A Book of Ghosts: 34
Author: Various authors
Date: 1829-12-31T15:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Ghost Stories; Supernatural Fiction; Horror
Description: Thirteen tales of haunts and horrids, by various authors. ~ ~ ~ ~ Compiled by ECM.
Publisher: MobileRead.com
Rights: Public domain where copyright is “Life+80” or less, and in the USA.

A BOOK OF GHOSTS
– 34 –

THINGS THAT GO BUMP
IN THE NIGHT

MobileRead Edition
2022

Thirteen tales of haunts and horrids, by various authors.
Compiled by ECM.

Contents were originally published 1830 ~ 1921. This book is in the public domain where copyright is “Life+80” or less, and in the USA.

CONTENTS:

- An Evening of Lucy Ashton’s  – 1830
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
(1802–1838)

- Metzengerstein  – 1832
Edgar Allan Poe
(1809–1849)

- Young Goodman Brown  – 1835
Nathaniel Hawthorne
(1804–1864)

- A Mysterious Visitor  – 1857
Ellen Wood
(1814–1887)

- Squire Toby’s Will  – 1868
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
(1814–1873)

- The Case of Mr. Lucraft  – 1876
Walter Besant
(1836–1901)
James Rice
(1843–1882)

- A Work of Accusation  – 1893
Harry How
(?–?)

- A Tragic Honeymoon  – 1894
George R. Sims
(1847–1922)

- The Doomed Man  – 1899
Dick Donovan
(James Muddock)
(1843–1934)

- Three at Table  – 1899
W. W. Jacobs
(1863–1943)

- The Grey Cat  – 1901
Barry Pain
(1864–1928)

- The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral  – 1910
M. R. James
(1862–1936)

- The Governess’s Story  – 1921
Amyas Northcote
(1864–1923)

AN EVENING OF LUCY ASHTON’S

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

1833

The autumn wind swung the branches of the old trees in the avenue heavily to and fro, and howled amid the battlements — now with a low moan, like that of deep grief; now with a shrill shriek, like that of the sufferer whose frame is wrenched in sudden agony. It was one of those dreary gales which bring thoughts of shipwrecks — telling of the tall vessel, with her brave crew, tossed in the midnight sea, her sails riven, her guns thrown overboard, and the sailors holding a fierce revel, to shut out the presence of Death riding the black waves around them — or of a desolate cottage on some lone sea-beach, a drifted boat on the rocks, and a bereaved widow weeping over the dead.

Lucy Ashton turned shivering from the casement. She had watched the stars one by one sink beneath the heavy cloud which, pall-like, had spread over the sky till it quenched even that last and lovely one with which, in a moment of maiden fantasy, she had linked her fate.

“For signs and for seasons are they,” said the youthful watcher, as she closed the lattice. “My light will soon be hidden, my little hour soon past.”

She threw herself into the arm-chair beside the hearth, and the lamp fell upon her beautiful but delicate face, from which the rose had long since departed; the blue veins were singularly distinct on the clear temples, and in the eye was that uncertain brightness which owes not its lustre to health. Her pale golden hair was drawn up in a knot at the top of her small and graceful head, and the rich mass shone as we might fancy shine the light tresses of an angel. The room was large, lofty, and comfortless, with cornices of black carved oak; in the midst stood a huge purple velvet bed, having a heavy bunch of hearse-like feathers at each corner; the walls were old; and the tapestry shook with every current of passing air, while the motion gave a mockery of life to its gaunt and faded group. The subject was mythological — the sacrifice of Niobe’s children. There were the many shapes of death from the young warrior to the laughing child; but all struck by the same inexorable fate. One figure in particular caught Lucy’s eye; it was a youthful female, and she thought it resembled herself: the outlines of the face certainly did, though “the gloss had dropped from the golden hair” of the picture sufferer.

“And yet,” murmured Lucy, “far happier than I! The shaft which struck her in youth did its work at once; but I bear the arrow in my heart that destroys me not. Well, well, its time will come!”

The flickering light of the enormous chimney, whose hearth was piled with turf and wood, now flung its long and variable shadows round the chamber; and the figures on the tapestry seemed animated with strange and ghastly life. Lucy felt their eyes fix upon her, and the thought of death came, cold and terrible. Ay; be resigned, be hopeful, be brave as we will, death is an awful thing! The nailing down in that close black coffin — the lowering into the darksome grave — the damp mould, with its fearful dwellers, the slimy worm and the loathsome reptile, to be trampled upon you — these are the realities of dread and disgust! And then to die in youth — life unknown, un-enjoyed: no time to satiate of its pleasures, to weary of its troubles, to learn its wretchedness — to feel that you wish to live a little longer — that you could be happy!

“And,” added the miserable girl, “to know that he loves me — that he will kneel in the agony of a last despair by my grave! But no, no; they say he is vowed to another — a tall, dark, stately beauty — what am I, that he should be true to me?”

She wrung her hands, but the paroxysm was transitory; and fixing her eyes on the burning log, she sat listlessly watching the dancing flames that kept struggling through the smoke.

“May I come in, Miss Ashton?” said a voice at the door; and, without waiting for an answer, an old crone entered. She approached the hearth, placed in a warm nook a tankard of mulled wine and plate of spiced apples, drew a low and cushioned settle forward, seated herself, and whispered in a subdued, yet hissing tone, “I thought you would be lonely, so I came up for half an hour’s chat: it is the very night for some of your favourite stories.”

Lucy started from her recumbent position, cast a frightened glance around, and seemed for the first time sensible of her companion’s presence.

“Ah! is it you, Dame Addison? sooth it is but a dreary evening, and I am glad of a companion — these old rooms are so gloomy.”

“You may well say so, for they have many a gloomy memory; the wife has wept for her husband, and the mother for her child; and the hand of the son has been against his father, and that of the father against his son. Why, look at yonder wainscot; see you no dark stains? In this very room—”

“Not of this room; tell me nothing of this room,” half screamed the girl, as she turned from the direction in which the nurse pointed. “I sleep here: I should see it every night; tell me of something far, far away.”

“Well, well, dear; it is only to amuse you. It shall not be of this room, or of this house, nor even of this country; will that please you?”

Lucy gave a slight indication of the head, and again fixed her gaze on the bright and sparkling fire; meantime the old woman took a deep draught from the tankard, disposed herself comfortably in her seat, and began her story in that harsh and hissing voice which rivets the hearing whereon yet it grates.

THE OLD WOMAN’S STORY

“Many, many years ago there was a fair peasant — so fair, that from her childhood all her friends prophesied that it would lead to no good. When she came to sixteen, the Count Ludolf thought it was a pity such beauty should be wasted, and therefore took possession of it: better that the lovely should pine in a castle than flourish in a cottage. Her mother died broken-hearted; and her father left the neighbourhood, with a curse on the disobedient girl who had brought desolation to his hearth, and shame to his old age. It needs little to tell that such a passion grew cold — it were a long tale that accounted for the fancies of a young, rich, and reckless Cavalier; and, after all, nothing changes so soon as love.”

“Love,” murmured Lucy, in a low voice, as if unconscious of the interruption: “Love, which is our fate, like Fate must be immutable: how can the heart forget his young religion?”

“Many,” pursued the sibyl, “can forget, and do and will forget. As for the Count, his heart was cruel with prosperity, and selfish with good fortune: he had never known sickness, which softens; sorrow, which brings all to its own level; poverty, which, however it may at last harden the heart, first teaches us our helplessness. What was it to him that Bertha had left the home which could never receive her again? What, that for his sake, she had submitted to the appearance of disgrace which was not in reality her? — for the peasant-girl was as proud as the Baron; and when she stepped over her father’s threshold, it was as his wife.

“Well, well, he wearied, as men ever weary, of women’s complaining, however bitter may be the injury which has wrung reproach from the unwilling lip. Many a sad hour did she spend weeping in the lonely tower, which had once seemed to her like a palace; for then the radiance of love was around it — and love, forsooth, is something like the fairies in our own land; for a time it can make all that is base and worthless seem most glittering and precious. Once, every night brought the ringing horn and eager step of the noble hunter; now the nights passed away too often in dreary and unbroken splendour. Yet the shining shield in the hall, and the fair current of the mountain spring, showed that her face was lovely as ever.

“One evening, he came to visit her, and his manner was soft and his voice was low, as in the days of old. Alas! of late she had been accustomed to the unkind look and the harsh word.

“‘It is a lovely twilight, my Bertha,’ said he; ‘help me to unmoor our little bark, and we will sail down the river.’

“With a light step and yet lighter heart, she descended the rocky stairs, and reached the boat before her companion. The white sail was soon spread; they sprang in; and the slight vessel went rapidly through the stream. At first the waves were crimson, as if freighted with rubies, the last love-gifts of the dying Sun; for they were sailing on direct to the west, which was one flush, like a sea of blushing wine. Gradually the tints became paler; shades of soft pink just tinged the far-off clouds, and a delicate lilac fell on the waters. A star or two shone pure and bright in the sky, and the only shadows were flung by a few wild rose-trees that sprang from the clefts of the rocks. By degrees the drooping flowers disappeared; the stream grew narrower, and the sky became darker; a few soft clouds soon gathered into a storm: but Bertha heeded them not; she was too earnestly engaged in entreating her husband that he should acknowledge their secret marriage. She spoke of the dreary solitude to which she was condemned; of her wasted youth, worn by the fever of continual anxiety. Suddenly she stopped in fear; it was so gloomy around; the steep banks nearly closed overhead, and the boughs of the old pines which stood in some of the tempest-cleft hollows met in the air, and cast a darkness like that of night upon the rapid waters, which hurried on as if they distrusted their gloomy passage.

“At this moment Bertha’s eye caught the ghastly paleness of her husband’s face, terribly distinct: she thought he feared the rough torrent, and for her sake: tenderly she leant towards him — his arm grasped her waist, but not in love; he seized the wretched girl and flung her overboard, with the very name of God on her lips, and appealing, too, for his sake! Twice her bright head — Bertha had ever gloried in her sunny curls, which now fell in wild profusion upon her shoulders — twice did it emerge from the wave; her faint hands were spread abroad for help; he shrunk from the last glare of her despairing eyes; then a low moan; a few bubbles of foam rose off the stream; and all was still — but it was the stillness of death. An instant after, the thunderclouds burst above, the peal reverberated from cliff to cliff, the lightning clave the black depths of the stream, the billows rose in tumultuous eddies; but Count Ludolf’s boat cut its way through, and the vessel arrived at the open river. No trace was there of storm; the dewy wild flowers filled the air with their fragrance; and the Moon shone over them pure and clear, as if her light had no sympathy with human sorrow, and shuddered not at human crime. And why should she? We might judge her by ourselves; what care we for crime when we are not involved, and for suffering in which we have no part?

“The red wine-cup was drained deep and long in Count Ludolf’s castle that night; and soon after, its master travelled afar into other lands: there was not pleasure enough for him at home. He found that bright eyes could gladden even the ruins of Rome; but Venice became his chosen city. It was as if the revelry delighted in the contrast which the dark robe, the gloomy canal, and the death-black gondola, offered to the orgies which made joyous her midnights.”

“And did he feel no remorse?” asked Lucy.

“Remorse!” said the crone, with a scornful laugh; “remorse is the word for a child, or for a fool: the unpunished crime is never regretted. WE weep over the consequences, not over the fault. Count Ludolf soon found another love. This time his passion was kindled by a picture, but one of a most strange and thrilling beauty; a portrait, the only unfaded one in a deserted palace situate in the eastern lagune. Day after day he went to gaze on the exquisite face and the large black eyes, till they seemed to answer to his own. But the festival of San Marco was no time for idle fantasies; and the Count was amongst the gayest of the revellers. Amid the many masks which he followed, was one that finally riveted his attention. Her light step seemed scarcely to touch the ground, and every now and then a dark curl or two of raven softness escaped the veil; at last the mask itself slipped aside, and he saw the countenance of his beautiful incognita. He addressed her; and her answers, if brief, were at least encouraging; he followed her to a gondola, which they entered together. It stopped at the steps of the palace he had supposed deserted.

“‘Will you come with me?’ said she, in a voice whose melancholy was as the lute when the night-wind wakens its music; and as she stood by the sculptured lions which kept the entrance, the moonlight fell on her lovely face — lovely as if Titian had painted it.

“‘Could you doubt?’ said Ludolf, as he caught the extended hand; ‘neither heaven nor hell should keep me from your side!’

“And here I cannot choose but laugh at the exaggerated phrases of lovers: why, a stone wall or a steel chain might have kept him away at that very moment! They passed through many a gloomy room, dimly seen in the moonshine, till they came to the picture-gallery, which was splendidly illuminated — and, strange contrast to its usual desolation, there was spread a magnificent banquet. The waxen tapers burned in their golden candlesticks, the lamps were fed with perfumed oil, and many a crystal vase was filled with rare flowers, till the atmosphere was heavy with fragrance. Piled up, in mother-of-pearl baskets, the purple grapes had yet the morning dew upon them; and the carved pine reared its emerald crest beside peaches, like topazes in a sunset. The Count and the lady seated themselves on a crimson ottoman; one white arm, leant negligently, contrasted with the warm colour of the velvet; but extending the other towards the table, she took a glass; at her sign the Count filled it with wine.

“‘Will you pledge with me?’ said she, touching the cup with her lips, and passing it to him. He drank it — for wine and air seemed alike freighted with the odour of her sigh.

“‘My beauty!’ exclaimed Ludolf, detaining the ivory hand.

“‘Nay, Count,’ returned the stranger, in that sweet and peculiar voice, more like music than language — ‘I know how lightly you hold the lover’s vow!’

“‘I never loved till now!’ exclaimed he, impatiently; ‘name, rank, fortune, life, soul, are your own.’

She drew a ring from her hand, and placed it on his, leaving hers in his clasp. ‘What will you give me in exchange — this?’ — and she took the diamond cross of an order which he wore.

“‘Ay, and by my knightly faith will I, and redeem it at your pleasure.’

“It was her hand which now grasped his; a change passed over her face; ‘I thank you, my sister-in-death, for your likeness,’ said she, turning to where the portrait had hung. For the first time, the Count observed that the frame was empty. Her grasp tightened upon him; it was the bony hand of a skeleton. The beauty vanished; the face grew a familiar one — it was that of Bertha! The floor became unstable, like water; he felt himself sinking rapidly; again he rose to the surface — he knew the gloomy pine-trees overhead; the grasp on his hand loosened; he saw the fair head of Bertha gasp in its death-agony amid the waters; the blue eyes met his; the stream flung her towards him; her arms closed round his neck with a deadly weight; down they sank beneath the dark river together — and to eternity.”

“The Emerald” annual, 1830

METZENGERSTEIN

Edgar Allan Poe

1832

Pestis eram vivus — moriens tua mors ero.

[I was alive to the plague — dying I’ll be your death]

Martin Luther

Horror and fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages. Why then give a date to this story I have to tell? Let it suffice to say, that at the period of which I speak, there existed, in the interior of Hungary, a settled although hidden belief in the doctrines of the Metempsychosis. Of the doctrines themselves — that is, of their falsity, or of their probability — I say nothing. I assert, however, that much of our incredulity — as La Bruyère says of all our unhappiness — “vient de ne pouvoir être seuls.” [just couldn’t be alone]

But there are some points in the Hungarian superstition which were fast verging to absurdity. They — the Hungarians — differed very essentially from their Eastern authorities. For example, “The soul,” said the former — I give the words of an acute and intelligent Parisian — “ne demeure qu’un seul fois dans un corps sensible: au reste — un cheval, un chien, un homme même, n’est que la ressemblance peu tangible de ces animaux.”  [remains only once in a sensible body: for the rest — a horse, a dog, even a man, is only the intangible resemblance of these animals]

The families of Berlifitzing and Metzengerstein had been at variance for centuries. Never before were two houses so illustrious, mutually embittered by hostility so deadly. The origin of this enmity seems to be found in the words of an ancient prophecy — “A lofty name shall have a fearful fall when, as the rider over his horse, the mortality of Metzengerstein shall triumph over the immortality of Berlifitzing.”

To be sure the words themselves had little or no meaning. But more trivial causes have given rise — and that no long while ago — to consequences equally eventful. Besides, the estates, which were contiguous, had long exercised a rival influence in the affairs of a busy government. Moreover, near neighbours are seldom friends; and the inhabitants of the Castle Berlifitzing might look, from their lofty buttresses, into the very windows of the palace Metzengerstein. Least of all had the more than feudal magnificence, thus discovered, a tendency to allay the irritable feelings of the less ancient and less wealthy Berlifitzings. What wonder then, that the words, however silly, of that prediction, should have succeeded in setting and keeping at variance two families already predisposed to quarrel by every instigation of hereditary jealousy? The prophecy seemed to imply — if it implied anything — a final triumph on the part of the already more powerful house; and was of course remembered with the more bitter animosity by the weaker and less influential.

Wilhelm, Count Berlifitzing, although loftily descended, was, at the epoch of this narrative, an infirm and doting old man, remarkable for nothing but an inordinate and inveterate personal antipathy to the family of his rival, and so passionate a love of horses, and of hunting, that neither bodily infirmity, great age, nor mental incapacity, prevented his daily participation in the dangers of the chase.

Frederick, Baron Metzengerstein, was, on the other hand, not yet of age. His father, the Minister G———, died young. His mother, the Lady Mary, followed him quickly after. Frederick was, at that time, in his fifteenth year. In a city, fifteen years are no long period — a child may be still a child in his third lustrum: but in a wilderness — in so magnificent a wilderness as that old principality, fifteen years have a far deeper meaning.

From some peculiar circumstances attending the administration of his father, the young Baron, at the decease of the former, entered immediately upon his vast possessions. Such estates were seldom held before by a nobleman of Hungary. His castles were without number. The chief in point of splendour and extent was the “Château Metzengerstein.” The boundary line of his dominions was never clearly defined; but his principal park embraced a circuit of fifty miles.

Upon the succession of a proprietor so young, with a character so well known, to a fortune so unparalleled, little speculation was afloat in regard to his probable course of conduct. And, indeed, for the space of three days, the behaviour of the heir out-heroded Herod, and fairly surpassed the expectations of his most enthusiastic admirers. Shameful debaucheries — flagrant treacheries — unheard-of atrocities — gave his trembling vassals quickly to understand that no servile submission on their part — no punctilios of conscience on his own — were thenceforward to prove any security against the remorseless fangs of a petty Caligula. On the night of the fourth day, the stables of the castle Berlifitzing were discovered to be on fire; and the unanimous opinion of the neighbourhood added the crime of the incendiary to the already hideous list of the Baron’s misdemeanours and enormities.

But during the tumult occasioned by this occurrence, the young nobleman himself sat apparently buried in meditation, in a vast and desolate upper apartment of the family palace of Metzengerstein. The rich although faded tapestry hangings which swung gloomily upon the walls, represented the shadowy and majestic forms of a thousand illustrious ancestors. Here, rich-ermined priests, and pontifical dignitaries, familiarly seated with the autocrat and the sovereign, put a veto on the wishes of a temporal king, or restrained with the fiat of papal supremacy the rebellious sceptre of the Arch-enemy. There, the dark, tall statures of the Princes Metzengerstein — their muscular war-coursers plunging over the carcasses of fallen foes — startled the steadiest nerves with their vigorous expression; and here, again, the voluptuous and swan-like figures of the dames of days gone by, floated away in the mazes of an unreal dance to the strains of imaginary melody.

But as the Baron listened, or affected to listen, to the gradually increasing uproar in the stables of Berlifitzing — or perhaps pondered upon some more novel, some more decided act of audacity — his eyes became unwittingly riveted to the figure of an enormous, and unnaturally coloured horse, represented in the tapestry as belonging to a Saracen ancestor of the family of his rival. The horse itself, in the foreground of the design, stood motionless and statue-like — while farther back, its discomfited rider perished by the dagger of a Metzengerstein.

On Frederick’s lip arose a fiendish expression, as he became aware of the direction which his glance had, without his consciousness, assumed. Yet he did not remove it. On the contrary, he could by no means account for the overwhelming anxiety which appeared falling like a pall upon his senses. It was with difficulty that he reconciled his dreamy and incoherent feelings with the certainty of being awake. The longer he gazed the more absorbing became the spell — the more impossible did it appear that he could ever withdraw his glance from the fascination of that tapestry. But the tumult without becoming suddenly more violent, with a compulsory exertion he diverted his attention to the glare of ruddy light thrown full by the flaming stables upon the windows of the apartment.

The action, however, was but momentary, his gaze returned mechanically to the wall. To his extreme horror and astonishment, the head of the gigantic steed had, in the meantime, altered its position. The neck of the animal, before arched, as if in compassion, over the prostrate body of its lord, was now extended, at full length, in the direction of the Baron. The eyes, before invisible, now wore an energetic and human expression, while they gleamed with a fiery and unusual red; and the distended lips of the apparently enraged horse left in full view his gigantic and disgusting teeth.

Stupified with terror, the young nobleman tottered to the door. As he threw it open, a flash of red light, streaming far into the chamber, flung his shadow with a clear outline against the quivering tapestry, and he shuddered to perceive that shadow — as he staggered awhile upon the threshold — assuming the exact position, and precisely filling up the contour, of the relentless and triumphant murderer of the Saracen Berlifitzing.

To lighten the depression of his spirits, the Baron hurried into the open air. At the principal gate of the palace he encountered three equerries. With much difficulty, and at the imminent peril of their lives, they were restraining the convulsive plunges of a gigantic and fiery-coloured horse.

“Whose horse? Where did you get him?” demanded the youth, in a querulous and husky tone of voice, as he became instantly aware that the mysterious steed in the tapestried chamber was the very counterpart of the furious animal before his eyes.

“He is your own property, sire,” replied one of the equerries, “at least he is claimed by no other owner. We caught him flying, all smoking and foaming with rage, from the burning stables of the Castle Berlifitzing. Supposing him to have belonged to the old Count’s stud of foreign horses, we led him back as an estray. But the grooms there disclaim any title to the creature; which is strange, since he bears evident marks of having made a narrow escape from the flames.

“The letters W. V. B. are also branded very distinctly on his forehead,” interrupted a second equerry, “I supposed them, of course, to be the initials of Wilhelm Von Berlifitzing — but all at the castle are positive in denying any knowledge of the horse.”

“Extremely singular!” said the young Baron, with a musing air, and apparently unconscious of the meaning of his words. “He is, as you say, a remarkable horse — a prodigious horse! although, as you very justly observe, of a suspicious and untractable character, let him be mine, however,” he added, after a pause, “perhaps a rider like Frederick of Metzengerstein, may tame even the devil from the stables of Berlifitzing.”

“You are mistaken, my lord; the horse, as I think we mentioned, is not from the stables of the Count. If such had been the case, we know our duty better than to bring him into the presence of a noble of your family.”

“True!” observed the Baron, dryly, and at that instant a page of the bedchamber came from the palace with a heightened colour, and a precipitate step. He whispered into his master’s ear an account of the sudden disappearance of a small portion of the tapestry, in an apartment which he designated; entering, at the same time, into particulars of a minute and circumstantial character; but from the low tone of voice in which these latter were communicated, nothing escaped to gratify the excited curiosity of the equerries.

The young Frederick, during the conference, seemed agitated by a variety of emotions. He soon, however, recovered his composure, and an expression of determined malignancy settled upon his countenance, as he gave peremptory orders that a certain chamber should be immediately locked up, and the key placed in his own possession.

“Have you heard of the unhappy death of the old hunter Berlifitzing?” said one of his vassals to the Baron, as, after the departure of the page, the huge steed which that nobleman had adopted as his own, plunged and curvetted, with redoubled fury, down the long avenue which extended from the château to the stables of Metzengerstein.

“No!” said the Baron, turning abruptly toward the speaker, “dead! say you?”

“It is indeed true, my lord; and, to a noble of your name, will be, I imagine, no unwelcome intelligence.”

A rapid smile shot over the countenance of the listener. “How died he?”

“In his rash exertions to rescue a favourite portion of his hunting stud, he has himself perished miserably in the flames.”

“I-n-d-e-e-d-!” ejaculated the Baron, as if slowly and deliberately impressed with the truth of some exciting idea.

“Indeed;” repeated the vassal.

“Shocking!” said the youth, calmly, and turned quietly into the château.

From this date a marked alteration took place in the outward demeanour of the dissolute young Baron Frederick Von Metzengerstein. Indeed, his behaviour disappointed every expectation, and proved little in accordance with the views of many a manoeuvring mamma; while his habits and manner, still less than formerly, offered anything congenial with those of the neighbouring aristocracy. He was never to be seen beyond the limits of his own domain, and, in this wide and social world, was utterly companionless — unless, indeed, that unnatural, impetuous, and fiery-coloured horse, which he henceforward continually bestrode, had any mysterious right to the title of his friend.

Numerous invitations on the part of the neighbourhood for a long time, however, periodically came in. “Will the Baron honour our festivals with his presence?” “Will the Baron join us in a hunting of the boar?” — “Metzengerstein does not hunt;” “Metzengerstein will not attend,” were the haughty and laconic answers.

These repeated insults were not to be endured by an imperious nobility. Such invitations became less cordial — less frequent — in time they ceased altogether. The widow of the unfortunate Count Berlifitzing was even heard to express a hope “that the Baron might be at home when he did not wish to be at home, since he disdained the company of his equals; and ride when he did not wish to ride, since he preferred the society of a horse.” This to be sure was a very silly explosion of hereditary pique; and merely proved how singularly unmeaning our sayings are apt to become, when we desire to be unusually energetic.

The charitable, nevertheless, attributed the alteration in the conduct of the young nobleman to the natural sorrow of a son for the untimely loss of his parents — forgetting, however, his atrocious and reckless behaviour during the short period immediately succeeding that bereavement. Some there were, indeed, who suggested a too haughty idea of self-consequence and dignity. Others again (among them may be mentioned the family physician) did not hesitate in speaking of morbid melancholy, and hereditary ill-health; while dark hints, of a more equivocal nature, were current among the multitude.

Indeed, the Baron’s perverse attachment to his lately-acquired charger — an attachment which seemed to attain new strength from every fresh example of the animal’s ferocious and demon-like propensities — at length became, in the eyes of all reasonable men, a hideous and unnatural fervour. In the glare of noon — at the dead hour of night — in sickness or in health — in calm or in tempest — the young Metzengerstein seemed riveted to the saddle of that colossal horse, whose intractable audacities so well accorded with his own spirit.

There were circumstances, moreover, which coupled with late events, gave an unearthly and portentous character to the mania of the rider, and to the capabilities of the steed. The space passed over in a single leap had been accurately measured, and was found to exceed, by an astounding difference, the wildest expectations of the most imaginative. The Baron, besides, had no particular name for the animal, although all the rest in his collection were distinguished by characteristic appellations. His stable, too, was appointed at a distance from the rest; and with regard to grooming and other necessary offices, none but the owner in person had ventured to officiate, or even to enter the enclosure of that particular stall. It was also to be observed, that although the three grooms, who had caught the steed as he fled from the conflagration at Berlifitzing, had succeeded in arresting his course, by means of a chain-bridle and noose — yet no one of the three could with any certainty affirm that he had, during that dangerous struggle, or at any period thereafter, actually placed his hand upon the body of the beast. Instances of peculiar intelligence in the demeanour of a noble and high-spirited horse are not to be supposed capable of exciting unreasonable attention — especially among men who, daily trained to the labours of the chase, might appear well acquainted with the sagacity of a horse — but there were certain circumstances which intruded themselves per force upon the most sceptical and phlegmatic; and it is said there were times when the animal caused the gaping crowd who stood around to recoil in horror from the deep and impressive meaning of his terrible stamp — times when the young Metzengerstein turned pale and shrunk away from the rapid and searching expression of his earnest and human-looking eye.

Among all the retinue of the Baron, however, none were found to doubt the ardour of that extraordinary affection which existed on the part of the young nobleman for the fiery qualities of his horse; at least, none but an insignificant and misshapen little page, whose deformities were in everybody’s way, and whose opinions were of the least possible importance. He — if his ideas are worth mentioning at all — had the effrontery to assert that his master never vaulted into the saddle without an unaccountable and almost imperceptible shudder, and that, upon his return from every long-continued and habitual ride, an expression of triumphant malignity distorted every muscle in his countenance.

One tempestuous night, Metzengerstein, awaking from a heavy slumber, descended like a maniac from his chamber, and, mounting in hot haste, bounded away into the mazes of the forest. An occurrence so common attracted no particular attention, but his return was looked for with intense anxiety on the part of his domestics, when, after some hours’ absence, the stupendous and magnificent battlements of the Chateau Metzengerstein, were discovered crackling and rocking to their very foundation, under the influence of a dense and livid mass of ungovernable fire.

As the flames, when first seen, had already made so terrible a progress that all efforts to save any portion of the building were evidently futile, the astonished neighbourhood stood idly around in silent and pathetic wonder. But a new and fearful object soon riveted the attention of the multitude, and proved how much more intense is the excitement wrought in the feelings of a crowd by the contemplation of human agony, than that brought about by the most appalling spectacles of inanimate matter.

Up the long avenue of aged oaks which led from the forest to the main entrance of the Château Metzengerstein, a steed, bearing an unbonneted and disordered rider, was seen leaping with an impetuosity which outstripped the very Demon of the Tempest.

The career of the horseman was indisputably, on his own part, uncontrollable. The agony of his countenance, the convulsive struggle of his frame, gave evidence of superhuman exertion: but no sound, save a solitary shriek, escaped from his lacerated lips, which were bitten through and through in the intensity of terror. One instant, and the clattering of hoofs resounded sharply and shrilly above the roaring of the flames and the shrieking of the winds — another, and, clearing at a single plunge the gate-way and the moat, the steed bounded far up the tottering staircases of the palace, and, with its rider, disappeared amid the whirlwind of chaotic fire.

The fury of the tempest immediately died away, and a dead calm sullenly succeeded. A white flame still enveloped the building like a shroud, and, streaming far away into the quiet atmosphere, shot forth a glare of preternatural light; while a cloud of smoke settled heavily over the battlements in the distinct colossal figure of — a horse.

“Philadelphia Saturday Courier”, Jan. 14 1832

YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN

Nathaniel Hawthorne

1835

Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street at Salem village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while she called to Goodman Brown.

“Dearest heart,” whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, “prithee put off your journey until sunrise and sleep in your own bed tonight. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts that she’s afeard of herself sometimes. Pray tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year.”

“My love and my Faith,” replied young Goodman Brown, “of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done ’twixt now and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married?”

“Then God bless you!” said Faith, with the pink ribbons; “and may you find all well when you come back.”

“Amen!” cried Goodman Brown. “Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee.”

So they parted; and the young man pursued his way until, being about to turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons.

“Poor little Faith!” thought he, for his heart smote him. “What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. Methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight. But no, no; ’t would kill her to think it. Well, she’s a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven.”

With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveller knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude.

“There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree,” said Goodman Brown to himself; and he glanced fearfully behind him as he added, “What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!”

His head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and, looking forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in grave and decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose at Goodman Brown’s approach and walked onward side by side with him.

“You are late, Goodman Brown,” said he. “The clock of the Old South was striking as I came through Boston, and that is full fifteen minutes agone.”

“Faith kept me back a while,” replied the young man, with a tremor in his voice, caused by the sudden appearance of his companion, though not wholly unexpected.

It was now deep dusk in the forest, and deepest in that part of it where these two were journeying. As nearly as could be discerned, the second traveller was about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps more in expression than features. Still they might have been taken for father and son. And yet, though the elder person was as simply clad as the younger, and as simple in manner too, he had an indescribable air of one who knew the world, and who would not have felt abashed at the governor’s dinner table or in King William’s court, were it possible that his affairs should call him thither. But the only thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. This, of course, must have been an ocular deception, assisted by the uncertain light.

“Come, Goodman Brown,” cried his fellow-traveller, “this is a dull pace for the beginning of a journey. Take my staff, if you are so soon weary.”

“Friend,” said the other, exchanging his slow pace for a full stop, “having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples touching the matter thou wot’st of.”

“Sayest thou so?” replied he of the serpent, smiling apart. “Let us walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go; and if I convince thee not thou shalt turn back. We are but a little way in the forest yet.”

“Too far! too far!” exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously resuming his walk. “My father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good Christians since the days of the martyrs; and shall I be the first of the name of Brown that ever took this path and kept—”

“Such company, thou wouldst say,” observed the elder person, interpreting his pause. “Well said, Goodman Brown! I have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans; and that’s no trifle to say. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem; and it was I that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip’s war. They were my good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk have we had along this path, and returned merrily after midnight. I would fain be friends with you for their sake.”

“If it be as thou sayest,” replied Goodman Brown, “I marvel they never spoke of these matters; or, verily, I marvel not, seeing that the least rumour of the sort would have driven them from New England. We are a people of prayer, and good works to boot, and abide no such wickedness.”

“Wickedness or not,” said the traveller with the twisted staff, “I have a very general acquaintance here in New England. The deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with me; the selectmen of divers towns make me their chairman; and a majority of the Great and General Court are firm supporters of my interest. The governor and I, too — But these are state secrets.”

“Can this be so?” cried Goodman Brown, with a stare of amazement at his undisturbed companion. “Howbeit, I have nothing to do with the governor and council; they have their own ways, and are no rule for a simple husbandman like me. But, were I to go on with thee, how should I meet the eye of that good old man, our minister, at Salem village? Oh, his voice would make me tremble both Sabbath day and lecture day.”

Thus far the elder traveller had listened with due gravity; but now burst into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself so violently that his snake-like staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy.

“Ha! ha! ha!” shouted he again and again; then composing himself, “Well, go on, Goodman Brown, go on; but, prithee, don’t kill me with laughing.”

“Well, then, to end the matter at once,” said Goodman Brown, considerably nettled, “there is my wife, Faith. It would break her dear little heart; and I’d rather break my own.”

“Nay, if that be the case,” answered the other, “e’en go thy ways, Goodman Brown. I would not for twenty old women like the one hobbling before us that Faith should come to any harm.”

As he spoke he pointed his staff at a female figure on the path, in whom Goodman Brown recognized a very pious and exemplary dame, who had taught him his catechism in youth, and was still his moral and spiritual adviser, jointly with the minister and Deacon Gookin.

“A marvel, truly, that Goody Cloyse should be so far in the wilderness at nightfall,” said he. “But with your leave, friend, I shall take a cut through the woods until we have left this Christian woman behind. Being a stranger to you, she might ask whom I was consorting with and whither I was going.”

“Be it so,” said his fellow-traveller. “Betake you to the woods, and let me keep the path.”

Accordingly the young man turned aside, but took care to watch his companion, who advanced softly along the road until he had come within a staff’s length of the old dame. She, meanwhile, was making the best of her way, with singular speed for so aged a woman, and mumbling some indistinct words — a prayer, doubtless — as she went. The traveller put forth his staff and touched her withered neck with what seemed the serpent’s tail.

“The devil!” screamed the pious old lady.

“Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend?” observed the traveller, confronting her and leaning on his writhing stick.

“Ah, forsooth, and is it your worship indeed?” cried the good dame. “Yea, truly is it, and in the very image of my old gossip, Goodman Brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. But — would your worship believe it? — my broomstick hath strangely disappeared, stolen, as I suspect, by that unhanged witch, Goody Cory, and that, too, when I was all anointed with the juice of smallage, and cinquefoil, and wolf’s bane.”

“Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-born babe,” said the shape of old Goodman Brown.

“Ah, your worship knows the recipe,” cried the old lady, cackling aloud. “So, as I was saying, being all ready for the meeting, and no horse to ride on, I made up my mind to foot it; for they tell me there is a nice young man to be taken into communion tonight. But now your good worship will lend me your arm, and we shall be there in a twinkling.”

“That can hardly be,” answered her friend. “I may not spare you my arm, Goody Cloyse; but here is my staff, if you will.”

So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumed life, being one of the rods which its owner had formerly lent to the Egyptian magi. Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could not take cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and, looking down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his fellow-traveller alone, who waited for him as calmly as if nothing had happened.

“That old woman taught me my catechism,” said the young man; and there was a world of meaning in this simple comment.

They continued to walk onward, while the elder traveller exhorted his companion to make good speed and persevere in the path, discoursing so aptly that his arguments seemed rather to spring up in the bosom of his auditor than to be suggested by himself. As they went, he plucked a branch of maple to serve for a walking stick, and began to strip it of the twigs and little boughs, which were wet with evening dew. The moment his fingers touched them they became strangely withered and dried up as with a week’s sunshine. Thus the pair proceeded, at a good free pace, until suddenly, in a gloomy hollow of the road, Goodman Brown sat himself down on the stump of a tree and refused to go any farther.

“Friend,” said he, stubbornly, “my mind is made up. Not another step will I budge on this errand. What if a wretched old woman do choose to go to the devil when I thought she was going to heaven: is that any reason why I should quit my dear Faith and go after her?”

“You will think better of this by and by,” said his acquaintance, composedly. “Sit here and rest yourself a while; and when you feel like moving again, there is my staff to help you along.”

Without more words, he threw his companion the maple stick, and was as speedily out of sight as if he had vanished into the deepening gloom. The young man sat a few moments by the roadside, applauding himself greatly, and thinking with how clear a conscience he should meet the minister in his morning walk, nor shrink from the eye of good old Deacon Gookin. And what calm sleep would be his that very night, which was to have been spent so wickedly, but so purely and sweetly now, in the arms of Faith! Amidst these pleasant and praiseworthy meditations, Goodman Brown heard the tramp of horses along the road, and deemed it advisable to conceal himself within the verge of the forest, conscious of the guilty purpose that had brought him thither, though now so happily turned from it.

On came the hoof tramps and the voices of the riders, two grave old voices, conversing soberly as they drew near. These mingled sounds appeared to pass along the road, within a few yards of the young man’s hiding-place; but, owing doubtless to the depth of the gloom at that particular spot, neither the travellers nor their steeds were visible. Though their figures brushed the small boughs by the wayside, it could not be seen that they intercepted, even for a moment, the faint gleam from the strip of bright sky athwart which they must have passed. Goodman Brown alternately crouched and stood on tiptoe, pulling aside the branches and thrusting forth his head as far as he durst without discerning so much as a shadow. It vexed him the more, because he could have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he recognized the voices of the minister and Deacon Gookin, jogging along quietly, as they were wont to do, when bound to some ordination or ecclesiastical council. While yet within hearing, one of the riders stopped to pluck a switch.

“Of the two, reverend sir,” said the voice like the deacon’s, “I had rather miss an ordination dinner than tonight’s meeting. They tell me that some of our community are to be here from Falmouth and beyond, and others from Connecticut and Rhode Island, besides several of the Indian powwows, who, after their fashion, know almost as much deviltry as the best of us. Moreover, there is a goodly young woman to be taken into communion.”

“Mighty well, Deacon Gookin!” replied the solemn old tones of the minister. “Spur up, or we shall be late. Nothing can be done, you know, until I get on the ground.”

The hoofs clattered again; and the voices, talking so strangely in the empty air, passed on through the forest, where no church had ever been gathered or solitary Christian prayed. Whither, then, could these holy men be journeying so deep into the heathen wilderness? Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree for support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburdened with the heavy sickness of his heart. He looked up to the sky, doubting whether there really was a heaven above him. Yet there was the blue arch, and the stars brightening in it.

“With heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil!” cried Goodman Brown.

While he still gazed upward into the deep arch of the firmament and had lifted his hands to pray, a cloud, though no wind was stirring, hurried across the zenith and hid the brightening stars. The blue sky was still visible, except directly overhead, where this black mass of cloud was sweeping swiftly northward. Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the cloud, came a confused and doubtful sound of voices. Once the listener fancied that he could distinguish the accents of townspeople of his own, men and women, both pious and ungodly, many of whom he had met at the communion table, and had seen others rioting at the tavern. The next moment, so indistinct were the sounds, he doubted whether he had heard aught but the murmur of the old forest, whispering without a wind. Then came a stronger swell of those familiar tones, heard daily in the sunshine at Salem village, but never until now from a cloud of night There was one voice of a young woman, uttering lamentations, yet with an uncertain sorrow, and entreating for some favour, which, perhaps, it would grieve her to obtain; and all the unseen multitude, both saints and sinners, seemed to encourage her onward.

“Faith!” shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony and desperation; and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying, “Faith! Faith!” as if bewildered wretches were seeking her all through the wilderness.

The cry of grief, rage, and terror was yet piercing the night, when the unhappy husband held his breath for a response. There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky above Goodman Brown. But something fluttered lightly down through the air and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon.

“My Faith is gone!” cried he, after one stupefied moment. “There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to thee is this world given.”

And, maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, did Goodman Brown grasp his staff and set forth again, at such a rate that he seemed to fly along the forest path rather than to walk or run. The road grew wilder and drearier and more faintly traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing onward with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil. The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds — the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians; while sometimes the wind tolled like a distant church bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveller, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its other horrors.

“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Goodman Brown when the wind laughed at him.

“Let us hear which will laugh loudest. Think not to frighten me with your deviltry. Come witch, come wizard, come Indian powwow, come devil himself, and here comes Goodman Brown. You may as well fear him as he fear you.”

