a female's):
"They do!" At the end of the letter latest in date the same female hand
had written these words: "Lost at sea the 4th of June, the same day
as----"

I put down the letters, and began to muse over their contents.

Fearing, however, that the train of thought into which I fell might
unsteady my nerves, I fully determined to keep my mind in a fit state to
cope with whatever of marvellous the advancing night might bring forth.
I roused myself--laid the letters on the table--stirred up the fire,
which was still bright and cheering, and opened my volume of Macaulay. I
read quietly enough till about half-past eleven. I then threw myself
dressed upon the bed, and told my servant he might retire to his own
room, but must keep himself awake. I bade him leave open the door
between the two rooms. Thus alone, I kept two candles burning on the
table by my bed-head. I placed my watch beside the weapons, and calmly
resumed my Macaulay. Opposite to me the fire burned clear; and on the
hearth-rug, seemingly asleep, lay the dog. In about twenty minutes I
felt an exceedingly cold air pass by my cheek, like a sudden draft. I
fancied the door to my right, communicating with the landing-place,
must have got open; but no--it was closed. I then turned my glance to
my left, and saw the flame of the candles violently swayed as by a wind.
At the same moment the watch beside the revolver softly slid from the
table--softly, softly--no visible hand--it was gone. I sprang up,
seizing the revolver with one hand, the dagger with the other: I was not
willing that my weapons should share the fate of the watch. Thus armed,
I looked round the floor--no sign of the watch. Three slow, loud,
distinct knocks were now heard at the bed-head; my servant called out:
"Is that you, sir?"

"No; be on your guard."

The dog now roused himself and sat on his haunches, his ears moving
quickly backward and forward. He kept his eyes fixed on me with a look
so strange that he concentrated all my attention on himself. Slowly, he
rose up, all his hair bristling, and stood perfectly rigid, and with the
same wild stare. I had not time, however, to examine the dog. Presently
my servant emerged from his room; and if ever I saw horror in the human
face, it was then. I should not have recognized him had we met in the
street, so altered was every lineament. He passed by me quickly, saying
in a whisper that seemed scarcely to come from his lips: "Run--run! it
is after me!" He gained the door to the landing, pulled it open, and
rushed forth. I followed him into the landing involuntarily, calling him
to stop; but, without heeding me, he bounded down the stairs, clinging
to the balusters, and taking several steps at a time. I heard, where I
stood, the street-door open--heard it again clap to. I was left alone in
the haunted house.

It was but for a moment that I remained undecided whether or not to
follow my servant; pride and curiosity alike forbade so dastardly a
flight. I re-entered my room, closing the door after me, and proceeded
cautiously into the interior chamber. I encountered nothing to justify
my servant's terror. I again carefully examined the walls, to see if
there were any concealed door. I could find no trace of one--not even a
seam in the dull-brown paper with which the room was hung. How, then,
had the Thing, whatever it was, which had so scared him, obtained
ingress except through my own chamber?

I returned to my room, shut and locked the door that opened upon the
interior one, and stood on the hearth, expectant and prepared. I now
perceived that the dog had slunk into an angle of the wall, and was
pressing himself close against it, as if literally striving to force his
way into it. I approached the animal and spoke to it; the poor brute was
evidently beside itself with terror. It showed all its teeth, the slaver
dropping from its jaws, and would certainly have bitten me if I had
touched it. It did not seem to recognize me. Whoever has seen at the
Zoological Gardens a rabbit, fascinated by a serpent, cowering in a
corner, may form some idea of the anguish which the dog exhibited.
Finding all efforts to soothe the animal in vain, and fearing that his
bite might be as venomous in that state as in the madness of
hydrophobia, I left him alone, placed my weapons on the table beside the
fire, seated myself, and recommenced my Macaulay.

I now became aware that something interposed between the page and the
light--the page was overshadowed; I looked up, and I saw what I shall
find it very difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe.

It was a darkness shaping itself forth from the air in very undefined
outline. I can not say it was of a human form, and yet it had more
resemblance to a human form, or rather shadow, than to anything else. As
it stood, wholly apart and distinct from the air and the light around
it, its dimensions seemed gigantic, the summit nearly touching the
ceiling. While I gazed, a feeling of intense cold seized me. An iceberg
before me could not more have chilled me; nor could the cold of an
iceberg have been more purely physical. I feel convinced that it was not
the cold caused by fear. As I continued to gaze, I thought--but this I
can not say with precision--that I distinguished two eyes looking down
on me from the height. One moment I fancied that I distinguished them
clearly, the next they seemed gone; but still two rays of a pale-blue
light frequently shot through the darkness, as from the height on which
I half-believed, half-doubted, that I had encountered the eyes.

I strove to speak--my voice utterly failed me; I could only think to
myself: "Is this fear? it is _not_ fear!" I strove to rise--in vain; I
felt as if weighed down by an irresistible force. Indeed, my impression
was that of an immense and overwhelming power opposed to my
volition--that sense of utter inadequacy to cope with a force beyond
man's, which one may feel _physically_ in a storm at sea, in a
conflagration, or when confronting some terrible wild beast, or rather,
perhaps, the shark of the ocean, I felt _morally_. Opposed to my will
was another will, as far superior to its strength as storm, fire, and
shark are superior in material force to the force of man.

And now, as this impression grew on me--now came, at last,
horror--horror to a degree that no words can convey. Still I retained
pride, if not courage; and in my own mind I said: "This is horror, but
it is not fear; unless I fear I can not be harmed; my reason rejects
this thing; it is an illusion--I do not fear." With a violent effort I
succeeded at last in stretching out my hand toward the weapon on the
table: as I did so, on the arm and shoulder I received a strange shock,
and my arm fell to my side powerless. And now, to add to my horror, the
light began slowly to wane from the candles--they were not, as it were,
extinguished, but their flame seemed very gradually withdrawn; it was
the same with the fire--the light was extracted from the fuel; in a few
minutes the room was in utter darkness. The dread that came over me, to
be thus in the dark with that dark Thing, whose power was so intensely
felt, brought a reaction of nerve. In fact, terror had reached that
climax, that either my senses must have deserted me, or I must have
burst through the spell. I did burst through it. I found voice, though
the voice was a shriek. I remembered that I broke forth with words like
these: "I do not fear, my soul does not fear"; and at the same time I
found strength to rise. Still in that profound gloom I rushed to one of
the windows--tore aside the curtain--flung open the shutters; my first
thought was--Light. And when I saw the moon high, clear, and calm, I
felt a joy that almost compensated for the previous terror. There was
the moon, there was also the light from the gas-lamps in the deserted
slumberous street. I turned to look back into the room; the moon
penetrated its shadow very palely and partially--but still there was
light. The dark Thing, whatever it might be, was gone--except that I
could yet see a dim shadow, which seemed the shadow of that shade,
against the opposite wall.

My eye now rested on the table, and from under the table (which was
without cloth or cover--an old mahogany round table) there rose a hand,
visible as far as the wrist. It was a hand, seemingly, as much of flesh
and blood as my own, but the hand of an aged person--lean, wrinkled,
small, too--a woman's hand. That hand very softly closed on the two
letters that lay on the table; the hand and letters both vanished. Then
there came the same three loud measured knocks I had heard at the
bed-head before this extraordinary drama had commenced.

As those sounds slowly ceased, I felt the whole room vibrate sensibly;
and at the far end there rose, as from the floor, sparks or globules
like bubbles of light, many coloured--green, yellow, fire-red, azure. Up
and down, to and fro, hither, thither, as tiny Will-o'-the-Wisps, the
sparks moved, slow or swift, each at its own caprice. A chair (as in the
drawing-room below) was now advanced from the wall without apparent
agency, and placed at the opposite side of the table. Suddenly, as forth
from the chair, there grew a shape--a woman's shape. It was distinct as
a shape of life--ghastly as a shape of death. The face was that of
youth, with a strange mournful beauty; the throat and shoulders were
bare, the rest of the form in a loose robe of cloudy white. It began
sleeking its long yellow hair, which fell over its shoulders; its eyes
were not turned toward me, but to the door; it seemed listening,
watching, waiting. The shadow of the shade in the background grew
darker; and again I thought I beheld the eyes gleaming out from the
summit of the shadow--eyes fixed upon that shape.

As if from the door, though it did not open, there grew out another
shape, equally distinct, equally ghastly--a man's shape--a young man's.
It was in the dress of the last century, or rather in a likeness of such
dress (for both the male shape and the female, though defined, were
evidently unsubstantial, impalpable--simulacra--phantasms); and there
was something incongruous, grotesque, yet fearful, in the contrast
between the elaborate finery, the courtly precision of that
old-fashioned garb, with its ruffles and lace and buckles, and the
corpse-like stillness of the flitting wearer. Just as the male shape
approached the female, the dark Shadow started from the wall, all three
for a moment wrapped in darkness. When the pale light returned, the two
phantoms were as if in the grasp of the Shadow that towered between
them; and there was a blood-stain on the breast of the female; and the
phantom male was leaning on its phantom sword, and blood seemed
trickling fast from the ruffles, from the lace; and the darkness of the
intermediate Shadow swallowed them up--they were gone. And again the
bubbles of light shot, and sailed, and undulated, growing thicker and
thicker and more wildly confused in their movements.

The closet door to the right of the fireplace now opened, and from the
aperture there came forth the form of an aged woman. In her hand she
held letters--the very letters over which I had seen the Hand close; and
behind her I heard a footstep. She turned round as if to listen, and
then she opened the letters and seemed to read; and over her shoulder I
saw a livid face, the face as of a man long drowned--bloated,
bleached--seaweed tangled in his dripping hair; and at her feet lay a
form as of a corpse, and beside the corpse there cowered a child, a
miserable squalid child, with famine in its cheeks and fear in its eyes.
And as I looked in the old woman's face, the wrinkles and lines
vanished, and it became a face of youth--hard-eyed, stony, but still
youth; and the Shadow darted forth, and darkened over those phantoms as
it had darkened over the last.

Nothing now was left but the Shadow, and on that my eyes were intently
fixed, till again eyes grew out of the Shadow--malignant, serpent eyes.
And the bubbles of light again rose and fell, and in their disordered,
irregular, turbulent maze, mingled with the wan moonlight. And now from
these globules themselves, as from the shell of an egg, monstrous things
burst out; the air grew filled with them; larvæ so bloodless and so
hideous that I can in no way describe them except to remind the reader
of the swarming life which the solar microscope brings before his eyes
in a drop of water--things transparent, supple, agile, chasing each
other, devouring each other--forms like naught ever beheld by the naked
eye. As the shapes were without symmetry, so their movements were
without order. In their very vagrancies there was no sport; they came
round me and round, thicker and faster and swifter, swarming over my
head, crawling over my right arm, which was outstretched in involuntary
command against all evil beings. Sometimes I felt myself touched, but
not by them; invisible hands touched me. Once I felt the clutch as of
cold soft fingers at my throat. I was still equally conscious that if I
gave way to fear I should be in bodily peril; and I concentrated all my
faculties in the single focus of resisting, stubborn will. And I turned
my sight from the Shadow--above all, from those strange serpent
eyes--eyes that had now become distinctly visible. For there, though in
naught else around me, I was aware that there was a WILL, and a will of
intense, creative, working evil, which might crush down my own.

The pale atmosphere in the room began now to redden as if in the air of
some near conflagration. The larvæ grew lurid as things that live in
fire. Again the moon vibrated; again were heard the three measured
knocks; and again all things were swallowed up in the darkness of the
dark Shadow, as if out of that darkness all had come, into that darkness
all returned.

As the gloom receded, the Shadow was wholly gone. Slowly, as it had been
withdrawn, the flame grew again into the candles on the table, again
into the fuel in the grate. The whole room came once more calmly,
healthfully into sight.

The two doors were still closed, the door communicating with the
servant's room still locked. In the corner of the wall, into which he
had so convulsively niched himself, lay the dog. I called to him--no
movement; I approached--the animal was dead; his eyes protruded; his
tongue out of his mouth; the froth gathered round his jaws. I took him
in my arms; I brought him to the fire; I felt acute grief for the loss
of my poor favourite--acute self-reproach; I accused myself of his
death; I imagined he had died of fright. But what was my surprise on
finding that his neck was actually broken. Had this been done in the
dark?--must it not have been by a hand human as mine?--must there not
have been a human agency all the while in that room? Good cause to
suspect it. I can not tell. I can not do more than state the fact
fairly; the reader may draw his own inference.

Another surprising circumstance--my watch was restored to the table from
which it had been so mysteriously withdrawn; but it had stopped at the
very moment it was so withdrawn; nor, despite all the skill of the
watchmaker, has it ever gone since--that is, it will go in a strange
erratic way for a few hours, and then come to a dead stop--it is
worthless.

Nothing more chanced for the rest of the night. Nor, indeed, had I long
to wait before the dawn broke. Nor till it was broad daylight did I quit
the haunted house. Before I did so, I revisited the little blind room in
which my servant and myself had been for a time imprisoned. I had a
strong impression--for which I could not account--that from that room
had originated the mechanism of the phenomena--if I may use the
term--which had been experienced in my chamber. And though I entered it
now in the clear day, with the sun peering through the filmy window, I
still felt, as I stood on its floors, the creep of the horror which I
had first there experienced the night before, and which had been so
aggravated by what had passed in my own chamber. I could not, indeed,
bear to stay more than half a minute within those walls. I descended the
stairs, and again I heard the footfall before me; and when I opened the
street door, I thought I could distinguish a very low laugh. I gained my
own house, expecting to find my runaway servant there. But he had not
presented himself, nor did I hear more of him for three days, when I
received a letter from him, dated from Liverpool to this effect:

     "Honoured Sir:--I humbly entreat your pardon, though I can scarcely
     hope that you will think that I deserve it, unless--which Heaven
     forbid!--you saw what I did. I feel that it will be years before I
     can recover myself; and as to being fit for service, it is out of
     the question. I am therefore going to my brother-in-law at
     Melbourne. The ship sails tomorrow. Perhaps the long voyage may set
     me up. I do nothing now but start and tremble, and fancy It is
     behind me. I humbly beg you, honoured sir, to order my clothes, and
     whatever wages are due to me, to be sent to my mother's, at
     Walworth--John knows her address."

The letter ended with additional apologies, somewhat incoherent, and
explanatory details as to effects that had been under the writer's
charge.

This flight may perhaps warrant a suspicion that the man wished to go to
Australia, and had been somehow or other fraudulently mixed up with the
events of the night. I say nothing in refutation of that conjecture;
rather, I suggest it as one that would seem to many persons the most
probable solution of improbable occurrences. My belief in my own theory
remained unshaken. I returned in the evening to the house, to bring away
in a hack cab the things I had left there, with my poor dog's body. In
this task I was not disturbed, nor did any incident worth note befall
me, except that still, on ascending and descending the stairs, I heard
the same footfall in advance. On leaving the house, I went to Mr.
J----'s. He was at home. I returned him the keys, told him that my
curiosity was sufficiently gratified, and was about to relate quickly
what had passed, when he stopped me, and said, though with much
politeness, that he had no longer any interest in a mystery which none
had ever solved.

I determined at least to tell him of the two letters I had read, as well
as of the extraordinary manner in which they had disappeared, and I then
inquired if he thought they had been addressed to the woman who had died
in the house, and if there were anything in her early history which
could possibly confirm the dark suspicions to which the letters gave
rise. Mr. J---- seemed startled, and, after musing a few moments,
answered: "I am but little acquainted with the woman's earlier history,
except, as I before told you, that her family were known to mine. But
you revive some vague reminiscences to her prejudice. I will make
inquiries, and inform you of their result. Still, even if we could admit
the popular superstition that a person who had been either the
perpetrator or the victim of dark crimes in life could revisit, as a
restless spirit, the scene in which those crimes had been committed, I
should observe that the house was infested by strange sights and sounds
before the old woman died--you smile--what would you say?"

"I would say this, that I am convinced, if we could get to the bottom of
these mysteries, we should find a living human agency."

"What! you believe it is all an imposture? for what object?"

"Not an imposture in the ordinary sense of the word. If suddenly I were
to sink into a deep sleep, from which you could not awake me, but in
that sleep could answer questions with an accuracy which I could not
pretend to when awake--tell you what money you had in your pocket--nay,
describe your very thoughts--it is not necessarily an imposture, any
more than it is necessarily supernatural. I should be, unconsciously to
myself, under a mesmeric influence, conveyed to me from a distance by a
human being who had acquired power over me by previous _rapport_."

"But if a mesmerizer could so affect another living being, can you
suppose that a mesmerizer could also affect inanimate objects; move
chairs--open and shut doors?"

"Or impress our senses with the belief in such effects--we never having
been _en rapport_ with the person acting on us? No. What is commonly
called mesmerism could not do this; but there may be a power akin to
mesmerism and superior to it--the power that in the old days was called
Magic. That such a power may extend to all inanimate objects of matter,
I do not say; but if so, it would not be against nature--it would only
be a rare power in nature which might be given to constitutions with
certain peculiarities, and cultivated by practise to an extraordinary
degree.

"That such a power might extend over the dead--that is, over certain
thoughts and memories that the dead may still retain--and compel, not
that which ought properly to be called the Soul, and which is far
beyond human reach, but rather a phantom of what has been most
earth-stained on earth to make itself apparent to our senses--is a very
ancient though obsolete theory, upon which I will hazard no opinion. But
I do not conceive the power to be supernatural. Let me illustrate what I
mean from an experiment which Paracelsus describes as not difficult, and
which the author of the 'Curiosities of Literature' cites as credible: A
flower perishes; you burn it. Whatever were the elements of that flower
while it lived are gone, dispersed, you know not whither; you can never
discover nor re-collect them. But you can, by chemistry, out of the
burned dust of that flower, raise a spectrum of the flower, just as it
seemed in life. It may be the same with the human being. The soul has as
much escaped you as the essence or elements of the flower. Still you may
make a spectrum of it. And this phantom, though in the popular
superstition it is held to be the soul of the departed, must not be
confounded with the true soul; it is but the _eidolon_ of the dead form.
Hence, like the best attested stories of ghosts or spirits, the thing
that most strikes us is the absence of what we hold to be the soul; that
is, of superior emancipated intelligence. These apparitions come for
little or no object--they seldom speak when they do come; if they speak,
they utter no ideas above those of an ordinary person on earth.
Wonderful, therefore, as such phenomena may be (granting them to be
truthful), I see much that philosophy may question, nothing that it is
incumbent on philosophy to deny--viz., nothing supernatural. They are
but ideas conveyed somehow or other (we have not yet discovered the
means) from one mortal brain to another. Whether, in so doing, tables
walk by their own accord, or fiend-like shapes appear in a magic circle,
or bodyless hands rise and remove material objects, or a Thing of
Darkness, such as presented itself to me, freeze our blood--still am I
persuaded that these are but agencies conveyed, as by electric wires, to
my own brain from the brain of another. In some constitutions there is a
natural chemistry, and those constitutions may produce chemic
wonders--in others a natural fluid, call it electricity, and these may
produce electric wonders. But the wonders differ from Natural Science in
this--they are alike objectless, purposeless, puerile, frivolous. They
lead on to no grand results; and therefore the world does not heed, and
true sages have not cultivated them. But sure I am, that of all I saw or
heard, a man, human as myself, was the remote originator; and I believe
unconsciously to himself as to the exact effects produced, for this
reason: no two persons, you say, have ever experienced exactly the same
thing. Well, observe, no two persons ever experience exactly the same
dream. If this were an ordinary imposture, the machinery would be
arranged for results that would but little vary; if it were a
supernatural agency permitted by the Almighty, it would surely be for
some definite end. These phenomena belong to neither class; my
persuasion is that they originate in some brain now far distant; that
that brain had no distinct volition in anything that occurred; that
what does occur reflects but its devious, motley, ever-shifting,
half-formed thoughts; in short, that it has been but the dreams of such
a brain put in action and invested with a semi-substance. That this
brain is of immense power, that it can set matter into movement, that it
is malignant and destructive, I believe; some material force must have
killed my dog; the same force might, for aught I know, have sufficed to
kill myself, had I been as subjugated by terror as the dog--had my
intellect or my spirit given me no countervailing resistance in my
will."

"It killed your dog! that is fearful! indeed it is strange that no
animal can be induced to stay in that house; not even a cat. Rats and
mice are never found in it."

"The instincts of the brute creation detect influences deadly to their
existence. Man's reason has a sense less subtle, because it has a
resisting power more supreme. But enough; do you comprehend my theory?"

"Yes, though imperfectly--and I accept any crotchet (pardon the word),
however odd, rather than embrace at once the notion of ghosts and
hobgoblins we imbibed in our nurseries. Still, to my unfortunate house
the evil is the same. What on earth can I do with the house?"

"I will tell you what I would do. I am convinced from my own internal
feelings that the small unfurnished room at right angles to the door of
the bedroom which I occupied forms a starting-point or receptacle for
the influences which haunt the house; and I strongly advise you to have
the walls opened, the floor removed--nay, the whole room pulled down. I
observe that it is detached from the body of the house, built over the
small back-yard, and could be removed without injury to the rest of the
building."

"And you think, if I did that----"

"You would cut off the telegraph wires. Try it. I am so persuaded that I
am right that I will pay half the expense if you will allow me to direct
the operations."

"Nay, I am well able to afford the cost; for the rest, allow me to write
to you."

About ten days after I received a letter from Mr. J----, telling me that
he had visited the house since I had seen him; that he had found the two
letters I had described, replaced in the drawer from which I had taken
them; that he had read them with misgivings like my own; that he had
instituted a cautious inquiry about the woman to whom I rightly
conjectured they had been written. It seemed that thirty-six years ago
(a year before the date of the letters) she had married, against the
wish of her relations, an American of very suspicious character; in
fact, he was generally believed to have been a pirate. She herself was
the daughter of very respectable tradespeople, and had served in the
capacity of a nursery governess before her marriage. She had a brother,
a widower, who was considered wealthy, and who had one child of about
six years old. A month after the marriage, the body of this brother was
found in the Thames, near London Bridge; there seemed some marks of
violence about his throat, but they were not deemed sufficient to
warrant the inquest in any other verdict than that of "found drowned."

The American and his wife took charge of the little boy, the deceased
brother having by his will left his sister the guardianship of his only
child--and in the event of the child's death, the sister inherited. The
child died about six months afterward--it was supposed to have been
neglected and ill-treated. The neighbours deposed to having heard it
shriek at night. The surgeon who had examined it after death said that
it was emaciated as if from want of nourishment, and the body was
covered with livid bruises. It seemed that one winter night the child
had sought to escape--crept out into the back-yard--tried to scale the
wall--fallen back exhausted, and had been found at morning on the stones
in a dying state. But though there was some evidence of cruelty, there
was none of murder; and the aunt and her husband had sought to palliate
cruelty by alleging the exceeding stubbornness and perversity of the
child, who was declared to be half-witted. Be that as it may, at the
orphan's death the aunt inherited her brother's fortune. Before the
first wedded year was out, the American quitted England abruptly, and
never returned to it. He obtained a cruising vessel, which was lost in
the Atlantic two years afterward. The widow was left in affluence; but
reverses of various kinds had befallen her; a bank broke--an investment
failed--she went into a small business and became insolvent--then she
entered into service, sinking lower and lower, from housekeeper down to
maid-of-all-work--never long retaining a place, though nothing decided
against her character was ever alleged. She was considered sober,
honest, and peculiarly quiet in her ways; still nothing prospered with
her. And so she had dropped into the workhouse, from which Mr. J---- had
taken her, to be placed in charge of the very house which she had rented
as mistress in the first year of her wedded life.

Mr. J---- added that he had passed an hour alone in the unfurnished room
which I had urged him to destroy, and that his impressions of dread
while there were so great, though he had neither heard nor seen
anything, that he was eager to have the walls bared and the floors
removed as I had suggested. He had engaged persons for the work, and
would commence any day I would name.

The day was accordingly fixed. I repaired to the haunted house--we went
into the blind dreary room, took up the skirting, and then the floors.
Under the rafters, covered with rubbish, was found a trap-door, quite
large enough to admit a man. It was closely nailed down, with clamps and
rivets of iron. On removing these we descended into a room below, the
existence of which had never been suspected. In this room there had been
a window and a flue, but they had been bricked over, evidently for many
years. By the help of candles we examined this place; it still retained
some mouldering furniture--three chairs, an oak settle, a table--all of
the fashion of about eighty years ago. There was a chest of drawers
against the wall, in which we found, half-rotted away, old-fashioned
articles of a man's dress, such as might have been worn eighty or a
hundred years ago by a gentleman of some rank--costly steel buttons and
buckles, like those yet worn in court-dresses, a handsome court
sword--in a waistcoat which had once been rich with gold lace, but which
was now blackened and foul with damp, we found five guineas, a few
silver coins, and an ivory ticket, probably for some place of
entertainment long since passed away. But our main discovery was in a
kind of iron safe fixed to the wall, the lock of which it cost us much
trouble to get picked.

In this safe were three shelves, and two small drawers. Ranged on the
shelves were several small bottles of crystal, hermetically stoppered.
They contained colourless volatile essences, of the nature of which I
shall only say that they were not poisonous--phosphor and ammonia
entered into some of them. There were also some very curious glass
tubes, and a small pointed rod of iron, with a large lump of rock
crystal, and another of amber--also a loadstone of great power.

In one of the drawers we found a miniature portrait set in gold, and
retaining the freshness of its colours most remarkably, considering the
length of time it had probably been there. The portrait was that of a
man who might be somewhat advanced in middle life, perhaps forty-seven
or forty-eight.

It was a remarkable face--a most impressive face. If you could fancy
some mighty serpent transformed into a man, preserving in the human
lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better idea of that
countenance than long descriptions can convey; the width and flatness of
frontal--the tapering elegance of contour disguising the strength of the
deadly jaw--the long, large, terrible eye, glittering and green as the
emerald--and withal a certain ruthless calm, as if from the
consciousness of an immense power.

Mechanically I turned round the miniature to examine the back of it, and
on the back was engraved a pentacle; in the middle of the pentacle a
ladder, and the third step of the ladder was formed by the date 1765.
Examining still more minutely, I detected a spring; this, on being
pressed, opened the back of the miniature as a lid. Withinside the lid
was engraved, "Marianna to thee--Be faithful in life and in death
to ----." Here follows a name that I will not mention, but it was not
unfamiliar to me. I had heard it spoken of by old men in my childhood as
the name borne by a dazzling charlatan who had made a great sensation in
London for a year or so, and had fled the country on the charge of a
double murder within his own house--that of his mistress and his rival.
I said nothing of this to Mr. J----, to whom reluctantly I resigned the
miniature.

We had found no difficulty in opening the first drawer within the iron
safe; we found great difficulty in opening the second: it was not
locked, but it resisted all efforts, till we inserted in the chinks the
edge of a chisel. When we had thus drawn it forth, we found a very
singular apparatus in the nicest order. Upon a small thin book, or
rather tablet, was placed a saucer of crystal; this saucer was filled
with a clear liquid--on that liquid floated a kind of compass, with a
needle shifting rapidly round; but instead of the usual points of the
compass were seven strange characters, not very unlike those used by
astrologers to denote the planets. A peculiar but not strong nor
displeasing odour came from this drawer, which was lined with a wood
that we afterward discovered to be hazel. Whatever the cause of this
odour, it produced a material effect on the nerves. We all felt it, even
the two workmen who were in the room--a creeping, tingling sensation
from the tips of the fingers to the roots of the hair. Impatient to
examine the tablet, I removed the saucer. As I did so the needle of the
compass went round and round with exceeding swiftness, and I felt a
shock that ran through my whole frame, so that I dropped the saucer on
the floor. The liquid was spilled--the saucer was broken--the compass
rolled to the end of the room--and at that instant the walls shook to
and fro, as if a giant had swayed and rocked them.

The two workmen were so frightened that they ran up the ladder by which
we had descended from the trap-door; but seeing that nothing more
happened, they were easily induced to return.

Meanwhile I had opened the tablet: it was bound in plain red leather,
with a silver clasp; it contained but one sheet of thick vellum, and on
that sheet were inscribed, within a double pentacle, words in old
monkish Latin, which are literally to be translated thus: "On all that
it can reach within these walls--sentient or inanimate, living or
dead--as moves the needle, so work my will! Accursed be the house, and
restless be the dwellers therein."

We found no more. Mr. J---- burned the tablet and its anathema. He razed
to the foundations the part of the building containing the secret room
with the chamber over it. He had then the courage to inhabit the house
himself for a month, and a quieter, better-conditioned house could not
be found in all London. Subsequently he let it to advantage, and his
tenant has made no complaints.




THE ROLL-CALL OF THE REEF

A. T. QUILLER-COUCH


"Yes, sir," said my host, the quarryman, reaching down the relics from
their hook in the wall over the chimneypiece; "they've hung there all my
time, and most of my father's. The women won't touch 'em; they're afraid
of the story. So here they'll dangle, and gather dust and smoke, till
another tenant comes and tosses 'em out o' doors for rubbish. Whew! 'tis
coarse weather, surely."

He went to the door, opened it, and stood studying the gale that beat
upon his cottage-front, straight from the Manacle Reef. The rain drove
past him into the kitchen, aslant like threads of gold silk in the shine
of the wreck-wood fire. Meanwhile, by the same firelight, I examined the
relics on my knee. The metal of each was tarnished out of knowledge. But
the trumpet was evidently an old cavalry trumpet, and the threads of its
party-coloured sling, though fretted and dusty, still hung together.
Around the side-drum, beneath its cracked brown varnish, I could hardly
trace a royal coat-of-arms and a legend running, "Per Mare Per
Terram"--the motto of the marines. Its parchment, though black and
scented with woodsmoke, was limp and mildewed; and I began to tighten
up the straps--under which the drumsticks had been loosely thrust--with
the idle purpose of seeing if some music might be got out of the old
drum yet.

But as I turned it on my knee, I found the drum attached to the
trumpet-sling by a curious barrel-shaped padlock, and paused to examine
this. The body of the lock was composed of half a dozen brass rings, set
accurately edge to edge; and, rubbing the brass with my thumb, I saw
that each of the six had a series of letters engraved around it.

I knew the trick of it, I thought. Here was one of those word padlocks,
once so common; only to be opened by getting the rings to spell a
certain word, which the dealer confides to you.

My host shut and barred the door, and came back to the hearth.

"'Twas just such a wind--east by south--that brought in what you've got
between your hands. Back in the year 'nine, it was; my father has told
me the tale a score o' times. You're twisting round the rings, I see.
But you'll never guess the word. Parson Kendall, he made the word, and
he locked down a couple o' ghosts in their graves with it; and when his
time came he went to his own grave and took the word with him."

"Whose ghosts, Matthew?"

"You want the story, I see, sir. My father could tell it better than I
can. He was a young man in the year 'nine, unmarried at the time, and
living in this very cottage, just as I be. That's how he came to get
mixed up with the tale."

He took a chair, lighted a short pipe, and went on, with his eyes fixed
on the dancing violet flames:

"Yes, he'd ha' been about thirty year old in January, eighteen 'nine.
The storm got up in the night o' the twenty-first o' that month. My
father was dressed and out long before daylight; he never was one to
bide in bed, let be that the gale by this time was pretty near lifting
the thatch over his head. Besides which, he'd fenced a small 'taty-patch
that winter, down by Lowland Point, and he wanted to see if it stood the
night's work. He took the path across Gunner's Meadow--where they buried
most of the bodies afterward. The wind was right in his teeth at the
time, and once on the way (he's told me this often) a great strip of
oarweed came flying through the darkness and fetched him a slap on the
cheek like a cold hand. He made shift pretty well till he got to
Lowland, and then had to drop upon hands and knees and crawl, digging
his fingers every now and then into a shingle to hold on, for he
declared to me that the stones, some of them as big as a man's head,
kept rolling and driving past till it seemed the whole foreshore was
moving westward under him. The fence was gone, of course; not a stick
left to show where it stood; so that, when first he came to the place,
he thought he must have missed his bearings. My father, sir, was a very
religious man; and if he reckoned the end of the world was at
hand--there in the great wind and night, among the moving stones--you
may believe he was certain of it when he heard a gun fired, and, with
the same, saw a flame shoot up out of the darkness to windward, making a
sudden fierce light in all the place about. All he could find to think
or say was, 'The Second Coming! The Second Coming! The Bridegroom
cometh, and the wicked He will toss like a ball into a large country';
and being already upon his knees, he just bowed his head and 'bided,
saying this over and over.

"But by'm by, between two squalls, he made bold to lift his head and
look, and then by the light--a bluish colour 'twas--he saw all the coast
clear away to Manacle Point, and off the Manacles in the thick of the
weather, a sloop-of-war with topgallants housed, driving stern foremost
toward the reef. It was she, of course, that was burning the fire. My
father could see the white streak and the ports of her quite plain as
she rose to it, a little outside the breakers, and he guessed easy
enough that her captain had just managed to wear ship and was trying to
force her nose to the sea with the help of her small bower anchor and
the scrap or two of canvas that hadn't yet been blown out of her. But
while he looked, she fell off, giving her broadside to it, foot by foot,
and drifting back on the breakers around Carn Du and the Varses. The
rocks lie so thick thereabout that 'twas a toss up which she struck
first; at any rate, my father couldn't tell at the time, for just then
the flare died down and went out.

"Well, sir, he turned then in the dark and started back for Coverack to
cry the dismal tidings--though well knowing ship and crew to be past any
hope, and as he turned the wind lifted him and tossed him forward 'like
a ball,' as he'd been saying, and homeward along the foreshore. As you
know, 'tis ugly work, even by daylight, picking your way among the
stones there, and my father was prettily knocked about at first in the
dark. But by this 'twas nearer seven than six o'clock, and the day
spreading. By the time he reached North Corner, a man could see to read
print; hows'ever, he looked neither out to sea nor toward Coverack, but
headed straight for the first cottage--the same that stands above North
Corner today. A man named Billy Ede lived there then, and when my father
burst into the kitchen bawling, 'Wreck! wreck!' he saw Billy Ede's wife,
Ann, standing there in her clogs with a shawl over her head, and her
clothes wringing wet.

"'Save the chap!' says Billy Ede's wife, Ann. 'What d'ee mean by crying
stale fish at that rate?'

"'But 'tis a wreck, I tell 'e.'

"'I'v a-zeed'n, too; and so has every one with an eye in his head.'

"And with that she pointed straight over my father's shoulder, and he
turned; and there, close under Dolor Point, at the end of Coverack town
he saw another wreck washing, and the point black with people, like
emmets, running to and fro in the morning light. While he stood staring
at her, he heard a trumpet sounded on board, the notes coming in little
jerks, like a bird rising against the wind; but faintly, of course,
because of the distance and the gale blowing--though this had dropped a
little.

"'She's a transport,' said Billy Ede's wife, Ann, 'and full of
horse-soldiers, fine long men. When she struck they must ha' pitched the
horses over first to lighten the ship, for a score of dead horses had
washed in afore I left, half an hour back. An' three or four soldiers,
too--fine long corpses in white breeches and jackets of blue and gold. I
held the lantern to one. Such a straight young man.'

"My father asked her about the trumpeting.

"'That's the queerest bit of all. She was burnin' a light when me an' my
man joined the crowd down there. All her masts had gone; whether they
carried away, or were cut away to ease her, I don't rightly know. Her
keelson was broke under her and her bottom sagged and stove, and she had
just settled down like a setting hen--just the leastest list to
starboard; but a man could stand there easy. They had rigged up ropes
across her, from bulwark to bulwark, an' beside these the men were
mustered, holding on like grim death whenever the sea made a clean
breach over them, an' standing up like heroes as soon as it passed. The
captain an' the officers were clinging to the rail of the quarter-deck,
all in their golden uniforms, waiting for the end as if 'twas King
George they expected. There was no way to help, for she lay right beyond
cast of line, though our folk tried it fifty times. And beside them
clung a trumpeter, a whacking big man, an' between the heavy seas he
would lift his trumpet with one hand, and blow a call; and every time he
blew the men gave a cheer. There (she says)--hark 'ee now--there he goes
agen! But you won't hear no cheering any more, for few are left to
cheer, and their voices weak. Bitter cold the wind is, and I reckon it
numbs their grip o' the ropes, for they were dropping off fast with
every sea when my man sent me home to get his breakfast. Another wreck,
you say? Well, there's no hope for the tender dears, if 'tis the
Manacles. You'd better run down and help yonder; though 'tis little help
any man can give. Not one came in alive while I was there. The tide's
flowing, an' she won't hold together another hour, they say.'

"Well, sure enough, the end was coming fast when my father got down to
the Point. Six men had been cast up alive, or just breathing--a seaman
and five troopers. The seaman was the only one that had breath to speak;
and while they were carrying him into the town, the word went round that
the ship's name was the 'Despatch,' transport, homeward bound from
Corunna, with a detachment of the Seventh Hussars, that had been
fighting out there with Sir John Moore. The seas had rolled her further
over by this time, and given her decks a pretty sharp slope; but a dozen
men still held on, seven by the ropes near the ship's waist, a couple
near the break of the poop, and three on the quarter-deck. Of these
three my father made out one to be the skipper; close to him clung an
officer in full regimentals--his name, they heard after, was Captain
Duncanfield; and last came the tall trumpeter; and if you'll believe me,
the fellow was making shift there, at the very last, to blow 'God Save
the King.' What's more, he got to 'Send us victorious,' before an extra
big sea came bursting across and washed them off the deck--every man but
one of the pair beneath the poop--and he dropped his hold before the
next wave; being stunned, I reckon. The others went out of sight at
once, but the trumpeter--being, as I said, a powerful man as well as a
tough swimmer--rose like a duck, rode out a couple of breakers, and came
in on the crest of the third. The folks looked to see him broke like an
egg at their very feet; but when the smother cleared, there he was,
lying face downward on a ledge below them; and one of the men that
happened to have a rope round him--I forget the fellow's name, if I ever
heard it--jumped down and grabbed him by the ankle as he began to slip
back. Before the next big sea, the pair were hauled high enough to be
out of harm, and another heave brought them up to grass. Quick work, but
master trumpeter wasn't quite dead; nothing worse than a cracked head
and three staved ribs. In twenty minutes or so they had him in bed, with
the doctor to tend him.

"Now was the time--nothing being left alive upon the transport--for my
father to tell of the sloop he'd seen driving upon the Manacles. And
when he got a hearing, though the most were set upon salvage, and
believed a wreck in the hand, so to say, to be worth half a dozen they
couldn't see, a good few volunteered to start off with him and have a
look. They crossed Lowland Point; no ship to be seen on the Manacles nor
anywhere upon the sea. One or two was for calling my father a liar.
'Wait till we come to Dean Point,' said he. Sure enough, on the far side
of Dean Point they found the sloop's mainmast washing about with half a
dozen men lashed to it, men in red jackets, every mother's son drowned
and staring; and a little further on, just under the Dean, three or four
bodies cast up on the shore, one of them a small drummer-boy, side-drum
and all; and nearby part of a ship's gig, with 'H.M.S. Primrose' cut on
the sternboard. From this point on the shore was littered thick with
wreckage and dead bodies--the most of them marines in uniform--and in
Godrevy Cove, in particular, a heap of furniture from the captain's
cabin, and among it a water-tight box, not much damaged, and full of
papers, by which, when it came to be examined, next day, the wreck was
easily made out to be the 'Primrose' of eighteen guns, outward bound
from Portsmouth, with a fleet of transports for the Spanish war--thirty
sail, I've heard, but I've never heard what became of them. Being
handled by merchant skippers, no doubt they rode out the gale, and
reached the Tagus safe and sound. Not but what the captain of the
'Primrose'--Mein was his name--did quite right to try and club-haul his
vessel when he found himself under the land; only he never ought to have
got there, if he took proper soundings. But it's easy talking.

"The 'Primrose,' sir, was a handsome vessel--for her size one of the
handsomest in the King's service--and newly fitted out at Plymouth Dock.
So the boys had brave pickings from her in the way of brass-work, ship's
instruments, and the like, let alone some barrels of stores not much
spoiled. They loaded themselves with as much as they could carry, and
started for home, meaning to make a second journey before the preventive
men got wind of their doings, and came to spoil the fun. 'Hullo!' says
my father, and dropped his gear, 'I do believe there's a leg moving!'
and running fore, he stooped over the small drummer-boy that I told you
about. The poor little chap was lying there, with his face a mass of
bruises, and his eyes closed; but he had shifted one leg an inch or two,
and was still breathing. So my father pulled out a knife, and cut him
free from his drum--that was lashed on to him with a double turn of
Manila rope--and took him up and carried him along here to this very
room that we're sitting in. He lost a good deal by this; for when he
went back to fetch the bundle he'd dropped, the preventive men had got
hold of it, and were thick as thieves along the foreshore; so that 'twas
only by paying one or two to look the other way that he picked up
anything worth carrying off; which you'll allow to be hard, seeing that
he was the first man to give news of the wreck.

"Well, the inquiry was held, of course, and my father gave evidence, and
for the rest they had to trust to the sloop's papers, for not a soul was
saved besides the drummer-boy, and he was raving in a fever, brought on
by the cold and the fright. And the seaman and the five troopers gave
evidence about the loss of the 'Despatch.' The tall trumpeter, too,
whose ribs were healing, came forward and kissed the book; but somehow
his head had been hurt in coming ashore, and he talked foolish-like, and
'twas easy seen he would never be a proper man again. The others were
taken up to Plymouth, and so went their ways; but the trumpeter stayed
on in Coverack; and King George, finding he was fit for nothing, sent
him down a trifle of a pension after a while--enough to keep him in
board and lodging, with a bit of tobacco over.

"Now the first time that this man--William Tallifer he called
himself--met with the drummer-boy, was about a fortnight after the
little chap had bettered enough to be allowed a short walk out of doors,
which he took, if you please, in full regimentals. There never was a
soldier so proud of his dress. His own suit had shrunk a brave bit with
the salt water; but into ordinary frock an' corduroy he declared he
would not get, not if he had to go naked the rest of his life; so my
father--being a good-natured man, and handy with the needle--turned to
and repaired damages with a piece or two of scarlet cloth cut from the
jacket of one of the drowned Marines. Well, the poor little chap chanced
to be standing, in this rig out, down by the gate of Gunner's Meadow,
where they had buried two score and over of his comrades. The morning
was a fine one, early in March month; and along came the cracked
trumpeter, likewise taking a stroll.

"'Hullo!' says he; 'good mornin'! And what might you be doin' here?'

"'I was a-wishin',' says the boy, 'I had a pair o' drumsticks. Our lads
were buried yonder without so much as a drum tapped or a musket fired;
and that's not Christian burial for British soldiers.'

"'Phut!' says the trumpeter, and spat on the ground; 'a parcel of
Marines!'

"The boy eyed him a second or so, and answered up: 'If I'd a tav of turf
handy, I'd bung it at your mouth, you greasy cavalryman, and learn you
to speak respectful of your betters. The Marines are the handiest body
o' men in the service.'

"The trumpeter looked down on him from the height of six-foot-two, and
asked: 'Did they die well?'

"'They died very well. There was a lot of running to and fro at first,
and some of the men began to cry, and a few to strip off their clothes.
But when the ship fell off for the last time, Captain Mein turned and
said something to Major Griffiths, the commanding officer on board, and
the Major called out to me to beat to quarters. It might have been for a
wedding, he sang it out so cheerful. We'd had word already that 'twas to
be parade order; and the men fell in as trim and decent as if they were
going to church. One or two even tried to shave at the last moment. The
Major wore his medals. One of the seamen, seeing I had work to keep the
drum steady--the sling being a bit loose for me, and the wind what you
remember--lashed it tight with a piece of rope; and that saved my life
afterward, a drum being as good as cork until it's stove. I kept beating
away until every man was on deck--and then the Major formed them up and
told them to die like British soldiers, and the chaplain was in the
middle of a prayer when she struck. In ten minutes she was gone. That
was how they died, cavalryman.'

"'And that was very well done, drummer of the Marines. What's your
name?'

"'John Christian.'

"'Mine's William George Tallifer, trumpeter of the Seventh Light
Dragoons--the Queen's Own. I played "God Save the King" while our men
were drowning. Captain Duncanfield told me to sound a call or two, to
put them in heart; but that matter of "God Save the King" was a notion
of my own. I won't say anything to hurt the feelings of a Marine, even
if he's not much over five-foot tall; but the Queen's Own Hussars is a
tearin' fine regiment. As between horse and foot, 'tis a question o'
which gets a chance. All the way from Sahagun to Corunna 'twas we that
took and gave the knocks--at Mayorga and Rueda, and Bennyventy.'--The
reason, sir, I can speak the names so pat, is that my father learnt them
by heart afterward from the trumpeter, who was always talking about
Mayorga and Rueda and Bennyventy.--'We made the rear-guard, after
General Paget; and drove the French every time; and all the infantry did
was to sit about in wine-shops till we whipped 'em out, an' steal an'
straggle an' play the tom-fool in general. And when it came to a
stand-up fight at Corunna, 'twas we that had to stay seasick aboard the
transports, an' watch the infantry in the thick o' the caper. Very well
they behaved, too--'specially the Fourth Regiment, an' the Forty-Second
Highlanders and the Dirty Half-Hundred. Oh, ay; they're decent
regiments, all three. But the Queen's Own Hussars is a tearin' fine
regiment. So you played on your drum when the ship was goin' down?
Drummer John Christian, I'll have to get you a new pair of sticks.'

"The very next day the trumpeter marched into Helston, and got a
carpenter there to turn him a pair of box-wood drumsticks for the boy.
And this was the beginning of one of the most curious friendships you
ever heard tell of. Nothing delighted the pair more than to borrow a
boat off my father and pull out to the rocks where the 'Primrose' and
the 'Despatch' had struck and sunk; and on still days 'twas pretty to
hear them out there off the Manacles, the drummer playing his
tattoo--for they always took their music with them--and the trumpeter
practising calls, and making his trumpet speak like an angel. But if the
weather turned roughish, they'd be walking together and talking;
leastwise the youngster listened while the other discoursed about Sir
John's campaign in Spain and Portugal, telling how each little skirmish
befell; and of Sir John himself, and General Baird, and General Paget,
and Colonel Vivian, his own commanding officer, and what kind of men
they were; and of the last bloody stand-up at Corunna, and so forth, as
if neither could have enough.

"But all this had to come to an end in the late summer, for the boy,
John Christian, being now well and strong again, must go up to Plymouth
to report himself. 'Twas his own wish (for I believe King George had
forgotten all about him), but his friend wouldn't hold him back. As for
the trumpeter, my father had made an arrangement to take him on as
lodger, as soon as the boy left; and on the morning fixed for the start,
he was up at the door here by five o'clock, with his trumpet slung by
his side, and all the rest of his belongings in a small valise. A Monday
morning it was, and after breakfast he had fixed to walk with the boy
some way on the road toward Helston, where the coach started. My father
left them at breakfast together, and went out to meat the pig, and do a
few odd morning jobs of that sort. When he came back, the boy was still
at table, and the trumpeter sat with the rings in his hands, hitched
together just as they be at this moment.

"'Look at this,' he says to my father, showing him the lock. 'I picked
it up off a starving brass-worker in Lisbon, and it is not one of your
common locks that one word of six letters will open at any time. There's
janius in this lock; for you've only to make the rings spell any
six-letter word you please and snap down the lock upon that, and never a
soul can open it--not the maker, even--until somebody comes along that
knows the word you snapped it on. Now Johnny here's goin', and he
leaves his drum behind him; for, though he can make pretty music on it,
the parchment sags in wet weather, by reason of the sea-water gettin' at
it; an' if he carries it to Plymouth, they'll only condemn it and give
him another. And, as for me, I shan't have the heart to put lip to the
trumpet any more when Johnny's gone. So we've chosen a word together,
and locked 'em together upon that; and, by your leave, I'll hang 'em
here together on the hook over your fireplace. Maybe Johnny'll come
back; maybe not. Maybe, if he comes, I'll be dead an' gone, an' he'll
take 'em apart an' try their music for old sake's sake. But if he never
comes, nobody can separate 'em; for nobody beside knows the word. And if
you marry and have sons, you can tell 'em that here are tied together
the souls of Johnny Christian, drummer of the Marines, and William
George Tallifer, once trumpeter of the Queen's Own Hussars. Amen.'

"With that he hung the two instruments 'pon the hook there; and the boy
stood up and thanked my father and shook hands; and the pair went out of
the door, toward Helston.

"Somewhere on the road they took leave of one another; but nobody saw
the parting, nor heard what was said between them. About three in the
afternoon the trumpeter came walking back over the hill; and by the time
my father came home from the fishing, the cottage was tidied up, and the
tea ready, and the whole place shining like a new pin. From that time
for five years he lodged here with my father, looking after the house
and tilling the garden. And all the time he was steadily failing; the
hurt in his head spreading, in a manner, to his limbs. My father watched
the feebleness growing on him, but said nothing. And from first to last
neither spake a word about the drummer, John Christian; nor did any
letter reach them, nor word of his doings.

"The rest of the tale you're free to believe, sir, or not, as you
please. It stands upon my father's words, and he always declared he was
ready to kiss the Book upon it, before judge and jury. He said, too,
that he never had the wit to make up such a yarn, and he defied any one
to explain about the lock, in particular, by any other tale. But you
shall judge for yourself.

"My father said that about three o'clock in the morning, April
fourteenth, of the year 'fourteen, he and William Tallifer were sitting
here, just as you and I, sir, are sitting now. My father had put on his
clothes a few minutes before, and was mending his spiller by the light
of the horn lantern, meaning to set off before daylight to haul the
trammel. The trumpeter hadn't been to bed at all. Toward the last he
mostly spent his nights (and his days, too) dozing in the elbow-chair
where you sit at this minute. He was dozing then (my father said) with
his chin dropped forward on his chest, when a knock sounded upon the
door, and the door opened, and in walked an upright young man in scarlet
regimentals.

"He had grown a brave bit, and his face the colour of wood-ashes; but it
was the drummer, John Christian. Only his uniform was different from the
one he used to wear, and the figures '38' shone in brass upon his
collar.

"The drummer walked past my father as if he never saw him, and stood by
the elbow-chair and said:

"'Trumpeter, trumpeter, are you one with me?'

"And the trumpeter just lifted the lids of his eyes, and answered: 'How
should I not be one with you, drummer Johnny--Johnny boy? If you come, I
count; if you march, I mark time; until the discharge comes.'

"'The discharge has come tonight,' said the drummer; 'and the word is
Corunna no longer.' And stepping to the chimney-place, he unhooked the
drum and trumpet, and began to twist the brass rings of the lock,
spelling the word aloud, so--'C-O-R-U-N-A.' When he had fixed the last
letter, the padlock opened in his hand.

"'Did you know, trumpeter, that, when I came to Plymouth, they put me
into a line regiment?'

"'The 38th is a good regiment,' answered the old Hussar, still in his
dull voice; 'I went back with them from Sahagun to Corunna. At Corunna
they stood in General Eraser's division, on the right. They behaved
well.'

"'But I'd fain see the Marines again,' says the drummer, handing him the
trumpet; 'and you, you shall call once more for the Queen's Own.
Matthew,' he says, suddenly, turning on my father--and when he turned,
my father saw for the first time that his scarlet jacket had a round
hole by the breast-bone, and that the blood was welling there--'Matthew,
we shall want your boat.'

"Then my father rose on his legs like a man in a dream, while the two
slung on, the one his drum, and t'other his trumpet. He took the lantern
and went quaking before them down to the shore, and they breathed
heavily behind him; and they stepped into his boat, and my father pushed
off.

"'Row you first for Dolor Point,' says the drummer. So my father rowed
them past the white houses of Coverack to Dolor Point, and there, at a
word, lay on his oars. And the trumpeter, William Tallifer, put his
trumpet to his mouth and sounded the reveille. The music of it was like
rivers running.

"'They will follow,' said the drummer. 'Matthew, pull you now for the
Manacles.'

"So my father pulled for the Manacles, and came to an easy close outside
Carn Du. And the drummer took his sticks and beat a tattoo, there by the
edge of the reef; and the music of it was like a rolling chariot.

"'That will do,' says he, breaking off; 'they will follow. Pull now for
the shore under Gunner's Meadow.'

"Then my father pulled for the shore and ran his boat in under Gunner's
Meadow. And they stepped out, all three, and walked up to the meadow. By
the gate the drummer halted, and began his tattoo again, looking outward
the darkness over the sea.