In truth, all through the haunted forest there could be nothing more frightful than the figure of Goodman Brown. On he flew among the black pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, now giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shouting forth such laughter as set all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons around him. The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of man. Thus sped the demoniac on his course, until, quivering among the trees, he saw a red light before him, as when the felled trunks and branches of a clearing have been set on fire, and throw up their lurid blaze against the sky, at the hour of midnight. He paused, in a lull of the tempest that had driven him onward, and heard the swell of what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly from a distance with the weight of many voices. He knew the tune; it was a familiar one in the choir of the village meeting-house. The verse died heavily away, and was lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness pealing in awful harmony together. Goodman Brown cried out, and his cry was lost to his own ear by its unison with the cry of the desert.

In the interval of silence he stole forward until the light glared full upon his eyes. At one extremity of an open space, hemmed in by the dark wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude, natural resemblance either to an altar or a pulpit, and surrounded by four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems untouched, like candles at an evening meeting. The mass of foliage that had overgrown the summit of the rock was all on fire, blazing high into the night and fitfully illuminating the whole field. Each pendent twig and leafy festoon was in a blaze. As the red light arose and fell, a numerous congregation alternately shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and again grew, as it were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the solitary woods at once.

“A grave and dark-clad company,” quoth Goodman Brown.

In truth they were such. Among them, quivering to and fro between gloom and splendour, appeared faces that would be seen next day at the council board of the province, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in the land. Some affirm that the lady of the governor was there. At least there were high dames well known to her, and wives of honoured husbands, and widows, a great multitude, and ancient maidens, all of excellent repute, and fair young girls, who trembled lest their mothers should espy them. Either the sudden gleams of light flashing over the obscure field bedazzled Goodman Brown, or he recognized a score of the church members of Salem village famous for their especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Gookin had arrived, and waited at the skirts of that venerable saint, his revered pastor. But, irreverently consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes. It was strange to see that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints. Scattered also among their pale-faced enemies were the Indian priests, or powwows, who had often scared their native forest with more hideous incantations than any known to English witchcraft.

“But where is Faith?” thought Goodman Brown; and, as hope came into his heart, he trembled.

Another verse of the hymn arose, a slow and mournful strain, such as the pious love, but joined to words which expressed all that our nature can conceive of sin, and darkly hinted at far more. Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends. Verse after verse was sung; and still the chorus of the desert swelled between like the deepest tone of a mighty organ; and with the final peal of that dreadful anthem there came a sound, as if the roaring wind, the rushing streams, the howling beasts, and every other voice of the unconcerted wilderness were mingling and according with the voice of guilty man in homage to the prince of all. The four blazing pines threw up a loftier flame, and obscurely discovered shapes and visages of horror on the smoke wreaths above the impious assembly. At the same moment the fire on the rock shot redly forth and formed a glowing arch above its base, where now appeared a figure. With reverence be it spoken, the figure bore no slight similitude, both in garb and manner, to some grave divine of the New England churches.

“Bring forth the converts!” cried a voice that echoed through the field and rolled into the forest.

At the word, Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of the trees and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart. He could have well-nigh sworn that the shape of his own dead father beckoned him to advance, looking downward from a smoke wreath, while a woman, with dim features of despair, threw out her hand to warn him back. Was it his mother? But he had no power to retreat one step, nor to resist, even in thought, when the minister and good old Deacon Gookin seized his arms and led him to the blazing rock. Thither came also the slender form of a veiled female, led between Goody Cloyse, that pious teacher of the catechism, and Martha Carrier, who had received the devil’s promise to be queen of hell. A rampant hag was she. And there stood the proselytes beneath the canopy of fire.

“Welcome, my children,” said the dark figure, “to the communion of your race. Ye have found thus young your nature and your destiny. My children, look behind you!”

They turned; and flashing forth, as it were, in a sheet of flame, the fiend worshippers were seen; the smile of welcome gleamed darkly on every visage.

“There,” resumed the sable form, “are all whom ye have reverenced from youth. Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness and prayerful aspirations heavenward. Yet here are they all in my worshipping assembly. This night it shall be granted you to know their secret deeds: how hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton words to the young maids of their households; how many a woman, eager for widows’ weeds, has given her husband a drink at bedtime and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youths have made haste to inherit their fathers’ wealth; and how fair damsels — blush not, sweet ones — have dug little graves in the garden, and bidden me, the sole guest to an infant’s funeral. By the sympathy of your human hearts for sin ye shall scent out all the places — whether in church, bedchamber, street, field, or forest — where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot. Far more than this. It shall be yours to penetrate, in every bosom, the deep mystery of sin, the fountain of all wicked arts, and which inexhaustibly supplies more evil impulses than human power — than my power at its utmost — can make manifest in deeds. And now, my children, look upon each other.”

They did so; and, by the blaze of the hell-kindled torches, the wretched man beheld his Faith, and the wife her husband, trembling before that unhallowed altar.

“Lo, there ye stand, my children,” said the figure, in a deep and solemn tone, almost sad with its despairing awfulness, as if his once angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. “Depending upon one another’s hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race.”

“Welcome,” repeated the fiend worshippers, in one cry of despair and triumph.

And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed, who were yet hesitating on the verge of wickedness in this dark world. A basin was hollowed, naturally, in the rock. Did it contain water, reddened by the lurid light? or was it blood? or, perchance, a liquid flame? Herein did the shape of evil dip his hand and prepare to lay the mark of baptism upon their foreheads, that they might be partakers of the mystery of sin, more conscious of the secret guilt of others, both in deed and thought, than they could now be of their own. The husband cast one look at his pale wife, and Faith at him. What polluted wretches would the next glance show them to each other, shuddering alike at what they disclosed and what they saw!

“Faith! Faith!” cried the husband, “look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one.”

Whether Faith obeyed he knew not. Hardly had he spoken when he found himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar of the wind which died heavily away through the forest. He staggered against the rock, and felt it chill and damp; while a hanging twig, that had been all on fire, besprinkled his cheek with the coldest dew.

The next morning young Goodman Brown came slowly into the street of Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man. The good old minister was taking a walk along the graveyard to get an appetite for breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed a blessing, as he passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank from the venerable saint as if to avoid an anathema. Old Deacon Gookin was at domestic worship, and the holy words of his prayer were heard through the open window. “What God doth the wizard pray to?” quoth Goodman Brown. Goody Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine at her own lattice, catechizing a little girl who had brought her a pint of morning’s milk. Goodman Brown snatched away the child as from the grasp of the fiend himself. Turning the corner by the meeting-house, he spied the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him that she skipped along the street and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting.

Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?

Be it so if you will; but, alas! It was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream. On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the pulpit with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hand on the open Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down upon the grey blasphemer and his hearers. Often, waking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith; and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman, and children and grandchildren, a goodly procession, besides neighbours not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom.

“The New-England Magazine”, Apr. 1835

A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR

Ellen Wood

1857

On Monday morning, the 11th of May last, there sat in one of the quiet rooms of Enton parsonage a young and pretty woman, playing with her baby. It was Mrs. Ordie. The incumbent of Enton was Dr. Ling, an honorary canon of the county cathedral, and rather given, of late years, to certain church innovations. He called himself a high churchman, his friends a Tractarian, and his enemies a Puseyite. However, Puseyite or not, he was the spiritual director of Enton, which brought him in a good round income, every farthing of which he lived up to, some people said to more. Mrs. Ling was from India; her family connexions lived there; father, uncles, brothers, and cousins, had been, or were, in the civil or military service of Bengal. Consequently, as the daughters of Dr. Ling had grown towards womanhood, they were severally shipped off, with high matrimonial views, according to a fashion that extensively prevails among certain of our British families.

Miss Ling, Louisa, had gone out first, and had secured Captain Ordie. Constance had gone out next, and espoused Lieutenant Main, to the indignation of all her relatives, both at home and out, for she was a handsome girl, and had been set down for nothing less than a major. Lieutenant Main, who was attached to Captain Ordie’s regiment, had been home on sick leave, and was unfortunately returning in the very ship that took Constance. Before they had come to the end of their voyage, they had agreed that Main was a prettier name for the young lady than Ling, and although everybody assured her that he had no interest and would never get promoted, she married him. The third daughter, Sarah Ann, very young and pretty she was, went out the following year, with a stern injunction not to do as Constance had done. Sarah Ann, probably, would not have gone so soon, but that Mrs. Ordie had urged it. Her own health was not good; she was returning to Europe; let Sarah Ann come and be introduced under her auspices, before she left, otherwise she would be consigned to the charge and bad example of Mrs. Main. And Sarah Ann was despatched at the age of fifteen: Dr. and Mrs. Ling had three other daughters yet.

It happened, however, before Sarah Ann could get there, that Mrs. Ordie’s health grew worse, and she was ordered immediately to her native climate, so, after all, Sarah Ann had to be received by Mrs. Main. Mrs. Ordie, upon landing in England, proceeded to Enton. The voyage had been of much service to her, and her health was improved. And there we see her sitting, on the morning of the 11th of last May, nearly twelve months after her arrival, playing with her infant, who was nine months old. She was well now, and in August she and the child were going back to India.

Mrs. Ordie was much attached to this child, very anxious and fidgety over it; her first child had died in India, so perhaps that was the reason. She fancied, this morning, that it was not well, and had been sending in haste for Mrs. Beecher, who lived close by. The honorary canon, Mrs. Ling, and two of the remaining daughters, had gone, the previous Saturday, to spend a week in the county town, where he had some “honorary” duty to perform in the cathedral.

Mrs. Beecher came running in without her bonnet. She had been governess to Louisa and Constance when they were young, had married the curate, and remained the deeply-attached friend and adviser of the Ling family. In any emergency Mrs. Beecher was appealed to, and she proved herself equal to all.

“I am sure baby’s ill,” was Mrs. Ordie’s salutation. “I have been playing with her, and doing all I can to excite her notice, but she will keep her head down. See how hot her cheeks are.”

“I think she is sleepy,” said Mrs. Beecher. “And perhaps a very little feverish.”

“Do you think her feverish? Whatever shall I do? Good mercy, if she should die as the other did!”

“Louisa,” remonstrated Mrs. Beecher, “do not excite yourself causelessly. I thought you had left that off before you went out: you promised me you had.”

“Oh, but you don’t know what it is to lose a child, you never had one,” returned Mrs. Ordie, giving way to her excitement. “If she dies, I can tell you I shall die with her.”

“Hush,” interrupted Mrs. Beecher. “In the first place, I believe there is little, if anything, the matter with the child, except cutting her teeth, which renders all children somewhat feverish. In the second, if she were dangerously ill, you have no right to say what you have just said.”

“Oh yes, I have a right, for it is truth. I would rather lose everything I possess in the world, than my baby.”

“Not everything, I hope, Louisa,” quietly remarked Mrs. Beecher.

“Yes, everything. I would. I like nothing half so well. What a while Mr. Percival is!” she added, walking to the window and looking out.

“You surely have not sent for Mr. Percival?”

“I surely have. And if he does not soon make his appearance, I shall send again.”

Mrs. Beecher sighed. “I am sorry to see this, Louisa. You will get into your old nervous state again.”

Mrs. Ordie would not hear reason. She had taken up the idea that the child was ill, and at length told Mrs. Beecher that as she had never had any children herself, she could not feel for her. She had always been of most excitable temperament. As a girl, her imagination was so vivid, so prone to the marvellous, that story books and fairy tales were obliged to be kept from her. She would seek to get them unknown to her parents, and, when successful, would wake up in the night, shrieking with terror at what she had read. Hers was indeed a peculiarly active brain. It is necessary to mention this, as it may account, in some degree, for what follows.

There was really nothing the matter with the child, but Mrs. Ordie insisted that there was, and made herself miserable all the day. The surgeon, Mr. Percival, came; he saw little the matter with it, either, but he ordered it a warm bath, and sent in some medicine — probably distilled water and sugar: mothers and nurses must be humoured.

Mrs. Beecher called in, in the evening. Mrs. Ordie hinted that she might as well remain for the night, to be on the spot should baby be taken worse.

Mrs. Beecher laughed. “I think I can promise you that there will be no danger, Louisa. You may cease to torment yourself; if she was not quite well this morning, I can see that she is perfectly so to-night. You may go to sleep in peace.”

“You might as well stay. However, if anything does happen, I shall send to your house, and call you up.”

The Lings kept four servants. Of these, two, a man and maid, were with their master and mistress, the other two were at home. And there was the child’s nurse. After Mrs. Beecher left, Mrs. Ordie crept along the corridor to the nurse’s room, where the baby slept, and found the nurse undressing herself.

“What are you doing that for?” she indignantly exclaimed. “Of course you will sit up tonight, and watch my baby.”

“Sit up for what, ma’am?” returned the nurse.

“I would not leave the child unwatched tonight for anything. My other baby died of convulsions, and the same thing may attack this. They come on in a moment. I have ordered Martha to sit up in the kitchen and keep hot water in readiness.”

“Why, ma’am, there’s no cause in the world for it. The baby is as well as you or I, and has never woke up since I laid her down at eight o’clock.”

“She shall be watched this night,” persisted Mrs. Ordie. “So dress yourself again.”

“I must say it’s a shame,” grumbled the nurse, who had grown tired of her mistress’s capricious ways, and had privately told the other servants that she did not care how soon she left the situation. “I’d sit up for a week, if there was a call for it, but to be deprived of one’s natural rest, for nothing, is too bad. I’ll sit myself in the old rocking-chair, if I must sit up,” added the servant, half to herself, half to her mistress, “and get asleep that way.”

Mrs. Ordie’s eyes flashed anger. The fact was, the slavery of Eastern servants had a little spoiled her for the independence of European ones. She accused the girl of every crime that was unfeeling, short of child-murder, and concluded by having the infant’s crib carried down to her own room. She would sit up herself and watch it.

The child still slept calmly and quietly, and Mrs. Ordie sat quietly by it. But she began to find it rather dull, and she went to the book-shelves and got a book. It was then striking eleven. Setting the lamp on a small table at her elbow, she began to read.

She had pitched upon the “Vicar of Wakefield.” She had not opened the book for years, and she read on with interest, all her old pleasure in the tale revived. Suddenly she heard footsteps on the gravel path outside, advancing down it, and she looked off and listened. The first thought that struck her was, that one of the servants had been out without permission, and was coming in at that late hour, which, as her hanging watch, opposite, told her, was twenty-five minutes past eleven. It must be explained that Enton parsonage stood a little back from the high road, and was surrounded by trees. Two iron gates gave ingress from the road, by a broad, half-circular carriage path, which swept round close by the house, between it and the thick trees. A lawn and garden were at the back of the house, but there was no ingress there, or to any part of the premises, save through the iron gates. A narrow gravel path, branching off from the portico, led to the small house of the curate, not a hundred yards off, and that house was connected with the high road by one iron gate, and a straight walk. Broad enough for carriages also, but none ever went down it, for they could not turn. These iron gates — the rector’s two and the curate’s one — were invariably locked at sunset, all the year round: did any visitors approach either house, after that, they had to ring for admittance.

Mrs. Ordie heard footsteps in the stillness of the night, and her eyes glanced to her watch. Twenty-five minutes after eleven. But immediately an expression of astonishment rose to her face, and her eyes dilated and her lips opened, and her ears were strained to the sound. If ever she heard the footsteps of her husband, she was sure she heard them then.

She drew in her breath and listened still. They were coming nearer, close upon the house, his own sharp, quick, firm step, which she had never heard since she left him in Calcutta: they were right underneath her window now, on their way to the door. With a cry of joy she rose, and softly opened the window.

“George! dear George! I knew your step. Whatever brings you home?”

There was no answer, except the sound of the footsteps, but she leaned out, and by the rays, cast outside from the kitchen window, which was well lighted within, and stood far back, at right angles with the house door, she saw the form of the visitor. Rather dimly to be sure, but there was no mistaking it for any other than Captain Ordie, and he wore his regimentals. She watched him leave the broad path, and halt at the entrance to the portico, which was situated on the side of the house. She spoke again:

“George, you did not hear me. Don’t knock — baby’s ill. Wait a moment, and I will let you in.”

She sprang to the door. Her lamp was not one suitable for carrying, and she would not stay to light a taper: she knew every stair well, and sped down them. But she was awkward at the fastenings of the front door, and could not undo them in the dark. She ran into the kitchen for a light. The servant, sitting up in obedience to her orders, was lying back in a chair, her feet stretched out upon another. She was fast asleep and snoring. A large fire burnt in the grate, and two candles were alight on the ironing-board underneath the window, one of them guttering down. Servants will be wasteful.

“Martha! Martha!” she exclaimed, “rouse up. My husband’s come.”

“What!” cried the woman, starting up in affright, and evidently forgetting where she was, “who’s come?”

“Come and open the hall-door. Captain Ordie is there.”

She snatched one of the candles from the table, and bore to the door again. The servant followed, rubbing her eyes.

The door was unlocked and thrown open, and Mrs. Ordie drew a little back to give space for him to enter. No one came in. Mrs. Ordie looked out then, holding the candle above her head. She could not see him anywhere.

“Take the light,” she said to the maid, and she stepped outside beyond the portico, and looked about. “George!” she called out, “where are you? The door is open.” But Captain Ordie neither appeared nor answered.

“Well, I never knew such an extraordinary thing!” exclaimed Mrs. Ordie. “Where can he have gone?”

“Ma’am,” said the servant, who began now to be pretty well awake, “I don’t understand. Did you say anybody was come?”

“My husband is come. Captain Ordie.”

“From Mrs. Beecher’s?” asked the woman.

“Mrs. Beecher’s, no! What should bring him at Mrs. Beecher’s? He must have come direct from Portsmouth.”

“But he must have come to the door here from the Beechers’,” continued the servant. “He couldn’t have come any other how. The gates are locked.”

In her wonder at his appearance, this fact had not struck Mrs. Ordie. “One of them must have been left unfastened,” she said, after thinking. “That was very careless, Martha. It is your place to see to it when Richard’s out. Papa once turned a servant away for leaving the gates open at night.”

“I locked both the gates at sundown,” was the woman’s reply. “And the key’s hanging up in its place in the kitchen.”

“Impossible,” repeated Mrs. Ordie. “The Captain came in by the upper one, the furthest from here. I heard him the minute he put his foot on the gravel, and knew his step. You must have thought you locked it. George!” added Mrs. Ordie, in a louder tone. “George!”

There was no answer. No sound whatever broke the stillness of the night.

“Captain Ordie!” she repeated, “Captain Ordie!”

The servant was laughing to herself, taking care that her young mistress did not see her. She believed that Mrs. Ordie had been doing what she did — dropping asleep; and had dreamt she heard somebody on the gravel.

“I know what it is,” cried Mrs. Ordie, briskly. “He has never been here before, and finding the door was not immediately opened to him, has gone on to the Beechers, thinking this the wrong house.”

She ran down the narrow path as she spoke, which branched off from the portico, round by the kitchen window; and the maid followed her, first stopping to put the candle inside the hall. It was light, now they were out.

But nothing was to be seen of George Ordie. The curate’s house, a small one, was closed, and presented the appearance of a dwelling whose inmates were at rest; the blinds were drawn before the windows, and all was still. Mrs. Ordie ran over probabilities in her mind, and came to the conclusion that he could not have gone there. The Beechers were early people, and had no doubt been in bed an hour ago; and had her husband knocked there, he would be waiting at the door still, for they had not had time to come down and let him in.

“It could only have been fancy, ma’am,” cried Martha.

“Silence,” said Mrs. Ordie; “how can it have been fancy? I heard my husband, and saw him.”

“Well, ma’am, I argue so from the gates being fast. He couldn’t have got over ’em because of the spikes.”

“The gates can not be fast,” returned Mrs. Ordie, “and it is foolish in you to persist in the falsehood — only to screen your own carelessness.”

“I wish you’d just please to come and look at the gates,” retorted Martha.

“I will,” said Mrs. Ordie, starting off with alacrity, anxious to convict Martha to her face. “It is an utter impossibility that Captain Ordie could have come in at a high, locked gate, with spikes on the top; he would not attempt to do so.”

“That’s just what I say,” answered Martha. “I dreamt t’other night,” she muttered to herself, as she followed her mistress, “that a man came down that there path with lovely gownd pieces to sell: I might just as well have riz up the house, and had him routed for.”

They gained the broad walk, and proceeded round towards the gate. Mrs. Ordie put out her hand and tried it. It was locked. Martha sniffed.

“Why, it is like magic!” uttered Mrs. Ordie.

“I was positive and certain about its being locked, ma’am. And that’s why I said it must be fancy. I think it couldn’t have been nothing else.”

Mrs. Ordie was indignant. “Is this gate fancy?” she said, shaking it, in her anger.

“No, that’s a real gate.”

“Then don’t tell me again that my husband is fancy. How could I have seen and heard him if he were not come? Captain Ordie!” she called out, once more. “George! where can you have gone to?”

“If he is on the premises, he must be on ’em,” logically argued the servant. “Because there’s no outlet out of ’em, but by these gates.”

“Come to the other gate,” said Mrs. Ordie.

They retraced their steps round the circular path, Mrs. Ordie looking in all directions for a gleam of scarlet, and reached the other gate. It was also locked. Then she went and tried Mr. Beecher’s gate; it was likewise fast; and then she went to their own garden, at the back of the house, and looked and called. She even went into the summer-house, but there was no trace of Captain Ordie. The servant walked with her, half-amused, half-provoked.

“Can he have slipped in-doors,” murmured Mrs. Ordie, “that first time when we had gone down to the Beechers?” And she went in, looked in the sitting-rooms, ascended the stairs to her own room, where the light was, taking the opportunity to glance at her child, and then looked in the kitchen. But Captain Ordie was nowhere to be seen, and she had never been so much perplexed and puzzled in all her life.

“Then he must have gone on, as I thought, to Mr. Beecher’s,” was her last solution of the enigma. “They were possibly up, and let him in directly. And they are keeping him there till morning, that he may not disturb us, knowing that baby is ill.”

“But about the gate,” interrupted the servant, returning to her stumbling-block, “how could he have got through it?”

“I know he did get through it, and that’s enough,” responded Mrs. Ordie. “He may have managed to climb over it, not finding the bell. Soldiers have venturesome spirits. I will go and fetch him. You stop here, Martha, and listen to baby.”

Once more Mrs. Ordie sped to the curate’s. She knocked at the door, and stood back to look up at the house. “They have put him into their spare bed,” she soliloquised; “Mrs. Beecher has kept it made up this fortnight past, expecting their invalid from India. My goodness! I never thought of it! they have no doubt come together, in the same ship. George may have gone up to Calcutta, and finding James Beecher was coming, have got leave, all in a hurry, and accompanied him.”

But there was still no sign of light or life in the house, and Mrs. Ordie picked up some bits of gravel, and threw them at Mrs. Beecher’s bed-room window. This brought forth the curate, in his nightcap, peeping through the curtains.

“It is I, Mr. Beecher,” she called out. “Have you got Captain Ordie here?”

“Make haste, Anne,” cried the curate, turning his head round to speak to his wife. “It’s Mrs. Ordie. Perhaps the child is in a fit.”

“My husband is come,” repeated Mrs. Ordie. “He is here, is he not?”

“Yes, directly,” answered the curate, imperfectly understanding, but opening the casement about an inch, to speak.

“Is she really worse, Louisa?” exclaimed Mrs. Beecher, who now appeared at the window. “I will just throw on a few things, and be with you.”

The curate, believing the matter to be settled, drew in his nightcap, and closed the casement. But Mrs. Ordie’s voice was again heard. “Mr. Beecher! Mr. Beecher! I want you.”

“Dress yourself, my dear,” cried Mrs. Beecher to him, in a flurry. “I dare say they want you to go for Mr. Percival. If the baby is really worse, and it is not Louisa’s fancy, I shall never boast of knowing children again. It looked as cool and well in the evening as it need look. She is calling again.”

Mr. Beecher reopened the casement. “I am putting on my clothes, Mrs. Ordie. I am coming.”

“But you need not do that. Has your brother come?”

“Who?”

“Your brother: James Beecher.”

“No. Not yet.”

“There’s a ship in, as my husband has arrived. Tell him I am here.”

“We’ll be down in a minute,” called out Mr. Beecher, retiring from the window, and making desperate haste. “Anne, Captain Ordie’s come.”

“Captain Ordie!” exclaimed Mrs. Beecher.

“Mrs. Ordie says so.”

“Then we shall have James here to-morrow. How very unexpected Captain Ordie’s arrival must have been to his wife! And to find his child ill!”

Mrs. Ordie waited. Mrs. Beecher came down first, in a large shawl, and her bonnet tied over her nightcap. They began to speak at cross purposes.

“Is he coming? Have you told him?” impatiently asked Mrs. Ordie.

“My dear, yes. But he had gone upstairs in slippers, and his shoes were in the back kitchen. Louisa, you should not have come out yourself, you should have sent. Has not Captain Ordie’s arrival taken you by surprise?”

“I never was so much surprised,” answered Mrs. Ordie, standing still, and not offering to stir. “I heard his footstep first, and knew it even in the distance. I am so glad! He must have come with James Beecher.”

“Ay, we shall have James here tomorrow. But, my dear, let us not lose time. Is the child very ill?”

“She is not worse, there is no hurry,” answered Mrs. Ordie, planting her back against a tree, as deliberately as if she meant to make it her station for the night, and gazing up at the casement which she knew belonged to their spare bedroom. Mrs. Beecher looked at her in surprise. “Will he be long?” she added. “There’s no light.”

“He will be here directly,” said Mrs. Beecher; “he is finding his shoes. I suppose Kitty put them in some out-of-the-way place, ready for cleaning in the morning.”

Another pause, and the curate appeared.

“O Mr. Beecher! you need not have got up,” was Mrs. Ordie’s greeting. “I am sorry to give you all this trouble.”

“It is no trouble,” he rejoined. “Do you want me to go for Mr. Percival?”

“You are very kind, but we shall not want the doctor tonight: at least I hope not. She has never woke up once since she was laid down. I have been watching her myself: I had her brought down to my own room. Nurse behaved shamefully over it, and I gave her warning. She shall leave tomorrow.”

“Pray let us go on, and see how she is,” said Mrs. Beecher, never supposing but they had been called up by the state of the child, and thinking Mrs. Ordie’s words and delay very strange.

“When he comes. You say he will not be long. Had he undressed?”

“Had who undressed?”

“My husband.”

Mrs. Beecher stared at her with amazement. “I do not understand you, Louisa. For whom are we waiting here?”

“For my husband, of course. You say he is finding his shoes.”

Both Mr. and Mrs. Beecher thought her child’s illness was turning her crazy. “Louisa, you are mystifying us. Is your husband coming out, here, into the garden? Are we to wait here for him?”

“Why, you know he is coming out, and of course I shall wait for him. Only think of his travelling in his regimentals! Just as if he were on duty.”

“Where is Captain Ordie?” interposed the curate.

“Well, that’s a sensible question, from you,” laughed Mrs. Ordie. “I suppose he is in your spare bedroom, though I see no light. Or else hunting for his shoes in your kitchen.”

“Child,” said Mrs. Beecher, taking hold of her tenderly, “you are not well. I told you today what it would be, if you excited yourself. Let us take you home.”

“I will not go without my husband. There. And what makes him so long? I shall call to him.” She advanced and turned the handle of the door, but it resisted her efforts.

“Why, you have locked it!” she exclaimed, turning to Mr. Beecher. “You have locked him in.”

“Locked who in, child?” said Mrs. Beecher. “There’s nobody in the house but Kitty.”

“My husband is there. Did he not come to you, finding our house shut up?”

“No, certainly not. We have not seen him.”

“Mr. Beecher,” she impatiently uttered, “I asked you when you first came to the window, whether my husband had come here, and you said yes.”

“My dear young lady, I must have misunderstood your question. You know I am a little deaf. All I heard, with reference to Captain Ordie, was, that he had come: I supposed to your house. He has certainly not been to ours.”

“Then what were you talking of?” she reproachfully asked of Mrs. Beecher. “It was shameful to deceive me so! You said he had gone upstairs in slippers, and was finding his shoes. You know you did.”

“My dear child, I was speaking of Mr. Beecher. I did not know you thought your husband was here. Why did you think so?”

“If he is not here, where is he?” demanded Mrs. Ordie. “You need not look at me as though you thought I was out of my senses. Do you mean to say you have not seen Captain Ordie?”

“We have not, indeed. We went to bed at ten, and heard nothing, until you threw the gravel at the window.”

“Where can he be? What can he have done with himself?” uttered Mrs. Ordie, in deep tribulation.

“Did he leave you to come to our house? What time did he arrive?”

“It was at twenty-five minutes after eleven. I had got baby in my room, as I told you, and I was sitting by her, reading the ‘Vicar of Wakefield.’ All at once I heard footsteps approaching from the upper gate, and I knew they were my husband’s. He came close, and I looked out, and saw him, and called to him; he did not seem to hear me, but went in to the portico. I ran down to let him in, and to my surprise he was not there then, and I thought he must have come on to you.”

“Then you have not yet spoken with him?” exclaimed Mr. Beecher.

“Not yet.”

“Are you sure it was Captain Ordie? Who opened the gate to him?”

“No one. The gate is locked. There is the strange part of the business.”

“My dear Mrs. Ordie! I fear it must be all a mistake. Captain Ordie would not arrive here on foot, even if he landed unexpectedly; and he could not have got through a locked gate. Perhaps you were asleep.”

“Nonsense,” peevishly replied Mrs. Ordie; “I was as wide awake as I am now. I was deep in the book, and had not felt sleepy. I had got to that part where the fine ladies from town had gone in to neighbour Flamborough’s and caught them all at hunt-the-slipper, Olivia in the middle, bawling for fair play; where Mr. Burchell, afterwards, turns his back upon the company, and calls out ‘fudge’ at the ladies’ high-lived conversation. The ballad ‘Edwin and Angelina’ came in, a few pages before, and that I skipped. I assure you I was perfectly awake.”

“I do not think it possible to have been anything but a delusion,” persisted Mr. Beecher.

“How a delusion?” angrily asked the young lady; “I do not know what you mean. Delusions don’t visit people who are wide awake, and in their sober senses. If my hearing had played me false, Mr. Beecher, my sight could not. I heard my husband, and saw him, and spoke to him: do you think I should speak to somebody I did not know? I am certain it was Captain Ordie. He was in his regimentals: were they a delusion?”

“This is very strange,” said Mrs. Beecher.

“It is more than strange,” was Louisa Ordie’s answer, as she looked dreamily about. “He is in the grounds somewhere, and why he does not come forward, I don’t know.”

The mystery was not cleared up that night. The next day Mrs. Ordie sent for her father, to impart to him the strange circumstance. He adopted his curate’s view of the affair, and indeed the universal view. Mrs. Ordie was much annoyed at their disbelief, and she actually, in spite of her friends, had Captain Ordie advertised for, in the local papers: he was in England, she said, and it would be proved so.

When letters next arrived from India, there was one from Captain Ordie, which gave proof positive that he was not, and had not been, in Europe. Mrs. Ordie was perplexed, and refused to speak of it further, for she only got ridicule.

The weeks went on, and the time fixed for the departure of Mrs. Ordie and her child drew near, but meanwhile the disastrous news had arrived of the outbreak in India, and it was deemed advisable to postpone it.

She was sitting one day in a gloomy mood; not a sorrowful one; more one of anger. She had not heard from her husband for some time, (his last letter was dated April,) and now, as she found, another mail was in, and no news from him. The rising at Delhi, where he was quartered, was known to her, but not as yet the details of its more disastrous features. She did not fear his having fallen, for had anything happened to him, Mr. Main, or one of her sisters, would have written. They were all at Delhi. Mrs. Beecher came in, looking very pale and sad. Dr. and Mrs. Ling had gone off, in their pony carriage, to the county town, to pick up news. They were extremely uneasy.

“There has been another mail in these two days!” she exclaimed to Mrs. Beecher. “News travels slower to Enton than anywhere. Have you heard from James Beecher? You don’t look well.”

“He is come. He came overland.”

“And you have been worrying yourselves that he is dead! How are things going on over there?”

“Very badly. They can not be worse.”

“Does he know anything of George?” continued Mrs. Ordie. “I think he might spare a minute from his fighting to write to me. What is the matter with you? You have not bad news for me?” she added, her fears touched, and rising in excitement. “Oh! surely not! Not for me!”

“James’s news, altogether, is very dispiriting,” returned Mrs. Beecher, at a loss how to proceed with her task. “My husband is gone to bring Dr. and Mrs. Ling back. We thought you might like them to be at home.”

“Has George fallen in battle? Have those half-caste rebels shot him down? Oh—”

“Pray be calm, Louisa!” implored Mrs. Beecher; “if ever you had need of calmness in your life, you have need of it now. Affliction—”

“Is he wounded? Is he dead?” interrupted Mrs. Ordie, with a bitter shriek. “O George! dearest George! and I have been calling you hard names for not writing to me! What is it?”

“There is a great deal to be told, my child. James Beecher was at Delhi in the midst of it.”

Mrs. Ordie suddenly rose from her seat and flew from the room. Mrs. Beecher supposed she had gone to her chamber, and followed her there. Not so. A thin man, looking fearfully ill, fair once, but browned by an Eastern sun, was lying on the sofa in the curate’s parlour, when a young, excited woman came flying in.

“Mr. Beecher,” she uttered, seizing his hands imploringly, “when did it happen? I am Mrs. Ordie.”

“Has my sister-in-law told you — anything?” he asked, hesitatingly.

“Yes, yes. I know the worst. I want particulars.”

He had risen into an upright posture, though he could scarcely support himself, and she sat down beside him. He was a church missionary, a widower with children. “Are you sure that you can bear the details?” he asked, believing, from her words, that she knew the general facts.

“I am sure. Omit nothing. Mrs. Beecher says you were at Delhi.”

“I went there in the spring, to say farewell to some friends, ere I came home. At Delhi I was taken worse, and lay ill there.”

“But about the rising?”

“I am coming to it. On the second Monday in May, after breakfast, bad news came in. The 3rd Light Cavalry had dashed in from Meerut, fully armed, and were slaughtering the Europeans. Eighty-five of this regiment had been tried by court-martial at Meerut, for refusing to handle the greased cartridges, and sentenced to imprisonment. Their sentences were read out to them on parade on the previous Saturday, the 9th, and they were sent to jail. On the 10th, Sunday, the regiment rose, released the prisoners, massacred the European officers, their wives and children, and on the 11th came to Delhi, in open revolt. I struggled up, dressed myself, joined my friends where I was staying, and we waited further news. It came in too soon. The mutineers had gone towards Deriowgunge, shooting all the officers they encountered. The brigadier ordered out the 54th Native Infantry and two guns; and, I believe, a detachment of another regiment, but accounts varied. They met the rebels just outside the Cashmere gate, and it was all up, for the Sepoys deserted their officers, and shook hands with the Sowars. Every officer was killed: treacherous, cowardly wretches! they did not spare one.”

She was biting her lips, and striving for calmness, determined to hear all. “Did the officers not resist?”

“All in their power, but they were unarmed,” he said. “The next account that came in was, that the natives had risen and joined the insurrection, were firing the bungalows at Deriowgunge, and ransacking the European residences. The troopers were raging about, destroying life, and when their work was done, the Goojurs, [01] who had collected in great numbers, as they were sure to do, followed in their wake, and pillaged everything, even to the matting. The bank was rifled.”

[01] A race of a peculiar caste, who congregate round Meerut and Delhi. They have been compared to our gipsy tribes, and live by plunder, even in times of peace. Some years ago a regiment was obliged to be raised especially to keep them under. [Author’s note.]

Mr. Beecher paused, wondering whether he ought to proceed, but her studied calmness deceived him.

“No one knew where to fly for refuge, or what to do: none knew where to put the officers’ wives and children. Many were taken to the Flagstaff Tower, but it was thought unsafe, and had to be abandoned. Some escaped — many, I hope — in conveyances, or on horseback, or on foot. Some of the officers retreated to the cantonment, outside the gates, but the troopers got there when night came, killed them and their wives and children.”

“Were any of my family with them?” she asked, still with unnatural composure.

“No. I will tell you. Before mid-day the ladies of our house, my host’s wife and her cousin, escaped to a close hut, or outhouse, and I managed to hobble there with them. I don’t know how: but it is astonishing the artificial strength that fear brings out. Others also took refuge there, about half a dozen ladies, your two sisters being amongst them, three or four children, and a poor little ensign, as ill and weak as I was. We hoped we were in safety; that the rebels would not think of looking for us there; and some old matting, well wetted, was hung up across the entrance, as if to dry. A Sepoy, who was really faithful, (and there were many such in the city,) sat before it to guard it: many a one, raging after prey, did he turn aside with a well-assumed story that his old mother was in there, dying — let her die in peace.”

“Was my husband there?”

“Not then. No one came near us all day; they dared not, for our sakes; and we bore our suspense and apprehension as we best could, not knowing who was living or who dead, of those dearest to us. What a day that was! We had neither food nor drink; the heat of the weather was fearful; and so many of us stowed together, and closely shut up, rendered the air fetid. We thought it could not be less than 110 degrees. This was not the worst: there were the apprehensions of discovery. We men might brave it, at any rate to appearance, but the poor young women! I believe they would have been glad to die as they cowered there, rather than live to encounter an uncertain fate. I strove to speak comfort to them all, but it was difficult: one or two bore bravely up, and cheered the rest. Late at night, under cover of the darkness, Captain Ordie stole in.”

She raised a faint cry at the name. “My husband!”

“He told us what he could of the progress of the day: it was horribly bad, yet I believed he softened it for their ears: and then began to talk of our own situation. It would be impossible, he said, to keep in the same place of concealment another day, and that we had better join a party who were about to make their escape towards Kurnaul. All seized at the idea eagerly, and wished to start without the delay of an instant. Just then, Mrs. Holt, my friend’s wife, whom the idea of escape had aroused from lethargy inquired after her husband, whom she had not seen since morning.

“‘He is safe, and unharmed,’ replied Captain Ordie.

“‘On your honour?’ she said, fearing he might be deceiving her.

“‘On my honour. You will see him when we are fairly off; but it was not thought well for more than one of us to venture here.’

“‘And my husband?’ added Mrs. Main, who had done nothing but clasp her baby to her breast all day, and weep silently. ‘Is he safe?’

“Captain Ordie answered evasively,” continued Mr. Beecher, “and I knew, by his words and by the turn of his face, that poor Main was gone.”

“Was he? Is he dead?” shuddered Mrs. Ordie.

“I found he had been dead since the afternoon. The troopers had hacked him to pieces.”

“Go on,” she groaned. “George’s turn comes next.”

Mr. Beecher hesitated. “I will finish later,” he suggested.

“No: finish now. You can not leave me in this suspense. It would be cruel.”

“Captain Ordie spoke of the plan of departure. The officers had but three horses amongst them, and the ladies and invalids were to take it in turn to ride, two, with a child, on each horse. And all the party were to keep together. At that moment arose a yell, a horrible yell, which we knew proceeded only from a Sowar, and one of them appeared at the entrance, tearing down the matting. All the light we had was a night-wick in some oil, but we saw his dark face. The children shrieked; the ladies also, and huddled themselves together in a corner; and Captain Ordie advanced to the entrance, and dealt the man a blow on the temple with the butt-end of his pistol.”

“I hope it killed him!” she uttered, her eyes sparkling.

“I think it did, for he lay motionless. Captain Ordie kicked him out of the way, and, throwing himself on his hands and knees, crawled out cautiously to reconnoitre. Alas! we soon heard a struggle outside: two more were upon him.”

“And he was struck down! I know you are going to tell it me,” she uttered, in a low, passionate wail.

Mr. Beecher sat silent, his countenance full of distress.

“Louisa, my darling, be composed,” interrupted Mrs. Beecher, who had stolen in, in search of her. “You know the worst now.”

“Yes, I know the worst,” she moaned. “They killed him there and then.”

“They did,” whispered Mr. Beecher.

“You are sure he was dead?”

“Quite sure. It was instantaneous.”

“Where was he wounded? Let me know. I can bear it.”

“My child, you know enough,” said Mrs. Beecher. “Be content.”

“I will know it,” she frantically said. “George, George! Did they cut him to pieces!”

“They beheaded him.”

She turned sick, and shook violently. But, by a strong effort of control, spoke again. “Finish the history. What became of you, inside?”

“It was all commotion in a moment, dreadful commotion. The poor terrified women attempted to fly; some succeeded, and I hope escaped. Providentially there were only these two troopers; had more been upon us, none would have been left. The first thing I saw distinctly was, that one of them had got Mrs. Main’s infant, tossing it on the point of his bayonet. She stretched her arms up after it, and its blood trickled down on to her face: her cries for mercy for it ring in my ear yet. He next seized her.”

“Constance?” panted Mrs. Ordie.

“Yes. And killed her — killed her instantly. Be thankful.”

Mrs. Ordie pressed down her eyeballs, as if she would shut out some unwelcome sight. “Constance murdered,” she moaned. “And you tell me to be thankful!”

“Be ever thankful,” impressively spoke the missionary. “Others met with a worse fate.”

“Sarah Ann?” she shivered. “What became of her!”

“I am unable to tell you. I trust she escaped. At the moment of Mrs. Main’s death, I fainted on the floor where I was lying, and that must have saved my life. Had the troopers thought I possessed any life still, they would not have spared me. When I recovered, not a creature — living — was to be seen. The children were lying about; they had been put out of their misery; two of the ladies, and the ensign. Poor young fellow! he had told us, in the day, that he had no parents or near friends to mourn him, so the loss of a little griff, if they did kill him, would not count for much.”

“Dead? All?”

“All. The two ladies were Mrs. Holt and Mrs. Main. Of the other ladies I saw no trace. I trust,” he added, clasping his hands fervently, “that they escaped. We shall hear of many miraculous escapes: I pray theirs may be of the number.”

“Now, Louisa, let me take you home,” urged Mrs. Beecher. “You do know the worst.”

“I must hear all,” was the answer, uttered in a tone of frenzy. “If I thought there was a word, a recital, left untold to me, I must get up in the middle of the night, and come and ask for it.”

“You have heard all,” said Mr. Beecher — “all that I know. My own escape I will not trouble you with. It was wonderful: and I lost no time in coming home overland.”

She leaned back on the sofa and closed her eyes. Mrs. Beecher was thinking of her random words — that she would rather lose everything in the world than her child. But her thoughts had not grasped the dreadful possibility of losing her husband.

“When did this happen?” Mrs. Ordie suddenly asked. “What date?”

“I mentioned it,” said Mr. Beecher. “Late on the night of the 11th of May.”

She leaned forward breathless, her eyes staring. “How late? The exact hour? Speak?”

“It must have been near half past eleven. When Captain Ordie came in, we asked him the time, (for, strange to say, in our hurried hiding, not one of us put a watch about us,) and his watch said a quarter past eleven; and we were talking, after that, perhaps ten minutes. It must have been about twenty-five minutes after eleven when he was killed.”

“Listen to that!” shrieked Louisa Ordie, seizing Mrs. Beecher by the arm. “It was the very hour I saw and heard him. How was he dressed?” she rapidly asked.

“In full regimentals.”

“There! There! Do you believe me now, Mrs. Beecher? Ah! you, and all, ridiculed me; but hear it! It was my husband that came down the path here — appearing to me in the moment of his death.”

•   •   •

The reader must judge of this mystery according to his own opinion. It happened; at least, to the positive belief of the lady, here called Mrs. Ordie; as her friends can testify. They reason with her in vain. They point out that twenty-five minutes after eleven in Delhi would not be twenty-five minutes after eleven here: they believe that it was, and could have been, nothing but her own vivid imagination, that her thoughts were probably running on her husband through the “George” in the “Vicar of Wakefield:” and they ask — even allowing (for the argument of the moment) that such things are permitted, that the spirits of the departing may, in rare instances, appear to their relatives in a distant place, and that it was George Ordie’s which appeared to her — they ask to what end it came: what purpose was it to answer? They can see none. Neither can she; but she nevertheless believes, and will believe to the end of her life, that it was her husband’s spirit.

“Bentley’s Miscellany”, Oct. 1857

SQUIRE TOBY’S WILL

A GHOST STORY

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

1868

Many persons accustomed to travel the old York and London road, in the days of stage-coaches, will remember passing, in the afternoon, say, of an autumn day, in their journey to the capital, about three miles south of the town of Applebury, and a mile and a half before you reach the old Angel Inn, a large black-and-white house, as those old-fashioned cage-work habitations are termed, dilapidated and weather-stained, with broad lattice windows glimmering all over in the evening sun with little diamond panes, and thrown into relief by a dense background of ancient elms. A wide avenue, now overgrown like a churchyard with grass and weeds, and flanked by double rows of the same dark trees, old and gigantic, with here and there a gap in their solemn files, and sometimes a fallen tree lying across on the avenue, leads up to the hall door.

Looking up its sombre and lifeless avenue from the top of the London coach, as I have often done, you are struck with so many signs of desertion and decay — the tufted grass sprouting in the chinks of the steps and window-stones, the smokeless chimneys over which the jackdaws are wheeling, the absence of human life and all its evidence, that you conclude at once that the place is uninhabited and abandoned to decay. The name of this ancient house is Gylingden Hall. Tall hedges and old timber quickly shroud the old place from view, and about a quarter of a mile further on you pass, embowered in melancholy trees, a small and ruinous Saxon chapel, which, time out of mind, has been the burying-place of the family of Marston, and partakes of the neglect and desolation which brood over their ancient dwelling-place.

The grand melancholy of the secluded valley of Gylingden, lonely as an enchanted forest, in which the crows returning to their roosts among the trees, and the straggling deer who peep from beneath their branches, seem to hold a wild and undisturbed dominion, heightens the forlorn aspect of Gylingden Hall.

Of late years repairs have been neglected, and here and there the roof is stripped, and “the stitch in time” has been wanting. At the side of the house exposed to the gales that sweep through the valley like a torrent through its channel, there is not a perfect window left, and the shutters but imperfectly exclude the rain. The ceilings and walls are mildewed and green with damp stains. Here and there, where the drip falls from the ceiling, the floors are rotting. On stormy nights, as the guard described, you can hear the doors clapping in the old house, as far away as old Gryston bridge, and the howl and sobbing of the wind through its empty galleries.

About seventy years ago died the old Squire, Toby Marston, famous in that part of the world for his hounds, his hospitality, and his vices. He had done kind things, and he had fought duels: he had given away money and he had horsewhipped people. He carried with him some blessings and a good many curses, and left behind him an amount of debts and charges upon the estates which appalled his two sons, who had no taste for business or accounts, and had never suspected, till that wicked, open-handed, and swearing old gentleman died, how very nearly he had run the estates into insolvency.

They met at Gylingden Hall. They had the will before them, and lawyers to interpret, and information without stint, as to the encumbrances with which the deceased had saddled them. The will was so framed as to set the two brothers instantly at deadly feud.

These brothers differed in some points; but in one material characteristic they resembled one another, and also their departed father. They never went into a quarrel by halves, and once in, they did not stick at trifles.

The elder, Scroope Marston, the more dangerous man of the two, had never been a favourite of the old Squire. He had no taste for the sports of the field and the pleasures of a rustic life. He was no athlete, and he certainly was not handsome. All this the Squire resented. The young man, who had no respect for him, and outgrew his fear of his violence as he came to manhood, retorted. This aversion, therefore, in the ill-conditioned old man grew into positive hatred. He used to wish that damned pippin-squeezing, hump-backed rascal Scroope, out of the way of better men — meaning his younger son Charles; and in his cups would talk in a way which even the old and young fellows who followed his hounds, and drank his port, and could stand a reasonable amount of brutality, did not like.

Scroope Marston was slightly deformed, and he had the lean sallow face, piercing black eyes, and black lank hair, which sometimes accompany deformity.

“I’m no feyther o’ that hog-backed creature. I’m no sire of hisn, damn him! I’d as soon call that tongs son o’ mine,” the old man used to bawl, in allusion to his son’s long, lank limbs: “Charlie’s a man, but that’s a jack-an-ape. He has no good-nature; there’s nothing handy, nor manly, nor no one turn of a Marston in him.”

And when he was pretty drunk, the old Squire used to swear he should never “sit at the head o’ that board; nor frighten away folk from Gylingden Hall wi’ his damned hatchet-face — the black loon!”

“Handsome Charlie was the man for his money. He knew what a horse was, and could sit to his bottle; and the lasses were all clean mad about him. He was a Marston every inch of his six foot two.”

Handsome Charlie and he, however, had also had a row or two. The old Squire was free with his horsewhip as with his tongue, and on occasion when neither weapon was quite practicable, had been known to give a fellow “a tap o’ his knuckles.” Handsome Charlie, however, thought there was a period at which personal chastisement should cease; and one night, when the port was flowing, there was some allusion to Marion Hayward, the miller’s daughter, which for some reason the old gentleman did not like. Being “in liquor,” and having clearer ideas about pugilism than self-government, he struck out, to the surprise of all present, at Handsome Charlie. The youth threw back his head scientifically, and nothing followed but the crash of a decanter on the floor. But the old Squire’s blood was up, and he bounced from his chair. Up jumped Handsome Charlie, resolved to stand no nonsense. Drunken Squire Lilbourne, intending to mediate, fell flat on the floor, and cut his ear among the glasses. Handsome Charlie caught the thump which the old Squire discharged at him upon his open hand, and catching him by the cravat, swung him with his back to the wall. They said the old man never looked so purple, nor his eyes so goggle before; and then Handsome Charlie pinioned him tight to the wall by both arms.

“Well, I say — come, don’t you talk no more nonsense o’ that sort, and I won’t lick you,” croaked the old Squire. “You stopped that un clever, you did. Didn’t he? Come, Charlie, man, gie us your hand, I say, and sit down again, lad.” And so the battle ended; and I believe it was the last time the Squire raised his hand to Handsome Charlie.

But those days were over. Old Toby Marston lay cold and quiet enough now, under the drip of the mighty ash-tree within the Saxon ruin where so many of the old Marston race returned to dust, and were forgotten. The weather-stained top-boots and leather-breeches, the three-cornered cocked hat to which old gentlemen of that day still clung, and the well-known red waistcoat that reached below his hips, and the fierce pug face of the old Squire, were now but a picture of memory. And the brothers between whom he had planted an irreconcilable quarrel, were now in their new mourning suits, with the gloss still on, debating furiously across the table in the great oak parlour, which had so often resounded to the banter and coarse songs, the oaths and laughter of the congenial neighbours whom the old Squire of Gylingden Hall loved to assemble there.

These young gentlemen, who had grown up in Gylingden Hall, were not accustomed to bridle their tongues, nor, if need be, to hesitate about a blow. Neither had been at the old man’s funeral. His death had been sudden. Having been helped to his bed in that hilarious and quarrelsome state which was induced by port and punch, he was found dead in the morning — his head hanging over the side of the bed, and his face very black and swollen.

Now the Squire’s will despoiled his eldest son of Gylingden, which had descended to the heir time out of mind. Scroope Marston was furious. His deep stern voice was heard inveighing against his dead father and living brother, and the heavy thumps on the table with which he enforced his stormy recriminations resounded through the large chamber. Then broke in Charles’s rougher voice, and then came a quick alternation of short sentences, and then both voices together in growing loudness and anger, and at last, swelling the tumult, the expostulations of pacific and frightened lawyers, and at last a sudden break up of the conference. Scroope broke out of the room, his pale furious face showing whiter against his long black hair, his dark fierce eyes blazing, his hands clenched, and looking more ungainly and deformed than ever in the convulsions of his fury.

Very violent words must have passed between them; for Charlie, though he was the winning man, was almost as angry as Scroope. The elder brother was for holding possession of the house, and putting his rival to legal process to oust him. But his legal advisers were clearly against it. So, with a heart boiling over with gall, up he went to London, and found the firm who had managed his father’s business fair and communicative enough. They looked into the settlements, and found that Gylingden was excepted. It was very odd, but so it was, specially excepted; so that the right of the old Squire to deal with it by his will could not be questioned.

Notwithstanding all this, Scroope, breathing vengeance and aggression, and quite willing to wreck himself provided he could run his brother down, assailed Handsome Charlie, and battered old Squire Toby’s will in the Prerogative Court and also at common law, and the feud between the brothers was knit, and every month their exasperation was heightened.

Scroope was beaten, and defeat did not soften him. Charles might have forgiven hard words; but he had been himself worsted during the long campaign in some of those skirmishes, special motions, and so forth, that constitute the episodes of a legal epic like that in which the Marston brothers figured as opposing combatants; and the blight of law costs had touched him, too, with the usual effect upon the temper of a man of embarrassed means.

Years flew, and brought no healing on their wings. On the contrary, the deep corrosion of this hatred bit deeper by time. Neither brother married. But an accident of a different kind befell the younger, Charles Marston, which abridged his enjoyments very materially.

This was a bad fall from his hunter. There were severe fractures, and there was concussion of the brain. For some time it was thought that he could not recover. He disappointed these evil auguries, however. He did recover, but changed in two essential particulars. He had received an injury in his hip, which doomed him never more to sit in the saddle. And the rollicking animal spirits which hitherto had never failed him, had now taken flight forever.

He had been for five days in a state of coma — absolute insensibility — and when he recovered consciousness he was haunted by an indescribable anxiety.

Tom Cooper, who had been butler in the palmy days of Gylingden Hall, under old Squire Toby, still maintained his post with old-fashioned fidelity, in these days of faded splendour and frugal housekeeping. Twenty years had passed since the death of his old master. He had grown lean, and stooped, and his face, dark with the peculiar brown of age, furrowed and gnarled, and his temper, except with his master, had waxed surly.

His master had visited Bath and Buxton, and came back, as he went, lame, and halting gloomily about with the aid of a stick. When the hunter was sold, the last tradition of the old life at Gylingden disappeared. The young Squire, as he was still called, excluded by his mischance from the hunting-field, dropped into a solitary way of life, and halted slowly and solitarily about the old place, seldom raising his eyes, and with an appearance of indescribable gloom.

Old Cooper could talk freely on occasion with his master; and one day he said, as he handed him his hat and stick in the hall:

“You should rouse yourself up a bit, Master Charles!”

“It’s past rousing with me, old Cooper.”

“It’s just this, I’m thinking: there’s something on your mind, and you won’t tell no one. There’s no good keeping it on your stomach. You’ll be a deal lighter if you tell it. Come, now, what is it, Master Charlie?”

The Squire looked with his round grey eyes straight into Cooper’s eyes. He felt that there was a sort of spell broken. It was like the old rule of the ghost who can’t speak till it is spoken to. He looked earnestly into old Cooper’s face for some seconds, and sighed deeply.

“It ain’t the first good guess you’ve made in your day, old Cooper, and I’m glad you’ve spoke. It’s bin on my mind, sure enough, ever since I had that fall. Come in here after me, and shut the door.”

The Squire pushed open the door of the oak parlour, and looked round on the pictures abstractedly. He had not been there for some time, and, seating himself on the table, he looked again for a while in Cooper’s face before he spoke.

“It’s not a great deal, Cooper, but it troubles me, and I would not tell it to the parson nor the doctor; for, God knows what they’d say, though there’s nothing to signify in it. But you were always true to the family, and I don’t mind if I tell you.”

“’Tis as safe with Cooper, Master Charles, as if ’twas locked in a chest, and sunk in a well.”

“It’s only this,” said Charles Marston, looking down on the end of his stick, with which he was tracing lines and circles, “all the time I was lying like dead, as you thought, after that fall, I was with the old master.” He raised his eyes to Cooper’s again as he spoke, and with an awful oath he repeated — “I was with him, Cooper!”

“He was a good man, sir, in his way,” repeated old Cooper, returning his gaze with awe. “He was a good master to me, and a good father to you, and I hope he’s happy. May God rest him!”

“Well,” said Squire Charles, “it’s only this: the whole of that time I was with him, or he was with me — I don’t know which. The upshot is, we were together, and I thought I’d never get out of his hands again, and all the time he was bullying me about some one thing; and if it was to save my life, Tom Cooper, by God, from the time I waked I never could call to mind what it was; and I think I’d give that hand to know; and if you can think of anything it might be — for God’s sake! don’t be afraid, Tom Cooper, but speak it out, for he threatened me hard, and it was surely him.”

Here ensued a silence.

“And what did you think it might be yourself, Master Charles?” said Cooper.

“I han’t thought of aught that’s likely. I’ll never hit on’t — never. I thought it might happen he knew something about that damn hump-backed villain, Scroope, that swore before Lawyer Gingham I made away with a paper of settlements — me and father; and, as I hope to be saved, Tom Cooper, there never was a bigger lie! I’d a had the law of him for them identical words, and cast him for more than he’s worth; only Lawyer Gingham never goes into nothing for me since money grew scarce in Gylingden; and I can’t change my lawyer, I owe him such a hatful of money. But he did, he swore he’d hang me yet for it. He said it in them identical words — he’d never rest till he hanged me for it, and I think it was, like enough, something about that, the old master was troubled; but it’s enough to drive a man mad. I can’t bring it to mind — I can’t remember a word he said, only he threatened awful, and looked — Lord a mercy on us! — frightful bad.”

“There’s no need he should. May the Lord a-mercy on him!” said the old butler.

“No, of course; and you’re not to tell a soul, Cooper — not a living soul, mind, that I said he looked bad, nor nothing about it.”

“God forbid!” said old Cooper, shaking his head. “But I was thinking, sir, it might ha’ been about the slight that’s bin so long put on him by having no stone over him, and never a scratch o’ a chisel to say who he is.”

“Aye! Well, I didn’t think o’ that. Put on your hat, old Cooper, and come down wi’ me; for I’ll look after that, at any rate.”

There is a bypath leading by a turnstile to the park, and thence to the picturesque old burying-place, which lies in a nook by the roadside, embowered in ancient trees. It was a fine autumnal sunset, and melancholy lights and long shadows spread their peculiar effects over the landscape as “Handsome Charlie” and the old butler made their way slowly toward the place where Handsome Charlie was himself to lie at last.

“Which of the dogs made that howling all last night?” asked the Squire, when they had got on a little way.

“’Twas a strange dog, Master Charlie, in front of the house; ours was all in the yard — a white dog wi’ a black head, he looked to be, and he was smelling round them mounting-steps the old master, God be wi’ him! set up, the time his knee was bad. When the tyke got up a’ top of them, howlin’ up at the windows, I’d a liked to shy something at him.”

“Hullo! Is that like him?” said the Squire, stopping short, and pointing with his stick at a dirty-white dog, with a large black head, which was scampering round them in a wide circle, half crouching with that air of uncertainty and deprecation which dogs so well know how to assume.

He whistled the dog up. He was a large, half-starved bulldog.

“That fellow has made a long journey — thin as a whipping-post, and stained all over, and his claws worn to the stumps,” said the Squire, musingly. “He isn’t a bad dog, Cooper. My poor father liked a good bulldog, and knew a cur from a good ’un.”

The dog was looking up into the Squire’s face with the peculiar grim visage of his kind, and the Squire was thinking irreverently how strong a likeness it presented to the character of his father’s fierce pug features when he was clutching his horsewhip and swearing at a keeper.

“If I did right I’d shoot him. He’ll worry the cattle, and kill our dogs,” said the Squire. “Hey, Cooper? I’ll tell the keeper to look after him. That fellow could pull down a sheep, and he shan’t live on my mutton.”

But the dog was not to be shaken off. He looked wistfully after the Squire, and after they had got a little way on, he followed timidly.

It was vain trying to drive him off. The dog ran round them in wide circles, like the infernal dog in “Faust”; only he left no track of thin flame behind him. These manoeuvres were executed with a sort of beseeching air, which flattered and touched the object of this odd preference. So he called him up again, patted him, and then and there in a manner adopted him.

The dog now followed their steps dutifully, as if he had belonged to Handsome Charlie all his days. Cooper unlocked the little iron door, and the dog walked in close behind their heels, and followed them as they visited the roofless chapel.

The Marstons were lying under the floor of this little building in rows. There is not a vault. Each has his distinct grave enclosed in a lining of masonry. Each is surmounted by a stone kist, on the upper flag of which is enclosed his epitaph, except that of poor old Squire Toby. Over him was nothing but the grass and the line of masonry which indicate the site of the kist, whenever his family should afford him one like the rest.

“Well, it does look shabby. It’s the elder brother’s business; but if he won’t, I’ll see to it myself, and I’ll take care, old boy, to cut sharp and deep in it, that the elder son having refused to lend a hand the stone was put there by the younger.”

They strolled round this little burial-ground. The sun was now below the horizon, and the red metallic glow from the clouds, still illuminated by the departed sun, mingled luridly with the twilight. When Charlie peeped again into the little chapel, he saw the ugly dog stretched upon Squire Toby’s grave, looking at least twice his natural length, and performing such antics as made the young Squire stare. If you have ever seen a cat stretched on the floor, with a bunch of Valerian, straining, writhing, rubbing its jaws in long-drawn caresses, and in the absorption of a sensual ecstasy, you have seen a phenomenon resembling that which Handsome Charlie witnessed on looking in.

The head of the brute looked so large, its body so long and thin, and its joints so ungainly and dislocated, that the Squire, with old Cooper beside him, looked on with a feeling of disgust and astonishment, which, in a moment or two more, brought the Squire’s stick down upon him with a couple of heavy thumps. The beast awakened from his ecstasy, sprang to the head of the grave, and there on a sudden, thick and bandy as before, confronted the Squire, who stood at its foot, with a terrible grin, and eyes that glared with the peculiar green of canine fury.

The next moment the dog was crouching abjectly at the Squire’s feet.

“Well, he’s a rum ’un!” said old Cooper, looking hard at him.

“I like him,” said the Squire.

“I don’t,” said Cooper.

“But he shan’t come in here again,” said the Squire.

“I shouldn’t wonder if he was a witch,” said old Cooper, who remembered more tales of witchcraft than are now current in that part of the world.

“He’s a good dog,” said the Squire, dreamily. “I remember the time I’d a given a handful for him — but I’ll never be good for nothing again. Come along.”

And he stooped down and patted him. So up jumped the dog and looked up in his face, as if watching for some sign, ever so slight, which he might obey.

Cooper did not like a bone in that dog’s skin. He could not imagine what his master saw to admire in him. He kept him all night in the gun-room, and the dog accompanied him in his halting rambles about the place. The fonder his master grew of him, the less did Cooper and the other servants like him.

“He hasn’t a point of a good dog about him,” Cooper would growl. “I think Master Charlie be blind. And old Captain (an old red parrot, who sat chained to a perch in the oak parlour, and conversed with himself, and nibbled at his claws and bit his perch all day) — old Captain, the only living thing, except one or two of us, and the Squire himself, that remembers the old master, the minute he saw the dog, screeched as if he was struck, shakin’ his feathers out quite wild, and drops down, poor old soul, a-hangin’ by his foot, in a fit.”

But there is no accounting for fancies, and the Squire was one of those dogged persons who persist more obstinately in their whims the more they are opposed. But Charles Marston’s health suffered by his lameness. The transition from habitual and violent exercise to such a life as his privation now consigned him to, was never made without a risk to health; and a host of dyspeptic annoyances, the existence of which he had never dreamed of before, now beset him in sad earnest. Among these was the now not unfrequent troubling of his sleep with dreams and nightmares. In these his canine favourite invariably had a part and was generally a central, and sometimes a solitary figure. In these visions the dog seemed to stretch himself up the side of the Squire’s bed, and in dilated proportions to sit at his feet, with a horrible likeness to the pug features of old Squire Toby, with his tricks of wagging his head and throwing up his chin; and then he would talk to him about Scroope, and tell him “all wasn’t straight,” and that he “must make it up wi’ Scroope,” that he, the old Squire, had “served him an ill turn,” that “time was nigh up,” and that “fair was fair,” and he was “troubled where he was, about Scroope.”

Then in his dream this semi-human brute would approach his face to his, crawling and crouching up his body, heavy as lead, till the face of the beast was laid on his, with the same odious caresses and stretchings and writhings which he had seen over the old Squire’s grave. Then Charlie would wake up with a gasp and a howl, and start upright in the bed, bathed in a cold moisture, and fancy he saw something white sliding off the foot of the bed. Sometimes he thought it might be the curtain with white lining that slipped down, or the coverlet disturbed by his uneasy turnings; but he always fancied, at such moments, that he saw something white sliding hastily off the bed; and always when he had been visited by such dreams the dog next morning was more than usually caressing and servile, as if to obliterate, by a more than ordinary welcome, the sentiment of disgust which the horror of the night had left behind it.

The doctor half-satisfied the Squire that there was nothing in these dreams, which, in one shape or another, invariably attended forms of indigestion such as he was suffering from.

For a while, as if to corroborate this theory, the dog ceased altogether to figure in them. But at last there came a vision in which, more unpleasantly than before, he did resume his old place.

In his nightmare the room seemed all but dark; he heard what he knew to be the dog walking from the door round his bed slowly, to the side from which he always had come upon it. A portion of the room was uncarpeted, and he said he distinctly heard the peculiar tread of a dog, in which the faint clatter of the claws is audible. It was a light stealthy step, but at every tread the whole room shook heavily; he felt something place itself at the foot of his bed, and saw a pair of green eyes staring at him in the dark, from which he could not remove his own. Then he heard, as he thought, the old Squire Toby say — “The eleventh hour be passed, Charlie, and ye’ve done nothing — you and I ’a done Scroope a wrong!” and then came a good deal more, and then — “The time’s nigh up, it’s going to strike.” And with a long low growl, the thing began to creep up upon his feet; the growl continued, and he saw the reflection of the upturned green eyes upon the bed-clothes, as it began slowly to stretch itself up his body towards his face. With a loud scream, he waked. The light, which of late the Squire was accustomed to have in his bedroom, had accidentally gone out. He was afraid to get up, or even to look about the room for some time; so sure did he feel of seeing the green eyes in the dark fixed on him from some corner. He had hardly recovered from the first agony which nightmare leaves behind it, and was beginning to collect his thoughts, when he heard the clock strike twelve. And he bethought him of the words “the eleventh hour be passed — time’s nigh up — it’s going to strike!” and he almost feared that he would hear the voice reopening the subject.

Next morning the Squire came down looking ill.

“Do you know a room, old Cooper,” said he, “they used to call King Herod’s Chamber?”

“Aye, sir; the story of King Herod was on the walls o’t when I was a boy.”

“There’s a closet off it — is there?”

“I can’t be sure o’ that; but ’tisn’t worth your looking at, now; the hangings was rotten, and took off the walls, before you was born; and there’s nowt there but some old broken things and lumber. I seed them put there myself by poor Twinks; he was blind of an eye, and footman afterwards. You’ll remember Twinks? He died here, about the time o’ the great snow. There was a deal o’ work to bury him, poor fellow!”

“Get the key, old Cooper; I’ll look at the room,” said the Squire.

“And what the devil can you want to look at it for?” said Cooper, with the old-world privilege of a rustic butler.

“And what the devil’s that to you? But I don’t mind if I tell you. I don’t want that dog in the gun-room, and I’ll put him somewhere else; and I don’t care if I put him there.”

“A bulldog in a bedroom! Oons, sir! the folks ’ill say you’re clean mad!”

“Well, let them; get you the key, and let us look at the room.”

“You’d shoot him if you did right, Master Charlie. You never heard what a noise he kept up all last night in the gun-room, walking to and fro growling like a tiger in a show; and, say what you like, the dog’s not worth his feed; he hasn’t a point of a dog; he’s a bad dog.”

“I know a dog better than you — and he’s a good dog!” said the Squire, testily.

“If you was a judge of a dog you’d hang that ’un,” said Cooper.

“I’m not a-going to hang him, so there’s an end. Go you, and get the key; and don’t be talking, mind, when you go down. I may change my mind.”

Now this freak of visiting King Herod’s room had, in truth, a totally different object from that pretended by the Squire. The voice in his nightmare had uttered a particular direction, which haunted him, and would give him no peace until he had tested it. So far from liking that dog today, he was beginning to regard it with a horrible suspicion; and if old Cooper had not stirred his obstinate temper by seeming to dictate, I dare say he would have got rid of that inmate effectually before evening.

Up to the third storey, long disused, he and old Cooper mounted. At the end of a dusty gallery, the room lay. The old tapestry, from which the spacious chamber had taken its name, had long given place to modern paper, and this was mildewed, and in some places hanging from the walls. A thick mantle of dust lay over the floor. Some broken chairs and boards, thick with dust, lay, along with other lumber, piled together at one end of the room.

They entered the closet, which was quite empty. The Squire looked round, and you could hardly have said whether he was relieved or disappointed.

“No furniture here,” said the Squire, and looked through the dusty window. “Did you say anything to me lately — I don’t mean this morning — about this room, or the closet — or anything — I forget—”

“Lor’ bless you! Not I. I han’t been thinkin’ o’ this room this forty year.”

“Is there any sort of old furniture called a buffet — do you remember?” asked the Squire.

“A buffet? why, yes — to be sure — there was a buffet, sure enough, in this closet, now you bring it to my mind,” said Cooper. “But it’s papered over.”

“And what is it?”

“A little cupboard in the wall,” answered the old man.

“Ho — I see — and there’s such a thing here, is there, under the paper? Show me whereabouts it was.”

“Well — I think it was somewhere about here,” answered he, rapping his knuckles along the wall opposite the window. “Aye, there it is,” he added, as the hollow sound of a wooden door was returned to his knock.

The Squire pulled the loose paper from the wall, and disclosed the doors of a small press, about two feet square, fixed in the wall.

“The very thing for my buckles and pistols, and the rest of my gimcracks,” said the Squire. “Come away, we’ll leave the dog where he is. Have you the key of that little press?”

No, he had not. The old master had emptied and locked it up, and desired that it should be papered over, and that was the history of it.

Down came the Squire, and took a strong turn-screw from his gun-case; and quietly he reascended to King Herod’s room, and, with little trouble, forced the door of the small press in the closet wall. There were in it some letters and cancelled leases, and also a parchment deed which he took to the window and read with much agitation. It was a supplemental deed executed about a fortnight after the others, and previously to his father’s marriage, placing Gylingden under strict settlement to the elder son, in what is called “tail male.” Handsome Charlie, in his fraternal litigation, had acquired a smattering of technical knowledge, and he perfectly well knew that the effect of this would be not only to transfer the house and lands to his brother Scroope, but to leave him at the mercy of that exasperated brother, who might recover from him personally every guinea he had ever received by way of rent, from the date of his father’s death.

It was a dismal, clouded day, with something threatening in its aspect, and the darkness, where he stood, was made deeper by the top of one of the huge old trees overhanging the window.

In a state of awful confusion he attempted to think over his position. He placed the deed in his pocket, and nearly made up his mind to destroy it. A short time ago he would not have hesitated for a moment under such circumstances; but now his health and his nerves were shattered, and he was under a supernatural alarm which the strange discovery of this deed had powerfully confirmed.

In this state of profound agitation he heard a sniffing at the closet door, and then an impatient scratch and a long low growl. He screwed his courage up, and, not knowing what to expect, threw the door open and saw the dog, not in his dream-shape, but wriggling with joy, and crouching and fawning with eager submission; and then wandering about the closet, the brute growled awfully into the corners of it, and seemed in an unappeasable agitation.

Then the dog returned and fawned and crouched again at his feet.

After the first moment was over, the sensations of abhorrence and fear began to subside, and he almost reproached himself for requiting the affection of this poor friendless brute with the antipathy which he had really done nothing to earn.

The dog pattered after him down the stairs. Oddly enough, the sight of this animal, after the first revulsion, reassured him; it was, in his eyes, so attached, so good-natured, and palpably so mere a dog.

By the hour of evening the Squire had resolved on a middle course; he would not inform his brother of his discovery, nor yet would he destroy the deed. He would never marry. He was past that time. He would leave a letter, explaining the discovery of the deed, addressed to the only surviving trustee — who had probably forgotten everything about it — and having seen out his own tenure, he would provide that all should be set right after his death. Was not that fair? at all events it quite satisfied what he called his conscience, and he thought it a devilish good compromise for his brother; and he went out, towards sunset, to take his usual walk.

Returning in the darkening twilight, the dog, as usual attending him, began to grow frisky and wild, at first scampering round him in great circles, as before, nearly at the top of his speed, his great head between his paws as he raced. Gradually more excited grew the pace and narrower his circuit, louder and fiercer his continuous growl, and the Squire stopped and grasped his stick hard, for the lurid eyes and grin of the brute threatened an attack. Turning round and round as the excited brute encircled him, and striking vainly at him with his stick, he grew at last so tired that he almost despaired of keeping him longer at bay; when on a sudden the dog stopped short and crawled up to his feet wriggling and crouching submissively.

Nothing could be more apologetic and abject; and when the Squire dealt him two heavy thumps with his stick, the dog whimpered only, and writhed and licked his feet. The Squire sat down on a prostrate tree; and his dumb companion, recovering his wonted spirits immediately, began to sniff and nuzzle among the roots. The Squire felt in his breast-pocket for the deed — it was safe; and again he pondered, in this loneliest of spots, on the question whether he should preserve it for restoration after his death to his brother, or destroy it forthwith. He began rather to lean toward the latter solution, when the long low growl of the dog not far off startled him.

He was sitting in a melancholy grove of old trees, that slants gently westward. Exactly the same odd effect of light I have before described — a faint red glow reflected downward from the upper sky, after the sun had set, now gave to the growing darkness a lurid uncertainty. This grove, which lies in a gentle hollow, owing to its circumscribed horizon on all but one side, has a peculiar character of loneliness.

He got up and peeped over a sort of barrier, accidentally formed of the trunks of felled trees laid one over the other, and saw the dog straining up the other side of it, and hideously stretched out, his ugly head looking in consequence twice the natural size. His dream was coming over him again. And now between the trunks the brute’s ungainly head was thrust, and the long neck came straining through, and the body, twining after it like a huge white lizard; and as it came striving and twisting through, it growled and glared as if it would devour him.

As swiftly as his lameness would allow, the Squire hurried from this solitary spot towards the house. What thoughts exactly passed through his mind as he did so, I am sure he could not have told. But when the dog came up with him it seemed appeased, and even in high good-humour, and no longer resembled the brute that haunted his dreams.

That night, near ten o’clock, the Squire, a good deal agitated, sent for the keeper, and told him that he believed the dog was mad, and that he must shoot him. He might shoot the dog in the gun-room, where he was — a grain of shot or two in the wainscot did not matter, and the dog must not have a chance of getting out.

The Squire gave the gamekeeper his double-barrelled gun, loaded with heavy shot. He did not go with him beyond the hall. He placed his hand on the keeper’s arm; the keeper said his hand trembled, and that he looked “as white as curds.”

“Listen a bit!” said the Squire under his breath.

They heard the dog in a state of high excitement in the room — growling ominously, jumping on the window-stool and down again, and running round the room.

“You’ll need to be sharp, mind — don’t give him a chance — slip in edgeways, d’ye see? and give him both barrels!”

“Not the first mad dog I’ve knocked over, sir,” said the man, looking very serious as he cocked the gun.

As the keeper opened the door, the dog had sprung into the empty grate. He said he “never see sich a stark, staring devil.” The beast made a twist round, as if, he thought, to jump up the chimney — “but that wasn’t to be done at no price,” — and he made a yell — not like a dog — like a man caught in a mill-crank, and before he could spring at the keeper, he fired one barrel into him. The dog leaped towards him, and rolled over, receiving the second barrel in his head, as he lay snorting at the keeper’s feet!

“I never seed the like; I never heard a screech like that!” said the keeper, recoiling. “It makes a fellow feel queer.”

“Quite dead?” asked the Squire.

“Not a stir in him, sir,” said the man, pulling him along the floor by the neck.

“Throw him outside the hall door now,” said the Squire; “and mind you pitch him outside the gate tonight — old Cooper says he’s a witch,” and the pale Squire smiled, “so he shan’t lie in Gylingden.”

Never was man more relieved than the Squire, and he slept better for a week after this than he had done for many weeks before.

It behoves us all to act promptly on our good resolutions. There is a determined gravitation towards evil, which, if left to itself, will bear down first intentions. If at one moment of superstitious fear, the Squire had made up his mind to a great sacrifice, and resolved in the matter of that deed so strangely recovered, to act honestly by his brother, that resolution very soon gave place to the compromise with fraud, which so conveniently postponed the restitution to the period when further enjoyment on his part was impossible. Then came more tidings of Scroope’s violent and minatory language, with always the same burthen — that he would leave no stone unturned to show that there had existed a deed which Charles had either secreted or destroyed, and that he would never rest till he had hanged him.

This of course was wild talk. At first it had only enraged him; but, with his recent guilty knowledge and suppression, had come fear. His danger was the existence of the deed, and little by little he brought himself to a resolution to destroy it. There were many falterings and recoils before he could bring himself to commit this crime. At length, however, he did it, and got rid of the custody of that which at any time might become the instrument of disgrace and ruin. There was relief in this, but also the new and terrible sense of actual guilt.

He had got pretty well rid of his supernatural qualms. It was a different kind of trouble that agitated him now.

But this night, he imagined, he was awakened by a violent shaking of his bed. He could see, in the very imperfect light, two figures at the foot of it, holding each a bedpost. One of these he half-fancied was his brother Scroope, but the other was the old Squire — of that he was sure — and he fancied that they had shaken him up from his sleep. Squire Toby was talking as Charlie wakened, and he heard him say:

“Put out of our own house by you! It won’t hold for long. We’ll come in together, friendly, and stay. Forewarned, wi’ yer eyes open, ye did it; and now Scroope’ll hang you! We’ll hang you together! Look at me, you devil’s limb.”

And the old Squire tremblingly stretched his face, torn with shot and bloody, and growing every moment more and more into the likeness of the dog, and began to stretch himself out and climb the bed over the foot-board; and he saw the figure at the other side, little more than a black shadow, begin also to scale the bed; and there was instantly a dreadful confusion and uproar in the room, and such a gabbling and laughing; he could not catch the words; but, with a scream, he woke, and found himself standing on the floor. The phantoms and the clamour were gone, but a crash and ringing of fragments was in his ears. The great china bowl, from which for generations the Marstons of Gylingden had been baptised, had fallen from the mantelpiece, and was smashed on the hearthstone.

“I’ve bin dreamin’ all night about Mr. Scroope, and I wouldn’t wonder, old Cooper, if he was dead,” said the Squire, when he came down in the morning.

“God forbid! I was adreamed about him, too, sir: I dreamed he was dammin’ and sinkin’ about a hole was burnt in his coat, and the old master, God be wi’ him! said — quite plain — I’d ’a swore ’twas himself — ‘Cooper, get up, ye damned land-loupin’ thief, and lend a hand to hang him — for he’s a daft cur, and no dog o’ mine.’ ’Twas the dog shot over night, I do suppose, as was runnin’ in my old head. I thought old master gied me a punch wi’ his knuckles, and says I, wakenin’ up, ‘At yer service, sir’; and for a while I couldn’t get it out o’ my head, master was in the room still.”

Letters from town soon convinced the Squire that his brother Scroope, so far from being dead, was particularly active; and Charlie’s attorney wrote to say, in serious alarm, that he had heard, accidentally, that he intended setting up a case, of a supplementary deed of settlement, of which he had secondary evidence, which would give him Gylingden. And at this menace Handsome Charlie snapped his fingers, and wrote courageously to his attorney; abiding what might follow with, however, a secret foreboding.

Scroope threatened loudly now, and swore after his bitter fashion, and reiterated his old promise of hanging that cheat at last. In the midst of these menaces and preparations, however, a sudden peace proclaimed itself: Scroope died, without time even to make provisions for a posthumous attack upon his brother. It was one of those cases of disease of the heart in which death is as sudden as by a bullet.

Charlie’s exultation was undisguised. It was shocking. Not, of course, altogether malignant. For there was the expansion consequent on the removal of a secret fear. There was also the comic piece of luck, that only the day before Scroope had destroyed his old will, which left to a stranger every farthing he possessed, intending in a day or two to execute another to the same person, charged with the express condition of prosecuting the suit against Charlie.

The result was, that all his possessions went unconditionally to his brother Charles as his heir. Here were grounds for abundance of savage elation. But there was also the deep-seated hatred of half a life of mutual and persistent aggression and revilings; and Handsome Charlie was capable of nursing a grudge, and enjoying a revenge with his whole heart.

He would gladly have prevented his brother’s being buried in the old Gylingden chapel, where he wished to lie; but his lawyers doubted his power, and he was not quite proof against the scandal which would attend his turning back the funeral, which would, he knew, be attended by some of the country gentry and others, with an hereditary regard for the Marstons.

But he warned his servants that not one of them were to attend it; promising, with oaths and curses not to be disregarded, that any one of them who did so, should find the door shut in his face on his return.

I don’t think, with the exception of old Cooper, that the servants cared for this prohibition, except as it baulked a curiosity always strong in the solitude of the country. Cooper was very much vexed that the eldest son of the old Squire should be buried in the old family chapel, and no sign of decent respect from Gylingden Hall. He asked his master, whether he would not, at least, have some wine and refreshments in the oak parlour, in case any of the country gentlemen who paid this respect to the old family should come up to the house? But the Squire only swore at him, told him to mind his own business, and ordered him to say, if such a thing happened, that he was out, and no preparations made, and, in fact, to send them away as they came. Cooper expostulated stoutly, and the Squire grew angrier; and after a tempestuous scene, took his hat and stick and walked out, just as the funeral descending the valley from the direction of the “Old Angel Inn” came in sight.

Old Cooper prowled about disconsolately, and counted the carriages as well as he could from the gate. When the funeral was over, and they began to drive away, he returned to the hall, the door of which lay open, and as usual deserted. Before he reached it quite, a mourning coach drove up, and two gentlemen in black cloaks, and with crapes to their hats, got out, and without looking to the right or the left, went up the steps into the house. Cooper followed them slowly. The carriage had, he supposed, gone round to the yard, for, when he reached the door, it was no longer there.

So he followed the two mourners into the house. In the hall he found a fellow-servant, who said he had seen two gentlemen, in black cloaks, pass through the hall, and go up the stairs without removing their hats, or asking leave of anyone. This was very odd, old Cooper thought, and a great liberty; so upstairs he went to make them out.

But he could not find them then, nor ever. And from that hour the house was troubled.

In a little time there was not one of the servants who had not something to tell. Steps and voices followed them sometimes in the passages, and tittering whispers, always minatory, scared them at corners of the galleries, or from dark recesses; so that they would return panic-stricken to be rebuked by thin Mrs. Beckett, who looked on such stories as worse than idle. But Mrs Beckett herself, a short time after, took a very different view of the matter.