"And while the drum beat, and my father held his breath, there came up
out of the sea and the darkness a troop of many men, horse and foot, and
formed up among the graves; and others rose out of the graves and formed
up--drowned Marines with bleached faces, and pale Hussars, riding their
horses, all lean and shadowy. There was no clatter of hoofs or
accoutrements, my father said, but a soft sound all the while like the
beating of a bird's wing; and a black shadow lay like a pool about the
feet of all. The drummer stood upon a little knoll just inside the gate,
and beside him the tall trumpeter, with hand on hip, watching them
gather; and behind them both, my father, clinging to the gate. When no
more came, the drummer stopped playing, and said, 'Call the roll.'

"Then the trumpeter stepped toward the end man of the rank and called,
'Troop Sergeant-Major Thomas Irons,' and the man answered in a thin
voice, 'Here.'

"'Troop Sergeant-Major Thomas Irons, how is it with you?'

"The man answered, 'How should it be with me? When I was young, I
betrayed a girl; and when I was grown, I betrayed a friend, and for
these I must pay. But I died as a man ought. God save the King!'

"The trumpeter called to the next man, 'Trooper Henry Buckingham,' and
the next man answered, 'Here.'

"'Trooper Henry Buckingham, how is it with you?'

"'How should it be with me? I was a drunkard, and I stole, and in Lugo,
in a wine-shop, I killed a man. But I died as a man should. God save the
King!'

"So the trumpeter went down the line; and when he had finished, the
drummer took it up, hailing the dead Marines in their order. Each man
answered to his name, and each man ended with 'God save the King!' When
all were hailed, the drummer stepped backward to his mound, and called:

"'It is well. You are content, and we are content to join you. Wait,
now, a little while.'

"With this he turned and ordered my father to pick up the lantern, and
lead the way back. As my father picked it up, he heard the ranks of the
dead men cheer and call, 'God save the King!' all together, and saw them
waver and fade back into the dark, like a breath fading off a pane.

"But when they came back here to the kitchen, and my father set the
lantern down, it seemed they'd both forgot about him. For the drummer
turned in the lantern-light--and my father could see the blood still
welling out of the hole in his breast--and took the trumpet-sling from
around the other's neck, and locked drum and trumpet together again,
choosing the letters on the lock very carefully. While he did this, he
said:

"'The word is no more Corunna, but Bayonne. As you left out an "n" in
Corunna, so must I leave out an "n" in Bayonne.' And before snapping the
padlock, he spelt out the word slowly--'B-A-Y-O-N-E.' After that, he
used no more speech; but turned and hung the two instruments back on
the hook; and then took the trumpeter by the arm; and the pair walked
out into the darkness, glancing neither to right nor left.

"My father was on the point of following, when he heard a sort of sigh
behind him; and there, sitting in the elbow-chair, was the very
trumpeter he had just seen walk out by the door! If my father's heart
jumped before, you may believe it jumped quicker now. But after a bit,
he went up to the man asleep in the chair and put a hand upon him. It
was the trumpeter in flesh and blood that he touched; but though the
flesh was warm, the trumpeter was dead.

"Well, sir, they buried him three days after; and at first my father was
minded to say nothing about his dream (as he thought it). But the day
after the funeral, he met Parson Kendall coming from Helston market; and
the parson called out: 'Have 'ee heard the news the coach brought down
this mornin'?' 'What news?' says my father. 'Why, that peace is agreed
upon.' 'None too soon,' says my father. 'Not soon enough for our poor
lads at Bayonne,' the parson answered. 'Bayonne!' cries my father, with
a jump. 'Why, yes,' and the parson told him all about a great sally the
French had made on the night of April 13th. 'Do you happen to know if
the 38th Regiment was engaged?' my father asked. 'Come, now,' said
Parson Kendall, 'I didn't know you was so well up in the campaign. But,
as it happens, I do know that the 38th was engaged, for 'twas they that
held a cottage and stopped the French advance.'

"Still my father held his tongue; and when, a week later, he walked into
Helston and bought a 'Mercury' off the Sherborne rider, and got the
landlord of the 'Angel' to spell out the list of killed and wounded,
sure enough, there among the killed was Drummer John Christian, of the
38th Foot.

"After this there was nothing for a religious man but to make a clean
breast. So my father went up to Parson Kendall, and told the whole
story. The parson listened, and put a question or two, and then asked:

"'Have you tried to open the lock since that night?'

"'I haven't dared to touch it,' says my father.

"'Then come along and try.' When the parson came to the cottage here, he
took the things off the hook and tried the lock. 'Did he say "Bayonne"?
The word has seven letters.'

"'Not if you spell it with one "n" as he did,' says my father.

"The parson spelt it out--'B-A-Y-O-N-E'. 'Whew!' says he, for the lock
has fallen open in his hand.

"He stood considering it a moment, and then he says: 'I tell you what. I
shouldn't blab this all round the parish, if I was you. You won't get no
credit for truth-telling, and a miracle's wasted on a set of fools. But
if you like, I'll shut down the lock again upon a holy word that no one
but me shall know, and neither drummer nor trumpeter, dead or alive,
shall frighten the secret out of me.'

"'I wish to heaven you would, parson,' said my father.

"The parson chose the holy word there and then, and shut the lock upon
it, and hung the drum and trumpet back in their place. He is gone long
since, taking the word with him. And till the lock is broken by force,
nobody will ever separate those two."




THE OPEN DOOR

MRS. MARGARET OLIPHANT


I took the house of Brentwood on my return from India in 18--, for the
temporary accommodation of my family, until I could find a permanent
home for them. It had many advantages which made it peculiarly
appropriate. It was within reach of Edinburgh; and my boy Roland, whose
education had been considerably neglected, could ride in and out to
school; which was thought to be better for him than either leaving home
altogether or staying there always with a tutor. The lad was doubly
precious to us, being the only one left to us of many; and he was
fragile in body, we believed, and deeply sensitive in mind. The two
girls also found at Brentwood everything they wanted. They were near
enough to Edinburgh to have masters and lessons as many as they required
for completing that never-ending education which the young people seem
to require nowadays.

Brentwood stands on that fine and wealthy slope of country--one of the
richest in Scotland--which lies between the Pentland Hills and the
Firth. In clear weather you could see the blue gleam of the great
estuary on one side of you; and on the other the blue heights.
Edinburgh--with its two lesser heights, the Castle and the Calton Hill,
its spires and towers piercing through the smoke, and Arthur's Seat
lying crouched behind, like a guardian no longer very needful, taking
his repose beside the well-beloved charge, which is now, so to speak,
able to take care of itself without him--lay at our right hand.

The village of Brentwood, with its prosaic houses, lay in a hollow
almost under our house. Village architecture does not flourish in
Scotland. Still a cluster of houses on different elevations, with scraps
of garden coming in between, a hedgerow with clothes laid out to dry,
the opening of a street with its rural sociability, the women at their
doors, the slow wagon lumbering along, gives a centre to the landscape.
In the park which surrounded the house were the ruins of the former
mansion of Brentwood,--a much smaller and less important house than the
solid Georgian edifice which we inhabited. The ruins were picturesque,
however, and gave importance to the place. Even we, who were but
temporary tenants, felt a vague pride in them, as if they somehow
reflected a certain consequence upon ourselves. The old building had the
remains of a tower,--an indistinguishable mass of masonwork, overgrown
with ivy; and the shells of the walls attached to this were half filled
up with soil. At a little distance were some very commonplace and
disjointed fragments of buildings, one of them suggesting a certain
pathos by its very commonness and the complete wreck which it showed.
This was the end of a low gable, a bit of grey wall, all incrusted with
lichens, in which was a common door-way. Probably it had been a
servants' entrance, a backdoor, or opening into what are called "the
offices" in Scotland. No offices remained to be entered,--pantry and
kitchen had all been swept out of being; but there stood the door-way
open and vacant, free to all the winds, to the rabbits, and every wild
creature. It struck my eye, the first time I went to Brentwood, like a
melancholy comment upon a life that was over. A door that led to
nothing,--closed once, perhaps, with anxious care, bolted and guarded,
now void of any meaning. It impressed me, I remember, from the first; so
perhaps it may be said that my mind was prepared to attach to it an
importance which nothing justified.

The summer was a very happy period of repose for us all; and it was when
the family had settled down for the winter, when the days were short and
dark, and the rigorous reign of frost upon us, that the incidents
occurred which alone could justify me in intruding upon the world my
private affairs.

I was absent in London when these events began. In London an old Indian
plunges back into the interests with which all his previous life has
been associated, and meets old friends at every step. I had been
circulating among some half-dozen of these and had missed some of my
home letters. It is never safe to miss one's letters. In this transitory
life, as the Prayer-book says, how can one ever be certain what is going
to happen? All was well at home. I knew exactly (I thought) what they
would have to say to me: "The weather has been so fine, that Roland has
not once gone by train, and he enjoys the ride beyond anything." "Dear
papa, be sure that you don't forget anything, but bring us so-and-so,
and so-and-so,"--a list as long as my arm. Dear girls and dearer mother!
I would not for the world have forgotten their commissions, or lost
their little letters!

When I got back to my club, however, three or four letters were lying
for me, upon some of which I noticed the "immediate," "urgent," which
old-fashioned people and anxious people still believe will influence the
post-office and quicken the speed of the mails. I was about to open one
of these, when the club porter brought me two telegrams, one of which,
he said, had arrived the night before. I opened, as was to be expected,
the last first, and this was what I read: "Why don't you come or answer?
For God's sake, come. He is much worse." This was a thunderbolt to fall
upon a man's head who had one only son, and he the light of his eyes!
The other telegram, which I opened with hands trembling so much that I
lost time by my haste, was to much the same purpose: "No better; doctor
afraid of brain-fever. Calls for you day and night. Let nothing detain
you." The first thing I did was to look up the time-tables to see if
there was any way of getting off sooner than by the night-train, though
I knew well enough there was not; and then I read the letters, which
furnished, alas! too clearly, all the details. They told me that the boy
had been pale for some time, with a scared look. His mother had noticed
it before I left home, but would not say anything to alarm me. This look
had increased day by day; and soon it was observed that Roland came home
at a wild gallop through the park, his pony panting and in foam, himself
"as white as a sheet," but with the perspiration streaming from his
forehead. For a long time he had resisted all questioning, but at length
had developed such strange changes of mood, showing a reluctance to go
to school, a desire to be fetched in the carriage at night,--which was a
ridiculous piece of luxury,--an unwillingness to go out into the
grounds, and nervous start at every sound, that his mother had insisted
upon an explanation. When the boy--our boy Roland, who had never known
what fear was--began to talk to her of voices he had heard in the park,
and shadows that had appeared to him among the ruins, my wife promptly
put him to bed and sent for Dr. Simson, which, of course, was the only
thing to do.

I hurried off that evening, as may be supposed, with an anxious heart.
How I got through the hours before the starting of the train, I cannot
tell. We must all be thankful for the quickness of the railway when in
anxiety; but to have thrown myself into a post-chaise as soon as horses
could be put to, would have been a relief. I got to Edinburgh very early
in the blackness of the winter morning, and scarcely dared look the man
in the face, at whom I gasped, "What news?" My wife had sent the
brougham for me, which I concluded, before the man spoke, was a bad
sign. His answer was that stereotyped answer which leaves the
imagination so wildly free,--"Just the same." Just the same! What might
that mean? The horses seemed to me to creep along the long dark country
road. As we dashed through the park, I thought I heard some one moaning
among the trees, and clenched my fist at him (whoever he might be) with
fury. Why had the fool of a woman at the gate allowed any one to come in
to disturb the quiet of the place? If I had not been in such hot haste
to get home, I think I should have stopped the carriage and got out to
see what tramp it was that had made an entrance, and chosen my grounds,
of all places in the world,--when my boy was ill!--to grumble and groan
in. But I had no reason to complain of our slow pace here. The horses
flew like lightning along the intervening path, and drew up at the door
all panting, as if they had run a race. My wife stood waiting to receive
me, with a pale face, and a candle in her hand, which made her look
paler still as the wind blew the flame about. "He is sleeping," she said
in a whisper, as if her voice might wake him. And I replied, when I
could find my voice, also in a whisper, as though the jingling of the
horses' furniture and the sound of their hoofs must not have been more
dangerous. I stood on the steps with her a moment, almost afraid to go
in, now that I was here; and it seemed to me that I saw without
observing, if I may so say, that the horses were unwilling to turn
round, though their stables lay that way, or that the men were
unwilling. These things occurred to me afterwards, though at the moment
I was not capable of anything but to ask questions and to hear of the
condition of the boy.

I looked at him from the door of his room, for we were afraid to go
near, lest we should disturb that blessed sleep. It looked like actual
sleep, not the lethargy into which my wife told me he would sometimes
fall. She told me everything in the next room, which communicated with
his, rising now and then and going to the door of the communication; and
in this there was much that was very startling and confusing to the
mind. It appeared that ever since the winter began--since it was early
dark, and night had fallen before his return from school--he had been
hearing voices among the ruins; at first only a groaning, he said, at
which his pony was as much alarmed as he was, but by degrees a voice.
The tears ran down my wife's cheeks as she described to me how he would
start up in the night and cry out. "Oh, mother, let me in! oh, mother,
let me in!" with a pathos which rent her heart. And she sitting there
all the time, only longing to do everything his heart could desire! But
though she would try to soothe him, crying, "You are at home, my
darling. I am here. Don't you know me? Your mother is here!" he would
only stare at her, and after a while spring up again with the same cry.
At other times he would be quite reasonable, she said, asking eagerly
when I was coming, but declaring that he must go with me as soon as I
did so, "to let them in." "The doctor thinks his nervous system must
have received a shock," my wife said. "Oh, Henry, can it be that we
have pushed him on too much with his work--a delicate boy like Roland?
And what is his work in comparison with his health? Even you would think
little of honours or prizes if it hurt the boy's health." Even I!--as if
I were an inhuman father sacrificing my child to my ambition. But I
would not increase her trouble by taking any notice.

There was just daylight enough to see his face when I went to him; and
what a change in a fortnight! He was paler and more worn, I thought,
than even in those dreadful days in the plains before we left India. His
hair seemed to me to have grown long and lank; his eyes were like
blazing lights projecting out of his white face. He got hold of my hand
in a cold and tremulous clutch, and waved to everybody to go away. "Go
away--even mother," he said; "go away." This went to her heart; for she
did not like that even I should have more of the boy's confidence than
herself; but my wife has never been a woman to think of herself, and she
left us alone. "Are they all gone?" he said eagerly. "They would not let
me speak. The doctor treated me as if I were a fool. You know I am not a
fool, papa."

"Yes, yes, my boy, I know. But you are ill, and quiet is so necessary.
You are not only not a fool, Roland, but you are reasonable and
understand. When you are ill you must deny yourself; you must not do
everything that you might do being well."

He waved his thin hand with a sort of indignation. "Then, father, I am
not ill," he cried. "Oh, I thought when you came you would not stop
me,--you would see the sense of it! What do you think is the matter with
me, all of you? Simson is well enough; but he is only a doctor. What do
you think is the matter with me? I am no more ill than you are. A
doctor, of course, he thinks you are ill the moment he looks at
you--that's what he's there for--and claps you into bed."

"Which is the best place for you at present, my dear boy."

"I made up my mind," cried the little fellow, "that I would stand it
till you came home. I said to myself, I won't frighten mother and the
girls. But now, father," he cried, half jumping out of bed, "it's not
illness: it's a secret."

His eyes shone so wildly, his face was so swept with strong feeling,
that my heart sank within me. It could be nothing but fever that did it,
and fever had been so fatal. I got him into my arms to put him back into
bed. "Roland," I said, humouring the poor child, which I knew was the
only way, "if you are going to tell me this secret to do any good, you
know you must be quite quiet, and not excite yourself. If you excite
yourself, I must not let you speak."

"Yes, father," said the boy. He was quiet directly, like a man, as if he
quite understood. When I had laid him back on his pillow, he looked up
at me with that grateful, sweet look with which children, when they are
ill, break one's heart, the water coming into his eyes in his weakness.
"I was sure as soon as you were here you would know what to do," he
said.

"To be sure, my boy. Now keep quiet, and tell it all out like a man." To
think I was telling lies to my own child! for I did it only to humour
him, thinking, poor little fellow, his brain was wrong.

"Yes, father. Father, there is some one in the park,--some one that has
been badly used."

"Hush, my dear; you remember there is to be no excitement. Well, who is
this somebody, and who has been ill-using him? We will soon put a stop
to that."

"Ah," cried Roland, "but it is not so easy as you think. I don't know
who it is. It is just a cry. Oh, if you could hear it! It gets into my
head in my sleep. I heard it as clear--as clear; and they think that I
am dreaming, or raving perhaps," the boy said, with a sort of disdainful
smile.

This look of his perplexed me; it was less like fever than I thought.
"Are you quite sure you have not dreamed it, Roland?" I said.

"Dreamed?--that!" He was springing up again when he suddenly bethought
himself, and lay down flat, with the same sort of smile on his face.
"The pony heard it, too," he said. "She jumped as if she had been shot.
If I had not grasped at the reins--for I was frightened, father----"

"No shame to you, my boy," said I, though I scarcely knew why.

"If I hadn't held to her like a leech, she'd have pitched me over her
head, and never drew breath till we were at the door. Did the pony
dream it?" he said, with a soft disdain, yet indulgence for my
foolishness. Then he added slowly, "It was only a cry the first time,
and all the time before you went away. I wouldn't tell you, for it was
so wretched to be frightened. I thought it might be a hare or a rabbit
snared, and I went in the morning and looked; but there was nothing. It
was after you went I heard it really first; and this is what he says."
He raised himself on his elbow close to me, and looked me in the face:
"Oh, mother, let me in! oh, mother, let me in!" As he said the words a
mist came over his face, the mouth quivered, the soft features all
melted and changed, and when he had ended these pitiful words, dissolved
in a shower of heavy tears.

Was it a hallucination? Was it the fever of the brain? Was it the
disordered fancy caused by great bodily weakness? How could I tell? I
thought it wisest to accept it as if it were all true.

"This is very touching, Roland," I said.

"Oh, if you had just heard it, father! I said to myself, if father heard
it he would do something; but mamma, you know, she's given over to
Simson, and that fellow's a doctor, and never thinks of anything but
clapping you into bed."

"We must not blame Simson for being a doctor, Roland."

"No, no," said my boy, with delightful toleration and indulgence; "oh,
no: that's the good of him; that's what he's for; I know that. But
you--you are different; you are just father; and you'll do
something--directly, papa, directly; this very night."

"Surely," I said. "No doubt it is some little lost child."

He gave me a sudden, swift look, investigating my face as though to see
whether, after all, this was everything my eminence as "father" came
to,--no more than that. Then he got hold of my shoulder, clutching it
with his thin hand: "Look here," he said, with a quiver in his voice:
"suppose it wasn't--living at all!"

"My dear boy, how then could you have heard it?" I said.

He turned away from me with a pettish exclamation,--"As if you didn't
know better than that!"

"Do you want to tell me it is a ghost?" I said.

Roland withdrew his hand; his countenance assumed an aspect of great
dignity and gravity; a slight quiver remained about his lips. "Whatever
it was--you always said we were not to call names. It was something--in
trouble. Oh, father, in terrible trouble!"

"But, my boy," I said (I was at my wits' end), "if it was a child that
was lost, or any poor human creature--but, Roland, what do you want me
to do?"

"I should know if I was you," said the child eagerly. "That is what I
always said to myself,--Father will know. Oh, papa, papa, to have to
face it night after night, in such terrible, terrible trouble, and never
to be able to do it any good! I don't want to cry; it's like a baby, I
know; but what can I do else? Out there all by itself in the ruin, and
nobody to help it! I can't bear it!" cried my generous boy. And in his
weakness he burst out, after many attempts to restrain it, into a great
childish fit of sobbing and tears.

I do not know that I was ever in a greater perplexity in my life; and
afterwards, when I thought of it, there was something comic in it too.
It is bad enough to find your child's mind possessed with the conviction
that he had seen, or heard, a ghost; but that he should require you to
go instantly and help that ghost was the most bewildering experience
that had ever come my way. I did my best to console my boy without
giving any promise of this astonishing kind; but he was too sharp for
me; he would have none of my caresses. With sobs breaking in at
intervals upon his voice, and the rain-drops hanging on his eyelids, he
yet returned to the charge.

"It will be there now!--it will be there all the night! Oh, think,
papa,--think if it was me! I can't rest for thinking of it. Don't!" he
cried, putting away my hand,--"don't! You go and help it, and mother can
take care of me."

"But, Roland, what can I do?"

My boy opened his eyes, which were large with weakness and fever, and
gave me a smile such, I think, as sick children only know the secret of.
"I was sure you would know as soon as you came. I always said, 'Father
will know.' And mother," he cried, with a softening of repose upon his
face, his limbs relaxing, his form sinking with a luxurious ease in his
bed,--"mother can come and take care of me."

I called her, and saw him turn to her with the complete dependence of a
child; and then I went away and left them, as perplexed a man as any in
Scotland. I must say, however, I had this consolation, that my mind was
greatly eased about Roland. He might be under a hallucination; but his
head was clear enough, and I did not think him so ill as everybody else
did. The girls were astonished even at the ease with which I took it.
"How do you think he is?" they said in a breath, coming round me, laying
hold of me. "Not half so ill as I expected," I said; "not very bad at
all." "Oh, papa, you are a darling!" cried Agatha, kissing me, and
crying upon my shoulder; while little Jeanie, who was as pale as Roland,
clasped both her arms round mine, and could not speak at all. I knew
nothing about it, not half so much as Simson; but they believed in me:
they had a feeling that all would go right now. God is very good to you
when your children look to you like that. It makes one humble, not
proud. I was not worthy of it; and then I recollected that I had to act
the part of a father to Roland's ghost,--which made me almost laugh,
though I might just as well have cried. It was the strangest mission
that ever was intrusted to mortal man.

It was then I remembered suddenly the looks of the men when they turned
to take the brougham to the stables in the dark that morning. They had
not liked it, and the horses had not liked it. I remembered that even
in my anxiety about Roland I had heard them tearing along the avenue
back to the stables, and had made a memorandum mentally that I must
speak of it. It seemed to me that the best thing I could do was to go to
the stables now and make a few inquiries. The coachman was the head of
this little colony, and it was to his house I went to pursue my
investigations. He was a native of the district, and had taken care of
the place in the absence of the family for years; it was impossible but
that he must know everything that was going on, and all the traditions
of the place. The men, I could see, eyed me anxiously when I thus
appeared at such an hour among them, and followed me with their eyes to
Jarvis's house, where he lived alone with his old wife, their children
being all married and out in the world. Mrs. Jarvis met me with anxious
questions. How was the poor young gentleman? But the others knew, I
could see by their faces, that not even this was the foremost thing in
my mind.

After a while I elicited without much difficulty the whole story. In the
opinion of the Jarvises, and of everybody about, the certainty that the
place was haunted was beyond all doubt. As Sandy and his wife warmed to
the tale, one tripping up another in their eagerness to tell everything,
it gradually developed as distinct a superstition as I ever heard, and
not without poetry and pathos. How long it was since the voice had been
heard first, nobody could tell with certainty. Jarvis's opinion was that
his father, who had been coachman at Brentwood before him, had never
heard anything about it, and that the whole thing had arisen within the
last ten years, since the complete dismantling of the old house; which
was a wonderfully modern date for a tale so well authenticated.
According to these witnesses, and to several whom I questioned
afterwards, and who were all in perfect agreement, it was only in the
months of November and December that "the visitation" occurred. During
these months, the darkest of the year, scarcely a night passed without
the recurrence of these inexplicable cries. Nothing, it was said, had
ever been seen,--at least, nothing that could be identified. Some
people, bolder or more imaginative than the others, had seen the
darkness moving, Mrs. Jarvis said, with unconscious poetry. It began
when night fell, and continued at intervals till day broke. Very often
it was only an inarticulate cry and moaning, but sometimes the words
which had taken possession of my poor boy's fancy had been distinctly
audible,--"Oh, mother, let me in!" The Jarvises were not aware that
there had ever been any investigation into it. The estate of Brentwood
had lapsed into the hands of a distant branch of the family, who had
lived but little there; and of the many people who had taken it, as I
had done, few had remained through two Decembers. And nobody had taken
the trouble to make a very close examination into the facts. "No, no,"
Jarvis said, shaking his head, "No, no, Cornel. Wha wad set themsels up
for a laughin'-stock to a' the country-side, making a wark about a
ghost? Naebody believes in ghosts. It bid to be the wind in the trees,
the last gentleman said, or some effec' o' the water wrastlin' among the
rocks. He said it was a' quite easy explained; but he gave up the hoose.
And when you cam, Cornel, we were awfu' anxious you should never hear.
What for should I have spoiled the bargain and hairmed the property for
no-thing?"

"Do you call my child's life nothing?" I said in the trouble of the
moment, unable to restrain myself. "And instead of telling this all to
me, you have told it to him,--to a delicate boy, a child unable to sift
evidence or judge for himself, a tender-hearted young creature----"

I was walking about the room with an anger all the hotter that I felt it
to be most likely quite unjust. My heart was full of bitterness against
the stolid retainers of a family who were content to risk other people's
children and comfort rather than let a house lie empty. If I had been
warned I might have taken precautions, or left the place, or sent Roland
away, a hundred things which now I could not do; and here I was with my
boy in a brain-fever, and his life, the most precious life on earth,
hanging in the balance, dependent on whether or not I could get to the
reason of a commonplace ghost-story!

"Cornel," said Jarvis solemnly, "and _she'll_ bear me witness,--the
young gentleman never heard a word from me--no, nor from either groom or
gardner; I'll gie ye my word for that. In the first place, he's no a lad
that invites ye to talk. There are some that are, and that arena. Some
will draw ye on, till ye've tellt them a' the clatter of the toun, and
a' ye ken, and whiles mair. But Maister Roland, his mind's fu' of his
books. He's aye civil and kind, and a fine lad; but no that sort. And ye
see it's for a' our interest, Cornel, that you should stay at Brentwood.
I took it upon me mysel to pass the word,--'No a syllable to Maister
Roland, nor to the young leddies--no a syllable.' The women-servants,
that have little reason to be out at night, ken little or nothing about
it. And some think it grand to have a ghost so long as they're no in the
way of coming across it. If you had been tellt the story to begin with,
maybe ye would have thought so yourself."

This was true enough. I should not have been above the idea of a ghost
myself! Oh, yes, I claim no exemption. The girls would have been
delighted. I could fancy their eagerness, their interest, and
excitement. No; if we had been told, it would have done no good,--we
should have made the bargain all the more eagerly, the fools that we
are.

"Come with me, Jarvis," I said hastily, "and we'll make an attempt at
least to investigate. Say nothing to the men or to anybody. Be ready for
me about ten o'clock."

"Me, Cornel!" Jarvis said, in a faint voice. I had not been looking at
him in my own preoccupation, but when I did so, I found that the
greatest change had come over the fat and ruddy coachman. "Me, Cornel!"
he repeated, wiping the perspiration from his brow. "There's nothin' I
wouldna do to pleasure ye, Cornel, but if ye'll reflect that I am no
used to my feet. With a horse atween my legs, or the reins in my hand,
I'm maybe nae worse than other men; but on fit, Cornel--it's no
the--bogles;--but I've been cavalry, ye see," with a little hoarse
laugh, "a' my life. To face a thing ye dinna understan'--on your feet,
Cornel."

"He believes in it, Cornel, and you dinna believe in it," the woman
said.

"Will you come with me?" I said, turning to her.

She jumped back, upsetting her chair in her bewilderment. "Me!" with a
scream, and then fell into a sort of hysterical laugh. "I wouldna say
but what I would go; but what would the folk say to hear of Cornel
Mortimer with an auld silly woman at his heels?"

The suggestion made me laugh too, though I had little inclination for
it. "I'm sorry you have so little spirit, Jarvis," I said. "I must find
some one else, I suppose."

Jarvis, touched by this, began to remonstrate, but I cut him short. My
butler was a soldier who had been with me in India, and was not supposed
to fear anything,--man or devil,--certainly not the former; and I felt
that I was losing time. The Jarvises were too thankful to get rid of me.
They attended me to the door with the most anxious courtesies. Outside,
the two grooms stood close by, a little confused by my sudden exit. I
don't know if perhaps they had been listening,--at least standing as
near as possible, to catch any scrap of the conversation. I waved my
hand to them as I went past, in answer to their salutations, and it was
very apparent to me that they also were glad to see me go.

And it will be thought very strange, but it would be weak not to add,
that I myself, though bent on the investigation I have spoken of,
pledged to Roland to carry it out, and feeling that my boy's health,
perhaps his life, depended on the result of my inquiry,--I felt the most
unaccountable reluctance, now that it was dark, to pass the ruins on my
way home. My curiosity was intense; and yet it was all my mind could do
to pull my body along. I dare say the scientific people would describe
it the other way, and attribute my cowardice to the state of my stomach.
I went on; but if I had followed my impulse, I should have turned and
bolted. Everything in me seemed to cry out against it; my heart thumped,
my pulses all began, like sledge-hammers, beating against my ears and
every sensitive part. It was very dark, as I have said; the old house,
with its shapeless tower, loomed a heavy mass through the darkness,
which was only not entirely so solid as itself. On the other hand, the
great dark cedars of which we were so proud seemed to fill up the night.
My foot strayed out of the path in my confusion and the gloom together,
and I brought myself up with a cry as I felt myself knocked against
something solid. What was it? The contact with hard stone and lime and
prickly bramble-bushes restored me a little to myself. "Oh, it's only
the old gable," I said aloud, with a little laugh to reassure myself.
The rough feeling of the stones reconciled me. As I groped about thus, I
shook off my visionary folly. What so easily explained as that I should
have strayed from the path in the darkness? This brought me back to
common existence, as if I had been shaken by a wise hand out of all the
silliness of superstition. How silly it was, after all! What did it
matter which path I took? I laughed again, this time with better heart,
when suddenly, in a moment, the blood was chilled in my veins, a shiver
stole along my spine, my faculties seemed to forsake me. Close by me, at
my side, at my feet, there was a sigh. No, not a groan, not a moaning,
not anything so tangible,--a perfectly soft, faint, inarticulate sigh. I
sprang back, and my heart stopped beating. Mistaken! no, mistake was
impossible. I heard it as clearly as I hear myself speak; a long, soft,
weary sigh, as if drawn to the utmost, and emptying out a load of
sadness that filled the breast. To hear this in the solitude, in the
dark, in the night (though it was still early), had an effect which I
cannot describe. I feel it now,--something cold creeping over me up into
my hair, and down to my feet, which refused to move. I cried out, with a
trembling voice, "Who is there?" as I had done before; but there was no
reply.

I got home I don't quite know how; but in my mind there was no longer
any indifference as to the thing, whatever it was, that haunted these
ruins. My scepticism disappeared like a mist. I was as firmly
determined that there was something as Roland was. I did not for a
moment pretend to myself that it was possible I could be deceived; there
were movements and noises which I understood all about,--cracklings of
small branches in the frost, and little rolls of gravel on the path,
such as have a very eerie sound sometimes, and perplex you with wonder
as to who has done it, _when there is no real mystery_; but I assure you
all these little movements of nature don't affect you one bit _when
there is something_. I understood _them_. I did not understand the sigh.
That was not simple nature; there was meaning in it, feeling, the soul
of a creature invisible. This is the thing that human nature trembles
at,--a creature invisible, yet with sensations, feelings, a power
somehow of expressing itself. Bagley was in the hall as usual when I
went in. He was always there in the afternoon, always with the
appearance of perfect occupation, yet, so far as I know, never doing
anything. The door was open, so that I hurried in without any pause,
breathless; but the sight of his calm regard, as he came to help me off
with my overcoat, subdued me in a moment. Anything out of the way,
anything incomprehensible, faded to nothing in the presence of Bagley.
You saw and wondered how _he_ was made: the parting of his hair, the tie
of his white neckcloth, the fit of his trousers, all perfect as works of
art: but you could see how they were done, which makes all the
difference. I flung myself upon him, so to speak, without waiting to
note the extreme unlikeness of the man to anything of the kind I meant.
"Bagley," I said, "I want you to come out with me tonight to watch
for----"

"Poachers, Colonel?" he said, a gleam of pleasure running all over him.

"No, Bagley; a great deal worse," I cried.

"Yes, Colonel; at what hour, sir?" the man said; but then I had not told
him what it was.

It was ten o'clock when we set out. All was perfectly quiet indoors. My
wife was with Roland, who had been quite calm, she said, and who
(though, no doubt, the fever must run its course) had been better ever
since I came. I told Bagley to put on a thick greatcoat over his evening
coat, and did the same myself, with strong boots; for the soil was like
a sponge, or worse. Talking to him, I almost forgot what we were going
to do. It was darker even than it had been before, and Bagley kept very
close to me as we went along. I had a small lantern in my hand, which
gave us a partial guidance. We had come to the corner where the path
turns. On one side was the bowling-green, which the girls had taken
possession of for their croquet-ground,--a wonderful enclosure
surrounded by high hedges of holly, three hundred years old and more; on
the other, the ruins. Both were black as night; but before we got so
far, there was a little opening in which we could just discern the trees
and the lighter line of the road. I thought it best to pause there and
take breath. "Bagley," I said, "there is something about these ruins I
don't understand. It is there I am going. Keep your eyes open and your
wits about you. Be ready to pounce upon any stranger you see,--anything,
man or woman. Don't hurt, but seize--anything you see." "Colonel," said
Bagley, with a little tremor in his breath, "they do say there's things
there--as is neither man nor woman." There was no time for words. "Are
you game to follow me, my man? that's the question," I said. Bagley fell
in without a word, and saluted. I knew then I had nothing to fear.

We went, so far as I could guess, exactly as I had come, when I heard
that sigh. The darkness, however, was so complete that all marks, as of
trees or paths, disappeared. One moment we felt our feet on the gravel,
another sinking noiselessly into the slippery grass, that was all. I had
shut up my lantern, not wishing to scare any one, whoever it might be.
Bagley followed, it seemed to me, exactly in my footsteps as I made my
way, as I supposed, towards the mass of the ruined house. We seemed to
take a long time groping along seeking this; the squash of the wet soil
under our feet was the only thing that marked our progress. After a
while I stood still to see, or rather feel, where we were. The darkness
was very still, but no stiller than is usual in a winter's night. The
sounds I have mentioned--the crackling of twigs, the roll of a pebble,
the sound of some rustle in the dead leaves, or creeping creature on the
grass--were audible when you listened, all mysterious enough when your
mind is disengaged, but to me cheering now as signs of the livingness of
nature, even in the death of the frost. As we stood still there came up
from the trees in the glen the prolonged hoot of an owl. Bagley started
with alarm, being in a state of general nervousness, and not knowing
what he was afraid of. But to me the sound was encouraging and pleasant,
being so comprehensible. "An owl," I said, under my breath. "Y--es,
Colonel," said Bagley, his teeth chattering. We stood still about five
minutes, while it broke into the still brooding of the air, the sound
widening out in circles, dying upon the darkness. This sound, which is
not a cheerful one, made me almost gay. It was natural, and relieved the
tension of the mind. I moved on with new courage, my nervous excitement
calming down.

When all at once, quite suddenly, close to us, at our feet, there broke
out a cry. I made a spring backwards in the first moment of surprise and
horror, and in doing so came sharply against the same rough masonry and
brambles that had struck me before. This new sound came upwards from the
ground,--a low, moaning, wailing voice, full of suffering and pain. The
contrast between it and the hoot of the owl was indescribable,--the one
with a wholesome wildness and naturalness that hurt nobody; the other, a
sound that made one's blood curdle, full of human misery. With a great
deal of fumbling,--for in spite of everything I could do to keep up my
courage my hands shook,--I managed to remove the slide of my lantern.
The light leaped out like something living, and made the place visible
in a moment. We were what would have been inside the ruined building had
anything remained but the gable-wall which I have described. It was
close to us, the vacant door-way in it going out straight into the
blackness outside. The light showed the bit of wall, the ivy glistening
upon it in clouds of dark green, the bramble-branches waving, and below,
the open door,--a door that led to nothing. It was from this the voice
came which died out just as the light flashed upon this strange scene.
There was a moment's silence, and then it broke forth again. The sound
was so near, so penetrating, so pitiful, that, in the nervous start I
gave, the light fell out of my hand. As I groped for it in the dark my
hand was clutched by Bagley, who, I think, must have dropped upon his
knees; but I was too much perturbed myself to think much of this. He
clutched at me in the confusion of his terror, forgetting all his usual
decorum. "For God's sake, what is it, sir?" he gasped. If I yielded,
there was evidently an end of both of us. "I can't tell," I said, "any
more than you; that's what we've got to find out. Up, man, up!" I pulled
him to his feet. "Will you go round and examine the other side, or will
you stay here with the lantern?" Bagley gasped at me with a face of
horror. "Can't we stay together, Colonel?" he said; his knees were
trembling under him. I pushed him against the corner of the wall, and
put the light into his hands. "Stand fast till I come back; shake
yourself together, man; let nothing pass you," I said. The voice was
within two or three feet of us; of that there could be no doubt.

I went myself to the other side of the wall, keeping close to it. The
light shook in Bagley's hand, but, tremulous though it was, shone out
through the vacant door, one oblong block of light marking all the
crumbling corners and hanging masses of foliage. Was that something dark
huddled in a heap by the side of it? I pushed forward across the light
in the door-way, and fell upon it with my hands; but it was only a
juniper-bush growing close against the wall. Meanwhile, the sight of my
figure crossing the door-way had brought Bagley's nervous excitement to
a height; he flew at me, gripping my shoulder. "I've got him, Colonel!
I've got him!" he cried, with a voice of sudden exultation. He thought
it was a man, and was at once relieved. But at the moment the voice
burst forth again between us, at our feet,--more close to us than any
separate being could be. He dropped off from me, and fell against the
wall, his jaw dropping as if he were dying. I suppose, at the same
moment, he saw that it was me whom he had clutched. I for my part, had
scarcely more command of myself. I snatched the light out of his hand,
and flashed it all about me wildly. Nothing,--the juniper-bush which I
thought I had never seen before, the heavy growth of the glistening ivy,
the brambles waving. It was close to my ears now, crying, crying,
pleading as if for life. Either I heard the same words Roland had heard,
or else, in my excitement, his imagination got possession of mine. The
voice went on, growing into distinct articulation, but wavering about,
now from one point, now from another, as if the owner of it were moving
slowly back and forward. "Mother! mother!" and then an outburst of
wailing. As my mind steadied, getting accustomed (as one's mind gets
accustomed to anything), it seemed to me as if some uneasy, miserable
creature was pacing up and down before a closed door. Sometimes--but
that must have been excitement--I thought I heard a sound like knocking,
and then another burst, "Oh, mother! mother!" All this close, close to
the space where I was standing with my lantern, now before me, now
behind me: a creature restless, unhappy, moaning, crying, before the
vacant door-way, which no one could either shut or open more.

"Do you hear it, Bagley? do you hear what it is saying?" I cried,
stepping in through the door-way. He was lying against the wall, his
eyes glazed, half dead with terror. He made a motion of his lips as if
to answer me, but no sounds came; then lifted his hand with a curious
imperative movement as if ordering me to be silent and listen. And how
long I did so I cannot tell. It began to have an interest, an exciting
hold upon me, which I could not describe. It seemed to call up visibly a
scene any one could understand,--a something shut out, restlessly
wandering to and fro; sometimes the voice dropped, as if throwing itself
down, sometimes wandered off a few paces, growing sharp and clear. "Oh,
mother, let me in! oh, mother, mother, let me in! oh, let me in." Every
word was clear to me. No wonder the boy had gone wild with pity. I tried
to steady my mind upon Roland, upon his conviction that I could do
something, but my head swam with the excitement, even when I partially
overcame the terror. At last the words died away, and there was a sound
of sobs and moaning. I cried out, "In the name of God who are you?" with
a kind of feeling in my mind that to use the name of God was profane,
seeing that I did not believe in ghosts or anything supernatural; but I
did it all the same, and waited, my heart giving a leap of terror lest
there should be a reply. Why this should have been I cannot tell, but I
had a feeling that if there was an answer it would be more than I could
bear. But there was no answer, the moaning went on, and then, as if it
had been real, the voice rose a little higher again, the words
recommenced, "Oh, mother, let me in! oh, mother, let me in!" with an
expression that was heart-breaking to hear.

_As if it had been real!_ What do I mean by that? I suppose I got less
alarmed as the thing went on. I began to recover the use of my
senses,--I seemed to explain it all to myself by saying that this had
once happened, that it was a recollection of a real scene. Why there
should have seemed something quite satisfactory and composing in this
explanation I cannot tell, but so it was. I began to listen almost as if
it had been a play, forgetting Bagley, who, I almost think, had fainted,
leaning against the wall. I was started out of this strange
spectatorship that had fallen upon me by the sudden rush of something
which made my heart jump once more, a large black figure in the door-way
waving its arms. "Come in! come in! come in!" it shouted out hoarsely
at the top of a deep bass voice, and then poor Bagley fell down
senseless across the threshold. He was less sophisticated than I,--he
had not been able to bear it any longer. I took him for something
supernatural, as he took me, and it was some time before I awoke to the
necessities of the moment. I remembered only after, that from the time I
began to give my attention to the man, I heard the other voice no more.
It was some time before I brought him to. It must have been a strange
scene: the lantern making a luminous spot in the darkness, the man's
white face lying on the black earth, I over him, doing what I could for
him. Probably I should have been thought to be murdering him had any one
seen us. When at last I succeeded in pouring a little brandy down his
throat, he sat up and looked about him wildly. "What's up?" he said;
then recognizing me, tried to struggle to his feet with a faint "Beg
your pardon, Colonel." I got him home as best I could, making him lean
upon my arm. The great fellow was as weak as a child. Fortunately he did
not for some time remember what had happened. From the time Bagley fell
the voice had stopped, and all was still.

       *       *       *       *       *

"You've got an epidemic in your house, Colonel," Simson said to me next
morning. "What's the meaning of it all? Here's your butler raving about
a voice. This will never do, you know; and so far as I can make out, you
are in it too."

"Yes, I am in it, Doctor. I thought I had better speak to you. Of
course you are treating Roland all right, but the boy is not raving, he
is as sane as you or me. It's all true."

"As sane as--I--or you. I never thought the boy insane. He's got
cerebral excitement, fever. I don't know what you've got. There's
something very queer about the look of your eyes."

"Come," said I, "you can't put us all to bed, you know. You had better
listen and hear the symptoms in full."

The Doctor shrugged his shoulders, but he listened to me patiently. He
did not believe a word of the story, that was clear; but he heard it all
from beginning to end. "My dear fellow," he said, "the boy told me just
the same. It's an epidemic. When one person falls a victim to this sort
of thing, it's as safe as can be,--there's always two or three."

"Then how do you account for it?" I said.

"Oh, account for it!--that's a different matter; there's no accounting
for the freaks our brains are subject to. If it's delusion, if it's some
trick of the echoes or the winds,--some phonetic disturbance or
other----"

"Come with me tonight and judge for yourself," I said.

Upon this he laughed aloud, then said, "That's not such a bad idea; but
it would ruin me forever if it were known that John Simson was
ghost-hunting."

"There it is," said I; "you dart down on us who are unlearned with your
phonetic disturbances, but you daren't examine what the thing really is
for fear of being laughed at. That's science!"

"It's not science,--it's common-sense," said the Doctor. "The thing has
delusion on the front of it. It is encouraging an unwholesome tendency
even to examine. What good could come of it? Even if I am convinced, I
shouldn't believe."

"I should have said so yesterday; and I don't want you to be convinced
or to believe," said I. "If you prove it to be a delusion, I shall be
very much obliged to you for one. Come; somebody must go with me."

"You are cool," said the Doctor. "You've disabled this poor fellow of
yours, and made him--on that point--a lunatic for life; and now you want
to disable me. But, for once, I'll do it. To save appearance, if you'll
give me a bed, I'll come over after my last rounds."

It was agreed that I should meet him at the gate, and that we should
visit the scene of last night's occurrences before we came to the house,
so that nobody might be the wiser. It was scarcely possible to hope that
the cause of Bagley's sudden illness should not somehow steal into the
knowledge of the servants at least, and it was better that all should be
done as quietly as possible. The day seemed to me a very long one. I had
to spend a certain part of it with Roland, which was a terrible ordeal
for me, for what could I say to the boy? The improvement continued, but
he was still in a very precarious state, and the trembling vehemence
with which he turned to me when his mother left the room filled me with
alarm. "Father?" he said quietly. "Yes, my boy, I am giving my best
attention to it; all is being done that I can do. I have not come to any
conclusion--yet. I am neglecting nothing you said," I cried. What I
could not do was to give his active mind any encouragement to dwell upon
the mystery. It was a hard predicament, for some satisfaction had to be
given him. He looked at me very wistfully, with the great blue eyes
which shone so large and brilliant out of his white and worn face. "You
must trust me," I said. "Yes, father. Father understands," he said to
himself, as if to soothe some inward doubt. I left him as soon as I
could. He was about the most precious thing I had on earth, and his
health my first thought; but yet somehow, in the excitement of this
other subject, I put that aside, and preferred not to dwell upon Roland,
which was the most curious part of it all.

That night at eleven I met Simson at the gate. He had come by train, and
I let him in gently myself. I had been so much absorbed in the coming
experiment that I passed the ruins in going to meet him, almost without
thought, if you can understand that. I had my lantern; and he showed me
a coil of taper which he had ready for use. "There is nothing like
light," he said in his scoffing tone. It was a very still night,
scarcely a sound, but not so dark. We could keep the path without
difficulty as we went along. As we approached the spot we could hear a
low moaning, broken occasionally by a bitter cry. "Perhaps that is your
voice," said the Doctor; "I thought it must be something of the kind.
That's a poor brute caught in some of these infernal traps of yours;
you'll find it among the bushes somewhere." I said nothing. I felt no
particular fear, but a triumphant satisfaction in what was to follow. I
led him to the spot where Bagley and I had stood on the previous night.
All was silent as a winter night could be,--so silent that we heard far
off the sound of the horses in the stables, the shutting of a window at
the house. Simson lighted his taper and went peering about, poking into
all the corners. We looked like two conspirators lying in wait for some
unfortunate traveller; but not a sound broke the quiet. The moaning had
stopped before we came up; a star or two shone over us in the sky,
looking down as if surprised at our strange proceedings. Dr. Simson did
nothing but utter subdued laughs under his breath. "I thought as much,"
he said. "It is just the same with tables and all other kinds of ghostly
apparatus; a sceptic's presence stops everything. When I am present
nothing ever comes off. How long do you think it will be necessary to
stay here? Oh, I don't complain; only when _you_ are satisfied I
am--quite."

I will not deny that I was disappointed beyond measure by this result.
It made me look like a credulous fool. It gave the Doctor such a pull
over me as nothing else could. I should point all his morals for years
to come; and his materialism, his scepticism, would be increased beyond
endurance. "It seems, indeed," I said, "that there is to be no----"
"Manifestation," he said, laughing; "that is what all the mediums say.
No manifestations, in consequence of the presence of an unbeliever." His
laugh sounded very uncomfortable to me in the silence; and it was now
near midnight. But that laugh seemed the signal; before it died away the
moaning we had heard before was resumed. It started from some distance
off, and came towards us, nearer and nearer, like some one walking along
and moaning to himself. There could be no idea now that it was a hare
caught in a trap. The approach was slow, like that of a weak person,
with little halts and pauses. We heard it coming along the grass
straight towards the vacant door-way. Simson had been a little startled
by the first sound. He said hastily, "That child has no business to be
out so late." But he felt, as well as I, that this was no child's voice.
As it came nearer, he grew silent, and, going to the door-way with his
taper, stood looking out towards the sound. The taper being unprotected
blew about in the night air, though there was scarcely any wind. I threw
the light of my lantern steady and white across the same space. It was
in a blaze of light in the midst of the blackness. A little icy thrill
had gone over me at the first sound, but as it came close, I confess
that my only feeling was satisfaction. The scoffer could scoff no more.
The light touched his own face, and showed a very perplexed countenance.
If he was afraid, he concealed it with great success, but he was
perplexed. And then all that had happened on the previous night was
enacted once more. It fell strangely upon me with a sense of
repetition. Every cry, every sob seemed the same as before. I listened
almost without any emotion at all in my own person, thinking of its
effect upon Simson. He maintained a very bold front, on the whole. All
that coming and going of the voice was, if our ears could be trusted,
exactly in front of the vacant, blank door-way, blazing full of light,
which caught and shone in the glistening leaves of the great hollies at
a little distance. Not a rabbit could have crossed the turf without
being seen; but there was nothing. After a time, Simson, with a certain
caution and bodily reluctance, as it seemed to me, went out with his
roll of taper into this space. His figure showed against the holly in
full outline. Just at this moment the voice sank, as was its custom, and
seemed to fling itself down at the door. Simson recoiled violently, as
if some one had come up against him, then turned, and held his taper
low, as if examining something. "Do you see anybody?" I cried in a
whisper, feeling the chill of nervous panic steal over me at this
action. "It's nothing but a--confounded juniper-bush," he said. This I
knew very well to be nonsense, for the juniper-bush was on the other
side. He went about after this, round and round, poking his taper
everywhere, then returned to me on the inner side of the wall. He
scoffed no longer; his face was contracted and pale. "How long does this
go on?" he whispered to me, like a man who does not wish to interrupt
some one who is speaking. I had become too much perturbed myself to
remark whether the successions and changes of the voice were the same
as last night. It suddenly went out in the air almost as he was
speaking, with a soft reiterated sob dying away. If there had been
anything to be seen, I should have said that the person was at that
moment crouching on the ground close to that door.

We walked home very silent afterwards. It was only when we were in sight
of the house that I said, "What do you think of it?" "I can't tell what
to think of it," he said quickly. He took--though he was a very
temperate man--not the claret I was going to offer him, but some brandy
from the tray, and swallowed it almost undiluted. "Mind you, I don't
believe a word of it," he said, when he had lighted his candle; "but I
can't tell what to think," he turned round to add, when he was half-way
upstairs.

All of this, however, did me no good with the solution of my problem. I
was to help this weeping, sobbing thing, which was already to me as
distinct a personality as anything I knew; or what should I say to
Roland? It was on my heart that my boy would die if I could not find
some way of helping this creature. You may be surprised that I should
speak of it in this way. I did not know if it was man or woman; but I no
more doubted that it was a soul in pain than I doubted my own being; and
it was my business to soothe this pain,--to deliver it, if that was
possible. Was ever such a task given to an anxious father trembling for
his only boy? I felt in my heart, fantastic as it may appear, that I
must fulfil this somehow, or part with my child; and you may conceive
that rather than do that I was ready to die. But even my dying would
not have advanced me, unless by bringing me into the same world with
that seeker at the door.

       *       *       *       *       *

Next morning Simson was out before breakfast, and came in with evident
signs of the damp grass on his boots, and a look of worry and weariness,
which did not say much for the night he had passed. He improved a little
after breakfast, and visited his two patients,--for Bagley was still an
invalid. I went out with him on his way to the train, to hear what he
had to say about the boy. "He is going on very well," he said; "there
are no complications as yet. But mind you, that's not a boy to be
trifled with, Mortimer. Not a word to him about last night." I had to
tell him then of my last interview with Roland, and of the impossible
demand he had made upon me, by which, though he tried to laugh, he was
much discomposed, as I could see. "We must just perjure ourselves all
round," he said, "and swear you exorcised it"; but the man was too
kind-hearted to be satisfied with that. "It's frightfully serious for
you, Mortimer. I can't laugh as I should like to. I wish I saw a way out
of it, for your sake. By the way," he added shortly, "didn't you notice
that juniper-bush on the left-hand side?" "There was one on the right
hand of the door. I noticed you made that mistake last night."
"Mistake!" he cried, with a curious low laugh, pulling up the collar of
his coat as though he felt the cold,--"there's no juniper there this
morning, left or right. Just go and see." As he stepped into the train
a few minutes after, he looked back upon me and beckoned me for a
parting word. "I'm coming back tonight," he said.