She had herself begun to hear these voices, and with this formidable aggravation, that they came always when she was at her prayers, which she had been punctual in saying all her life, and utterly interrupted them. She was scared at such moments by dropping words and sentences, which grew, as she persisted, into threats and blasphemies.

These voices were not always in the room. They called, as she fancied, through the walls, very thick in that old house, from the neighbouring apartments, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other; sometimes they seemed to holloa from distant lobbies, and came muffled, but threateningly, through the long panelled passages. As they approached they grew furious, as if several voices were speaking together. Whenever, as I said, this worthy woman applied herself to her devotions, these horrible sentences came hurrying towards the door, and, in panic, she would start from her knees, and all then would subside except the thumping of her heart against her stays, and the dreadful tremors of her nerves.

What these voices said, Mrs. Beckett never could quite remember one minute after they had ceased speaking; one sentence chased another away; gibe and menace and impious denunciation, each hideously articulate, were lost as soon as heard. And this added to the effect of these terrifying mockeries and invectives, that she could not, by any effort, retain their exact import, although their horrible character remained vividly present to her mind.

For a long time the Squire seemed to be the only person in the house absolutely unconscious of these annoyances. Mrs. Beckett had twice made up her mind within the week to leave. A prudent woman, however, who has been comfortable for more than twenty years in a place, thinks oftener than twice before she leaves it. She and old Cooper were the only servants in the house who remembered the good old housekeeping in Squire Toby’s day. The others were few, and such as could hardly be accounted regular servants. Meg Dobbs, who acted as housemaid, would not sleep in the house, but walked home, in trepidation, to her father’s, at the gate-house, under the escort of her little brother, every night. Old Mrs. Beckett, who was high and mighty with the make-shift servants of fallen Gylingden, let herself down all at once, and made Mrs. Kymes and the kitchenmaid move their beds into her large and faded room, and there, very frankly, shared her nightly terrors with them.

Old Cooper was testy and captious about these stories. He was already uncomfortable enough by reason of the entrance of the two muffled figures into the house, about which there could be no mistake. His own eyes had seen them. He refused to credit the stories of the women, and affected to think that the two mourners might have left the house and driven away, on finding no one to receive them.

Old Cooper was summoned at night to the oak parlour, where the Squire was smoking.

“I say, Cooper,” said the Squire, looking pale and angry, “what for ha’ you been frightenin’ they crazy women wi’ your plaguey stories? damn me, if you see ghosts here it’s no place for you, and it’s time you should pack. I won’t be left without servants. Here has been old Beckett, wi’ the cook and the kitchenmaid, as white as pipe-clay, all in a row, to tell me I must have a parson to sleep among them, and preach down the devil! Upon my soul, you’re a wise old body, filling their heads wi’ maggots! and Meg goes down to the lodge every night, afeared to lie in the house — all your doing, wi’ your old wives’ stories — ye withered old Tom o’ Bedlam!”

“I’m not to blame, Master Charles. ’Tisn’t along o’ no stories o’ mine, for I’m never done tellin’ ’em it’s all vanity and vapours. Mrs. Beckett ’ill tell you that, and there’s been many a wry word betwixt us on the head o’t. Whate’er I may think,” said old Cooper, significantly, and looking askance, with the sternness of fear in the Squire’s face.

The Squire averted his eyes, and muttered angrily to himself, and turned away to knock the ashes out of his pipe on the hob, and then turning suddenly round upon Cooper again, he spoke, with a pale face, but not quite so angrily as before.

“I know you’re no fool, old Cooper, when you like. Suppose there was such a thing as a ghost here, don’t you see, it ain’t to them snipe-headed women it ’id go to tell its story. What ails you, man, that you should think aught about it, but just what I think? You had a good headpiece o’ yer own once, Cooper, don’t be you clappin’ a goosecap over it, as my poor father used to say; damn it, old boy, you mustn’t let ’em be fools, settin’ one another wild wi’ their blether, and makin’ the folk talk what they shouldn’t, about Gylingden and the family. I don’t think ye’d like that, old Cooper, I’m sure ye wouldn’t. The women has gone out o’ the kitchen, make up a bit o’ fire, and get your pipe. I’ll go to you, when I finish this one, and we’ll smoke a bit together, and a glass o’ brandy and water.”

Down went the old butler, not altogether unused to such condescensions in that disorderly and lonely household; and let not those who can choose their company, be too hard on the Squire who couldn’t.

When he had got things tidy, as he said, he sat down in that big old kitchen, with his feet on the fender, the kitchen candle burning in a great brass candlestick, which stood on the deal table at his elbow, with the brandy bottle and tumblers beside it, and Cooper’s pipe also in readiness. And these preparations completed, the old butler, who had remembered other generations and better times, fell into rumination, and so, gradually, into a deep sleep.

Old Cooper was half awakened by someone laughing low, near his head. He was dreaming of old times in the Hall, and fancied one of “the young gentlemen” going to play him a trick, and he mumbled something in his sleep, from which he was awakened by a stern deep voice, saying, “You weren’t at the funeral; I might take your life, I’ll take your ear.” At the same moment, the side of his head received a violent push, and he started to his feet. The fire had gone down, and he was chilled. The candle was expiring in the socket, and threw on the white wall long shadows, that danced up and down from the ceiling to the ground, and their black outlines he fancied resembled the two men in cloaks, whom he remembered with a profound horror.

He took the candle, with all the haste he could, getting along the passage, on whose walls the same dance of black shadows was continued, very anxious to reach his room before the light should go out. He was startled half out of his wits by the sudden clang of his master’s bell, close over his head, ringing furiously.

“Ha, ha! There it goes — yes, sure enough,” said Cooper, reassuring himself with the sound of his own voice, as he hastened on, hearing more and more distinct every moment the same furious ringing. “He’s fell asleep, like me; that’s it, and his lights is out, I lay you fifty—”

When he turned the handle of the door of the oak parlour, the Squire wildly called, “Who’s there?” in the tone of a man who expects a robber.

“It’s me, old Cooper, all right, Master Charlie, you didn’t come to the kitchen after all, sir.”

“I’m very bad, Cooper; I don’t know how I’ve been. Did you meet anything?” asked the Squire.

“No,” said Cooper.

They stared on one another.

“Come here — stay here! Don’t you leave me! Look round the room, and say is all right; and gie us your hand, old Cooper, for I must hold it.” The Squire’s was damp and cold, and trembled very much. It was not very far from daybreak now.

After a time he spoke again: “I ’a’ done many a thing I shouldn’t; I’m not fit to go, and wi’ God’s blessin’ I’ll look to it — why shouldn’t I? I’m as lame as old Billy — I’ll never be able to do any good no more, and I’ll give over drinking, and marry, as I ought to ’a done long ago — none o’ yer fine ladies, but a good homely wench; there’s Farmer Crump’s youngest daughter, a good lass, and discreet. What for shouldn’t I take her? She’d take care o’ me, and wouldn’t bring a head full o’ romances here, and mantua-makers’ trumpery, and I’ll talk with the parson, and I’ll do what’s fair wi’ everyone; and mind, I said I’m sorry for many a thing I ’a done.”

A wild cold dawn had by this time broken. The Squire, Cooper said, looked “awful bad,” as he got his hat and stick, and sallied out for a walk, instead of going to his bed, as Cooper besought him, looking so wild and distracted, that it was plain his object was simply to escape from the house. It was twelve o’clock when the Squire walked into the kitchen, where he was sure of finding some of the servants, looking as if ten years had passed over him since yesterday. He pulled a stool by the fire, without speaking a word, and sat down. Cooper had sent to Applebury for the doctor, who had just arrived, but the Squire would not go to him. “If he wants to see me, he may come here,” he muttered as often as Cooper urged him. So the doctor did come, charily enough, and found the Squire very much worse than he had expected.

The Squire resisted the order to get to his bed. But the doctor insisted under a threat of death, at which his patient quailed.

“Well, I’ll do what you say — only this — you must let old Cooper and Dick Keeper stay wi’ me. I mustn’t be left alone, and they must keep awake o’ nights; and stay a while, do you. When I get round a bit, I’ll go and live in a town. It’s dull livin’ here, now that I can’t do nowt, as I used, and I’ll live a better life, mind ye; ye heard me say that, and I don’t care who laughs, and I’ll talk wi’ the parson. I like ’em to laugh, hang ’em, it’s a sign I’m doin’ right, at last.”

The doctor sent a couple of nurses from the County Hospital, not choosing to trust his patient to the management he had selected, and he went down himself to Gylingden to meet them in the evening. Old Cooper was ordered to occupy the dressing-room, and sit up at night, which satisfied the Squire, who was in a strangely excited state, very low, and threatened, the doctor said, with fever.

The clergyman came, an old, gentle, “book-learned” man, and talked and prayed with him late that evening. After he had gone the Squire called the nurses to his bedside, and said:

“There’s a fellow sometimes comes; you’ll never mind him. He looks in at the door and beckons — a thin, hump-backed chap in mourning, wi’ black gloves on; ye’ll know him by his lean face, as brown as the wainscot: don’t ye mind his smilin’. You don’t go out to him, nor ask him in; he won’t say nowt; and if he grows anger’d and looks awry at ye, don’t ye be afeared, for he can’t hurt ye, and he’ll grow tired waitin’, and go away; and for God’s sake mind ye don’t ask him in, nor go out after him!”

The nurses put their heads together when this was over, and held afterwards a whispering conference with old Cooper. “Law bless ye! — no, there’s no madman in the house,” he protested; “not a soul but what ye saw — it’s just a trifle o’ the fever in his head — no more.”

The Squire grew worse as the night wore on. He was heavy and delirious, talking of all sorts of things — of wine, and dogs, and lawyers; and then he began to talk, as it were, to his brother Scroope. As he did so, Mrs. Oliver, the nurse, who was sitting up alone with him, heard, as she thought, a hand softly laid on the doorhandle outside, and a stealthy attempt to turn it. “Lord bless us! who’s there?” she cried, and her heart jumped into her mouth, as she thought of the hump-backed man in black, who was to put in his head smiling and beckoning — “Mr. Cooper! sir! are you there?” she cried. “Come here, Mr. Cooper, please — do, sir, quick!”

Old Cooper, called up from his doze by the fire, stumbled in from the dressing-room, and Mrs. Oliver seized him tightly as he emerged.

“The man with the hump has been atryin’ the door, Mr. Cooper, as sure as I am here.” The Squire was moaning and mumbling in his fever, understanding nothing, as she spoke. “No, no! Mrs. Oliver, ma’am, it’s impossible, for there’s no sich man in the house: what is Master Charlie sayin’?”

“He’s saying Scroope every minute, whatever he means by that, and — and — hisht! — listen — there’s the handle again,” and, with a loud scream, she added — “Look at his head and neck in at the door!” and in her tremor she strained old Cooper in an agonizing embrace.

The candle was flaring, and there was a wavering shadow at the door that looked like the head of a man with a long neck, and a longish sharp nose, peeping in and drawing back.

“Don’t be a damn fool, ma’am!” cried Cooper, very white, and shaking her with all his might. “It’s only the candle, I tell you — nothing in life but that. Don’t you see?” and he raised the light; “and I’m sure there was no one at the door, and I’ll try, if you let me go.”

The other nurse was asleep on a sofa, and Mrs. Oliver called her up in a panic, for company, as old Cooper opened the door. There was no one near it, but at the angle of the gallery was a shadow resembling that which he had seen in the room. He raised the candle a little, and it seemed to beckon with a long hand as the head drew back. “Shadow from the candle!” exclaimed Cooper aloud, resolved not to yield to Mrs. Oliver’s panic; and, candle in hand, he walked to the corner. There was nothing. He could not forbear peeping down the long gallery from this point, and as he moved the light, he saw precisely the same sort of shadow, a little further down, and as he advanced the same withdrawal, and beckon. “Gammon!” said he; “it is nowt but the candle.” And on he went, growing half angry and half frightened at the persistency with which this ugly shadow — a literal shadow he was sure it was — presented itself. As he drew near the point where it now appeared, it seemed to collect itself, and nearly dissolve in the central panel of an old carved cabinet which he was now approaching.

In the centre panel of this is a sort of boss carved into a wolf’s head. The light fell oddly upon this, and the fugitive shadow seemed to be breaking up, and re-arranging itself as oddly. The eyeball gleamed with a point of reflected light, which glittered also upon the grinning mouth, and he saw the long, sharp nose of Scroope Marston, and his fierce eye looking at him, he thought, with a steadfast meaning.

Old Cooper stood gazing upon this sight, unable to move, till he saw the face, and the figure that belonged to it, begin gradually to emerge from the wood. At the same time he heard voices approaching rapidly up a side gallery, and Cooper, with a loud “Lord a-mercy on us!” turned and ran back again, pursued by a sound that seemed to shake the old house like a mighty gust of wind.

Into his master’s room burst old Cooper, half wild with fear, and clapped the door and turned the key in a twinkling, looking as if he had been pursued by murderers.

“Did you hear it?” whispered Cooper, now standing near the dressing-room door. They all listened, but not a sound from without disturbed the utter stillness of night. “God bless us! I doubt it’s my old head that’s gone crazy!” exclaimed Cooper.

He would tell them nothing but that he was himself “an old fool,” to be frightened by their talk, and that “the rattle of a window, or the dropping o’ a pin” was enough to scare him now; and so he helped himself through that night with brandy, and sat up talking by his master’s fire.

The Squire recovered slowly from his brain fever, but not perfectly. A very little thing, the doctor said, would suffice to upset him. He was not yet sufficiently strong to remove for change of scene and air, which were necessary for his complete restoration.

Cooper slept in the dressing-room, and was now his only nightly attendant. The ways of the invalid were odd: he liked, half sitting up in his bed, to smoke his churchwarden o’ nights, and made old Cooper smoke, for company, at the fireside. As the Squire and his humble friend indulged in it, smoking is a taciturn pleasure, and it was not until the Master of Gylingden had finished his third pipe that he essayed conversation, and when he did, the subject was not such as Cooper would have chosen.

“I say, old Cooper, look in my face, and don’t be afeared to speak out,” said the Squire, looking at him with a steady, cunning smile; “you know all this time, as well as I do, who’s in the house. You needn’t deny — hey? — Scroope and my father?”

“Don’t you be talking like that, Charlie,” said old Cooper, rather sternly and frightened, after a long silence; still looking in his face, which did not change.

“What’s the good o’ shammin’, Cooper? Scroope’s took the hearin’ o’ yer right ear — you know he did. He’s looking angry. He’s nigh took my life wi’ this fever. But he’s not done wi’ me yet, and he looks awful wicked. Ye saw him — ye know ye did.”

Cooper was awfully frightened, and the odd smile on the Squire’s lips frightened him still more. He dropped his pipe, and stood gazing in silence at his master, and feeling as if he were in a dream.

“If ye think so, ye should not be smiling like that,” said Cooper, grimly.

“I’m tired, Cooper, and it’s as well to smile as t’other thing; so I’ll even smile while I can. You know what they mean to do wi’ me. That’s all I wanted to say. Now, lad, go on wi’ yer pipe — I’m goin’ asleep.”

So the Squire turned over in his bed, and lay down serenely, with his head on the pillow. Old Cooper looked at him, and glanced at the door, and then half-filled his tumbler with brandy, and drank it off, and felt better, and got to his bed in the dressing-room.

In the dead of night he was suddenly awakened by the Squire, who was standing, in his dressing-gown and slippers, by his bed.

“I’ve brought you a bit o’ a present. I got the rents o’ Hazelden yesterday, and ye’ll keep that for yourself — it’s a fifty — and give t’ other to Nelly Carwell, tomorrow; I’ll sleep the sounder; and I saw Scroope since; he’s not such a bad ’un after all, old fellow! He’s got a crape over his face — for I told him I couldn’t bear it; and I’d do many a thing for him now. I never could stand shilly-shally. Good-night, old Cooper!”

And the Squire laid his trembling hand kindly on the old man’s shoulder, and returned to his own room. “I don’t half like how he is. Doctor don’t come half often enough. I don’t like that queer smile o’ his, and his hand was as cold as death. I hope in God his brain’s not a-turnin’!”

With these reflections, he turned to the pleasanter subject of his present, and at last fell asleep.

In the morning, when he went into the Squire’s room, the Squire had left his bed. “Never mind; he’ll come back, like a bad shillin’,” thought old Cooper, preparing the room as usual. But he did not return. Then began an uneasiness, succeeded by a panic, when it began to be plain that the Squire was not in the house. What had become of him? None of his clothes, but his dressing-gown and slippers, were missing. Had he left the house, in his present sickly state, in that garb? and, if so, could he be in his right senses; and was there a chance of his surviving a cold, damp night, so passed, in the open air?

Tom Edwards was up to the house, and told them, that, walking a mile or so that morning, at four o’clock — there being no moon — along with Farmer Nokes, who was driving his cart to market, in the dark, three men walked, in front of the horse, not twenty yards before them, all the way from near Gylingden Lodge to the burial-ground, the gate of which was opened for them from within, and the three men entered, and the gate was shut. Tom Edwards thought they were gone in to make preparation for a funeral of some member of the Marston family. But the occurrence seemed to Cooper, who knew there was no such thing, horribly ominous.

He now commenced a careful search, and at last bethought him of the lonely upper storey, and King Herod’s chamber. He saw nothing changed there, but the closet door was shut, and, dark as was the morning, something, like a large white knot sticking out over the door, caught his eye.

The door resisted his efforts to open it for a time; some great weight forced it down against the floor; at length, however, it did yield a little, and a heavy crash, shaking the whole floor, and sending an echo flying through all the silent corridors, with a sound like receding laughter, half stunned him.

When he pushed open the door, his master was lying dead upon the floor. His cravat was drawn halter-wise tight round his throat, and had done its work well. The body was cold, and had been long dead.

In due course the coroner held his inquest, and the jury pronounced, “that the deceased, Charles Marston, had died by his own hand, in a state of temporary insanity.” But old Cooper had his own opinion about the Squire’s death, though his lips were sealed, and he never spoke about it. He went and lived for the residue of his days in York, where there are still people who remember him, a taciturn and surly old man, who attended church regularly, and also drank a little, and was known to have saved some money.

“Temple Bar” magazine, Jan. 1868

Madam Crowl’s Ghost And Other Tales of Mystery (1923)

THE CASE OF MR. LUCRAFT

Walter Besant and James Rice

1876

I have more than once told the story of the only remarkable thing which ever happened to me in the course of a longish life, but as no one ever believed me, I left off telling it. I wish, therefore, to leave behind me a truthful record, in which everything shall be set down, as near as I can remember it, just as it happened. I am sure I need not add a single fact. The more I consider the story, the more I realise to myself my wonderful escape and the frightful consequences which a providential accident averted from my head, the more reason I feel to be grateful and humble.

I have read of nothing similar to my own case. I have consulted books on apparitions, witchcraft, and the power of the devil as manifested in authentic history, but I have found absolutely nothing that can in any way compare with my own case. If there be any successor to my Mr. Ebenezer Grumbelow, possessed of his unholy powers, endowed with his fiendish resolve and his diabolical iniquity of selfishness, this plain and simple narrative may serve as a warning to young men situated as I was in the year 1823. Except as a moral example, indeed, I see no use in telling the story at all.

I have never been a rich man, but I was once very Poor, and it is of this period that I have to write.

As for my parentage, it was quite obscure. My mother died when I was still a boy; and my father, who was not a man to be proud of as a father, had long before run away from her and disappeared. He was a sailor by profession, and I have heard it rumoured that sailors of his time possessed a wife in every port, besides a few who lived, like my mother, inland; so that they could vary the surroundings when they wished. The wives were all properly married in church too, and honest women, every one of them. What became of my father I never knew, nor did I ever inquire.

I went through a pretty fair number of adventures before I settled down to my first serious profession. I was travelling companion and drudge to an itinerant tinker, who treated me as kindly as could be expected when he was sober. When he was drunk he used to throw the pots and pans at my head. Then I became a cabin-boy, but only for a single voyage, on board a collier. The ship belonged to a philanthropist, who was too much occupied with the wrongs of the West Indian blacks to think about the rights of his own sailors; so his ships, insured far above their real value, were sent to sea to sink or swim as it might please Providence. I suppose no cabin-boy ever had so many kicks and cuffs in a single voyage as I had. However, my ship carried me safely from South Shields to the port of London. There I ran away, and I heard afterwards that on her return voyage the Spanking Sally foundered with all hands. In the minds of those who knew the captain and his crew personally, there were doubtless, as in mine, grave fears as to their ultimate destination. After that I became steward in an Atlantic sailing packet for a couple of years; then clerk to a bogus auctioneer in New York; cashier to a store; all sorts of things, but nothing long. Then I came back to England, and not knowing what to do with myself, joined a strolling company of actors in the general utility line. It was not exactly promotion, but I liked the life; I liked the work; I liked the applause; I liked wandering about from town to town; I even liked, being young and a fool, the precarious nature of the salary. Heaven knows mine was small enough; but we were a cheery company, and one or two members subsequently rose to distinction. If we had known any history, which we did not, we might have remembered that Moliére himself was once a stroller through France. Some people think it philosophical to reflect, when they are hard up, how many great men have been hard up too. It would have brought no comfort to me. Practically I felt little inconvenience from poverty, save in the matter of boots. We went share and share alike, most of us, and there was always plenty to eat even for my naturally gigantic appetite. Juliet always used to reckon me as equal to four.

Juliet was the manager’s daughter — Julie Kerrans, acting as Miss Juliet Alvanley. She was eighteen and I was twenty-three, an inflammable and romantic time of life. We were thrown a good deal together too, not only off the stage but on it. I was put into parts to play up to her. I was Romeo when she played her namesake, a part sustained by her mother till even she herself was bound to own that she was too fat to play it any longer; she was Lady Teazle and I was Charles Surface; she was Rosalind and I Orlando; she was Miranda and I Ferdinand; she was Angelina and I Sir Harry Wildair. We were a pair, and looked well in love scenes. Looking back dispassionately on our performances, I suppose they must have been as bad as stage-acting could well be. At least, we had no training, and nothing but a few fixed rules to guide us; these, of course, quite stagey and conventional. Juliet had been on the stage all her life, and did not want in assurance; I, however, was nervous and uncertain. Then we were badly mounted and badly dressed; we were ambitious, we ranted, and we tore a passion to rags. But we had one or two good points — we were young and lively. Juliet had the most charming of faces and the most delicious of figures — mind you, in the year 1823, girls had a chance of showing their figures without putting on a page’s costume. Then she had a soft, sweet voice, and pretty little coquettish ways, which came natural to her, and broke through the clumsy stage artificialities. She drew full houses; wherever we performed, all the men, especially all the young officers, used to come after her. They wrote her notes, they lay in wait for her, they sent her flowers; but what with old Kerrans and myself, to say nothing of the other members of the company, they might as well have tried to get at a Peri in Paradise. I drew pretty well too. I was — a man of seventy and more may say so without being accused of vanity — I was a good-looking young fellow; you would hardly believe what quantities of letters and billets-doux came to me. I had dozens, but Juliet found and tore them up. There they were; the note on rose-coloured notepaper with violet ink, beginning with “Handsomest and noblest of men”, and ending with “Your fair unknown, Araminta”. There was the letter from the middle-aged widow with a taste for the drama and an income; and there was the vilely spelled note from the foolish little milliner who had fallen in love with the Romeo of a barn. Perhaps ladies are more sensible now. At all events, their letters were thrown away upon me, because I was in love already, head over ears, and with Juliet.

Juliet handed over her notes to her father, who found out their writers, and made them take boxes and bespeak plays. So that an Juliet’s lovers got was the privilege of paying more than other people, for the girl was as good as she was pretty — a rarer combination of qualities on the stage fifty years ago than now. She was tall and, in those days, slender. Later on she took after her mother; but who would have thought that so graceful a girl would ever arrive at fourteen stone? Her eyes and hair were black — eyes that never lost their lustre; and hair which, though it turned grey in later years, was then like a silken net, when it was let down, to catch the hearts of lovers. Of course she knew that she was pretty; what pretty woman does not? and of course, too, she did not know and would not understand the power of her own beauty; what pretty woman does? And because it was the very worst thing she could do for herself, she fell in love with me.

Her father knew it and meant to stop it from the beginning: but he was not a man to do things in a hurry, and so we went on in a fool’s paradise, enjoying the stolen kisses, and talking of the sweet time to come when we should be married. One night — I was Romeo — I was so carried away with passion that I acted for once naturally and unconventionally. There was a full house; the performance was so much out of the common that the people were astonished and forgot to applaud. Juliet caught the infection of my passion, and for once we acted well, because we acted from the heart. Never but that once, I believe, has Romeo and Juliet been performed by a pair who felt every word they said. It was only in a long, low room, a sort of corn exchange or town hall, in a little country town, but the memory of that night is sacred to me.

You know the words:

See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!

O, that I were a glove upon that hand,

That I might touch that cheek!

And these:

O, for a falconer’s voice.

To lure this tassel-gentle back again!

Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud.

Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies.

And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine

With repetition of my Romeo!”

Splendidly we gave them.

Why, even now, old as I am, the recollection of these lines and the thought of that night warm my heart still and fire my feeble pulses. I have taught them to my grandchild. She takes after my poor Juliet, and would succeed on the stage, if only her father would let her. But he is strait-laced. Ah! he should have seen the temptations which beset a girl on the stage in my time., We are Puritans now, almost—

And a good thing, too. It is time for me to own it.

Well — old Kerrans was in the front, looking after the money, as usual, and always with one eye on the stage, to see how his daughter was getting on. He was puzzled, I think, to make out the meaning of the unaccustomed fire, but he came to the conclusion that if Juliet was going to remain Miss Juliet, instead of becoming Mrs. Mortimer Vavasseur (my stage name), he had better interfere at once.

So after the play, and over the domestic supper-table, he had it out with his daughter. Juliet swore that nothing should induce her to marry another man.

“Bless the girl!” said her father; “I don’t want you to marry anybody at all.”

Juliet declared that she never, never would forget me.

“I don’t want you to forget him,” Mr. Kerrans replied. “Remember him as much as you like.”

Juliet announced her intention of retiring from the stage and going into a convent. There were no convents in England in 1823, so that the threat was not so serious as it would be now.

Her father promised her that when the company passed by any respectable convent on the road, he would certainly knock at the door and inquire about the accommodation and the terms.

“Lor!” he said, caressing his weeping daughter, “do you think I want to be cruel to you, my pretty? Not a bit. Let young Lucraft go and prove himself a man, and he shall have you. But, you see, it wouldn’t do to add to the expenses of the company just now, with business so bad and all, would it, my dear? Why, you might be confined in a twelvemonth, and laid by for half the year ever after, with a troop of young children. Where should we be then?”

The next day was Saturday. As usual, I went into the treasury to draw my money, and found the old fellow with rather a red face, and a hesitation in his manner.

He told me the whole story, just as I have told it to you. And then he gave me my dismissal.

“Look here,” he said, handing me the money, “you are a capital young fellow, Lucraft, and a likely actor. There’s merit in you. But I can’t have you spoiling my Juliet for the stage. So I’m going to put her up without you. After a bit I daresay I shall find another Romeo. You get away to London and find another engagement — there’s a week’s pay in advance — and when Juliet is married, or when you get rich, or when anything happens to make things different, why, you see, we shall all be glad to see you back. Go and make your farewells to Juliet, and don’t be more sentimental than you can help. Good-bye, my boy, and good luck to you.”

Good luck! Had he known the kind of luck which awaited me!

I sought my girl, and found her crying. I remember that we forgot all the fine verses of Shakespeare, and just put our faces close to each other and cried together.

It did seem hard upon both of us. We were really and truly in love, and that in a good, honest, determined way. To me there was no other girl in the world except Juliet. To her there was no other man besides Luke Lucraft. We had come to an understanding for three months, and had been quietly dropping deeper and deeper in love during all that time.

And now we were to part.

“Don’t forget me, dear Luke,” she sobbed. “There are lots of prettier and finer girls in the world than I am, who will try to take away your love from me. I wish I could kill the creatures!” she added, stamping her foot.

Juliet always had a high and generous spirit. I like women to have a high spirit.

“And will you have no admirers, Juliet?” I replied. “Why, half the town” — we were in Lancaster then — “half the town is at your feet already. I intercepted two love-letters yesterday, and I kicked the grocer’s apprentice the day before for trying to get Mrs. Mould to give you a billet-doux from himself. Come, dear, we will trust one another. I will try and prove myself a man — get an engagement, make a name on the London stage, and come back with money and an offer to act Romeo to your Juliet at Drury Lane. Think of that, my dearest, and dry your eyes. Your father does not object to me, you know; he only wants me to make an income. Come, Juliet, let us say good-bye. It is only for a short time, and I shall come back with all sorts of reasons in my pocket for persuading your father’s consent.”

So we parted, with many more promises of trust and fidelity, and after breaking a sixpenny-bit between us. Juliet’s piece is buried with her; mine is hanging at my heart, and will be, before long, buried with me beside her.

Oh! the weary journey to London in those days, especially outside the coach, and for a poor man not encumbered with too many wraps. However, I arrived at length, and found myself in the streets that are supposed to be paved with gold, with a couple of sovereigns in my pocket.

But I was brimful of hope. London was a kindly step-mother, who received adopted sons by the thousand, and led them to fame and wealth. I thought of Garrick, of Dick Whittington, and all the rest who came up to town poorer, far poorer than myself, and took comfort. I secured a lodging at a modest rent, and made my way to Drury Lane — the stage door.

I found no opening at Drury Lane; not even a vacancy for a supernumerary. There were not many London theatres in 1823, and I found the same thing everywhere — more applications than places to give.

I tried the Greenwich and the Richmond theatres with the same ill-success.

Then I endeavoured to get a country engagement, but I even failed there. I had no friends to recommend me, and my single experience with Kerrans’s strolling troupe did not tell so much in my favour as I had hoped.

My ambition naturally took a town flight. I had intended to make my appearance on the metropolitan stage as Romeo, my favourite part, and at once to take the town by storm. I was prepared to give them an intelligent and novel interpretation of Hamlet. And I was not unwilling to undertake Macbeth, Othello, or even Prince Hal.

When these hopes became evidently grounded on nothing but the baseless fabrication of a dream, I resolved on beginning with second parts. Horatio, Mercutio, Paris, were, after all, characters worthy the work of a rising artist.

Again there seemed no chance.

The stage always wants young men of general utility. I would go anywhere and take anything. I offered to do so, but although hopes were held out to me by the theatrical agent, somehow he had nothing at the moment in his gift. Nothing: not even a vacancy for a tragedian at Richardson’s Show; not even a chance for Bartholomew Fair.

It took me a fortnight to run down the scale from Hamlet, say, to Francis the warder. While I passed through this descending gamut of ambition, my two sovereigns were melting away with a rapidity quite astonishing.

The rent took five shillings: that was paid in advance. Then I was extravagant in the matter of eating, and took three meals a day, finding that not enough to satisfy my vigorous appetite. Once or twice, too, I paid for admission to the pit, and saw, with a sinking heart, what real acting means. My heart failed, because I perceived that I had to begin all over again, and from the very bottom of the ladder.

Then I had to buy a new pair of boots. It was always a trouble to me, the rapid wearing out of leather.

And then there was something else; and then one morning I found myself without a sixpence in my pocket. And then I began for the first time to become seriously alarmed about the future.

I had one or two things which I could pawn — a watch, a waistcoat, a few odds and ends in the way of wardrobe, and a few books — on the proceeds of them I lived for a whole week; but at last, after spending twopence in the purchase of a penny loaf and a saveloy for breakfast, I found myself not only penniless, but also without the means of procuring another penny at all, because I had nothing left to pawn.

Many a young fellow has found himself in a similar predicament, but I doubt whether anyone ever became so desperately hungry as I did on that day. I recollect that, having rashly eaten up my sausage before eight o’clock, I felt a sinking towards twelve; it was aggravated by the savoury smell of roast meat which steamed from the cookshops and dining-rooms as I walked along the streets. About one o’clock I gazed with malignant envy on the happy clerks who could go in and order platefuls of the roast and boiled which smoked in the windows, and threw a perfume more delicious than the sweetest strains of music into the streets where I lingered and looked. And at two I observed the diners come out again, walking more slowly, but with an upright and satisfied air, while I — the sinking had been succeeded by a dull gnawing pain — was slowly doubling up. At half-past two I felt as if I could bear it no longer. I had been walking about, trying different offices for a clerkship. I might as well have asked for a partnership. But I could walk no more. I leaned against a post — it was in Bucklersbury — opposite a dining-room, where hares, fowls, and turkeys were piled in the window among a boundless prodigality and wealth of carrots, turnips, and cauliflowers, till my senses swam at the contemplation. I longed for a cauldron in which to put the whole contents of the shop front, and eat them at one Gargantuan repast. My appetite, already alluded to, was hereditary; one of the few things I can remember of my mother was a constant complaint that my father used to eat her out of house and home. To be sure, from other scraps of information handed down by tradition, I have reason to believe that the word eating was used as a figure of speech — the part for the whole — and included drinking. I was good at both, and as a trencherman I had been unsurpassed, as I said above, in the company, the dear old company among whom I have so often eaten beefsteak and fried onions with Juliet. The door of the place opened now and then to let a hungry man enter or a full man go out, and I caught glimpse of the interior. Dining-rooms were not called restaurants in those days. They had no gilding, no bright paint, no pretty barmaids, and no silver-plated forks and spoons. Nor were they brilliant with gas. All London — that is, all working London — dined before four o’clock; the clerks from twelve to two, and the principals, except a few of the big wigs, from two to four. The cheaper rooms were like one or two places still to be found in Fleet Street. There were sanded floors; there were hard benches; you had your beer out of pewter, not plated tankards; there was no cheap claret, and the popular ideal of wine was a strong and fiery port. Also, candles stood upon the tables — not wax candles, but tallow, with long wicks which required snuffing. They dropped a good deal of mutton fat about the table, and it was not uncommon to find yourself eating a little tallow with your bread, which was not nice even to men of a strong stomach. Finally, you had steel forks, which are just as good, to my thinking, as plated silver, and more easily cleaned.

I stood by the post and watched with hungry eyes. From within I heard voices, stifled voices, as those sent up a pipe, calling for roast beef with plenty of brown, good heavens! Plenty of brown; roast mutton, underdone — I loved my mutton underdone; boiled beef with suet-pudding and fat, I always took a great deal of pudding and fat with my boiled beef; roast veal and bacon with stuffing — a dish for the gods; calves’ head for two — I could have eaten calves’ head for a dozen; with orders pointing to things beyond my hungry imagination — hunger limits the boundaries of fancy — puddings, fish, soup, cheese, and such delicacies. Alas! I wanted the solids. I felt myself growing feebler; I became more and more doubled up; I had thoughts of entering this paradise of the hungry, and, after eating till I could eat no longer, calmly laying down my knife and fork and informing the waiter that I had no money. There was a farce in which I had once played where the comic actor sent for the landlord, after a hearty meal, and asked him what he would do in case a stranger, after ordering and eating his dinner, should declare his inability to pay. “Do, Sir?” cried the host; “I should kick him across the street.” “Landlord,” said the low comedian, and it always told — “Landlord,” he used to rise up slowly as he spoke, and solemnly draw aside his coat-tails, turning his face in the direction of the street-door — “Landlord, I’ll trouble you.” I used to play the landlord.

It struck half-past three; the dead gnawing of hunger was followed by a sharp pain, irritating and much more unpleasant. The crowd of those who entered had been followed by the crowd of those who came out and the heaven of hungry men was nearly empty again. I gazed still upon the turkeys and the hares, but with a lacklustre eye, for I was nearly fainting.

Presently there came down the street an elderly gentleman, bearing before him, like a Lord Mayor in a French tale, his enormous abdomen: he had white hair, white eyebrows, white whiskers, and a purple face. He walked very slowly, as if the exertion might prove apoplectic, and leaned upon a thick stick. As he passed the shop he looked in at the window and wagged his head. At that moment I groaned involuntarily. He turned round and surveyed me. I suppose I presented a strange appearance, leaning against the post, with stooping figure and tightly-buttoned coat. He had big projecting eyes flushed with red veins, which gave him a wolfish expression.

“Young man,” he said, not benignantly at all, but severely, “you look ill. Have you been drinking?”

I shook my head.

“I am only hungry,” I said, telling, the truth because I was too far gone to hide it, “I am only hungry; that is the matter with me.”

He planted his stick on the ground, supporting both his hands upon the gold head, and wagged his head again from side to side with a grunting sound in his throat like the sawing of bones.

Grunt! “Here’s a pretty fellow for you!” Grunt! “Hungry, and he looks miserable.” Grunt! “Hungry, and he groans.” Grunt! “Hungry — the most enviable position a man can be in — and he dares to repine at his lot.” Grunt! “What are the lower classes coming to next, I wonder? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Aren’t you a model of everything that is ungrateful and” — grunt! — “and flying in the face of Providence? He lives in a land of victuals. London is a gigantic caravan, full of the most splendid things, the most glorious things to eat and drink; it only wants an appetite; and he’s got that, and he laments!”

“What is the use of an appetite if you have no money to satisfy it with?”

Grunt! “Is it a small appetite, as a rule, or is it a large appetite?”

“Large,” I replied. “It is an awkward thing for a poor beggar like me to have such a devil of a twist. I was born with it. Very awkward just now.”

“Come with me, young man,” he grunted. “Go before me. Don’t talk, because that may interfere with the further growth of your appetite. Walk slowly, and keep your mouth shut close.”

He came behind me, walking with his chuckle and grunt.

“So. What a fine young fellow it is!” Grunt! “What room for the development of the Alderman’s Arch! What a backbone for the support of a stomach! What shoulders for a dinner-table, and what legs to put under it! Heavens! what a diner might be made of this boy if he only had money.” Grunt! “Youth and appetite — health and hunger — and all thrown away upon a pauper! What a thing, what a thing! This way, young man.”

Turning down a court leading out of Bucklersbury, he guided me to a door, a little black portal, at which he stopped; then stooping to a keyhole of smaller size than was generally used in those days, he seemed to me to blow into it with his mouth; this was absurd, of course, but it seemed so to me. The door opened. He led the way into a passage, which, when the door shut behind us, as it did of its own accord, was pitch dark. We went up some stairs, and on the first landing the old gentleman, who was wheezing and puffing tremendously, opened another door, and led me into a room. It was a large room, resplendent with the light of at least forty wax candies. The centre was occupied by a large dining-table laid for a single person. Outside it was broad daylight, for it was not yet four o’clock.

“Sit down, young man, sit down,” puffed my host. “Oh dear! Oh dear! Sit down, do. I wish I was as hungry as you.”

I sat down in the nearest chair, and looked round the room. The first thing I remarked was that I could not see the door by which we had been admitted. The room was octagonal, and on every side stood some heavy piece of furniture; a table with glass, a case of bookshelves, a sofa, but no door. My hear began to go round as I continued my observations. There was no window either, nor was there any fireplace. Then I felt a sudden giddiness, and I suppose I fell backwards on my chair. It was partly the faintness of hunger, but partly it was the strange room, and that old man glaring at me with his great wolfish eyes.

When I recovered I was lying on a sofa, and soft cold fingers were bathing my head, and pressing a perfumed handkerchief to my lips. I opened my eyes suddenly and sat up completely recovered. At the foot of the sofa stood my entertainer.

“Easy with him, Boule-de-neige; make him rest for a moment. Perhaps his hunger has been too much for him.”

I turned to see who Boule-de-neige was. He was a negro of the blackest type, an ancient and withered as some old ourang of tropical woods; his cheeks hung in folds, and his skin seemed too much for his attenuated body; his wool was white, and his gums were almost toothless; and his nose so flattened with age as to be almost invisible, looking at him as I was looking, in profile. His hands were as soft as any woman’s, but icy cold; and his eyes were red and fiery.

“Boule-de-neige, what do you think of him?”

“Him berry fine young man, massa: him beautiful young man; got lubly abbatite develoffed, I tink; him last long time, much longer time dan last oder young man. Cluck. Him poor trash, dat young man; dam poor trash; use up and go to debbel in a month. Cluck! Dis young man got lovely stumjack, strong as bull. Cluck — cluck! How much you tink him eat tonight?”

“We shall see, Boule-de-neige. We will try him with a simple dinner, and then pronounce on his performances. Young men do not always come up to their professions. But he looks well, and perhaps, Boule-de-neige — perhaps — ah!” He nodded with a deep sigh.

“What time massa dine himself?”

“I don’t know,” the old gentleman answered, with another heavy sigh, “Perhaps not till nine o’clock; perhaps not then. It all depends on this youth. Vanish, Boule-de-neige, and serve.”

There was evidently something in my host’s mind by the way he sighed. Why did it depend upon me? And did Boule-de-neige go through the floor? Did the table sink when he disappeared, and come up loaded with dishes? It seemed so.

I sprang from the couch. The sight and smell of the food brought back my raging hunger.

“Let me eat!” I cried.

“You shall. One moment first — only a single moment. Young man, tell me again and explicitly the nature and extent of your appetite. Be truthful, oh, be truthful! Our little tongues should never he for mutton-chop or apple-pie. You know the hymn. I hope you have been religiously brought up, and know that hymn.”

“I’ve got a devil of an appetite. What is there to lie about?”

“My dear young friend, there are many kinds of appetites. Yours may be fierce at first and promise great things, and then end in a miserably small performance. I have known such, and mourned to see them. Is it a lasting appetite, now? Is it steady through a long dinner? Is it regular in its recurrence?”

“You shall see something of my performance,” I laughed, insensate wretch. “You shall see. I never had a long dinner in my life, because I always made short work of mine. It is steady through a good many pounds of steak, and as regular as a clock.”

“That is always something. Steak is as healthy a test as I know. Is it, secondly, an appetite that recovers itself quickly? That is very important. Is it a day-by-day or an hour-by-hour appetite? Is it good at all times of the day?”

“Alas, I wish it were not!”

“Hush, young man; do not blaspheme! Tell me, if you eat your fill now — it is half-past four — when do you think you might be ready again?” His eyes glistened like a couple of great rubies in the candlelight, and his hands trembled.

“I should say about eight. But I might do something light at seven, I daresay. Just now I feel as if I could eat a mountain.”

“He feels as if he could eat a mountain! Wonderful are the gifts of Providence! My dear young friend, I am very thankful — deeply Thankful — that I met you. Sit down, and let me take the covers off for you; I long to see you eat. This is a blessed day — a truly blessed day! I will wait upon you myself. No one else. Boule-de-neige, vanish!”

As he was about to take off the covers he stopped short.

“Stay. You are without occupation?”

“I can get none.”

“You are of any trade?”

“I am an actor.”

“A bad trade — an un-Christian trade. Actors are vagabonds by Act of Parliament. Actors can never be in a state of grace. I shall be happy in being a humble instrument in removing you from a calling fatal to the Christian warrior. Why did you leave your last situation? No dishonesty? No embezzlement? No tampering with accounts?”

“Sir, I have always been an honest man. And, besides, I have never been tempted by the handling of other people’s money.”

“Ha! You have got no wife?”

“No, Sir; I am unmarried.”

“You have got no — I trust I am taking to my bosom no deceiver of women. You are not the father of an illegitimate offspring, I hope and pray.”

“No, Sir; I am not.”

“Young man, you are about to enter upon a most serious act, perhaps the most serious act of your life, and these questions may appear to you trivial and tedious. As a Christian, and a member of the congregation of Mr. — But never mind; — you are hungry now, and wish to eat. We will talk after dinner.”

He took off the covers. The table was spread with a dozen different dishes, all served up together. Others I noticed, standing with bottles and decanters, on a large sideboard. As my generous benefactor removed the silver covers, his face, which had assumed during his questioning an austere gravity, suddenly lit up, and he laughed as the perfume of the hot food mounted to his nostrils. He seemed all at once a different man.

“Gently, gently, my dear young friend. Here is a dinner fit for a king; fit for me, if I could eat it. Oh! My dainty Boule-de-neige! Ha! Is it right to waste such a dinner upon a youth whose only dreams are of a sufficiency of steak? Young man, in after years — ahem! — in after days you will remember this dinner. You will recall every item in this delicious bill of fare which Boule-de-neige has set before you. Let me teach you to eat it properly. Weigh your morsels.”

Heaven! how I cursed his delay. He kept one great hand between me and the dishes, for fear, I suppose, that I should pounce upon them and clear them off all at once.

“Patience, patience. Consider each mouthful. Try to be thankful that cooks have brought their divine art to such perfection. Carry back your thoughts to — grunt — to time when all mankind fed upon imperfectly cooked steak. Think that all the treasures of the East and West have been ransacked to furnish for me this meal, and that you will never, never, never see such a dinner again as long as you live.”

At all events, I never saw such a meal again as long is he lived.

“We will now,” he said, with a backward wave of his right hand, “consider dinner as a science.”

“Oh, Sir!” I exclaimed, “I am so hungry.”

“It’s beautiful to see you hungry, but I must not let you hurry. Eat as much as you like when you begin, but gently, gently — easily and gently. Think of the future. Think of ME.”

I stared at him in wonder.

“Think of you, Sir?”

“Why, what would happen to me if you really destroyed your appetite, or even yourself in swallowing a bone?”

I thought he must be mad.

“Young man,” he went on, “you will say a grace before meat, if you remember one.”

I did not.

“Then I will say one for you. Oh! wretched trade of stage acting. He does not even know a single grace before meat.”

Then he began to help me — and we went on with dinner without further interruption. He kept up a running accompaniment of comment as I devoured the meal, and his manner gradually lost all its solemnity, until before I was more than half through the dinner he was dancing about, slapping his leg with delight, and laughing till he grew almost black in the face.

Why he was so pleased I could not tell. I was soon to learn.

“These are plovers’ eggs. No better thing ever discovered to begin your dinner with. Alderman Stowport says oysters are better. That is rubbish. I do not despise oysters — Why, he has eaten the whole six! Bravo! Bravo! An excellent beginning. Let me take away the plate, my dear Sir. Now we have turtle soup — gently, my young friend, gently. Ah, impetuous youth! More? Stay — green fat. Humour, humour your appetite; don’t drive it; calipash and calipee. It’s really sinful to eat so fast. He takes all down without tasting it. No — no more; you must give yourself a fair chance, and not spoil your dinner with too much turtle.” He put the soup aside, and took the cover off another dish. “Salmon — with cucumber. Lobster — sauce — bless me, it’s like a dream of fairyland! Fillet of sole — a beautiful dream to see him. Ho! ho! he’s a Julius Caesar the Conqueror. Croquet de volaille — gone like a cloud from the sky. Don’t wolf the food, my friend; there is a limit to the cravings of nature imposed by the claims of art; taste it. Ris de veau — smiles of the dear little innocent, confiding calf — a little more bread with it? Mauviettes en caisse, larks in baskets — sweet, rapturous, singing larks, toothsome cockyolly larks. He eats them up, bones and all. Ha! ha! Pause, my dear sir, and drink something. Here are champagne, hock, and sauterne; never touch sherry, it’s a made-up wine, even the best of it. Come, a little champagne.”

“I generally take draught-beer, Sir,” I replied, modestly. “That is the drink to which I have been accustomed and — not too much of it; but, if you please, a little fizz will be acceptable.”

I drank three glasses in rapid succession, and found them good. He meanwhile nodded and winked with an ever-increasing delight which I failed to understand.

“Now, my Nero, my Paris of Troy, my Judas Maccabaeus” — he mixed up his names, but it mattered nothing — “here is saddle of mutton, with potatoes, cauliflower, currant-jelly. More champagne? It’s worth sums of money to see him. Curry? More champagne? Curry of chicken? Cabob curry of chicken, young Alexander the Great? Plenty of rice? Ho, ho, ho! Plenty of rice, he said; why, he is a Goliath — a Goliath of Gath, this young man!”

He really grew so purple that I thought he would have a fit of some kind. But the flattery pleased me all the same, and I went on eating and drinking as if I was only just beginning.

“Quail or bécassine — snipe, that is? He takes both, like Pompey. More champagne? Jelly, my Heliogabalus, my modern Caracalla, apricot-jelly? Cabinet pudding? He has two helpings of the pudding. King Solomon in all his glory never — More champagne? A little hock to finish with? He takes his hock in a tumbler, this young Samson. Cheese — Brie — and celery. A glass of port with the cheese. He takes that in a tumbler too, like Og, King of Bashan.”

I was really overwhelmed with the splendour of the dinner, the Classical and biblical flattery, and the extraordinary gratification which my really enormous hunger caused this remarkable old gentleman. He clapped his hands; he nodded his head; he slapped his legs: he winked and grinned; he smacked his lips; he evinced every sign of the most unbounded delight. When I had quite finished eating, which was not before we had got through the whole list of courses, he gave me a bottle of claret, and watched me while I rapidly disposed of it. Then he produced from a sideboard, where I certainly had not seen it a moment before, a small cup of strong black coffee with a tiny glass of liqueur. As for my own part, I hope I have made it clear that I dined extremely well; in fact, I had never even dreamed of such a dinner in my life. It was not only that I was half starved, but that the things were so good. Imagine the astonishment of a young strolling actor, whose highest dreams were of sufficient beefsteak, not of the primest part, at such a magnificent feed. I felt as if I had dropped unexpectedly into a fortune. I had.

“How do you feel now?” my host asked, a shade of anxiety crossing his brow.

There was still the strange look in my host’s eyes — a sort of passionate and eager longing.

“I am very well, thank you, Sir, and more grateful than I can tell you.”

“Hang the gratitude! Tell me if you feel any sense of repletion? Does the blood seem mounting to the head? Are you quite free from any giddiness? No thickness in the speech? It’s wonderful, it’s providential, my finding you. Such a windfall; and just when I most wanted it. Our blessings truly come when we least expect them.”

I as strange language, but the whole proceedings were so strange that I hardly noticed it. Besides, I was extremely comfortable after my dinner, and disposed to rest.

“Now,” he went on, “while you are digesting — by the way, the digestion is, I trust, unimpaired by drink or excess? Quite so; and what I expected in so good and so gifted a young man. Like an ostrich, as you say. Ho, ho! Ha! Ha! Like an ostrich! It is, indeed; too much. Tell me, now, something, gently and dispassionately, so as not to injure your digestion, about your history.”

I told him all. While I related my simple story he interrupted now and then with some fresh question on the growth, the endurance, the regularity of my appetite, to which I gave satisfactory answers. When I had quite finished he went to the table — I noticed then that all traces of the dinner had disappeared — and laid out a document, by which he placed a pen. Then he drew a chair, sat down in front of me, and assumed a serious air.

“Come,” he said, peremptorily, “let us get now to business.”

I had not the smallest notion what the business was, but I bowed and waited. Perhaps he was going to offer me a clerkship. Visions of a large salary, to suit my expansive appetite, came across my brain.

“In your case,” he began, “the possession of so great an appetite must be attended with serious inconveniences. You have no money, in a few hours you will be hungry again; you will endure great pain and suffering, greater than is felt by men less largely endowed with the greatest blessing — I mean with appetite.”

“Yes,” I said, “it is a great trouble to me, this twist of mine, especially when I am hard up.”

He almost jumped out of his chair.

“Why, there,” he cried, “what is the use of words? We are agreed already. Nothing could be more fortunate. Let us have no more beating about the bush. Young man, I will rid you of this nuisance; I will buy your appetite of you.”

I only stared. Was the old gentleman mad?

“It is a strange offer, I know,” he went on, “a strange offer, and you have probably never heard a more remarkable one. But it is genuine. I will buy your appetite of you.”

“Buy my — buy my appetite?”

“Nothing easier. Read this.”

He gave me the paper which he had laid on the table, prepared in readiness, I suppose, for me. It was as follows:

“I, Luke Lucraft, being in sound mind and in good health, and of the mature age of twenty-four, do voluntarily and of my own free will and accord agree and promise to resign my appetite entirely and altogether for the use of Ebenezer Grumbelow from the day and hour of the execution of this deed. In return whereof I agree to accept a monthly allowance of £30, also to date from the moment of signature, with a sum of £50, to be placed in my hands. I promise also that I will carefully study to preserve by regular habits and exercise the gift of a generous appetite; that I will not work immoderately, sit up late, practise vicious courses, or do anything that may tend to impair the regular recurrence of a healthy and vigorous hunger.”

Then followed a place for the signature and one for the witnesses.

“You see,” he went on, “I ask for no unpleasant condition. I give you a free life, coupled with the simple condition of ordinary care. Do you agree?”

“I hardly know; it is so sudden.”

“Come, come” — he spoke with a harshness quite new — “come, let us have no nonsense of that sort. Do you agree?”

I read it over again.

“Give me a little time,” I said. “Let me reflect till tomorrow morning.”

“Reflect!” His face flushed purple, and his bloodshot eyes literally glared. “Reflect! what the devil does the boy want to reflect about? Has he got a penny, a friend, or a chance in the whole world? I will give you five minutes — come.” He rose up and stood before me. As I looked in his face a curious dimness came over my eyes; he seemed to recede before me; he disappeared altogether. When I heard him speak again his voice sounded far, far off, but thin and clear, as if it came through some long tube. “Luke Lucraft,” it said, “see yourself.”

Yes; I saw myself, and though outside of what I saw, I felt the same emotions as if I had been the actual performer in the scenes I witnessed.

I was standing where the old gentleman met me, starving still, and suffering pangs far worse than those under which I groaned at three o’clock. The day was advanced; the diners had all gone away, and the dining-room waiters were putting up the shutters. I spoke to one of them timidly. I told him I had eaten nothing since the morning, and begged for a plate of broken victuals. He looked in my face, called a brother-servant, and they kicked me from the door. People were rougher in London fifty years ago. Then I slunk away, and wandered somewhere among the winding streets and lanes of the old city. London at night was not so empty and deserted as it is now, and the streets had people in them. Some of them were well dressed — the wealthy merchants had not, even then, all left off living in the city; some were clerks going home; some were women out for an evening’s walk. The bells rang out the hours from the city clocks, and I crept along the walls wondering what would become of me, and how I should find an end of my present misery.

Then I begged. Took off my hat and held it in my hand while I asked for something — anything — the smallest coin that would get a piece of bread.

The men passed me by with pitiless and unbelieving eyes. Heavens! If they had been hungry once, only once, in all their lives, they would never again have refused the petition of a beggar, even though he was the most lying mendicant who ever disgraced the words of charity which passed his lips. But they gave me nothing.

The women edged away from me and passed on the other side if I timidly pressed my claim. They had nothing to fear from me. At last I asked a girl. She was more unfortunate than myself, but she was not hungry, and she gave me a shilling.

Then I found a shop open, and bought a plate Of meat. That spent — I saw myself slinking ashamed and wretched again along the cold and empty street. When I could walk no more I found myself in Covent Garden Market, and threw myself under shelter of a roof at least among the stalks and leaves and straw which littered the place.

I awoke early, and hungry again. I rose and resumed my miserable walk.

Hope by this time was dead within me; I could think of nothing but my intolerable hunger; could feel nothing but the pain which would not leave me; could look at nothing but food in the window.

I begged again, and begged all day without success.

It was a rougher time, that, than the present. More than one man laid his stick across my back with an impatient admonition to get to work, you lazy rogue. But I was too feeble to retaliate or remonstrate. Was there no charity in the world? I passed other beggars in the streets who looked fat and comfortable. People gave them money, but they would give me none. The time wore on, and my craving for food became irresistible.

I passed a shop which had a tray outside of baked potatoes. The owner had his back to me. I stole one. Yes, I stole one. No one saw me. He did not see me as I slunk past him with guilty face, and swiftly sped round the nearest corner to eat the stolen morsel.

What is the use of a single baked potato? Presently I returned to the same place with the intention of taking another. But they were all gone. I went on looking for another provision shop. I came to a place where hot smoking sausages were bubbling in a pan over a charcoal fire. The shop stood at a comer. There was only a girl minding it. I deliberately walked in, took a sausage from the pan, hot as it was, and stepped out again before her astonishment even prompted her to cry out.

The time seemed intolerably long. All these scenes Passed before me, not as the quick and steady flight of the rapidly falling moments, but as if the agony and the shame were deliberately lengthened out.

Then came a third time when I stole, maddened by the dream of hunger. This time I was detected, pursued, and apprehended. The misery and shame of the hour when I stood before the magistrate, in that horrible vision of a possible future, I cannot even yet forget. With this a constant sense of unsatisfied and craving hunger; a feeling as if hunger was the greatest evil in the whole world; a longing to get rid of it. Last scene of all, I was lying dead, starved to death with hunger and cold, in a miserable, bare, and naked garret.

By what black art did the old man delude my senses? It was a lie, and he knew it. I should have got some honest work, if only to wheel bricks or carry loads.

“There is your future, young man” — there came up from the distance the voice of the tempter — “a gloomy prospect: a miserable life: a wretched ending. Now look at the other side.”

The scene changed. I saw myself, but in another guise. My hunger had vanished; I felt it no more.

This time I was happy, light-hearted, and cheerful. I remembered scenes of misery through which I had just passed, and the recollection added more sweetness to my present enjoyment. It seemed as if I should never be hungry any more, and never feel the want of food. I was like a Greek god in my exemption from the common weakness of humanity. I was rich, too, and knew that I had the command, somehow, of all that money could buy.

I was sitting in a garden, and around me were troops of girls. I heard the rustle of their dresses, caught the laughter from their lips, watched the lustre of their eyes, saw the moonlight dance among their waving locks, as they ran and played among the trees and flowers. One of them sat by me and sang to a guitar: —

Life is made for love. Ah! Why

Should its sweetness e’er be marred?

List! the echoes will not die.

Still the sweet word “love” to guard.

Nought but love. Oh! Happy youth.

Free from need of baser thought.

Stay with us, and learn this truth.

Set with song, with music wrought.

Thine is love, an endless feast;

Beauty — sweeter far than wine;

Joy, from lower cares released—

Never star rose bright as thine.

I knew, somehow or other, that this was allegorical, and, as if I expressed my thought, the scene changed, and I was in real life.

Chambers in London, such as I had read of, overlooking St James’s Park. I sat in them in the midst of books and pictures. I had no business to call me away from my indolent ease; I had no anxiety about the future. I got up and strolled about the streets looking at the shops. If I fancied a thing I bought it. I went to picture galleries and saw the latest works of art; I went to the theatre and saw the performance from a comfortable box; I went riding in the park.

Then my fancy returned to my first love, and I saw myself walking in a country lane with Juliet. She was sweeter to look upon than ever, and more delightful in her frank and innocent love for me. We rambled along under the hedges while I gathered flowers for her, and talked of the happy, happy days when we should be one, soon now to arrive, and of the sweet, loving life which should be ours far away from the troubles of the world.

Dreams, idle dreams; but sweet to me, after the agony of the last, as a draught of water to a parched traveller on Sahara.

The pictures changed as fast as my fancy wandered from one thing to another. In all I was the same — free from the downward and earthly pressure of want and hunger, relieved from anxiety, with plenty of money, and full of all sweet and innocent fancies.

Lies again. But by what power could this necromancer so cheat and gull my brain?

“Very different scenes these, my dear young friend,” he said in a winning voice, “are they not? Now,” he went on, and his voice was quite close to me, “you have had your five minutes.”

The cloud passed from my eyes. I was sitting again in the octagonal room, the old man before me, watch in hand, as if he was counting the seconds.

“Five minutes and a quarter,” he growled. “Now choose.”

“I have chosen,” I replied. “I accept your offer.”

The influence of the things I had seen was too strong upon me. I could neither reason nor reflect.

“I accept your offer.”

“Why, that’s brave,” he said, with a gigantic sigh of relief. “That’s what I expected of you. Boule-de-neige — Boule-de-neige!”

He clapped his hands.

Instantly the horrible old negro appeared behind his master’s chair, as if he had sprung up from the ground. I believe he had. He looked more like a devil than ever, grinning from ear to ear, and his two eyes glowing in the candlelight like two great coals. The light fell, too, upon the seams and wrinkles of his face, bringing them out like the hills and valleys in a raised map. Strange as it all was to me, this ancient servitor produced the strangest effect upon me of anything.

“Boule-de-neige is witness for us,” said the old gentleman.

“Boule-de-neige, this young gentleman, Mr. Luke Lucraft, is about to sign a little deed, to which, as a matter of form, we require your signature too as witness.”

“Cluck!” said the negro. “Dis young gegleman berry lucky — him berry lucky. What time massa take him dinner?”

“When do you think you shall be fairly hungry again?” he asked me. “Now, no boastings — no false pretence and pride — because it will be the worse for you. Answer truthfully. It is now six.”

“I should say that at nine I should be able to take some supper, and at ten I shall certainly be hungry again. As an ordinary rule I should be ready a great deal earlier, but I have taken such an immense dinner.”

“Good.” He turned to Boule-de-neige. “You see the young man is modest and promises fairly. I shall have supper — a plentiful supper — at ten punctually. Mr. Lucraft will now sign.”

I advanced to the table and took up the pen, but there was no ink.

“Cluck!” said the infernal negro, with another grin — “cluck! Massa wait lilly bit.”

He took my left hand in his soft and cold paw. I felt a sharp prick at my wrist.

“You will dip the pen,” said the old gentleman, “in the blood. It is a mere form.”

“Cluck!” said Boule-de-neige.

“A mere form because we have no ink handy.”

“Cluck-cluck!”

I signed my name as desired, and, following the directions of the old gentleman, placed my finger on the red wafer at the margin, saying, “I declare this my act and deed.”

Then I gave the pen to Boule-de-neige. He signed after me, in a firm flowing hand, “Boule-de-neige.” As I looked, the letters seemed somehow to shape themselves into “Beezlebub.” I looked at him with a kind of terror. The creature grinned in my face as if he divined my thought, and gave utterance to one of his hideous “clucks”.

Then I began to feel the same faintness which I had at first experienced. It mounted upwards from my feet slowly, so that I heard the old gentleman’s voice, though I saw nothing. It grew gradually fainter.

“Supper at ten, Boule-de-neige,” he was saying; “I feel getting hungry already. What shall I do with myself till ten o’clock? I am certainly getting hungry. I think I can have it served at half-past nine. Oh, blessed day! Oh, thankful, blessed day! Boule-de-neige, it must be supper for three — for four — for five. I shall have champagne — the Perrier Jouet — the curaçoa punch afterwards. Curaçoa punch — I haven’t tasted it for three months and more. Oh, what a blessed — blessed — blessed—”

I heard no more because my senses failed me altogether, and his voice died away in my ears.

When I came to myself I was leaning against the post in Bucklersbury, where I had met the old man.

A whiff of stale cooked meat from the cook-shop, which caught me as I opened my eyes, produced a singular feeling of disgust.

“Pah,” I muttered, “roast mutton!” and moved from the spot, my hunger was gone, that was quite certain. I felt a quietness about those regions, wherever they may be, which belong to appetite. I was almost dreamy in the repose which followed a morning so stormy. I walked quietly away homewards in a kind of daze, trying to make out something of what had happened. The first thing I found I could not remember was the name of the old gentleman. When that came back to me and under what circumstances I will tell you as we get along. Bit by bit I recalled the whole events of the afternoon, one after the other. I saw the old man, with his purple face and bloodshot eyes and white hair; I saw the wrinkled and seamed old negro; I saw the octagonal room without doors or windows; the splendid dinner; the host watching my every gesture; I remembered everything except the name of the man to whom I had sold — my appetite.

It was so strange that I laughed when I thought of it. I must have been drunk; he gave me a good dinner and I took too much wine; but, then, how was it that I remembered clearly every, even the smallest, detail?

On the bed in the one room which constituted my lodging I found a letter. It was from a firm of lawyers, dated that evening at half-past six — only half an hour after I signed the paper — stating that they were empowered by a client, whose name was not mentioned, to give me the sum of £30 monthly, to begin from that day, and to be paid to me personally. How did they get their instructions then? And it was all true!

I was too tired with the day’s adventures to think any more; and, though it was only nine o’clock, I went to bed and fell fast asleep. In an hour I awoke again, with a choking sensation, as if I was eating too much. I knew instantly what was going on, and by a kind of prophetic insight. The old man was taking his supper, and taking more than was good — for me. I sprang from the bed, gasping for breath. Presently, as I gathered, he began to drink too much as well. My brain went round and round. I laughed, sang, and danced; and soon after, with a heavy fall, I rolled senseless on the carpet, and remembered nothing more.

It was early in the morning when I awoke, still lying on the floor. I had a splitting headache. I had fallen against some comer of the furniture and blackened one eye. I had broken two chairs somehow or other. I was cold, ill, and shaken. I got into bed, and tried to remember what had happened. Clearly I must have made a drunken beast of myself over the dinner, and reeled home with my head full of fancies and dreams; perhaps the dinner itself was a dream and a hallucination too; if so, the pangs of hunger would soon recommence. But they did not. Then I fell asleep, and did not awake again till the clock struck twelve. How ill and wretched I felt as I dressed! My hand shook, my eyes were red, my face swollen. Surely I must have been intoxicated. I had been, up to that day at least, a temperate man, partly, no doubt, from the very wholesome reason which keeps so many of us sober — the necessity of poverty; but of course I had not arrived at four and twenty years and seen so much of the world without recognising the signs of too much drink. I had them, every one; and, as most men know too well, they are all summed up in the simple expression, “hot coppers”. Alas! I was destined to become only too familiar with the accursed symptoms. Involuntarily, when I had dressed myself, I put my hands in my pockets, those pockets so often empty; there was money, gold-sovereigns — my pocket was full of them. I counted them in a stupor. Forty-nine, and one rolled into the corner — fifty; it was part of the sum for which I had sold my appetite; and on the table lay the letter from Messrs Cracked and Charges, inviting me to draw thirty pounds a month.

Then it was all true!

I sat down, and, with my throbbing temples and feverish pulse, tried to make it opt. Everything became plain except the name of the purchaser — Mr. — Mr. — I remembered Boule-de-neige, the house, the room, and the dinner, but not the name of that arch-deceiver, the whole of whose villainy I was far from realising yet; and until it was told me later on I never did remember the name.

It was strange. Men are said to have sold their souls to the devil for money, bartering away an eternity of happiness for a few years of pleasure; but as for me, I had exchanged, as it seemed at first sight, nothing but the inconvenience of a healthy appetite with nothing to eat for the means of living comfortably without it. There could be no sin in such a transaction; it was on a different level altogether from the bargain made by Faust. And there were the broad, the benevolent facts, so to speak — my pocket full of sovereigns; and the letter instructing me to call at an office for thirty pounds monthly.

Benevolent facts I thought them. You shall see. You think, as I thought, that no sin could be laid to my door for the transaction. You shall judge. You think, as I thought, that no harm could follow so simple a piece of business. You shall read. On my way out I met the landlady, who gave me notice to quit at the end of the week.

“I thought you were a quiet and a sober young man,” she said. “Ah, never will I trust to good looks again. Me and the lodgers kept awake till two in the morning with your singing and dancing, let alone banging the floor with the chair. Not another hour after your week’s up, if you was to pray on your knees, shall you stay. And next door threatening the constables; and me a quiet woman for twenty years.”

My heart sank again. But, after all, perhaps it was I myself, not the good old gentleman, my kind patron and benefactor, at all, who was the cause of this disturbance. It was undoubtedly true that I had taken a great quantity of wine with my splendid dinner. I begged her pardon humbly, and passed out.

It was now nearly one o’clock, but I felt no desire for breakfast. That was an experience quite novel to me. Still, I went to a coffee-house, according to habit, and ordered some tea and a rasher. When they came I discovered, with a horrid foreboding of worse misfortune behind, that my taste was gone. Except that one thing was solid and the other liquid, I distinguished nothing. Nor did my sense of smell assist me: as I found later, my nose was affected agreeably or disagreeably, but it lost all its discriminating and critical Powers. Gunpowder, sulphuretted hydrogen gas, and tobacco offended my nose. So did certain smells belonging to cookery. On the other hand, certain flowers, tea, and claret pleased me, but I was unable to distinguish between them. Not only could I not taste them, but I had no gratification in eating them. I ate and drank mechanically, because I knew that the body must be kept going on something.

All this knowledge, however, and more, came by degrees. After making a forced breakfast I bent my steps to the lawyers’, who had an office in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

The letter was received by a conceited young clerk in shiny black habiliments, a turned up nose, and a self-satisfied manner.

“Ha!” he said, “I thought you would soon come round to us after the letter. Sign that. You haven’t been long. None of them are.”

It was a receipt; and I was on the point of asking if it was to be signed in blood, when he settled the question by giving me the ink.

“There, Luke Lucraft, across the eightpenny stamp. I’m not allowed to answer any questions you may put, Mr. Lucraft, nor to ask you any; so take your money, and good morning to you. I suppose, like the rest of them, you don’t know the name of your benefactor, and would like to — yes; but you needn’t ask me; and I’ve orders not to admit you to see either Mr. Charges or Mr Crackett. They’d trouble enough with the last but one. He broke into their office once, drunk, and laid about him with the ruler.”

I burst into a cold dew of terror.

“However, Mr. Lucraft, I hope you will be more fortunate than your predecessors.”

“Where are they? Who are they?”

“I do not know where they are, not for a certainty,” he replied with a grin. “But we may guess. Dead and buried they are, all of them. Gone to kingdom come; all died of the same thing, too — DT. Delicious Trimmings killed them. Poor old gentleman! He’s too good for this world, as everybody knows, and the more he’s taken in the more he’s deceived. Anyhow, he’s very unlucky in his pensioners. He did say when the last went off that he would have no more; he wept over it, and declared that his bounty was always abused; but there never was such a benevolent old chap. I only wish he’d take a fancy to me.”

“What did you say is his name, by the way?”

The clerk looked at me with a cunning wink.

“If you don’t know, I am sure I do not,” he said. “Here is the cheque, Mr. Lucraft, and I hope you will continue to come here and draw it a good deal longer than the other chaps. But there’s a blight on all the pensioners. Lord, what a healthy chap Tom Kirby — he was a Monmouth man — looked when he first came for his cheques! As strong as a bull and as fresh as a lark.”

“A good appetite had he?”

“No; couldn’t eat anything after a bit; said he fancied nothing. Lost his taste entirely. He pined away and died in a galloping consumption before the third month was due. Nobody ever saw him drinking, but he was drunk every night, regular, like the rest. Perhaps it’s only coincidence. Better luck to you, Mr. Lucraft.”

This conversation did not reassure me, and I determined to go over to Bucklersbury at once and see my patron. I found the post against which I was leaning when he accosted me; there was no doubt about that, for the hares and cauliflowers were still in the shop-window, only they looked disgusting to me this morning. I found the street into which he had led me, and then — then — it was the most extraordinary thing, I could not find the door by which we entered. Not only was there no door, but there seemed no place where such a door as I remembered could exist in this little narrow winding street. I went up and down twice. I looked at all the windows. I asked a policeman if he had ever seen an old gentleman about the street such as I described, or such a negro as Boule-de-neige; but he could give no information. Only as I prowled slowly along the pavement I heard distinctly — it gave me a nervous shock that I could not account for — the infernal “Cluck — cluck!” of the negro with the cold soft hands, the wrinkled skin, and the fiery red eyes. He was chuckling at me from some hiding-place of his own, where he was safe. He had done me no harm that I knew of, but I hated him at that moment.

I was by this time not at all elated at my good fortune. I even craved to have back again what I had sold. I felt heavy at heart, and had a presentiment of fresh trouble before me. I thought of the fate of those unknown and unfortunate predecessors, all dead in consequence of drink, evil courses, and DT. Heavens! was I too to die miserably with delirium tremens, after I had sold my taste, and could only tell brandy from water, like the cask which might hold either, by the smell?

At half-past one — the luncheon time for all who have appetites — the sense of being gorged came upon me again, but this time without the giddiness. I went to a tavern in the Strand and fell sound sleep. When I awoke at six the oppression had passed away. And now I began to realise something of the consequences of my act. I say something, because worse, far worse, remained behind. I was doomed, I saw clearly, to be the victim of the old man’s gluttony. He would eat and I should suffer. Already, as I guessed from the clerk’s statements, he had killed four strong men before me. I was to be the fifth. I went again to Bucklersbury, and sought in every house for something that might give me a clue. I loitered in the quiet city streets in the hope of finding my tormentor, and forcing him to give me back my bond. There was no clue, and I did not meet him. But I felt him. He began dinner, as nearly as I could feel, about seven o’clock; he took his meal with deliberation, judging from the gradual nature of my sensations; but he took an amazing quantity, and by eight o’clock the weight upon me was so great that I could scarcely breathe How I cursed my folly! How I impotently writhed under the burden I had wantonly laid upon myself! And then he began to drink. The fiend, the scoundrel! I felt the fumes mount to my head; there was no exhilaration, no forgetfulness of misery; none of the pleasant gradations of excitement, hope, and confidence, through which men are accustomed to pass before arriving at the final stage, the complete oblivion, of intoxication. I felt myself getting gradually but hopelessly drunk. I struggled against the feeling, but in vain; the houses went round and round with me: my speech, when I tried to speak, became thick; the flags of the pavement flew up and struck me violently on the forehead, and I became unconscious of what happened afterwards.

•   •   •

In the morning I found myself lying on a stone bench in a small whitewashed room. My brows were throbbing and my throat was parched, and in my brain was ringing, I do not know why, the infernal “Cluck — cluck!” of the negro with derisive iteration. I had not long to meditate; the door opened, and a constable appeared.

“Now then,” he said, roughly, “if you can stand upright by this time, come along.”

It was clear enough to me now what had happened: I was in custody, in a police-cell and I was going before the magistrate. I dream of that ignominy still, though forty years have passed since I was placed in the dock and asked what I had to say for myself. “Drunk and disorderly.”

I was charged by the constable — there were no police in 1823 — with being drunk and disorderly. Twenty other poor wretches were waiting their trial for the same offence; one or two for graver charges. My case came first, and had the honour of being reported in the papers. Here is the extract cut out of the Morning Chronicle:

A young man, who gave his name as Henry Luke, and said he was an actor by profession, was charged with being drunk and disorderly in the streets. The constable found him at ten o’clock lying on the pavement of Bucklersbury, too drunk even to speak, and quite unable therefore to give any account of himself. A cheque, signed by the well-known firm of Crackett and Charges, for £30 was found on his person. The magistrate remarked that this was a suspicious circumstance, and decided to remand the case till these gentlemen could be communicated with. One of the partners appeared at twelve, and deposed that the prisoner’s real name was Luke Lucraft that he had been an actor, and that the cheque had been given him by the firm, acting for a client who wished to be anonymous, but whose motive was pure benevolence. The magistrate, on hearing the facts of the case, addressed the prisoner with a suitable admonition. He bade him remember that such an abuse of a good man’s charity, as he had been guilty of, was the worst form of ingratitude. It appeared that on the very day of receiving a gift, which was evidently intended to advance him in life, or to find him the means of procuring suitable employment, the prisoner deliberately made himself so hopelessly drunk that he could neither speak nor stand — where, it did not appear. The magistrate could not but feel that this conduct showed the gravest want of moral principle, and he strongly advised Mr. Crackett to cancel the cheque till further orders. As, however, it was a first offence, and in consideration of the prisoner’s youth, the fine inflicted would be a small one of ten shillings, with costs.

That was the newspaper account of the affair. On his way out of the court, Mr. Crackett stopped me.

“Young man,” he said, shaking his head, “this is very dreadful. I warned my benevolent client against this act of generosity. You are the fifth young man whom he has assisted in this magnificent manner. The former, all four, took to drink, and died in a disgraceful manner. Take warning, and stop while it is yet time.” I got away as fast as I could, and crept back to my lodging after the necessary miserable breakfast.

I am not ashamed to say that I sat down and cried. The tears would crowd into my eyes. It was too dreadful. Here I was, only twenty-four years of age, with my life before me, doomed, through my own folly, to a miserable ending and a disgraceful reputation. What good would come of having money under these dreadful conditions? Money, indeed! What had become of the fifty pounds given me only two days before? Gone. All gone but one single sovereign which served to pay my fine. Someone had robbed me. Perhaps the constables. Perhaps a street thief. It was gone. The sorry reward of my consent to the unholy bargain was clean swept away, and only the consequences of the contract remained.

In the afternoon, as I hastened home along the darkening streets, hoping to reach my lodging before the daily gorge began, a curious thing happened to me. On the other side of the street, in a dark comer, standing upright, and pointing to me with a finger of derision, I saw Boule-de-neige, the negro servant. I rushed at him, blind with rage. When I got to the spot I found nobody there. Was it a trick of a disordered brain? I had seen him, quite plainly, grinning at me with his wrinkled features. As I turned from the place I heard his familiar “Cluck — cluck”.

Twice more on the way this strange phantom appeared to me; each time accompanied by the “cluck” of his voice. It was a phantom with which I was to become familiar indeed, before I had finished with Boule-de-neige and his master.

It was clear that the demon to whom I had sold myself was incapable of the slightest consideration towards me. He would eat and drink as much as he felt disposed to do, careless of any consequences that might befall me. It was equally evident that he intended to make the most of his bargain, to eat enormously every day, and to drink himself drunk every night. And I was powerless. Meantime it was becoming evident that the consequences to me would be as serious as if I were myself guilty of these excesses. One drop of comfort alone remained: my appetite would fail, and my tormentor would be punished where he would feel it most. I lay down and waited till luncheon time; no sense of repletion came over me; it was certain, therefore, that he was already suffering a vicarious punishment, so to speak, for yesterday’s debauch.

The next day, however, I really did meet my negro.

It was about five in the afternoon — the time when I was tolerably safe, because my owner, who took a plentiful luncheon at one, did not begin his nightly orgy much before seven. I was loitering about Bucklersbury, my favourite place of resort, in the hope of meeting the old man, when my arm was touched as I turned round. It was the negro. “Massa Lucraft,” he said, “you come along o’ me. Massa him berry glad to see you.”

I declare that although the moment before I had been picturing such an encounter, although I had imagined myself with my fingers at his throat, dragging him off, and forcing him to tell me who and what he was, I felt myself unable to speak.

“Come along o’ me, Massa Lucraft,” he said; “this way — way you know berry well. Ho, ho! — Cluck—”

He stopped before the door I remembered, but had never been able to find, opened it with a little key, and led the way to the octagonal room.

There was no one in it, but the table was already laid for dinner.

“Massa come bymeby. You wait, young gegleman.”

Then he disappeared somehow.

As before, I could see no door. As before, the first sensation which came over me was of giddiness, from which I recovered immediately. I walked round and round the room looking at the heavy furniture, the pictures, which were all of fruit and game, and the silver plate. Everything showed the presence of great wealth, and, I supposed, though I knew nothing about it, great taste. I was kept waiting for nearly two hours. That I did not mind, because every moment brought me, I thought, nearer to the hour of my deliverance. I was certain that I had only to put the case to Mr. Grumbelow — I remembered his name the moment I was back in that room — to appeal to his generosity, his honour, his pity, in order to obtain my release. Mr. Grumbelow — Ebenezer Grumbelow — he was the charitable client of Messrs. Crackett & Charges, was he? Why, I might show him up to popular derision and hatred. I might tell the world who and what this great benefactor of young men really was.

Suddenly, as the clock struck seven, he stood upon the carpet before me, while Boule-de-neige stood at the table with a soup tureen in his hand. I declare that I did not see at any time anyone enter the room or go out of it. They appeared to be suddenly in it.

I do hope that the appearance of small details like the above, at first incredible, will not be taken as proof of want of veracity on my own part. I wish that I could tell the tale without these particulars, but I cannot. I must relate the whole or none.

“You here?” said Mr. Grumbelow, looking at me with an air of contempt. He seated himself at the table and unfolded his napkin. “Soup, Boule-de-neige.”

“Massa hungry? Dat young debbel there he look berry pale already.”

“Pretty well, Boule-de-neige, considering. You, sir, come here, and let me look at you.” I obeyed. “Hold out your hand. It shakes. Let me look at your eyes. They are yellow. Do you know that your appetite seems to me to be failing already — already — and it is only the fourth day.”

“It is not my fault,” I said.

“Nonsense. Don’t talk to me, sir, because I will have none of your insolence. I say that you do not walk enough. I order you to walk twelve miles a day — do you hear?”

“It is not in the contract,” I replied, doggedly.

“It is in the contract. You are to use every means in your power to keep your faculties in vigour. What means have you used?”

He banged the spoon on the table and glanced at me so fiercely that I had nothing to say.

“Massa, soup get cold,” said Boule-de-neige.

He gobbled it up, every now and then looking up at me with an angry grunt.

“Now then, you and your contract. This is pretty ingratitude, this is. Here’s a fellow, Boule-de-neige, I pick up out of the gutter, starving; whom I keep expensively; whom I endow with an income; whom I deprive of the temptation to gluttony.”

“Nebber see such a debbel in all my days,” said the negro; “nebber hear such a ting told nowhere.”

“No nor ever will. Listen to me, sir. You will walk ten, twelve, or twenty miles a day, according to the dinner I have had. And, mark you, it will be the worse for you if you do not. Remember, if I cannot eat I can drink.”

There was a fiendish glare in his blood-stained eyes as he spoke, and I trembled. My spirit was so completely gone that I had not even the pluck to appeal to his pity. Perhaps a secret consciousness of the uselessness of such an appeal deterred me.

“You will now,” he said, “watch me making as large a dinner as your miserably languid appetite will allow.”

“I have been drunk for four nights,” I pleaded. “Then you have no business to get drunk so easily. Your head is contemptibly weak — what did I take yesterday, Boule-de-neige.”

“Big bottle champagne, big bottle port, eight goes whisky grog.”

“I did — and that was all. Why your predecessor stood double the quantity.”

“Beg pardon, massa. Last young gegleman poor trash — last but two — him mighty strong head — head like bull — nebber get drunk.”

“Ah, we wasted him, Boule-de-neige; we fooled him away in one imprudent evening. I told you at the time that noyeau punch is a very dangerous thing.”

“Ho, ho!” the diabolical negro laughed till his teeth showed like the grinning jaws of a death’s head. “Ho, ho! him so blind drunk he tumble out of window — break him neck. Ho, ho!”

This was a pleasant conversation for me to hear.

Then Mr. Grumbelow resumed his dinner.

He ate a good deal in spite of his grumbling, and then he began to drink port. I observed that the wine had a peculiar effect upon him. It made him redder in the face, but not thicker in speech. He drank two bottles, talking to me all the time. I began to get drunk, he only got the more merrily fiendish.