I don't think I had any feeling about this as I turned away from that
common bustle of the railway which made my private preoccupations feel
so strangely out of date. There had been a distinct satisfaction in my
mind before, that his scepticism had been so entirely defeated. But the
more serious part of the matter pressed upon me now. I went straight
from the railway to the manse, which stood on a little plateau on the
side of the river opposite to the woods of Brentwood. The minister was
one of a class which is not so common in Scotland as it used to be. He
was a man of good family, well educated in the Scotch way, strong in
philosophy, not so strong in Greek, strongest of all in experience,--a
man who had "come across," in the course of his life, most people of
note that had ever been in Scotland, and who was said to be very sound
in doctrine, without infringing the toleration with which old men, who
are good men, are generally endowed. He was old-fashioned; perhaps he
did not think so much about the troublous problems of theology as many
of the young men, nor ask himself any hard questions about the
Confession of Faith; but he understood human nature, which is perhaps
better. He received me with a cordial welcome. "Come away, Colonel
Mortimer," he said; "I'm all the more glad to see you, that I feel it's
a good sign for the boy. He's doing well?--God be praised,--and the
Lord bless him and keep him. He has many a poor body's prayers, and that
can do nobody harm."

"He will need them all, Dr. Moncrieff," I said, "and your counsel, too."
And I told him the story,--more than I had told Simson. The old
clergyman listened to me with many suppressed exclamations, and at the
end the water stood in his eyes.

"That's just beautiful," he said. "I do not mind to have heard anything
like it; it's as fine as Burns when he wished deliverance to one--that
is prayed for in no kirk. Ay, ay! so he would have you console the poor
lost spirit? God bless the boy! There's something more than common in
that, Colonel Mortimer. And also the faith of him in his father!--I
would like to put that into a sermon." Then the old gentleman gave me an
alarmed look, and said, "No, no; I was not meaning a sermon; but I must
write it down for the 'Children's Record.'" I saw the thought that
passed through his mind. Either he thought, or he feared I would think,
of a funeral sermon. You may believe this did not make me more cheerful.

I can scarcely say that Dr. Moncrieff gave me any advice. How could any
one advise on such a subject? But he said, "I think I'll come too. I'm
an old man; I'm less liable to be frightened than those that are further
off the world unseen. It behooves me to think of my own journey there.
I've no cut-and-dry beliefs on the subject. I'll come too; and maybe at
the moment the Lord will put into our heads what to do."

This gave me a little comfort,--more than Simson had given me. To be
clear about the cause of it was not my grand desire. It was another
thing that was in my mind,--my boy. As for the poor soul at the open
door, I had no more doubt, as I have said, of its existence than I had
of my own. It was no ghost to me. I knew the creature, and it was in
trouble. That was my feeling about it, as it was Roland's. To hear it
first was a great shock to my nerves, but not now; a man will get
accustomed to anything. But to do something for it was the great
problem; how was I to be serviceable to a being that was invisible, that
was mortal no longer? "Maybe at the moment the Lord will put it into our
heads." This is very old-fashioned phraseology, and a week before, most
likely, I should have smiled (though always with kindness) at Dr.
Moncrieff's credulity; but there was a great comfort, whether rational
or otherwise I cannot say, in the mere sound of the words.

The road to the station and the village lay through the glen, not by the
ruins; but though the sunshine and the fresh air, and the beauty of the
trees, and the sound of the water were all very soothing to the spirits,
my mind was so full of my own subject that I could not refrain from
turning to the right hand as I got to the top of the glen, and going
straight to the place which I may call the scene of all my thoughts. It
was lying full in the sunshine, like all the rest of the world. The
ruined gable looked due east, and in the present aspect of the sun the
light streamed down through the door-way as our lantern had done,
throwing a flood of light upon the damp grass beyond. There was a
strange suggestion in the open door,--so futile, a kind of emblem of
vanity: all free around, so that you could go where you pleased, and yet
that semblance of an enclosure,--that way of entrance, unnecessary,
leading to nothing. And why any creature should pray and weep to get
in--to nothing, or be kept out--by nothing! You could not dwell upon it,
or it made your brain go round. I remembered, however, what Simson said
about the juniper, with a little smile on my own mind as to the
inaccuracy of recollection which even a scientific man will be guilty
of. I could see now the light of my lantern gleaming upon the wet
glistening surface of the spiky leaves at the right hand,--and he ready
to go to the stake for it that it was the left! I went round to make
sure. And then I saw what he had said. Right or left there was no
juniper at all! I was confounded by this, though it was entirely a
matter of detail: nothing at all,--a bush of brambles waving, the grass
growing up to the very walls. But after all, though it gave me a shock
for a moment, what did that matter? There were marks as if a number of
footsteps had been up and down in front of the door, but these might
have been our steps; and all was bright and peaceful and still. I poked
about the other ruin--the larger ruins of the old house--for some time,
as I had done before. There were marks upon the grass here and there--I
could not call them footsteps--all about; but that told for nothing one
way or another. I had examined the ruined rooms closely the first day.
They were half-filled up with soil and debris, withered brackens and
bramble,--no refuge for any one there. It vexed me that Jarvis should
see me coming from that spot when he came up to me for his orders. I
don't know whether my nocturnal expeditions had got wind among the
servants. But there was a significant look in his face. Something in it
I felt was like my own sensation when Simson in the midst of his
scepticism was struck dumb. Jarvis felt satisfied that his veracity had
been put beyond question. I never spoke to a servant of mine in such a
peremptory tone before. I sent him away "with a flea in his lug," as the
man described it afterwards. Interference of any kind was intolerable to
me at such a moment.

But what was strangest of all was, that I could not face Roland. I did
not go up to his room, as I would have naturally done, at once. This the
girls could not understand. They saw there was some mystery in it.
"Mother has gone to lie down," Agatha said; "he has had such a good
night." "But he wants you so, papa!" cried little Jeanie, always with
her two arms embracing mine in a pretty way she had. I was obliged to go
at last, but what could I say? I could only kiss him, and tell him to
keep still,--that I was doing all I could. There is something mystical
about the patience of a child. "It will come all right, won't it,
father?" he said. "God grant it may! I hope so, Roland." "Oh, yes, it
will come all right." Perhaps he understood that in the midst of my
anxiety I could not stay with him as I should have done otherwise. But
the girls were more surprised than it is possible to describe. They
looked at me with wondering eyes. "If I were ill, papa, and you only
stayed with me a moment, I should break my heart," said Agatha. But the
boy had a sympathetic feeling. He knew that of my own will I would not
have done it. I shut myself up in the library, where I could not rest,
but kept pacing up and down like a caged beast. What could I do? and if
I could do nothing, what would become of my boy? These were the
questions that, without ceasing, pursued each other through my mind.

Simson came out to dinner, and when the house was all still, and most of
the servants in bed, we went out and met Dr. Moncrieff, as we had
appointed, at the head of the glen. Simson, for his part, was disposed
to scoff at the Doctor. "If there are to be any spells, you know, I'll
cut the whole concern," he said. I did not make him any reply. I had not
invited him; he could go or come as he pleased. He was very talkative,
far more so than suited my humour, as we went on. "One thing is certain,
you know; there must be some human agency," he said. "It is all bosh
about apparitions. I never have investigated the laws of sound to any
great extent, and there's a great deal in ventriloquism that we don't
know much about." "If it's the same to you," I said, "I wish you'd keep
all that to yourself, Simson. It doesn't suit my state of mind." "Oh, I
hope I know how to respect idiosyncrasy," he said. The very tone of his
voice irritated me beyond measure. These scientific fellows, I wonder
people put up with them as they do, when you have no mind for their
cold-blooded confidence. Dr. Moncrieff met us about eleven o'clock, the
same time as on the previous night. He was a large man, with a venerable
countenance and white hair,--old, but in full vigour, and thinking less
of a cold night walk than many a younger man. He had his lantern, as I
had. We were fully provided with means of lighting the place, and we
were all of us resolute men. We had a rapid consultation as we went up,
and the result was that we divided to different posts. Dr. Moncrieff
remained inside the wall--if you can call that inside where there was no
wall but one. Simson placed himself on the side next the ruins, so as to
intercept any communication with the old house, which was what his mind
was fixed upon. I was posted on the other side. To say that nothing
could come near without being seen was self-evident. It had been so also
on the previous night. Now, with our three lights in the midst of the
darkness, the whole place seemed illuminated. Dr. Moncrieff's lantern,
which was a large one, without any means of shutting up,--an
old-fashioned lantern with a pierced and ornamental top,--shone
steadily, the rays shooting out of it upward into the gloom. He placed
it on the grass, where the middle of the room, if this had been a room,
would have been. The usual effect of the light streaming out of the
door-way was prevented by the illumination which Simson and I on either
side supplied. With these differences, everything seemed as on the
previous night.

And what occurred was exactly the same, with the same air of repetition,
point for point, as I had formerly remarked. I declare that it seemed to
me as if I were pushed against, put aside, by the owner of the voice as
he paced up and down in his trouble,--though these are perfectly futile
words, seeing that the stream of light from my lantern, and that from
Simson's taper, lay broad and clear, without a shadow, without the
smallest break, across the entire breadth of the grass. But just as it
threw itself sobbing at the door (I cannot use other words), there
suddenly came something which sent the blood coursing through my veins,
and my heart into my mouth. It was a voice inside the wall,--my
minister's well-known voice. I would have been prepared for it in any
kind of adjuration, but I was not prepared for what I heard. It came out
with a sort of stammering, as if too much moved for utterance. "Willie,
Willie! Oh, God preserve us! is it you?"

I made a dash round to the other side of the wall. The old minister was
standing where I had left him, his shadow thrown vague and large upon
the grass by the lantern which stood at his feet. I lifted my own light
to see his face. He was very pale, his eyes wet and glistening, his
mouth quivering with parted lips. He neither saw nor heard me. His whole
being seemed absorbed in anxiety and tenderness. He held out his hands,
which trembled, but it seemed to me with eagerness, not fear. He went on
speaking all the time. "Willie, if it is you,--and it's you, if it is
not a delusion of Satan,--Willie, lad! why come ye here frighting them
that know you not? Why came ye not to me? Your mother's gone with your
name on her lips. Do you think she would ever close her door on her own
lad? Do ye think the Lord will close the door, ye faint-hearted
creature? No!--I forbid ye! I forbid ye!" cried the old man. The sobbing
voice had begun to resume its cries. He made a step forward, calling out
the last words in a voice of command. "I forbid ye! Cry out no more to
man. Go home, ye wandering spirit! go home! Do you hear me?--me that
christened ye, that have struggled with ye, that have wrestled for ye
with the Lord!" Here the loud tones of his voice sank into tenderness.
"And her too, poor woman! poor woman! her you are calling upon. She's no
here. You'll find her with the Lord. Go there and seek her, not here. Do
you hear me, lad? go after her there. He'll let you in, though it's
late. Man, take heart! if you will lie and sob and greet, let it be at
heaven's gate, and no your poor mother's ruined door."

He stopped to get his breath; and the voice had stopped, not as it had
done before, when its time was exhausted and all its repetitions said,
but with a sobbing catch in the breath as if overruled. Then the
minister spoke again, "Are you hearing me, Will? Oh, laddie, you've
liked the beggarly elements all your days. Be done with them now. Go
home to the Father--the Father! Are you hearing me?" Here the old man
sank down upon his knees, his face raised upwards, his hands held up
with a tremble in them, all white in the light in the midst of the
darkness. I resisted as long as I could, though I cannot tell why; then
I, too, dropped upon my knees. Simson all the time stood in the
door-way, with an expression in his face such as words could not tell,
his under lip dropped, his eyes wild, staring. It seemed to be to him,
that image of blank ignorance and wonder, that we were praying. All the
time the voice, with a low arrested sobbing, lay just where he was
standing, as I thought.

"Lord," the minister said,--"Lord, take him into Thy everlasting
habitations. The mother he cries to is with Thee. Who can open to him
but Thee? Lord, when is it too late for Thee, or what is too hard for
Thee? Lord, let that woman there draw him inower! Let her draw him
inower!"

I sprang forward to catch something in my arms that flung itself wildly
within the door. The illusion was so strong, that I never paused till I
felt my forehead graze against the wall and my hands clutch the
ground,--for there was nobody there to save from falling, as in my
foolishness I thought. Simson held out his hand to me to help me up. He
was trembling and cold, his lower lip hanging, his speech almost
inarticulate. "It's gone," he said, stammering,--"it's gone!"

As long as I live I will never forget the shining of the strange lights,
the blackness all round, the kneeling figure with all the whiteness of
the light concentrated on its white venerable head and uplifted hands.
I never knew how long we stood, like sentinels guarding him at his
prayers. But at last the old minister rose from his knees, and standing
up at his full height, raised his arms, as the Scotch manner is at the
end of a religious service, and solemnly gave the apostolical
benediction,--to what? to the silent earth, the dark woods, the wide
breathing atmosphere; for we were but spectators gasping an Amen!

It seemed to me that it must be the middle of the night, as we all
walked back. It was in reality very late. Dr. Moncrieff himself was the
first to speak. "I must be going," he said; "I will go down the glen, as
I came."

"But not alone. I am going with you, Doctor."

"Well, I will not oppose it. I am an old man, and agitation wearies more
than work. Yes; I'll be thankful of your arm. Tonight, Colonel, you've
done me more good turns than one."

I pressed his hand on my arm, not feeling able to speak. But Simson, who
turned with us, and who had gone along all this time with his taper
flaring, in entire unconsciousness, became himself, sceptical and
cynical. "I should like to ask you a question," he said. "Do you believe
in Purgatory, Doctor? It's not in the tenets of the Church, so far as I
know."

"Sir," said Dr. Moncrieff, "an old man like me is sometimes not very
sure what he believes. There is just one thing I am certain of--and that
is the loving-kindness of God."

"But I thought that was in this life. I am no theologian----"

"Sir," said the old man again, with a tremor in him which I could feel
going over all his frame, "if I saw a friend of mine within the gates of
hell, I would not despair but his Father would take him by the hand
still, if he cried like _you_."

"I allow it is very strange, very strange. I cannot see through it. That
there must be human agency, I feel sure. Doctor, what made you decide
upon the person and the name?"

The minister put out his hand with the impatience which a man might show
if he were asked how he recognized his brother. "Tuts!" he said, in
familiar speech; then more solemnly, "How should I not recognize a
person that I know better--far better--than I know you?"

"Then you saw the man?"

Dr. Moncrieff made no reply. He moved his hand again with a little
impatient movement, and walked on, leaning heavily on my arm. We parted
with him at his own door, where his old housekeeper appeared in great
perturbation, waiting for him. "Eh, me, minister! the young gentleman
will be worse?" she cried.

"Far from that--better. God bless him!" Dr. Moncrieff said.

I think if Simson had begun again to me with his questions, I should
have pitched him over the rocks as we returned up the glen; but he was
silent, by a good inspiration. And the sky was clearer than it had been
for many nights, shining high over the trees, with here and there a star
faintly gleaming through the wilderness of dark and bare branches. We
went up to the boy's room when we went in. There we found the complete
hush of rest. My wife looked up out of a doze, and gave me a smile; "I
think he is a great deal better; but you are very late," she said in a
whisper, shading the light with her hand that the Doctor might see his
patient. The boy had got back something like his own colour. He woke as
we stood all round his bed. His eyes had the happy, half-awakened look
of childhood, glad to shut again, yet pleased with the interruption and
glimmer of the light. I stooped over him and kissed his forehead, which
was moist and cool. "All is well, Roland," I said. He looked up at me
with a glance of pleasure, and took my hand and laid his cheek upon it,
and so went to sleep.

       *       *       *       *       *

For some nights after, I watched among the ruins, spending all the dark
hours up to midnight patrolling about the bit of wall which was
associated with so many emotions; but I heard nothing, and saw nothing
beyond the quiet course of nature; nor, so far as I am aware, has
anything been heard again. Dr. Moncrieff gave me the history of the
youth, whom he never hesitated to name. I did not ask, as Simson did,
how he recognized him. He had been a prodigal,--weak, foolish, easily
imposed upon, and "led away," as people say. All that we had heard had
passed actually in life, the Doctor said. The young man had come home
thus a day or two after his mother died,--who was no more than
housekeeper in the old house,--and distracted with the news, had thrown
himself down at the door and called upon her to let him in. The old man
could scarcely speak of it for tears. He was not terrified, as I had
been myself, and all the rest of us. It was no "ghost," as I fear we all
vulgarly considered it, to him,--but a poor creature whom he knew under
these conditions, just as he had known him in the flesh, having no doubt
of his identity. And to Roland it was the same. This spirit in pain,--if
it was a spirit,--this voice out of the unseen,--was a poor
fellow-creature in misery, to be succoured and helped out of his
trouble, to my boy. He spoke to me quite frankly about it when he got
better. "I knew father would find out some way," he said. And this was
when he was strong and well, and all idea that he would turn hysterical
or become a seer of visions had happily passed away.

       *       *       *       *       *

I must add one curious fact, which does not seem to me to have any
relation to the above, but which Simson made great use of, as the human
agency which he was determined to find somehow. One Sunday afternoon
Simson found a little hole,--for it was more a hole than a
room,--entirely hidden under the ivy and ruins, in which there was a
quantity of straw laid in a corner, as if some one had made a bed there,
and some remains of crusts about the floor. Some one had lodged there,
and not very long before, he made out; and that this unknown being was
the author of all the mysterious sounds we heard he is convinced. "I was
puzzled myself,--I could not make it out,--but I always felt convinced
human agency was at the bottom of it. And here it is,--and a clever
fellow he must have been," the Doctor says. There is no argument with
men of this kind.

Bagley left my service as soon as he got well. He assured me it was no
want of respect, but he could not stand "them kind of things"; and the
man was so shaken and ghastly that I was glad to give him a present and
let him go. For my own part, I made a point of staying out the time--two
years--for which I had taken Brentwood; but I did not renew my tenancy.
By that time we had settled, and found for ourselves a pleasant home of
our own.

I must add, that when the Doctor defies me, I can always bring back
gravity to his countenance, and a pause in his railing, when I remind
him of the juniper-bush. To me that was a matter of little importance. I
could believe I was mistaken. I did not care about it one way or other;
but on his mind the effect was different. The miserable voice, the
spirit in pain, he could think of as the result of ventriloquism, or
reverberation, or--anything you please: an elaborate prolonged hoax,
executed somehow by the tramp that had found a lodging in the old tower;
but the juniper-bush staggered him. Things have effects so different on
the minds of different men.




THE DESERTED HOUSE

ERNEST THEODOR AMADEUS HOFFMANN


You know already that I spent the greater part of last summer in X----,
began Theodore. The many old friends and acquaintances I found there,
the free, jovial life, the manifold artistic and intellectual
interests--all these combined to keep me in that city. I was happy as
never before, and found rich nourishment for my old fondness for
wandering alone through the streets, stopping to enjoy every picture in
the shop windows, every placard on the walls, or watching the passers-by
and choosing some one or the other of them to cast his horoscope
secretly to myself.

There is one broad avenue leading to the ---- Gate and lined with
handsome buildings of all descriptions, which is the meeting place of
the rich and fashionable world. The shops which occupy the ground floor
of the tall palaces are devoted to the trade in articles of luxury, and
the apartments above are the dwellings of people of wealth and position.
The aristocratic hotels are to be found in this avenue, the palaces of
the foreign ambassadors are there, and you can easily imagine that such
a street would be the centre of the city's life and gaiety.

I had wandered through the avenue several times, when one day my
attention was caught by a house which contrasted strangely with the
others surrounding it. Picture to yourselves a low building but four
windows broad, crowded in between two tall, handsome structures. Its one
upper story was a little higher than the tops of the ground-floor
windows of its neighbours, its roof was dilapidated, its windows patched
with paper, its discoloured walls spoke of years of neglect. You can
imagine how strange such a house must have looked in this street of
wealth and fashion. Looking at it more attentively I perceived that the
windows of the upper story were tightly closed and curtained, and that a
wall had been built to hide the windows of the ground floor. The
entrance gate, a little to one side, served also as a door-way for the
building, but I could find no sign of latch, lock, or even a bell on
this gate. I was convinced that the house must be unoccupied, for at
whatever hour of the day I happened to be passing I had never seen the
faintest signs of life about it.

You all, the good comrades of my youth, know that I have been prone to
consider myself a sort of clairvoyant, claiming to have glimpses of a
strange world of wonders, a world which you, with your hard common
sense, would attempt to deny or laugh away. I confess that I have often
lost myself in mysteries which after all turned out to be no mysteries
at all. And it looked at first as if this was to happen to me in the
matter of the deserted house, that strange house which drew my steps
and my thoughts to itself with a power that surprised me. But the point
of my story will prove to you that I am right in asserting that I know
more than you do. Listen now to what I am about to tell you.

One day, at the hour in which the fashionable world is accustomed to
promenade up and down the avenue, I stood as usual before the deserted
house, lost in thought. Suddenly I felt, without looking up, that some
one had stopped beside me, fixing his eyes on me. It was Count P----,
who told me that the old house contained nothing more mysterious than a
cake bakery belonging to the pastry cook whose handsome shop adjoined
the old structure. The windows of the ground floor were walled up to
give protection to the ovens, and the heavy curtains of the upper story
were to keep the sunlight from the wares laid out there. When the Count
informed me of this I felt as if a bucket of cold water had been
suddenly thrown over me. But I could not believe in this story of the
cake and candy factory. Through some strange freak of the imagination I
felt as a child feels when some fairy tale has been told it to conceal
the truth it suspects. I scolded myself for a silly fool; the house
remained unaltered in its appearance, and the visions faded in my brain,
until one day a chance incident woke them to life again.

I was wandering through the avenue as usual, and as I passed the
deserted house I could not resist a hasty glance at its close-curtained
upper windows. But as I looked at it, the curtain on the last window
near the pastry shop began to move. A hand, an arm, came out from
between its folds. I took my opera glass from my pocket and saw a
beautifully formed woman's hand, on the little finger of which a large
diamond sparkled in unusual brilliancy; a rich bracelet glittered on the
white, rounded arm. The hand set a tall, oddly formed crystal bottle on
the window ledge and disappeared again behind the curtain.

I stopped as if frozen to stone; a weirdly pleasurable sensation,
mingled with awe, streamed through my being with the warmth of an
electric current. I stared up at the mysterious window and a sigh of
longing arose from the very depths of my heart. When I came to myself
again, I was angered to find that I was surrounded by a crowd which
stood gazing up at the window with curious faces. I stole away
inconspicuously, and the demon of all things prosaic whispered to me
that what I had just seen was the rich pastry cook's wife, in her Sunday
adornment, placing an empty bottle, used for rose-water or the like, on
the window sill. Nothing very weird about this.

Suddenly a most sensible thought came to me. I turned and entered the
shining, mirror-walled shop of the pastry cook. Blowing the steaming
foam from my cup of chocolate, I remarked: "You have a very useful
addition to your establishment next door." The man leaned over his
counter and looked at me with a questioning smile, as if he did not
understand me. I repeated that in my opinion he had been very clever to
set his bakery in the neighbouring house, although the deserted
appearance of the building was a strange sight in its contrasting
surroundings. "Why, sir," began the pastry cook, "who told you that the
house next door belongs to us? Unfortunately every attempt on our part
to acquire it has been in vain, and I fancy it is all the better so, for
there is something queer about the place."

You can imagine, dear friends, how interested I became upon hearing
these words, and that I begged the man to tell me more about the house.

"I do not know anything very definite, sir," he said. "All that we know
for a certainty is that the house belongs to the Countess S----, who
lives on her estates and has not been to the city for years. This house,
so they tell me, stood in its present shape before any of the handsome
buildings were raised which are now the pride of our avenue, and in all
these years there has been nothing done to it except to keep it from
actual decay. Two living creatures alone dwell there, an aged
misanthrope of a steward and his melancholy dog, which occasionally
howls at the moon from the back courtyard. According to the general
story the deserted house is haunted. In very truth my brother, who is
the owner of this shop, and myself have often, when our business kept us
awake during the silence of the night, heard strange sounds from the
other side of the walls. There was a rumbling and a scraping that
frightened us both. And not very long ago we heard one night a strange
singing which I could not describe to you. It was evidently the voice
of an old woman, but the tones were so sharp and clear, and ran up to
the top of the scale in cadences and long trills, the like of which I
have never heard before, although I have heard many singers in many
lands. It seemed to be a French song, but I am not quite sure of that,
for I could not listen long to the mad, ghostly singing, it made the
hair stand erect on my head. And at times, after the street noises are
quiet, we can hear deep sighs, and sometimes a mad laugh, which seem to
come out of the earth. But if you lay your ear to the wall in our back
room, you can hear that the noises come from the house next door." He
led me into the back room and pointed through the window. "And do you
see that iron chimney coming out of the wall there? It smokes so heavily
sometimes, even in summer when there are no fires used, that my brother
has often quarrelled with the old steward about it, fearing danger. But
the old man excuses himself by saying that he was cooking his food.
Heaven knows what the queer creature may eat, for often, when the pipe
is smoking heavily, a strange and queer smell can be smelled all over
the house."

The glass doors of the shop creaked in opening. The pastry cook hurried
into the front room, and when he had nodded to the figure now entering
he threw a meaning glance at me. I understood him perfectly. Who else
could this strange guest be, but the steward who had charge of the
mysterious house! Imagine a thin little man with a face the colour of a
mummy, with a sharp nose, tight-set lips, green cat's eyes, and a crazy
smile; his hair dressed in the old-fashioned style with a high toupet
and a bag at the back, and heavily powdered. He wore a faded old brown
coat which was carefully brushed, grey stockings, and broad, flat-toed
shoes with buckles. And imagine further, that in spite of his meagreness
this little person is robustly built, with huge fists and long, strong
fingers, and that he walks to the shop counter with a strong, firm step,
smiling his imbecile smile, and whining out: "A couple of candied
oranges--a couple of macaroons--a couple of sugared chestnuts----"

The pastry cook smiled at me and then spoke to the old man. "You do not
seem to be quite well. Yes, yes, old age, old age! It takes the strength
from our limbs." The old man's expression did not change, but his voice
went up: "Old age?--Old age?--Lose strength?--Grow weak?--Oho!" And with
this he clapped his hands together until the joints cracked, and sprang
high up into the air until the entire shop trembled and the glass
vessels on the walls and counters rattled and shook. But in the same
moment a hideous screaming was heard; the old man had stepped on his
black dog, which, creeping in behind him, had laid itself at his feet on
the floor. "Devilish beast--dog of hell!" groaned the old man in his
former miserable tone, opening his bag and giving the dog a large
macaroon. The dog, which had burst out into a cry of distress that was
truly human, was quiet at once, sat down on its haunches, and gnawed at
the macaroon like a squirrel. When it had finished its tidbit, the old
man had also finished the packing up and putting away of his purchases.
"Good night, honoured neighbour," he spoke, taking the hand of the
pastry cook and pressing it until the latter cried aloud in pain. "The
weak old man wishes you a good night, most honourable Sir Neighbour," he
repeated, and then walked from the shop, followed closely by his black
dog. The old man did not seem to have noticed me at all. I was quite
dumfoundered in my astonishment.

"There, you see," began the pastry cook. "This is the way he acts when
he comes in here, two or three times a month, it is. But I can get
nothing out of him except the fact that he was a former valet of Count
S----, that he is now in charge of this house here, and that every
day--for many years now--he expects the arrival of his master's family."
The hour was now come when fashion demanded that the elegant world of
the city should assemble in this attractive shop. The doors opened
incessantly, the place was thronged, and I could ask no further
questions.

This much I knew, that Count P----'s information about the ownership and
the use of the house were not correct; also, that the old steward, in
spite of his denial, was not living alone there, and that some mystery
was hidden behind its discoloured walls. How could I combine the story
of the strange and gruesome singing with the appearance of the beautiful
arm at the window? That arm could not be part of the wrinkled body of an
old woman; the singing, according to the pastry cook's story, could not
come from the throat of a blooming and youthful maiden. I decided in
favour of the arm, as it was easy to explain to myself that some trick
of acoustics had made the voice sound sharp and old, or that it had
appeared so only in the pastry cook's fear-distorted imagination. Then I
thought of the smoke, the strange odours, the oddly formed crystal
bottle that I had seen, and soon the vision of a beautiful creature held
enthralled by fatal magic stood as if alive before my mental vision. The
old man became a wizard who, perhaps quite independently of the family
he served, had set up his devil's kitchen in the deserted house. My
imagination had begun to work, and in my dreams that night I saw clearly
the hand with the sparkling diamond on its finger, the arm with the
shining bracelet. From out thin, grey mists there appeared a sweet face
with sadly imploring blue eyes, then the entire exquisite figure of a
beautiful girl. And I saw that what I had thought was mist was the fine
steam flowing out in circles from a crystal bottle held in the hands of
the vision.

"Oh, fairest creature of my dreams," I cried in rapture, "reveal to me
where thou art, what it is that enthralls thee. Ah, I know it! It is
black magic that holds thee captive--thou art the unhappy slave of that
malicious devil who wanders about brown-clad and be-wigged in pastry
shops, scattering their wares with his unholy springing and feeding his
demon dog on macaroons, after they have howled out a Satanic measure in
five-eighth time. Oh, I know it all, thou fair and charming vision. The
diamond is the reflection of the fire of thy heart. But that bracelet
about thine arm is a link of the chain which the brown-clad one says is
a magnetic chain. Do not believe it, O glorious one! See how it shines
in the blue fire from the retort. One moment more and thou art free. And
now, O maiden, open thy rosebud mouth and tell me----" In this moment a
gnarled fist leaped over my shoulder and clutched at the crystal bottle,
which sprang into a thousand pieces in the air. With a faint, sad moan,
the charming vision faded into the blackness of the night.

When morning came to put an end to my dreaming I hurried through the
avenue, seeking the deserted house as usual and I saw something
glistening in the last window of the upper story. Coming nearer I
noticed that the outer blind had been quite drawn up and the inner
curtain slightly opened. The sparkle of a diamond met my eye. O kind
Heaven! The face of my dream looked at me, gently imploring, from above
the rounded arm on which her head was resting. But how was it possible
to stand still in the moving crowd without attracting attention?
Suddenly I caught sight of the benches placed in the gravel walk in the
centre of the avenue, and I saw that one of them was directly opposite
the house. I sprang over to it, and leaning over its back, I could stare
up at the mysterious window undisturbed. Yes, it was she, the charming
maiden of my dream! But her eye did not seem to seek me as I had at
first thought; her glance was cold and unfocused, and had it not been
for an occasional motion of the hand and arm, I might have thought that
I was looking at a cleverly painted picture.

I was so lost in my adoration of the mysterious being in the window, so
aroused and excited throughout all my nerve centres, that I did not hear
the shrill voice of an Italian street hawker, who had been offering me
his wares for some time. Finally he touched me on the arm; I turned
hastily and commanded him to let me alone. But he did not cease his
entreaties, asserting that he had earned nothing today, and begging me
to buy some small trifle from him. Full of impatience to get rid of him
I put my hand in my pocket. With the words: "I have more beautiful
things here," he opened the under drawer of his box and held out to me a
little, round pocket mirror. In it, as he held it up before my face, I
could see the deserted house behind me, the window, and the sweet face
of my vision there.

I bought the little mirror at once, for I saw that it would make it
possible for me to sit comfortable and inconspicuously, and yet watch
the window. The longer I looked at the reflection in the glass, the more
I fell captive to a weird and quite indescribable sensation, which I
might almost call a waking dream. It was as if a lethargy had lamed my
eyes, holding them fastened on the glass beyond my power to loosen them.
And now at last the beautiful eyes of the fair vision looked at me, her
glance sought mine and shone deep down into my heart.

"You have a pretty little mirror there," said a voice beside me. I
awoke from my dream, and was not a little confused when I saw smiling
faces looking at me from either side. Several persons had sat down upon
the bench, and it was quite certain that my staring into the window, and
my probably strange expression, had afforded them great cause for
amusement.

"You have a pretty little mirror there," repeated the man, as I did not
answer him. His glance said more, and asked without words the reason of
my staring so oddly into the little glass. He was an elderly man, neatly
dressed, and his voice and eyes were so full of good nature that I could
not refuse him my confidence. I told him that I had been looking in the
mirror at the picture of a beautiful maiden who was sitting at a window
of the deserted house. I went even farther; I asked the old man if he
had not seen the fair face himself. "Over there? In the old house--in
the last window?" He repeated my questions in a tone of surprise.

"Yes, yes," I exclaimed.

The old man smiled and answered: "Well, well, that was a strange
delusion. My old eyes--thank Heaven for my old eyes! Yes, yes, sir. I
saw a pretty face in the window there, with my own eyes; but it seemed
to me to be an excellently well-painted oil portrait."

I turned quickly and looked toward the window; there was no one there,
and the blind had been pulled down. "Yes," continued the old man, "yes,
sir. Now it is too late to make sure of the matter, for just now the
servant, who, as I know, lives there alone in the house of the Countess
S----, took the picture away from the window after he had dusted it, and
let down the blinds."

"Was it, then, surely a picture?" I asked again, in bewilderment.

"You can trust my eyes," replied the old man. "The optical delusion was
strengthened by your seeing only the reflection in the mirror. And when
I was in your years it was easy enough for my fancy to call up the
picture of a beautiful maiden."

"But the hand and arm moved," I exclaimed. "Oh, yes, they moved, indeed
they moved," said the old man smiling, as he patted me on the shoulder.
Then he arose to go, and bowing politely, closed his remarks with the
words, "Beware of mirrors which can lie so vividly. Your obedient
servant, sir."

You can imagine how I felt when I saw that he looked upon me as a
foolish fantast. I hurried home full of anger and disgust, and promised
myself that I would not think of the mysterious house. But I placed the
mirror on my dressing-table that I might bind my cravat before it, and
thus it happened one day, when I was about to utilize it for this
important business, that its glass seemed dull, and that I took it up
and breathed on it to rub it bright again. My heart seemed to stand
still, every fibre in me trembled in delightful awe. Yes, that is all
the name I can find for the feeling that came over me, when, as my
breath clouded the little mirror, I saw the beautiful face of my dreams
arise and smile at me through blue mists. You laugh at me? You look upon
me as an incorrigible dreamer? Think what you will about it--the fair
face looked at me from out of the mirror! But as soon as the clouding
vanished, the face vanished in the brightened glass.

I will not weary you with a detailed recital of my sensations the next
few days. I will only say that I repeated again the experiments with the
mirror, sometimes with success, sometimes without. When I had not been
able to call up the vision, I would run to the deserted house and stare
up at the windows; but I saw no human being anywhere about the building.
I lived only in thoughts of my vision; everything else seemed
indifferent to me. I neglected my friends and my studies. The tortures
in my soul passed over into, or rather mingled with, physical sensations
which frightened me, and which at last made me fear for my reason. One
day, after an unusually severe attack, I put my little mirror in my
pocket and hurried to the home of Dr. K----, who was noted for his
treatment of those diseases of the mind out of which physical diseases
so often grow. I told him my story; I did not conceal the slightest
incident from him, and I implored him to save me from the terrible fate
which seemed to threaten me. He listened to me quietly, but I read
astonishment in his glance. Then he said: "The danger is not as near as
you believe, and I think that I may say that it can be easily prevented.
You are undergoing an unusual psychical disturbance, beyond a doubt.
But the fact that you understand that some evil principle seems to be
trying to influence you, gives you a weapon by which you can combat it.
Leave your little mirror here with me, and force yourself to take up
with some work which will afford scope for all your mental energy. Do
not go to the avenue; work all day, from early to late, then take a long
walk, and spend your evenings in the company of your friends. Eat
heartily, and drink heavy, nourishing wines. You see I am endeavouring
to combat your fixed idea of the face in the window of the deserted
house and in the mirror, by diverting your mind to other things, and by
strengthening your body. You yourself must help me in this."

I was very reluctant to part with my mirror. The physician, who had
already taken it, seemed to notice my hesitation. He breathed upon the
glass and holding it up to me, he asked: "Do you see anything?"

"Nothing at all," I answered, for so it was.

"Now breathe on the glass yourself," said the physician, laying the
mirror in my hands.

I did as he requested. There was the vision even more clearly than ever
before.

"There she is!" I cried aloud.

The physician looked into the glass, and then said: "I cannot see
anything. But I will confess to you that when I looked into this glass,
a queer shiver overcame me, passing away almost at once. Now do it once
more."

I breathed upon the glass again and the physician laid his hand upon
the back of my neck. The face appeared again, and the physician, looking
into the mirror over my shoulder, turned pale. Then he took the little
glass from my hands, looked at it attentively, and locked it into his
desk, returning to me after a few moments' silent thought.

"Follow my instructions strictly," he said. "I must confess to you that
I do not yet understand those moments of your vision. But I hope to be
able to tell you more about it very soon."

Difficult as it was to me, I forced myself to live absolutely according
to the doctor's orders. I soon felt the benefit of the steady work and
the nourishing diet, and yet I was not free from those terrible attacks,
which would come either at noon, or, more intensely still, at midnight.
Even in the midst of a merry company, in the enjoyment of wine and song,
glowing daggers seemed to pierce my heart, and all the strength of my
intellect was powerless to resist their might over me. I was obliged to
retire, and could not return to my friends until I had recovered from my
condition of lethargy. It was in one of these attacks, an unusually
strong one, that such an irresistible, mad longing for the picture of my
dreams came over me, that I hurried out into the street and ran toward
the mysterious house. While still at a distance from it, I seemed to see
lights shining out through the fast-closed blinds, but when I came
nearer I saw that all was dark. Crazy with my desire I rushed to the
door; it fell back before the pressure of my hand. I stood in the dimly
lighted vestibule, enveloped in a heavy, close atmosphere. My heart beat
in strange fear and impatience. Then suddenly a long, sharp tone, as
from a woman's throat, shrilled through the house. I know not how it
happened that I found myself suddenly in a great hall brilliantly
lighted and furnished in old-fashioned magnificence of golden chairs and
strange Japanese ornaments. Strongly perfumed incense arose in blue
clouds about me. "Welcome--welcome, sweet bridegroom! the hour has come,
our bridal hour!" I heard these words in a woman's voice, and as little
as I can tell, how I came into the room, just so little do I know how it
happened that suddenly a tall, youthful figure, richly dressed, seemed
to arise from the blue mists. With the repeated shrill cry: "Welcome,
sweet bridegroom!" she came toward me with outstretched arms--and a
yellow face, distorted with age and madness, stared into mine! I fell
back in terror, but the fiery, piercing glance of her eyes, like the
eyes of a snake, seemed to hold me spellbound. I did not seem able to
turn my eyes from this terrible old woman, I could not move another
step. She came still nearer, and it seemed to me suddenly as if her
hideous face were only a thin mask, beneath which I saw the features of
the beautiful maiden of my vision. Already I felt the touch of her
hands, when suddenly she fell at my feet with a loud scream, and a voice
behind me cried:

"Oho, is the devil playing his tricks with your grace again? To bed, to
bed, your grace. Else there will be blows, mighty blows!"

I turned quickly and saw the old steward in his night clothes, swinging
a whip above his head. He was about to strike the screaming figure at my
feet when I caught at his arm. But he shook me from him, exclaiming:
"The devil, sir! That old Satan would have murdered you if I had not
come to your aid. Get away from here at once!"

I rushed from the hall, and sought in vain in the darkness for the door
of the house. Behind me I heard the hissing blows of the whip and the
old woman's screams. I drew breath to call aloud for help, when suddenly
the ground gave way under my feet; I fell down a short flight of stairs,
bringing up with such force against a door at the bottom that it sprang
open, and I measured my length on the floor of a small room. From the
hastily vacated bed, and from the familiar brown coat hanging over a
chair, I saw that I was in the bed-chamber of the old steward. There was
a trampling on the stair, and the old man himself entered hastily,
throwing himself at my feet. "By all the saints, sir," he entreated with
folded hands, "whoever you may be, and however her grace, that old Satan
of a witch has managed to entice you to this house, do not speak to any
one of what has happened here. It will cost me my position. Her crazy
excellency has been punished, and is bound fast in her bed. Sleep well,
good sir, sleep softly and sweetly. It is a warm and beautiful July
night. There is no moon, but the stars shine brightly. A quiet good
night to you." While talking, the old man had taken up a lamp, had led
me out of the basement, pushed me out of the house door, and locked it
behind me. I hurried home quite bewildered, and you can imagine that I
was too much confused by the gruesome secret to be able to form any
explanation of it in my own mind for the first few days. Only this much
was certain, that I was now free from the evil spell that had held me
captive so long. All my longing for the magic vision in the mirror had
disappeared, and the memory of the scene in the deserted house was like
the recollection of an unexpected visit to a madhouse. It was evident
beyond a doubt that the steward was the tyrannical guardian of a crazy
woman of noble birth, whose condition was to be hidden from the world.
But the mirror? and all the other magic? Listen, and I will tell you
more about it.

Some few days later I came upon Count P---- at an evening entertainment.
He drew me to one side and said, with a smile, "Do you know that the
secrets of our deserted house are beginning to be revealed?" I listened
with interest; but before the Count could say more the doors of the
dining-room were thrown open, and the company proceeded to the table.
Quite lost in thought at the words I had just heard, I had given a young
lady my arm, and had taken my place mechanically in the ceremonious
procession. I led my companion to the seats arranged for us, and then
turned to look at her for the first time. The vision of my mirror stood
before me, feature for feature, there was no deception possible! I
trembled to my innermost heart, as you can imagine; but I discovered
that there was not the slightest echo even, in my heart, of the mad
desire which had ruled me so entirely when my breath drew out the magic
picture from the glass. My astonishment, or rather my terror, must have
been apparent in my eyes. The girl looked at me in such surprise that I
endeavoured to control myself sufficiently to remark that I must have
met her somewhere before. Her short answer, to the effect that this
could hardly be possible, as she had come to the city only yesterday for
the first time in her life, bewildered me still more and threw me into
an awkward silence. The sweet glance from her gentle eyes brought back
my courage, and I began a tentative exploring of this new companion's
mind. I found that I had before me a sweet and delicate being, suffering
from some psychic trouble. At a particularly merry turn of the
conversation, when I would throw in a daring word like a dash of pepper,
she would smile, but her smile was pained, as if a wound had been
touched. "You are not very merry tonight, Countess. Was it the visit
this morning?" An officer sitting near us had spoken these words to my
companion, but before he could finish his remarks his neighbour had
grasped him by the arm and whispered something in his ear, while a lady
at the other side of the table, with glowing cheeks and angry eyes,
began to talk loudly of the opera she had heard last evening. Tears came
to the eyes of the girl sitting beside me. "Am I not foolish?" She
turned to me. A few moments before she had complained of headache.
"Merely the usual evidences of a nervous headache," I answered in an
easy tone, "and there is nothing better for it than the merry spirit
which bubbles in the foam of this poet's nectar." With these words I
filled her champagne glass, and she sipped at it as she threw me a look
of gratitude. Her mood brightened, and all would have been well had I
not touched a glass before me with unexpected strength, arousing from it
a shrill, high tone. My companion grew deadly pale, and I myself felt a
sudden shiver, for the sound had exactly the tone of the mad woman's
voice in the deserted house.

While we were drinking coffee I made an opportunity to get to the side
of Count P----. He understood the reason for my movement. "Do you know
that your neighbour is Countess Edwina S----? And do you know also that
it is her mother's sister who lives in the deserted house, incurably mad
for many years? This morning both mother and daughter went to see the
unfortunate woman. The old steward, the only person who is able to
control the Countess in her outbreaks, is seriously ill, and they say
that the sister has finally revealed the secret to Dr. K----."

Dr. K---- was the physician to whom I had turned in my own anxiety, and
you can well imagine that I hurried to him as soon as I was free, and
told him all that had happened to me in the last days. I asked him to
tell me as much as he could about the mad woman, for my own peace of
mind; and this is what I learned from him under promise of secrecy.

"Angelica, Countess Z----," thus the doctor began, "had already passed
her thirtieth year, but was still in full possession of great beauty,
when Count S----, although much younger than she, became so fascinated
by her charm that he wooed her with ardent devotion and followed her to
her father's home to try his luck there. But scarcely had the Count
entered the house, scarcely had he caught sight of Angelica's younger
sister, Gabrielle, when he awoke as from a dream. The elder sister
appeared faded and colourless beside Gabrielle, whose beauty and charm
so enthralled the Count that he begged her hand of her father. Count
Z---- gave his consent easily, as there was no doubt of Gabrielle's
feelings toward her suitor. Angelica did not show the slightest anger at
her lover's faithlessness. "He believes that he has forsaken me, the
foolish boy! He does not perceive that he was but my toy, a toy of which
I had tired." Thus she spoke in proud scorn, and not a look or an action
on her part belied her words. But after the ceremonious betrothal of
Gabrielle to Count S----, Angelica was seldom seen by the members of her
family. She did not appear at the dinner table, and it was said that she
spent most of her time walking alone in the neighbouring wood.

"A strange occurrence disturbed the monotonous quiet of life in the
castle. The hunters of Count Z----, assisted by peasants from the
village, had captured a band of gipsies who were accused of several
robberies and murders which had happened recently in the neighbourhood.
The men were brought to the castle courtyard, fettered together on a
long chain, while the women and children were packed on a cart.
Noticeable among the last was a tall, haggard old woman of terrifying
aspect, wrapped from head to foot in a red shawl. She stood upright in
the cart, and in an imperious tone demanded that she should be allowed
to descend. The guards were so awed by her manner and appearance that
they obeyed her at once.

"Count Z---- came down to the courtyard and commanded that the gang
should be placed in the prisons under the castle. Suddenly Countess
Angelica rushed out of the door, her hair all loose, fear and anxiety in
her pale face. Throwing herself on her knees, she cried in a piercing
voice, 'Let these people go! Let these people go! They are innocent!
Father, let these people go! If you shed one drop of their blood I will
pierce my heart with this knife!' The Countess swung a shining knife in
the air and then sank swooning to the ground. 'Yes, my beautiful
darling--my golden child--I knew you would not let them hurt us,'
shrilled the old woman in red. She cowered beside the Countess and
pressed disgusting kisses to her face and breast, murmuring crazy words.
She took from out the recesses of her shawl a little vial in which a
tiny goldfish seemed to swim in some silver-clear liquid. She held the
vial to the Countess's heart. The latter regained consciousness
immediately. When her eyes fell on the gipsy woman, she sprang up,
clasped the old creature ardently in her arms, and hurried with her into
the castle.

"Count Z----, Gabrielle, and her lover, who had come out during this
scene, watched it in astonished awe. The gipsies appeared quite
indifferent. They were loosed from their chains and taken separately to
the prisons. Next morning Count Z---- called the villagers together. The
gipsies were led before them and the Count announced that he had found
them to be innocent of the crimes of which they were accused, and that
he would grant them free passage through his domains. To the
astonishment of all present, their fetters were struck off and they were
set at liberty. The red-shawled woman was not among them. It was
whispered that the gipsy captain, recognizable from the golden chain
about his neck and the red feather in his high Spanish hat, had paid a
secret visit to the Count's room the night before. But it was
discovered, a short time after the release of the gipsies, that they
were indeed guiltless of the robberies and murders that had disturbed
the district.

"The date set for Gabrielle's wedding approached. One day, to her great
astonishment, she saw several large wagons in the courtyard being packed
high with furniture, clothing, linen, with everything necessary for a
complete household outfit. The wagons were driven away, and the
following day Count Z---- explained that, for many reasons, he had
thought it best to grant Angelica's odd request that she be allowed to
set up her own establishment in his house in X----. He had given the
house to her, and had promised her that no member of the family, not
even he himself, should enter it without her express permission. He
added also, that, at her urgent request, he had permitted his own valet
to accompany her, to take charge of her household.

"When the wedding festivities were over, Count S---- and his bride
departed for their home, where they spent a year in cloudless happiness.
Then the Count's health failed mysteriously. It was as if some secret
sorrow gnawed at his vitals, robbing him of joy and strength. All
efforts of his young wife to discover the source of his trouble were
fruitless. At last, when the constantly recurring fainting spells
threatened to endanger his very life, he yielded to the entreaties of
his physicians and left his home, ostensibly for Pisa. His young wife
was prevented from accompanying him by the delicate condition of her own
health.

"And now," said the doctor, "the information given me by Countess S----
became, from this point on, so rhapsodical that a keen observer only
could guess at the true coherence of the story. Her baby, a daughter,
born during her husband's absence, was spirited away from the house, and
all search for it was fruitless. Her grief at this loss deepened to
despair, when she received a message from her father stating that her
husband, whom all believed to be in Pisa, had been found dying of heart
trouble in Angelica's home in X----, and that Angelica herself had
become a dangerous maniac. The old Count added that all this horror had
so shaken his own nerves that he feared he would not long survive it.

"As soon as Gabrielle was able to leave her bed, she hurried to her
father's castle. One night, prevented from sleeping by visions of the
loved ones she had lost, she seemed to hear a faint crying, like that of
an infant, before the door of her chamber. Lighting her candle she
opened the door. Great Heaven! there cowered the old gipsy woman,
wrapped in her red shawl, staring up at her with eyes that seemed
already glazing in death. In her arms she held a little child, whose
crying had aroused the Countess. Gabrielle's heart beat high with
joy--it was her child--her lost daughter! She snatched the infant from
the gipsy's arms, just as the woman fell at her feet lifeless. The
Countess's screams awoke the house, but the gipsy was quite dead and no
effort to revive her met with success.

"The old Count hurried to X---- to endeavour to discover something that
would throw light upon the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of
the child. Angelica's madness had frightened away all her female
servants; the valet alone remained with her. She appeared at first to
have become quite calm and sensible. But when the Count told her the
story of Gabrielle's child she clapped her hands and laughed aloud,
crying: 'Did the little darling arrive? You buried her, you say? How the
feathers of the gold pheasant shine in the sun! Have you seen the green
lion with the fiery blue eyes?' Horrified the Count perceived that
Angelica's mind was gone beyond a doubt, and he resolved to take her
back with him to his estates, in spite of the warnings of his old valet.
At the mere suggestion of removing her from the house Angelica's ravings
increased to such an extent as to endanger her own life and that of the
others.

"When a lucid interval came again Angelica entreated her father, with
many tears, to let her live and die in the house she had chosen. Touched
by her terrible trouble he granted her request, although he believed the
confession which slipped from her lips during this scene to be a fantasy
of her madness. She told him that Count S---- had returned to her arms,
and that the child which the gipsy had taken to her father's house was
the fruit of their love. The rumour went abroad in the city that Count
Z---- had taken the unfortunate woman to his home; but the truth was
that she remained hidden in the deserted house under the care of the
valet. Count Z---- died a short time ago, and Countess Gabrielle came
here with her daughter Edwina to arrange some family affairs. It was not
possible for her to avoid seeing her unfortunate sister. Strange things
must have happened during this visit, but the Countess has not confided
anything to me, saying merely that she had found it necessary to take
the mad woman away from the old valet. It had been discovered that he
had controlled her outbreaks by means of force and physical cruelty; and
that also, allured by Angelica's assertions that she could make gold, he
had allowed himself to assist her in her weird operations.

"It would be quite unnecessary," thus the physician ended his story, "to
say anything more to you about the deeper inward relationship of all
these strange things. It is clear to my mind that it was you who brought
about the catastrophe, a catastrophe which will mean recovery or speedy
death for the sick woman. And now I will confess to you that I was not a
little alarmed, horrified even, to discover that--when I had set myself
in magnetic communication with you by placing my hand on your neck--I
could see the picture in the mirror with my own eyes. We both know now
that the reflection in the glass was the face of Countess Edwina."

I repeat Dr. K----'s words in saying that, to my mind also, there is no
further comment that can be made on all these facts. I consider it
equally unnecessary to discuss at any further length with you now the
mysterious relationship between Angelica, Edwina, the old valet, and
myself--a relationship which seemed the work of a malicious demon who
was playing his tricks with us. I will add only that I left the city
soon after all these events, driven from the place by an oppression I
could not shake off. The uncanny sensation left me suddenly a month or
so later, giving way to a feeling of intense relief that flowed through
all my veins with the warmth of an electric current. I am convinced that
this change within me came about in the moment when the mad woman died.




THE MYSTERIOUS SKETCH

ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN


I

Opposite the chapel of Saint Sebalt in Nuremberg, at the corner of
Trabaus Street, there stands a little tavern, tall and narrow, with a
toothed gable and dusty windows, whose roof is surmounted by a plaster
Virgin. It was there that I spent the unhappiest days of my life. I had
gone to Nuremberg to study the old German masters; but in default of
ready money, I had to paint portraits--and such portraits! Fat old women
with their cats on their laps, big-wigged aldermen, burgomasters in
three-cornered hats--all horribly bright with ochre and vermilion. From
portraits I descended to sketches, and from sketches to silhouettes.