“This is really delightful,” he said, as I reeled and caught at a chair for support. “I wonder I never thought of this before. It is quite a new pleasure to watch the effects of my own drink on another man’s brain, I shall write a book about you. I shall call it ‘The Young Christian deterred, or Leaves from Luke Lucraft’s Wicked Life.’ Ho, ha! Ha, ho! I saw the account in the Morning Post. Heigh, heigh!” — he nearly choked as he recalled the circumstance. “The magistrate admonishing the wicked drunkard. Ho, ho! It is like a farce. Stand up, sir, stand up. He can’t stand up. Can you sing? Can you dance? He could not even dance a hornpipe. Do you feel a little thickness in your speech? Would you be able to explain to the worthy magistrate the circumstances, quite, beyond your own control, which brought you into that painful position in which you stood? It is the best situation that ever was put upon any stage. There’s nothing like it in fiction. Nothing. Walter Scott never invented anything half so rich. Ho, ho, ho, he is really getting drunk already. What a poor creature it is!”

He paused for a moment and then went on.

“Boule-de-neige, coffee; brandy in it — plenty of brandy, and a glass of curaçoa afterwards. A large glass, sir! I’ll have a night of it. Your health, Luke Lucraft, in this coffee; and you had better take care of it, or I’ll pack you off with noyeau punch. Pleasant times you are having, eh? Might have been worse, you know. You might have been starving. What? Don’t fall against the table in that way. Take care of the furniture. It cost a great deal more money than you are worth. So, sit down on the floor while I tell you about your predecessors, dead and gone, poor fellows.

“Let me see. The first was William Saunders, a poor devil of a clerk of mine. He disgraced himself in chapel one weekday prayer-meeting, the very evening of his signature; then he ran away, but Boule-de-neige found him out, and brought him back. He took to praying and crying. One day he died in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital of delirium tremens. He lasted about six months.

“The next was Hans Hansen, a Dane. He only lasted about three weeks, because he became melancholy directly he found he could no longer taste brandy. I was disappointed with Hansen, and when he jumped off London Bridge into the Thames one night, his appetite having quite gone, I was really very sorry on account of the temporary inconvenience it put me to; and I determined to be very careful in his successor. I remember I had a good deal of trouble to find one.

“However, at last I got a third man, a stout Cumberland chap, son of a statesman. You poor, puny little strolling actor, I suppose that you will hardly believe that I once took four and twenty tumblers of Scotch whisky and water without affecting that brave fellow’s appetite one bit. He used to take it out in swearing; and really he was almost too often in trouble with the magistrates. He never clearly understood that his safety lay in being home early in the evening. Once he nearly killed Mr. Crackett in his own office. Poor Crackett! that eminent Christian lawyer; I should never have forgiven myself had anything happened to the worthy Crackett. Well! he went too; at least, after a good tough twelvemonth. It was my own fault, and I ought not to grumble. That noyeau punch was strong enough to kill the devil.”

“Cluck,” said Boule-de-neige.

“Then we came to Tom Kirby. None of them looked so well or promised so much; none broke down so easily. A whining fellow too; a crying, sobbing, appealing rogue, who wanted to get off his bargain. However, de mortuis — Your health, Luke Lucraft. Hallo! hold up.

“I tell you what I mean to do after you’re worked off, Luke Lucraft. I mean to have a brace of fellows. I shall go down to the London docks, or else to the railway stations, and find a couple of trusty young porters. They are the sort of men to have. Fine, strong, well-set-up rascals. Men with muscles like rigging ropes — don’t clutch at the chair, Lucraft — if you can’t sit up you may lie down — I shall make them come here — give them a blow out of steak — I wasted a splendid dinner on you — and then I shall make them sign.

“The great thing, then, will be to have the appetites of two men; twice as much to eat and twice as much to drink. I never thought of that before.

“And then to bring both the rogues up here of an evening and make them wait and see me eat; watch them gradually lolling and reeling about till they tumble over each other; go secretly and hear them curse me — me, their benefactor — Ho! ho! I think I shall not be long over you, Luke Lucraft. Hallo! Keep your drunken legs away from the table. Boule-de-neige, roll this intoxicated log into the street.”

•   •   •

When I came to my senses it was of course the next morning, and I was lying in my own bedroom, whither I had been carried by two strange men, the landlady afterwards told me, who said they were paid for the job. I had a splitting headache. I was sick and giddy; my limbs trembled beneath me when I tried to stand; my hands shook. I looked at myself in the glass. Swollen features and bloodshot eyes greeted me.

Less than a week had wrought this ruin.

The ordinary drunkard refreshes himself in the morning with tea. Nothing refreshed me, because I could taste nothing, and because my sufferings sprang from a different source, though they were the same in kind. I had to bear them as best I might.

I remembered the command which Mr. — Mr. — strange, I had forgotten his name again — gave me, to walk twenty miles after a “heavy night”. I started to obey him.

Outside London, beyond Islington, where there are now rows of houses but were then fields, I saw a little modest cottage, standing alone in its garden. It was a cottage with four rooms only, covered over with creepers. On the board, standing at the gate, was an announcement that it was to let. A thought struck me: Here could be seclusion, at any rate. Here I could shut myself up every night, and await in comparative safety the dreadful punishment — fast becoming heavier than I could hear — which my tormentor inflicted upon me. Why should I not take the cottage, pay the rent in advance every month — for how many months should I have to pay it? — and so wait in patience and resignation the approach of my inevitable fate?

I made inquiries at once, and secured the place at a merely nominal rent. Then I moved in a little furniture, bought second hand in Islington High Street, and became the occupant, a lonely hermit, of the house. There were no houses within hearing, in case I should storm and rage in my drunken madness at night. The cottage stood removed from the road, and no callers were likely to trouble me. Within those walls I should be secure from some dangers at least. Here, night after night, I could await the attacks of surfeit and intoxication which regularly came; for my master knew no pity.

On the first evening I sat down at half-past six to prepare for what was coming. The day was drawing in, and a cold twilight — the month was March — covered the trees and shrubs in my little garden, as I opened the door and looked out.

Before me stood the negro.

My spirit was quite broken, and I could only groan.

“Do you want me to go with you again?” I asked, thinking of the last entertainment at which I provided amusement for his master.

“Massa say him berry glad you come hyar. You walk the twenty mile ebbery day, else massa know the reason why. How you feel, Massa Lucraft? Heigh! heigh! cluck. Dat most fortunate day for you when you sign dat little paper.”

He delivered his message and disappeared in the darkness. I heard his footsteps crunching the gravel in the road, and I longed, only now I had no courage or spirit left, to seize him and tear him limb from limb.

Then I shut myself in, lit one candle, and sat over the fire. I thought of the scenes by which my extravagant fancy had been excited; the garden full of lively girls — what were girls to me now? the country walks I was to have with Juliet — where was my passion for Juliet now? The ease and happiness, the lightness and innocence, of the life before me, drawn by an arch-deceiver, compared with my present, my actual misery, sitting alone, cut off from mankind, the slave and victim of a secret profligate and glutton, doomed to die slowly, unless it should please the murderer to kill me off quickly.

And then, because the first symptoms of the attack were coming on, I went to bed and stayed there.

So began my new life. A wretched life it was. There was no occupation possible for me — no amusement. I walked every day, in fair weather or foul, a measured twenty miles.

This in some degree restored vitality to my system. I never read; I took no interest in any politics. I sat by myself, and brooded.

As for my meals, I bought them ready prepared. They consisted almost wholly of bread and cold mutton. You may judge of the absolutely tasteless condition to which I was reduced, when I write calmly and truthfully that cold boiled mutton was as agreeable to me as any other form of food. I found, after repeated trials, that mutton forms the best fuel — it is better than either beef or pork — and keeps the human engine at work for the longest time. So I had mutton. As I discovered also that bulk was necessary, and that only a certain amount of animal food was wanted, I used to have cold potatoes always ready. I stoked twice a day, at eleven in the morning and about five in the afternoon. Thus fortified, I got through the miserable hours as best I could.

I look back on that period as one of unmitigated misery and despair. I was daily growing more bloated, fatter, and flabbier in the cheeks. My hands trembled in the morning. I seemed losing the power of connected thought. My very lips were thickening.

I hope I am making it clear what was the effect of my bargain on myself — I mean without reference to the sufferings inflicted on me by my tyrant. People, however, never can know, unless they happen to be like myself, which is unlikely, how great a part eating and drinking take in the conduct of life. Between the rest of the world and me there was a great gulf fixed. They could enjoy, I could not; they could celebrate every joyful event with something additional to eat; they could make a little festival of every day; they could give to happiness an outward and tangible form. Alas, not only was I debarred from this, but I was cut off even from joy itself; for, if you look at it steadily, you will find that most of human joy or suffering is connected with the senses. I had bartered away a good half of mine, and the rest seemed in mourning for the loss of their fellows. As for my pale and colourless life, it was as monotonous as the dock. If I neglected to stoke, the usual feebleness would follow. There was no gracious looking forward to a pleasant dinner; no trembling anticipations in hope and fear of what might be preparing, no cheerful contemplation of the joint while the carver sharpens his knife; no discussions of flavour and richness; no modestly hazarded conclusions as to more currants; no rolling of the wine-glass in the fingers to the light, and smacking of lips over the first sip — all these things were lost to me. Reader, if haply this memoir ever sees a posthumous light, think what would happen to yourself if eating and drinking, those perennial joys of humanity, which last from the infantine pap to the senile Revalenta Arabica, were taken away.

All things tasted alike, as I have said, and cold mutton formed my staple dish. As I could only distinguish between beer, wine, coffee, and tea by the look, I drank water. If I ventured, which was seldom, to take my dinner at a cookshop, I would choose my piece de résistance by the look, by some fancied grace in the shape, but not by taste or smell. The brown of roast beef might attract me one day and repel me the next. I was pleased with the comeliness of a game-pie, or tickled by some inexplicable external charm of a beefsteak-pudding. But three quarters of my life were gone, and with them all my happiness.

If you have no appetite for eating, you can enjoy nothing in the whole world. That is an axiom. I could not taste, therefore my eye ceased to feel delight in pleasant sights, and my ear in pleasant sounds. It was not with me as in the case of a blind man, that an abnormal development of some other sense ensued; quite the contrary. In selling one, I seem to have sold them all. For, as I discovered, man is one and inseparable; you cannot split him up; and when my arch-deceiver bought my appetite, he bought me out and out. A wine merchant might as well pretend to sell the bouquet of claret and preserve the body; or a painter the colour of his picture and preserve the drawing; or a sculptor the grace of his group and keep the marble.

As regards other losses I found I had lost the perception of beauty in form or colour. Why this was so I cannot explain. I was no longer, I suppose, in harmony with other men on any single point. Pretty women passed me unheeded; pictures had no charm for me music was only irritating to my nerves.

Then I found that I had lost the power of sympathy. I had formerly been a soft-hearted man — I remarked now that the sight of suffering found me entirely callous. There was a poor family living about half a mile from me, whose acquaintance I made through buying some of my supplies of them. They were in distress for rent; they applied to me…there, I cannot bear to think of it. I had the money and I refused them. They were sold up, and I sat at my door and watched them on their way to London — the mother, the two girls, the little boy, had in hand, homeless and penniless, without a pang and without a single prompting of the heart to help them. God knows what became of them. May He forgive me for the hard-hearted cruelty with which I regarded their fate.

Had I, then, sold everything to this man?

I had been pretty religious in a way — a young man’s way. Now I had lost all religious feeling whatever. I had once ambition and hopes, these were gone; I had once the capacity of love, that was gone; I had once a generous heart, that was gone; I once loved things worth loving, I felt no emotion now for anything. I was a machine which could feel. I was a man with the humanity taken out of him.

This time lasted for about four months. On the first of each month I went to receive my pay — the wages of sin — from the clerk, who surveyed me critically, but said nothing till the morning of the fourth month. Then, while he handed me my money, he whispered confidentially across the table:

“Look here, old fellow, you know; you’re going it worse than poor Tom Kirby. Why don’t you stop it? What is the good of a feller’s drinking himself to death? The old gentleman was here yesterday, asking me how you looked, and if you continued steady. Pull up, old man, and knock it off.”

I took the money in my trembling hands and slunk away abashed. When I got home again, I am not ashamed to say that I cried like a child.

Delirium tremens! That would begin soon, and then the end would not be far off. It was too awful. Think of my position. I was but four-and-twenty. Not only was I deprived of the pleasure — mind you, a very real pleasure — of eating and drinking; I was the most temperate man in the world, though that was no great credit to myself, considering; and yet I bore in my face and my appearance, and felt in my very brain, all the marks and signs of confirmed drunkenness and the hopelessness of it. That hardened old voluptuary, that demon of gluttony, that secret murderer, would have no pity. He must have felt, by the falling-off of the splendid appetite which he was doing his utmost to ruin, that things were getting worse, and he was resolved — I had suspected this for some time — to kill me off by drinking me to death.

I believe I should have been dead in another week, but for a blessed respite, due, I afterwards discovered, to my demon being laid up with so violent a sore throat that he could not even swallow. What was my joy at being able to go to bed sober, to wake without a headache, to feel my bad symptoms slowly disappearing, to recover my nerves! For a whole fortnight I was happy — so happy that I even believed the improvement would last and that the old man was penitent. One day, after fourteen days of a veritable earthly paradise, I was walking along the Strand — for I was no longer afraid of venturing out — and met my old manager, Juliet’s father. He greeted me with a warmth that was quite touching under all the circumstances. “My dear boy, I have been longing to know your whereabouts. Come and tell me all about it. Have you dined? Let us have some dinner together.”

I excused myself, and asked after Juliet.

“Juliet is but so-so. Ah, do you know, Lucraft, sometimes I think that I did wrong to part you. And yet, you know, you had no money. Make some, my boy, and come back to us.”

This was hearty. I forgot my troubles and my state of bondage and everything, except Juliet.

“I — I — I have money,” I said. “I have come into a little money unexpectedly.”

“Have you?” he replied, clasping me by the hand. “Then come down and see Juliet. Or — stay; no. The day after tomorrow is Juliet’s ben. We are playing at Richmond. We have one of your own parts — you shall be Sir Harry Wildair. I will alter the bills. You are sure to come?”

“Sure to come,” I said, with animation. “Capital! I know every line in the part. Tell Juliet an old friend will act with her.”

We made a few new arrangements and parted — I bought a copy of the play at Lacy’s and studied the part over again.

Next day I got over to Richmond in good time. The day was fine, I remember; my spirits were rapidly rising because it was the fifteenth day since I had had one of my usual attacks. I was in great hopes that the old man was really going to change his life and behave with consideration towards me. With the birth of hope, there revived in my heart some of my old feelings. I had a real desire to see Juliet again, but yet the old warmth seemed gone. It was a desire to see one in whom I had once been interested; the desire to awake old memories, which, I think, principally actuated me.

I found the dear girl waiting for me with an impatience which ought to have touched my heart, but which, somehow, only seemed to remind me of old times. My heart was gone — sold to my master with everything else. Mechanically I took her hands in mine, and kissed her on the lips as I used to do. She threw both arms round my neck, kissed me again and again, and burst into tears of joy.

“Oh, Luke, Luke!” she said, “I have so longed to see you again. The time has been weary, weary, without you.”

We sat together for half an hour, she all the time talking to me, and I, remembering what I used to be with her, wondering where the old feelings were gone, and trying to act as I used to.

“Luke, you are not growing cold to me, are you?” she asked, as some little gesture or word of hers passed me unnoticed.

“Cold, Juliet?” I replied. “What should make you think so?”

“I will not think so,” she said. “It is too great happiness to meet again, is it not? And you are silent because you feel too happy to speak. Is not that so?”

Presently it became time to go and dress.

“Let me look at you, Sir Henry Wildair,” she said. “Yes, we shall do it very well tonight. You are not looking, somehow, quite so well as you used, Luke dear. Is it that London does not agree with you? Are you working too hard? Your face is swollen and — fancy — Mrs. Mould says you look as if you had been drinking.”

Mrs. Mould was the dresser.

If Mrs. Mould had seen me a fortnight before, she might well have said I had been drinking. A fortnight, however, of rest had done wonders for me.

I laughed, but felt a little uneasy.

We rang up at seven.

The house was quite full, because my Juliet was popular at Richmond.

I began with all my former fire and vigour, because I was acting again with her. The old life came back to me; I forgot my troubles; I was really happy, and I believe I acted well. At all events, the house applauded. Between the first and second acts a sudden terror seized me. I felt that the old man was eating again. That passed off, because he ate very little. But then he began to drink, and to drink fast.

It was no use fighting against it. I believe the villain must have been drinking raw brandy, because I was drunk in five minutes. I stammered and reeled about on the stage, I laughed wildly and sang foolishly, and then I tumbled down in a heap and could not get up again. The last thing I remember is the angry roar of poor old Kerrans, beside himself with passion, telling the carpenters to carry that drunken beast away and throw him into the road. I heard afterwards that they were obliged to drop the curtain, and that the éclat of poor Juliet’s benefit was entirely spoiled. As for myself, the carpenters carried me out to the middle of Richmond-green, where they were going to leave me, only one of them had compassion, and wheeled me to his own house in a barrow.

In the morning I returned hastily to London, sought my cottage at Islington, and shut myself in with an agony of shame and humiliation.

I was quite crushed by this blow. For the first time I felt tempted to commit suicide and end it all. To be sure I ought to have foreseen this, and all the other dreadful things. Directly my master, my owner, got able to swallow, though he could not eat, he could drink, and ordered the most fiery liquor he could procure, with a view to kill me off and begin with another victim.

But Providence ruled otherwise.

Then began a week of cruel suffering. My master sent me word by Boule-de-neige that he intended to finish me off. My appetite, he said, had been long failing, and was now perfectly contemptible. He complained that I had neglected my part of the contract, that I must have been practising intemperance — the horrible hypocrite — to have reduced so fine an appetite to nothing in a short four months. Therefore he felt obliged to tell me that in a week or two I should probably find the agreement ended. That was his ferocious way of putting it. He meant that in a week I should be dead. His words were prophetic, but not in the sense in which he meant them.

He drank brandy now. He drank it morning, noon, and night. He drank it, not because he liked it, but in hopes of despatching me. I was no sooner partially recovered from one drunken bout than I plunged into another.

I lost all power of walking. I could not move about. I lay the whole day sick and feverish on my bed, or, if I got up at all, it was only to change it for an easy chair. I could eat nothing.

Then I began to have visions and to see spectres in my loneliness and misery.

First I saw all over again the scenes of my early life — my poor deserted mother; the tramp who took charge of me; the sleep in which I nearly perished; the strolling actors with whom I wandered; the girl with whom I fell in love. Only among them all there hovered perpetually the ugly face of Boule-de-neige, spoiling the pleasant memories, and corrupting the current of my thoughts with his “Cluck — cluck”, and his demoniac grin.

“How you do, Massa Lucraft? How you feel your stumjack this morning? Ole massa him berry fierce. Him gwine to make the noyeau punch tomorrow. Dat finish um off. Dat work um up. You wait till tomorrow, Massa Lucraft.”

I could only groan.

“You nice young gegleman,” he went on, with a grin. “You berry grateful young gegleman. Massa him gib you thirty pounds a month, and you spend it all in ‘temperate courses. Bad; berry bad, dam bad. What you say when you die — eh? Ho! ho!”

The creature seemed always with me during this time. If I opened my eyes I had the feeling that he was hovering about my bed. If it was dark I thought I saw his eyes glaring at me from some corner. If I was asleep he would waken me with his “Cluck”. What he did in my cottage I never knew. The room was filled with the visions which passed through my brain, succeeding each other again and again like the acts of a play repeated incessantly. I saw the octagonal room with the old gentleman eating and drinking. I saw myself at Richmond. I saw myself before the magistrates; and I looked on as an outsider, as a spectator of a tragedy which would end in death and horror.

It was two days before the period allotted to me by my master, at eight o’clock in the evening, as I Was sitting in my lonely cottage, expectant of the usual drunken bout, when I felt a curious agitation within me, an internal struggle, as if through all my veins a tempestuous wave was surging and rushing. I lay down.

“This is some new devilry of the old man,” I said to myself. “Let him do his worst; at least, I must try to bear it with resignation.” I began to speculate on my inevitable and approaching end, and to wonder curiously, what proportion of the sin of all this drunkeness would be laid to my charge.

To my astonishment nothing more followed. The tumult of my system gradually subsided, and I fell asleep.

In the morning I awoke late, and missed the usual headache. I had, therefore, I was surprised to find, actually not been drunk the night before. I rose with my customary depression, and was astonished to discover that my nerves were steadier and spirits higher than I had known for a long time.

I mechanically went to the cupboard and pulled out my cold mutton and potatoes. Who can picture my joy when I found that I could taste the meat again, and that it was nasty? I hardly believed my senses; in fact, I had lost them for so long that it was difficult to understand that they had come back to me. I tried the potatoes. Heavens, what a horrible thing to a well-regulated palate is a cold boiled potato!

At first, as I said, I could not believe that I had recovered my taste; then, as the truth forced itself upon me, and I found that I could not only taste, but was actually hungry, I jumped and danced, and was beside myself with joy. Think of a convict suddenly released, and declared guiltless of the charges brought against him. Think of a prisoner on the very ladder of the gallows-tree, with the rope round his neck, reprieved and pardoned. Think of one doomed to death by his physician receiving the assurance that it was all a mistake, and that he would gather up long years of life as in a sheaf. And think that such joy as these would feel, I felt — and more!

I went to the nearest coffee-shop and ordered bacon, eggs, and tea, offering up a short grace with every plate as it came. And then, because I felt sure that my old tormentor must be dead, I repaired to my lawyers’, and saw the clerk.

“Ah,” he said, “the poor old man’s gone at last! Went out like the snuff of a candle. His illness was only twenty-four hours. Well, he’s gone to heaven, if ever man did.”

“What did he die of — too much eating and drinking?”

“Mr. Lucraft,” said the clerk, severely, “this is not the tone for you to adopt towards that distinguished man, your benefactor. He died, sir — being a man of moral, temperate, and even abstemious life, though of full habit — of apoplexy.”

“Oh!” I said, careless what the clerk said, but glad to be quite sure that the diabolical old villain was really dead. I suppose that never was such joy over the repentance of any sinner as mine over the death of that murdering glutton, for whom no words of hatred were too strong.

“I think you’ve got to see our senior partner,” said the clerk. “Step this way.”

He led me to a room where I found a grave and elderly gentle man sitting at a table.

“Mr. Lucraft?” he said. “I was expecting you. I saw your late patron’s negro this morning. He told me that you would call.”

I stared, but said nothing.

“I have a communication to make to you, on the part of our departed friend, Mr. Ebenezer Grumbelow. It is dated a few weeks since, and is to the effect that a sum of money which I hold was to be placed in your hands in case of his death. This, it appears, he anticipated, for some reason or other.”

“Ebenezer Grumbelow”. That was the name which had so long escaped my memory — “Ebenezer Grumbelow”.

I said nothing, but stared with all my eyes.

“My poor friend,” the lawyer went on, “after remarking that unless you change your unfortunate habits you will come to no good, gave me this money himself — here is the cheque — so that it will not appear in his last will and testament.”

I took it in silence.

“Well, sir” — he looked at me in some surprise — “have you no observation to make, or remark to offer, on this generosity?”

“None,” I said.

“I do not know,” he continued; “I do not know — your signature here, if you please — what reason Mr. Grumbelow had in taking you up, or what claim you possessed upon his consideration; but I think, Sir, I do think, that some expression, some sense of regret, is due.”

I buttoned up the cheque in my pocket.

“Mr. Grumbelow was a philanthropist, I believe, Sir?”

“He was. As a philanthropist, as a supporter of charities, as a public donor of great amounts, Mr. Grumbelow’s name stands in the front. So much we all know.”

“A religious man, too?”

“Surely, surely; one of our most deeply religious men. A man who was not ashamed of his saintly profession.”

“Cluck — cluck!”

It was the familiar face of Boule-de-neige at the door.

“You know, I suppose,” said the lawyer, “Mr. Grumbelow’s body-servant, a truly Christian negro?”

“Was there,” I asked, “any clause in Mr. Grumbelow’s letter — any conditions attached to this gift?”

“None whatever. It is a free gift. Stay, there is a postscript which I ought to have read to you. You will perhaps understand it. In it Mr. Grumbelow says that as to the services rendered by him to you, and by you to him, it will be best for your own sake to keep them secret.”

I bowed.

The date of the cheque corresponded with the first illness of the old man — his affection of the throat. Probably he was afraid that I should reveal his infamous story.

“I may now tell you, Mr. Lucraft, without at all wishing to break any confidence that may have existed between you and the deceased, that a friend of Mr. Grumbelow’s — no other, indeed, than the Rev. Jabez Jumbles, a pulpit name doubtless known to you — intends to write the biography of this distinguished and religious man, as an example to the young. Any help you can afford to so desirable an end will be gratefully received. Particularly, Mr. Lucraft, any communication on the subject of his continual help given to young men, who regularly disappointed him, and all, except yourself, died of drink.”

I bowed again and retired.

Did anyone ever hear of such a wicked old man?

Outside the office I was joined by the negro.

“What have you got to say to me, detestable wretch?” I cried, shaking my fist in his withered old face.

“Cluck — cluck! Massa not angry with poor old Boule-de-neige. How young massa? Young massa pretty well? How de lubly abbadide of de young gegleman? How him strong stumjack? Cluck — cluck!”

He kept at a safe distance from me. I think I should have killed him if I had ever clutched him by the throat.

“Ole massa him always ask, ‘How dat young debbel? Go and see, Boule-de-neige.’ I go to young massa’s cottage daraway, and come back. ‘Him berry dam bad, Sir,’ I say; ‘him going to be debbel berry fast, just like dem oders. De folk all say he drink too much for him berry fine constitution.’ Cluck — cluck! Ole massa he only say ebbery night, ‘Bring de brandy, Boule-de-neige; let’s finish him.’ Cluck — cluck!”

Here was a Christian negro for you!

“Tell me, what did your master die of?”

“Apple perplexity, massa.”

“Ah! what else? Come, Boule-de-neige, I know a good deal; tell me more.”

“Massa’s time up,” he whispered, coming close to me. “Time quite up, and him berry much ’fraid. Massa Lucraft want servant? Boule-de-neige berry good servant. Cook lubly dinner; make massa rich, like Massa Grumbelow.”

“I’d rather hire the devil!” I exclaimed.

“Cluck — cluck — cluck!” grinned the creature; and really he looked at the moment as much like the devil as one could wish. “Cluck! dat massa can do if massa like.”

I rushed away, too much excited by the recovery of my freedom to regard what he said.

I was free! What next?

First the restoration of my shattered nerves.

There was no permanent injury done to my constitution, because, after all, the drink had not actually gone down my throat, nor was it I who had consumed the gallons of turtle soup, the tons of fish, the shiploads of cattle with which he had punished me for that woeful signature of mine.

The contract, in some inexplicable manner, affected me with the punishment of my purchaser’s excesses by a kind of sympathy. I remained a strictly temperate man for a month. I recovered gradually the tone of my system; my features lost their bloated look. I became myself again.

And then I sought the injured Kerrans.

It was no use trying to tell him a story which he never would have believed. I simply told him that I was taken suddenly and hopelessly ill on that fatal night. I asked him to remember, which is quite true, how I began the piece with a fire and animation quite impossible in a man who had been drinking; how I had certainly nothing between the scenes, during which intervals I was talking with him, and how the thing came upon me without any warning. If you try, you know, you can make yourself quite drunk with brandy in two minutes. This is just what Mr. Grumbelow did to me.

Kerrans, good fellow, outraged in his best feelings, was difficult to smooth down.

He had asked me to act with Juliet in the hope of restoring to the girl her lost good spirits. I came; the misfortune happened, and she was worse than ever. But he forgave me at last, and allowed me another chance. This time it was not Juliet who threw her arms around me; it was I who implored her forgiveness, and the renewal of her love. I was cold no longer. I left off remembering, and lived again in the present. I was a lover, and my girl was trembling and blushing, with her hand in mine.

It all happened more than fifty years ago. The only record which remains of the events I have described are on the tablet to the memory of Ebenezer Grumbelow in St. Rhadegunda’s Church, City: and the little faded scrap from the Morning Chronicle, which I always carry in my pocket-book, and which tells the tale of my shame.

Juliet never believed my story, and I left off insisting on its truth.

She lies in Norwood Cemetery now, but we kept our golden wedding ere she died; and children and grandchildren live to bless her name.

The Case of Mr. Lucraft and Other Stories (1876)

A WORK OF ACCUSATION

Harry How

1893

“Suicide whilst in a state of temporary insanity.”

Such was the verdict of the coroner’s jury, and they could scarcely have declared anything else — there was not a tittle of evidence implicating another as the perpetrator of the deed. The deceased was found lying in his studio at the foot of his easel, shot through the heart. The revolver — a six-chambered one — was tightly gripped in his hand. Four out of the six chambers remained undischarged. It must have been suicide, simple and premeditated! The inquiry into the death of the deceased revealed only one spark of anything approaching sensationalism. It was the evidence of the housekeeper — an old lady of distinctly nervous temperament — who wept bitterly. Previous to the sad occurrence she had heard the firing of a pistol some five or six times during a period of two days. On the first occasion she had hurried to the studio, and the alarmed state of her feelings was sufficient to cause her to overlook the formality of giving the customary tap at the door previous to entering. She entered the room, only to find the deceased artist holding a pistol — the one produced — and looking at its barrel, still smoking, earnestly. He burst into a hearty laugh when he saw her, and told her not to be frightened.

“It is nothing, Mrs. Thompson,” he said, “and should you hear the firing again, do not be alarmed. Don’t be frightened.”

So the firing was frequent, and though it played pitifully with the old housekeeper’s nerves and shook her seventy-year-old bones considerably, she quietly submitted to it and “hoped it was all right.”

I knew Godfrey Huntingdon well. He often chatted over his pictures with me. As a medical man and a student somewhat beyond the range of physic and prescriptions, the pros and cons of an idea to be eventually carried to the canvas gave rise to many interesting and discussable points. I liked the man — he was so frank and true and positively simple in his unassuming manner. Poor fellow! He never dreamt for a moment that he was a genius, but what he did not know the public were quick to recognise. Every picture from his brush was watched and waited for — a canvas from him meant a vivid, striking, often sensational episode, which seemed to live. I have some of his work in my dining-room now. I often look at his figures. They are more human than anything I have seen by any other modern painter. They seem possessed of breath and beating hearts of their own, with tongues that want to speak, and eyes that reveal a thinking brain. The trees in his landscapes appear to be gently shaken by the breeze from across the moorland, the clouds only need touching by the breath of the firmament to lazily move across the face of the blue sky. He was indeed a genius.

It was always an open question in the minds of the public and the judgement of the critics as to who excelled the other — Godfrey Huntingdon or Wilfred Colensoe. They both belonged to the same school of ideas. Their works were equally impressive, their figure and portrait painting particularly so, and the judges said it would be a life-long race between them for supremacy with the brush. Huntingdon’s sad death was a terrible blow to the artistic world. I went to his funeral.

He had not forgotten me. He left me all his studies. There were several hundreds of them. Many were familiar to me, for he had made them whilst we were smoking a pipe together, as I pointed out to him the necessary laws of science he must needs regard in order to insure accuracy in his work. The studies made quite a number of huge bundles, and in the evening I would delight in sorting them through. It was a long task, for I found something to admire and think over in every single one of them.

A fortnight had passed away since they first came into my possession. I had only another parcel to go through, and I should be finished. I was quietly sitting in my chair with my legs stretched out on another chair, as is my custom — I find it remarkably restful — and lighting up my brier I cut the string of the last bundle. Slowly, one by one, I lifted up those pieces of brown paper. They were still objects of reverence to me. Here was the head of a child, a sweetly pretty child, and next to it a study of a dissipated character, the face of a man fast losing every working power of his brain and body by liquor. I realized the genius of my dead friend more and more.

I had gone through quite a score of these play studies, when my hand stretched out for another from the pile by my side. I turned the piece of paper round and round, and it was some time before I grasped what the subject was intended for. It appeared to be a piece of round tubing from which smoke was protruding. The next half-dozen studies were of a similar character. In one the smoke was very small, just a thin streak; in another it was a full volume, as though to represent the after effect of the discharge of a bullet from a revolver. I looked again. The chalk drawing of the tubing was evidently intended for the barrel of a pistol! Huntingdon always put the date on every study he made, and I found my hand trembling as I turned the paper over. Great heavens — 10th October, 1872 — the day before his death! Another paper bore the same date, and the others had the date of the previous day — the 9th. Was his death, then, the result of an accident and not a suicide after all? Here was the simple explanation of it so far — here was the reason for the several shots which the old housekeeper had heard fired. He had discharged the revolver at these times in order to watch the effect and immediately place his impressions on the pieces of paper I now held in my hand. My knowledge of Godfrey Huntingdon — both medically and fraternally — told me that, at the time of his death, there was positively nothing on his mind to cause such an act, and I now began reasoning the whole within myself once again, as I had done many times since the occurrence.

“It’s a mystery — a terrible mystery!” I exclaimed, jumping up and commencing to pace the room. I walked that room for over an hour, and was only aroused from my reverie by the announcement of a servant that supper was served. I ate my meal in silence, and the deliberate mouthfuls I took, and my more than ordinarily methodical manner of eating, must have told my wife that to disturb my present inward argument would have been disastrous to the immediate prospects of domestic harmony. I had come to a conclusion. There is nothing like science and its accompanying occupations for balancing a man’s brain. A game of chess is recreative concentration. So the study of science was with me, whilst physic was my profession. Scientific research and the weighing of Nature’s problems had steadied my thoughts and cooled my actions. It was a settled thing with me that poor Huntingdon had been murdered. By whom? Scientific investigation had transformed me into a calculating individual. Every action, to me, could be proved as a proposition in Euclid or an algebraical problem. I therefore said nothing about my startling discovery, and decided to wait the possibility of a further suggestion coming in my way, and “proving it.”

I suppose it was the deep interest I took in all matters concerning art which brought so many artist-patients to my consulting room. Six months had passed since the fatal 11th October, and the public were loudly expressing their approval of a marvellously impressive bit of painting by Wilfred Colensoe, which was the feature — and very justly so — of one of the early spring exhibitions. It was the picture of a duel — a very realistic canvas indeed. The young man — lying bleeding on the ground — almost told the story of the attempted avenge of an action towards someone dear to him on the part of an elderly roué, whose still-smoking revolver was in his hand. Colensoe came to see me one morning. He was a remarkably handsome man, classically featured, with hair picturesquely scattered with streaks of silver.

“Done up, eh?” I said to him.

“Done up is the word,” he answered.

“You’ve been doing too much,” I said, looking into his grey eyes as I held his hand a moment. “You must cease work for a time. Get away from your easel, go abroad, and forget to take your brushes with you. Go anywhere, a hundred miles from a retail colourman’s.”

“My dear doctor,” he answered, “your prescription is too strong. You forget I am an artist. It is like taking a man with a dying thirst to a fountain of water and telling him he mustn’t drink. I can’t leave my work.”

“When I tell you that it is either a case of your leaving your work or your work leaving you, my remark may not be very original, but it is undeniably true. Do you sleep well?”

“I can’t say,” was his reply. “When I fall asleep at night I never wake until my hour for rising. But I am more tired in the morning than when I turned in over-night.”

“Quite so. Do you dream at all?”

“Yes, I dream.”

“Feel sleepy now — eh?”

“Doctor, I could go to bed for a week,” he replied.

“Again, I tell you — overwork,” I said, with strong deliberation. “Now I’ll make you a proposal, which I can couple most heartily with the name of Mrs. Gratton. Come away with us. We are going to Herne Bay for a few weeks. I have taken a house there. Most invigorating place. You want no medicine, you won’t leave your work alone, I won’t be hard in my treatment of your case. Bring your tools with you. I will prescribe so much colour for you during the day — your paints and brushes may become converted into agreeable physic, but — they must be taken at periodical times. What do you say?”

Colensoe consented — gratefully accepted my offer, stayed to lunch, and my wife took care to let him feel that the invitation was one of combined cordiality from both of us. I was a great admirer of Colensoe’s work, and therefore took a deep interest in the worker. In a week’s time we were at Herne Bay. A room — with a good light — was apportioned off as a small studio for Colensoe. A week passed by. Colensoe obeyed my instructions to the letter. I limited his working hours, and he began himself to be thankful when the periodical times for laying aside his brush came round. I noticed this, and lessened the hours of painting more, thinking that by degrees he would soon put his palette away completely and take the undisturbed rest he needed for a time to restore him thoroughly.

About a fortnight after our arrival I was sitting alone in the dining-room. My wife and visitor had retired an hour ago. It was a glorious night. I turned out the gas, walked to the window, and drew up the blinds. The sea was sparkling with gems thrown out by the moon-beams. The beauty of the night seemed to heighten the stillness of the surroundings. Although it wanted but a few minutes to midnight I determined to walk out to the cliffs — a couple of hundred yards from the house — and view the moonlit scenery to greater advantage. I turned from the window, opened the door, and, just as I was turning into the passage, I heard a footstep. It was a steady, deliberate step; there was nothing uncertain or hesitating about it. I waited a moment; it came nearer. I drew back into the shadow. Now it was on the top stair. A form appeared in sight. It was Wilfred Colensoe.

“Colensoe,” I cried, softly; “why, what’s the matter?”

He made no answer. With monotonous step he descended the stairs and was now at the bottom. His blank, staring eyes at once told me that he was in a state of somnambulism. He was fully dressed. His face was deadly pale, his features stolidly set, and his lips were gently moving as though impressively muttering. When he reached the bottom stair, he turned and walked in the direction of the room we had converted into a studio for him. I followed on quietly. With all the method and mysterious discretionary power of the sleep-walker he turned the handle of the door and entered. The room was flooded with light, for the roof was a glass one. I watched him take his palette in hand and play with the brushes on the colours. He stood before his easel, on which rested a half-finished canvas. And he painted — painted as true and as sure as if awake, blending the colours, picking out his work, working with all his old artistic touch and finish. All this time his lips were moving, muttering incoherent words I could not hear. At last he laid aside his tools with a sigh that almost raised compassion in my heart. Then walking towards the window at the far end of the room, he appeared to look out upon the sea. He was now talking louder. I crept up to him and tried to catch a word. It was a terrible brain-ringing word I heard — and uttered in a way I shall never forget.

“Murder!”

That was the word. “Murder, murder, murder!” he muttered, with agonized face. Yet another word came to his lips.

“Huntingdon!”

“Murder — Huntingdon!” I said within myself as I linked the two words together.

The sleeping man passed his hand across his forehead. It was evident that he was in the midst of an agonizing dream — a vision of conviction. Here stood the guilty man before me now, pale and motionless, the rays from the moon lighting up his face and revealing the word “guilt” written on every feature. I watched him and waited for something else to come from his lips. I stood by his side for nearly an hour, but he did nothing more than repeat these same two words. With measured tread he turned to go. I followed him to his bedroom and heard him turn the key. I sat up the whole night — thinking. None knew of the remarkable discovery which I had made amongst poor Huntingdon’s sketches; none should know of what I had learnt tonight. By the morning I had fully determined upon my course of action. The ramblings of a sleep-walking man would not prove a conviction to those who would judge his deed. He should convict himself. He should witness against himself. He was a sleep-worker. I had met with many similar cases before, all of which tended to prove that sleep by no means deadens the faculties of labour. It is indisputable that the hands will follow the inclinations of the brains of somnambulists. They will act as they think — perform what they dream. If Colensoe would only work out his terrible night dreams!

My conduct towards him at the breakfast table and throughout the day was just the same as ever. It was far from a comfortable feeling, however, to pass the wine to one who had taken another’s life, and to offer an after-dinner cigar to a murderer. The day passed. I slept during the afternoon, for I was tired with my over-night watching, and could I but put my inward plans into execution, it was more than probable that I should be awake for many nights to come. I told my wife that Colensoe was a somnambulist, and that he worked at the canvas equally as well whilst sleeping as waking. I impressed upon her the absolute necessity of silence on the subject, as I firmly believed that I was on the brink of a great discovery. Seeing that I was a medical man, her curiosity was in no way aroused. Indeed, she thought me foolish to give up my night’s rest.

That night, after Colensoe had gone to bed, I went into his studio. My hand trembled somewhat as I placed on his easel a square piece of new canvas. This done, I waited patiently. A step on the stairs rewarded me. It was Colensoe walking again. His speech was louder this time, and more impressively distinct; his dream was evidently more agonizing than the night before. If he would only follow out the promptings of that dream — if he would but work tonight — tonight! I watched him breathlessly. He wandered about the room for some time, then suddenly, as though impelled by some mysterious force within, crossed to the cupboard where he kept his tools, took out his materials and walked to the canvas.

“Huntingdon — Huntingdon!” he cried, and the first lines of his everlasting vision were written on the hitherto untouched canvas. It was the outline of a man’s face! For two hours he worked, and then, replacing his brushes and palette, went to bed. I took the canvas away. Night after night for ten days I placed the canvas in position. Night after night the artist got nearer to accomplishing his own condemnation. And as the picture grew more like the man he had murdered, so his dream became more intense. His features showed that. The rapidity of his brush revealed the rush of thoughts within, of an anxiety to complete his task. Never was such a true portrait painted, and when on the last night he put the finishing touches to it, the face of Huntingdon seemed to live on the canvas. It was the face which existed in the brain of the painter. The last night’s work was done. The sleeping man turned from his easel and went to his bedroom once more.