Nothing is more annoying than to have your landlord come to you every
day with pinched lips, shrill voice, and impudent manner to say: "Well,
sir, how soon are you going to pay me? Do you know how much your bill
is? No; that doesn't worry you! You eat, drink, and sleep calmly enough.
God feeds the sparrows. Your bill now amounts to two hundred florins and
ten kreutzers--it is not worth talking about."

Those who have not heard any one talk in this way can form no idea of
it; love of art, imagination, and the sacred enthusiasm for the
beautiful are blasted by the breath of such an attack. You become
awkward and timid; all your energy evaporates, as well as your feeling
of personal dignity, and you bow respectfully at a distance to the
burgomaster Schneegans.

One night, not having a sou, as usual, and threatened with imprisonment
by this worthy Mister Rap, I determined to make him a bankrupt by
cutting my throat. Seated on my narrow bed, opposite the window, in this
agreeable mood, I gave myself up to a thousand philosophical
reflections, more or less comforting.

"What is man?" I asked myself. "An omnivorous animal; his jaws, provided
with canines, incisors, and molars, prove it. The canines are made to
tear meat; the incisors to bite fruits; and the molars to masticate,
grind, and triturate animal and vegetable substances that are pleasant
to smell and to taste. But when he has nothing to masticate, this being
is an absurdity in Nature, a superfluity, a fifth wheel to the coach."

Such were my reflections. I dared not open my razor for fear that the
invincible force of my logic would inspire me with the courage to make
an end of it all. After having argued so finely, I blew out my candle,
postponing the sequel till the morrow.

That abominable Rap had completely stupefied me. I could do nothing but
silhouettes, and my sole desire was to have some money to rid myself of
his odious presence. But on this night a singular change came over my
mind. I awoke about one o'clock--I lit my lamp, and, enveloping myself
in my grey gabardine, I drew upon the paper a rapid sketch after the
Dutch school--something strange and bizarre, which had not the slightest
resemblance to my ordinary conceptions.

Imagine a dreary courtyard enclosed by high dilapidated walls. These
walls are furnished with hooks, seven or eight feet from the ground. You
see, at a glance, that it is a butchery.

On the left, there extends a lattice structure; you perceive through it
a quartered beef suspended from the roof by enormous pulleys. Great
pools of blood run over the flagstones and unite in a ditch full of
refuse.

The light falls from above, between the chimneys where the weathercocks
stand out from a bit of the sky the size of your hand, and the roofs of
the neighbouring houses throw bold shadows from story to story.

At the back of this place is a shed, beneath the shed a pile of wood,
and upon the pile of wood some ladders, a few bundles of straw, some
coils of rope, a chicken-coop, and an old dilapidated rabbit-hutch.

How did these heterogeneous details suggest themselves to my
imagination? I don't know; I had no reminiscences, and yet every stroke
of the pencil seemed the result of observation, and strange because it
was all so true. Nothing was lacking.

But on the right, one corner of the sketch remained a blank. I did not
know what to put there.... Something suddenly seemed to writhe there, to
move! Then I saw a foot, the sole of a foot. Notwithstanding this
improbable position, I followed my inspiration without reference to my
own criticism. This foot was joined to a leg--over this leg, stretched
out with effort, there soon floated the skirt of a dress. In short,
there appeared by degrees an old woman, pale, dishevelled, and wasted,
thrown down at the side of a well, and struggling to free herself from a
hand that clutched her throat.

It was a murder scene that I was drawing. The pencil fell from my hand.

This woman, in the boldest attitude, with her thighs bent on the curb of
the well, her face contracted by terror, and her two hands grasping the
murderer's arm, frightened me. I could not look at her. But the man--he,
the person to whom that arm belonged--I could not see him. It was
impossible for me to finish the sketch.

"I am tired," I said, my forehead dripping with perspiration; "there is
only this figure to do; I will finish it tomorrow. It will be easy
then."

And again I went to bed, thoroughly frightened by my vision.

The next morning, I got up very early. I was dressing in order to resume
my interrupted work, when two little knocks were heard on my door.

"Come in!"

The door opened. An old man, tall, thin, and dressed in black, appeared
on the threshold. This man's face, his eyes set close together and his
large nose like the beak of an eagle, surmounted by a high bony
forehead, had something severe about it. He bowed to me gravely.

"Mister Christian Vénius, the painter?" said he.

"That is my name, sir."

He bowed again, adding:

"The Baron Frederick Van Spreckdal."

The appearance of the rich amateur, Van Spreckdal, judge of the criminal
court, in my poor lodging, greatly disturbed me. I could not help
throwing a stealthy glance at my old worm-eaten furniture, my damp
hangings and my dusty floor. I felt humiliated by such dilapidation; but
Van Spreckdal did not seem to take any account of these details; and
sitting down at my little table:

"Mister Vénius," he resumed, "I come----" But at this instant his glance
fell upon the unfinished sketch--he did not finish his phrase.

I was sitting on the edge of my little bed; and the sudden attention
that this personage bestowed upon one of my productions made my heart
beat with an indefinable apprehension.

At the end of a minute, Van Spreckdal lifted his head:

"Are you the author of that sketch?" he asked me with an intent look.

"Yes, sir."

"What is the price of it?"

"I never sell my sketches. It is the plan for a picture."

"Ah!" said he, picking up the paper with the tips of his long yellow
fingers.

He took a lens from his waistcoat pocket and began to study the design
in silence.

The sun was now shining obliquely into the garret. Van Spreckdal never
said a word; the hook of his immense nose increased, his heavy eyebrows
contracted, and his long pointed chin took a turn upward, making a
thousand little wrinkles in his long, thin cheeks. The silence was so
profound that I could distinctly hear the plaintive buzzing of a fly
that had been caught in a spider's web.

"And the dimensions of this picture, Mister Vénius?" he said without
looking at me.

"Three feet by four."

"The price?"

"Fifty ducats."

Van Spreckdal laid the sketch on the table, and drew from his pocket a
large purse of green silk shaped like a pear; he drew the rings of
it----

"Fifty ducats," said he, "here they are."

I was simply dazzled.

The Baron rose and bowed to me, and I heard his big ivory-headed cane
resounding on each step until he reached the bottom of the stairs. Then
recovering from my stupour, I suddenly remembered that I had not thanked
him, and I flew down the five flights like lightning; but when I reached
the bottom, I looked to the right and left; the street was deserted.

"Well," I said, "this is strange."

And I went upstairs again all out of breath.


II

The surprising way in which Van Spreckdal had appeared to me threw me
into deep wonderment. "Yesterday," I said to myself, as I contemplated
the pile of ducats glittering in the sun, "yesterday I formed the wicked
intention of cutting my throat, all for the want of a few miserable
florins, and now today Fortune has showered them from the clouds. Indeed
it was fortunate that I did not open my razor; and, if the same
temptation ever comes to me again, I will take care to wait until the
morrow."

After making these judicious reflections, I sat down to finish the
sketch; four strokes of the pencil and it would be finished. But here an
incomprehensible difficulty awaited me. It was impossible for me to take
those four sweeps of the pencil; I had lost the thread of my
inspiration, and the mysterious personage no longer stood out in my
brain. I tried in vain to evoke him, to sketch him, and to recover him;
he no more accorded with the surroundings than with a figure by Raphael
in a Teniers inn-kitchen. I broke out into a profuse perspiration.

At this moment, Rap opened the door without knocking, according to his
praiseworthy custom. His eyes fell upon my pile of ducats and in a
shrill voice he cried:

"Eh! eh! so I catch you. Will you still persist in telling me, Mr.
Painter, that you have no money?"

And his hooked fingers advanced with that nervous trembling that the
sight of gold always produces in a miser.

For a few seconds I was stupefied.

The memory of all the indignities that this individual had inflicted
upon me, his covetous look, and his impudent smile exasperated me. With
a single bound, I caught hold of him, and pushed him out of the room,
slamming the door in his face.

This was done with the crack and rapidity of a spring snuff-box.

But from outside the old usurer screamed like an eagle:

"My money, you thief, my money!"

The lodgers came out of their rooms, asking:

"What is the matter? What has happened?"

I opened the door suddenly and quickly gave Mister Rap a kick in the
spine that sent him rolling down more than twenty steps.

"That's what's the matter!" I cried, quite beside myself. Then I shut
the door and bolted it, while bursts of laughter from the neighbours
greeted Mister Rap in the passage.

I was satisfied with myself; I rubbed my hands together. This adventure
had put new life into me; I resumed my work, and was about to finish the
sketch when I heard an unusual noise.

Butts of muskets were grounded on the pavement. I looked out of my
window and saw three soldiers in full uniform with grounded arms in
front of my door.

I said to myself in my terror: "Can it be that that scoundrel of a Rap
has had any bones broken?"

And here is the strange peculiarity of the human mind: I, who the night
before had wanted to cut my own throat, shook from head to foot,
thinking that I might well be hanged if Rap were dead.

The stairway was filled with confused noises. It was an ascending flood
of heavy footsteps, clanking arms, and short syllables.

Suddenly somebody tried to open my door. It was shut.

Then there was a general clamour.

"In the name of the law--open!"

I arose, trembling and weak in the knees.

"Open!" the same voice repeated.

I thought to escape over the roofs; but I had hardly put my head out of
the little snuff-box window, when I drew back, seized with vertigo. I
saw in a flash all the windows below with their shining panes, their
flower-pots, their bird-cages, and their gratings. Lower, the balcony;
still lower, the street-lamp; still lower again, the sign of the "Red
Cask" framed in iron-work; and, finally, three glittering bayonets, only
awaiting my fall to run me through the body from the sole of my foot to
the crown of my head. On the roof of the opposite house a tortoise-shell
cat was crouching behind a chimney, watching a band of sparrows fighting
and scolding in the gutter.

One cannot imagine to what clearness, intensity, and rapidity the human
eye acquires when stimulated by fear.

At the third summons I heard:

"Open, or we shall force it!"

Seeing that flight was impossible, I staggered to the door and drew the
bolt.

Two hands immediately fell upon my collar. A dumpy, little man, smelling
of wine, said:

"I arrest you!"

He wore a bottle-green redingote, buttoned to the chin, and a stovepipe
hat. He had large brown whiskers, rings on every finger, and was named
Passauf.

He was the chief of police.

Five bull-dogs with flat caps, noses like pistols, and lower jaws
turning upward, observed me from outside.

"What do you want?" I asked Passauf.

"Come downstairs," he cried roughly, as he gave a sign to one of his men
to seize me.

This man took hold of me, more dead than alive, while several other men
turned my room upside down.

I went downstairs supported by the arms like a person in the last stages
of consumption--with hair dishevelled and stumbling at every step.

They thrust me into a cab between two strong fellows, who charitably let
me see the ends of their clubs, held to their wrists by a leather
string--and then the carriage started off.

I heard behind us the feet of all the urchins of the town.

"What have I done?" I asked one of my keepers.

He looked at the other with a strange smile and said:

"Hans--he asks what he has done!"

That smile froze my blood.

Soon a deep shadow enveloped the carriage; the horses' hoofs resounded
under an archway. We were entering the Raspelhaus. Of this place one
might say:

    "Dans cet antre,
    Je vois fort bien comme l'on entre,
    Et ne vois point comme on en sort."

All is not rose-coloured in this world; from the claws of Rap I fell
into a dungeon, from which very few poor devils have a chance to escape.

Large dark courtyards and rows of windows like a hospital, and furnished
with gratings; not a sprig of verdure, not a festoon of ivy, not even a
weathercock in perspective--such was my new lodging. It was enough to
make one tear his hair out by the roots.

The police officers, accompanied by the jailer, took me temporarily to a
lock-up.

The jailer, if I remember rightly, was named Kasper Schlüssel; with his
grey woollen cap, his pipe between his teeth, and his bunch of keys at
his belt, he reminded me of the Owl-God of the Caribs. He had the same
golden yellow eyes, that see in the dark, a nose like a comma, and a
neck that was sunk between the shoulders.

Schlüssel shut me up as calmly as one locks up his socks in a cupboard,
while thinking of something else. As for me, I stood for more than ten
minutes with my hands behind my back and my head bowed. At the end of
that time I made the following reflection: "When falling, Rap cried out,
'I am assassinated,' but he did not say by whom. I will say it was my
neighbour, the old merchant with the spectacles: he will be hanged in my
place."

This idea comforted my heart, and I drew a long breath. Then I looked
about my prison. It seemed to have been newly whitewashed, and the walls
were bare of designs, except in one corner, where a gallows had been
crudely sketched by my predecessor. The light was admitted through a
bull's-eye about nine or ten feet from the floor; the furniture
consisted of a bundle of straw and a tub.

I sat down upon the straw with my hands around my knees in deep
despondency. It was with great difficulty that I could think clearly;
but suddenly imagining that Rap, before dying, had denounced me, my legs
began to tingle, and I jumped up coughing, as if the hempen cord were
already tightening around my neck.

At the same moment, I heard Schlüssel walking down the corridor; he
opened the lock-up, and told me to follow him. He was still accompanied
by the two officers, so I fell into step resolutely.

We walked down long galleries, lighted at intervals by small windows
from within. Behind a grating I saw the famous Jic-Jack, who was going
to be executed on the morrow. He had on a strait-jacket and sang out in
a raucous voice:

    "Je suis le roi de ces montagnes."

Seeing me, he called out:

"Eh! comrade! I'll keep a place for you at my right."

The two police officers and the Owl-God looked at each other and smiled,
while I felt the goose-flesh creep down the whole length of my back.


III

Schlüssel shoved me into a large and very dreary hall, with benches
arranged in a semicircle. The appearance of this deserted hall, with its
two high grated windows, and its Christ carved in old brown oak with His
arms extended and His head sorrowfully inclined upon His shoulder,
inspired me with I do not know what kind of religious fear that accorded
with my actual situation.

All my ideas of false accusation disappeared, and my lips tremblingly
murmured a prayer.

I had not prayed for a long time; but misfortune always brings us to
thoughts of submission. Man is so little in himself!

Opposite me, on an elevated seat, two men were sitting with their backs
to the light, and consequently their faces were in shadow. However, I
recognized Van Spreckdal by his aquiline profile, illuminated by an
oblique reflection from the window. The other person was fat, he had
round, chubby cheeks and short hands, and he wore a robe, like Van
Spreckdal.

Below was the clerk of the court, Conrad; he was writing at a low table
and was tickling the tip of his ear with the feather-end of his pen.
When I entered, he stopped to look at me curiously.

They made me sit down, and Van Spreckdal, raising his voice, said to me:

"Christian Vénius, where did you get this sketch?"

He showed me the nocturnal sketch which was then in his possession. It
was handed to me. After having examined it, I replied:

"I am the author of it."

A long silence followed; the clerk of the court, Conrad, wrote down my
reply. I heard his pen scratch over the paper, and I thought: "Why did
they ask me that question? That has nothing to do with the kick I gave
Rap in the back."

"You are the author of it?" asked Van Spreckdal. "What is the subject?"

"It is a subject of pure fancy."

"You have not copied the details from some spot?"

"No, sir; I imagined it all."

"Accused Christian," said the judge in a severe tone, "I ask you to
reflect. Do not lie."

"I have spoken the truth."

"Write that down, clerk," said Van Spreckdal.

The pen scratched again.

"And this woman," continued the judge--"this woman who is being murdered
at the side of the well--did you imagine her also?"

"Certainly."

"You have never seen her?"

"Never."

Van Spreckdal rose indignantly; then, sitting down again, he seemed to
consult his companion in a low voice.

These two dark profiles silhouetted against the brightness of the
window, and the three men standing behind me, the silence in the
hall--everything made me shiver.

"What do you want with me? What have I done?" I murmured.

Suddenly Van Spreckdal said to my guardians:

"You can take the prisoner back to the carriage; we will go to
Metzerstrasse."

Then, addressing me:

"Christian Vénius," he cried, "you are in a deplorable situation.
Collect your thoughts and remember that if the law of man is inflexible,
there still remains for you the mercy of God. This you can merit by
confessing your crime."

These words stunned me like a blow from a hammer. I fell back with
extended arms, crying:

"Ah! what a terrible dream!"

And I fainted.

When I regained consciousness, the carriage was rolling slowly down the
street; another one preceded us. The two officers were always with me.
One of them on the way offered a pinch of snuff to his companion;
mechanically I reached out my hand toward the snuff-box, but he withdrew
it quickly.

My cheeks reddened with shame, and I turned away my head to conceal my
emotion.

"If you look outside," said the man with the snuff-box, "we shall be
obliged to put handcuffs on you."

"May the devil strangle you, you infernal scoundrel!" I said to myself.
And as the carriage now stopped, one of them got out, while the other
held me by the collar; then, seeing that his comrade was ready to
receive me, he pushed me rudely to him.

These infinite precautions to hold possession of my person boded no
good; but I was far from predicting the seriousness of the accusation
that hung over my head until an alarming circumstance opened my eyes and
threw me into despair.

They pushed me along a low alley, the pavement of which was unequal and
broken; along the wall there ran a yellowish ooze, exhaling a fetid
odour. I walked down this dark place with the two men behind me. A
little further there appeared the chiaroscuro of an interior courtyard.

I grew more and more terror-sticken as I advanced. It was no natural
feeling: it was a poignant anxiety, outside of nature--like a nightmare.
I recoiled instinctively at each step.

"Go on!" cried one of the policemen, laying his hand on my shoulder; "go
on!"

But what was my astonishment when, at the end of the passage, I saw the
courtyard that I had drawn the night before, with its walls furnished
with hooks, its rubbish-heap of old iron, its chicken-coops, and its
rabbit-hutch. Not a dormer window, high or low, not a broken pane, not
the slightest detail had been omitted.

I was thunderstruck by this strange revelation.

Near the well were the two judges, Van Spreckdal and Richter. At their
feet lay the old woman extended on her back, her long, thin, grey hair,
her blue face, her eyes wide open, and her tongue between her teeth.

It was a horrible spectacle!

"Well," said Van Spreckdal, with solemn accents, "what have you to say?"

I did not reply.

"Do you remember having thrown this woman, Theresa Becker, into this
well, after having strangled her to rob her of her money?"

"No," I cried, "no! I do not know this woman; I never saw her before.
May God help me!"

"That will do," he replied in a dry voice. And without saying another
word he went out with his companion.

The officers now believed that they had best put handcuffs on me. They
took me back to the Raspelhaus, in a state of profound stupidity. I did
not know what to think; my conscience itself troubled me; I even asked
myself if I really had murdered the old woman!

In the eyes of the officers I was condemned.

I will not tell you of my emotions that night in the Raspelhaus, when,
seated on my straw bed with the window opposite me and the gallows in
perspective, I heard the watchmen cry in the silence of the night:
"Sleep, people of Nuremberg; the Lord watches over you. One o'clock! Two
o'clock! Three o'clock!"

Every one may form his own idea of such a night. There is a fine saying
that it is better to be hanged innocent than guilty. For the soul, yes;
but for the body, it makes no difference; on the contrary, it kicks, it
curses its lot, it tries to escape, knowing well enough that its role
ends with the rope. Add to this, that it repents not having sufficiently
enjoyed life and at having listened to the soul when it preached
abstinence.

"Ah! if I had only known!" it cried, "you would not have led me around
by a string with your big words, your beautiful phrases, and your
magnificent sentences! You would not have allured me with your fine
promises. I should have had many happy moments that are now lost
forever. Everything is over! You said to me: 'Control your passions.'
Very well! I did control them. Here I am now. They are going to hang me,
and you--later they will speak of you as a sublime soul, a stoical soul,
a martyr to the errors of Justice. They will never think about me!"

Such were the sad reflections of my poor body.

Day broke; at first, dull and undecided, it threw an uncertain light on
my bull's-eye window with its cross-bars; then it blazed against the
wall at the back. Outside the street became lively. This was a
market-day; it was Friday. I heard the vegetable wagons pass and also
the country people with their baskets. Some chickens cackled in their
coops in passing and some butter sellers chattered together. The market
opposite opened, and they began to arrange the stalls.

Finally it was broad daylight and the vast murmur of the increasing
crowd, housekeepers who assembled with baskets on their arms, coming and
going, discussing and marketing, told me that it was eight o'clock.

With the light, my heart gained a little courage. Some of my black
thoughts disappeared. I desired to see what was going on outside.

Other prisoners before me had managed to climb up to the bull's-eye;
they had dug some holes in the wall to mount more easily. I climbed in
my turn, and, when seated in the oval edge of the window, with my legs
bent and my head bowed, I could see the crowd, and all the life and
movement. Tears ran freely down my cheeks. I thought no longer of
suicide--I experienced a need to live and breathe, which was really
extraordinary.

"Ah!" I said, "to live what happiness! Let them harness me to a
wheelbarrow--let them put a ball and chain around my leg--nothing
matters if I may only live!"

The old market, with its roof shaped like an extinguisher, supported on
heavy pillars, made a superb picture: old women seated before their
panniers of vegetables, their cages of poultry and their baskets of
eggs; behind them the Jews, dealers in old clothes, their faces the
colour of old box-wood; butchers with bare arms, cutting up meat on
their stalls; countrymen, with large hats on the backs of their heads,
calm and grave with their hands behind their backs and resting on their
sticks of hollywood, and tranquilly smoking their pipes. Then the
tumult and noise of the crowd--those screaming, shrill, grave, high, and
short words--those expressive gestures--those sudden attitudes that show
from a distance the progress of a discussion and depict so well the
character of the individual--in short, all this captivated my mind, and
notwithstanding my sad condition, I felt happy to be still of the world.

Now, while I looked about in this manner, a man--a butcher--passed,
inclining forward and carrying an enormous quarter of beef on his
shoulders; his arms were bare, his elbows were raised upward and his
head was bent under them. His long hair, like that of Salvator's
Sicambrian, hid his face from me; and yet, at the first glance, I
trembled.

"It is he!" I said.

All the blood in my body rushed to my heart. I got down from the window
trembling to the ends of my fingers, feeling my cheeks quiver, and the
pallor spread over my face, stammering in a choked voice:

"It is he! he is there--there--and I, I have to die to expiate his
crime. Oh, God! what shall I do? What shall I do?"

A sudden idea, an inspiration from Heaven, flashed across my mind. I put
my hand in the pocket of my coat--my box of crayons was there!

Then rushing to the wall, I began to trace the scene of the murder with
superhuman energy. No uncertainty, no hesitation! I knew the man! I had
seen him! He was there before me!

At ten o'clock the jailer came to my cell. His owl-like impassibility
gave place to admiration.

"Is it possible?" he cried, standing at the threshold.

"Go, bring me my judges," I said to him, pursuing my work with an
increasing exultation.

Schlüssel answered:

"They are waiting for you in the trial-room."

"I wish to make a revelation," I cried, as I put the finishing touches
to the mysterious personage.

He lived; he was frightful to see. His full-faced figure, foreshortened
upon the wall, stood out from the white background with an astonishing
vitality.

The jailer went away.

A few minutes afterward the two judges appeared. They were stupefied. I,
trembling, with extended hand, said to them:

"There is the murderer!"

After a few minutes of silence, Van Spreckdal asked me:

"What is his name?"

"I don't know; but he is at this moment in the market; he is cutting up
meat in the third stall to the left as you enter from Trabaus Street."

"What do you think?" said he, leaning toward his colleague.

"Send for the man," he replied in a grave tone.

Several officers retained in the corridor obeyed this order. The judges
stood, examining the sketch. As for me, I had dropped on my bed of
straw, my head between my knees, perfectly exhausted.

Soon steps were heard echoing under the archway. Those who have never
awaited the hour of deliverance and counted the minutes, which seem like
centuries--those who have never experienced the sharp emotions of
outrage, terror, hope, and doubt--can have no conception of the inward
chills that I experienced at that moment. I should have distinguished
the step of the murderer, walking between the guards, among a thousand
others. They approached. The judges themselves seemed moved. I raised up
my head, my heart feeling as if an iron hand had clutched it, and I
fixed my eyes upon the closed door. It opened. The man entered. His
cheeks were red and swollen, the muscles in his large contracted jaws
twitched as far as his ears, and his little restless eyes, yellow like a
wolf's, gleamed beneath his heavy yellowish red eyebrows.

Van Spreckdal showed him the sketch in silence.

Then that murderous man, with the large shoulders, having looked, grew
pale--then, giving a roar which thrilled us all with terror, he waved
his enormous arms, and jumped backward to overthrow the guards. There
was a terrible struggle in the corridor; you could hear nothing but the
panting breath of the butcher, his muttered imprecations, and the short
words and the shuffling feet of the guard, upon the flagstones.

This lasted only about a minute.

Finally the assassin re-entered, with his head hanging down, his eyes
bloodshot, and his hands fastened behind his back. He looked again at
the picture of the murderer; he seemed to reflect, and then, in a low
voice, as if talking to himself:

"Who could have seen me," he said, "at midnight?"

I was saved!

       *       *       *       *       *

Many years have passed since that terrible adventure. Thank Heaven! I
make silhouettes no longer, nor portraits of burgomasters. Through hard
work and perseverance, I have conquered my place in the world, and I
earn my living honourably by painting works of art--the sole end, in my
opinion, to which a true artist should aspire. But the memory of that
nocturnal sketch has always remained in my mind. Sometimes, in the midst
of work, the thought of it recurs. Then I lay down my palette and dream
for hours.

How could a crime committed by a man that I did not know--at a place
that I had never seen--have been reproduced by my pencil, in all its
smallest details?

Was it chance? No! And moreover, what is chance but the effect of a
cause of which we are ignorant?

Was Schiller right when he said: "The immortal soul does not participate
in the weaknesses of matter; during the sleep of the body, it spreads
its radiant wings and travels, God knows where! What it then does, no
one can say, but inspiration sometimes betrays the secret of its
nocturnal wanderings."

Who knows? Nature is more audacious in her realities than man in his
most fantastic imagining.




GREEN BRANCHES

FIONA MACLEOD


In the year that followed the death of Manus MacCodrum, James Achanna
saw nothing of his brother Gloom. He might have thought himself alone in
the world, of all his people, but for a letter that came to him out of
the west. True, he had never accepted the common opinion that his
brothers had both been drowned on that night when Anne Gillespie left
Eilanmore with Manus.

In the first place he had nothing of that inner conviction concerning
the fate of Gloom which he had concerning that of Marcus; in the next,
had he not heard the sound of the _feadan_, which no one that he knew
played except Gloom; and, for further token, was not the tune that which
he hated above all others--the "Dance of the Dead"--for who but Gloom
would be playing that, he hating it so, and the hour being late, and no
one else on Eilanmore? It was no sure thing that the dead had not come
back; but the more he thought of it the more Achanna believed that his
sixth brother was still alive. Of this, however, he said nothing to any
one.

It was as a man set free that, at last, after long waiting and patient
trouble, with the disposal of all that was left of the Achanna
heritage, he left the island. It was a grey memory for him. The bleak
moorland of it, the blight that had lain so long and so often upon the
crops, the rains that had swept the isle for grey days and grey weeks
and grey months, the sobbing of the sea by day and its dark moan by
night, its dim relinquishing sigh in the calm of dreary ebbs, its
hollow, baffling roar when the storm-shadow swept up out of the sea--one
and all oppressed him, even in memory. He had never loved the island,
even when it lay green and fragrant in the green and white seas under
white and blue skies, fresh and sweet as an Eden of the sea.

He had ever been lonely and weary, tired of the mysterious shadow that
lay upon his folk, caring little for any of his brothers except the
eldest--long since mysteriously gone out of the ken of man--and almost
hating Gloom, who had ever borne him a grudge because of his beauty, and
because of his likeness to and reverent heed for Alison. Moreover, ever
since he had come to love Katreen Macarthur, the daughter of Donald
Macarthur who lived in Sleat of Skye, he had been eager to live near
her; the more eager as he knew that Gloom loved the girl also, and
wished for success not only for his own sake, but so as to put a slight
upon his younger brother.

So, when at last he left the island, he sailed southward gladly. He was
leaving Eilanmore; he was bound to a new home in Skye, and perhaps he
was going to his long-delayed, long dreamed-of happiness. True, Katreen
was not pledged to him; he did not even know for sure if she loved him.
He thought, hoped, dreamed, almost believed that she did; but then there
was her cousin Ian, who had long wooed her, and to whom old Donald
Macarthur had given his blessing. Nevertheless, his heart would have
been lighter than it had been for long, but for two things. First, there
was the letter. Some weeks earlier he had received it, not recognizing
the writing, because of the few letters he had ever seen, and, moreover,
as it was in a feigned hand. With difficulty he had deciphered the
manuscript, plain printed though it was. It ran thus:

    "Well, Sheumais, my brother, it is wondering if I am dead, you will
    be. Maybe ay, and maybe no. But I send you this writing to let you
    know that I know all you do and think of. So you are going to leave
    Eilanmore without an Achanna upon it? And you will be going to Sleat
    in Skye? Well, let me be telling you this thing. _Do not go._ I see
    blood there. And there is this, too: neither you nor any man shall
    take Katreen away from me. _You_ know that; and Ian Macarthur knows
    it; and Katreen knows it; and that holds whether I am alive or dead.
    I say to you: do not go. It will be better for you, and for all. Ian
    Macarthur is away in the north-sea with the whaler-captain who came
    to us at Eilanmore, and will not be back for three months yet. It
    will be better for him not to come back. But if he comes back he
    will have to reckon with the man who says that Katreen Macarthur is
    his. I would rather not have two men to speak to, and one my
    brother. It does not matter to you where I am. I want no money just
    now. But put aside my portion for me. Have it ready for me against
    the day I call for it. I will not be patient that day; so have it
    ready for me. In the place that I am I am content. You will be
    saying: why is my brother away in a remote place (I will say this to
    you: that it is not further north than St. Kilda nor further south
    than the Mull of Cantyre!), and for what reason? That is between me
    and silence. But perhaps you think of Anne sometimes. Do you know
    that she lies under the green grass? And of Manus MacCodrum? They
    say that he swam out into the sea and was drowned; and they whisper
    of the seal-blood, though the minister is wrath with them for that.
    He calls it a madness. Well, I was there at that madness, and I
    played to it on my _feadan_. And now, Sheumais, can you be thinking
    of what the tune was that I played?

    "Your brother, who waits his own day,

    "GLOOM."

    "Do not be forgetting this thing: I would rather not be playing the
    'Damhsa-na-Mairbh.' It was an ill hour for Manus when he heard the
    'Dan-nan-Ron'; it was the song of his soul, that; and yours is the
    'DAVSA-NA-MAIRV.'"

This letter was ever in his mind; this, and what happened in the
gloaming when he sailed away for Skye in the herring-smack of two men
who lived at Armandale in Sleat. For, as the boat moved slowly out of
the haven, one of the men asked him if he was sure that no one was left
upon the island; for he thought he had seen a figure on the rocks,
waving a black scarf. Achanna shook his head; but just then his
companion cried that at that moment he had seen the same thing. So the
smack was put about, and when she was moving slowly through the haven
again, Achanna sculled ashore in the little coggly punt. In vain he
searched here and there, calling loudly again and again. Both men could
hardly have been mistaken, he thought. If there were no human creature
on the island, and if their eyes had not played them false, who could it
be? The wraith of Marcus, mayhap; or might it be the old man himself
(his father), risen to bid farewell to his youngest son, or to warn him?

It was no use to wait longer, so, looking often behind him, he made his
way to the boat again, and rowed slowly out toward the smack.

_Jerk_--_jerk_--_jerk_ across the water came, low but only too loud for
him, the opening motif of the "Damhsa-na-Mairbh." A horror came upon
him, and he drove the boat through the water so that the sea splashed
over the bows. When he came on deck he cried in a hoarse voice to the
man next him to put up the helm, and let the smack swing to the wind.

"There is no one there, Callum Campbell," he whispered.

"And who is it that will be making that strange music?"

"What music?"

"Sure it has stopped now, but I heard it clear, and so did Anndra
MacEwan. It was like the sound of a reed pipe, and the tune was an eery
one at that."

"It was the Dance of the Dead."

"And who will be playing that?" asked the man, with fear in his eyes.

"No living man."

"No living man?"

"No. I'm thinking it will be one of my brothers who was drowned here,
and by the same token that it is Gloom, for he played upon the _feadan_.
But if not, then--then----"

The two men waited in breathless silence, each trembling with
superstitious fear; but at last the elder made a sign to Achanna to
finish.

"Then--it will be the Kelpie."

"Is there--is there one of the--cave-women here?"

"It is said; and you know of old that the Kelpie sings or plays a
strange tune to wile seamen to their death."

At that moment the fantastic, jerking music came loud and clear across
the bay. There was a horrible suggestion in it, as if dead bodies were
moving along the ground with long jerks, and crying and laughing wild.
It was enough; the men, Campbell and MacEwan, would not now have waited
longer if Achanna had offered them all he had in the world. Nor were
they, or he, out of their panic haste till the smack stood well out at
sea, and not a sound could be heard from Eilanmore.

They stood watching, silent. Out of the dusky mass that lay in the
seaward way to the north came a red gleam. It was like an eye staring
after them with blood-red glances.

"What is that, Achanna?"

"It looks as though a fire had been lighted in the house up in the
island. The door and the window must be open. The fire must be fed with
wood, for no peats would give that flame; and there were none lighted
when I left. To my knowing, there was no wood for burning except the
wood of the shelves and the bed."

"And who would be doing that?"

"I know of that no more than you do, Callum Campbell."

No more was said, and it was a relief to all when the last glimmer of
the light was absorbed in the darkness.

At the end of the voyage Campbell and MacEwan were well pleased to be
quit of their companion; not so much because he was moody and distraught
as because they feared that a spell was upon him--a fate in the working
of which they might become involved. It needed no vow of the one to the
other for them to come to the conclusion that they would never land on
Eilanmore, or, if need be, only in broad daylight, and never alone.

       *       *       *       *       *

The days went well for James Achanna, where he made his home at
Ranza-beag, on Ranza Water in the Sleat of Skye. The farm was small but
good, and he hoped that with help and care he would soon have the place
as good a farm as there was in all Skye.

Donald Macarthur did not let him see much of Katreen, but the old man
was no longer opposed to him. Sheumais must wait till Ian Macarthur
came back again, which might be any day now. For sure, James Achanna of
Ranza-beag was a very different person from the youngest of the
Achanna-folk, who held by on lonely Eilanmore; moreover, the old man
could not but think with pleasure that it would be well to see Katreen
able to walk over the whole land of Ranza, from the cairn at the north
of his own Ranza-Mòr to the burn at the south of Ranza-beag, and know it
for her own.

But Achanna was ready to wait. Even before he had the secret word of
Katreen he knew from her beautiful dark eyes that she loved him. As the
weeks went by they managed to meet often, and at last Katreen told him
that she loved him too, and would have none but him; but that they must
wait till Ian came back, because of the pledge given to him by her
father. They were days of joy for him. Through many a hot noon-tide
hour, through many a gloaming he went as one in a dream. Whenever he saw
a birch swaying in the wind, or a wave leaping upon Loch Laith, that was
near his home, or passed a bush covered with wild roses, or saw the
moonbeams lying white on the boles of the pines, he thought of
Katreen--his fawn for grace, and so lithe and tall, with sunbrown face
and wavy, dark mass of hair, and shadowy eyes and rowan-red lips. It is
said that there is a god clothed in shadow who goes to and fro among the
human kind, putting silence between lovers with his waving hands, and
breathing a chill out of his cold breath, and leaving a gulf of deep
water flowing between them because of the passing of his feet. That
shadow never came their way. Their love grew as a flower fed by rains
and warmed by sunlight.

When midsummer came, and there was no sign of Ian Macarthur, it was
already too late. Katreen had been won.

During the summer months it was the custom for Katreen and two of the
farm-girls to go up Maol-Ranza, to reside at the shealing of
Cnoc-an-Fhraoch: and this because of the hill-pasture for the sheep.
Cnoc-an-Fhraoch is a round, boulder-studded hill covered with heather,
which has a precipitous corrie on each side, and in front slopes down to
Lochan Fraoch, a lochlet surrounded by dark woods. Behind the hill, or
great hillock rather, lay the shealing. At each weekend Katreen went
down to Ramza-Mòr, and on every Monday morning at sunrise returned to
her heather-girt eerie. It was on one of these visits that she endured a
cruel shock. Her father told her that she must marry some one else than
Sheumais Achanna. He had heard words about him which made a union
impossible, and indeed, he hoped that the man would leave Ranza-beag. In
the end he admitted that what he had heard was to the effect that
Achanna was under a doom of some kind, that he was involved in a
blood-feud; and, moreover, that he was fey. The old man would not be
explicit as to the person from whom his information came, but hinted
that he was a stranger of rank, probably a laird of the isles. Besides
this, there was word of Ian Macarthur. He was at Thurso, in the far
north, and would be in Skye before long, and he--her father--had written
to him that he might wed Katreen as soon as was practicable.

"Do you see that lintie yonder, father?" was her response to this.

"Ay, lass, and what about the birdeen?"

"Well, when she mates with a hawk, so will I be mating with Ian
Macarthur, but not till then."

With that she turned and left the house, and went back to
Cnoc-an-Fhraoch. On the way she met Achanna.

It was that night that for the first time he swam across Lochan Fraoch
to meet Katreen.

The quickest way to reach the shealing was to row across the lochlet,
and then ascend by a sheep-path that wound through the hazel copses at
the base of the hill. Fully half an hour was thus saved, because of the
steepness of the precipitous corries to right and left. A boat was kept
for this purpose, but it was fastened to a shore boulder by a padlocked
iron chain, the key of which was kept by Donald Macarthur. Latterly he
had refused to let this key out of his possession. For one thing, no
doubt, he believed he could thus restrain Achanna from visiting his
daughter. The young man could not approach the shealing from either side
without being seen.

But that night, soon after the moon was whitening slow in the dark,
Katreen stole down to the hazel copse and awaited the coming of her
lover. The lochan was visible from almost any point on Cnoc-an-Fhraoch,
as well as from the south side. To cross it in a boat unseen, if any
watcher were near, would be impossible, nor could even a swimmer hope to
escape notice unless in the gloom of night or, mayhap, in the dusk.
When, however, she saw, half-way across the water, a spray of green
branches slowly moving athwart the surface, she new that Sheumais was
keeping his tryst. If, perchance, any one else saw, he or she would
never guess that those derelict rowan branches shrouded Sheumais
Achanna.

It was not till the estray had drifted close to the hedge, where, hid
among the bracken and the hazel undergrowth, she awaited him, that
Katreen descried the face of her lover, as with one hand he parted the
green sprays, and stared longingly and lovingly at the figure he could
just discern in the dim, fragrant obscurity.

And as it was this night so was it many of the nights that followed.
Katreen spent the days as in a dream. Not even the news of her cousin
Ian's return disturbed her much.

One day the inevitable meeting came. She was at Ranza-Mòr, and when a
shadow came into the dairy where she was standing she looked up, and saw
Ian before her. She thought he appeared taller and stronger than ever,
though still not so tall as Sheumais, who would appear slim beside the
Herculean Skyeman. But as she looked at his close curling black hair and
thick bull-neck and the sullen eyes in his dark wind-red face, she
wondered that she had ever tolerated him at all.

He broke the ice at once.

"Tell me, Katreen, are you glad to see me back again?"

"I am glad that you are home once more safe and sound."

"And will you make it my home for me by coming to live with me, as I've
asked you again and again?"

"No: as I've told you again and again."

He gloomed at her angrily for a few moments before he resumed.

"I will be asking you this one thing, Katreen, daughter of my father's
brother: do you love that man Achanna who lives at Ranza-beag?"

"You may ask the wind why it is from the east or the west, but it won't
tell you. You're not the wind's master."

"If you think I will let this man take you away from me, you are
thinking a foolish thing."

"And you saying a foolisher."

"Ay?"

"Ah, sure. What could you do, Ian Mhic Ian? At the worst, you could do
no more than kill James Achanna. What then? I too would die. You cannot
separate us. I would not marry you, now, though you were the last man in
the world and I the last woman."

"You are a fool, Katreen Macarthur. Your father has promised you to me,
and I tell you this: if you love Achanna you'll save his life only by
letting him go away from here. I promise you he will not be here long."

"Ah, you promise _me_; but you will not say that thing to James
Achanna's face. You are a coward."

With a muttered oath the man turned on his heel.

"Let him beware o' me, and you, too, Katreen-mo-nighean-donn. I swear it
by my mother's grave and by St. Martin's Cross that you will be mine by
hook or by crook."

The girl smiled scornfully. Slowly she lifted a milk-pail.

"It would be a pity to waste the good milk, Ian-gòrach, but if you don't
go it is I that will be emptying the pail on you, and then you will be
as white without as your heart is within."

"So you call me witless, do you? _Ian-gòrach!_ Well, we shall be seeing
as to that. And as for the milk, there will be more than milk spilt
because of _you_, Katreen-donn."

From that day, though neither Sheumais nor Katreen knew of it, a watch
was set upon Achanna.

It could not be long before their secret was discovered, and it was with
a savage joy overmastering his sullen rage that Ian Macarthur knew
himself the discoverer, and conceived his double vengeance. He dreamed,
gloatingly, on both the black thoughts that roamed like ravenous beasts
through the solitudes of his heart. But he did not dream that another
man was filled with hate because of Katreen's lover, another man who
had sworn to make her his own, the man who, disguised, was known in
Armandale as Donald McLean, and in the north isles would have been
hailed as Gloom Achanna.

There had been steady rain for three days, with a cold, raw wind. On the
fourth the sun shone, and set in peace. An evening of quiet beauty
followed, warm, fragrant, dusky from the absence of moon or star, though
the thin veils of mist promised to disperse as the night grew.

There were two men that eve in the undergrowth on the south side of the
lochlet. Sheumais had come earlier than his wont. Impatient for the
dusk, he could scarce await the waning of the afterglow; surely, he
thought, he might venture. Suddenly his ears caught the sound of
cautious footsteps. Could it be old Donald, perhaps with some inkling of
the way in which his daughter saw her lover in despite of all; or,
mayhap, might it be Ian Macarthur, tracking him as a hunter stalking a
stag by the water-pools? He crouched, and waited. In a few minutes he
saw Ian carefully picking his way. The man stopped as he descried the
green branches; smiled as, with a low rustling, he raised them from the
ground.

Meanwhile yet another man watched and waited, though on the farther side
of the lochan, where the hazel copses were. Gloom Achanna half hoped,
half feared the approach of Katreen. It would be sweet to see her again,
sweet to slay her lover before her eyes, brother to him though he was.
But, there was chance that she might descry him, and, whether
recognizingly or not, warn the swimmer.

So it was that he had come there before sundown, and now lay crouched
among the bracken underneath a projecting mossy ledge close upon the
water, where it could scarce be that she or any should see him.

As the gloaming deepened a great stillness reigned. There was no breath
of wind. A scarce audible sigh prevailed among the spires of the
heather. The churring of a night-jar throbbed through the darkness.
Somewhere a corncrake called its monotonous _crek-craik_; the dull,
harsh sound emphasizing the utter stillness. The pinging of the gnats
hovering over and among the sedges made an incessant murmur through the
warm, sultry air.

There was a splash once as of a fish. Then, silence. Then a lower but
more continuous splash, or rather wash of water. A slow _susurrus_
rustled through the dark.

Where he lay among the fern Gloom Achanna slowly raised his head, stared
through the shadows and listened intently. If Katreen were waiting there
she was not near.

Noiselessly he slid into the water. When he rose it was under a clump of
green branches. These he had cut and secured three hours before. With
his left hand he swam slowly, or kept his equipoise in the water; with
his right he guided the heavy rowan bough. In his mouth were two
objects, one long and thin and dark, the other with an occasional
glitter as of a dead fish.

His motion was scarcely perceptible. None the less he was near the
middle of the loch almost as soon as another clump of green branches.
Doubtless the swimmer beneath it was confident that he was now safe from
observation.

The two clumps of green branches drew nearer. The smaller seemed a mere
estray, a spray blown down by the recent gale. But all at once the
larger clump jerked awkwardly and stopped. Simultaneously a strange, low
strain of music came from the other.

The strain ceased. The two clumps of green branches remained motionless.
Slowly, at last, the larger moved forward. It was too dark for the
swimmer to see if any one lay hid behind the smaller. When he reached it
he thrust aside the leaves.

It was as though a great salmon leaped. There was a splash, and a
narrow, dark body shot through the gloom. At the end of it something
gleamed. Then suddenly there was a savage struggle. The inanimate green
branches tore this way and that, and surged and swirled. Gasping cries
came from the leaves. Again and again the gleaming thing leaped. At the
third leap an awful scream shrilled through the silence. The echo of it
wailed thrice, with horrible distinctness, in the corrie beyond
Cnoc-an-Fhraoch. Then, after a faint splashing, there was silence once
more. One clump of green branches drifted slowly up the lochlet. The
other moved steadily toward the place whence, a brief while before, it
had stirred.

Only one thing lived in the heart of Gloom Achanna--the joy of his
exultation. He had killed his brother Sheumais. He had always hated him
because of his beauty; of late he had hated him because he had stood
between him, Gloom, and Katreen Macarthur--because he had become her
lover. They were all dead now except himself, all the Achannas. He was
"Achanna." When the day came that he would go back to Galloway, there
would be a magpie on the first birk, and a screaming jay on the first
rowan, and a croaking raven on the first fir; ay, he would be their
suffering, though they knew nothing of him meanwhile! He would be
Achanna of Achanna again. Let those who would stand in his way beware.
As for Katreen: perhaps he would take her there, perhaps not. He smiled.

These thoughts were the wandering fires in his brain while he slowly
swam shoreward under the floating green branches, and as he disengaged
himself from them and crawled upward through the bracken. It was at this
moment that a third man entered the water from the further shore.

Prepared as he was to come suddenly upon Katreen, Gloom was startled
when, in a place of dense shadow, a hand touched his shoulder, and her
voice whispered:

"Sheumais, Sheumais!"

The next moment she was in his arms. He could feel her heart beating
against his.

"What is it, Sheumais? What was that awful cry?" she whispered.

For answer he put his lips to hers, and kissed her again and again.

The girl drew back. Some vague instinct warned her.

"What is it, Sheumais? Why don't you speak?"

He drew her close again.

"Pulse of my heart, it is I who love you, I who love you best of all; it
is I, Gloom Achanna!"

With a cry she struck him full in the face. He staggered and in that
moment she freed herself.

"You _coward_!"

"Katreen, I----"

"Come no nearer. If you do, it will be the death of you!"

"The death o' me! Ah, bonnie fool that you are, and is it you that will
be the death o' me?"

"Ay, Gloom Achanna, for I have but to scream and Sheumais will be here,
an' he would kill you like a dog if he knew you did me harm."

"Ah, but if there were no Sheumais, or any man to come between me an' my
will!"

"Then there would be a woman! Ay, if you over-bore me I would strangle
you with my hair, or fix my teeth in your false throat!"

"I was not for knowing you were such a wild-cat; but I'll tame you yet,
my lass! Aha, wild-cat!" And as he spoke he laughed low.

"It is a true word, Gloom of the black heart. I am a wild-cat, and, like
a wild-cat, I am not to be seized by a fox; and that you will be finding
to your cost, by the holy St. Bridget! But now, off with you, brother of
my man!"

"Your man--ha! ha!"

"Why do you laugh?"

"Sure, I am laughing at a warm, white lass like yourself having a dead
man as your lover!"

"A--dead--man?"

No answer came. The girl shook with a new fear. Slowly she drew closer,
till her breath fell warm against the face of the other.

He spoke at last:

"Ay, a dead man."

"It is a lie."

"Where would you be that you were not hearing his good-bye? I'm thinking
it was loud enough!"

"It is a lie--it is a lie!"

"No, it is no lie. Sheumais is cold enough now. He's low among the weeds
by now. Ay, by now: down there in the lochan."

"_What_--you, _you devil_! Is it for killing your own brother you would
be?"

"I killed no one. He died his own way. Maybe the cramp took him.
Maybe--maybe a Kelpie gripped him. I watched. I saw him beneath the
green branches. He was dead before he died. I saw it in the white face
o' him. Then he sank. He's dead. Sheumais is dead. Look here, girl, I've
always loved you. I swore the oath upon you. You're mine. Sure, you're
mine now, Katreen! It is loving you I am! It will be a south wind for
you from this day, muirnean mochree! See here, I'll show you how I----"

"Back--back--_murderer_!"

"Be stopping that foolishness now, Katreen Macarthur! By the Book, I am
tired of it. I am loving you, and it's having you for mine I am! And if
you won't come to me like the dove to its mate, I'll come to you like
the hawk to the dove!"

With a spring he was upon her. In vain she strove to beat him back. His
arms held her as a stoat grips a rabbit.

He pulled her head back, and kissed her throat till the strangulating
breath sobbed against his ear. With a last despairing effort she
screamed the name of the dead man: "Sheumais! Sheumais! Sheumais!" The
man who struggled with her laughed.

"Ay, call away! The herrin' will be coming through the bracken as soon
as Sheumais comes to your call! Ah, it is mine you are now, Katreen!
He's dead and cold--an' you'd best have a living man--an'----"

She fell back, her balance lost in the sudden releasing. What did it
mean? Gloom still stood there, but as one frozen. Through the darkness
she saw, at last, that a hand gripped his shoulder; behind him a black
mass vaguely obtruded.

For some moments there was absolute silence. Then a hoarse voice came
out of the dark:

"You will be knowing now who it is, Gloom Achanna!"

The voice was that of Sheumais, who lay dead in the lochan. The murderer
shook as in a palsy. With a great effort, slowly he turned his head. He
saw a white splatch, the face of the corpse; in this white splatch
flamed two burning eyes, the eyes of the soul of the brother whom he had
slain.

He reeled, staggered as a blind man, and, free now of that awful clasp,
swayed to and fro as one drunken.

Slowly Sheumais raised an arm and pointed downward through the wood
toward the lochan. Still pointing, he moved swiftly forward.

With a cry like a beast, Gloom Achanna swung to one side, stumbled,
rose, and leaped into the darkness.

For some minutes Sheumais and Katreen stood, silent, apart, listening to
the crashing sound of his flight--the race of the murderer against the
pursuing shadow of the Grave.




THE FOUR-FIFTEEN EXPRESS

AMELIA B. EDWARDS


The events which I am about to relate took place between nine and ten
years ago. Sebastopol had fallen in the early spring, the peace of Paris
had been concluded since March, our commercial relations with the
Russian Empire were but recently renewed; and I, returning home after my
first northward journey since the war, was well pleased with the
prospect of spending the month of December under the hospitable and
thoroughly English roof of my excellent friend Jonathan Jelf, Esq., of
Dumbleton Manor, Clayborough, East Anglia. My way lay by the Great East
Anglian line as far as Clayborough station, where I was to be met by one
of the Dumbleton carriages and conveyed across the remaining nine miles
of country. Having arrived some seven minutes before the starting of the
train, and, by the connivance of the guard, taken sole possession of an
empty compartment, I lighted my travelling-lamp, made myself
particularly snug, and settled down to the undisturbed enjoyment of a
book and a cigar. Great, therefore, was my disappointment when, at the
last moment, a gentleman came hurrying along the platform, glanced into
my carriage, opened the locked door with a private key, and stepped in.

It struck me at the first glance that I had seen him before--a tall,
spare man, thin-lipped, light-eyed, with an ungraceful stoop in the
shoulders, and scant grey hair worn somewhat long upon the collar. He
carried a light waterproof coat, an umbrella, and a large brown japanned
deed-box, which last he placed under the seat.

I now recognized my companion. I had met him, as I distinctly
remembered, some three years before, at the very house for which, in all
probability, he was now bound, like myself. His name was Dwerrihouse; he
was a lawyer by profession, and, if I was not greatly mistaken, was
first cousin to the wife of my host. I thought, observing him by the
vague mixture of lamplight and twilight, that Mrs. Jelf's cousin looked
all the worse for the three years' wear and tear which had gone over his
head since our last meeting. He was very pale, and had a restless light
in his eye that I did not remember to have observed before. The anxious
lines, too, about his mouth were deepened, and there was a cavernous,
hollow look about his cheeks and temples which seemed to speak of
sickness or sorrow. When he had glanced at me for the third or fourth
time I ventured to address him.

"Mr. John Dwerrihouse, I think?"

"That is my name," he replied.

"I had the pleasure of meeting you at Dumbleton about three years ago."

Mr. Dwerrihouse bowed.

"I thought I knew your face," he said; "but your name, I regret to
say----"

"Langford--William Langford. I have known Jonathan Jelf since we were
boys together at Merchant Taylor's, and I generally spend a few weeks at
Dumbleton in the shooting season. I suppose we are bound for the same
destination?"

"Not if you are on your way to the manor," he replied. "I am travelling
upon business. You have heard perhaps that we are about to construct a
branch line from Blackwater to Stockbridge."

"You are an East Anglian director, I presume?"

"My interest in the company," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse, "is threefold. I
am a director, I am a considerable shareholder, and, as the head of the
firm of Dwerrihouse, Dwerrihouse & Craik, I am the company's principal
solicitor."

Loquacious, self-important, full of his pet project, and apparently
unable to talk on any other subject, Mr. Dwerrihouse then went on to
tell of the opposition he had encountered and the obstacles he had
overcome in the cause of the Stockbridge branch. I was entertained with
a multitude of local details and local grievances. The rapacity of one
squire, the impracticability of another, the indignation of the rector
whose glebe was threatened; and so on and on and on, till my head ached
and my attention flagged and my eyes kept closing in spite of every
effort that I made to keep them open. At length I was roused by these
words:

"Seventy-five thousand pounds, cash down."

"Seventy-five thousand pounds, cash down," I repeated, in the liveliest
tone I could assume. "That is a heavy sum."

"A heavy sum to carry here," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse, pointing
significantly to his breast-pocket, "but a mere fraction of what we
shall ultimately have to pay."

"You do not mean to say that you have seventy-five thousand pounds at
this moment upon your person?" I exclaimed.

"My good sir, have I not been telling you so for the last half-hour?"
said Mr. Dwerrihouse, testily. "That money has to be paid over at
half-past eight o'clock this evening, at the office of Sir Thomas's
solicitors, on completion of the deed of sale."

"But how will you get across by night from Blackwater to Stockbridge
with seventy-five thousand pounds in your pocket?"

"To Stockbridge!" echoed the lawyer. "I find I have made myself very
imperfectly understood. I thought I had explained how this sum only
carries us as far as Mallingford--the first stage, as it were, of our
journey--and how our route from Blackwater to Mallingford lies entirely
through Sir Thomas Liddell's property."

"I beg your pardon," I stammered. "I fear my thoughts were wandering.
So you only go as far as Mallingford tonight?"

"Precisely. I shall get a conveyance from the 'Blackwater Arms.' And
you?"

"Oh, Jelf sends a trap to meet me at Clayborough! Can I be the bearer of
any message from you?"

"You may say, if you please, Mr. Langford, that I wished I could have
been your companion all the way, and that I will come over, if possible,
before Christmas."

"Nothing more?"

Mr. Dwerrihouse smiled grimly. "Well," he said, "you may tell my cousin
that she need not burn the hall down in my honour _this_ time, and that
I shall be obliged if she will order the blue-room chimney to be swept
before I arrive."

"That sounds tragic. Had you a conflagration on the occasion of your
last visit to Dumbleton?"

"Something like it. There had been no fire lighted in my bedroom since
the spring, the flue was foul, and the rooks had built in it; so when I
went up to dress for dinner I found the room full of smoke and the
chimney on fire. Are we already at Blackwater?"

The train had gradually come to a pause while Mr. Dwerrihouse was
speaking, and, putting my head out of the window, I could see the
station some few hundred yards ahead. There was another train before us
blocking the way, and the guard was making use of the delay to collect
the Blackwater tickets. I had scarcely ascertained our position when
the ruddy-faced official appeared at our carriage door.

"Tickets, sir!" said he.

"I am for Clayborough," I replied, holding out the tiny pink card.

He took it, glanced at it by the light of his little lantern, gave it
back, looked, as I fancied, somewhat sharply at my fellow-traveller, and
disappeared.

"He did not ask for yours," I said, with some surprise.

"They never do," replied Mr. Dwerrihouse; "they all know me, and of
course I travel free."

"Blackwater! Blackwater!" cried the porter, running along the platform
beside us as we glided into the station.

Mr. Dwerrihouse pulled out his deed-box, put his travelling-cap in his
pocket, resumed his hat, took down his umbrella, and prepared to be
gone.

"Many thanks, Mr. Langford, for your society," he said, with
old-fashioned courtesy. "I wish you a good-evening."

"Good-evening," I replied, putting out my hand.

But he either did not see it or did not choose to see it, and, slightly
lifting his hat, stepped out upon the platform. Having done this, he
moved slowly away and mingled with the departing crowd.

Leaning forward to watch him out of sight, I trod upon something which
proved to be a cigar-case. It had fallen, no doubt, from the pocket of
his waterproof coat, and was made of dark morocco leather, with a
silver monogram upon the side. I sprang out of the carriage just as the
guard came to lock me in.

"Is there one minute to spare?" I asked, eagerly. "The gentleman who
travelled down with me from town has dropped his cigar-case; he is not
yet out of the station."

"Just a minute and a half, sir," replied the guard. "You must be quick."

I dashed along the platform as fast as my feet could carry me. It was a
large station, and Mr. Dwerrihouse had by this time got more than
half-way to the farther end.

I, however, saw him distinctly, moving slowly with the stream. Then, as
I drew nearer, I saw that he had met some friend, that they were talking
as they walked, that they presently fell back somewhat from the crowd
and stood aside in earnest conversation. I made straight for the spot
where they were waiting. There was a vivid gas-jet just above their
heads, and the light fell full upon their faces. I saw both
distinctly--the face of Mr. Dwerrihouse and the face of his companion.
Running, breathless, eager as I was, getting in the way of porters and
passengers, and fearful every instant lest I should see the train going
on without me, I yet observed that the new-comer was considerably
younger and shorter than the director, that he was sandy-haired,
moustachioed, small-featured, and dressed in a close-cut suit of Scotch
tweed. I was now within a few yards of them. I ran against a stout
gentleman, I was nearly knocked down by a luggage-truck, I stumbled
over a carpet-bag; I gained the spot just as the driver's whistle warned
me to return.

To my utter stupefaction, they were no longer there. I had seen them but
two seconds before--and they were gone! I stood still. I looked to right
and left; I saw no sign of them in any direction. It was as if the
platform had gaped and swallowed them.

"There were two gentlemen standing here a moment ago," I said to a
porter at my elbow; "which way can they have gone?"

"I saw no gentlemen, sir," replied the guard.

The whistle shrilled out again. The guard, far up on the platform, held
up his arm, and shouted to me to "come on"!

"If you're going on by this train, sir," said the porter, "you must run
for it."

I did run for it, just gained the carriage as the train began to move,
was shoved in by the guard, and left breathless and bewildered, with Mr.
Dwerrihouse's cigar-case still in my hand.

It was the strangest disappearance in the world; it was like a
transformation trick in a pantomime. They were there one
moment--palpably there, talking, with the gaslight full upon their
faces--and the next moment they were gone. There was no door near, no
window, no staircase; it was a mere slip of barren platform, tapestried
with big advertisements. Could anything be more mysterious?

It was not worth thinking about, and yet, for my life, I could not help
pondering upon it--pondering, wondering, conjecturing, turning it over
and over in my mind, and beating my brains for a solution of the enigma.
I thought of it all the way from Blackwater to Clayborough. I thought of
it all the way from Clayborough to Dumbleton, as I rattled along the
smooth highway in a trim dog-cart, drawn by a splendid black mare and
driven by the silentest and dapperest of East Anglian grooms.

We did the nine miles in something less than an hour, and pulled up
before the lodge gates just as the church clock was striking half-past
seven. A couple of minutes more, and the warm glow of the lighted hall
was flooding out upon the gravel, a hearty grasp was on my hand, and a
clear jovial voice was bidding me "welcome to Dumbleton."

I am not going to describe either the guests or the dinner that night.
All provincial parties bear the strictest family resemblance, and I am
not aware that an East Anglian banquet offers any exception to the rule.
There was the usual country baronet and his wife; there were the usual
country parsons and their wives; there was the sempiternal turkey and
haunch of venison. _Vanitas vanitatum._ There is nothing new under the
sun.

At length there came a pause. The entrées had just been removed, and the
turkey had come upon the scene. The conversation had all along been of
the languidest, but at this moment it happened to have stagnated
altogether. Moved by an unlucky impulse, I thought I would relate my
adventure.

"By the way, Jelf," I began, "I came down part of the way today with a
friend of yours."

"Indeed!" said the master of the feast, slicing scientifically into the
breast of the turkey. "With whom, pray?"

"It was no less a person than your wife's cousin, Mr. John Dwerrihouse."

Jonathan Jelf laid down his knife and fork. Mrs. Jelf looked at me in a
strange, startled way, and said never a word.

"And he desired me to tell you, my dear madam, that you need not take
the trouble to burn the hall down in his honour, this time, but only to
have the chimney of the blue room swept before his arrival."

Before I had reached the end of my sentence I became aware of something
ominous in the faces of the guests. I felt I had said something which I
had better have left unsaid, and that for some unexplained reason my
words had evoked a general consternation. I sat confounded, not daring
to utter another syllable, and for at least two whole minutes there was
dead silence round the table. The guests hitherto had been simply dull,
but now they were evidently uncomfortable and embarrassed.

The dessert had scarcely been placed upon the table when the ladies left
the room. I seized the opportunity to select a vacant chair next a
certain Captain Prendergast.

"In Heaven's name," I whispered, "what was the matter just now? What had
I said?"

"You mentioned the name of John Dwerrihouse."

"What of that? I had seen him not two hours before."

"It is a most astounding circumstance that you should have seen him,"
said Captain Prendergast. "Are you sure it was he?"

"As sure as of my own identity. We were talking all the way between
London and Blackwater. But why does that surprise you?"

"Because," replied Captain Prendergast, dropping his voice to the lowest
whisper--"_because John Dwerrihouse absconded three months ago with
seventy-five thousand pounds of the company's money, and has never been
heard of since_."

John Dwerrihouse had absconded three months ago--and I had seen him only
a few hours back! John Dwerrihouse had embezzled seventy-five thousand
pounds of the company's money, yet told me that he carried that sum upon
his person! Were ever facts so strangely incongruous, so difficult to
reconcile? How should he have ventured again into the light of day? How
dared he show himself along the line? Above all, what had he been doing
throughout those mysterious three months of disappearance?

Perplexing questions these--questions which at once suggested themselves
to the minds of all concerned, but which admitted of no easy solution. I
could find no reply to them. Captain Prendergast had not even a
suggestion to offer. Jonathan Jelf, who seized the first opportunity of
drawing me aside and learning all that I had to tell, was more amazed
and bewildered than either of us. He came to my room that night, when
all the guests were gone, and we talked the thing over from every point
of view; without, it must be confessed, arriving at any kind of
conclusion.

"I do not ask you," he said, "whether you can have mistaken your man.
That is impossible."

"As impossible as that I should mistake some stranger for yourself."

"It is not a question of looks or voice, but of facts. That he should
have alluded to the fire in the blue room is proof enough of John
Dwerrihouse's identity. How did he look?"

"Older, I thought; considerably older, paler, and more anxious."

"He has had enough to make him look anxious, anyhow," said my friend,
gloomily, "be he innocent or guilty."

"I am inclined to believe that he is innocent," I replied. "He showed no
embarrassment when I addressed him, and no uneasiness when the guard
came round. His conversation was open to a fault. I might almost say
that he talked too freely of the business which he had in hand."

"That again is strange, for I know no one more reticent on such
subjects. He actually told you that he had the seventy-five thousand
pounds in his pocket?"

"He did."

"Humph! My wife has an idea about it, and she may be right----"

"What idea?"

"Well, she fancies--women are so clever, you know, at putting themselves
inside people's motives--she fancies that he was tempted, that he did
actually take the money, and that he has been concealing himself these
three months in some wild part of the country, struggling possibly with
his conscience all the time, and daring neither to abscond with his
booty nor to come back and restore it."

"But now that he has come back?"

"That is the point. She conceives that he has probably thrown himself
upon the company's mercy, made restitution of the money, and, being
forgiven, is permitted to carry the business through as if nothing
whatever had happened."

"The last," I replied, "is an impossible case. Mrs. Jelf thinks like a
generous and delicate-minded woman, but not in the least like a board of
railway directors. They would never carry forgiveness so far."

"I fear not; and yet it is the only conjecture that bears a semblance of
likelihood. However, we can run over to Clayborough tomorrow and see if
anything is to be learned. By the way, Prendergast tells me you picked
up his cigar-case."

"I did so, and here it is."

Jelf took the cigar-case, examined it by the light of the lamp, and said
at once that it was beyond doubt Mr. Dwerrihouse's property, and that he
remembered to have seen him use it.

"Here, too, is his monogram on the side," he added--"a big J.
transfixing a capital D. He used to carry the same on his note-paper."

"It offers, at all events, a proof that I was not dreaming."

"Ay, but it is time you were asleep and dreaming now. I am ashamed to
have kept you up so long. Good-night."

"Good-night, and remember that I am more than ready to go with you to
Clayborough, or Blackwater, or London, or anywhere, if I can be of the
least service."

"Thanks! I know you mean it, old friend, and it may be that I shall put
you to the test. Once more, good-night."

So we parted for that night, and met again in the breakfast-room at
half-past eight the next morning. It was a hurried, silent,
uncomfortable meal; none of us had slept well, and all were thinking of
the same subject. Within twenty minutes after we had left the
breakfast-table the dog-cart was brought round, and my friend and I were
on the road to Clayborough.

"Tell you what it is, Langford," he said, as we sped along between the
wintry hedges, "I do not much fancy to bring up Dwerrihouse's name at
Clayborough. All the officials know that he is my wife's relation, and
the subject just now is hardly a pleasant one. If you don't much mind,
we will take the 11:10 to Blackwater. It's an important station, and we
shall stand a far better chance of picking up information there than at
Clayborough."

So we took the 11:10, which happened to be an express, and, arriving at
Blackwater about a quarter before twelve, proceeded at once to prosecute
our inquiry.

We began by asking for the station-master, a big, blunt, businesslike
person, who at once averred that he knew Mr. John Dwerrihouse perfectly
well, and that there was no director on the line whom he had seen and
spoken to so frequently.

"He is not known to have been down the line any time yesterday, for
instance?"

The station-master shook his head.

"The East Anglian, sir," said he, "is about the last place where he
would dare to show himself. Why, there isn't a station-master, there
isn't a guard, there isn't a porter who doesn't know Mr. Dwerrihouse by
sight as well as he knows his own face in the looking-glass, or who
wouldn't telegraph for the police as soon as he had set eyes on him at
any point along the line. Bless you, sir! there's been a standing order
out against him ever since the 25th of September last."

"Can you tell me who took the Blackwater tickets of that train?"

"I can, sir. It was the guard, Benjamin Somers."

"And where can I find him?"

"You can find him, sir, by staying here, if you please, till one
o'clock. He will be coming through with the up express from Crampton,
which stays at Blackwater for ten minutes."

We waited for the up express, beguiling the time as best we could by
strolling along the Blackwater road till we came almost to the
outskirts of the town, from which the station was distant nearly a
couple of miles. By one o'clock we were back again upon the platform and
waiting for the train. It came punctually, and I at once recognized the
ruddy-faced guard who had gone down with my train the evening before.

"The gentlemen want to ask you something about Mr. Dwerrihouse, Somers,"
said the station-master, by way of introduction.

The guard flashed a keen glance from my face to Jelf's and back again to
mine.

"Mr. John Dwerrihouse, the late director?" said he, interrogatively.

"The same," replied my friend. "Should you know him if you saw him?"

"Anywhere, sir."

"Do you know if he was in the 4:15 express yesterday afternoon?"

"He was not, sir."

"How can you answer so positively?"

"Because I looked into every carriage and saw every face in that train,
and I could take my oath that Mr. Dwerrihouse was not in it. This
gentleman was," he added, turning sharply upon me. "I don't know that I
ever saw him before in my life, but I remember his face perfectly. You
nearly missed taking your seat in time at this station, sir, and you got
out at Clayborough."

"Quite true, guard," I replied; "but do you not also remember the face
of the gentleman who travelled down in the same carriage with me as far
as here?"

"It was my impression, sir, that you travelled down alone," said Somers,
with a look of some surprise.

"By no means. I had a fellow-traveller as far as Blackwater, and it was
in trying to restore him the cigar-case which he had dropped in the
carriage that I so nearly let you go on without me."

"I remember your saying something about a cigar-case, certainly,"
replied the guard; "but----"

"You asked for my ticket just before we entered the station."

"I did, sir."

"Then you must have seen him. He sat in the corner next the very door to
which you came."

"No, indeed; I saw no one."

I looked at Jelf. I began to think the guard was in the ex-director's
confidence, and paid for his silence.

"If I had seen another traveller I should have asked for his ticket,"
added Somers. "Did you see me ask for his ticket, sir?"

"I observed that you did not ask for it, but he explained that by
saying----" I hesitated. I feared I might be telling too much, and so
broke off abruptly.

The guard and the station-master exchanged glances. The former looked
impatiently at his watch.

"I am obliged to go on in four minutes more, sir," he said.

"One last question, then," interposed Jelf, with a sort of desperation.
"If this gentleman's fellow-traveller had been Mr. John Dwerrihouse and
he had been sitting in the corner next the door by which you took the
tickets, could you have failed to see and recognize him?"

"No, sir; it would have been quite impossible."

"And you are certain you did _not_ see him?"

"As I said before, sir, I could take my oath I did not see him. And if
it wasn't that I don't like to contradict a gentleman, I would say that
I could also take my oath that this gentleman was quite alone in the
carriage the whole way from London to Clayborough. Why, sir," he added,
dropping his voice so as to be inaudible to the station-master, who had
been called away to speak to some person close by, "you expressly asked
me to give you a compartment to yourself, and I did so. I locked you in,
and you were so good as to give me something for myself."

"Yes, but Mr. Dwerrihouse had a key of his own."

"I never saw him, sir; I saw no one in that compartment but yourself.
Beg pardon, sir; my time's up."

And with this the ruddy guard touched his cap and was gone. In another
minute the heavy panting of the engine began afresh, and the train
glided slowly out of the station.

We looked at each other for some moments in silence. I was the first to
speak.

"Mr. Benjamin Somers knows more than he chooses to tell," I said.

"Humph! do you think so?"

"It must be. He could not have come to the door without seeing him; it's
impossible."

"There is one thing not impossible, my dear fellow."

"What is that?"

"That you may have fallen asleep and dreamed the whole thing."

"Could I dream of a branch line that I had never heard of? Could I dream
of a hundred and one business details that had no kind of interest for
me? Could I dream of the seventy-five thousand pounds?"

"Perhaps you might have seen or heard some vague account of the affair
while you were abroad. It might have made no impression upon you at the
time, and might have come back to you in your dreams, recalled perhaps
by the mere names of the stations on the line."

"What about the fire in the chimney of the blue room--should I have
heard of that during my journey?"

"Well, no; I admit there is a difficulty about that point."

"And what about the cigar-case?"

"Ay, by Jove! there is the cigar-case. That _is_ a stubborn fact. Well,
it's a mysterious affair, and it will need a better detective than
myself, I fancy, to clear it up. I suppose we may as well go home."

A week had not gone by when I received a letter from the secretary of
the East Anglian Railway Company, requesting the favour of my attendance
at a special board meeting not then many days distant. No reasons were
alleged and no apologies offered for this demand upon my time, but they
had heard, it was clear, of my inquiries anent the missing director, and
had a mind to put me through some sort of official examination upon the
subject. Being still a guest at Dumbleton Hall, I had to go up to London
for the purpose, and Jonathan Jelf accompanied me. I found the direction
of the Great East Anglian line represented by a party of some twelve or
fourteen gentlemen seated in solemn conclave round a huge green baize
table, in a gloomy board-room adjoining the London terminus.

Being courteously received by the chairman (who at once began by saying
that certain statements of mine respecting Mr. John Dwerrihouse had come
to the knowledge of the direction, and that they in consequence desired
to confer with me on those points), we were placed at the table, and the
inquiry proceeded in due form.

I was first asked if I knew Mr. John Dwerrihouse, how long I had been
acquainted with him, and whether I could identify him at sight. I was
then asked when I had seen him last. To which I replied "On the 4th of
this present month, December, 1856." Then came the inquiry of where I
had seen him on the fourth day of December; to which I replied that I
met him in a first-class compartment of the 4:15 down express, that he
got in just as the train was leaving the London terminus, and that he
alighted at Blackwater station. The chairman then inquired whether I had
held any communication with my fellow-traveller, whereupon I related, as
nearly as I could remember it, the whole bulk and substance of Mr. John
Dwerrihouse's diffuse information respecting the new branch line.

To all this the board listened with profound attention, while the
chairman presided and the secretary took notes. I then produced the
cigar-case. It was passed from hand to hand, and recognized by all.
There was not a man present who did not remember that plain cigar-case
with its silver monogram, or to whom it seemed anything less than
entirely corroborative of my evidence. When at length I had told all
that I had to tell, the chairman whispered something to the secretary;
the secretary touched a silver hand-bell, and the guard, Benjamin
Somers, was ushered into the room. He was then examined as carefully as
myself. He declared that he knew Mr. John Dwerrihouse perfectly well,
that he could not be mistaken in him, that he remembered going down with
the 4:15 on the afternoon in question, that he remembered me, and that,
there being one or two empty first-class compartments on that special
afternoon, he had, in compliance with my request, placed me in a
carriage by myself. He was positive that I remained alone in that
compartment all the way from London to Clayborough. He was ready to take
his oath that Mr. Dwerrihouse was neither in that carriage with me, nor
in any compartment of that train. He remembered distinctly to have
examined my ticket at Blackwater; was certain that there was no one else
at that time in the carriage; could not have failed to observe a second
person, if there had been one; had that second person been Mr. John
Dwerrihouse should have quietly double-locked the door of the carriage
and have at once given information to the Blackwater station-master. So
clear, so decisive, so ready was Somers with this testimony, that the
board looked fairly puzzled.

"You hear this person's statement, Mr. Langford," said the chairman. "It
contradicts yours in every particular. What have you to say in reply?"

"I can only repeat what I said before. I am quite as positive of the
truth of my own assertions as Mr. Somers can be of the truth of his."

"You say that Mr. Dwerrihouse alighted at Blackwater, and that he was in
possession of a private key. Are you sure that he had not alighted by
means of that key before the guard came round for the tickets?"

"I am quite positive that he did not leave the carriage till the train
had fairly entered the station, and the other Blackwater passengers
alighted. I even saw that he was met there by a friend."

"Indeed! Did you see that person distinctly?"

"Quite distinctly."

"Can you describe his appearance?"

"I think so. He was short and very slight, sandy-haired, with a bushy
moustache and beard, and he wore a loosely fitting suit of grey tweed.
His age I should take to be about thirty-eight or forty."

"Did Mr. Dwerrihouse leave the station in this person's company?"

"I cannot tell. I saw them walking together down the platform, and then
I saw them standing aside under a gas-jet, talking earnestly. After
that I lost sight of them quite suddenly, and just then my train went
on, and I with it."

The chairman and secretary conferred together in an undertone. The
directors whispered to one another. One or two looked suspiciously at
the guard. I could see that my evidence remained unshaken, and that,
like myself, they suspected some complicity between the guard and the
defaulter.

"How far did you conduct that 4:15 express on the day in question,
Somers?" asked the chairman.

"All through, sir," replied the guard, "from London to Crampton."

"How was it that you were not relieved at Clayborough? I thought there
was always a change of guards at Clayborough."

"There used to be, sir, till the new regulations came in force last
midsummer, since when the guards in charge of express trains go the
whole way through."

The chairman turned to the secretary.

"I think it would be as well," he said, "if we had the day-book to refer
to upon this point."

Again the secretary touched the silver hand-bell, and desired the porter
in attendance to summon Mr. Raikes. From a word or two dropped by
another of the directors I gathered that Mr. Raikes was one of the
under-secretaries.

He came, a small, slight, sandy-haired, keen-eyed man, with an eager,
nervous manner, and a forest of light beard and moustache. He just
showed himself at the door of the board-room, and, being requested to
bring a certain day-book from a certain shelf in a certain room, bowed
and vanished.

He was there such a moment, and the surprise of seeing him was so great
and sudden, that it was not till the door had closed upon him that I
found voice to speak. He was no sooner gone, however, than I sprang to
my feet.

"That person," I said, "is the same who met Mr. Dwerrihouse upon the
platform at Blackwater!"

There was a general movement of surprise. The chairman looked grave and
somewhat agitated.

"Take care, Mr. Langford," he said; "take care what you say."

"I am as positive of his identity as of my own."

"Do you consider the consequences of your words? Do you consider that
you are bringing a charge of the gravest character against one of the
company's servants?"

"I am willing to be put upon my oath, if necessary. The man who came to
that door a minute since is the same whom I saw talking with Mr.
Dwerrihouse on the Blackwater platform. Were he twenty times the
company's servant, I could say neither more nor less."

The chairman turned again to the guard.

"Did you see Mr. Raikes in the train or on the platform?" he asked.

Somers shook his head.

"I am confident Mr. Raikes was not in the train," he said, "and I
certainly did not see him on the platform."

The chairman turned next to the secretary.

"Mr. Raikes is in your office, Mr. Hunter," he said. "Can you remember
if he was absent on the 4th instant?"

"I do not think he was," replied the secretary, "but I am not prepared
to speak positively. I have been away most afternoons myself lately, and
Mr. Raikes might easily have absented himself if he had been disposed."

At this moment the under-secretary returned with the day-book under his
arm.

"Be pleased to refer, Mr. Raikes," said the chairman, "to the entries of
the 4th instant, and see what Benjamin Somers's duties were on that
day."

Mr. Raikes threw open the cumbrous volume, and ran a practised eye and
finger down some three or four successive columns of entries. Stopping
suddenly at the foot of a page, he then read aloud that Benjamin Somers
had on that day conducted the 4:15 express from London to Crampton.

The chairman leaned forward in his seat, looked the under-secretary full
in the face, and said, quite sharply and suddenly:

"And where were _you_, Mr. Raikes, on the same afternoon?"

"_I_, sir?"

"You, Mr. Raikes. Where were you on the afternoon and evening of the 4th
of the present month?"

"Here, sir, in Mr. Hunter's office. Where else should I be?"

There was a dash of trepidation in the under-secretary's voice as he
said this, but his look of surprise was natural enough.

"We have some reason for believing, Mr. Raikes, that you were absent
that afternoon without leave. Was this the case?"

"Certainly not, sir. I have not had a day's holiday since September. Mr.
Hunter will bear me out in this."

Mr. Hunter repeated what he had previously said on the subject, but
added that the clerks in the adjoining office would be certain to know.
Whereupon the senior clerk, a grave, middle-aged person in green
glasses, was summoned and interrogated.

His testimony cleared the under-secretary at once. He declared that Mr.
Raikes had in no instance, to his knowledge, been absent during office
hours since his return from his annual holiday in September.

I was confounded. The chairman turned to me with a smile, in which a
shade of covert annoyance was scarcely apparent.

"You hear, Mr. Langford?" he said.

"I hear, sir; but my conviction remains unshaken."

"I fear, Mr. Langford, that your convictions are very insufficiently
based," replied the chairman, with a doubtful cough. "I fear that you
'dream dreams,' and mistake them for actual occurrences. It is a
dangerous habit of mind, and might lead to dangerous results. Mr. Raikes
here would have found himself in an unpleasant position had he not
proved so satisfactory an alibi."

I was about to reply, but he gave me no time.

"I think, gentlemen," he went on to say, addressing the board, "that we
should be wasting time to push this inquiry further. Mr. Langford's
evidence would seem to be of an equal value throughout. The testimony of
Benjamin Somers disproves his first statement, and the testimony of the
last witness disproves the second. I think we may conclude that Mr.
Langford fell asleep in the train on the occasion of his journey to
Clayborough, and dreamed an unusually vivid and circumstantial dream, of
which, however, we have now heard quite enough."

There are few things more annoying than to find one's positive
convictions met with incredulity. I could not help feeling impatient at
the turn that affairs had taken. I was not proof against the civil
sarcasm of the chairman's manner. Most intolerable of all, however, was
the quiet smile lurking about the corners of Benjamin Somers's mouth,
and the half-triumphant, half-malicious gleam in the eyes of the
under-secretary. The man was evidently puzzled and somewhat alarmed. His
looks seemed furtively to interrogate me. Who was I? What did I want?
Why had I come there to do him an ill turn with his employers? What was
it to me whether or no he was absent without leave?

Seeing all this, and perhaps irritated by it more than the thing
deserved, I begged leave to detain the attention of the board for a
moment longer. Jelf plucked me impatiently by the sleeve.

"Better let the thing drop," he whispered. "The chairman's right enough;
you dreamed it, and the less said now the better."

I was not to be silenced, however, in this fashion. I had yet something
to say, and I would say it. It was to this effect: that dreams were not
usually productive of tangible results, and that I requested to know in
what way the chairman conceived I had evolved from my dream so
substantial and well-made a delusion as the cigar-case which I had had
the honour to place before him at the commencement of our interview.

"The cigar-case, I admit, Mr. Langford," the chairman replied, "is a
very strong point in your evidence. It is your _only_ strong point,
however, and there is just a possibility that we may all be misled by a
mere accidental resemblance. Will you permit me to see the case again?"

"It is unlikely," I said, as I handed it to him, "that any other should
bear precisely this monogram, and yet be in all other particulars
exactly similar."

The chairman examined it for a moment in silence, and then passed it to
Mr. Hunter. Mr. Hunter turned it over and over, and shook his head.

"This is no mere resemblance," he said. "It is John Dwerrihouse's
cigar-case to a certainty. I remember it perfectly; I have seen it a
hundred times."

"I believe I may say the same," added the chairman; "yet how account
for the way in which Mr. Langford asserts that it came into his
possession?"

"I can only repeat," I replied, "that I found it on the floor of the
carriage after Mr. Dwerrihouse had alighted. It was in leaning out to
look after him, that I trod upon it, and it was in running after him for
the purpose of restoring it that I saw, or believed I saw, Mr. Raikes
standing aside with him in earnest conversation."

Again I felt Jonathan Jelf plucking at my sleeve.

"Look at Raikes," he whispered; "look at Raikes!"

I turned to where the under-secretary had been standing a moment before,
and saw him, white as death, with lips trembling and livid, stealing
toward the door.

To conceive a sudden, strange, and indefinite suspicion, to fling myself
in his way, to take him by the shoulders as if he were a child, and turn
his craven face, perforce, toward the board, were with me the work of an
instant.

"Look at him!" I exclaimed. "Look at his face! I ask no better witness
to the truth of my words."

The chairman's brow darkened.

"Mr. Raikes," he said, sternly, "if you know anything you had better
speak."

Vainly trying to wrench himself from my grasp, the under-secretary
stammered out an incoherent denial.

"Let me go," he said. "I know nothing--you have no right to detain
me--let me go!"

"Did you, or did you not, meet Mr. John Dwerrihouse at Blackwater
station? The charge brought against you is either true or false. If
true, you will do well to throw yourself upon the mercy of the board and
make full confession of all that you know."

The under-secretary wrung his hands in an agony of helpless terror.

"I was away!" he cried. "I was two hundred miles away at the time! I
know nothing about it--I have nothing to confess--I am innocent--I call
God to witness I am innocent!"

"Two hundred miles away!" echoed the chairman. "What do you mean?"

"I was in Devonshire. I had three weeks' leave of absence--I appeal to
Mr. Hunter--Mr. Hunter knows I had three weeks' leave of absence! I was
in Devonshire all the time; I can prove I was in Devonshire!"

Seeing him so abject, so incoherent, so wild with apprehension, the
directors began to whisper gravely among themselves, while one got
quietly up and called the porter to guard the door.

"What has your being in Devonshire to do with the matter?" said the
chairman. "When were you in Devonshire?"

"Mr. Raikes took his leave in September," said the secretary, "about the
time when Mr. Dwerrihouse disappeared."

"I never even heard that he had disappeared till I came back!"

"That must remain to be proved," said the chairman. "I shall at once put
this matter in the hands of the police. In the meanwhile, Mr. Raikes,
being myself a magistrate and used to deal with these cases, I advise
you to offer no resistance, but to confess while confession may yet do
you service. As for your accomplice----"

The frightened wretch fell upon his knees.

"I had no accomplice!" he cried. "Only have mercy upon me--only spare my
life, and I will confess all! I didn't mean to harm him! I didn't mean
to hurt a hair of his head! Only have mercy on me, and let me go!"

The chairman rose in his place, pale and agitated. "Good Heavens!" he
exclaimed, "what horrible mystery is this? What does it mean?"

"As sure as there is a God in heaven," said Jonathan Jelf, "it means
that murder has been done."

"No! no! no!" shrieked Raikes, still upon his knees, and cowering like a
beaten hound. "Not murder! No jury that ever sat could bring it in
murder. I thought I had only stunned him--I never meant to do more than
stun him. Manslaughter--manslaughter--not murder!"

Overcome by the horror of this unexpected revelation, the chairman
covered his face with his hand and for a moment or two remained silent.

"Miserable man," he said at length, "you have betrayed yourself."

"You bade me confess! You urged me to throw myself upon the mercy of the
board!"

"You have confessed to a crime which no one suspected you of having
committed," replied the chairman, "and which this board has no power
either to punish or forgive. All that I can do for you is to advise you
to submit to the law, to plead guilty, and to conceal nothing. When did
you do this deed?"

The guilty man rose to his feet, and leaned heavily against the table.
His answer came reluctantly, like the speech of one dreaming.

"On the 22nd of September."

"On the 22nd of September!" I looked in Jonathan Jelf's face, and he in
mine. I felt my own paling with a strange sense of wonder and dread. I
saw him blanch suddenly, even to the lips.

"Merciful heaven!" he whispered. "_What was it, then, that you saw in
the train?_"

       *       *       *       *       *

What was it that I saw in the train? That question remains unanswered to
this day. I have never been able to reply to it. I only know that it
bore the living likeness of the murdered man, whose body had then been
lying some ten weeks under a rough pile of branches and brambles and
rotting leaves, at the bottom of a deserted chalk-pit about half-way
between Blackwater and Mallingford. I know that it spoke and moved and
looked as that man spoke and moved and looked in life; that I heard, or
seemed to hear, things related which I could never otherwise have
learned; that I was guided, as it were, by that vision on the platform
to the identification of the murderer; and that, a passive instrument
myself, I was destined, by means of these mysterious teachings, to bring
about the ends of justice. For these things I have never been able to
account.

As for that matter of the cigar-case, it proved, on inquiry, that the
carriage in which I travelled down that afternoon to Clayborough had not
been in use for several weeks, and was, in point of fact, the same in
which poor John Dwerrihouse had performed his last journey. The case had
doubtless been dropped by him, and had lain unnoticed till I found it.

Upon the details of the murder I have no need to dwell. Those who desire
more ample particulars may find them, and the written confession of
Augustus Raikes, in the files of the "Times" for 1856. Enough that the
under-secretary, knowing the history of the new line, and following the
negotiation step by step through all its stages, determined to waylay
Mr. Dwerrihouse, rob him of the seventy-five thousand pounds, and escape
to America with his booty.

In order to effect these ends he obtained leave of absence a few days
before the time appointed for the payment of the money, secured his
passage across the Atlantic in a steamer advertised to start on the
23rd, provided himself with a heavily loaded "life-preserver," and went
down to Blackwater to await the arrival of his victim. How he met him on
the platform with a pretended message from the board, how he offered to
conduct him by a short cut across the fields to Mallingford, how, having
brought him to a lonely place, he struck him down with the
life-preserver, and so killed him, and how, finding what he had done, he
dragged the body to the verge of an out-of-the-way chalk-pit, and there
flung it in and piled it over with branches and brambles, are facts
still fresh in the memories of those who, like the connoisseurs in De
Quincey's famous essay, regard murder as a fine art. Strangely enough,
the murderer, having done his work, was afraid to leave the country. He
declared that he had not intended to take the director's life, but only
to stun and rob him; and that, finding the blow had killed, he dared not
fly for fear of drawing down suspicion upon his own head. As a mere
robber he would have been safe in the States, but as a murderer he would
inevitably have been pursued and given up to justice. So he forfeited
his passage, returned to the office as usual at the end of his leave,
and locked up his ill-gotten thousands till a more convenient
opportunity. In the meanwhile he had the satisfaction of finding that
Mr. Dwerrihouse was universally believed to have absconded with the
money, no one knew how or whither.

Whether he meant murder or not, however, Mr. Augustus Raikes paid the
full penalty of his crime, and was hanged at the Old Bailey in the
second week of January, 1857. Those who desire to make his further
acquaintance may see him any day (admirably done in wax) in the Chamber
of Horrors at Madame Tussaud's exhibition, in Baker Street. He is there
to be found in the midst of a select society of ladies and gentlemen of
atrocious memory, dressed in the close-cut tweed suit which he wore on
the evening of the murder, and holding in his hand the identical
life-preserver with which he committed it.




THE WERE-WOLF

H. B. MARRYATT


My father was not born, or originally a resident, in the Hartz
Mountains; he was the serf of an Hungarian nobleman, of great
possessions, in Transylvania; but, although a serf, he was not by any
means a poor or illiterate man. In fact, he was rich, and his
intelligence and respectability were such, that he had been raised by
his lord to the stewardship; but, whoever may happen to be born a serf,
a serf must he remain, even though he become a wealthy man; such was the
condition of my father. My father had been married for about five years;
and, by his marriage, had three children--my eldest brother Cæsar,
myself (Hermann), and a sister named Marcella. Latin is still the
language spoken in that country; and that will account for our
high-sounding names. My mother was a very beautiful woman, unfortunately
more beautiful than virtuous: she was seen and admired by the lord of
the soil; my father was sent away upon some mission; and, during his
absence, my mother, flattered by the attentions, and won by the
assiduities, of this nobleman, yielded to his wishes. It so happened
that my father returned very unexpectedly, and discovered the intrigue.
The evidence of my mother's shame was positive: he surprised her in the
company of her seducer! Carried away by the impetuosity of his feelings,
he watched the opportunity of a meeting taking place between them, and
murdered both his wife and her seducer. Conscious that, as a serf, not
even the provocation which he had received would be allowed as a
justification of his conduct, he hastily collected together what money
he could lay his hands upon, and, as we were then in the depth of
winter, he put his horses to the sleigh, and taking his children with
him, he set off in the middle of the night, and was far away before the
tragical circumstance had transpired. Aware that he would be pursued,
and that he had no chance of escape if he remained in any portion of his
native country (in which the authorities could lay hold of him), he
continued his flight without intermission until he had buried himself in
the intricacies and seclusion of the Hartz Mountains. Of course, all
that I have now told you I learned afterwards. My oldest recollections
are knit to a rude, yet comfortable cottage, in which I lived with my
father, brother, and sister. It was on the confines of one of those vast
forests which cover the northern part of Germany; around it were a few
acres of ground, which, during the summer months, my father cultivated,
and which, though they yielded a doubtful harvest, were sufficient for
our support. In the winter we remained much in doors, for, as my father
followed the chase, we were left alone, and the wolves, during that
season, incessantly prowled about. My father had purchased the cottage,
and land about it, of one of the rude foresters, who gain their
livelihood partly by hunting, and partly by burning charcoal, for the
purpose of smelting the ore from the neighbouring mines; it was distant
about two miles from any other habitation. I can call to mind the whole
landscape now: the tall pines which rose up on the mountain above us,
and the wide expanse of forest beneath, on the topmost boughs and heads
of whose trees we looked down from our cottage, as the mountain below us
rapidly descended into the distant valley. In summer time the prospect
was beautiful; but during the severe winter, a more desolate scene could
not well be imagined.

I said that, in the winter, my father occupied himself with the chase;
every day he left us, and often would he lock the door, that we might
not leave the cottage. He had no one to assist him, or to take care of
us--indeed, it was not easy to find a female servant who would live in
such a solitude; but, could he have found one, my father would not have
received her, for he had imbibed a horror of the sex, as a difference of
his conduct toward us, his two boys, and my poor little sister,
Marcella, evidently proved. You may suppose we were sadly neglected;
indeed, we suffered much, for my father, fearful that we might come to
some harm, would not allow us fuel, when he left the cottage; and we
were obliged, therefore, to creep under the heaps of bears'-skins, and
there to keep ourselves as warm as we could until he returned in the
evening, when a blazing fire was our delight. That my father chose this
restless sort of life may appear strange, but the fact was that he could
not remain quiet; whether from remorse for having committed murder, or
from the misery consequent on his change of situation, or from both
combined, he was never happy unless he was in a state of activity.
Children, however, when left much to themselves, acquire a
thoughtfulness not common to their age. So it was with us; and during
the short cold days of winter we would sit silent, longing for the happy
hours when the snow would melt, and the leaves burst out, and the birds
begin their songs, and when we should again be set at liberty.

Such was our peculiar and savage sort of life until my brother Cæsar was
nine, myself seven, and my sister five, years old, when the
circumstances occurred on which is based the extraordinary narrative
which I am about to relate.

One evening my father returned home rather later than usual; he had been
unsuccessful, and, as the weather was very severe, and many feet of snow
were upon the ground, he was not only very cold, but in a very bad
humour. He had brought in wood, and we were all three of us gladly
assisting each other in blowing on the embers to create the blaze, when
he caught poor little Marcella by the arm and threw her aside; the child
fell, struck her mouth, and bled very much. My brother ran to raise her
up. Accustomed to ill usage, and afraid of my father, she did not dare
to cry, but looked up in his face very piteously. My father drew his
stool nearer to the hearth, muttered something in abuse of women, and
busied himself with the fire, which both my brother and I had deserted
when our sister was so unkindly treated. A cheerful blaze was soon the
result of his exertions; but we did not, as usual, crowd round it.
Marcella, still bleeding, retired to a corner, and my brother and I took
our seats beside her, while my father hung over the fire gloomily and
alone. Such had been our position for about half-an-hour, when the howl
of a wolf, close under the window of the cottage, fell on our ears. My
father started up, and seized his gun; the howl was repeated, he
examined the priming, and then hastily left the cottage, shutting the
door after him. We all waited (anxiously listening), for we thought that
if he succeeded in shooting the wolf, he would return in a better
humour; and although he was harsh to all of us, and particularly so to
our little sister, still we loved our father, and loved to see him
cheerful and happy, for what else had we to look up to? And I may here
observe, that perhaps there never were three children who were fonder of
each other; we did not, like other children, fight and dispute together;
and if, by chance, any disagreement did arise between my elder brother
and me, little Marcella would run to us, and kissing us both, seal,
through her entreaties, the peace between us. Marcella was a lovely,
amiable child; I can recall her beautiful features even now--Alas! poor
little Marcella.

We waited for some time, but the report of the gun did not reach us, and
my elder brother then said, "Our father has followed the wolf, and will
not be back for some time. Marcella, let us wash the blood from your
mouth, and then we will leave this corner, and go to the fire and warm
ourselves."

We did so, and remained there until near midnight, every minute
wondering, as it grew later, why our father did not return. We had no
idea that he was in any danger, but we thought that he must have chased
the wolf for a very long time. "I will look out and see if father is
coming," said my brother Cæsar, going to the door. "Take care," said
Marcella, "the wolves must be about now, and we cannot kill them,
brother." My brother opened the door very cautiously, and but a few
inches; he peeped out.--"I see nothing," said he, after a time, and once
more he joined us at the fire. "We have had no supper," said I, for my
father usually cooked the meat as soon as he came home; and during his
absence we had nothing but the fragments of the preceding day.

"And if our father comes home after his hunt, Cæsar," said Marcella, "he
will be pleased to have some supper; let us cook it for him and for
ourselves." Cæsar climbed upon the stool, and reached down some meat--I
forget now whether it was venison or bear's meat; but we cut off the
usual quantity, and proceeded to dress it, as we used to do under our
father's superintendence. We were all busied putting it into the
platters before the fire, to await his coming, when we heard the sound
of a horn. We listened--there was a noise outside, and a minute
afterwards my father entered, ushering in a young female, and a large
dark man in a hunter's dress.

Perhaps I had better now relate, what was only known to me many years
afterwards. When my father had left the cottage, he perceived a large
white wolf about thirty yards from him; as soon as the animal saw my
father, it retreated slowly, growling and snarling. My father followed;
the animal did not run, but always kept at some distance; and my father
did not like to fire until he was pretty certain that his ball would
take effect: thus they went on for some time, the wolf now leaving my
father far behind, and then stopping and snarling defiance at him, and
then again, on his approach, setting off at speed.

Anxious to shoot the animal (for the white wolf is very rare), my father
continued the pursuit for several hours, during which he continually
ascended the mountain.

You must know that there are peculiar spots on those mountains which are
supposed, and, as my story will prove, truly supposed, to be inhabited
by the evil influences; they are well known to the huntsmen, who
invariably avoid them. Now, one of these spots, an open space in the
pine forests above us, had been pointed out to my father as dangerous on
that account. But, whether he disbelieved these wild stories, or
whether, in his eager pursuit of the chase, he disregarded them, I know
not; certain, however, it is that he was decoyed by the white wolf to
this open space, when the animal appeared to slacken her speed. My
father approached, came close up to her, raised his gun to his shoulder,
and was about to fire, when the wolf suddenly disappeared. He thought
that the snow on the ground must have dazzled his sight, and he let down
his gun to look for the beast--but she was gone; how she could have
escaped over the clearance, without his seeing her, was beyond his
comprehension. Mortified at the ill success of his chase, he was about
to retrace his steps, when he heard the distant sound of a horn.
Astonishment at such a sound--at such an hour--in such a wilderness,
made him forget for the moment his disappointment, and he remained
riveted to the spot. In a minute the horn was blown a second time, and
at no great distance; my father stood still, and listened: a third time
it was blown. I forget the term used to express it, but it was the
signal which, my father well knew, implied that the party was lost in
the woods. In a few minutes more my father beheld a man on horseback,
with a female seated on the crupper, enter the cleared space, and ride
up to him. At first, my father called to mind the strange stories which
he had heard of the supernatural beings who were said to frequent these
mountains; but the nearer approach of the parties satisfied him that
they were mortals like himself. As soon as they came up to him, the man
who guided the horse accosted him. "Friend Hunter, you are out late, the
better fortune for us: we have ridden far, and are in fear of our lives,
which are eagerly sought after. These mountains have enabled us to elude
our pursuers; but if we find not shelter and refreshment, that will
avail us little, as we must perish from hunger and the inclemency of the
night. My daughter, who rides behind me, is now more dead than
alive--say, can you assist us in our difficulty?"

"My cottage is some few miles distant," replied my father, "but I have
little to offer you besides a shelter from the weather; to the little I
have you are welcome. May I ask whence you come?"

"Yes, friend, it is no secret now; we have escaped from Transylvania,
where my daughter's honour and my life were equally in jeopardy!"

This information was quite enough to raise an interest in my father's
heart. He remembered his own escape: he remembered the loss of his
wife's honour, and the tragedy by which it was wound up. He immediately,
and warmly, offered all the assistance which he could afford them.

"There is no time to be lost, then, good sir," observed the horseman;
"my daughter is chilled with the frost, and cannot hold out much longer
against the severity of the weather."

"Follow me," replied my father, leading the way towards his home.

"I was lured away in pursuit of a large white wolf," observed my father;
"it came to the very window of my hut, or I should not have been out at
this time of night."

"The creature passed by us just as we came out of the wood," said the
female in a silvery tone.

"I was nearly discharging my piece at it," observed the hunter; "but
since it did us such good service, I am glad that I allowed it to
escape."

In about an hour and a half, during which my father walked at a rapid
pace, the party arrived at the cottage, and, as I said before, came in.

"We are in good time, apparently," observed the dark hunter, catching
the smell of the roasted meat, as he walked to the fire and surveyed my
brother and sister, and myself. "You have young cooks here, Mynheer." "I
am glad that we shall not have to wait," replied my father. "Come,
mistress, seat yourself by the fire; you require warmth after your cold
ride." "And where can I put up my horse, Mynheer?" observed the
huntsman. "I will take care of him," replied my father, going out of the
cottage door.

The female must, however, be particularly described. She was young, and
apparently twenty years of age. She was dressed in a travelling dress,
deeply bordered with white fur, and wore a cap of white ermine on her
head. Her features were very beautiful, at least I thought so, and so my
father has since declared. Her hair was flaxen, glossy and shining, and
bright as a mirror; and her mouth, although somewhat large when it was
open, showed the most brilliant teeth I have ever beheld. But there was
something about her eyes, bright as they were, which made us children
afraid; they were so restless, so furtive; I could not at that time tell
why, but I felt as if there was cruelty in her eye; and when she
beckoned us to come to her, we approached her with fear and trembling.
Still she was beautiful, very beautiful. She spoke kindly to my brother
and myself, patted our heads, and caressed us; but Marcella would not
come near her; on the contrary, she slunk away, and hid herself in the
bed, and would not wait for the supper, which half an hour before she
had been so anxious for.

My father, having put the horse into a close shed, soon returned, and
supper was placed upon the table. When it was over, my father requested
that the young lady would take possession of his bed, and he would
remain at the fire, and sit up with her father. After some hesitation on
her part, this arrangement was agreed to, and I and my brother crept
into the other bed with Marcella, for we had as yet always slept
together.

But we could not sleep; there was something so unusual, not only in
seeing strange people, but in having those people sleep at the cottage,
that we were bewildered. As for poor little Marcella, she was quiet, but
I perceived that she trembled during the whole night, and sometimes I
thought that she was checking a sob. My father had brought out some
spirits, which he rarely used, and he and the strange hunter remained
drinking and talking before the fire. Our ears were ready to catch the
slightest whisper--so much was our curiosity excited.

"You said you came from Transylvania?" observed my father.

"Even so, Mynheer," replied the hunter. "I was a serf to the noble
house of----; my master would insist upon my surrendering up my fair
girl to his wishes; it ended in my giving him a few inches of my
hunting-knife."

"We are countrymen, and brothers in misfortune," replied my father,
taking the huntsman's hand, and pressing it warmly.

"Indeed! Are you, then, from that country?"

"Yes; and I too have fled for my life. But mine is a melancholy tale."

"Your name?" inquired the hunter.

"Krantz."

"What! Krantz of--I have heard your tale; you need not renew your grief
by repeating it now. Welcome, most welcome, Mynheer, and, I may say, my
worthy kinsman. I am your second cousin, Wilfred of Barnsdorf," cried
the hunter, rising up and embracing my father.

They filled their horn mugs to the brim, and drank to one another, after
the German fashion. The conversation was then carried on in a low tone;
all that we could collect from it was, that our new relative and his
daughter were to take up their abode in our cottage, at least for the
present. In about an hour they both fell back in their chairs, and
appeared to sleep.

"Marcella, dear, did you hear?" said my brother in a low tone.

"Yes," replied Marcella, in a whisper; "I heard all. Oh! brother, I
cannot bear to look upon that woman--I feel so frightened."

My brother made no reply, and shortly afterwards we were all three fast
asleep.

When we awoke the next morning, we found that the hunter's daughter had
risen before us. I thought she looked more beautiful than ever. She came
up to little Marcella and caressed her; the child burst into tears, and
sobbed as if her heart would break.

But, not to detain you with too long a story, the huntsman and his
daughter were accommodated in the cottage. My father and he went out
hunting daily, leaving Christina with us. She performed all the
household duties; was very kind to us children; and, gradually, the
dislike even of little Marcella wore away. But a great change took place
in my father; he appeared to have conquered his aversion to the sex, and
was most attentive to Christina. Often, after her father and we were in
bed, would he sit up with her, conversing in a low tone by the fire. I
ought to have mentioned, that my father and the huntsman Wilfred, slept
in another portion of the cottage, and that the bed which he formerly
occupied, and which was in the same room as ours, had been given up to
the use of Christina. These visitors had been about three weeks at the
cottage, when, one night, after we children had been sent to bed, a
consultation was held. My father had asked Christina in marriage, and
had obtained both her own consent and that of Wilfred; after this a
conversation took place, which was, as nearly as I can recollect, as
follows:

"You may take my child, Mynheer Krantz, and my blessing with her, and I
shall then leave you and seek some other habitation--it matters little
where."

"Why not remain here, Wilfred?"

"No, no, I am called elsewhere; let that suffice, and ask no more
questions. You have my child."

"I thank you for her, and will duly value her; but there is one
difficulty."

"I know what you would say; there is no priest here in this wild
country: true, neither is there any law to bind; still must some
ceremony pass between you, to satisfy a father. Will you consent to
marry her after my fashion? if so, I will marry you directly."