The morrow would tell me if Colensoe was guilty. I had little doubt of it in my own mind — but he should say so himself when waking as he had condemned himself whilst sleeping. I would take him to the studio and confront him with his own testimony. He should see the face of the man whose life he had taken, painted with his own hands. He was later than usual in coming down that morning. I left the breakfast-room with the intention of calling him, when, just as I got into the passage, I saw him at the top of the stairs. His hat was on. His face was ghastly pale, every feature was working. His eyes betokened some mad intention — their gaze appeared to kill. He almost flew down the stairs.

“Don’t stop me,” he cried. “I must go into the open. I want God’s air. Let me go now — let me go, only for a little while!”

“Colensoe,” I said, catching him by the arm, “what mad act do you contemplate?”

“Nothing — nothing. Believe me, nothing. I only want the refreshing breeze, that’s all. I’m tired — worn out.”

“Yes, you are truly tired,” I said.

“What do you mean?” he cried.

“Your work.”

“Work — what work? — who works?”

“Come with me,” I said.

Like a child he followed me to his studio. I opened the door. The portrait of Huntingdon rested on the easel. He saw it. The eyes he had painted pierced him to the heart, and the lips almost moved in accusation. He shrieked the murdered man’s name and fell to the ground. He was dead!

•   •   •

The following letter was found on Wilfred Colensoe’s dressing-table: —

“What good is life to me? — what good am I for life? Then why live? A guilty conscience only means a living death. You have been very good to me — both you and your wife. But I am going to end it all. Let me confess. It will bring me some small comfort even now in the dying hour I have given to myself. You remember poor Huntingdon? I shot that man — murdered him. Listen and then ‘Good-bye.’ Huntingdon and I were friendly rivals. You remember my picture of ‘The Duel’? Yes. One day I visited Huntingdon. That same morning I had been making some studies of a revolver in the act of being discharged. I had it in my pocket when I went to see Huntingdon, and one chamber remained loaded. I walked straight into his studio. As I entered Huntingdon had a pistol in his hand pointed immediately towards me and — fired. In an instant my revolver was in my grasp and a bullet had entered his heart. That is the simple history of the crime. I fled from the place and none knew. Thank God this is written. A life for a life. I am passing through death all the day, and at night I do not cease to die. You do not know what that means. The guilty do. Angels of darkness play with you all day long and at night watch over you — watch over you that you do not escape, that they may gambol with you on the morrow. They are making merry now. They have got what they want — Me. Yes, a life for a life. I will deliver my own up. Good-bye.”

A TRAGIC HONEYMOON

G. R. Sims

1894

My chamber-maid at the ——— Hotel, Scarborough, was a nice, motherly, middle-aged woman. I like motherly, middle-aged women for chamber-maids. They know their business better, and they answer the bell quicker than young, flighty chamber-maids. And they are not so fond of reading the letters you leave about you, and prying into your private affairs.

The bump of curiosity is strongly developed in some women, and you find striking examples of the length to which female curiosity will go in hotels, lodging-houses, and places where they let apartments.

I stayed for a fortnight once in private apartments in Broadstairs, and when I left I recommended them to a friend of mine. He took them later on in the season without saying that they had been recommended to him by anyone. The landlady was a gossip — the kind of landlady that comes in herself to clear away the tea-things, and stands at the door for half an hour with the tray in her hand, while she tells you her trials and troubles, and throws in an anecdote or two concerning her former lodger.

I suffered considerably from this kind of landlady in my early days when hotels were beyond my means, and when I had to be content with two rooms in an unfashionable quarter.

It is only fair to say that in after-life I turned my sufferings to good account, and used up a lot of material that had been supplied by lodging-housekeepers.

My friend who took my old apartments at Broadstairs was full of his adventures when he met me again. He assured me that he had learnt more about me in one week than he had learnt in all the ten years he had known me. His informant was the landlady.

She had furnished him with a full, true and particular account of a lodger she had had earlier in the season — a lodger who was always writing and walking up and down the room, and muttering to himself, and she had grave misgivings that he had a crime on his conscience, because one day she picked up a sheet of paper he had left on the table, and it was all about a robbery or something. She fancied her lodger had begun to write a confession of what he had done, and then thought better of it, for she put the paper back, and the next day she found it all torn and “scrobbled up” in the waste-paper basket. With an utter lack of consideration the landlady gave my real name, and furthermore furnished my friend with choice extracts from some of my private letters, and wound up by saying: “I wonder what he could have been, sir; I’m sure there was something wrong about him.”

I have a friend, a celebrated novelist, whose housemaid for years read every letter that he left on his table, and a good many that he put away in the pigeon-holes of his desk, and when, in consequence of having stayed out till one o’clock in the morning on a bank holiday, she received notice, her temper got the better of her discretion, and she gave her astonished master a “bit of her mind”, and referred to various matters which she could only have become acquainted with by a very close study of his correspondence.

Hotel servants are not so inquisitive as private servants and lodging-house servants. They have not the same opportunity for minutely investigating; but even in hotels there are chamber-maids who want to know all about the guests, and who chatter among themselves concerning No. 157, No. 63, or No. 215, and speculate as to his profession, his financial position, and his moral qualities. Chamber-maids in large hotels have some curious experiences, and, as the records of the law courts plainly show, they are close observers, and are able months, sometimes years, afterwards to identify parties, and to favour the court with detailed statements worthy of a detective or a paid spy.

Let me hasten to remove the impression that I wish to be “down” on chamber-maids. As a whole I look upon them as very worthy and decidedly useful members of the community. But I still prefer, when I am staying for any length of time at a hotel, to have a chamber-maid who has passed her first youth and settled down to a staid and matronly sort of person.

Such a chamber-maid was Agnes, who, a few years ago, when for some five days I had to keep my room at the — Hotel, Scarborough, showed me the greatest kindness and consideration, gave me my medicine, and, like a good, kind-hearted woman, endeavoured to cheer me up and amuse me whenever she came in to tidy up the room, or to see how I was getting on, or to inquire if I wanted anything.

It was one morning while she was dusting my room that she told me the story which I am about to relate. I had been (not entirely without a view to copy) asking her questions as to her experiences as a chamber-maid, and after telling me one or two incidents in her professional career, she informed me that the most curious experience she had ever had in her life was while she was a chamber-maid at one of the big London hotels much frequented by people on their way to the Continent.

—  —  —  —  —

I’ve seen people arrested there, said Agnes, nice quiet people, that you would never have suspected of anything wrong; and I’ve seen runaway couples stopped just as they were coming downstairs to go off by the Continental mail. There’s always something or other happening in a big hotel, but of all the extraordinary affairs that ever came under my notice the most terrible was one that happened about a year before I left. I was the head-chamber-maid on the third floor then, and had, of course, to look generally after all the rooms, and see that everything was right. One day we received a letter from the country, ordering a suite of rooms to be reserved for a newly-married couple on a certain date.

The bride and bridegroom were coming up to London on their way to spend their honeymoon abroad, and they would break the journey at our hotel, going on by the Continental train the next day.

The housekeeper came up to me with the letter, and gave me instructions to get a suite on my floor ready, and to see that everything was in proper order. The bridegroom had been a constant visitor at the hotel in his bachelor days, and the manager was anxious that everything should be made as comfortable for him and the young lady as possible.

As soon as I had received my orders I began to execute them, and I had the rooms thoroughly turned out, and everything dusted and rearranged. I put clean curtains at the windows, and womanlike, always feeling interested in bridals and honeymoons, I took extra pains to make the rooms look cheerful and pretty, and I think I succeeded.

The following evening, about an hour before the young couple were to arrive, I went in and gave a last look round to see that everything was right, and just went over the mantelpiece myself with a duster and gave the furniture a flick here and there where the dust — that no power on earth can keep out of a London room — had settled down again.

Satisfied that everything was in perfect order, I closed the door and went to give some instructions to one of the girls about lighting a fire in a room at the end of the corridor, which was always a fearful nuisance to us when a fire was wanted in it. But so sure as we were full up, and that room had to be given to a visitor, the visitor would want a fire lit in it. It seemed just as if it was to be. It became a joke all over the hotel at last.

Whenever a message came up that No. 63 was let, we always used to say, “Of course there’s a fire wanted,” and, upon my word, it really always was so.

The girl whose business it was to light the fire passed me in the corridor.

“Oh,” I said to her, “I was coming to see you about No. 63. Be sure to have the window open and the door open when you light the fire.”

“I’ve got ’em open,” she said, “but the wind’s the wrong way or something, and the fire won’t light at all.”

“Oh, nonsense!” I said; “I’ll come and see to it.”

We went back together and into the room. The gentleman who’d taken it was already there. He was standing with his hands in his pockets looking at the fireplace, and he seemed the picture of misery.

“Poor young fellow!” I said to myself “he looks ill and unhappy, and wants cheering up. This is not the sort of room to make him feel at home, any way.”

“If you could do without a fire, sir,” I said, “it would be better. We always have a trouble with this fireplace. I am sorry to say it smokes.”

“I must have a fire,” said the young gentleman. “If I can’t have one here, give me another room.”

“I’m afraid we’re full up, sir,” I said; “but I’ll go and see what can be done if you don’t mind waiting a little.”

I really was sorry for the poor young gentleman, he looked so utterly wretched, and I couldn’t bear to think of him, ill as he evidently was, shut up in that dreadful No. 63. half suffocated all night. There’s nothing I think makes one feel so miserable as a room full of smoke, especially when you’re away from home and alone.

Leaving the girl to struggle with the fire, I went downstairs to the housekeeper’s room to see if there was a chance of putting the young gentleman anywhere else, if it was only for the night. As luck would have it, a telegram had just been received from a gentleman who was to have come from Scotland that night. He had missed his train, and wouldn’t be in London till the following evening. The room reserved for him was on the fourth floor, immediately over the sitting-room on the third floor which we were keeping for the newly-married pair.

Having obtained permission, I went back to the young gentleman in No. 63, and told him that if he did not mind we would give him a room on the fourth floor, No. 217, where he could have a fire and be comfortable. I explained to him, however, that he would have to be moved on the following day if he intended staying on.

“Thank you very much,” he said; “that will do very well. I shall not want the room after tomorrow.”

I called one of the porters and told him to take the gentleman’s portmanteau up to 217, and then I went to the chamber-maid for the fourth floor, and asked her to get a fire lighted at once.

When I came downstairs the newly-married couple had just arrived, and were being shown to their rooms.

I took in the warm water myself and had an opportunity of seeing the young lady. She was very pretty, I thought, and she looked quite a picture in her lovely travelling dress.

The bridegroom was a tall, handsome gentleman, but much older than the young lady. I’d seen him several times at the hotel, and so, of course, I knew him. I should say he was about forty-five, and she couldn’t have been more than nineteen. It was about seven o’clock when they came, and they ordered dinner for eight o’clock. Of course it was known among all the servants on the floor that they were a newly-married couple. It would have been even if we hadn’t been told beforehand.

You can trust hotel servants for knowing a honeymoon when they see one. Plenty of brides and bridegrooms like to pretend that they’ve been married ever so long, especially at the very first, but they never deceive us. I remember a private sitting-room waiter telling me a story of a newly-married couple once, who, when he went into the sitting-room at breakfast time, began to talk to each other in a way to make him believe they’d been married for years. But when the young lady was pouring out the tea, and said to her husband, “How many lumps of sugar do you take, dear?” he had all his work to prevent himself from grinning. He did smile, and the poor young things went quite scarlet both of them, and he went out of the room and had a good laugh all to himself in the service-room, and, of course, told it to everybody as a good joke. Men have no sympathy with young married people; they’re not like womenfolk in these matters.

Of course I had no opportunity of seeing the bride and bridegroom again for some time. But the sitting-room waiter told us they seemed nice people, and the young lady was full of spirits.

I went downstairs to supper at ten o’clock, and was back on duty again soon after ten-thirty. I had one or two things to see to, and when I had finished I sat down to do a little needlework.

It must have been nearly eleven o’clock, when a bell rang violently. The waiter for the floor had gone downstairs for his supper, so I went into the service-room and saw that it was the sitting-room bell of the bride and bridegroom. While I was looking at the indicator, the bell rang again, this time more violently still. I ran along the corridor to the room and knocked at the door.

“Come in! come in!” cried a man’s voice, and I went in, and there I saw the poor young bride in a chair and her husband bending over her.

“Some water, quick!” he cried. “She’s fainted.”

I ran into the bedroom and brought some water and a towel, and bathed her face.

“Is anything the matter, sir?” I said.

“Yes!” he exclaimed, “it’s terrible. I wouldn’t have had such a thing happen for the world. Look, don’t you see?”

He pointed to her hands, where they lay quite helpless in her lap.

On one hand — the hand that wore the wedding-ring — was a big, bright drop of blood. It had fallen right on the wedding-ring, and stained her hand as well.

“Oh dear !” I cried, feeling quite faint myself, “what is it?”

“I don’t know,” he said; “I can’t understand it. It’s the most awful thing I ever knew in my life.”

He seemed quite terrified himself, and certainly it was a dreadful thing, especially to anybody who was at all superstitious or who believed in omens.

I took the towel, and dipped it in the water and wiped the blood-stain from the poor young lady’s hand. Presently she opened her eyes and looked about her.

“Are you better, my darling?” her husband said, stooping over her, and touching her forehead with his lips.

“Yes, I’m better, dear,” she said; “but it was so dreadful! Oh, what does it mean? what does it mean?”

She glanced down at her hand with a look of horror in her eyes, and when she saw that the blood had been removed she gave a deep sigh of relief.

Seeing she was a little better, I got up off my knees — I had been kneeling beside her — and went back into the bedroom with the water.

I was a little bit dazed myself, for I couldn’t understand how that drop of bright red blood could have got on the poor dear’s hand.

I was just putting the tumbler down on the washstand, when I heard a shriek from the bride, followed by a cry from the bridegroom. I ran back into the sitting-room, and there I found them both standing with terrified faces.

They couldn’t speak, but the bridegroom pointed to his wife’s hand.

It was stained with blood again.

“It has dropped upon her hand — this moment!” cried the gentleman. “I saw it, I saw it — with my own eyes!”

“Dropped!” I exclaimed; “where — where from?”

I saw the gentleman look up at the ceiling; my eyes followed his, and then I felt as if I should go through the floor. On the ceiling above was a dark moist patch, and slowly dripping from it were drops of blood.

“I can’t stop here,” wailed the poor young bride. “Take me away, take me away!”

“My dear young lady,” I said, trying to soothe her, “don’t be frightened; nothing can hurt you here.”

I don’t know why I said it, but I felt I must say something.

The gentleman’s face was very pale, and I could see he was trembling. He was terribly upset, and who could wonder at it?

I think he guessed that something awful had happened up above. I did, and it had come upon me all at once who was in that room. It was the young gentleman who had looked so ill and miserable, and who had wanted a fire in 63.

“Take her in the next room, sir,” I whispered. “She won’t see it there, and I’ll go and find out what it means.”

“No, no,” she cried. “I can’t — I won’t stay here! Oh, it is too horrible, and on my wedding-day — on my wedding-day!”

She wrung her hands, and then put them over her face.

And there on her hand — the hand with the wedding-ring-was still that terrible blood-stain.

I could not stand it any longer. I felt as if I should go off myself, so I made a desperate effort and got out of the room, and ran downstairs to the manager.

“Something dreadful’s happened, sir, and it’s in No. 217. Please go at once. There’s blood dripping through the ceiling of No. 13.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed the manager. “What do you mean?”

He was at supper when I told him, and he started up quite horrified.

“Please come at once, sir. The poor young lady’s seen it, and she’s in a terrible way.”

The manager went up the stairs at once, and I followed him as fast as I could. On the first floor he met one of the porters, and he told him to come with us, and we all three went up on to the fourth floor, and the manager went straight to No. 217 and knocked at the door.

There was no answer.

The chamber-maid on the floor had come up, seeing something was the matter, and she gave the manager her master-key.

He put it in the door and turned it, but the door did not open.

It was bolted on the inside.

“Go and get something at once,” the manager said to the porter; “we must break the door open.”

It seemed an hour while we waited outside that door for the man to fetch his tools.

“You’re sure it’s blood?” the manager said to me.

“Oh yes, sir; I could see it by the stain on the ceiling, and some of it had dropped on to the young lady’s hand.”

“What an awful thing!” he exclaimed. “Who’s in here — do you know?”

“Yes, sir. It’s a young gentleman who came this afternoon, and we put him into 63 first, and moved him up here because of the smoke. He would have a fire!”

“I’m afraid it’s a case of suicide.”

“It’s something dreadful, sir, I’m sure, or the blood couldn’t have soaked through like that.”

Presently the porter came back, but it was a long job and a hard job to get that door open, the bolt held so firmly; but at last it went with a terrific crash, and then we all stood outside and peered into the room.

There was no light, but the fire was still burning brightly, and by the glow it cast over the room we saw something was lying on the floor.

The chamber-maid brought a light, and the manager went in first and knelt down by the “something”.

He had sent for the doctor directly I’d told him about the blood, and at that moment the doctor came up with the sub-manager.

The doctor went in and looked at the body while the light was held up for him.

“He’s dead,” he said, and the words almost made my heart stand still, though I had expected them.

The poor young fellow had gashed his throat in a frightful way, and was lying in a pool of blood on the floor.

I was in the room while they examined the body, but I couldn’t look at it. I turned my back and looked at the fireplace. There was a lot of burnt paper on the hearth, and some bits of torn-up letters and envelopes that hadn’t fallen into the fire.

The young fellow had been burning his letters and papers.

I knew then why he was so particular about having a fire in his room.

The doctor finished his examination, and then he got up and turned to the manager.

“It’s a case of suicide,” he said. “Do you know anything about him?”

“No; we’ve never seen him before; he only came this afternoon.”

“Well, you’d better not let anything be touched tonight. Nothing can be done for him. You’ll send for the police at once?”

“Of course.”

“Then, until they come you’d better lock up the room, and leave everything as it is. I’ll come down and sit in your room and wait for the police if you like.”

“Yes,” said the manager, “that will be best. I’ve been here ten years, and this is the first case of suicide we’ve had in the hotel.”

As soon as we were all outside, the manager pulled the door to, but it wouldn’t lock. He had forgotten that it had been burst open.

“I see,” said the doctor, “you can’t lock it up. You’d better put a man outside, then, to see that nobody goes in. He must remain there till the police come.”

So the porter was put on guard outside, and we all went along the corridor, looking very scared and frightened, as you can imagine, except the doctor, and of course doctors never look scared at anything — they take it all as a matter of business.

I had been so horrified at seeing the young fellow lying there dead that everything else had gone out of my head; but when we got to the top of the stairs I remembered the young lady, and all at once I thought perhaps it would be only right if the doctor were to see her.

I spoke to the manager, and he turned to the doctor at once.

“Doctor,” he said, “there are very painful circumstances connected with this unhappy business. It seems, at least so the chamber-maid tells me, that blood must have dropped through into the room below.”

“I don’t wonder at that,” said the doctor; “there’s quite a pool on the floor.”

“Unfortunately, the room below is occupied by a newly-married couple, and the blood has fallen on the young lady. The chamber-maid tells me she is terribly upset. I think, perhaps, you had better see her.”

“Certainly I will, but I don’t think, under the circumstances, it will be advisable to tell her the truth.”

“No, not if you can help it.”

“I’ll see how she is, and try to reassure her, somehow. Where is she?”

“I’ll take you to her,” I said. “The poor young lady fainted, and I left her almost beside herself; and no wonder, for the blood was on her hands.”

“Dear me!” said the doctor, his face looking quite grave; “and on her wedding-night, too. Poor thing! why, it’s enough to turn her brain.”

I led the way to No. 13 and knocked at the door, and without waiting for an answer, opened it and said: “If you please, sir, here’s our doctor, in case the young lady would like to see him.”

Then I pulled the door to again, for I had had enough of horrors, and went to sit in the service-room with two of the waiters.

I wanted to be with somebody, for I felt too upset and nervous to be alone.

The waiters were full of it, as anything of that sort soon goes all over a hotel, and they wanted to know all about it, but I said I couldn’t talk of it, it had upset me too much; but I told them there was no doubt that the young fellow in No. 217 had killed himself, and that he was quite dead.

The doctor was with the young lady quite half an hour. He passed me on his way downstairs, and I asked him how she was, and if there was anything I could do.

“She’s a little better now,” he said, “but, of course, very much upset. I’ve persuaded her that it is only someone who has met with an accident and lost a quantity of blood, and although it was a very unpleasant experience, there is nothing for her to take to heart, or to be alarmed at; but I called the husband on one side and told him the truth, and he thinks it better they should go to another hotel.”

“Well, sir,” I said, “under the circumstances it will be, perhaps. It would be a dreadful thing for her to know that at the very beginning of her married life there was a suicide’s body lying above her.”

“Yes, that’s a woman’s way of looking at it, no doubt. You can go if you like and see if you can help them to pack and put their things together. I’m going to ask the manager to send out and get them rooms in another hotel, so that they have no bother.”

I could see that the doctor was really sorry for the poor bride and bridegroom, and who could help being, under the circumstances?

I went in and helped to pack the things they had unpacked, and they were very grateful. I could see they were both awfully shocked and worried, and hardly knew what they were doing.

Presently the manager came up and said he had got rooms for them at another hotel near, and we got all the luggage down and put it on a cab, and then they came down and drove away.

It was past midnight when they went, and as I watched them going down the great staircase, the poor girl trembling and holding on to her husband’s arm for support, and he as white as a ghost, I couldn’t help thinking myself that it was about as unhappy a beginning to a honeymoon as their worst enemy, if they had one, could have wished for them.

•   •   •

Of course the police were very soon in the hotel, and had taken possession of the room where the suicide lay. I didn’t hear anything more that night, for I was tired out and upset, and glad to go to bed when it came to my turn to go off duty; and the next morning when I got up I heard the body had been taken away in the night to the mortuary, and that an inquest was to be held on it.

Of course I was called at the inquest to give my evidence, and it was then I heard all about the poor young gentleman.

His friends had been found and communicated with, and it seems that the young gentleman had been disappointed in love, and had been very strange in his manner, and very desponding for some time, but nobody thought he meant to kill himself.

His brother, who was one of the witnesses, stated that he had been in love with a young lady who had not returned his affection, and this young lady had recently married, and that seemed to have preyed upon his mind very much. “In fact,” said the brother, “he killed himself on the very day that the marriage took place.”

A good deal of evidence was given by the doctor and others, and the jury brought in a verdict of temporary insanity.

After the case was over I saw our manager go away with the brother, and they were talking together. Of course I went back to the hotel, but all day I couldn’t help thinking things over, and I thought to myself how strange it was that he should have killed himself right over the room in which there was a young lady who had only been married that day.

That evening when I went downstairs, the manager called me into his office and said he wanted to ask me a question or two.

“When that poor fellow came to the hotel, did he ask any questions of you?” he said. “Did he mention any names, and ask if they were in the hotel or coming to the hotel?”

“No, sir,” I said; “he only asked for a fire.”

“It was your idea to put him in the room above — 217?”

“Yes, sir. I did it because 63 smoked so badly.”

“Well, it’s rather an odd coincidence, then. Do you know that he came to this hotel because the young lady he was in love with was coming to stay here with her husband. He had found out somehow they were coming here after the marriage.”

“Good gracious, sir!” I exclaimed, beginning to see what the manager meant, “you don’t mean to say that the young lady in 13 was the one he wanted to marry?”

“Yes, there is no doubt, from what the brother has told me, that it is so.”

And I had put him, quite by accident, in the room above the bride and bridegroom. Only one thin floor separated him from the girl he had broken his heart over, and on her bridal night, while he lay a corpse above her, his blood had dripped through and had fallen on her hands and stained her wedding-ring.

He had doubtless timed his suicide. He had intended to take his life upon her wedding-day, and in the building in which she was to pass the first hours of her married life with the husband of her choice.

But I am sure he did not know when he planned that terrible tragedy that she would be the first to see his life-blood flow-that her cry of horror would be the first thing to lead to the discovery of his terrible fate.

It was chance that had brought that about — coincidence, as the manager called it — and I had been the innocent means of bringing it to pass.

I don’t know whether the poor bride ever learned the truth. I hope she didn’t, for it isn’t the sort of thing a woman would ever be able to forget. If she had known the truth that night when she felt a cold, wet splash, and looked at her wedding-ring — but there, it isn’t a thing to think about, is it, sir?

—  —  —  —  —

I said that I didn’t think it was; but after Agnes had finished her story and left me to myself I thought a good deal about it, and it has remained upon the tablets of my memory until now.

In one thing I cordially agree with Agnes, that it was a strange experience for a chamber-maid. I doubt if many chamber-maids have had one stranger.

My Two Wives (1894)

THE DOOMED MAN

FROM THE PAPERS OF
THE LATE MR. RICHARD JOHN GIBLINO,
MERCHANT, OF THE CITY OF LONDON

Dick Donovan

1899

As to whether this story shall or shall not see the light of publicity I leave to the discretion of my executor. I am resolved that in my time it shall remain my own secret. I am partly actuated to this course by a peculiar and constitutional sensitiveness to anything like ridicule; while for a man in my position, a sober, prosaic merchant, engaged in trade in London, to confess to belief in the supernatural, would not only subject me to a good deal of chaff, but might possibly, indeed I think it is highly probable that it would, do me a good deal of injury in my business. City life is a hard, stern struggle for existence. The City man is governed by immutable conventional laws, and woe betide anyone who transgresses them. Men engaged in business generally become slaves to custom. You must don a tall hat and frock coat; you must assume a smug respectability; you must go to church on Sunday; your name must appear occasionally in charitable lists; you must speak deferentially of your mayor and corporation; you must conform to all the traditions and customs of the City, as prescribed by the unwritten laws; you must periodically be seen at Guild dinners; your holidays must be taken at a fixed time, and be of a specified duration. In a word, “must” may be said to be the text of your life.

You must do this and mustn’t do that. And if you have the hardihood and boldness to set your face against the stern and fast rules to which you tacitly bind yourself when you become a City man, well then, all the worse for you. Now with a knowledge of these facts, which cannot be gainsaid, it will be understood why I have been so reluctant to make known the extraordinary incidents which I here note down for the interest of those who are curious in such things. But extraordinary as they are, I set them forth as matter of hard, solid, undeniable truth. Throughout my life I have taken “Truth” as my watchword, as my father and grandfather did before me. It has been my proud boast, warranted by facts, that my word has been as good as my bond. And in all my dealings with men of many complexions of mind, no one could or would have thought of impugning my honour, my bona fides, or my veracity. The business in which I was brought up, after a course at a public school, and to which I succeeded on the death of my esteemed father, was a very old-established one, having been founded by my paternal grandfather and his brother at the beginning of the seventeenth century.

It was in the year 1847, as our business and trade were spreading, that I opened a branch of our London house in Cuba, and placed a trusted and experienced manager in charge. Unfortunately this gentleman died in 1850, after a few days’ illness, of yellow fever, and it became imperatively necessary that I should proceed at once to Cuba to look into matters, and appoint a successor to the deceased manager. A City friend recommended me to take passage in a rather noted sailing vessel called the Pride of the Ocean, belonging to a Liverpool firm, and then loading in the Liverpool docks, being chartered to proceed direct to Cuba. I thereupon applied to the owners, and being informed by them that the ship would be ready to sail in a week at the latest, I engaged my passage in her. She was a full-rigged ship of about a thousand tons, and was reputed to be able to sail with a fair wind seventeen knots an hour, being clipper-built.

I arrived in Liverpool on the very day that the ship was advertised to sail. I was informed that she would warp out of the dock at midnight, when it would be high-water, and that two tugs would at once take hold of her and tow her beyond Holyhead. I did not reach Liverpool until the evening, and drove at once from the railway station to the vessel and went on board. Of course, everything was in the wildest confusion, and the noise and hubbub deafening; so, on receiving an assurance from the mate that I still had three or four hours at my disposal, I drove to the Adelphi Hotel, dined, played a game of billiards with a London gentleman with whom I had a passing acquaintance, and at eleven o’clock once more drove down to the docks and got on board the ship as the dock gates were being opened. Being very tired I went straight to bed, and the next morning, as the sea was very rough, I could not get up, as I am a poor sailor, and generally ill for three or four days at the commencement of a voyage. On this occasion I was a full week before I found my sea legs and sea stomach, and one morning I took my place at the breakfast table for the first time, and was welcomed and greeted by the captain, whom I had not seen before. We were a very small party, as there were only three passengers beside myself, one being a Spanish lady who had been transacting some business in England on behalf of her husband, who was a Cuban planter.

The captain’s name was Jubal Tredegar, a native of Cornwall, as I gathered. He was about fifty years of age, and had been at sea for over thirty. He had a swarthy sunburnt face, very dark hair, and black eyes, with a full, rounded beard, but clean-shaven upper lip. In every respect he was a typical sailor, save in one thing — he was the most melancholy seaman I have ever come across. It is proverbial of sailors that they are a rollicking, jovial set; but this man was the exception to the rule, and he at once gave me the impression that he had something on his mind. My sympathies were in consequence of this aroused, and I mentally resolved that I would endeavour to win his confidence, in the hope that I might be of use to him.

At first, however, I found that he was inclined to be taciturn, and resent any attempt to draw him out; but I learnt from the mate that Tredegar had commanded the ship for three voyages, and was highly respected by the owners. He was a thoroughly experienced navigator, and studied his owners’ interests. There was one thing I could not fail to note; he showed a disposition to talk more to me than to anyone else, and discovering that he played a good game at cribbage — a game I was particularly partial to — I got into closer touch with him, as one evening he accepted my invitation to a game, and after that we played whenever opportunity offered. But still he became neither communicative nor talkative, and no subject I could start appeared to have any interest for him.

We were playing, as was now our wont, one night in the cuddy after supper, when I noticed that he seemed more than usually depressed, and kept examining the barometer and casting an anxious eye up through the skylight. “What does the glass say, captain?” I asked at last. “Well,” he answered, “I think we are going to have a blow. There is dirty weather about somewhere.”

When four bells (ten o’clock) struck we finished our game and he went into his cabin, while I mounted the companion-way to the poop, intending to smoke my usual cigar before turning in. I had run short of cigars, and the captain had promised to let me have a box of good Havanas, but not until I reached the deck did I remember that I had not a single weed in my case, so I went below again, and to the skipper’s room, intending to ask him for the cigars. Getting no response to my knock I pushed the door open and was surprised to see him seated at his table, so absorbed in gazing at the photograph of a lady that he had not heard my knock. On perceiving me, he hastily thrust the photograph into a drawer and jumped up. I noticed him pass his hands over his eyes and turn away as if ashamed, pretending to search for something on the top of a chest of drawers. I thought it was an opportunity not to be lost so I said to him:

“Pray excuse my intrusion; I knocked but you didn’t hear me. I would also take the liberty of saying I respect your emotion. A man need not be ashamed of moist eyes when he gazes on the face of some loved one who is far away. It’s human. It shows a kindly heart, an impressionable mind!”

He turned suddenly and, putting out his hand to me, said: “Thank you, thank you, Mr. Gibling! You are a good sort. A little sympathy sometimes is not a bad thing, and, hardened old shellback as I am, I suppose I’ve got a soft spot somewhere. But, excuse me, I must go on deck.”

I made known my errand, and having procured the box of cigars for me from his locker, I carried them to my cabin, and he went on deck, and when I had opened the box and taken two or three cigars out I followed him. The night was very dark. Nearly all the sails were set. There was an unpleasant, lumpy sea, and the wind was blowing in fitful gusts.

The captain ordered the watch to shorten sail, but before the order was entirely carried out a squall struck us, and the vessel heeled over tremendously and commenced to fly through the water, churning the sea around her into white, flashing, phosphorescent froth. Anyone who has ever made a voyage in a sailing ship knows the apparent, and often real, confusion that ensues when a sudden squall strikes the vessel. At such times the wind will frequently blow for a few minutes with hurricane force, and it is no unusual thing for sails to be split to ribbons — even for spars to be carried away. Given a dark night, a heavy squall, a rough sea, rent sails, and the land lubber who is unmoved must be made of very stern stuff. The rifle-like report and cracking of the long shreds of the torn sail are alarming enough to the inexperienced; but when you add to this the rattling of the ropes, the banging of blocks, the groaning of the ship’s timbers, the harsh creaking of the spars, the roar, swish and hiss of the waves, the great masses of boiling white foam that spread around, and the hoarse voices of men on deck to unseen men up above on the yard-arms in the mysterious darkness, there is at once a scene which tests the nerves of the landsman to a very considerable extent.

The squall that struck the Pride of the Ocean was a very heavy one, and the main topsail went to ribbons. The skipper, who was a perfect seaman, issued his orders rapidly, but with judgement and a display of self-possession, while his officers ably seconded him. Three or four times he came close to me as he shifted his position on the poop, the better to make his voice heard above the howling of the wind, and the noises incidental to the tossing ship. I did not attempt to address him, knowing full well that at such a moment he required to concentrate all his attention on his duties. Once, when he came near me, I heard him mutter to my intense astonishment — “My God, my God, have pity on me!” It may be imagined to what an extent I was affected by this utterance. Had he said, “Have pity on us,” I should at once have jumped to the conclusion that we were all in danger, but the cry for pity was for himself alone. It set me pondering, and connecting it with his usual melancholy, and the sad and distressful expression of his face, I was not only puzzled but anxious. A few minutes later, as the ship did not pay off as rapidly as she should have done, Captain Tredegar ran to the wheel to help the helmsman to jam the rudder harder over, and as he glanced at the binnacle and his features were illumined by the light from the lamp, I was perfectly startled by his ghastly pallor. To such an extent was I moved that I rushed to him and asked in an excited way if he was ill. With a powerful sweep of his right arm he moved me from before him, and in tones of terror exclaimed — “There it is again! There, out there on the crest of that wave!” I peered into the darkness, but could see nothing save the phosphorescent gleam of the tumbling sea.

By this time I was quite unnerved, for a dreadful thought took possession of me. I thought that the skipper was suffering from incipient madness.

In a few minutes, having got the wheel well over, called one of the watch aft to assist the steersman, and he himself went forward to the break of the poop, and continued to give his orders. By this time the men had got the flying ropes and flapping sails under control, and, the dark scud in the heavens driving to leeward before the hurricane blast, the moon peeped through the ragged film and threw a weird, ghostly gleam of shimmering light over the swirling waters, while the track of the squall could be followed as it drove down the heavens to strike some other wanderer on the deep.

As is often the case, at the tail of the great blast was a deluge. It was as if some huge door in the sky had been opened and the waters fell out in a cataract. I hurried below, as I had no desire to be soaked to the skin, and when I reached the cuddy I found the Spanish lady passenger seated at the table, looking very scared and unhappy.

“Oh, Mr. Gibling,” she exclaimed, “is there any danger? What an awful storm!”

I assured her that all was well, and that the rain would probably bring a dead calm.

“Did you see the captain?” she asked, still displaying great agitation.

There was something in her manner and the tone of her voice that struck me as peculiar, and I replied:

“Yes. I saw him on deck.”

“Ah, but I mean here. He has just come down and gone to his room. I spoke to him, but he would not answer me. He looked awful. I am sure there is something queer about him. His eyes seemed bulging from his head, and if he had seen a ghost, he couldn’t have been whiter. He is either ill or going mad. Do go to him.”

The lady’s words did not tend to allay my own fears and suspicions, but, anxious not to add to her alarm, I said with an air of assumed indifference:

“The fact is, I suppose, he is over-anxious. Not that there is anything to fear, I am sure. We are in the squall zone, you know, but there is every prospect of making a good passage, However, I will go and talk to the captain.”

So saying, I left her, and made my way to the skipper’s state room. I knocked as usual, but again there was no response; so I pushed the door open, and found Captain Tredegar seated in his chair, half his body bent over the table, and his face hidden by his arms. His cap had fallen off his head and was lying on the table, and I noted that his hands were opening and shutting in a spasmodic, nervous way. It was no time for ceremony. I should have been dull indeed not to recognise that the man was suffering. I therefore went to his side, and laying my hand on his shoulder said sympathetically:

“Excuse me, Captain Tredegar, but you are not well. Can I do anything for you? Do make a confidant of me. Believe me I am not actuated by mere vulgar curiosity. Pray command my services if I can be of any use.”

He lifted his head up. I had never seen before in any human face such a pronounced look of nervous horror. His eyes wandered about the room; the corners of his mouth twitched, and he sobbed like a child that had cried itself into a state of physical exhaustion. I was positively alarmed, and my first impulse was to run for assistance. As if divining my thoughts he seized my wrist in his powerful hand, thereby detaining me, and said in a broken voice:

“Pardon me, sir, you are very good. I am suffering from an attack to which I am at rare intervals subject; but I shall be all right directly. Please don’t make a scene. There is some rum there in that bottle, give me a little neat. It will set me up.”

Although I was doubtful whether neat rum was the proper remedy in such a case, I could not resist his appealing manner, and taking the bottle from the rack I poured into a glass about a tablespoonful.

“Oh, more than that, more than that,” he cried. “Fill the glass nearly.”

Perhaps at any other time I should have argued against his request, but I let the rum run from the bottle until the tumbler was quite half-full. He clutched it with trembling hand, and poured the contents at one gulp down his throat.

“Thanks, thanks,” he said, as he recovered his breath and placed the glass on the table. “That will put new life into me. I feel better already.”

He rose, shook with a shudder as he did so, and taking his sou’-wester and oilskin from a peg donned himself in them. He put a hand on each of my shoulders, and looking me in the face, said with an impressive earnestness:

“Mr. Gibling, I am more than obliged to you. Add to my obligation, will you, by promising not to mention to anyone that you have seen me in one of my strange moods.”

“Certainly I will,” I replied with perfect frankness. “You may trust me. And, as I. have said, if I can be of service command me.”

“Very well; someday I may put you to the test,” he answered; “good-night, and God bless you.”

He left me, and I heard him clatter up the gangway in his great boots. As I crossed towards my own cabin the Spanish lady was still sitting at the cuddy table.

“Have you been with the captain?” she asked.

“I have,” I replied.

“How is he?”

“He is all right,” I answered lightly.

She glanced about the cuddy as if to make sure no one was listening, and then, bending towards me as if inviting confidence, she said in a half whisper:

“Do you know, Mr. Gibling, when the captain came down from the deck a little while ago there was such a peculiar look in his face that I could almost have fancied he—”

She stopped suddenly in her speech, visibly shuddered, and put her pretty white fingers before her eyes. After an awkward pause I broke the silence by saying:

“Almost fancied he — what?”

“He had seen some gruesome and unnatural sight.”

I laughed, though I had an inkling of her meaning, for strangely enough a vague, phantom-like thought had been troubling me; but I could not define it, could not give it shape; now at her words it was clear enough, and an uncontrollable impulse impelled me to give it utterance:

“Ghosts, you mean,” and I laughed at my own words, for the idea seemed to me — a prosy, staid, unromantic, London citizen — so utterly ridiculous. But not so to the lady. Her face assumed a graver aspect, and her eyes betrayed that whatever my views might be her mind was made up.

“What I mean is, he has seen a vision,” she remarked, with awe in her voice.

“Oh, nonsense,” I exclaimed. “Hobgoblins and bogeys belong to the period of our childhood. When we come to years of discretion we should cease to be childish.”

My remark annoyed her. She rose and curled her lip disdainfully. “I am not childish and I don’t talk nonsense,” she said, as she swept past me without so much as giving me a chance to apologise. I felt annoyed with myself for having been so tactless, but otherwise laughed mentally at what I considered the absurdity of the position.

A few minutes later I went on deck to finish my final smoke before turning in. The rain had ceased. The air was delightfully cool. The wind had gone, but cats-paws came up every now and then, bellying the sails out for a moment or two with a great jerk, but dropping suddenly the canvas fell back against the masts with a bang and rattle of blocks and creaking of sheaves. The sky was a mass of picturesque clouds with fantastic outlines. Here and there groups of stars were visible, and with chastened light, as if shining through gauze, the moon made a silver pathway over the face of the deep until it blended with the horizon in impenetrable blackness, which rounded off, so to speak, the weird scene.

The captain had discarded his oilskins, which were lying on the top of a hen-coop, and he himself was leaning on his elbows over the taffrail, complacently smoking a cigar, and absorbed apparently in the contemplation of the phosphoric display that flashed and glistened under the ship’s counter as she fell and rose to the swell, I approached him, He straightened himself up, turned his back to the rail, folded his arms across his breast, and puffing at his cigar as he cast a scrutinising eye aloft at the flapping sails, he said in a cheerful tone:

“Quite a contrast to a little while ago, isn’t it, Mr. Gibling? But it’s the sort of weather we must expect in these latitudes.”

I was struck by his changed manner. He seemed so cheerful and light-hearted. He wasn’t like the same man I had seen down in the cabin half an hour ago.

“Yes, I suppose so,” I remarked, for the sake of saying something.

“It’s not your first voyage to sea, is it?” he asked.

“No.”

“Have you been to Cuba before?”

“Oh yes.”

“Ah! then you will know pretty well what kind of voyage it is.”