"I will," replied my father.

"Then take her by the hand. Now, Mynheer, swear."

"I swear," repeated my father.

"By all the spirits of the Hartz Mountains----"

"Nay, why not by Heaven?" interrupted my father.

"Because it is not my humour," rejoined Wilfred; "if I prefer that oath,
less binding perhaps, than another, surely you will not thwart me."

"Well, be it so then; have your humour. Will you make me swear by that
in which I do not believe?"

"Yet many do so, who in outward appearance are Christians," rejoined
Wilfred; "say, will you be married, or shall I take my daughter away
with me?"

"Proceed," replied my father, impatiently.

"I swear by all the spirits of the Hartz Mountains, by all their power
for good or for evil, that I take Christina for my wedded wife; that I
will ever protect her, cherish her, and love her; that my hand shall
never be raised against her to harm her."

My father repeated the words after Wilfred.

"And if I fail in this, my vow, may all the vengeance of the spirits
fall upon me and upon my children; may they perish by the vulture, by
the wolf, or other beasts of the forest; may their flesh be torn from
their limbs, and their bones blanch in the wilderness; all this I
swear."

My father hesitated, as he repeated the last words; little Marcella
could not restrain herself, and as my father repeated the last sentence,
she burst into tears. This sudden interruption appeared to discompose
the party, particularly my father; he spoke harshly to the child, who
controlled her sobs, burying her face under the bed-clothes.

Such was the second marriage of my father. The next morning, the hunter
Wilfred mounted his horse and rode away.

My father resumed his bed, which was in the same room as ours; and
things went on much as before the marriage, except that our new
mother-in-law did not show any kindness towards us; indeed, during my
father's absence, she would often beat us, particularly little Marcella,
and her eyes would flash fire, as she looked eagerly upon the fair and
lovely child.

One night, my sister awoke me and my brother.

"What is the matter?" said Cæsar.

"She has gone out," whispered Marcella.

"Gone out!"

"Yes, gone out at the door, in her night-clothes," replied the child; "I
saw her get out of bed, look at my father to see if he slept, and then
she went out at the door."

What could induce her to leave her bed, and all undressed to go out, in
such bitter wintry weather, with the snow deep on the ground, was to us
incomprehensible; we lay awake, and in about an hour we heard the growl
of a wolf, close under the window.

"There is a wolf," said Cæsar, "she will be torn to pieces."

"Oh, no!" cried Marcella.

In a few minutes afterwards our mother-in-law appeared; she was in her
night-dress, as Marcella had stated. She let down the latch of the door,
so as to make no noise, went to a pail of water, and washed her face and
hands, and then slipped into the bed where my father lay.

We all three trembled, we hardly knew why, but we resolved to watch the
next night: we did so--and not only on the ensuing night, but on many
others, and always at about the same hour, would our mother-in-law rise
from her bed, and leave the cottage--and after she was gone, we
invariably heard the growl of a wolf under our window, and always saw
her, on her return, wash herself before she retired to bed. We observed,
also, that she seldom sat down to meals, and that when she did, she
appeared to eat with dislike; but when the meat was taken down, to be
prepared for dinner, she would often furtively put a raw piece into her
mouth.

My brother Cæsar was a courageous boy; he did not like to speak to my
father until he knew more. He resolved that he would follow her out, and
ascertain what she did. Marcella and I endeavoured to dissuade him from
this project; but he would not be controlled, and, the very next night
he lay down in his clothes, and as soon as our mother-in-law had left
the cottage, he jumped up, took down my father's gun, and followed her.

You may imagine in what a state of suspense Marcella and I remained,
during his absence. After a few minutes, we heard the report of a gun.
It did not awaken my father, and we lay trembling with anxiety. In a
minute afterwards we saw our mother-in-law enter the cottage--her dress
was bloody. I put my hand to Marcella's mouth to prevent her crying out,
although I was myself in great alarm. Our mother-in-law approached my
father's bed, looked to see if he was asleep, and then went to the
chimney, and blew up the embers into a blaze.

"Who is there?" said my father, waking up.

"Lie still, dearest," replied my mother-in-law, "it is only me; I have
lighted the fire to warm some water; I am not quite well."

My father turned round and was soon asleep; but we watched our
mother-in-law. She changed her linen, and threw the garments she had
worn into the fire; and we then perceived that her right leg was
bleeding profusely, as if from a gun-shot wound. She bandaged it up,
and then dressing herself, remained before the fire until the break of
day.

Poor little Marcella, her heart beat quick as she pressed me to her
side--so indeed did mine. Where was our brother, Cæsar? How did my
mother-in-law receive the wound unless from his gun? At last my father
rose, and then, for the first time I spoke, saying, "Father, where is my
brother, Cæsar?"

"Your brother!" exclaimed he, "why, where can he be?"

"Merciful Heaven! I thought as I lay very restless last night," observed
our mother-in-law, "that I heard somebody open the latch of the door;
and, dear me, husband, what has become of your gun?"

My father cast his eyes up above the chimney, and perceived that his gun
was missing. For a moment he looked perplexed, then seizing a broad axe,
he went out of the cottage without saying another word.

He did not remain away from us long: in a few minutes he returned,
bearing in his arms the mangled body of my poor brother; he laid it
down, and covered up his face.

My mother-in-law rose up, and looked at the body, while Marcella and I
threw ourselves by its side wailing and sobbing bitterly.

"Go to bed again, children," said she sharply. "Husband," continued she,
"your boy must have taken the gun down to shoot a wolf, and the animal
has been too powerful for him. Poor boy! He has paid dearly for his
rashness."

My father made no reply; I wished to speak--to tell all--but Marcella,
who perceived my intention, held me by the arm, and looked at me so
imploringly, that I desisted.

My father, therefore, was left in his error; but Marcella and I,
although we could not comprehend it, were conscious that our
mother-in-law was in some way connected with my brother's death.

That day my father went out and dug a grave, and when he laid the body
in the earth, he piled up stones over it, so that the wolves should not
be able to dig it up. The shock of this catastrophe was to my poor
father very severe; for several days he never went to the chase,
although at times he would utter bitter anathemas and vengeance against
the wolves.

But during this time of mourning on his part, my mother-in-law's
nocturnal wanderings continued with the same regularity as before.

At last, my father took down his gun, to repair to the forest; but he
soon returned, and appeared much annoyed.

"Would you believe it, Christina, that the wolves--perdition to the
whole race--have actually contrived to dig up the body of my poor boy,
and now there is nothing left of him but his bones?"

"Indeed!" replied my mother-in-law. Marcella looked at me, and I saw in
her intelligent eye all she would have uttered.

"A wolf growls under our window every night, father," said I.

"Aye, indeed?--why did you not tell me, boy?--wake me the next time you
hear it."

I saw my mother-in-law turn away; her eyes flashed fire, and she gnashed
her teeth.

My father went out again, and covered up with a larger pile of stones
the little remnants of my poor brother which the wolves had spared. Such
was the first act of the tragedy.

The spring now came on: the snow disappeared, and we were permitted to
leave the cottage; but never would I quit, for one moment, my dear
little sister, to whom, since the death of my brother, I was more
ardently attached than ever; indeed I was afraid to leave her alone with
my mother-in-law, who appeared to have a particular pleasure in
ill-treating the child. My father was now employed upon his little farm,
and I was able to render him some assistance.

Marcella used to sit by us while we were at work, leaving my
mother-in-law alone in the cottage. I ought to observe that, as the
spring advanced, so did my mother decrease her nocturnal rambles, and
that we never heard the growl of the wolf under the window after I had
spoken of it to my father.

One day, when my father and I were in the field, Marcella being with us,
my mother-in-law came out, saying that she was going into the forest, to
collect some herbs my father wanted, and that Marcella must go to the
cottage and watch the dinner. Marcella went, and my mother-in-law soon
disappeared in the forest, taking a direction quite contrary to that in
which the cottage stood, and leaving my father and I, as it were,
between her and Marcella.

About an hour afterwards we were startled by shrieks from the cottage,
evidently the shrieks of little Marcella. "Marcella has burnt herself,
father," said I, throwing down my spade. My father threw down his, and
we both hastened to the cottage. Before we could gain the door, out
darted a large white wolf, which fled with the utmost celerity. My
father had no weapon; he rushed into the cottage, and there saw poor
little Marcella expiring; her body was dreadfully mangled, and the blood
pouring from it had formed a large pool on the cottage floor. My
father's first intention had been to seize his gun and pursue, but he
was checked by this horrid spectacle; he knelt down by his dying child,
and burst into tears: Marcella could just look kindly on us for a few
seconds, and then her eyes were closed in death.

My father and I were still hanging over my poor sister's body, when my
mother-in-law came in. At the dreadful sight she expressed much concern,
but she did not appear to recoil from the sight of blood, as most women
do.

"Poor child!" said she, "it must have been that great white wolf which
passed me just now, and frightened me so--she's quite dead, Krantz."

"I know it--I know it!" cried my father in agony.

I thought my father would never recover from the effects of this second
tragedy: he mourned bitterly over the body of his sweet child, and for
several days would not consign it to its grave, although frequently
requested by my mother-in-law to do so. At last he yielded, and dug a
grave for her close by that of my poor brother, and took every
precaution that the wolves should not violate her remains.

I was now really miserable, as I lay alone in the bed which I had
formerly shared with my brother and sister. I could not help thinking
that my mother-in-law was implicated in both their deaths, although I
could not account for the manner; but I no longer felt afraid of her: my
little heart was full of hatred and revenge.

The night after my sister had been buried, as I lay awake, I perceived
my mother-in-law get up and go out of the cottage. I waited for some
time, then dressed myself, and looked out through the door, which I
half-opened. The moon shone bright, and I could see the spot where my
brother and my sister had been buried; and what was my horror, when I
perceived my mother-in-law busily removing the stones from Marcella's
grave.

She was in her white night-dress, and the moon shone full upon her. She
was digging with her hands, and throwing away the stones behind her with
all the ferocity of a wild beast. It was some time before I could
collect my senses and decide what I should do. At last, I perceived that
she had arrived at the body, and raised it up to the side of the grave.
I could bear it no longer; I ran to my father and awoke him.

"Father! father!" cried I, "dress yourself, and get your gun."

"What!" cried my father, "the wolves are there, are they?"

He jumped out of bed, threw on his clothes, and in his anxiety did not
appear to perceive the absence of his wife. As soon as he was ready, I
opened the door, he went out, and I followed him.

Imagine his horror, when (unprepared as he was for such a sight) he
beheld, as he advanced towards the grave, not a wolf, but his wife, in
her night-dress, on her hands and knees, crouching by the body of my
sister, and tearing off large pieces of the flesh, and devouring them
with all the avidity of a wolf. She was too busy to be aware of our
approach. My father dropped his gun, his hair stood on end; so did mine;
he breathed heavily, and then his breath for a time stopped. I picked up
the gun and put it into his hand. Suddenly he appeared as if
concentrated rage had restored him to double vigour; he levelled his
piece, fired, and with a loud shriek, down fell the wretch whom he had
fostered in his bosom.

"God of Heaven!" cried my father, sinking down upon the earth in a
swoon, as soon as he had discharged his gun.

I remained some time by his side before he recovered. "Where am I?" said
he, "what has happened?--Oh!--yes, yes! I recollect now. Heaven forgive
me!"

He rose and we walked up to the grave; what again was our astonishment
and horror to find that instead of the dead body of my mother-in-law,
as we expected, there was lying over the remains of my poor sister, a
large, white she wolf.

"The white wolf!" exclaimed my father, "the white wolf which decoyed me
into the forest--I see it all now--I have dealt with the spirits of the
Hartz Mountains."

For some time my father remained in silence and deep thought. He then
carefully lifted up the body of my sister, replaced it in the grave, and
covered it over as before, having struck the head of the dead animal
with the heel of his boot, and raving like a madman. He walked back to
the cottage, shut the door, and threw himself on the bed; I did the
same, for I was in a stupor of amazement.

Early in the morning we were both roused by a loud knocking at the door,
and in rushed the hunter Wilfred.

"My daughter!--man--my daughter!--where is my daughter!" cried he in a
rage.

"Where the wretch, the fiend, should be, I trust," replied my father,
starting up and displaying equal choler; "where she should be--in
hell!--Leave this cottage or you may fare worse."

"Ha-ha!" replied the hunter, "would you harm a potent spirit of the
Hartz Mountains? Poor mortal, who must needs wed a were wolf."

"Out, demon! I defy thee and thy power."

"Yet shall you feel it; remember your oath--your solemn oath--never to
raise your hand against her to harm her."

"I made no compact with evil spirits."

"You did; and if you failed in your vow, you were to meet the vengeance
of the spirits. Your children were to perish by the vulture, the
wolf----"

"Out, out, demon!"

"And their bones blanch in the wilderness. Ha!-ha!"

My father, frantic with rage, seized his axe, and raised it over
Wilfred's head to strike.

"All this I swear," continued the huntsman, mockingly.

The axe descended; but it passed through the form of the hunter, and my
father lost his balance, and fell heavily on the floor.

"Mortal!" said the hunter, striding over my father's body, "we have
power over those only who have committed murder. You have been guilty of
a double murder--you shall pay the penalty attached to your marriage
vow. Two of your children are gone; the third is yet to follow--and
follow them he will, for your oath is registered. Go--it were kindness
to kill thee--your punishment is--that you live!"




THE WITHERED ARM

THOMAS HARDY


_A Lorn Milkmaid_

It was an eighty-cow dairy, and the troop of milkers, regular and
supernumerary, were all at work; for, though the time of year was as yet
but early April, the feed lay entirely in water-meadows, and the cows
were "in full pail." The hour was about six in the evening, and
three-fourths of the large, red, rectangular animals having been
finished off, there was opportunity for a little conversation.

"He do bring home his bride tomorrow, I hear. They've come as far as
Anglebury today."

The voice seemed to proceed from the belly of the cow called Cherry, but
the speaker was a milking-woman, whose face was buried in the flank of
that motionless beast.

"Hav' anybody seen her?" said another.

There was a negative response from the first. "Though they say she's a
rosy-cheeked, tisty-tosty little body enough," she added; and as the
milkmaid spoke she turned her face so that she could glance past her
cow's tail to the other side of the barton, where a thin, fading woman
of thirty milked somewhat apart from the rest.

"Years younger than he, they say," continued the second, with also a
glance of reflectiveness in the same direction.

Nothing more was said publicly about Farmer Lodge's wedding, but the
first woman murmured under her cow to her next neighbour, "'Tis hard for
_she_," signifying the thin worn milkmaid aforesaid.

"O no," said the second. "He ha'n't spoke to Rhoda Brook for years."

When the milking was done they washed their pails and hung them on a
many-forked stand made of the peeled limb of an oak-tree, set upright in
the earth, and resembling a colossal antlered horn. The majority then
dispersed in various directions homeward. The thin woman who had not
spoken was joined by a boy of twelve or thereabout, and the twain went
away up the field also.

Their course lay apart from that of the others, to a lonely spot high
above the water-meads, and not far from the border of Egdon Heath, whose
dark countenance was visible in the distance as they drew nigh to their
home.

"They've just been saying down in barton that your father brings his
young wife home from Anglebury tomorrow," the woman observed. "I shall
want to send you for a few things to market, and you'll be pretty sure
to meet 'em."

"Yes, mother," said the boy. "Is father married then?"

"Yes.... You can give her a look, and tell me what's she's like, if you
do see her."

"Yes, mother."

"If she's dark or fair, and if she's tall--as tall as I. And if she
seems like a woman who has ever worked for a living, or one that has
been always well off, and has never done anything, and shows marks of
the lady on her, as I expect she do."

"Yes."

They crept up the hill in the twilight, and entered the cottage. It was
built of mud-walls, the surface of which had been washed by many rains
into channels and depressions that left none of the original flat face
visible; while here and there in the thatch above a rafter showed like a
bone protruding through the skin.

She was kneeling down in the chimney-corner, before two pieces of turf
laid together with the heather inwards, blowing at the red-hot ashes
with her breath till the turves flamed. The radiance lit her pale cheek,
and made her dark eyes, that had once been handsome, seem handsome anew.
"Yes," she resumed, "see if she is dark or fair, and if you can, notice
if her hands be white; if not, see if they look as though she had ever
done housework, or are milker's hands like mine."

The boy again promised, inattentively this time, his mother not
observing that he was cutting a notch with his pocket-knife in the
beech-backed chair.


_The Young Wife_

The road from Anglebury to Holmstoke is in general level; but there is
one place where a sharp ascent breaks its monotony. Farmers
homeward-bound from the former market-town, who trot all the rest of the
way, walk their horses up this short incline.

The next evening, while the sun was yet bright, a handsome new gig, with
a lemon-coloured body and red wheels, was spinning westward along the
level highway at the heels of a powerful mare. The driver was a yeoman
in the prime of life, cleanly shaven like an actor, his face being toned
to that bluish-vermilion hue which so often graces a thriving farmer's
features when returning home after successful dealings in the town.
Beside him sat a woman, many years his junior--almost, indeed, a girl.
Her face too was fresh in colour, but it was of a totally different
quality--soft and evanescent, like the light under a heap of
rose-petals.

Few people travelled this way, for it was not a main road; and the long
white riband of gravel that stretched before them was empty, save of one
small scarce-moving speck, which presently resolved itself into the
figure of a boy, who was creeping on at a snail's pace, and continually
looking behind him--the heavy bundle he carried being some excuse for,
if not the reason of, his dilatoriness. When the bouncing gig-party
slowed at the bottom of the incline above mentioned, the pedestrian was
only a few yards in front. Supporting the large bundle by putting one
hand on his hip, he turned and looked straight at the farmer's wife as
though he would read her through and through, pacing along abreast of
the horse.

The low sun was full in her face, rendering every feature, shade, and
contour distinct, from the curve of her little nostril to the colour of
her eyes. The farmer, though he seemed annoyed at the boy's persistent
presence, did not order him to get out of the way; and thus the lad
preceded them, his hard gaze never leaving her, till they reached the
top of the ascent, when the farmer trotted on with relief in his
lineaments--having taken no outward notice of the boy whatever.

"How that poor lad stared at me!" said the young wife.

"Yes, dear; I saw that he did."

"He is one of the village, I suppose?"

"One of the neighbourhood. I think he lives with his mother a mile or
two off."

"He knows who we are, no doubt?"

"O yes. You must expect to be stared at just at first, my pretty
Gertrude."

"I do,--though I think the poor boy may have looked at us in the hope we
might relieve him of his heavy load, rather than from curiosity."

"O no," said her husband off-handedly. "These country lads will carry a
hundredweight once they get it on their backs; besides his pack had more
size than weight in it. Now, then, another mile and I shall be able to
show you our house in the distance--if it is not too dark before we get
there." The wheels spun round, and particles flew from their periphery
as before, till a white house of ample dimensions revealed itself, with
farm-buildings and ricks at the back.

Meanwhile the boy had quickened his pace, and turning up a by-lane some
mile and half short of the white farmstead, ascended towards the leaner
pastures, and so on to the cottage of his mother.

She had reached home after her day's milking at the outlying dairy, and
was washing cabbage at the door-way in the declining light. "Hold up the
net a moment," she said, without preface, as the boy came up.

He flung down his bundle, held the edge of the cabbage-net, and as she
filled its meshes with the dripping leaves she went on, "Well, did you
see her?"

"Yes; quite plain."

"Is she ladylike?"

"Yes; and more. A lady complete."

"Is she young?"

"Well, she's growed up, and her ways be quite a woman's."

"Of course. What colour is her hair and face?"

"Her hair is lightish, and her face as comely as a live doll's."

"Her eyes, then, are not dark like mine?"

"No--of a bluish turn, and her mouth is very nice and red; and when she
smiles, her teeth show white."

"Is she tall?" said the woman sharply.

"I couldn't see. She was sitting down."

"Then do you go to Holmstoke church tomorrow morning: she's sure to be
there. Go early and notice her walking in, and come home and tell me if
she's taller than I."

"Very well, mother. But why don't you go and see for yourself?"

"I go to see her! I wouldn't look up at her if she were to pass my
window this instant. She was with Mr. Lodge, of course. What did he say
or do?"

"Just the same as usual."

"Took no notice of you?"

"None."

Next day the mother put a clean shirt on the boy, and started him off
for Holmstoke church. He reached the ancient little pile when the door
was just being opened, and he was the first to enter. Taking his seat by
the front, he watched all the parishioners file in. The well-to-do
Farmer Lodge came nearly last; and his young wife, who accompanied him,
walked up the aisle with the shyness natural to a modest woman who had
appeared thus for the first time. As all other eyes were fixed upon her,
the youth's stare was not noticed now.

When he reached home his mother said, "Well?" before he had entered the
room.

"She is not tall. She is rather short," he replied.

"Ah!" said his mother, with satisfaction.

"But she's very pretty--very. In fact, she's lovely." The youthful
freshness of the yeoman's wife had evidently made an impression even on
the somewhat hard nature of the boy.

"That's all I want to hear," said his mother quickly. "Now, spread the
table-cloth. The hare you caught is very tender; but mind that nobody
catches you.--You've never told me what sort of hands she had."

"I have never seen 'em. She never took off her gloves."

"What did she wear this morning?"

"A white bonnet and a silver-coloured gown. It whewed and whistled so
loud when it rubbed against the pews that the lady coloured up more than
ever for very shame at the noise, and pulled it in to keep it from
touching; but when she pushed into her seat, it whewed more than ever.
Mr. Lodge, he seemed pleased, and his waistcoat stuck out, and his great
golden seals hung like a lord's; but she seemed to wish her noisy gown
anywhere but on her."

"Not she! However, that will do now."

These descriptions of the newly-married couple were continued from time
to time by the boy at his mother's request, after any chance encounter
he had had with them. But Rhoda Brook, though she might easily have seen
young Mrs. Lodge for herself by walking a couple of miles, would never
attempt an excursion towards the quarter where the farmhouse lay.
Neither did she, at the daily milking in the dairyman's yard on Lodge's
outlying second farm, ever speak on the subject of the recent marriage.
The dairyman, who rented the cows of Lodge and knew perfectly the tall
milkmaid's history, with manly kindliness always kept the gossip in the
cow-barton from annoying Rhoda. But the atmosphere thereabout was full
of the subject during the first days of Mrs. Lodge's arrival; and from
her boy's description and the casual words of the other milkers, Rhoda
Brook could raise a mental image of the unconscious Mrs. Lodge that was
realistic as a photograph.


_A Vision_

One night, two or three weeks after the bridal return, when the boy was
gone to bed, Rhoda sat a long time over the turf ashes that she had
raked out in front of her to extinguish them. She contemplated so
intently the new wife, as presented to her in her mind's eye over the
embers, that she forgot the lapse of time. At last, wearied with her
day's work, she too retired.

But the figure which had occupied her so much during this and the
previous days was not to be banished at night. For the first time
Gertrude Lodge visited the supplanted woman in her dreams. Rhoda Brook
dreamed--since her assertion that she really saw, before falling asleep,
was not to be believed--that the young wife, in the pale silk dress and
white bonnet, but with features shockingly distorted, and wrinkled as by
age, was sitting upon her chest as she lay. The pressure of Mrs. Lodge's
person grew heavier; the blue eyes peered cruelly into her face; and
then the figure thrust forward its left hand mockingly, so as to make
the wedding-ring it wore glitter in Rhoda's eyes. Maddened mentally, and
nearly suffocated by pressure, the sleeper struggled; the incubus,
still regarding her, withdrew to the foot of the bed, only, however, to
come forward by degrees, resume her seat, and flash her left hand as
before.

Gasping for breath, Rhoda, in a last desperate effort, swung out her
right hand, seized the confronting spectre by its obtrusive left arm,
and whirled it backward to the floor, starting up herself as she did so
with a low cry.

"O, merciful heaven!" she cried, sitting on the edge of the bed in a
cold sweat; "that was not a dream--she was here!"

She could feel her antagonist's arm within her grasp even now--the very
flesh and bone of it, as it seemed. She looked on the floor whither she
had whirled the spectre, but there was nothing to be seen.

Rhoda Brook slept no more that night, and when she went milking at the
next dawn they noticed how pale and haggard she looked. The milk that
she drew quivered into the pail; her hand had not calmed even yet, and
still retained the feel of the arm. She came home to breakfast as
wearily as if it had been supper-time.

"What was that noise in your chimmer, mother, last night?" said her son.
"You fell off the bed, surely?"

"Did you hear anything fall? At what time?"

"Just when the clock struck two."

She could not explain, and when the meal was done went silently about
her household work, the boy going afield on the farms. Between eleven
and twelve the garden-gate clicked, and she lifted her eyes to the
window. At the bottom of the garden, within the gate, stood the woman of
her vision. Rhoda seemed transfixed.

The impression remaining from the night's experience was still strong.
Brook had almost expected to see the wrinkles, the scorn, and the
cruelty on her visitor's face. She would have escaped an interview, had
escape been possible.

"I see I have come to the right house," said Mrs. Lodge, smiling. "But I
was not sure till you opened the door."

The figure and action were those of the phantom; but her voice was so
indescribably sweet, her glance so winning, her smile so tender, so
unlike that of Rhoda's midnight visitant, that the latter could hardly
believe the evidence of her senses. She was truly glad that she had not
hidden away in sheer aversion, as she had been inclined to do.

"I walk a good deal," said Mrs. Lodge, "and your house is the nearest
outside our own parish. I hope you are well. You don't look quite well."

Rhoda said she was well enough; and, indeed, though the paler of the
two, there was more of the strength that endures in her well-defined
features and large frame, than in the soft-cheeked young woman before
her. The conversation became quite confidential as regarded their powers
and weaknesses; and when Mrs. Lodge was leaving, Rhoda said, "I hope you
will find this air agree with you, ma'am, and not suffer from the damp
of the water-meads."

The younger one replied that there was not much doubt of it, her general
health being usually good. "Though, now you remind me," she added, "I
have one little ailment which puzzles me. It is nothing serious, but I
cannot make it out."

She uncovered her left hand and arm; and their outline confronted
Rhoda's gaze as the exact original of the limb she had beheld and seized
in her dream. Upon the pink round surface of the arm were faint marks of
an unhealthy colour, as if produced by a rough grasp. Rhoda's eyes
became riveted on the discolorations; she fancied that she discerned in
them the shape of her own four fingers.

"How did it happen?" she said mechanically.

"I cannot tell," replied Mrs. Lodge, shaking her head. "One night when I
was sound asleep, dreaming I was away in some strange place, a pain
suddenly shot into my arm there, and was so keen as to awaken me. I must
have struck it in the daytime, I suppose, though I don't remember doing
so." She added, laughing, "I tell my dear husband that it looks just as
if he had flown into a rage and struck me there. O, I daresay it will
soon disappear."

"Ha, ha! Yes.... On what night did it come?"

Mrs. Lodge considered, and said it would be a fortnight ago on the
morrow. "When I awoke I could not remember where I was," she added "till
the clock striking two reminded me."

She had named the night and the hour of Rhoda's spectral encounter and
Brook felt like a guilty thing. The artless disclosure startled her; she
did not reason on the freaks of coincidence; and all the scenery of that
ghastly night returned with double vividness to her mind.

"O, can it be," she said to herself, when her visitor had departed,
"that I exercise a malignant power over people against my own will?" She
knew that she had been slily called a witch since her fall; but never
having understood why that particular stigma had been attached to her,
it had passed disregarded. Could this be the explanation, and had such
things as this ever happened before?


_A Suggestion_

The summer drew on, and Rhoda Brook almost dreaded to meet Mrs. Lodge
again, notwithstanding that her feeling for the young wife amounted
wellnigh to affection. Something in her own individuality seemed to
convict Rhoda of crime. Yet a fatality sometimes would direct the steps
of the latter to the outskirts of Holmstoke whenever she left her house
for any other purpose than her daily work; and hence it happened that
their next encounter was out of doors. Rhoda could not avoid the subject
which had so mystified her, and after the first few words she stammered,
"I hope your--arm is well again, ma'am?" She had perceived with
consternation that Gertrude Lodge carried her left arm stiffly.

"No; it is not quite well. Indeed it is no better at all; it is rather
worse. It pains me dreadfully sometimes."

"Will you let me see it?" said the milkwoman.

Mrs. Lodge pushed up her sleeve and disclosed the place, which was a few
inches above the wrist. As soon as Rhoda Brook saw it, she could hardly
preserve her composure. There was nothing of the nature of a wound, but
the arm at that point had a shrivelled look, and the outline of the four
fingers appeared more distinct than at the former time. Moreover, she
fancied that they were imprinted in precisely the relative position of
her clutch upon the arm in the trance; the first finger towards
Gertrude's wrist, and the fourth towards her elbow.

What the impress resembled seemed to have struck Gertrude herself since
their last meeting. "It looks almost like finger-marks," she said;
adding with a faint laugh, "my husband says it is as if some witch, or
the devil himself, had taken hold of me there, and blasted the flesh."

Rhoda shivered. "That's fancy," she said hurriedly. "I wouldn't mind it,
if I were you."

"I shouldn't so much mind it," said the younger, with hesitation,
"if--if I hadn't a notion that it makes my husband--dislike me--no, love
me less. Men think so much of personal appearance."

"Some do--he for one."

"Yes; and he was very proud of mine, at first."

"Keep your arm covered from his sight."

"Ah--he knows the disfigurement is there!" She tried to hide the tears
that filled her eyes.

"Well, ma'am, I earnestly hope it will go away soon."

In her secret heart Rhoda did not altogether object to a slight
diminution of her successor's beauty, by whatever means it had come
about; but she did not wish to inflict upon her physical pain. For
though this pretty young woman had rendered impossible any reparation
which Lodge might have made Rhoda for his past conduct, everything like
resentment at the unconscious usurpation had quite passed away.

"They tell me there is possibly one way by which I might be able to find
out the cause, and so perhaps the cure, of it," replied the other
anxiously. "It is by going to some clever man over in Egdon Heath. They
did not know if he was still alive--and I cannot remember his name at
this moment; but they said that you knew more of his movements than
anybody else hereabout, and could tell me if he were still to be
consulted. Dear me--what was his name? But you know."

"Not Conjuror Trendle?" said her thin companion, turning pale.

"Trendle--yes. Is he alive?"

"I believe so," said Rhoda, with reluctance.

"Why do you call him conjuror?"

"Well--they say--they used to say he was a--he had powers other folks
have not."

The milkwoman had inwardly seen, from the moment she heard of her having
been mentioned as a reference for this man, that there must exist a
sarcastic feeling among the work-folk that a sorceress would know the
whereabouts of the exorcist. They suspected her, then. A short time ago
this would have given no concern to a woman of her common-sense. But she
had a haunting reason to be superstitious now; and she had been seized
with sudden dread that this Conjuror Trendle might name her as the
malignant influence which was blasting the fair person of Gertrude, and
so lead her friend to hate her for ever, and to treat her as some fiend
in human shape.

"The place on my arm is so mysterious! I don't really believe in such
men, but I should not mind just visiting him, from curiosity--though on
no account must my husband know. Is it far to where he lives?"

"Yes--five miles," said Rhoda backwardly. "In the heart of Egdon."

"Well, I should have to walk. Could not you go with me to show me the
way--say tomorrow afternoon?"

"O, not I--that is," the milkwoman murmured, with a start of dismay.
Again the dread seized her that something to do with her fierce act in
the dream might be revealed, and her character in the eyes of the most
useful friend she had ever had be ruined irretrievably.

Mrs. Lodge urged, and Rhoda finally assented, though with much
misgiving. Sad as the journey would be to her, she could not
conscientiously stand in the way of a possible remedy for her patron's
strange affliction. It was agreed that, to escape suspicion of their
mystic intent, they should meet at the edge of the heath at the corner
of a plantation which was visible from the spot where they now stood.


_Conjuror Trendle_

Rhoda started just before the time of day mentioned between them, and
half-an-hour's brisk walking brought her to the south-eastern extension
of the Egdon tract of country, where the fir plantation was. A slight
figure, cloaked and veiled, was already there. Rhoda recognized, almost
with a shudder, that Mrs. Lodge bore her left arm in a sling.

They hardly spoke to each other, and immediately set out on their climb
into the interior of this solemn country, which stood high above the
rich alluvial soil they had left half-an-hour before. It was a long
walk; thick clouds made the atmosphere dark, though it was as yet only
early afternoon; and the wind howled dismally over the hills of the
heath.

Rhoda had a strange dislike to walking on the side of her companion
where hung the afflicted arm, moving round to the other when
inadvertently near it.

Conjuror Trendle was at home when they arrived, having in fact
seen them descending into his valley. He was a grey-bearded man,
with a reddish face, and he looked singularly at Rhoda the first moment
he beheld her. Mrs. Lodge told him her errand; and then with words of
self-disparagement he examined her arm.

"Medicine can't cure it," he said promptly. "'Tis the work of an enemy."

Rhoda shrank into herself, and drew back.

"An enemy? What enemy?" asked Mrs. Lodge.

He shook his head. "That's best known to yourself," he said. "If you
like, I can show the person to you, though I shall not myself know who
it is. I can do no more; and don't wish to do that."

She pressed him; on which he told Rhoda to wait outside where she stood,
and took Mrs. Lodge into the room. It opened immediately from the door;
and, as the latter remained ajar, Rhoda Brook could see the proceedings
without taking part in them. He brought a tumbler from the dresser,
nearly filled it with water, and fetching an egg, prepared it in some
private way; after which he broke it on the edge of the glass, so that
the white went in and the yolk remained. As it was getting gloomy, he
took the glass and its contents to the window, and told Gertrude to
watch them closely. They leant over the table together, and the
milkwoman could see the opaline hue of the egg-fluid changing form as it
sank in the water, but she was not near enough to define the shape that
it assumed.

"Do you catch the likeness of any face or figure as you look?" demanded
the conjuror of the young woman.

She murmured a reply, in tones so low as to be inaudible to Rhoda, and
continued to gaze intently into the glass. Rhoda turned, and walked a
few steps away.

When Mrs. Lodge came out, and her face was met by the light, it appeared
exceedingly pale--as pale as Rhoda's--against the sad dun shades of the
upland's garniture. Trendle shut the door behind her, and they at once
started homeward together. But Rhoda perceived that her companion had
quite changed.

"Did he charge much?" she asked tentatively.

"O no--nothing. He would not take a farthing," said Gertrude.

"And what did you see?" inquired Rhoda.

"Nothing I--care to speak of." The constraint in her manner was
remarkable; her face was so rigid as to wear an oldened aspect, faintly
suggestive of the face in Rhoda's bed-chamber.

"Was it you who first proposed coming here?" Mrs. Lodge suddenly
inquired, after a long pause. "How very odd, if you did!"

"No. But I am not sorry we have come, all things considered," she
replied. For the first time a sense of triumph possessed her, and she
did not altogether deplore that the young thing at her side should learn
that their lives had been antagonized by other influences than their
own.

The subject was no more alluded to during the long and dreary walk home.
But in some way or other a story was whispered about the many-dairied
lowland that winter that Mrs. Lodge's gradual loss of the use of her
left arm was owing to her being "overlooked" by Rhoda Brook. The latter
kept her own counsel about the incubus, but her face grew sadder and
thinner; and in the spring she and her boy disappeared from the
neighbourhood of Holmstoke.


_A Second Attempt_

Half-a-dozen years passed away, and Mr. and Mrs. Lodge's married
experience sank into prosiness, and worse. The farmer was usually gloomy
and silent: the woman whom he had wooed for her grace and beauty was
contorted and disfigured in the left limb; moreover, she had brought him
no child, which rendered it likely that he would be the last of a family
who had occupied that valley for some two hundred years. He thought of
Rhoda Brook and her son; and feared this might be a judgment from heaven
upon him.

"You want somebody to cheer you," he observed. "I once thought of
adopting a boy; but he is too old now. And he is gone away I don't know
where."

Gertrude guessed to whom he alluded; for Rhoda Brook's story had in the
course of years become known to her; though not a word had ever passed
between her husband and herself on the subject. Neither had she ever
spoken to him of her visit to Conjuror Trendle, and of what was revealed
to her, or she thought was revealed to her, by that solitary heath-man.
She had never revisited Trendle since she had been conducted to the
house of the solitary by Rhoda against her will; but it now suddenly
occurred to Gertrude that she would, in a last desperate effort at
deliverance from this seeming curse, again seek out the man, if he yet
lived. He was entitled to a certain credence, for the indistinct form he
had raised in the glass had undoubtedly resembled the only woman in the
world who--as she now knew, though not then--could have a reason for
bearing her ill-will. The visit should be paid.

This time she went alone, though she nearly got lost on the heath, and
roamed a considerable distance out of her way.

"You can send away warts and other excrescences, I know," she said; "why
can't you send away this?" And the arm was uncovered.

"You think too much of my powers!" said Trendle. "This is of the nature
of a blight, not of the nature of a wound; and if you ever do throw it
off, it will be all at once."

"If I only could!"

"There is only one chance of doing it known to me. It has never failed
in kindred afflictions,--that I can declare. But it is hard to carry
out, and especially for a woman."

"Tell me!" said she.

"You must touch with the limb the neck of a man who's been hanged."

She started a little at the image he had raised.

"Before he's cold--just after he's cut down," continued the conjuror
impassively.

"How can that do good?"

"It will turn the blood and change the constitution. But, as I say, to
do it is hard. You must get into jail, and wait for him when he's
brought off the gallows. Lots have done it, though perhaps not such
pretty women as you. I used to send dozens for skin complaints. But that
was in former times. The last I sent was in '13--near twenty years ago."

He had no more to tell her; and, when he had put her into a straight
track homeward, turned and left her, refusing all money as at first.


_A Ride_

The communication sank deep into Gertrude's mind. Her nature was rather
a timid one; and probably of all remedies that the white wizard could
have suggested there was not one which would have filled her with so
much aversion as this, not to speak of the immense obstacles in the way
of its adoption.

Casterbridge, the county-town, was a dozen or fifteen miles off; and
though in those days, when men were executed for horse-stealing, arson,
and burglary, an assize seldom passed without a hanging, it was not
likely that she could get access to the body of the criminal unaided.
And the fear of her husband's anger made her reluctant to breathe a
word of Trendle's suggestion to him or to anybody about him.

She did nothing for months, and patiently bore her disfigurement as
before. But her woman's nature, craving for renewed love, through the
medium of renewed beauty (she was but twenty-five), was ever stimulating
her to try what, at any rate, could hardly do her any harm. "What came
by a spell will go by a spell surely," she would say. Whenever her
imagination pictured the act she shrank in terror from the possibility
of it: then the words of the conjuror, "it will turn your blood," were
seen to be capable of a scientific no less than a ghastly
interpretation; the mastering desire returned, and urged her on again.

Her determination received a fillip from learning that two epileptic
children had attended from this very village of Holmstoke many years
before with beneficial results, though the experiment had been strongly
condemned by the neighbouring clergy. April, May, June, passed; and it
is no overstatement to say that by the end of the last-named month
Gertrude wellnigh longed for the death of a fellow-creature. Instead of
her formal prayers each night, her unconscious prayer was, "O Lord, hang
some guilty or innocent person soon!"

The assizes were in July and there was to be one execution--only
one--for arson; Her greatest problem was not how to get to Casterbridge,
but what means she should adopt for obtaining admission to the jail.
Though access for such purposes had formerly never been denied, the
custom had fallen into desuetude; and in contemplating her possible
difficulties, she was again almost driven to fall back upon her husband.
But, on sounding him about the assizes, he was so uncommunicative, so
more than usually cold, that she did not proceed, and decided that
whatever she did she would do alone.

Fortune, obdurate hitherto, showed her unexpected favour. On the
Thursday before the Saturday fixed for the execution, Lodge remarked to
her that he was going away from home for another day or two on business
at a fair, and that he was sorry he could not take her with him.

She exhibited on this occasion so much readiness to stay at home that he
looked at her in surprise. Time had been when she would have shown deep
disappointment at the loss of such a jaunt. However, he lapsed into his
usual taciturnity, and on the day named left Holmstoke.

It was now her turn. She at first had thought of driving, but on
reflection held that driving would not do, since it would necessitate
her keeping to the turnpike-road, and so increase by tenfold the risk of
her ghastly errand being found out. She decided to ride, and avoid the
beaten track, notwithstanding that in her husband's stables there was no
animal just at present which by any stretch of imagination could be
considered a lady's mount, in spite of his promise before marriage to
always keep a mare for her. He had, however, many cart-horses, fine ones
of their kind; and among the rest was a serviceable creature, an equine
Amazon, with a back as broad as a sofa, on which Gertrude had
occasionally taken an airing when unwell. This horse she chose.

On Friday afternoon one of the men brought it round. She was dressed,
and before going down looked at her shrivelled arm. "Ah!" she said to
it, "if it had not been for you this terrible ordeal would have been
saved me!"

When strapping up the bundle in which she carried a few articles of
clothing, she took occasion to say to the servant, "I take these in case
I should not get back tonight from the person I am going to visit. Don't
be alarmed if I am not in by ten, and close up the house as usual. I
shall be at home tomorrow for certain." She meant then to privately tell
her husband: the deed accomplished was not like the deed projected. He
would almost certainly forgive her.

And then the pretty palpitating Gertrude Lodge went from her husband's
homestead; but though her goal was Casterbridge she did not take the
direct route thither through Stickleford. Her cunning course at first
was in precisely the opposite direction. As soon as she was out of
sight, however, she turned to the left, by a road which led into Egdon,
and on entering the heath wheeled round, and set out in the true course,
due westerly. When it was almost dusk, Gertrude reached the White Hart,
the first inn of the town on that side.

Little surprise was excited by her arrival; farmers' wives rode on
horseback then more than they do now; though, for that matter, Mrs.
Lodge was not imagined to be a wife at all; the innkeeper supposed her
some harum-skarum young woman who had come to attend "hang-fair" next
day. Neither her husband nor herself ever dealt in Casterbridge market,
so that she was unknown. While dismounting she beheld a crowd of boys
standing at the door of a harness-maker's shop just above the inn,
looking inside it with deep interest.

"What is going on there?" she asked of the ostler.

"Making the rope for tomorrow."

She throbbed responsively, and contracted her arm.

"'Tis sold by the inch afterwards," the man continued. "I could get you
a bit, miss, for nothing, if you'd like?"

She hastily repudiated any such wish, all the more from a curious
creeping feeling that the condemned wretch's destiny was becoming
interwoven with her own; and having engaged a room for the night, sat
down to think.

Up to this time she had formed but the vaguest notions about her means
of obtaining access to the prison. The words of the cunning-man returned
to her mind. He had implied that she should use her beauty, impaired
though it was, as a pass-key. In her inexperience she knew little about
jail functionaries; she had heard of a high-sheriff and an
under-sheriff, but dimly only. She knew, however, that there must be a
hangman, and to the hangman she determined to apply.


_A Water-Side Hermit_

At this date, and for several years after, there was a hangman to almost
every jail. Gertrude found, on inquiry, that the Casterbridge official
dwelt in a lonely cottage by a deep slow river flowing under the cliff
on which the prison buildings were situate--the stream being the
self-same one, though she did not know it, which watered the Stickleford
and Holmstoke meads lower down in its course.

Having changed her dress, and before she had eaten or drunk--for
she could not take her ease till she had ascertained some
particulars--Gertrude pursued her way by a path along the water-side to
the cottage indicated. Passing thus the outskirts of the jail, she
discerned on the level roof over the gateway three rectangular lines
against the sky, where the specks had been moving in her distant view;
she recognized what the erection was, and passed quickly on. Another
hundred yards brought her to the executioner's house, which a boy
pointed out. It stood close to the same stream, and was hard by a weir,
the waters of which emitted a steady roar.

While she stood hesitating the door opened, and an old man came forth
shading a candle with one hand. Locking the door on the outside, he
turned to a flight of wooden steps fixed against the end of the cottage,
and began to ascend them, this being evidently the staircase to his
bedroom. Gertrude hastened forward, but by the time she reached the
foot of the ladder he was at the top. She called to him loudly enough to
be heard above the roar of the weir; he looked down and said, "What d'ye
want here?"

"To speak to you a minute."

The candle-light, such as it was, fell upon her imploring, pale,
upturned face, and Davies (as the hangman was called) backed down the
ladder. "I was just going to bed," he said; "'Early to bed and early to
rise,' but I don't mind stopping a minute for such a one as you. Come
into house." He reopened the door, and preceded her to the room within.

The implements of his daily work, which was that of a jobbing gardener,
stood in a corner, and seeing probably that she looked rural, he said,
"If you want me to undertake country work I can't come, for I never
leave Casterbridge for gentle nor simple--not I. My real calling is
officer of justice," he added formally.

"Yes, yes! That's it. Tomorrow!"

"Ah! I thought so. Well, what's the matter about that? 'Tis no use to
come here about the knot--folks do come continually, but I tell 'em one
knot is as merciful as another if ye keep it under the ear. Is the
unfortunate man a relation; or, I should say, perhaps" (looking at her
dress) "a person who's been in your employ?"

"No. What time is the execution?"

"The same as usual--twelve o'clock, or as soon after as the London
mail-coach gets in. We always wait for that, in case of a reprieve."

"O--a reprieve--I hope not!" she said involuntarily.

"Well,--hee, hee!--as a matter of business, so do I! But still, if ever
a young fellow deserved to be let off, this one does; only just turned
eighteen, and only present by chance when the rick was fired.
Howsomever, there's not much risk of it, as they are obliged to make an
example of him, there having been so much destruction of property that
way lately."

"I mean," she explained, "that I want to touch him for a charm, a cure
of an affliction, by the advice of a man who has proved the virtue of
the remedy."

"O yes, miss! Now I understand. I've had such people come in past years.
But it didn't strike me that you looked of a sort to require
blood-turning. What's the complaint? The wrong kind for this, I'll be
bound."

"My arm." She reluctantly showed the withered skin.

"Ah!--'tis all a-scram!" said the hangman, examining it.

"Yes," said she.

"Well," he continued, with interest, "that is the class o' subject, I'm
bound to admit. I like the look of the place; it is truly as suitable
for the cure as any I ever saw. 'Twas a knowing-man that sent 'ee,
whoever he was."

"You can contrive for me all that's necessary?" she said breathlessly.

"You should really have gone to the governor of the jail, and your
doctor with 'ee, and given your name and address--that's how it used to
be done, if I recollect. Still, perhaps, I can manage it for a trifling
fee."

"O, thank you! I would rather do it this way, as I should like it kept
private."

"Lover not to know, eh?"

"No--husband."

"Aha! Very well. I'll get 'ee a touch of the corpse."

"Where is it now?" she said, shuddering.

"It?--_he_, you mean; he's living yet. Just inside that little small
winder up there in the glum." He signified the jail on the cliff above.

She thought of her husband and her friends. "Yes, of course," she said;
"and how am I to proceed?"

He took her to the door. "Now, do you be waiting at the little wicket in
the wall, that you'll find up there in the lane, not later than one
o'clock. I will open it from the inside, as I shan't come home to dinner
till he's cut down. Good-night. Be punctual; and if you don't want
anybody to know 'ee, wear a veil. Ah--once I had such a daughter as
you!"

She went away, and climbed the path above, to assure herself that she
would be able to find the wicket next day. Its outline was soon visible
to her--a narrow opening in the outer wall of the prison precincts. The
steep was so great that, having reached the wicket, she stopped a
moment to breathe; and, looking back upon the water-side cot, saw the
hangman again ascending his outdoor staircase. He entered the loft or
chamber to which it led, and in a few minutes extinguished his light.

The town clock struck ten, and she returned to the White Hart as she had
come.


_A Re-encounter_

It was one o'clock on Saturday. Gertrude Lodge, having been admitted to
the jail as above described, was sitting in a waiting-room within the
second gate, which stood under a classic archway of ashlar, then
comparatively modern, and bearing the inscription, "COUNTY JAIL: 1793."
This had been the façade she saw from the heath the day before. Near at
hand was a passage to the roof on which the gallows stood.

The town was thronged, and the market suspended; but Gertrude had seen
scarcely a soul. Having kept her room till the hour of the appointment,
she had proceeded to the spot by a way which avoided the open space
below the cliff where the spectators had gathered; but she could, even
now, hear the multitudinous babble of their voices, out of which rose at
intervals the hoarse croak of a single voice uttering the words, "Last
dying speech and confession!" There had been no reprieve, and the
execution was over; but the crowd still waited to see the body taken
down.

Soon the persistent girl heard a trampling overhead, then a hand
beckoned to her, and, following directions, she went out and crossed the
inner paved court beyond the gatehouse, her knees trembling so that she
could scarcely walk. One of her arms was out of its sleeve, and only
covered by her shawl.

On the spot at which she had now arrived were two trestles, and before
she could think of their purpose she heard heavy feet descending stairs
somewhere at her back. Turn her head she would not, or could not, and,
rigid in this position, she was conscious of a rough coffin passing her
shoulder, borne by four men. It was open, and in it lay the body of a
young man, wearing the smockfrock of a rustic, and fustian breeches. The
corpse had been thrown into the coffin so hastily that the skirt of the
smockfrock was hanging over. The burden was temporarily deposited on the
trestles.

By this time the young woman's state was such that a grey mist seemed to
float before her eyes, on account of which, and the veil she wore, she
could scarcely discern anything: it was as though she had nearly died,
but was held up by a sort of galvanism.

"Now!" said a voice close at hand, and she was just conscious that the
word had been addressed to her.

By a last strenuous effort she advanced, at the same time hearing
persons approaching behind her. She bared her poor cursed arm; and
Davies, uncovering the face of the corpse, took Gertrude's hand, and
held it so that her arm lay across the dead man's neck, upon a line the
colour of an unripe blackberry, which surrounded it.

Gertrude shrieked: "the turn o' the blood," predicted by the conjuror,
had taken place. But at that moment a second shriek rent the air of the
enclosure: it was not Gertrude's, and its effect upon her was to make
her start round.

Immediately behind her stood Rhoda Brook, her face drawn, and her eyes
red with weeping. Behind Rhoda stood Gertrude's own husband; his
countenance lined, his eyes dim, but without a tear.

"D--n you! what are you doing here?" he said hoarsely.

"Hussy--to come between us and our child now!" cried Rhoda. "This is the
meaning of what Satan showed me in the vision! You are like her at
last!" And clutching the bare arm of the younger woman, she pulled her
unresistingly back against the wall. Immediately Brook had loosened her
hold the fragile young Gertrude slid down against the feet of her
husband. When he lifted her up she was unconscious.

The mere sight of the twain had been enough to suggest to her that the
dead young man was Rhoda's son. At that time the relatives of an
executed convict had the privilege of claiming the body for burial, if
they chose to do so; and it was for this purpose that Lodge was awaiting
the inquest with Rhoda. He had been summoned by her as soon as the young
man was taken in the crime, and at different times since; and he had
attended in court during the trial. This was the "holiday" he had been
indulging in of late. The two wretched parents had wished to avoid
exposure; and hence had come themselves for the body, a wagon and sheet
for its conveyance and covering being in waiting outside.

Gertrude's case was so serious that it was deemed advisable to call to
her the surgeon who was at hand. She was taken out of the jail into the
town; but she never reached home alive. Her delicate vitality, sapped
perhaps by the paralysed arm, collapsed under the double shock that
followed the severe strain, physical and mental, to which she had
subjected herself during the previous twenty-four hours. Her blood had
been "turned" indeed--too far. Her death took place in the town three
days after.

Her husband was never seen in Casterbridge again; once only in the old
market-place at Anglebury, which he had so much frequented, and very
seldom in public anywhere. Burdened at first with moodiness and remorse,
he eventually changed for the better, and appeared as a chastened and
thoughtful man. Soon after attending the funeral of his poor young wife
he took steps towards giving up the farms in Holmstoke and the adjoining
parish, and, having sold every head of his stock, he went away to
Port-Bredy, at the other end of the county, living there in solitary
lodgings till his death two years later of a painless decline. It was
then found that he had bequeathed the whole of his not inconsiderable
property to a reformatory for boys, subject to the payment of a small
annuity to Rhoda Brook, if she could be found to claim it.

For some time she could not be found; but eventually she reappeared in
her old parish,--absolutely refusing, however, to have anything to do
with the provision made for her. Her monotonous milking at the dairy was
resumed, and followed for many long years, till her form became bent,
and her once abundant dark hair white and worn away at the
forehead--perhaps by long pressure against the cows. Here, sometimes,
those who knew her experience would stand and observe her, and wonder
what sombre thoughts were beating inside that impassive, wrinkled brow,
to the rhythm of the alternating milk-streams.




CLARIMONDE

THÉOPHILE GAUTIER


Brother, you ask me if I have ever loved. Yes. My story is a strange and
terrible one; and though I am sixty-six years of age, I scarcely dare
even now to disturb the ashes of that memory.

From my earliest childhood I had felt a vocation to the priesthood, so
that all my studies were directed with that idea in view. Up to the age
of twenty-four my life had been only a prolonged novitiate. Having
completed my course of theology I successively received all the minor
orders, and my superiors judged me worthy, despite my youth, to pass the
last awful degree. My ordination was fixed for Easter week.

I had never gone into the world. My world was confined by the walls of
the college and the seminary. I knew in a vague sort of a way that there
was something called Woman, but I never permitted my thoughts to dwell
on such a subject, and I lived in a state of perfect innocence. Twice a
year only I saw my infirm and aged mother, and in those visits were
comprised my sole relations with the outer world.

I regretted nothing; I felt not the least hesitation at taking the last
irrevocable step; I was filled with joy and impatience. Never did a
betrothed lover count the slow hours with more feverish ardour; I slept
only to dream that I was saying mass; I believed there could be nothing
in the world more delightful than to be a priest; I would have refused
to be a king or a poet in preference. My ambition could conceive of no
loftier aim.

At last the great day came. I walked to the church with a step so light
that I fancied myself sustained in air, or that I had wings upon my
shoulders. I believed myself an angel, and wondered at the sombre and
thoughtful faces of my companions, for there were several of us. I had
passed all the night in prayer, and was in a condition wellnigh
bordering on ecstasy. The bishop, a venerable old man, seemed to me God
the Father leaning over his Eternity, and I beheld Heaven through the
vault of the temple.

You well know the details of that ceremony--the benediction, the
communion under both forms, the anointing of the palms of the hands with
the Oil of Catechumens, and then the holy sacrifice offered in concert
with the bishop.

Ah, truly spake Job when he declared that the imprudent man is one who
hath not made a covenant with his eyes! I accidentally lifted my head,
which until then I had kept down, and beheld before me, so close that it
seemed that I could have touched her--although she was actually a
considerable distance from me and on the further side of the sanctuary
railing--a young woman of extraordinary beauty, and attired with royal
magnificence. It seemed as though scales had suddenly fallen from my
eyes. I felt like a blind man who unexpectedly recovers his sight. The
bishop, so radiantly glorious but an instant before, suddenly vanished
away, the tapers paled upon their golden candlesticks like stars in the
dawn, and a vast darkness seemed to fill the whole church. The charming
creature appeared in brief relief against the background of that
darkness, like some angelic revelation. She seemed herself radiant, and
radiating light rather than receiving it.

I lowered my eyelids, firmly resolved not to again open them, that I
might not be influenced by external objects, for distraction had
gradually taken possession of me until I hardly knew what I was doing.

In another minute, nevertheless, I reopened my eyes, for through my
eyelashes I still beheld her, all sparkling with prismatic colours, and
surrounded with such a purple penumbra as one beholds in gazing at the
sun.

Oh, how beautiful she was! The greatest painters, who followed ideal
beauty into heaven itself, and thence brought back to earth the true
portrait of the Madonna, never in their delineations even approached
that wildly beautiful reality which I saw before me. Neither the verses
of the poet nor the palette of the artist could convey any conception of
her. She was rather tall, with a form and bearing of a goddess. Her
hair, of a soft blonde hue, was parted in the midst and flowed back over
her temples in two rivers of rippling gold; she seemed a diademed
queen. Her forehead, bluish-white in its transparency, extended its calm
breadth above the arches of her eyebrows, which by a strange singularity
were almost black, and admirably relieved the effect of sea-green eyes
of unsustainable vivacity and brilliancy. What eyes! With a single flash
they could have decided a man's destiny. They had a life, a limpidity,
an ardour, a humid light which I have never seen in human eyes; they
shot forth rays like arrows, which I could distinctly _see_ enter my
heart. I know not if the fire which illumined them came from heaven or
from hell, but assuredly it came from one or the other. That woman was
either an angel or a demon, perhaps both. Assuredly she never sprang
from the flank of Eve, our common mother. Teeth of the most lustrous
pearl gleamed in her ruddy smile, and at every inflection of her lips
little dimples appeared in the satiny rose of her adorable cheeks. There
was a delicacy and pride in the regal outline of her nostrils bespeaking
noble blood. Agate gleams played over the smooth lustrous skin of her
half-bare shoulders, and strings of great blonde pearls--almost equal to
her neck in beauty of colour--descended upon her bosom. From time to
time she elevated her head with the undulating grace of a startled
serpent or peacock, thereby imparting a quivering motion to the high
lace ruff which surrounded it like a silver trellis-work.

She wore a robe of orange-red velvet, and from her wide ermine-lined
sleeves there peeped forth patrician hands of infinite delicacy, and so
ideally transparent that, like the fingers of Aurora, they permitted
the light to shine through them.

All these details I can recollect at this moment as plainly as though
they were of yesterday, for notwithstanding I was greatly troubled at
the time, nothing escaped me; the faintest touch of shading, the little
dark speck at the point of the chin, the imperceptible down at the
corners of the lips, the velvety floss upon the brow, the quivering
shadows of the eyelashes upon the cheeks, I could notice everything with
astonishing lucidity of perception.

And gazing I felt opening within me gates that had until then remained
closed; vents long obstructed became all clear, permitting glimpses of
unfamiliar perspectives within; life suddenly made itself visible to me
under a totally novel aspect. I felt as though I had just been born into
a new world and a new order of things. A frightful anguish commenced to
torture my heart as with red-hot pincers. Every successive minute seemed
to me at once but a second and yet a century. Meanwhile the ceremony was
proceeding, and with an effort of will sufficient to have uprooted a
mountain, I strove to cry out that I would not be a priest, but I could
not speak; my tongue seemed nailed to my palate, and I found it
impossible to express my will by the least syllable of negation. Though
fully awake, I felt like one under the influence of a nightmare, who
vainly strives to shriek out the one word upon which life depends.

She seemed conscious of the martyrdom I was undergoing, and, as though
to encourage me, she gave me a look replete with divinest promise. Her
eyes were a poem; their every glance was a song.

She said to me:

"If thou wilt be mine, I shall make thee happier than God Himself in His
paradise. The angels themselves will be jealous of thee. Tear off that
funeral shroud in which thou art about to wrap thyself. I am Beauty, I
am Youth, I am Life. Come to me! Together we shall be Love. Can Jehovah
offer thee aught in exchange? Our lives will flow on like a dream, in
one eternal kiss.

"Fling forth the wine of that chalice, and thou art free. I will conduct
thee to the Unknown Isles. Thou shalt sleep in my bosom upon a bed of
massy gold under a silver pavilion, for I love thee and would take thee
away from thy God, before whom so many noble hearts pour forth floods of
love which never reach even the steps of His throne!"

These words seemed to float to my ears in a rhythm of infinite
sweetness, for her look was actually sonorous, and the utterances of her
eyes were re-echoed in the depths of my heart as though living lips had
breathed them into my life. I felt myself willing to renounce God, and
yet my tongue mechanically fulfilled all the formalities of the
ceremony. The fair one gave me another look, so beseeching, so
despairing that keen blades seemed to pierce my heart, and I felt my
bosom transfixed by more swords than those of Our Lady of Sorrows.

All was consummated; I had become a priest.

Never was deeper anguish painted on human face than upon hers. The
maiden who beholds her affianced lover suddenly fall dead at her side,
the mother bending over the empty cradle of her child, Eve seated at the
threshold of the gate of Paradise, the miser who finds a stone
substituted for his stolen treasure, the poet who accidentally permits
the only manuscript of his finest work to fall into the fire, could not
wear a look so despairing, so inconsolable. All the blood had abandoned
her charming face, leaving it whiter than marble; her beautiful arms
hung lifelessly on either side of her body as though their muscles had
suddenly relaxed, and she sought the support of a pillar, for her
yielding limbs almost betrayed her. As for myself, I staggered toward
the door of the church, livid as death, my forehead bathed with a sweat
bloodier than that of Calvary; I felt as though I were being strangled;
the vault seemed to have flattened down upon my shoulders, and it seemed
to me that my head alone sustained the whole weight of the dome.

As I was about to cross the threshold a hand suddenly caught mine--a
woman's hand! I had never till then touched the hand of any woman. It
was cold as a serpent's skin, and yet its impress remained upon my
wrist, burnt there as though branded by a glowing iron. It was she.
"Unhappy man! Unhappy man! What hast thou done?" she exclaimed in a low
voice, and immediately disappeared in the crowd.

The aged bishop passed by. He cast a severe and scrutinizing look upon
me. My face presented the wildest aspect imaginable; I blushed and
turned pale alternately; dazzling lights flashed before my eyes. A
companion took pity on me. He seized my arm and led me out. I could not
possibly have found my way back to the seminary unassisted. At the
corner of a street, while the young priest's attention was momentarily
turned in another direction, a negro page, fantastically garbed,
approached me, and without pausing on his way slipped into my hand a
little pocket-book with gold-embroidered corners, at the same time
giving me a sign to hide it. I concealed it in my sleeve, and there kept
it until I found myself alone in my cell. Then I opened the clasp. There
were only two leaves within, bearing the words, "Clarimonde. At the
Concini Palace." So little acquainted was I at that time with the things
of this world that I had never heard of Clarimonde, celebrated as she
was, and I had no idea as to where the Concini Palace was situated. I
hazarded a thousand conjectures, each more extravagant than the last;
but, in truth, I cared little whether she were a great lady or a
courtesan, so that I could but see her once more.

My love, although the growth of a single hour, had taken imperishable
root. I gave myself up to a thousand extravagancies. I kissed the place
upon my hand which she had touched, and I repeated her name over and
over again for hours in succession. I only needed to close my eyes in
order to see her distinctly as though she were actually present; and I
reiterated to myself the words she had uttered in my ear at the church
porch: "Unhappy man! Unhappy man! What hast thou done?" I comprehended
at last the full horror of my situation, and the funereal and awful
restraints of the state into which I had just entered became clearly
revealed to me. To be a priest!--that is, to be chaste, to never love,
to observe no distinction of sex or age, to turn from the sight of all
beauty, to put out one's own eyes, to hide forever crouching in the
chill shadows of some church or cloister, to visit none but the dying,
to watch by unknown corpses, and ever bear about with one the black
soutane as a garb of mourning for one's self, so that your very dress
might serve as a pall for your coffin.

What could I do in order to see Clarimonde once more? I had no pretext
to offer for desiring to leave the seminary, not knowing any person in
the city. I would not even be able to remain there but a short time, and
was only waiting my assignment to the curacy which I must thereafter
occupy. I tried to remove the bars of the window; but it was at a
fearful height from the ground, and I found that as I had no ladder it
would be useless to think of escaping thus. And, furthermore, I could
descend thence only by night in any event, and afterward how should I be
able to find my way through the inextricable labyrinth of streets? All
these difficulties, which to many would have appeared altogether
insignificant, were gigantic to me, a poor seminarist who had fallen in
love only the day before for the first time, without experience,
without money, without attire.

"Ah!" cried I to myself in my blindness, "were I not a priest I could
have seen her every day; I might have been her lover, her spouse.
Instead of being wrapped in this dismal shroud of mine I would have had
garments of silk and velvet, golden chains, a sword, and fair plumes
like other handsome young cavaliers. My hair, instead of being
dishonoured by the tonsure, would flow down upon my neck in waving
curls; I would have a fine waxed moustache; I would be a gallant." But
one hour passed before an altar, a few hastily articulated words, had
forever cut me off from the number of the living, and I had myself
sealed down the stone of my own tomb; I had with my own hand bolted the
gate of my prison!

I went to the window. The sky was beautifully blue; the trees had donned
their spring robes; nature seemed to be making parade of an ironical
joy. The _Place_ was filled with people, some going, others coming;
young beaux and young beauties were sauntering in couples toward the
groves and gardens; merry youths passed by, cheerily trolling refrains
of drinking songs--it was all a picture of vivacity, life, animation,
gaiety, which formed a bitter contrast with my mourning and my solitude.
On the steps of the gate sat a young mother playing with her child. She
kissed its little rosy mouth still impearled with drops of milk, and
performed, in order to amuse it, a thousand divine little puerilities
such as only mothers know how to invent. The father standing at a
little distance smiled gently upon the charming group, and with folded
arms seemed to hug his joy to his heart. I could not endure that
spectacle. I closed the window with violence, and flung myself on my
bed, my heart filled with frightful hate and jealousy, and gnawed my
fingers and my bed covers like a tiger that has passed ten days without
food.

I know not how long I remained in this condition, but at last, while
writhing on the bed in a fit of spasmodic fury, I suddenly perceived the
Abbé Sérapion, who was standing erect in the centre of the room,
watching me attentively. Filled with shame of myself, I let my head fall
upon my breast and covered my face with my hands.

"Romuald, my friend, something very extraordinary is transpiring within
you," observed Sérapion, after a few moments' silence; "your conduct is
altogether inexplicable. You--always so quiet, so pious, so gentle--you
to rage in your cell like a wild beast! Take heed, brother--do not
listen to the suggestions of the devil. Fear not. Never allow yourself
to become discouraged. The most watchful and steadfast souls are at
moments liable to such temptation. Pray, fast, meditate, and the Evil
Spirit will depart from you."

The words of the Abbé Sérapion restored me to myself, and I became a
little more calm. "I came," he continued, "to tell you that you have
been appointed to the curacy of C----. The priest who had charge of it
has just died, and Monseigneur the Bishop has ordered me to have you
installed there at once. Be ready, therefore, to start tomorrow."

To leave tomorrow without having been able to see her again, to add yet
another barrier to the many already interposed between us, to lose
forever all hope of being able to meet her, except, indeed, through a
miracle! Even to write her, alas! would be impossible, for by whom could
I despatch my letter? With my sacred character of priest, to whom could
I dare unbosom myself, in whom could I confide? I became a prey to the
bitterest anxiety.

Next morning Sérapion came to take me away. Two mules freighted with our
miserable valises awaited us at the gate. He mounted one, and I the
other as well as I knew how.

As we passed along the streets of the city, I gazed attentively at all
the windows and balconies in the hope of seeing Clarimonde, but it was
yet early in the morning, and the city had hardly opened its eyes. Mine
sought to penetrate the blinds and window-curtains of all the palaces
before which we were passing. Sérapion doubtless attributed this
curiosity to my admiration of the architecture, for he slackened the
pace of his animal in order to give me time to look around me. At last
we passed the city gates and commenced to mount the hill beyond. When we
arrived at its summit I turned to take a last look at the place where
Clarimonde dwelt. The shadow of a great cloud hung over all the city;
the contrasting colours of its blue and red roofs were lost in the
uniform half-tint, through which here and there floated upward, like
white flakes of foam, the smoke of freshly kindled fires. By a singular
optical effect one edifice, which surpassed in height all the
neighbouring buildings that were still dimly veiled by the vapours,
towered up, fair and lustrous with the gilding of a solitary beam of
sunlight--although actually more than a league away it seemed quite
near. The smallest details of its architecture were plainly
distinguishable--the turrets, the platform, the window-casements and
even the swallow-tailed weather vanes.

"What is that place I see over there, all lighted up by the sun?" I
asked Sérapion. He shaded his eyes with his hand, and having looked in
the direction indicated, replied: "It is the ancient palace which the
Prince Concini has given to the courtesan Clarimonde. Awful things are
done there!"

At that instant, I know not yet whether it was a reality or an illusion,
I fancied I saw gliding along the terrace a shapely white figure, which
gleamed for a moment in passing and as quickly vanished. It was
Clarimonde.

Oh, did she know that at that very hour, all feverish and restless--from
the height of the rugged road which separated me from her and which,
alas! I could never more descend--I was directing my eyes upon the
palace where she dwelt, and which a mocking beam of sunlight seemed to
bring nigh to me, as though inviting me to enter therein as its lord?
Undoubtedly she must have known it, for her soul was too sympathetically
united with mine not to have felt its least emotional thrill, and that
subtle sympathy it must have been which prompted her to climb--although
clad only in her night-dress--to the summit of the terrace, amid the icy
dews of the morning.

The shadow gained the palace, and the scene became to the eye only a
motionless ocean of roofs and gables, amid which one mountainous
undulation was distinctly visible. Sérapion urged his mule forward, my
own at once followed at the same gait, and a sharp angle in the road at
last hid the city of S---- forever from my eyes, as I was destined never
to return thither. At the close of a weary three-days' journey through
dismal country fields, we caught sight of the cock upon the steeple of
the church which I was to take charge of, peeping above the trees, and
after having followed some winding roads fringed with thatched cottages
and little gardens, we found ourselves in front of the façade, which
certainly possessed few features of magnificence. A porch ornamented
with some mouldings, and two or three pillars rudely hewn from
sandstone; a tiled roof with counterforts of the same sandstone as the
pillars, that was all. To the left lay the cemetery, overgrown with high
weeds, and having a great iron cross rising up in its centre; to the
right stood the presbytery, under the shadow of the church. It was a
house of the most extreme simplicity and frigid cleanliness. We entered
the enclosure. A few chickens were picking up some oats scattered upon
the ground; accustomed, seemingly, to the black habit of ecclesiastics,
they showed no fear of our presence and scarcely troubled themselves to
get out of our way. A hoarse, wheezy barking fell upon our ears, and we
saw an aged dog running toward us.

It was my predecessor's dog. He had dull bleared eyes, grizzled hair,
and every mark of the greatest age to which a dog can possibly attain. I
patted him gently, and he proceeded at once to march along beside me
with an air of satisfaction unspeakable. A very old woman, who had been
the housekeeper of the former curé, also came to meet us, and after
having invited me into a little back parlour, asked whether I intended
to retain her. I replied that I would take care of her, and the dog, and
the chickens, and all the furniture her master had bequeathed her at his
death. At this she became fairly transported with joy, and the Abbé
Sérapion at once paid her the price which she asked for her little
property.

For a whole year I fulfilled all the duties of my calling with the most
scrupulous exactitude, praying and fasting, exhorting and lending
ghostly aid to the sick, and bestowing alms even to the extent of
frequently depriving myself of the very necessaries of life. But I felt
a great aridness within me, and the sources of grace seemed closed
against me. I never found that happiness which should spring from the
fulfilment of a holy mission; my thoughts were far away, and the words
of Clarimonde were ever upon my lips like an involuntary refrain. Oh,
brother, meditate well on this! Through having but once lifted my eyes
to look upon a woman, through one fault apparently so venial, I have
for years remained a victim to the most miserable agonies, and the
happiness of my life has been destroyed forever.

I will not longer dwell upon those defeats, or on those inward victories
invariably followed by yet more terrible falls, but will at once proceed
to the facts of my story. One night my door-bell was long and violently
rung. The aged housekeeper arose and opened to the stranger, and the
figure of a man, whose complexion was deeply bronzed, and who was richly
clad in a foreign costume, with a poniard at his girdle, appeared under
the rays of Barbara's lantern. Her first impulse was one of terror, but
the stranger reassured her, and stated that he desired to see me at once
on matters relating to my holy calling. Barbara invited him upstairs,
where I was on the point of retiring. The stranger told me that his
mistress, a very noble lady, was lying at the point of death, and
desired to see a priest. I replied that I was prepared to follow him,
took with me the sacred articles necessary for extreme unction, and
descended in all haste. Two horses black as the night itself stood
without the gate, pawing the ground with impatience, and veiling their
chests with long streams of smoky vapour exhaled from their nostrils. He
held the stirrup and aided me to mount upon one; then, merely laying his
hand upon the pummel of the saddle, he vaulted on the other, pressed the
animal's sides with his knees, and loosened rein. The horse bounded
forward with the velocity of an arrow. Mine, of which the stranger held
the bridle, also started off at a swift gallop, keeping up with his
companion. We devoured the road. The ground flowed backward beneath us
in a long streaked line of pale grey, and the black silhouettes of the
trees seemed fleeing by us on either side like an army in rout. We
passed through a forest so profoundly gloomy that I felt my flesh creep
in the chill darkness with superstitious fear. The showers of bright
sparks which flew from the stony road under the ironshod feet of our
horses, remained glowing in our wake like a fiery trail; and had any one
at that hour of the night beheld us both--my guide and myself--he must
have taken us for two spectres riding upon nightmares. Witch-fires ever
and anon flitted across the road before us, and the night-birds shrieked
fearsomely in the depth of the woods beyond, where we beheld at
intervals glow the phosphorescent eyes of wildcats. The manes of the
horses became more and more dishevelled, the sweat streamed over their
flanks, and their breath came through their nostrils hard and fast. But
when he found them slacking pace, the guide reanimated them by uttering
a strange, guttural, unearthly cry, and the gallop recommenced with
fury. At last the whirlwind race ceased; a huge black mass pierced
through with many bright points of light suddenly rose before us, the
hoofs of our horses echoed louder upon a strong wooden drawbridge, and
we rode under a great vaulted archway which darkly yawned between two
enormous towers. Some great excitement evidently reigned in the castle.
Servants with torches were crossing the courtyard in every direction,
and above lights were ascending and descending from landing to landing.
I obtained a confused glimpse of vast masses of architecture--columns,
arcades, flights of steps, stairways--a royal voluptuousness and elfin
magnificence of construction worthy of fairyland. A negro page--the same
who had before brought me the tablet from Clarimonde, and whom I
instantly recognized--approached to aid me in dismounting, and the
major-domo, attired in black velvet with a gold chain about his neck,
advanced to meet me, supporting himself upon an ivory cane. Large tears
were falling from his eyes and streaming over his cheeks and white
beard. "Too late!" he cried, sorrowfully shaking his venerable head.
"Too late, sir priest! But if you have not been able to save the soul,
come at least to watch by the poor body."

He took my arm and conducted me to the death chamber. I wept not less
bitterly than he, for I had learned that the dead one was none other
than that Clarimonde whom I had so deeply and so wildly loved. A
_prie-dieu_ stood at the foot of the bed; a bluish flame flickering in a
bronze patera filled all the room with a wan, deceptive light, here and
there bringing out in the darkness at intervals some projection of
furniture or cornice. In a chiselled urn upon the table there was a
faded white rose, whose leaves--excepting one that still held--had all
fallen, like odorous tears, to the foot of the vase. A broken black
mask, a fan, and disguises of every variety, which were lying on the
arm-chairs, bore witness that death had entered suddenly and
unannounced into that sumptuous dwelling. Without daring to cast my eyes
upon the bed, I knelt down and commenced to repeat the Psalms for the
Dead, with exceeding fervour, thanking God that He had placed the tomb
between me and the memory of this woman, so that I might thereafter be
able to utter her name in my prayers as a name forever sanctified by
death. But my fervour gradually weakened, and I fell insensibly into a
reverie. That chamber bore no semblance to a chamber of death. In lieu
of the foetid and cadaverous odours which I had been accustomed to
breathe during such funereal vigils, a languorous vapour of Oriental
perfume--I know not what amorous odour of woman--softly floated through
the tepid air. That pale light seemed rather a twilight gloom contrived
for voluptuous pleasure, than a substitute for the yellow-flickering
watch-tapers which shine by the side of corpses. I thought upon the
strange destiny which enabled me to meet Clarimonde again at the very
moment when she was lost to me forever, and a sigh of regretful anguish
escaped from my breast. Then it seemed to me that some one behind me had
also sighed, and I turned round to look. It was only an echo. But in
that moment my eyes fell upon the bed of death which they had till then
avoided. The red damask curtains, decorated with large flowers worked in
embroidery, and looped up with gold bullion, permitted me to behold the
fair dead, lying at full length, with hands joined upon her bosom. She
was covered with a linen wrapping of dazzling whiteness, which formed a
strong contrast with the gloomy purple of the hangings, and was of so
fine a texture that it concealed nothing of her body's charming form,
and allowed the eye to follow those beautiful outlines--undulating like
the neck of a swan--which even death had not robbed of their supple
grace. She seemed an alabaster statue executed by same skilful sculptor
to place upon the tomb of a queen, or rather, perhaps, like a slumbering
maiden over whom the silent snow had woven a spotless veil.

I could no longer maintain my constrained attitude of prayer. The air of
the alcove intoxicated me, that febrile perfume of half-faded roses
penetrated my very brain, and I commenced to pace restlessly up and down
the chamber, pausing at each turn before the bier to contemplate the
graceful corpse lying beneath the transparency of its shroud. Wild
fancies came thronging to my brain. I thought to myself that she might
not, perhaps, be really dead; that she might only have feigned death for
the purpose of bringing me to her castle, and then declaring her love.
At one time I even thought I saw her foot move under the whiteness of
the coverings, and slightly disarrange the long, straight folds of the
winding sheet.

And then I asked myself: "Is this indeed Clarimonde? What proof have I
that it is she? Might not that black page have passed into the service
of some other lady? Surely, I must be going mad to torture and afflict
myself thus!" But my heart answered with a fierce throbbing: "It is she;
it is she indeed!" I approached the bed again, and fixed my eyes with
redoubled attention upon the object of my incertitude. Ah, must I
confess it? That exquisite perfection of bodily form, although purified
and made sacred by the shadow of death, affected me more voluptuously
than it should have done, and that repose so closely resembled slumber
that one might well have mistaken it for such. I forgot that I had come
there to perform a funeral ceremony; I fancied myself a young bridegroom
entering the chamber of the bride, who all modestly hides her fair face,
and through coyness seeks to keep herself wholly veiled. Heartbroken
with grief, yet wild with hope, shuddering at once with fear and
pleasure, I bent over her and grasped the corner of the sheet. I lifted
it back, holding my breath all the while through fear of waking her. My
arteries throbbed with such violence that I felt them hiss through my
temples, and the sweat poured from my forehead in streams, as though I
had lifted a mighty slab of marble. There, indeed, lay Clarimonde, even
as I had seen her at the church on the day of my ordination. She was not
less charming than then. With her, death seemed but a last coquetry. The
pallor of her cheeks, the less brilliant carnation of her lips, her long
eyelashes lowered and relieving their dark fringe against that white
skin, lent her an unspeakably seductive aspect of melancholy chastity
and mental suffering; her long loose hair, still intertwined with some
little blue flowers, made a shining pillow for her head, and veiled the
nudity of her shoulders with its thick ringlets; her beautiful hands,
purer, more diaphanous than the Host, were crossed on her bosom in an
attitude of pious rest and silent prayer, which served to counteract all
that might have proven otherwise too alluring--even after death--in the
exquisite roundness and ivory polish of her bare arms from which the
pearl bracelets had not yet been removed. I remained long in mute
contemplation, and the more I gazed, the less could I persuade myself
that life had really abandoned that beautiful body forever. I do not
know whether it was an illusion or a reflection of the lamplight, but it
seemed to me that the blood was again commencing to circulate under that
lifeless pallor, although she remained all motionless. I laid my hand
lightly on her arm; it was cold, but not colder than her hand on the day
when it touched mine at the portals of the church. I resumed my
position, bending my face above her, and bathing her cheeks with the
warm dew of my tears. Ah, what bitter feelings of despair and
helplessness, what agonies unutterable did I endure in that long watch!
Vainly did I wish that I could have gathered all my life into one mass
that I might give it all to her, and breathe into her chill remains the
flame which devoured me. The night advanced, and feeling the moment of
eternal separation approach, I could not deny myself the last sad sweet
pleasure of imprinting a kiss upon the dead lips of her who had been my
only love.... Oh, miracle! A faint breath mingled itself with my breath,
and the mouth of Clarimonde responded to the passionate pressure of
mine. Her eyes unclosed, and lighted up with something of their former
brilliancy; she uttered a long sigh, and uncrossing her arms, passed
them around my neck with a look of ineffable delight. "Ah, it is thou,
Romuald;" she murmured in a voice languishingly sweet as the last
vibrations of a harp. "What ailed thee, dearest? I waited so long for
thee that I am dead; but we are now betrothed; I can see thee and visit
thee. Adieu, Romuald, adieu! I love thee. That is all I wished to tell
thee, and I give thee back the life which thy kiss for a moment
recalled. We shall soon meet again."

Her head fell back, but her arms yet encircled me, as though to retain
me still. A furious whirlwind suddenly burst in that window, and entered
the chamber. The last remaining leaf of the white rose for a moment
palpitated at the extremity of the stalk like a butterfly's wing, then
it detached itself and flew forth through the open casement, bearing
with it the soul of Clarimonde. The lamp was extinguished, and I fell
insensible upon the bosom of the beautiful dead.

When I came to myself again I was lying on the bed in my little room at
the presbytery, and the old dog of the former curé was licking my hand
which had been hanging down outside of the covers. Afterward I learned
that I had lain thus for three days, giving no evidence of life beyond
the faintest respiration. Barbara told me that the same
coppery-complexioned man who came to seek me on the night of my
departure from the presbytery, had brought me back the next morning in
a close litter, and departed immediately afterward; but none knew of any
castle in the neighbourhood answering to the description of that in
which I had again found Clarimonde.

One morning I found the Abbé Sérapion in my room. While he inquired
after my health in hypocritically honeyed accents, he constantly kept
his two great yellow lion-eyes fixed upon me, and plunged his look into
my soul like a sounding lead. Suddenly he said, in a clear vibrant
voice, which rang in my ears like the trumpets of the Last Judgment:

"The great courtesan Clarimonde died a few days ago, at the close of an
orgie which lasted eight days and eight nights. It was something
infernally splendid. The abominations of the banquets of Belshazzar and
Cleopatra were re-enacted there. Good God, what age are we living in?
The guests were served by swarthy slaves who spoke an unknown tongue,
and who seemed to me to be veritable demons. The livery of the very
least among them would have served for the gala-dress of an emperor.
There have always been very strange stories told of this Clarimonde, and
all her lovers came to a violent or miserable end. They used to say that
she was a ghoul, a female vampire; but I believe she was none other than
Beelzebub himself."

He ceased to speak and commenced to regard me more attentively than
ever, as though to observe the effect of his words on me. I could not
refrain from starting when I heard him utter the name of Clarimonde, and
this news of her death, in addition to the pain it caused me by reason
of its coincidence with the nocturnal scenes I had witnessed, filled me
with an agony and terror which my face betrayed, despite my utmost
endeavours to appear composed. Sérapion fixed an anxious and severe look
upon me, and then observed: "My son, I must warn you that you are
standing with foot raised upon the brink of an abyss; take heed lest you
fall therein. Satan's claws are long, and tombs are not always true to
their trust. The tombstone of Clarimonde should be sealed down with a
triple seal, for, if report be true, it is not the first time she has
died. May God watch over you, Romuald!"

And with these words the Abbé walked slowly to the door. I did not see
him again at that time, for he left for S---- almost immediately.

I became completely restored to health and resumed my accustomed duties.
The memory of Clarimonde and the words of the old Abbé were constantly
in my mind; nevertheless no extraordinary event had occurred to verify
the funereal predictions of Sérapion, and I had commenced to believe
that his fears and my own terrors were overexaggerated, when one night I
had a strange dream. I had hardly fallen asleep when I heard my
bed-curtains drawn apart, as their rings slided back upon the curtain
rod with a sharp sound. I rose up quickly upon my elbow, and beheld the
shadow of a woman standing erect before me. I recognized Clarimonde
immediately. She bore in her hand a little lamp, shaped like those which
are placed in tombs, and its light lent her fingers a rosy transparency,
which extended itself by lessening degrees even to the opaque and milky
whiteness of her bare arm. Her only garment was the linen winding-sheet
which had shrouded her when lying upon the bed of death. She sought to
gather its folds over her bosom as though ashamed of being so scantily
clad, but her little hand was not equal to the task. She was so white
that the colour of the drapery blended with that of her flesh under the
pallid rays of the lamp. Enveloped with this subtle tissue which
betrayed all the contour of her body, she seemed rather the marble
statue of some fair antique rather than a woman endowed with life. But
dead or living, statue or woman, shadow or body, her beauty was still
the same, only that the green light of her eyes was less brilliant, and
her mouth, once so warmly crimson, was only tinted with a faint tender
rosiness, like that of her cheeks. The little blue flowers which I had
noticed entwined in her hair were withered and dry, and had lost nearly
all their leaves, but this did not prevent her from being charming--so
charming that notwithstanding the strange character of the adventure,
and the unexplainable manner in which she had entered my room, I felt
not even for a moment the least fear.

She placed the lamp on the table and seated herself at the foot of my
bed; then bending toward me, she said, in that voice at once silvery
clear and yet velvety in its sweet softness, such as I never heard from
any lips save hers:

"I have kept thee long in waiting, dear Romuald, and it must have seemed
to thee that I had forgotten thee. But I come from afar off, very far
off, and from a land whence no other has ever yet returned. There is
neither sun nor moon in that land whence I come: all is but space and
shadow; there is neither road nor pathway: no earth for the foot, no air
for the wing; and nevertheless behold me here, for Love is stronger than
Death and must conquer him in the end. Oh what sad faces and fearful
things I have seen on my way hither! What difficulty my soul, returned
to earth through the power of will alone, has had in finding its body
and reinstating itself therein! What terrible efforts I had to make ere
I could lift the ponderous slab with which they had covered me! See, the
palms of my poor hands are all bruised! Kiss them, sweet love, that they
may be healed!" She laid the cold palms of her hands upon my mouth, one
after the other. I kissed them, indeed, many times, and she the while
watched me with a smile of ineffable affection.

I confess to my shame that I had entirely forgotten the advice of the
Abbé Sérapion and the sacred office wherewith I had been invested. I had
fallen without resistance, and at the first assault. I had not even made
the least effort to repel the tempter. The fresh coolness of
Clarimonde's skin penetrated my own, and I felt voluptuous tremors pass
over my whole body. Poor child! in spite of all I saw afterward, I can
hardly yet believe she was a demon; at least she had no appearance of
being such, and never did Satan so skilfully conceal his claws and
horns. She had drawn her feet up beneath her, and squatted down on the
edge of the couch in an attitude full of negligent coquetry. From time
to time she passed her little hand through my hair and twisted it into
curls, as though trying how a new style of wearing it would become my
face. I abandoned myself to her hands with the most guilty pleasure,
while she accompanied her gentle play with the prettiest prattle. The
most remarkable fact was that I felt no astonishment whatever at so
extraordinary an adventure, and as in dreams one finds no difficulty in
accepting the most fantastic events as simple facts, so all these
circumstances seemed to me perfectly natural in themselves.

"I loved thee long ere I saw thee, dear Romuald, and sought thee
everywhere. Thou wast my dream, and I first saw thee in the church at
the fatal moment. I said at once, 'It is he!' I gave thee a look into
which I threw all the love I ever had, all the love I now have, all the
love I shall ever have for thee--a look that would have damned a
cardinal or brought a king to his knees at my feet in view of all his
court. Thou remainedst unmoved, preferring thy God to me!

"Ah, how jealous I am of that God whom thou didst love and still lovest
more than me!

"Woe is me, unhappy one that I am! I can never have thy heart all to
myself, I whom thou didst recall to life with a kiss--dead Clarimonde,
who for thy sake bursts asunder the gates of the tomb, and comes to
consecrate to thee a life which she has resumed only to make thee
happy!"

All her words were accompanied with the most impassioned caresses,
which bewildered my sense and my reason to such an extent, that I did
not fear to utter a frightful blasphemy for the sake of consoling her,
and to declare that I loved her as much as God.

Her eyes rekindled and shone like chrysoprases. "In truth?--in very
truth? as much as God!" she cried, flinging her beautiful arms around
me. "Since it is so, thou wilt come with me; thou wilt follow me
whithersoever I desire. Thou wilt cast away thy ugly black habit. Thou
shalt be the proudest and most envied of cavaliers; thou shalt be my
lover! To be the acknowledged lover of Clarimonde, who has refused even
a Pope, that will be something to feel proud of! Ah, the fair,
unspeakably happy existence, the beautiful golden life we shall live
together! And when shall we depart, my fair sir?"

"Tomorrow! Tomorrow!" I cried in my delirium.

"Tomorrow, then, so let it be!" she answered. "In the meanwhile I shall
have opportunity to change my toilet, for this is a little too light and
in nowise suited for a voyage. I must also forthwith notify all my
friends who believe me dead, and mourn for me as deeply as they are
capable of doing. The money, the dresses, the carriages--all will be
ready. I shall call for thee at this same hour. Adieu, dear heart!" And
she lightly touched my forehead with her lips. The lamp went out, the
curtains closed again, and all became dark; a leaden, dreamless sleep
fell on me and held me unconscious until the morning following.

I awoke later than usual, and the recollection of this singular
adventure troubled me during the whole day. I finally persuaded myself
that it was a mere vapour of my heated imagination. Nevertheless its
sensations had been so vivid that it was difficult to persuade myself
that they were not real, and it was not without some presentiment of
what was going to happen that I got into bed at last, after having
prayed God to drive far from me all thoughts of evil, and to protect the
chastity of my slumber.

I soon fell into a deep sleep, and my dream was continued. The curtains
again parted, and I beheld Clarimonde, not as on the former occasion,
pale in her pale winding-sheet, with the violets of death upon her
cheeks but gay, sprightly, jaunty, in a superb travelling dress of green
velvet, trimmed with gold lace, and looped up on either side to allow a
glimpse of satin petticoat. Her blond hair escaped in thick ringlets
from beneath a broad black felt hat, decorated with white feathers
whimsically twisted into various shapes. In one hand she held a little
riding whip terminated by a golden whistle. She tapped me lightly with
it, and exclaimed: "Well, my fine sleeper, is this the way you make your
preparations? I thought I would find you up and dressed. Arise quickly,
we have no time to lose."

I leaped out of bed at once.

"Come, dress yourself, and let us go," she continued, pointing to a
little package she had brought with her. "The horses are becoming
impatient of delay and champing their bits at the door. We ought to
have been by this time at least ten leagues distant from here."

I dressed myself hurriedly, and she handed me the articles of apparel
herself one by one, bursting into laughter from time to time at my
awkwardness, as she explained to me the use of a garment when I had made
a mistake. She hurriedly arranged my hair, and this done, held up before
me a little pocket mirror of Venetian crystal, rimmed with silver
filigree-work, and playfully asked: "How dost find thyself now? Wilt
engage me for thy valet de chambre?"

I was no longer the same person, and I could not even recognize myself.
I resembled my former self no more than a finished statue resembles a
block of stone. My old face seemed but a coarse daub of the one
reflected in the mirror. I was handsome, and my vanity was sensibly
tickled by the metamorphosis. That elegant apparel, that richly
embroidered vest had made of me a totally different personage, and I
marvelled at the power of transformation owned by a few yards of cloth
cut after a certain pattern. The spirit of my costume penetrated my very
skin, and within ten minutes more I had become something of a coxcomb.

In order to feel more at ease in my new attire, I took several turns up
and down the room. Clarimonde watched me with an air of maternal
pleasure, and appeared well satisfied with her work. "Come, enough of
this child's-play! Let us start, Romuald, dear. We have far to go, and
we may not get there in time." She took my hand and led me forth. All
the doors opened before her at a touch, and we passed by the dog without
awaking him.

At the gate we found Margheritone waiting, the same swarthy groom who
had once before been my escort. He held the bridles of three horses, all
black like those which bore us to the castle--one for me, one for him,
one for Clarimonde. Those horses must have been Spanish genets born of
mares fecundated by a zephyr, for they were fleet as the wind itself,
and the moon, which had just risen at our departure to light us on our
way, rolled over the sky like a wheel detached from her own chariot. We
beheld her on the right leaping from tree to tree, and putting herself
out of breath in the effort to keep up with us. Soon we came upon a
level plain where, hard by a clump of trees, a carriage with four
vigorous horses awaited us. We entered it, and the postilions urged
their animals into a mad gallop. I had one arm around Clarimonde's
waist, and one of her hands clasped in mine; her head leaned upon my
shoulder, and I felt her bosom, half bare, lightly pressing against my
arm. I had never known such intense happiness. In that hour I had
forgotten everything, and I no more remembered having ever been a priest
than I remembered what I had been doing in my mother's womb, so great
was the fascination which the evil spirit exerted upon me. From that
night my nature seemed in some sort to have become halved, and there
were two men within me, neither of whom knew the other. At one moment I
believed myself a priest who dreamed nightly that he was a gentleman,
at another that I was a gentleman who dreamed he was a priest. I could
no longer distinguish the dream from the reality, nor could I discover
where the reality began or where ended the dream. The exquisite young
lord and libertine railed at the priest, the priest loathed the
dissolute habits of the young lord. I always retained with extreme
vividness all the perceptions of my two lives. Only there was one absurd
fact which I could not explain to myself--namely, that the consciousness
of the same individuality existed in two men so opposite in character.
It was an anomaly for which I could not account--whether I believed
myself to be the curé of the little village of C----, or _Il Signor
Romualdo_, the titled lover of Clarimonde.

Be that as it may, I lived, at least I believed that I lived, in Venice.
I have never been able to discover rightly how much of illusion and how
much of reality there was in this fantastic adventure. We dwelt in a
great palace on the Canaleio, filled with frescoes and statues, and
containing two Titians in the noblest style of the great master, which
were hung in Clarimonde's chamber. It was a palace well worthy of a
king. We had each our gondola, our _barcarolli_ in family livery, our
music hall, and our special poet. Clarimonde always lived upon a
magnificent scale; there was something of Cleopatra in her nature. As
for me, I had the retinue of a prince's son, and I was regarded with as
much reverential respect as though I had been of the family of one of
the twelve Apostles or the four Evangelists of the Most Serene
Republic. I would not have turned aside to allow even the Doge to pass,
and I do not believe that since Satan fell from heaven, any creature was
ever prouder or more insolent than I. I went to the Ridotto, and played
with a luck which seemed absolutely infernal. I received the best of all
society--the sons of ruined families, women of the theatre, shrewd
knaves, parasites, hectoring swashbucklers. But notwithstanding the
dissipation of such a life, I always remained faithful to Clarimonde. I
loved her wildly. She would have excited satiety itself, and chained
inconstancy. To have Clarimonde was to have twenty mistresses; aye, to
possess all women: so mobile, so varied of aspect, so fresh in new
charms was she all in herself--a very chameleon of a woman, in sooth.
She made you commit with her the infidelity you would have committed
with another, by donning to perfection the character, the attraction,
the style of beauty of the woman who appeared to please you. She
returned my love a hundred-fold, and it was in vain that the young
patricians and even the Ancients of the Council of Ten made her the most
magnificent proposals. A Foscari even went so far as to offer to espouse
her. She rejected all his overtures. Of gold she had enough. She wished
no longer for anything but love--a love youthful, pure, evoked by
herself, and which should be a first and last passion. I would have been
perfectly happy but for a cursed nightmare which recurred every night,
and in which I believed myself to be a poor village curé, practising
mortification and penance for my excesses during the day. Reassured by
my constant association with her, I never thought further of the strange
manner in which I had become acquainted with Clarimonde. But the words
of the Abbé Sérapion concerning her recurred often to my memory, and
never ceased to cause me uneasiness.

For some time the health of Clarimonde had not been so good as usual;
her complexion grew paler day by day. The physicians who were summoned
could not comprehend the nature of her malady and knew not how to treat
it. They all prescribed some insignificant remedies, and never called a
second time. Her paleness, nevertheless, visibly increased, and she
became colder and colder, until she seemed almost as white and dead as
upon that memorable night in the unknown castle. I grieved with anguish
unspeakable to behold her thus slowly perishing; and she, touched by my
agony, smiled upon me sweetly and sadly with the fateful smile of those
who feel that they must die.

One morning I was seated at her bedside, after breakfasting from a
little table placed close at hand, so that I might not be obliged to
leave her for a single instant. In the act of cutting some fruit I
accidentally inflicted rather a deep gash on my finger. The blood
immediately gushed forth in a little purple jet, and a few drops spurted
upon Clarimonde. Her eyes flashed, her face suddenly assumed an
expression of savage and ferocious joy such as I had never before
observed in her. She leaped out of her bed with animal agility--the
agility, as it were, of an ape or a cat--and sprang upon my wound, which
she commenced to suck with an air of unutterable pleasure. She swallowed
the blood in little mouthfuls, slowly and carefully, like a connoisseur
tasting a wine from Xeres or Syracuse. Gradually her eyelids half
closed, and the pupils of her green eyes became oblong instead of round.
From time to time she paused in order to kiss my hand, then she would
recommence to press her lips to the lips of the wound in order to coax
forth a few more ruddy drops. When she found that the blood would no
longer come, she arose with eyes liquid and brilliant, rosier than a May
dawn; her face full and fresh, her hand warm and moist--in fine, more
beautiful than ever, and in the most perfect health.

"I shall not die! I shall not die!" she cried, clinging to my neck, half
mad with joy. "I can love thee yet for a long time. My life is thine,
and all that is of me comes from thee. A few drops of thy rich and noble
blood, more precious and more potent than all the elixirs of the earth,
have given me back life."

This scene long haunted my memory, and inspired me with strange doubts
in regard to Clarimonde; and the same evening, when slumber had
transported me to my presbytery, I beheld the Abbé Sérapion, graver and
more anxious of aspect than ever. He gazed attentively at me, and
sorrowfully exclaimed: "Not content with losing your soul, you now
desire also to lose your body. Wretched young man, into how terrible a
plight have you fallen!" The tone in which he uttered these words
powerfully affected me, but in spite of its vividness even that
impression was soon dissipated, and a thousand other cares erased it
from my mind. At last one evening, while looking into a mirror whose
traitorous position she had not taken into account, I saw Clarimonde in
the act of emptying a powder into the cup of spiced wine which she had
long been in the habit of preparing after our repasts. I took the cup,
feigned to carry it to my lips, and then placed it on the nearest
article of furniture as though intending to finish it at my leisure.
Taking advantage of a moment when the fair one's back was turned, I
threw the contents under the table, after which I retired to my chamber
and went to bed, fully resolved not to sleep, but to watch and discover
what should come of all this mystery. I did not have to wait long.
Clarimonde entered in her night-dress, and having removed her apparel,
crept into bed and lay down beside me. When she felt assured that I was
asleep, she bared my arm, and drawing a gold pin from her hair,
commenced to murmur in a low voice:

"One drop, only one drop! One ruby at the end of my needle.... Since
thou lovest me yet, I must not die!... Ah, poor love! His beautiful
blood, so brightly purple, I must drink it. Sleep, my only treasure!
Sleep, my god, my child! I will do thee no harm; I will only take of thy
life what I must to keep my own from being forever extinguished. But
that I love thee so much, I could well resolve to have other lovers
whose veins I could drain; but since I have known thee all other men
have become hateful to me.... Ah, the beautiful arm! How round it is!
How white it is! How shall I ever dare to prick this pretty blue vein!"
And while thus murmuring to herself she wept, and I felt her tears
raining on my arm as she clasped it with her hands. At last she took the
resolve, slightly punctured me with her pin, and commenced to suck up
the blood which oozed from the place. Although she swallowed only a few
drops, the fear of weakening me soon seized her, and she carefully tied
a little band around my arm, afterward rubbing the wound with an unguent
which immediately cicatrized it.

Further doubts were impossible. The Abbé Sérapion was right.
Notwithstanding this positive knowledge, however, I could not cease to
love Clarimonde, and I would gladly of my own accord have given her all
the blood she required to sustain her factitious life. Moreover, I felt
but little fear of her. The woman seemed to plead with me for the
vampire, and what I had already heard and seen sufficed to reassure me
completely. In those days I had plenteous veins, which would not have
been so easily exhausted as at present; and I would not have thought of
bargaining for my blood, drop by drop. I would rather have opened myself
the veins of my arm and said to her: "Drink, and may my love infiltrate
itself throughout thy body together with my blood!" I carefully avoided
ever making the least reference to the narcotic drink she had prepared
for me, or to the incident of the pin, and we lived in the most perfect
harmony.

Yet my priestly scruples commenced to torment me more than ever, and I
was at a loss to imagine what new penance I could invent in order to
mortify and subdue my flesh. Although these visions were involuntary,
and though I did not actually participate in anything relating to them,
I could not dare to touch the body of Christ with hands so impure and a
mind defiled by such debauches whether real or imaginary. In the effort
to avoid falling under the influence of these wearisome hallucinations,
I strove to prevent myself from being overcome by sleep. I held my
eyelids open with my fingers, and stood for hours together leaning
upright against the wall, fighting sleep with all my might; but the dust
of drowsiness invariably gathered upon my eyes at last, and finding all
resistance useless, I would have to let my arms fall in the extremity of
despairing weariness, and the current of slumber would again bear me
away to the perfidious shores. Sérapion addressed me with the most
vehement exhortations, severely reproaching me for my softness and want
of fervour. Finally, one day when I was more wretched than usual, he
said to me: "There is but one way by which you can obtain relief from
this continual torment, and though it is an extreme measure it must be
made use of; violent diseases require violent remedies. I know where
Clarimonde is buried. It is necessary that we shall disinter her
remains, and that you shall behold in how pitiable a state the object
of your love is. Then you will no longer be tempted to lose your soul
for the sake of an unclean corpse devoured by worms, and ready to
crumble into dust. That will assuredly restore you to yourself." For my
part, I was so tired of this double life that I at once consented,
desiring to ascertain beyond a doubt whether a priest or a gentleman had
been the victim of delusion. I had become fully resolved either to kill
one of the two men within me for the benefit of the other, or else to
kill both, for so terrible an existence could not last long and be
endured. The Abbé Sérapion provided himself with a mattock, a lever, and
a lantern, and at midnight we wended our way to the cemetery of ----,
the location and place of which were perfectly familiar to him. After
having directed the rays of the dark lantern upon the inscriptions of
several tombs, we came at last upon a great slab, half concealed by huge
weeds and devoured by mosses and parasitic plants, whereupon we
deciphered the opening lines of the epitaph:

    Here lies Clarimonde
    Who was famed in her life-time
    As the fairest of women.[1]

[Footnote 1:

    Ici git Clarimonde
    Qui fut de son vivant
    La plus belle du monde.

The broken beauty of the lines is unavoidably lost in the translation.]

"It is here without a doubt," muttered Sérapion, and placing his lantern
on the ground, he forced the point of the lever under the edge of the
stone and commenced to raise it. The stone yielded, and he proceeded to
work with the mattock. Darker and more silent than the night itself, I
stood by and watched him do it, while he, bending over his dismal toil,
streamed with sweat, panted, and his hard-coming breath seemed to have
the harsh tone of a death rattle. It was a weird scene, and had any
persons from without beheld us, they would assuredly have taken us
rather for profane wretches and shroud-stealers than for priests of God.
There was something grim and fierce in Sérapion's zeal which lent him
the air of a demon rather than of an apostle or an angel, and his great
aquiline face, with all its stern features brought out in strong relief
by the lantern-light, had something fearsome in it which enhanced the
unpleasant fancy. I felt an icy sweat come out upon my forehead in huge
beads, and my hair stood up with a hideous fear. Within the depths of my
own heart I felt that the act of the austere Sérapion was an abominable
sacrilege; and I could have prayed that a triangle of fire would issue
from the entrails of the dark clouds, heavily rolling above us, to
reduce him to cinders. The owls which had been nestling in the
cypress-trees, startled by the gleam of the lantern, flew against it
from time to time, striking their dusty wings against its panes, and
uttering plaintive cries of lamentation; wild foxes yelped in the far
darkness, and a thousand sinister noises detached themselves from the
silence. At last Sérapion's mattock struck the coffin itself, making its
planks re-echo with a deep sonorous sound, with that terrible sound
nothingness utters when stricken. He wrenched apart and tore up the lid,
and I beheld Clarimonde, pallid as a figure of marble, with hands
joined; her white winding-sheet made but one fold from her head to her
feet. A little crimson drop sparkled like a speck of dew at one corner
of her colourless mouth. Sérapion, at this spectacle, burst into fury:
"Ah, thou art here, demon! Impure courtesan! Drinker of blood and gold!"
And he flung holy water upon the corpse and the coffin, over which he
traced the sign of the cross with his sprinkler. Poor Clarimonde had no
sooner been touched by the blessed spray than her beautiful body
crumbled into dust, and became only a shapeless and frightful mass of
cinders and half-calcined bones.

"Behold your mistress, my Lord Romuald!" cried the inexorable priest, as
he pointed to these sad remains. "Will you be easily tempted after this
to promenade on the Lido or at Fusina with your beauty?" I covered my
face with my hands, a vast ruin had taken place within me. I returned to
my presbytery, and the noble Lord Romuald, the lover of Clarimonde,
separated himself from the poor priest with whom he had kept such
strange company so long. But once only, the following night, I saw
Clarimonde. She said to me, as she had said the first time at the
portals of the church: "Unhappy man! Unhappy man! What hast thou done?
Wherefore have hearkened to that imbecile priest? Wert thou not happy?
And what harm had I ever done thee that thou shouldst violate my poor
tomb, and lay bare the miseries of my nothingness? All communication
between our souls and our bodies is henceforth forever broken. Adieu!
Thou will yet regret me!" She vanished in air as smoke, and I never saw
her more.

Alas! she spoke truly indeed. I have regretted her more than once, and I
regret her still. My soul's peace has been very dearly bought. The love
of God was not too much to replace such a love as hers. And this,
brother, is the story of my youth. Never gaze upon a woman, and walk
abroad only with eyes ever fixed upon the ground; for however chaste and
watchful one may be, the error of a single moment is enough to make one
lose eternity.




THE STALLS OF BARCHESTER CATHEDRAL

MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES


This matter began, as far as I am concerned, with the reading of a
notice in the obituary section of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for an
early year in the nineteenth century:

     "On February 26th, at his residence in the Cathedral Close of
     Barchester, the Venerable John Benwell Haynes, D.D., aged 57,
     Archdeacon of Sowerbridge and Rector of Pickhill and Candley. He
     was of ---- College, Cambridge, and where, by talent and assiduity,
     he commanded the esteem of his seniors; when, at the usual time, he
     took his first degree, his name stood high in the list of
     _wranglers_. These academical honours procured for him within a
     short time a Fellowship of his College. In the year 1873 he
     received Holy Orders, and was shortly afterwards presented to the
     perpetual Curacy of Ranxton-sub-Ashe by his friend and patron the
     late truly venerable Bishop of Lichfield.... His speedy
     preferments, first to a Prebend, and subsequently to the dignity of
     Precentor in the Cathedral of Barchester, form an eloquent
     testimony to the respect in which he was held and to his eminent
     qualifications. He succeeded to the Archdeaconry upon the sudden
     decease of Archdeacon Pulteney in 1810. His sermons, ever
     conformable to the principles of the religion and Church which he
     adorned, displayed in no ordinary degree, without the least trace
     of enthusiasm, the refinement of the scholar united with the graces
     of the Christian. Free from sectarian violence, and informed by the
     spirit of the truest charity, they will long dwell in the memories
     of his hearers. (Here a further omission.) The productions of his
     pen include an able defence of Episcopacy, which, though often
     perused by the author of this tribute to his memory, afford but one
     additional instance of the want of liberality and enterprise which
     is a too common characteristic of the publishers of our generation.
     His published works are, indeed, confined to a spirited and elegant
     version of the _Argonautica_ of Valerius Flaccus, a volume of
     _Discourses upon the Several Events in the Life of Joshua_,
     delivered in his Cathedral, and a number of the charges which he
     pronounced at various visitations to the clergy of his
     Archdeaconry. These are distinguished by etc., etc. The urbanity
     and hospitality of the subject of these lines will not readily be
     forgotten by those who enjoyed his acquaintance. His interest in
     the venerable and awful pile under whose hoary vault he was so
     punctual an attendant, and particularly in the musical portion of
     its rites, might be termed filial, and formed a strong and
     delightful contrast to the polite indifference displayed by too
     many of our Cathedral dignitaries at the present time."

The final paragraph, after informing us that Dr. Haynes died a bachelor,
says:

     "It might have been augured that an existence so placid and
     benevolent would have been terminated in a ripe old age by a
     dissolution equally gradual and calm. But how unsearchable are the
     workings of Providence! The peaceful and retired seclusion amid
     which the honoured evening of Dr. Haynes' life was mellowing to its
     close was destined to be disturbed, nay, shattered, by a tragedy as
     appalling as it was unexpected. The morning of the 26th of
     February----"

But perhaps I shall do better to keep back the remainder of the
narrative until I have told the circumstances which led up to it. These,
as far as they are now accessible, I have derived from another source.

I had read the obituary notice which I have been quoting, quite by
chance, along with a great many others of the same period. It had
excited some little speculation in my mind, but, beyond thinking that,
if I ever had an opportunity of examining the local records of the
period indicated, I would try to remember Dr. Haynes, I made no effort
to pursue his case.

Quite lately I was cataloguing the manuscripts in the library of the
college to which he belonged. I had reached the end of the numbered
volumes on the shelves, and I proceeded to ask the librarian Whether
there were any more books which he thought I ought to include in my
description. "I don't think there are," he said, "but we had better come
and look at the manuscript class and make sure. Have you time to do that
now?" I had time. We went to the library, checked off the manuscripts,
and, at the end of our survey arrived at a shelf of which I had seen
nothing. Its contents consisted for the most part of sermons, bundles of
fragmentary papers, college exercises, _Cyrus_, an epic poem in several
cantos, the product of a country clergyman's leisure, mathematical
tracts by a deceased professor, and other similar material of a kind
with which I am only too familiar. I took brief notes of these. Lastly,
there was a tin box, which was pulled out and dusted. Its label, much
faded, was thus inscribed: "Papers of the Ven. Archdeacon Haynes.
Bequeathed in 1834 by his sister, Miss Letitia Haynes."

I knew at once that the name was one which I had somewhere encountered,
and could very soon locate it. "That must be the Archdeacon Haynes who
came to a very odd end at Barchester. I've read his obituary in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_. May I take the box home? Do you know if there is
anything interesting in it?"

The librarian was very willing that I should take the box and examine it
at leisure. "I never looked inside it myself," he said, "but I've always
been meaning to. I am pretty sure that is the box which our old Master
once said ought never to have been accepted by the college. He said that
to Martin years ago; and he said also that as long as he had control
over the library it should never be opened. Martin told me about it,
and said that he wanted terribly to know what was in it; but the Master
was librarian, and always kept the box in the lodge, so there was no
getting at it in his time, and when he died it was taken away by mistake
by his heirs, and only returned a few years ago. I can't think why I
haven't opened it; but, as I have to go away from Cambridge this
afternoon, you had better have first go at it. I think I can trust you
not to publish anything undesirable in our catalogue."

I took the box home and examined its contents, and thereafter consulted
the librarian as to what should be done about publication, and, since I
have his leave to make a story out of it, provided I disguise the
identity of the people concerned, I will try what can be done.

The materials are, of course, mainly journals and letters. How much I
shall quote and how much epitomize must be determined by considerations
of space. The proper understanding of the situation has necessitated a
little--not very arduous--research, which has been greatly facilitated
by the excellent illustrations and text of the Barchester volume in
Bell's _Cathedral Series_.

When you enter the choir of Barchester Cathedral now, you pass through a
screen of metal and coloured marbles, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott, and
find yourself in what I must call a very bare and odiously furnished
place. The stalls are modern, without canopies. The places of the
dignitaries and the names of the prebends have fortunately been allowed
to survive, and are inscribed on small brass plates affixed to the
stalls. The organ is in the triforium, and what is seen of the case is
Gothic. The reredos and its surroundings are like every other.

Careful engravings of a hundred years ago show a very different state of
things. The organ is on a massive classical screen. The stalls are also
classical and very massive. There is a baldacchino of wood over the
altar, with urns upon its corners. Further east is a solid altar screen,
classical in design, of wood, with a pediment, in which is a triangle
surrounded by rays, enclosing certain Hebrew letters in gold. Cherubs
contemplate these. There is a pulpit with a great sounding-board at the
eastern end of the stalls on the north side, and there is a black and
white marble pavement. Two ladies and a gentleman are admiring the
general effect. From other sources I gather that the archdeacon's stall
then, as now, was next to the bishop's throne at the south-eastern end
of the stalls. His house almost faces the western part of the church,
and is a fine red-brick building of William the Third's time.

Here Dr. Haynes, already a mature man, took up his abode with his sister
in the year 1810. The dignity had long been the object of his wishes,
but his predecessor refused to depart until he had attained the age of
ninety-two. About a week after he had held a modest festival in
celebration of that ninety-second birthday, there came a morning, late
in the year, when Dr. Haynes, hurrying cheerfully into his
breakfast-room, rubbing his hands and humming a tune, was greeted, and
checked in his genial flow of spirits, by the sight of his sister,
seated, indeed, in her usual place behind the tea-urn, but bowed forward
and sobbing unrestrainedly into her handkerchief. "What--what is the
matter? What bad news?" he began. "Oh, Johnny, you've not heard? The
poor dear archdeacon!" "The archdeacon, yes? What is it--ill, is he?"
"No, no; they found him on the staircase this morning; it is so
shocking." "Is it possible! Dear, dear, poor Pulteney! Had there been
any seizure?" "They don't think so, and that is almost the worst thing
about it. It seems to have been all the fault of that stupid maid of
theirs, Jane." Dr. Haynes paused. "I don't quite understand, Letitia.
How was the maid at fault?" "Why, as far as I can make out, there was a
stair-rod missing, and she never mentioned it, and the poor archdeacon
set his foot quite on the edge of the step--you know how slippery that
oak is--and it seems he must have fallen almost the whole flight and
broken his neck. It is so sad for poor Miss Pulteney. Of course, they
will get rid of the girl at once. I never liked her." Miss Haynes's
grief resumed its sway, but eventually relaxed so far as to permit of
her taking some breakfast. Not so her brother, who, after standing in
silence before the window for some minutes, left the room, and did not
appear again that morning.

I need only add that the careless maid-servant was dismissed forthwith,
but that the missing stair-rod was very shortly afterwards found _under_
the stair-carpet--an additional proof, if any were needed, of extreme
stupidity and carelessness on her part.

For a good many years Dr. Haynes had been marked out by his ability,
which seems to have been really considerable, as the likely successor of
Archdeacon Pulteney, and no disappointment was in store for him. He was
duly installed, and entered with zeal upon the discharge of those
functions which are appropriate to one in his position. A considerable
space in his journals is occupied with exclamations upon the confusion
in which Archdeacon Pulteney had left the business of his office and the
documents appertaining to it. Dues upon Wringham and Barnswood have been
uncollected for something like twelve years, and are largely
irrecoverable; no visitation has been held for seven years; four
chancels are almost past mending. The persons deputized by the
archdeacon have been nearly as incapable as himself. It was almost a
matter for thankfulness that this state of things had not been permitted
to continue, and a letter from a friend confirms this view. "[Greek: ho
katechôn]," it says (in rather cruel allusion to the Second Epistle to
the Thessalonians), "is removed as last. My poor friend! Upon what a
scene of confusion will you be entering! I give you my word that, on the
last occasion of my crossing his threshold, there was no single paper
that he could lay hands upon, no syllable of mine that he could hear,
and no fact in connection with my business that he could remember. But
now, thanks to a negligent maid and a loose stair-carpet, there is some
prospect that necessary business will be transacted without a complete
loss alike of voice and temper." This letter was tucked into a pocket in
the cover of one of the diaries.

There can be no doubt of the new archdeacon's zeal and enthusiasm. "Give
me but time to reduce to some semblance of order the innumerable errors
and complications with which I am confronted, and I shall gladly and
sincerely join with the aged Israelite in the canticle which too many, I
fear, pronounce but with their lips." This reflection I find, not in a
diary, but a letter; the doctor's friends seem to have returned his
correspondence to his surviving sister. He does not confine himself,
however, to reflections. His investigation of the rights and duties of
his office are very searching and businesslike, and there is a
calculation in one place that a period of three years will just suffice
to set the business of the Archdeaconry upon a proper footing. The
estimate appears to have been an exact one. For just three years he is
occupied in reforms; but I look in vain at the end of that time for the
promised _Nunc dimittis_. He has now found a new sphere of activity.
Hitherto his duties have precluded him from more than an occasional
attendance at the Cathedral services. Now he begins to take an interest
in the fabric and the music. Upon his struggles with the organist, an
old gentleman who had been in office since 1786, I have no time to
dwell; they were not attended with any marked success. More to the
purpose is his sudden growth of enthusiasm for the Cathedral itself and
its furniture. There is a draft of a letter to Sylvanus Urban (which I
do not think was ever sent) describing the stalls in the choir. As I
have said, these were of fairly late date--of about the year 1700, in
fact.

"The archdeacon's stall, situated at the south-east end, west of the
episcopal throne (now so worthily occupied by the truly excellent
prelate who adorns the See of Barchester), is distinguished by some
curious ornamentation. In addition to the arms of Dean West, by whose
efforts the whole of the internal furniture of the choir was completed,
the prayer-desk is terminated at the eastern extremity by three small
but remarkable statuettes in the grotesque manner. One is an exquisitely
modelled figure of a cat, whose crouching posture suggests with
admirable spirit the suppleness, vigilance, and craft of the redoubted
adversary of the genus _Mus_. Opposite to this is a figure seated upon a
throne and invested with the attributes of royalty; but it is no earthly
monarch whom the carver has sought to portray. His feet are studiously
concealed by the long robe in which he is draped: but neither the crown
nor the cap which he wears suffice to hide the prick-ears and curving
horns which betray his Tartarean origin; and the hand which rests upon
his knee is armed with talons of horrifying length and sharpness.
Between these two figures stands a shape muffled in a long mantle. This
might at first sight be mistaken for a monk or 'friar of orders grey,'
for the head is cowled and a knotted cord depends from somewhere about
the waist. A slight inspection, however, will lead to a very different
conclusion. The knotted cord is quickly seen to be a halter, held by a
hand all but concealed within the draperies; while the sunken features
and, horrid to relate, the rent flesh upon the cheek-bones, proclaim the
King of Terrors. These figures are evidently the production of no
unskilled chisel; and should it chance that any of your correspondents
are able to throw light upon their origin and significance, my
obligations to your valuable miscellany will be largely increased."

       *       *       *       *       *

There is more description in the paper, and, seeing that the woodwork in
question has now disappeared, it has a considerable interest. A
paragraph at the end is worth quoting:

     "Some late researches among the Chapter accounts have shown me that
     the carving of the stalls was not, as was very usually reported,
     the work of Dutch artists, but was executed by a native of this
     city or district named Austin. The timber was procured from an oak
     copse in the vicinity, the property of the Dean and Chapter, known
     as Holywood. Upon a recent visit to the parish within whose
     boundaries it is situated, I learned from the aged and truly
     respectable incumbent that traditions still lingered amongst the
     inhabitants of the great size and age of the oaks employed to
     furnish the materials of the stately structure which has been,
     however imperfectly, described in the above lines. Of one in
     particular, which stood near the centre of the grove, it is
     remembered that it was known as the Hanging Oak. The propriety of
     that title is confirmed by the fact that a quantity of human bones
     was found in the soil about its roots, and that at certain times of
     the year it was the custom for those who wished to secure a
     successful issue to their affairs, whether of love or the ordinary
     business of life, to suspend from its boughs small images or
     puppets rudely fashioned of straw, twigs, or the like rustic
     materials."

So much for the archdeacon's archaeological investigations. To return to
his career as it is to be gathered from his diaries. Those of his first
three years of hard and careful work show him throughout in high
spirits, and, doubtless, during this time, that reputation for
hospitality and urbanity which is mentioned in his obituary notice was
well deserved. After that, as time goes on, I see a shadow coming over
him--destined to develop into utter blackness--which I cannot but think
must have been reflected in his outward demeanour. He commits a good
deal of his fears and troubles to his diary; there was no other outlet
for them. He was unmarried, and his sister was not always with him. But
I am much mistaken if he has told all that he might have told. A series
of extracts shall be given:

     "_Aug._ 30, 1816.--The days begin to draw in more perceptibly than
     ever. Now that the Archdeaconry papers are reduced to order, I
     must find some further employment for the evening hours of autumn
     and winter. It is a great blow that Letitia's health will not allow
     her to stay through these months. Why not go on with my _Defence of
     Episcopacy_? It may be useful.

     "_Sept. 15._--Letitia has left me for Brighton.

     "_Oct. 11._--Candles lit in the choir for the first time at evening
     prayers. It came as a shock: I find that I absolutely shrink from
     the dark season.

     "_Nov. 17._--Much struck by the character of the carving on my
     desk: I do not know that I had ever carefully noticed it before. My
     attention was called to it by an accident. During the _Magnificat_
     I was, I regret to say, almost overcome with sleep. My hand was
     resting on the back of the carved figure of a cat which is the
     nearest to me of the three figures on the end of my stall. I was
     not aware of this, for I was not looking in that direction, until I
     was startled by what seemed a softness, a feeling as of rather
     rough and coarse fur, and a sudden movement, as if the creature
     were twisting round its head to bite me. I regained complete
     consciousness in an instant, and I have some idea that I must have
     uttered a suppressed exclamation, for I noticed that Mr. Treasurer
     turned his head quickly in my direction. The impression of the
     unpleasant feeling was so strong that I found myself rubbing my
     hand upon my surplice. This accident led me to examine the figures
     after prayers more carefully than I had done before, and I realized
     for the first time with what skill they are executed.

     "_Dec. 6._--I do indeed miss Letitia's company. The evenings, after
     I have worked as long as I can at my _Defence_, are very trying.
     The house is too large for a lonely man, and visitors of any kind
     are too rare. I get an uncomfortable impression when going to my
     room that there _is_ company of some kind. The fact is (I may as
     well formulate it to myself) that I hear voices. This, I am well
     aware, is a common symptom of incipient decay of the brain--and I
     believe that I should be less disquieted than I am if I had any
     suspicion that this was the cause. I have none--none whatever, nor
     is there anything in my family history to give colour to such an
     idea. Work, diligent work, and a punctual attention to the duties
     which fall to me is my best remedy, and I have little doubt that it
     will prove efficacious.

     "_Jan. 1._ My trouble is, I must confess it, increasing upon me.
     Last night, upon my return after midnight from the Deanery, I lit
     my candle to go upstairs. I was nearly at the top when something
     whispered to me, 'Let me wish you a happy New Year.' I could not be
     mistaken: it spoke distinctly and with a peculiar emphasis. Had I
     dropped my candle, as I all but did, I tremble to think what the
     consequences must have been. As it was, I managed to get up the
     last flight, and was quickly in my room with the door locked, and
     experienced no other disturbance.

     "_Jan. 15._--I had occasion to come downstairs last night to my
     workroom for my watch, which I had inadvertently left on my table
     when I went up to bed. I think I was at the top of the last flight
     when I had a sudden impression of a sharp whisper in my ear '_Take
     care_.' I clutched the balusters and naturally looked round at
     once. Of course, there was nothing. After a moment I went on--it
     was no good turning back--but I had as nearly as possible fallen: a
     cat--a large one by the feel of it--slipped between my feet, but
     again, of course, I saw nothing. It _may_ have been the kitchen
     cat, but I do not think it was.

     "_Feb. 27._--A curious thing last night, which I should like to
     forget. Perhaps if I put it down here I may see it in its true
     proportion. I worked in the library from about 9 to 10. The hall
     and staircase seemed to be unusually full of what I can only call
     movement without sound: by this I mean that there seemed to be
     continuous going and coming, and that whenever I ceased writing to
     listen, or looked out into the hall, the stillness was absolutely
     unbroken. Nor, in going to my room at an earlier hour than
     usual--about half-past ten--was I conscious of anything that I
     could call a noise. It so happened that I had told John to come to
     my room for the letter to the bishop which I wished to have
     delivered early in the morning at the Palace. He was to sit up,
     therefore, and come for it when he heard me retire. This I had for
     the moment forgotten, though I had remembered to carry the letter
     with me to my room. But when, as I was winding up my watch, I heard
     a light tap at the door, and a low voice saying, 'May I come in?'
     (which I most undoubtedly did hear), I recollected the fact, and
     took up the letter from my dressing-table, saying, 'Certainly: come
     in.' No one, however, answered my summons, and it was now that, as
     I strongly suspect, I committed an error: for I opened the door and
     held the letter out. There was certainly no one at that moment in
     the passage, but, in the instant of my standing there, the door at
     the end opened and John appeared carrying a candle. I asked him
     whether he had come to the door earlier; but am satisfied that he
     had not. I do not like the situation; but although my senses were
     very much on the alert, and though it was some time before I could
     sleep, I must allow that I perceived nothing further of an untoward
     character."

With the return of spring, when his sister came to live with him for
some months, Dr. Haynes's entries became more cheerful, and, indeed, no
symptom of depression is discernible unto the early part of September,
when he was again left alone. And now, indeed, there is evidence that he
was incommoded again, and that more pressingly. To this matter I will
return in a moment, but I digress to put in a document which, rightly or
wrongly, I believe to have a bearing on the thread of the story.

The account-books of Dr. Haynes, preserved along with his other papers,
show, from a date but little later than that of his institution as
archdeacon, a quarterly payment of £25 to J.L. Nothing could have been
made of this, had it stood by itself. But I connect with it a very dirty
and ill-written letter, which, like another that I have quoted, was in a
pocket in the cover of a diary. Of date or postmark there is no vestige,
and the decipherment was not easy. It appears to run:

     "Dr Sr.

     "I have bin expctin to her off you theis last wicks, and not
     Haveing done so must supose you have not got mine witch was saying
     how me and my man had met in with bad times this season all seems
     to go cross with us on the farm and which way to look for the rent
     we have no knowledge of it this been the sad case with us if you
     would have the great [liberality _probably, but the exact spelling
     defies reproduction_] to send fourty pounds otherwise steps will
     have to be took which I should not wish. Has you was the Means of
     my losing my place with Dr. Pulteney I think it is only just what I
     am asking and you know best what I could say if I was Put to it but
     I do not wish anything of that unpleasant Nature being one that
     always wish to have everything Pleasant about me.

     "Your obedt Servt,

     "JANE LEE."

About the time at which I suppose this letter to have been written there
is, in fact, a payment of £40 to J.L.

We return to the diary:

     "_Oct. 22._--At evening prayers, during the Psalms, I had that same
     experience which I recollect from last year. I was resting my hand
     on one of the carved figures, as before (I usually avoid that of
     the cat now), and--I was going to have said--a change came over it,
     but that seems attributing too much importance to what must, after
     all, be due to some physical affection in myself: at any rate, the
     wood seemed to become chilly and soft as if made of wet linen. I
     can assign the moment at which I became sensible of this. The choir
     was singing the words (_Set thou an ungodly man to be ruler over
     him and_) _let Satan stand at his right hand_.

     "The whispering in my house was more persistent tonight. I seemed
     not to be rid of it in my room. I have not noticed this before. A
     nervous man, which I am not, and hope I am not becoming, would have
     been much annoyed, if not alarmed, by it. The cat was on the stairs
     tonight. I think it sits there always. There _is_ no kitchen cat.

     "_Nov. 15._--Here again I must note a matter I do not understand. I
     am much troubled in sleep. No definite image presented itself, but
     I was pursued by the very vivid impression that wet lips were
     whispering into my ear with great rapidity and emphasis for some
     time together. After this, I suppose, I feel asleep, but was
     awakened with a start by a feeling as if a hand were laid on my
     shoulder. To my intense alarm I found myself standing at the top of
     the lowest flight on the first staircase. The moon was shining
     brightly enough through the large window to let me see that there
     was a large cat on the second or third step. I can make no comment.
     I crept up to bed again, I do not know how. Yes, mine is a heavy
     burden. [Then follows a line or two which has been scratched out. I
     fancy I read something like 'acted for the best.']"

Not long after this it is evident to me that the archdeacon's firmness
began to give way under the pressure of these phenomena. I omit as
unnecessarily painful and distressing the ejaculations and prayers
which, in the months of December and January, appear for the first time
and become increasingly frequent. Throughout this time, however, he is
obstinate in clinging to his post. Why he did not plead ill-health and
take refuge at Bath or Brighton I cannot tell; my impression is that it
would have done him no good; that he was a man who, if he had confessed
himself beaten by the annoyances, would have succumbed at once, and that
he was conscious of this. He did seek to palliate them by inviting
visitors to his house. The result he has noted in this fashion:

     "_Jan. 7._--I have prevailed on my cousin Allen to give me a few
     days, and he is to occupy the chamber next to mine.

     "_Jan. 8._--A still night. Allen slept well, but complained of the
     wind. My own experiences were as before: still whispering and
     whispering: what is it that he wants to say?

     "_Jan. 9._--Allen thinks this is a very noisy house. He thinks,
     too, that my cat is an unusually large and fine specimen, but very
     wild.

     "_Jan. 10._--Allen and I in the library until 11. He left me twice
     to see what the maids were doing in the hall: returning the second
     time he told me he had seen one of them passing through the door at
     the end of the passage, and said if his wife were here she would
     soon get them into better order. I asked him what coloured dress
     the maid wore; he said grey or white. I supposed it would be so.

     "_Jan. 11._--Allen left me today. I must be firm."

These words, _I must be firm_, occur again and again on subsequent days;
sometimes they are the only entry. In these cases they are in an
unusually large hand, and dug into the paper in a way which must have
broken the pen that wrote them.

Apparently the archdeacon's friends did not remark any change in his
behaviour, and this gives me a high idea of his courage and
determination. The diary tells us nothing more than I have indicated of
the last days of his life. The end of it all must be told in the
polished language of the obituary notice:

     "The morning of the 26th of February was cold and tempestuous. At
     an early hour the servants had occasion to go into the front hall
     of the residence occupied by the lamented subject of these lines.
     What was their horror upon observing the form of their beloved and
     respected master lying upon the landing of the principal staircase
     in an attitude which inspired the gravest fears. Assistance was
     procured, and an universal consternation was experienced upon the
     discovery that he had been the object of a brutal and a murderous
     attack. The vertebral column was fractured in more than one place.
     This might have been the result of a fall: it appeared that the
     stair-carpet was loosened at one point. But, in addition to this,
     there were injuries inflicted upon the eyes, nose and mouth, as if
     by the agency of some savage animal, which, dreadful to relate,
     rendered those features unrecognizable. The vital spark was, it is
     needless to add, completely extinct, and had been so, upon the
     testimony of respectable medical authorities, for several hours.
     The author or authors of this mysterious outrage are alike buried
     in mystery, and the most active conjecture has hitherto failed to
     suggest a solution of the melancholy problem afforded by this
     appalling occurrence."

The writer goes on to reflect upon the probability that the writings of
Mr. Shelley, Lord Byron, and M. Voltaire may have been instrumental in
bringing about the disaster, and concludes by hoping, somewhat vaguely,
that this event may "operate as an example to the rising generation";
but this portion of his remarks need not be quoted in full.

I had already formed the conclusion that Dr. Haynes was responsible for
the death of Dr. Pulteney. But the incident connected with the carved
figure of death upon the archdeacon's stall was a very perplexing
feature. The conjecture that it had been cut out of the wood of the
Hanging Oak was not difficult, but seemed impossible to substantiate.
However, I paid a visit to Barchester, partly with the view of finding
out whether there were any relics of the woodwork to be heard of. I was
introduced by one of the canons to the curator of the local museum, who
was, my friend said, more likely to be able to give me information on
the point than any one else. I told this gentleman of the description of
certain carved figures and arms formerly on the stalls, and asked
whether any had survived. He was able to show me the arms of Dean West
and some other fragments. These, he said, had been got from an old
resident, who had also once owned a figure--perhaps one of those which I
was inquiring for. There was a very odd thing about that figure, he
said. "The old man who had it told me that he picked it up in a
wood-yard, whence he had obtained the still extant pieces, and had taken
it home for his children. On the way home he was fiddling about with it
and it came in two in his hands, and a bit of paper dropped out. This he
picked up and, just noticing that there was writing on it, put it into
his pocket, and subsequently into a vase on his mantelpiece. I was at
his house not very long ago, and happened to pick up the vase and turn
it over to see whether there were any marks on it, and the paper fell
into my hand. The old man, on my handing it to him, told me the story I
have told you, and said I might keep the paper. It was crumpled and
rather torn, so I have mounted it on a card, which I have here. If you
can tell me what it means I shall be very glad, and also, I may say, a
good deal surprised."

He gave me the card. The paper was quite legibly inscribed in an old
hand, and this is what was on it:

    "When I grew in the Wood
    I was water'd w^{th} Blood
    Now in the Church I stand
    Who that touches me with his Hand
    If a Bloody hand he bear
    I councell him to be ware
    Lest he be fetcht away
    Whether by night or day,
    But chiefly when the wind blows high
    In a night of February."

    "This I dreampt, 26 Febr. A^o 1699. JOHN AUSTIN."

"I suppose it is a charm or a spell: wouldn't you call it something of
that kind?" said the curator.

"Yes," I said, "I suppose one might. What became of the figure in which
it was concealed?"

"Oh, I forgot," said he. "The old man told me it was so ugly and
frightened his children so much that he burnt it."




WHAT WAS IT?

FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN


It is, I confess, with considerable diffidence that I approach the
strange narrative which I am about to relate. The events which I purpose
detailing are of so extraordinary a character that I am quite prepared
to meet with an unusual amount of incredulity and scorn. I accept all
such beforehand. I have, I trust, the literary courage to face unbelief.
I have, after mature consideration, resolved to narrate, in as simple
and straightforward a manner as I can compass, some facts that passed
under my observation, in the month of July last, and which, in the
annals of the mysteries of physical science, are wholly unparalleled.

I live at No. -- Twenty-sixth Street, in New York. The house is in some
respects a curious one. It has enjoyed for the last two years the
reputation of being haunted. It is a large and stately residence,
surrounded by what was once a garden, but which is now only a green
enclosure used for bleaching clothes. The dry basin of what has been a
fountain, and a few fruit trees ragged and unpruned, indicate that this
spot in past days was a pleasant, shady retreat, filled with fruits and
flowers and the sweet murmur of waters.

The house is very spacious. A hall of noble size leads to a large spiral
staircase winding through its centre, while the various apartments are
of imposing dimensions. It was built some fifteen or twenty years since
by Mr. A----, the well-known New York merchant, who five years ago threw
the commercial world into convulsions by a stupendous bank fraud. Mr.
A----, as every one knows, escaped to Europe, and died not long after,
of a broken heart. Almost immediately after the news of his decease
reached this country and was verified, the report spread in Twenty-sixth
Street that No. -- was haunted. Legal measures had dispossessed the
widow of its former owner, and it was inhabited merely by a caretaker
and his wife, placed there by the house agent into whose hands it had
passed for the purposes of renting or sale. These people declared that
they were troubled with unnatural noises. Doors were opened without any
visible agency. The remnants of furniture scattered through the various
rooms were, during the night, piled one upon the other by unknown hands.
Invisible feet passed up and down the stairs in broad daylight,
accompanied by the rustle of unseen silk dresses, and the gliding of
viewless hands along the massive balusters. The caretaker and his wife
declared they would live there no longer. The house agent laughed,
dismissed them, and put others in their place. The noises and
supernatural manifestations continued. The neighbourhood caught up the
story, and the house remained untenanted for three years. Several
persons negotiated for it; but, somehow, always before the bargain was
closed they heard the unpleasant rumours and declined to treat any
further.

It was in this state of things that my landlady, who at that time kept a
boarding-house in Bleecker Street, and who wished to move further up
town, conceived the bold idea of renting No. -- Twenty-sixth Street.
Happening to have in her house rather a plucky and philosophical set of
boarders, she laid her scheme before us, stating candidly everything she
had heard respecting the ghostly qualities of the establishment to which
she wished to remove us. With the exception of two timid persons,--a
sea-captain and a returned Californian, who immediately gave notice that
they would leave,--all of Mrs. Moffat's guests declared that they would
accompany her in her chivalric incursion into the abode of spirits.

Our removal was effected in the month of May, and we were charmed with
our new residence. The portion of Twenty-sixth Street where our house is
situated, between Seventh and Eighth avenues, is one of the pleasantest
localities in New York. The gardens back of the houses, running down
nearly to the Hudson, form, in the summer time, a perfect avenue of
verdure. The air is pure and invigorating, sweeping, as it does,
straight across the river from the Weehawken heights, and even the
ragged garden which surrounded the house, although displaying on washing
days rather too much clothesline, still gave us a piece of greensward to
look at, and a cool retreat in the summer evenings, where we smoked our
cigars in the dusk, and watched the fireflies flashing their dark
lanterns in the long grass.

Of course we had no sooner established ourselves at No. -- than we began
to expect ghosts. We absolutely awaited their advent with eagerness. Our
dinner conversation was supernatural. One of the boarders, who had
purchased Mrs. Crowe's "Night Side of Nature" for his own private
delectation, was regarded as a public enemy by the entire household for
not having bought twenty copies. The man led a life of supreme
wretchedness while he was reading this volume. A system of espionage was
established, of which he was the victim. If he incautiously laid the
book down for an instant and left the room, it was immediately seized
and read aloud in secret places to a select few. I found myself a person
of immense importance, it having leaked out that I was tolerably well
versed in the history of supernaturalism, and had once written a story
the foundation of which was a ghost. If a table or a wainscot panel
happened to warp when we were assembled in the large drawing-room, there
was an instant silence, and every one was prepared for an immediate
clanking of chains and a spectral form.

After a month of psychological excitement, it was with the utmost
dissatisfaction that we were forced to acknowledge that nothing in the
remotest degree approaching the supernatural had manifested itself. Once
the black butler asseverated that his candle had been blown out by some
invisible agency while he was undressing himself for the night; but as
I had more than once discovered this coloured gentleman in a condition
when one candle must have appeared to him like two, I thought it
possible that, by going a step further in his potations, he might have
reversed this phenomenon, and seen no candle at all where he ought to
have beheld one.

Things were in this state when an accident took place so awful and
inexplicable in its character that my reason fairly reels at the bare
memory of the occurrence. It was the tenth of July. After dinner was
over I repaired, with my friend Dr. Hammond, to the garden to smoke my
evening pipe. Independent of certain mental sympathies which existed
between the Doctor and myself, we were linked together by a vice. We
both smoked opium. We knew each other's secret, and respected it. We
enjoyed together that wonderful expansion of thought, that marvellous
intensifying of the perceptive faculties, that boundless feeling of
existence when we seem to have points of contact with the whole
universe,--in short, that unimaginable spiritual bliss, which I would
not surrender for a throne, and which I hope you, reader, will
never--never taste.

Those hours of opium happiness which the Doctor and I spent together in
secret were regulated with a scientific accuracy. We did not blindly
smoke the drug of paradise, and leave our dreams to chance. While
smoking, we carefully steered our conversation through the brightest and
calmest channels of thought. We talked of the East, and endeavoured to
recall the magical panorama of its glowing scenery. We criticized the
most sensuous poets,--those who painted life ruddy with health, brimming
with passion, happy in the possession of youth and strength and beauty.
If we talked of Shakespeare's "Tempest," we lingered over Ariel, and
avoided Caliban. Like the Guebers, we turned our faces to the East, and
saw only the sunny side of the world.

This skilful colouring of our train of thought produced in our
subsequent visions a corresponding tone. The splendours of Arabian
fairyland dyed our dreams. We paced the narrow strip of grass with the
tread and port of kings. The song of the _rana arborea_, while he clung
to the bark of the ragged plum-tree, sounded like the strains of divine
musicians. Houses, walls, and streets melted like rain clouds, and
vistas of unimaginable glory stretched away before us. It was a
rapturous companionship. We enjoyed the vast delight more perfectly
because, even in our most ecstatic moments, we were conscious of each
other's presence. Our pleasures, while individual, were still twin,
vibrating and moving in musical accord.

On the evening in question, the tenth of July, the Doctor and myself
drifted into an unusually metaphysical mood. We lit our large
meerschaums, filled with fine Turkish tobacco, in the core of which
burned a little black nut of opium, that, like the nut in the fairy
tale, held within its narrow limits wonders beyond the reach of kings;
we paced to and fro, conversing. A strange perversity dominated the
currents of our thought. They would _not_ flow through the sun-lit
channels into which we strove to divert them. For some unaccountable
reason, they constantly diverged into dark and lonesome beds, where a
continual gloom brooded. It was in vain that, after our old fashion, we
flung ourselves on the shores of the East, and talked of its gay
bazaars, of the splendours of the time of Haroun, of harems and golden
palaces. Black afreets continually arose from the depths of our talk,
and expanded, like the one the fisherman released from the copper
vessel, until they blotted everything bright from our vision.
Insensibly, we yielded to the occult force that swayed us, and indulged
in gloomy speculation. We had talked some time upon the proneness of the
human mind to mysticism, and the almost universal love of the terrible,
when Hammond suddenly said to me, "What do you consider to be the
greatest element of terror?"

The question puzzled me. That many things were terrible, I knew.
Stumbling over a corpse in the dark; beholding, as I once did, a woman
floating down a deep and rapid river, with wildly lifted arms, and
awful, upturned face, uttering, as she drifted, shrieks that rent one's
heart while we, spectators, stood frozen at a window which overhung the
river at a height of sixty feet, unable to make the slightest effort to
save her, but dumbly watching her last supreme agony and her
disappearance. A shattered wreck, with no life visible, encountered
floating listlessly on the ocean, is a terrible object, for it suggests
a huge terror, the proportions of which are veiled. But it now struck
me, for the first time, that there must be one great and ruling
embodiment of fear,--a King of Terrors, to which all others must
succumb. What might it be? To what train of circumstances would it owe
its existence?

"I confess, Hammond," I replied to my friend, "I never considered the
subject before. That there must be one Something more terrible than any
other thing, I feel. I cannot attempt, however, even the most vague
definition."

"I am somewhat like you, Harry," he answered. "I feel my capacity to
experience a terror greater than anything yet conceived by the human
mind;--something combining in fearful and unnatural amalgamation
hitherto supposed incompatible elements. The calling of the voices in
Brockden Brown's novel of 'Wieland' is awful; so is the picture of the
Dweller of the Threshold, in Bulwer's 'Zanoni'; but," he added, shaking
his head gloomily, "there is something more horrible still than those."

"Look here, Hammond," I rejoined, "let us drop this kind of talk, for
Heaven's sake! We shall suffer for it, depend on it."

"I don't know what's the matter with me tonight," he replied, "but my
brain is running upon all sorts of weird and awful thoughts. I feel as
if I could write a story like Hoffman, tonight, if I were only master of
a literary style."

"Well, if we are going to be Hoffmanesque in our talk, I'm off to bed.
Opium and nightmares should never be brought together. How sultry it is!
Good night, Hammond."

"Good night, Harry. Pleasant dreams to you."

"To you, gloomy wretch, afreets, ghouls, and enchanters."

We parted, and each sought his respective chamber. I undressed quickly
and got into bed, taking with me, according to my usual custom, a book,
over which I generally read myself to sleep. I opened the volume as soon
as I had laid my head upon the pillow, and instantly flung it to the
other side of the room. It was Goudon's "History of Monsters,"--a
curious French work, which I had lately imported from Paris, but which,
in the state of mind I had then reached, was anything but an agreeable
companion. I resolved to go to sleep at once; so, turning down my gas
until nothing but a little blue point of light glimmered on the top of
the tube, I composed myself to rest.

The room was in total darkness. The atom of gas that still remained
alight did not illuminate a distance of three inches round the burner. I
desperately drew my arm across my eyes, as if to shut out even the
darkness, and tried to think of nothing. It was in vain. The confounded
themes touched on by Hammond in the garden kept obtruding themselves on
my brain. I battled against them. I erected ramparts of would-be
blankness of intellect to keep them out. They still crowded upon me.
While I was lying still as a corpse, hoping that by a perfect physical
inaction I should hasten mental repose, an awful incident occurred. A
Something dropped, as it seemed, from the ceiling, plumb upon my chest,
and the next instant I felt two bony hands encircling my throat,
endeavouring to choke me.

I am no coward, and am possessed of considerable physical strength. The
suddenness of the attack, instead of stunning me, strung every nerve to
its highest tension. My body acted from instinct, before my brain had
time to realize the terrors of my position. In an instant I wound two
muscular arms around the creature, and squeezed it, with all the
strength of despair, against my chest. In a few seconds the bony hands
that had fastened on my throat loosened their hold, and I was free to
breathe once more. Then commenced a struggle of awful intensity.
Immersed in the most profound darkness, totally ignorant of the nature
of the Thing by which I was so suddenly attacked, finding my grasp
slipping every moment, by reason, it seemed to me, of the entire
nakedness of my assailant, bitten with sharp teeth in the shoulder,
neck, and chest, having every moment to protect my throat against a pair
of sinewy, agile hands, which my utmost efforts could not
confine,--these were a combination of circumstances to combat which
required all the strength, skill, and courage that I possessed.

At last, after a silent, deadly, exhausting struggle, I got my assailant
under by a series of incredible efforts of strength. Once pinned, with
my knee on what I made out to be its chest, I knew that I was victor. I
rested for a moment to breathe. I heard the creature beneath me panting
in the darkness, and felt the violent throbbing of a heart. It was
apparently as exhausted as I was; that was one comfort. At this moment I
remembered that I usually placed under my pillow, before going to bed, a
large yellow silk pocket handkerchief. I felt for it instantly; it was
there. In a few seconds more I had, after a fashion, pinioned the
creature's arms.

I now felt tolerably secure. There was nothing more to be done but to
turn on the gas, and, having first seen what my midnight assailant was
like, arouse the household. I will confess to being actuated by a
certain pride in not giving the alarm before; I wished to make the
capture alone and unaided.

Never losing my hold for an instant, I slipped from the bed to the
floor, dragging my captive with me. I had but a few steps to make to
reach the gas-burner; these I made with the greatest caution, holding
the creature in a grip like a vice. At last I got within arm's length of
the tiny speck of blue light which told me where the gas-burner lay.
Quick as lightning I released my grasp with one hand and let on the full
flood of light. Then I turned to look at my captive.

I cannot even attempt to give any definition of my sensations the
instant after I turned on the gas. I suppose I must have shrieked with
terror, for in less than a minute afterward my room was crowded with the
inmates of the house. I shudder now as I think of that awful moment. _I
saw nothing!_ Yes; I had one arm firmly clasped round a breathing,
panting, corporeal shape, my other hand gripped with all its strength a
throat as warm, as apparently fleshy, as my own; and yet, with this
living substance in my grasp, with its body pressed against my own, and
all in the bright glare of a large jet of gas, I absolutely beheld
nothing! Not even an outline,--a vapour!

I do not, even at this hour, realize the situation in which I found
myself. I cannot recall the astounding incident thoroughly. Imagination
in vain tries to compass the awful paradox.

It breathed. I felt its warm breath upon my cheek. It struggled
fiercely. It had hands. They clutched me. Its skin was smooth, like my
own. There it lay, pressed close up against me, solid as stone,--and yet
utterly invisible!

I wonder that I did not faint or go mad on the instant. Some wonderful
instinct must have sustained me; for, absolutely, in place of loosening
my hold on the terrible Enigma, I seemed to gain an additional strength
in my moment of horror, and tightened my grasp with such wonderful force
that I felt the creature shivering with agony.

Just then Hammond entered my room at the head of the household. As soon
as he beheld my face--which, I suppose, must have been an awful sight to
look at--he hastened forward, crying, "Great heaven, Harry! what has
happened?"

"Hammond! Hammond!" I cried, "come here. O, this is awful! I have been
attacked in bed by something or other, which I have hold of; but I can't
see it,--I can't see it!"

Hammond, doubtless struck by the unfeigned horror expressed in my
countenance, made one or two steps forward with an anxious yet puzzled
expression. A very audible titter burst from the remainder of my
visitors. This suppressed laughter made me furious. To laugh at a human
being in my position! It was the worst species of cruelty. _Now_, I can
understand why the appearance of a man struggling violently, as it would
seem, with an airy nothing, and calling for assistance against a vision,
should have appeared ludicrous. _Then_, so great was my rage against the
mocking crowd that had I the power I would have stricken them dead where
they stood.

"Hammond! Hammond!" I cried again, despairingly, "for God's sake come to
me. I can hold the--the thing but a short while longer. It is
overpowering me. Help me! Help me!"

"Harry," whispered Hammond, approaching me, "you have been smoking too
much opium."

"I swear to you, Hammond, that this is no vision," I answered, in the
same low tone. "Don't you see how it shakes my whole frame with its
struggles? If you don't believe me, convince yourself. Feel it,--touch
it."

Hammond advanced and laid his hand in the spot I indicated. A wild cry
of horror burst from him. He had felt it!

In a moment he had discovered somewhere in my room a long piece of
cord, and was the next instant winding it and knotting it about the body
of the unseen being that I clasped in my arms.

"Harry," he said, in a hoarse, agitated voice, for, though he preserved
his presence of mind, he was deeply moved, "Harry, it's all safe now.
You may let go, old fellow, if you're tired. The Thing can't move."

I was utterly exhausted, and I gladly loosed my hold.

Hammond stood holding the ends of the cord that bound the Invisible,
twisted round his hand, while before him, self-supporting as it were, he
beheld a rope laced and interlaced, and stretching tightly around a
vacant space. I never saw a man look so thoroughly stricken with awe.
Nevertheless his face expressed all the courage and determination which
I knew him to possess. His lips, although white, were set firmly, and
one could perceive at a glance that, although stricken with fear, he was
not daunted.

The confusion that ensued among the guests of the house who were
witnesses of this extraordinary scene between Hammond and myself,--who
beheld the pantomime of binding this struggling Something,--who beheld
me almost sinking from physical exhaustion when my task of jailer was
over,--the confusion and terror that took possession of the bystanders,
when they saw all this, was beyond description. The weaker ones fled
from the apartment. The few who remained clustered near the door and
could not be induced to approach Hammond and his Charge. Still
incredulity broke out through their terror. They had not the courage to
satisfy themselves, and yet they doubted. It was in vain that I begged
of some of the men to come near and convince themselves by touch of the
existence in that room of a living being which was invisible. They were
incredulous, but did not dare to undeceive themselves. How could a
solid, living, breathing body be invisible, they asked. My reply was
this. I gave a sign to Hammond, and both of us--conquering our fearful
repugnance to touch the invisible creature--lifted it from the ground,
manacled as it was, and took it to my bed. Its weight was about that of
a boy of fourteen.

"Now, my friends," I said, as Hammond and myself held the creature
suspended over the bed, "I can give you self-evident proof that here is
a solid, ponderable body, which, nevertheless, you cannot see. Be good
enough to watch the surface of the bed attentively."

I was astonished at my own courage in treating this strange event so
calmly; but I had recovered from my first terror, and felt a sort of
scientific pride in the affair, which dominated every other feeling.

The eyes of the bystanders were immediately fixed on my bed. At a given
signal Hammond and I let the creature fall. There was a dull sound of a
heavy body alighting on a soft mass. The timbers of the bed creaked. A
deep impression marked itself distinctly on the pillow, and on the bed
itself. The crowd who witnessed this gave a low cry, and rushed from
the room. Hammond and I were left alone with our Mystery.

We remained silent for some time, listening to the low, irregular
breathing of the creature on the bed, and watching the rustle of the
bed-clothes as it impotently struggled to free itself from confinement.
Then Hammond spoke.

"Harry, this is awful."

"Ay, awful."

"But not unaccountable."

"Not unaccountable! What do you mean? Such a thing has never occurred
since the birth of the world. I know not what to think, Hammond. God
grant that I am not mad, and that this is not an insane fantasy!"

"Let us reason a little, Harry. Here is a solid body which we touch, but
which we cannot see. The fact is so unusual that it strikes us with
terror. Is there no parallel, though, for such a phenomenon? Take a
piece of pure glass. It is tangible and transparent. A certain chemical
coarseness is all that prevents its being so entirely transparent as to
be totally invisible. It is not _theoretically impossible_, mind you, to
make a glass which shall not reflect a single ray of light,--a glass so
pure and homogeneous in its atoms that the rays from the sun will pass
through it as they do through the air, refracted but not reflected. We
do not see the air, and yet we feel it."

"That's all very well, Hammond, but these are inanimate substances.
Glass does not breathe, air does not breathe. _This_ thing has a heart
that palpitates,--a will that moves it,--lungs that play, and inspire
and respire."

"You forget the phenomena of which we have so often heard of late,"
answered the Doctor, gravely. "At the meetings called 'spirit circles,'
invisible hands have been thrust into the hands of those persons round
the table,--warm, fleshly hands that seemed to pulsate with mortal
life."

"What? Do you think, then, that this thing is----"

"I don't know what it is," was the solemn reply; "but please the gods I
will, with your assistance, thoroughly investigate it."

We watched together, smoking many pipes, all night long, by the bedside
of the unearthly being that tossed and panted until it was apparently
wearied out. Then we learned by the low, regular breathing that it
slept.

The next morning the house was all astir. The boarders congregated on
the landing outside my room, and Hammond and myself were lions. We had
to answer a thousand questions as to the state of our extraordinary
prisoner, for as yet not one person in the house except ourselves could
be induced to set foot in the apartment.

The creature was awake. This was evidenced by the convulsive manner in
which the bed-clothes were moved in its efforts to escape. There was
something truly terrible in beholding, as it were, those second-hand
indications of the terrible writhings and agonized struggles for liberty
which themselves were invisible.

Hammond and myself had racked our brains during the long night to
discover some means by which we might realize the shape and general
appearance of the Enigma. As well as we could make out by passing our
hands over the creature's form, its outlines and lineaments were human.
There was a mouth; a round, smooth head without hair; a nose, which,
however, was little elevated above the cheeks; and its hands and feet
felt like those of a boy. At first we thought of placing the being on a
smooth surface and tracing its outlines with chalk, as shoemakers trace
the outline of the foot. This plan was given up as being of no value.
Such an outline would give not the slightest idea of its conformation.

A happy thought struck me. We would take a cast of it in plaster of
Paris. This would give us the solid figure, and satisfy all our wishes.
But how to do it? The movements of the creature would disturb the
setting of the plastic covering, and distort the mould. Another thought.
Why not give it chloroform? It had respiratory organs,--that was evident
by its breathing. Once reduced to a state of insensibility, we could do
with it what we would. Doctor X---- was sent for; and after the worthy
physician had recovered from the first shock of amazement, he proceeded
to administer the chloroform. In three minutes afterward we were enabled
to remove the fetters from the creature's body, and a modeller was
busily engaged in covering the invisible form with the moist clay. In
five minutes more we had a mould, and before evening a rough facsimile
of the Mystery. It was shaped like a man,--distorted, uncouth, and
horrible, but still a man. It was small, not over four feet and some
inches in height, and its limbs revealed a muscular development that was
unparalleled. Its face surpassed in hideousness anything I had ever
seen. Gustav Doré, or Callot, or Tony Johannot, never conceived anything
so horrible. There is a face in one of the latter's illustrations to _Un
Voyage où il vous plaira_, which somewhat approaches the countenance of
this creature, but does not equal it. It was the physiognomy of what I
should fancy a ghoul might be. It looked as if it was capable of feeding
on human flesh.

Having satisfied our curiosity, and bound every one in the house to
secrecy, it became a question what was to be done with our Enigma? It
was impossible that we should keep such a horror in our house; it was
equally impossible that such an awful being should be let loose upon the
world. I confess that I would have gladly voted for the creature's
destruction. But who would shoulder the responsibility? Who would
undertake the execution of this horrible semblance of a human being? Day
after day this question was deliberated gravely. The boarders all left
the house. Mrs. Moffat was in despair, and threatened Hammond and myself
with all sorts of legal penalties if we did not remove the Horror. Our
answer was, "We will go if you like, but we decline taking this creature
with us. Remove it yourself if you please. It appeared in your house. On
you the responsibility rests." To this there was, of course, no answer.
Mrs. Moffat could not obtain for love or money a person who would even
approach the Mystery.

The most singular part of the affair was that we were entirely ignorant
of what the creature habitually fed on. Everything in the way of
nutriment that we could think of was placed before it, but was never
touched. It was awful to stand by, day after day, and see the clothes
toss, and hear the hard breathing, and know that it was starving.

Ten, twelve days, a fortnight passed, and it still lived. The pulsations
of the heart, however, were daily growing fainter, and had now nearly
ceased. It was evident that the creature was dying for want of
sustenance. While this terrible life-struggle was going on, I felt
miserable. I could not sleep. Horrible as the creature was, it was
pitiful to think of the pangs it was suffering.

At last it died. Hammond and I found it cold and stiff one morning in
the bed. The heart had ceased to beat, the lungs to inspire. We hastened
to bury it in the garden. It was a strange funeral, the dropping of that
viewless corpse into the damp hole. The cast of its form I gave to
Doctor X----, who keeps it in his museum in Tenth Street.

As I am on the eve of a long journey from which I may not return, I have
drawn up this narrative of an event the most singular that has ever come
to my knowledge.


THE END