I told him that I knew fairly well what one might expect on such a voyage at that time of the year, and we continued to chat pleasantly for a little while until six bells struck (eleven o’clock). “All’s well!” came in solemn tones from the look-out man on the fo’c’stle.

“Well, I think I shall turn in,” said the captain, as he threw the stump of his cigar overboard, glanced up aloft, then at the binnacle, and calling the second officer who was on watch, and telling him to keep the ship on the same course until the morning, he moved towards the companion-way, and I followed. When we reached the saloon he put out his hand. As I took it he said “Good-night,” and immediately added in lower tones, “Don’t forget your promise.”

I turned in and tried to sleep, but for a long time tossed about, thinking of what had passed, and trying to account for the captain’s strange behaviour; but the more I thought the more I got puzzled, and I came to the conclusion there was some strange mystery about him. I saw through my port the sun beginning to redden the eastern horizon before sleep came to me. I did not waken until long after the usual breakfast hour, so I breakfasted alone. The steward had kept something hot for me.

When I went on deck I noticed the Spanish lady — reclining in a deck chair, near the companion-way. She was reading a book, and perhaps that accounted for her taking no notice of me as I bowed and said “Good-morning.”

The sun was shining brilliantly. The sky was cloudless save on the horizon, where there were woolly banks. A steady little breeze just kept the sails full, and the short, choppy waves danced and flashed in the sunlight with a suggestiveness of joy and gladness. The captain was not on deck, and I was informed by the second mate, who had the morning watch, that he had not turned out yet. Wishing to propitiate the Spanish lady passenger, I carried a camp stool to where she was sitting, and in the most fascinating manner I was capable of commanding I asked if I could sit beside her. She smiled sweetly, and accorded her gracious permission. We said some commonplace things about the weather; she descanted on the tropical beauties of Cuba, and criticised rather severely the English climate; while as for London, she spoke of it with scorn and much shrugging of shoulders; and to my amusement, although I must admit the truth of some of her strictures, she described it as a grim and grimy city of revolting ugliness, a city without poetry, without music, without sun. A city where the people struggled and cursed and jostled each other for bare existence. A city where the rich disdained to sniff the same air as the poor. A city of gin palaces and churches, of hypocrisy and smug self conceit. A city of leprous sores and devilish wickedness, of hateful shams and heartless indifference, where the poor debtor was regarded as a criminal, and the rich despoiler of the widow and orphan as a saint. A city of moans and groans. A joyless, dark city, where Mammon was the only god that was truly worshipped.

These things, and many more of the same kind, she gave free vent to; and as they seemed to afford her satisfaction and did me no harm, I made no attempt to stop her flow of invective. Nor should I have noted them down here were it not that they to some extent represent the opinions which the majority of foreigners hold with regard to London.

When at last she paused from sheer exhaustion, I embraced the opportunity to turn the trend of conversation by saying:

“I am afraid, do you know, that I was a little rude to you last night,” but I hardly expected such a blunt reply as she made.

“Yes, you were exceedingly rude, and I hate rude men.”

“I hope you don’t hate me,” I cried, laughingly.

“Oh no, not quite. You’re a Londoner, you see.”

This was very severe. I confess I was hardly prepared for it, and I was tempted to say something cutting in reply, but checked myself, bowed, and merely remarked:

“Which is not my fault. Therefore pity me rather than blame me.”

“Certainly I do that,” she replied, with an amusing seriousness. “But look here; answer me this. Why should you have been rude last night when I said what I did about the captain?”

“Madame,” I said, as I laid my hand on my heart and bowed, “believe me I had no intention of being rude; but the fact is, I am a somewhat commonplace, matter-of-fact man, and I have no belief in anything that is said to be due to supernatural causes.”

“Supernatural or not supernatural,” she retorted, “there are things going on around us which certainly cannot be explained by any known laws.”

“Possibly, and yet I doubt it,” I replied, with a sceptical smile.

“Well, your obtuseness is your own affair,” she said, with a shrug of her shoulders; “but now, look here, Mr. Gibling, permit me to make a little prophecy. Captain Tredegar has something awful on his mind. He sees visions, and will ultimately go mad.”

Her words startled me. For the first time I was inclined to regard her seriously, in one respect at least; that was the ultimate madness of the skipper. That thought had haunted me, but I had tried to put it away. Even to my somewhat dulled perception it had been made evident that a man who could act as Tredegar had acted on the previous night was a victim to some obscure form of mental disease which might ultimately destroy him. Now the lady spoke with such an absence of vagueness, such a cock-sureness, that I asked her if she had known the captain long, and if she was acquainted with his past history.

“Indeed, no,” she exclaimed. “I never saw the man in my life until I joined the ship in Liverpool.”

“Then why do you speak with such an air of self-conviction?”

“I speak as I think. I think as I know.” “But how do you know?”

“Well, you are stupid,” she exclaimed, with a show of exasperation. “I know, because I have a sense you don’t possess. You are a soot-sodden Londoner. I was born where the sun shines. I have beliefs, you have not. I believe that men who do evil in this world can be haunted into madness by the disembodied spirits of those they injure. Now you may laugh and sneer as much as you like, sir, but I tell you this: when Captain Tredegar came down to the cabin last night his face clearly indicated that he had been terrified by something not human, and I saw madness written large in his eyes.”

I should be wanting in common honesty if I failed to say that this woman’s remarks, rude as they were to some extent, put certain rambling thoughts of my own into shape, impressed me in a way that a short time previously I should have been ashamed to own to. They set me pondering, and I tried to recall every act, word, look and gesture of the captain’s, with the result that I had to admit there was something strange about him. At that moment Captain Tredegar himself came on deck, with his sextant in his hand, in order to take the noonday sights for the reckoning. His breezy, jovial manner, and smiling bronzed face, seemed to make the conversation about him ridiculous, and tended to confound the prophet who had talked of madness.

He bowed politely to the lady, and chatted to her pleasantly. He greeted me with a cheery “Good-morning,” and expressed a hope that neither of us had been much alarmed by the squall of the previous evening. He said the passage was going to be a splendid one; one of the best he had ever made; and if, as he anticipated we should do, we picked up a good slant of wind when we had made a little more westing, we should reach Cuba several days before the time we were expected.

The mate now came on deck also with his sextant, and he and the captain walked to the break of the poop to take the sights. When he was out of earshot I turned to the lady and said:

“He doesn’t look much like a man who is given to seeing visions and is doomed to madness, does he?”

“You cannot see beneath the mask,” she replied, with another contemptuous curl of her lip, and laying great stress on the “you”; and she added somewhat mysteriously, “Wait, wait, wait,” repeating the word three times, with a rising inflection on each repetition. Then she turned to her book again, as if she wished me to understand that she had said her say and would say no more. I took the hint, and making a show of stretching my limbs, I rose and began to pace up and down. The subject of the conversation between me and the lady continued to occupy my thoughts against my will and desire, and the more I thought the more like a riddle did the captain appear to me. I was really astonished to find myself taking so much interest in him. A passing interest in one with whom you happen to be a fellow voyager is easily understood. But if Captain Tredegar had been a relative of mine, my own brother, in fact, I could hardly have felt more anxious or more desirous to solve the mystery that seemed to surround him. His appearance that morning, and his appearance and behaviour of the night before, were in such violent contrast that to put it down to the merely varying moods to which we are all liable was not satisfactory enough. What puzzled me more than anything else was his behaviour during the storm. To suppose that he was a coward and lost his nerve in a passing squall was absurd on the face of it. In the very height of the storm he delivered his orders with coolness and judgement, as I could testify, but what did he mean by exclaiming: “There it is again! There, out there on the crest of that wave”? Then again, why the appeal to God to pity him? Having perplexed and fretted myself until I felt quite confused, I found myself unable to alter the original opinion I had formed, which was that Captain Tredegar was liable to attacks of mental aberration, and that being so he was not a fitting person to have charge of a valuable vessel and her living freight.

Viewing the matter from this point, I came to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that it was my bounden duty as an honest man to make representations to his owners as to the skipper’s state of mind; for surely no one would say that a man liable to attacks of temporary mania was the proper person to be in charge of a ship. As I came to this decision I heard the captain call out from the break of the poop:

“Make eight bells.”

The boatswain struck the hour on the bell, and “eight bells” was roared out by the men about the decks, while from the galley came the smell of duff and pea soup as the cook put out the dinner for those now going off duty. I was recalled to a sense of my surroundings by these little matters, and as the skipper passed me as he was about to descend to work out his sights and prick the chart, he said cheerily:

“Well, Mr. Gibling. It’s time to splice the main brace, isn’t it?”

I may explain for the benefit of those who have not made a voyage to sea that it is customary in most passenger vessels for the passengers to partake of a glass of liquor of some kind at noon, eight bells. This, in nautical phraseology, is termed “splicing the main brace.” It is the most interesting period of the twenty-four hours to lands-people, because the captain and his officers having taken their sights, as it is called, they proceed to work them out, in order to discover the position of the ship; that is, her latitude and longitude, and that being done, it is marked on the chart.

As I accompanied the skipper to the cuddy, I began to think that perhaps after all I was doing him a wrong, and it would be unfair to say anything to his owners until I had received stronger proof that my suspicions were well founded. Certainly, as he sat at the table making his calculations and working out the position, he not only seemed the perfection of physical fitness, but fully endowed with keen and sound intelligence. As I noted this I came to the conclusion that it was no less my duty to suspend my judgement — than to watch closely and wait patiently.

Should it come to pass that this paper is made public, I wish it to be distinctly understood that at this period of the voyage I was halting between two opinions. On the one hand, I considered Captain Tredegar peculiar in many respects — a man of mystery, in short — and on the other, I was painfully anxious not to do him an injustice. It will also be noted that the conclusions arrived at by the Spanish lady, who was an emotional and superstitious woman, were not in accordance with my own. For according to her views, the captain’s strange behaviour was the result of seeing visions; according to mine, he suffered from intermittent mania, which was probably traceable to a too free indulgence in rum or other potent liquors. Not that I had ever seen him the worse for drink, but he took a good deal more than was good for him, in my opinion, though it did not affect him as it would have done others who were not so case-hardened.

•   •   •

For the next few days our progress was not very satisfactory, owing to the light, variable winds. For a steamer it would have been almost ideal weather, but dependent as we were on the winds entirely, it was very tantalising. During this time the skipper continued in his bright, cheery mood, and every evening at a fixed hour we sat down in the cabin for a game of cribbage. I took to studying him very closely, and from many little signs I saw I felt pretty certain that a great deal of his light-hearted manner was assumed. Occasionally I noted a strange wild look came into his eyes, and his cheeks paled as though some deadly fear had seized upon him. A mere casual observer would have failed to have seen these signs, but my perception had been quickened. I was ever on the alert, on the watch, and there was not much that escaped me.

A change came at last. One evening when I expected the skipper to take part in the usual game at cribbage he brusquely and rudely refused, and I saw the half-sullen, half-terrified expression in his face again. I thought it very peculiar that his mood should synchronise with a change in the weather. The barometer had been falling all day, and it was only too evident that we were going to have a dirty night. As the sun got low in the heavens, heavy banks of clouds came up, and the wind rapidly strengthened, until we had to shorten sail to such an extent that very little canvas remained set. The captain seemed extremely anxious. He walked up and down the poop in a restless, nervous way. Occasionally he stopped to gaze windward, and sometimes he muttered to himself. I resolved at last to speak to him, anxious and preoccupied as he was. So I went boldly up to him and said:

“We are evidently in for a change, don’t you think so?”

He turned upon me with a dark, lowering face, his brow knit, and his whole manner that of one straining under suppressed passion.

“Yes, I do,” he answered excitedly, “and be damned to you. Anyway, I’m a doomed man.”

He walked rapidly away without another word, and I stood for some little time dumbfounded. Anyone who could speak in such a manner was surely mad, and I seriously considered it was my business to take counsel with my fellow passengers, if not with the officers of the ship, for a mad captain ought to be relieved of his responsible duties in the interest of every soul on board. But before I could stir away the man himself came back to me, and said in a most pathetic and appealing way that went to my heart:

“Pray pardon my rudeness, Mr. Gibling. You don’t know how I’m troubled. I am suffering dreadfully, and if you knew all you would pity rather than blame me.”

“Why not place me in possession of the information, then?” I asked. He put his hand to his eyes for a moment or two and shuddered.

“It is so dreadful, so horrible,” he muttered mysteriously, speaking rather to himself than me.

“All the more reason, then, why you should take me into your confidence,” I said.

“Yes — perhaps you are right. I will, I will. Come to my cabin in half an hour and I will tell you the awful story.”

Further conversation was interrupted by the bursting of a squall accompanied by heavy rain, while a long swell that came up from the S.W. was a sure precursor of the coming gales, of which the squalls were only the heralds.

I at once descended to the cabin to get out of the rain, but quite half an hour passed before the captain came down. He passed me without speaking, but called the steward and ordered some tea to be taken to his cabin. And when another half-hour had elapsed the steward brought me a message to the effect that Captain Tredegar wished to see me in his room. The weather had now become very bad and the ship was labouring heavily. I found the captain seated at his table with a small Bible open before him, but which he closed and tossed into his bunk as I entered. He looked pale, ill, and careworn. He asked me to sit down, and remarked:

“You have shown much interest in me, sir, and instinctively I feel I can place confidence in you. The time has now come for me to speak, or be dumb for evermore. I am a doomed man. My fate is sealed, and it is that fearful certainty that weighs upon me like a ton of lead.”

His words and manner seemed to me unmistakably to indicate insanity, and I could not repress a feeling of alarm. He must have guessed my thoughts, for he said quickly:

“Don’t alarm yourself, and bear with me patiently; my brain is perfectly clear, and I know what I am doing, although a stranger might be disposed to think I was labouring under a distempered imagination. But it is not so. An awful fear takes possession of me and unmans me. It paralyses my faculties and renders life a curse instead of a blessing.”

“A fear of what?” I asked.

“Of the dead,” he answered solemnly.

I looked hard at him again. That surely was not the answer of a sane man.

“What nonsense,” I said a little sharply. “What harm can the dead do to the living? I gave you credit for being stronger minded than that. It is clear to me now that you are allowing yourself to sink into a morbid, nervous condition, that must end disastrously. Why on earth should you embitter your existence by imaginary evils? Shake yourself free of morbid, gloomy forebodings; be a man, and if you are a just one you need fear nothing, not even the living, let alone the dead.”

He did not attempt to interrupt this little outburst on my part, which perhaps was hardly justified. But I could not restrain myself. I was compelled to give vent to my thoughts.

“You mean well, Mr. Gibling,” he remarked, with perfect self-possession, when I had finished speaking, “and I understand your feelings; but before condemning me, before allowing your wrath to run away with your judgement, be patient, forbearing, and listen to me as you promised to do. This may be the only opportunity that will ever occur for me to tell you my story.”

“Pray proceed,” I remarked; “perhaps I have been somewhat hasty; you will find, however, that I am a good listener, and under any circumstances you may count on my sympathy.”

He remained silent for some minutes, his elbows on the table, his hands clasping his face, his eyes seemingly fixed on vacancy. He started and came to himself again.

“Mr. Gibling,” he began, “I have a very strange story to tell you if you care to listen to it. Whatever your feelings are now, however sceptical you may be, I fancy your views will undergo a change by the time I have done. I repeat that I am a doomed man. My sands have nearly run out, and I must say what I have to say now or never.”

“Please go on,” I said as he paused, evidently waiting for me to speak.

—  —  —  —  —

Very well, he continued, I’ll begin at the beginning. As you know, I am a Cornishman; I come from a race of seamen; the salt of the sea flows in my veins. What education I received was got at a school in Devonshire, where I passed nearly nine years of my life. At that school I had a chum. We were inseparable. We were more like brothers. His name was Peter Gibson. He was three or four years my senior, and was a rough, wild, boorish sort of fellow; not good at picking up the routine knowledge of a school training, but as sharp as a needle, with an insatiable thirst for stories of fighting and adventure. In this line he would read everything he got hold of, and one day he said to me: ‘Jubal, I intend to go to sea, and I’m going to be a devil; will you stick to me?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I answered in a moment of boyish enthusiasm. He had great influence over me. I looked up to him as my superior, and regarded him as a leader.

‘You swear it?’ he demanded.

‘Yes,’ I said again.

Whereupon he made me go down on my knees, hold both my hands up to heaven, and take a Solemn oath that I would stick to him, go with him wherever he went, and do whatever he did.

Now you must remember I was a youngster at this time, and what I did was only what a boy might be expected to do. Gibson certainly had a good deal of influence over me. He was a masterful sort of fellow, with a great, bulky, powerful frame, while his pluck won my admiration. He funked at nothing, and could lick every boy in the neighbourhood.

We left school about the same time, and though his father, who was pretty well off, wanted to put him in business, Peter declared he would go to sea. I had been intended for a seafaring life from my cradle. The males of my family always went to sea. The result of his determination was that he and I found ourselves fellow apprentices on board a full-rigged vessel going out to the East Indies. She was a trader, and during a voyage of nearly four years we visited a great many places in the East; saw a great deal of the world, and experienced fair and foul weather from the very best to the very worst. As might have been expected, Peter picked up seamanship very rapidly, and became one of the smartest sailors on board. My regard for him and his liking for me had never altered, and when we returned to Liverpool, from whence we had sailed, we were as much chums as ever.

We were only at home two months when we were transferred to another ship belonging to the same owners, and rated as A.B.’s. This voyage we sailed to Vancouver round the Horn, and from there we came down in ballast to Monte Video, and loaded up with a general cargo for home. At this time there was a civil war going on in the Argentine Republic, and of course at Monte Video we heard a great deal of talk about it. Gibson used to get very excited over the war news, and over and over again he tried to persuade me to clear out from the ship and go with him to do some fighting. He’d no sympathies with either one side or the other, and I don’t think he even knew what the row was about, but he wanted some fighting; fight was in his blood, and he was pining for what he called fun. I preferred, however, to keep a straight course, as my people before me had done. I wanted to gradually mount the ladder until I reached the top, and I knew that the quixotic expedition he proposed would have defeated my object. I therefore declined to fall in with his views. It riled him for a time, but at last he admitted that he had no right to try and persuade me against my will; but as far as he was concerned he was going. And go he did, much to my regret, I must confess. Although it went somewhat against my grain, I helped him to secretly get his duds on shore, and some money that I had I handed over to him.

We spent our last night together at a café in the town of Monte Video; and when the time came for us to part he wrung my hand, and I was cut up in a way I had never been before. After that I saw no more of him, nor did I hear anything of him for ten years, when we met again under very extraordinary circumstances.

I was then mate of a splendid barque called the Curlew, hailing from Bristol. We had taken out a cargo of iron to Bilbao, there the ship was chartered by the Spanish Government to convey five hundred soldiers and a quantity of specie to Havana. The Curlew was an exceptionally fine vessel, with unusually good ’tween deck space, and therefore very suitable as a transport. We made a good passage to Havana, landed the troops, but were told we should have to retain the specie for a few days until some grandee or other came to receive it. He happened then to be up the country, but was expected back in the course of a week. As we had made a quicker passage than was expected, it had thrown him out in his calculations. Well, of course, it didn’t matter to us much, as our charter provided for our return to Bilbao; and, equally of course, so long as we were employed by the Spanish authorities we sailed under the Spanish flag.

The second night after our arrival I went on shore, and in strolling through the town my attention was arrested by a sign over the door of a drinking-place. It read, ‘Old England, kept by Will Bradshaw.’ This and the sound of English voices induced me to enter, and I found the place pretty well crowded with sailor men and Spanish women of a disreputable class. I saw at once the sort of house it was, and as I did not consider it advisable for me as chief mate of a Government vessel to be seen there, I was for clearing out again when I noticed a big, brawny, powerfully-built fellow mixing drinks behind the bar. He was unmistakably an Englishman. His face was burnt brown. He had a dark, bushy beard, and looked like a man who had a large spice of the devil in him. Despite the beard the face seemed familiar to me, and when I heard him call out an order to one of his waiters, the voice left me no longer in doubt. It was the voice of Peter Gibson. So I pushed my way through the crowd to the counter, for it was not likely I could leave without renewing acquaintance with my old chum, and I asked, ‘Isn’t your name Peter Gibson?’

‘No, it isn’t,’ he yelled. ‘I’m Will Bradshaw, the boss of this place.’ I was taken aback for a minute, for I was sure I couldn’t be mistaken. Then it flashed on me that Peter had a reason for being known as Will Bradshaw; so I pulled out a pocket-book, wrote my name on a leaf, tore it out, and handed it to him. I saw a look of surprise come into his eyes and his face change colour. Then he grasped my hand and wrung it, told an assistant to look after the place, and asking me to follow him, he led the way by a side entrance to a large garden at the back of the house, where seats were placed under the palm trees, and a few coloured lamps were hung up. Nearly every seat was occupied by men and women, and negro waiters were attending to their wants.

Peter took me to a remote corner of the garden, where there was a sort of summer-house on a knoll.

‘We can have a quiet yarn here,’ he said. Then he called one of the negroes and told him to bring a bottle of wine, and that done, he began in his old masterful way to ask me questions about my career during the past ten years. I told him straight; but when I questioned him he shirked my questions, simply saying, ‘Well, I’ve had a lot of roughing, old chap, and have been in some queer corners. I drifted down here about two years since, just as the former proprietor of this shanty went off the hooks with Yellow Jack. I made a bid for the place and got it, but had to give bills for the greater part of the purchase money, and I’ve still got a lot of millstones round my neck. I’m rather sick, and think of chucking it and going on the rampage again.’

We yarned away for two hours, when I had to go, and naturally I asked him to come and see me on board the vessel. He turned up the next day, and the day after that; and I told him as an item of news that my skipper was going into the country on the morrow for a few days to shoot with a party of friends, and that I should be in charge; and I invited him to come on board and have dinner with me in the evening, an invitation he readily accepted.

When he turned up he had a friend with him, a Spaniard who spoke good English, and whom he introduced to me as Alonzo Gomez. He said he wanted me to know this man, as he was a good sort, and might be of use to me. He was described as a planter, but I couldn’t help thinking there was a good deal more of the loafer than the planter about him. However, he was very polite, as most Spaniards are, and as he seemed to be rather an amusing cuss, I thought I had judged him too harshly. Of course, I gave my guests a good feed, and made the steward open some champagne. During the dinner Peter asked me a lot of questions about the ship, and how much Spanish money we had on board, and where it was kept. If it had been anyone else, and at any other time, I should have resented these questions, but I felt there was no harm in answering my old schoolfellow and shipmate.

When the dinner was over Peter said that for old acquaintance sake we must have a jorum of rum punch, and that he would make it. So I told the steward to get the necessary ingredients, and Peter set to work to concoct the liquor. I don’t remember much more after that. I didn’t come to my senses until the next morning. I found on turning out that the steward was ill, and on my going to him he told me that my friends had given him some of the punch. It had made him sick at first, and afterwards he fell into a heavy sleep from which he had not long awakened, and that he was then suffering from a frightful headache and a heavy, drowsy feeling. That was precisely my condition; but I attributed it to not having drunk wisely, but too well. The second mate, who had been on shore the previous night, undertook to do certain work I had to attend to; and having given the steward some medicine from the medicine chest, I went and turned in once more, and slept pretty well the whole day. Anyway, I did not turn to again until the following morning.

In the course of that day, the high official who was to receive the specie came on board with an escort, and commanded the strong room in the afterpart of the cabin to be opened, and the specie brought out. I at once procured the keys from a safe in the captain’s cabin, and on going to the strong room, I was surprised and alarmed to find that the various seals put upon the door at Bilbao were broken, and they had been broken quite recently, as two or three days before I had examined them and found them all right. My alarm and confusion increased when, having got the door open, we discovered that two of the boxes, one containing Bank of Spain notes and the other gold dollars, had been burst open, and partly rifled of their contents. Altogether a sum in notes and gold equivalent to twenty thousand pounds had been stolen.

The big-wig was in a great state, and at once sent on shore for a magistrate and a lot of military officers, and began an inquiry there and then; and I, having been in charge of the ship for some days, was practically put on trial.

Perhaps I needn’t tell you that I felt I could at once name the thief. His name was Peter Gibson, alias Will Bradshaw. He and his Spanish chum had drugged me and the steward; of that I had no doubt then, and as all the crew had gone on shore except the boatswain and the cook, and two of the hands who were on duty at the gangway, it was easy for the rascals to carry out their nefarious scheme of getting at the specie.

Now, I’m not talking mere words to you when I tell you that it went against my grain to denounce my old schoolfellow and shipmate, and at first I resolved that I wouldn’t. But, after all, a chap’s own interests have to be counted first, and as Gibson had been mean hound enough to drug me and carry off money under my care, I didn’t see why I should screen him. So I denounced him, and in a very short time he was under arrest. But even then he might have escaped conviction had it not been for his stupidity in keeping the bank-notes. His friend, who was also arrested, turned out to be a notorious character with a most evil reputation, and was looked upon as an expert in picking locks. The task they had set themselves of stealing the money was comparatively easy, as all the conditions were in their favour, and I fell a too easy victim to their cunning.

Well, of course, I had to attend the trial and give evidence. The crime was considered very serious indeed, as Government property had been stolen and Government seals unlawfully broken. The offence was called a first-class one, and the penalty was death. No such sensation had been provided for Havana for many a long day. It was considered better than a bull-fight.

To make a long story short, the result of it all was that the two rascals were convicted and sentenced to be shot. The verdict cut me to the heart, and as only a short shrift was allowed the culprits, as the sentence was to be carried out in twenty-four hours, I obtained permission to visit Gibson. I found him in rather a dejected state, seated in a courtyard of the gaol which was guarded by soldiers. As soon as he saw me he seemed to go mad, reviled me in language that was of a pretty fiery character, then cursed me and swore that he would haunt me and drive me to madness by appearing to me on dark nights at sea. ‘You are a doomed man,’ he said, ‘and will come to a sudden and terrible end. I leave my curse to you.’

I tried to reason with him, but I might as well have tried to reason with an enraged wild cat in the jungle. He did nothing but utter curses on me, and recognising how hopeless it was to try and appease him, I withdrew, and the next morning he and his pal were shot at daybreak.

Although I was much cut up by the way he had treated me, I did not attach any importance to either his curses or his threats. I wasn’t altogether free from superstition, what sailor is? but I quite believed that when a person was dead he was done with. I soon began to find out, however, that I was wrong, for some weeks later, when we were on our passage back to Bilbao, I had the middle watch one night, just as we got into the Bay of Biscay. It was a wild night, and we were close hauled under double reefed topsails. Suddenly out of the waves came a glowing figure. It was Gibson’s spectre. He shrieked at me, and I heard his curses again, and again he told me I was doomed.

Since then I’ve seen him often. He has kept his word. He has haunted me, and is driving me mad and hounding me to death. Yes, I am doomed. I feel it and know it. Nothing can avert the doom.

You know my story now. Don’t ridicule it; don’t laugh at me; for to me it’s a terribly serious business, and I feel that I shall never see the dear woman I love again.

—  —  —  —  —

He ceased speaking, and I noticed the wild, scared look in his eyes which I had seen before. The perspiration was streaming down his face, he appeared to be suffering great mental agony. I tried to soothe him, but it was no use, and he kept on repeating that he was doomed.

Now let me say here at once that I did not believe the captain had seen any real supernatural appearance. I regarded him as a highly imaginative and sensitive man. On such a man Gibson’s curses and threats would be sure to make a very deep impression. It could hardly be otherwise, seeing that the two men had practically grown up together. They had been schoolmates and shipmates, and Gibson’s violent end must have affected his once friend in no ordinary degree. Long dwelling upon the dramatic scene in the prison at Havana, the day previous to the execution, had taken such a hold on the skipper’s imagination that he had worried himself into a belief in a mere chimera of the brain. To him, no doubt, the visions were real enough, although they were nothing more than disturbed brain fancies.

Such was the theory I consoled myself with, and I determined there and then to use every possible endeavour to get the captain out of his morbid condition, and prove to him by gentle reasoning that he was simply a victim to his own gloomy fears. I was so far successful at that moment that I induced him to turn in, having first of all called the mate down and given him certain instructions; then I compounded him a simple soothing draught from ingredients in the medicine chest, and at his own request I sat by him and read certain passages in the Bible, until he fell into a sound sleep.

I was considerably exercised in my own mind as to the proper course I ought to adopt, and I was tempted at first to take the Spanish lady into my confidence, and discuss the matter with her. But this idea was put out of my head at once, for she was sitting in the cuddy, as she usually did in the evening, where she passed her time either reading or in doing needlework. She saw that I came from the captain’s cabin, and tackled me.

“How is the skipper?” she asked. “He is a little indisposed to night, but will be all right tomorrow, no doubt,” I answered.

“Not he,” she exclaimed. “I tell you that man’s a haunted man, and will either go mad or commit suicide.”

Remembering how dogmatically she had expressed herself on a previous occasion on the subject of supernatural visitations, I deemed it desirable not to enter into any discussion, and I also made up my mind that it would be a fatal mistake to let her know that captain’s story, so I merely said, in answer to her statement, “I hope not,” and passed to my cabin.

Now I want to repeat here, and for very obvious reasons, what were the views I held at this stage. I considered that the captain was suffering from a distressing nervous illness, the result of long pondering over an incident which could not fail to make a tremendous impression on him. But not for a moment did I entertain any belief in the supernatural. Necessarily I was exceedingly anxious, for there was no doctor on board, I had no medical knowledge myself, and we could not hope to reach our destination for another three weeks. There was every prospect then of the prognostications about a fine and rapid passage being falsified. The barometer had been steadily falling for some time, and all the indications were for bad weather. I knew that in that latitude, at that time of year, heavy storms were not uncommon, and it seemed likely that we should experience them. The anxious state of my mind kept me awake for some time, revolving all sorts of schemes, but nothing that seemed to me satisfactory. Eight bells midnight sounded, and I heard the mate come out of his room and go on deck to take the watch. I slipped out of bed, put on my dressing-gown and slippers, and stole over to the captain’s cabin. To my intense relief I found he was sleeping soundly.

As the motion of the vessel made it evident there was a heavy sea on, I went up the companion-way to see what the weather was like. It was a wild, weird night. A south-west gale was blowing and a tremendous sea running. There was no moon, but the stars shone with a superb lustre wherever the ragged, storm-driven scud allowed them to be seen. I passed a few words with the mate, and asked him what he thought of the weather.

“It’s a bad wind for us,” he answered, “and the heavy squalls that come up every now and then prevent our setting much sail. But if I were skipper, I would crack on and let things rip. I’d drive the ship even at the risk of losing canvas.”

“Why don’t you do so, as it is?” I asked. “You’ve got charge of the deck for the next four hours, and have practically a free hand.”

“No I haven’t,” he answered. “I’ve got to obey orders, though I think sometimes, between you and me, sir, that the old man’s got a bee in his bonnet, as they say in Scotland.”

“What makes you think that?” I queried, my interest in the skipper making me anxious to hear what the mate had to say. I had not before had any conversation with him about the captain’s condition. Indeed, he was not a very talkative or communicative person. He was what is termed a cautious Scotsman.

“Well, I think it’s because he’s given to seeing the devil, or something as bad.”

I laughed, although I was serious enough; and being anxious to draw the officer out, I remarked:

“Well, I shouldn’t say it’s quite as bad as that; but he is ill, there is no doubt about it, and wants looking after.”

“I should think he does,” was the reply, given with peculiar decisiveness. Then, bending his head towards me, the better to make himself heard without raising his voice too much, for the howling of the wind made it difficult to hear sometimes, he added, “Look here, Mr. Gibling, will you give me your promise that, if I express an opinion, it won’t go any farther?”

“Yes, I think you may trust me,” I answered.

“Well, look here, sir, if you have any influence with the old man, you should persuade him to keep his room for the rest of the passage. And if he won’t, I say that in his own interest and the interest of everyone on board this craft, that he should be made to stay there.”

Never before had the mate been so outspoken to me, and it was further evidence, if I needed any, that the skipper’s condition had not escaped the observation of others; and I seriously determined to act on the suggestion, and use every effort to induce the captain to keep his room.

As a slight shift in the wind here necessitated the mate ordering the watch to trim the yards, I went below, and, feeling thoroughly exhausted, I drank a glass of whisky, and turning in, fell asleep. I must have slept between three and four hours, when I awoke with a start, for overhead was a tremendous hubbub. The tramping of heavily-booted feet, the rattling of cordage, the shaking of sails; while the ship, which was heeled over at an unusual angle, was quivering. I hastily donned my dressing-gown, and rushed on deck. A very heavy squall had struck us, and had torn the main-sail out of the bolt ropes. “All hands” had been called on deck, and what with the shrieking wind and roaring sea, and the hoarse voices of the sailors, the situation seemed alarming enough to a landsman like myself. A lurch of the ship drove me down to the lee rail against the mizzen shrouds, which I clung to for dear life. Suddenly I felt myself gripped round the waist, and a body seemed to fall at my feet. I realised in an instant that it was the captain. He had only his shirt and drawers on. His feet were bare, his head was bare. So much I was able to make out in the darkness that wasn’t altogether darkness, for a few stars still shone.

“For the love of God, for the sake of the Christ that was crucified, save me!” shrieked the unhappy man, as he crouched on his knees and linked his hands round my body.

“Don’t give way like this,” I said, feeling almost distracted myself. “Come, let me lead you down to your cabin. The mate will look after the ship. She is in good hands.”

It seemed as if the unhappy man did not understand what I had said to him, for, pointing to the sea, he cried in a voice of acute terror:

“There, there, don’t you see it? there on that wave? Oh, my God, it’s awful!”

Mechanically I turned my eyes to where he pointed, and to my astonishment I saw what appeared to me to be a pale, lambent flame, shapeless and blue and nebulous. But I am conscious of thinking to myself that this was some natural phenomenon, like the well-known St. Elmo’s fire. Slowly, however, even as I watched (for my eyes were riveted on that light by some strange fascination), I saw the shapeless mass grow brighter. Then for the first time it seemed to dawn upon me that I was gazing upon something unearthly. My heart leaped to my mouth at the conviction, and a cold shivering thrilled through my body. I tried to shut out the vision, but my eyes would not close; I was under some spell, against which I had no power of resistance.

As I gazed, the flame assumed shape; the shape of a human being. I distinguished a face, wan and ghastly. The eyes were lustreless and fixed, like those of a dead man. In the naked body were many wounds, and from these wounds blood spurted out in streams, and as it seemed to me made the sea around crimson. I shuddered with horror at this dreadful sight; my knees bent under me, and I was on the point of sinking down, when I made a supreme effort and rallied. For the skipper was still clinging to me. I felt his weight, I heard his groans, but I saw nothing save that spectral figure with the gory streams pouring from its body.

Panting and breathless, a cold perspiration bursting through every pore, and with a feeling as if the scalp of my head was shrinking to nothing, I continued to gaze. The figure remained motionless, but its dull, glazed, dead eyes riveted themselves upon me as I thought, and I could not endure their gaze. I felt my brain maddening with terror; driven to frenzy I made a supreme effort to lift the captain in my arms and carry him bodily down to his room. But he broke from me. He made as it seemed a flying leap from the poop to the waist of the ship; then another flying leap over the rail into the dark seething waters. I heard the heavy splash his falling body made. One long, piercing shriek as he floated astern filled the air.

I remember little more. There was a cry of “Man overboard!” a wild rush of feet; a hasty cutting-away of lifebuoys; hoarse voices mingling with flapping sails. How I got below I don’t know, but I found myself lying in my berth with the Spanish lady standing over me, puttingeau de cologne on my temples.

“Do you feel better now?” she asked in a not unkindly way.

“Yes, thank you,” I answered, feeling confused; “but tell me, what does it mean? What has happened?”

“Why, don’t you know?” she exclaimed; “the captain has jumped overboard. I told you what would happen. He was haunted and went mad, I suppose. Anyway the poor fellow’s gone.”

“And how did I get here?” I asked, with a dreadful sinking sensation at the heart and a dazed numb feeling in the brain.

“Well, you tumbled down the companion-way and were insensible when the stewards picked you up. You fainted, I suppose, with fright, eh?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” I murmured. “It’s all a dream.”

“Now tell me and speak the truth?” she said, in a commanding tone. “Did you see anything?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“The vision of a bleeding man.”

“Ah!” she exclaimed triumphantly, “how about your scepticism now, eh?”

I had to confess that, according to my belief, I had seen the spectre of a man bleeding from several wounds; but still I thought it was nothing more than a delusion.

“But the captain was with you?”

“Yes.”

“And he saw it?”

“I have reason to think so.”

“Then were you both deluded? Anyway, poor fellow, he was deluded to his death. For he has perished.”

•   •   •

I could not enter into any argument. I felt too ill and distressed. I thanked her for her attention, and begged that she would leave me, as I thought I could sleep. She complied with this request, but I tossed and dreamed nightmare dreams, and dreamed and tossed for hours. It took me several days to recover from that awful shock to the nerves; indeed, I don’t think I have ever quite recovered, or that I ever shall. I need scarcely say that from the moment the poor demented captain took that flying leap into the sea nothing more was ever seen of him, and an entry of his suicide was made in the log-book, and I signed it. On our arrival at Havana an inquiry was held by the British Consul, and I was called upon to state what I knew. I confined myself to saying that the captain believed himself that he saw a vision occasionally. He was very greatly affected, and I presume his brain gave way. I did not attempt to speak of my own awful experience. It was not necessary. Even if I had done so how could I have hoped to be believed? And yet I had seen with my own eyes. I, a scoffer in such matters, had been convinced, and what I have written here I solemnly declare to be true. Perhaps somebody cleverer than I, and more learned than I, may be able to explain away the mystery, but for me it will remain an awful, appalling mystery until I cease to breathe. Then, perhaps — who knows? — I may be able to solve it.

Tales of Terror (1899)

THREE AT TABLE

W. W. Jacobs

1899

The talk in the coffee-room had been of ghosts and apparitions, and nearly everybody present had contributed his mite to the stock of information upon a hazy and somewhat thread-bare subject. Opinions ranged from rank incredulity to childlike faith, one believer going so far as to denounce unbelief as impious, with a reference to the Witch of Endor, which was somewhat marred by being complicated in an inexplicable fashion with the story of Jonah.

“Talking of Jonah,” he said solemnly, with a happy disregard of the fact that he had declined to answer several eager questions put to him on the subject, “look at the strange tales sailors tell us.”

“I wouldn’t advise you to believe all those,” said a bluff, clean-shaven man, who had been listening without speaking much. “You see when a sailor gets ashore he’s expected to have something to tell, and his friends would be rather disappointed if he had not.”

“It’s a well-known fact,” interrupted the first speaker firmly, “that sailors are very prone to see visions.”

“They are,” said the other dryly, “they generally see them in pairs, and the shock to the nervous system frequently causes headache next morning.”

“You never saw anything yourself?” suggested an unbeliever.

“Man and boy,” said the other, “I’ve been at sea thirty years, and the only unpleasant incident of that kind occurred in a quiet English countryside.”

“And that?” said another man.

“I was a young man at the time,” said the narrator, drawing at his pipe and glancing good-humouredly at the company.

—  —  —  —  —

I had just come back from China, and my own people being away I went down into the country to invite myself to stay with an uncle. When I got down to the place I found it closed and the family in the South of France; but as they were due back in a couple of days I decided to put up at the Royal George, a very decent inn, and await their return.

The first day I passed well enough; but in the evening the dullness of the rambling old place, in which I was the only visitor, began to weigh upon my spirits, and the next morning after a late breakfast I set out with the intention of having a brisk day’s walk.

I started off in excellent spirits, for the day was bright and frosty, with a powdering of snow on the iron-bound roads and nipped hedges, and the country had to me all the charm of novelty. It was certainly flat, but there was plenty of timber, and the villages through which I passed were old and picturesque.

I lunched luxuriously on bread and cheese and beer in the bar of a small inn, and resolved to go a little further before turning back. When at length I found I had gone far enough, I turned up a lane at right angles to the road I was passing, and resolved to find my way back by another route. It is a long lane that has no turning, but this had several, each of which had turnings of its own, which generally led, as I found by trying two or three of them, into the open marshes. Then, tired of lanes, I resolved to rely upon the small compass which hung from my watch chain and go across country home.

I had got well into the marshes when a white fog, which had been for some time hovering round the edge of the ditches, began gradually to spread. There was no escaping it, but by aid of my compass I was saved from making a circular tour and fell instead into frozen ditches or stumbled over roots in the grass. I kept my course, however, until at four o’clock, when night was coming rapidly up to lend a hand to the fog, I was fain to confess myself lost.

The compass was now no good to me, and I wandered about miserably, occasionally giving a shout on the chance of being heard by some passing shepherd or farmhand. At length by great good luck I found my feet on a rough road driven through the marshes, and by walking slowly and tapping with my stick managed to keep to it. I had followed it for some distance when I heard footsteps approaching me.

We stopped as we met, and the new arrival, a sturdy-looking countryman, hearing of my plight, walked back with me for nearly a mile, and putting me on to a road gave me minute instructions how to reach a village some three miles distant.

I was so tired that three miles sounded like ten, and besides that, a little way off from the road I saw dimly a lighted window. I pointed it out, but my companion shuddered and looked round him uneasily.

“You won’t get no good there,” he said, hastily.

“Why not?” I asked.

“There’s a something there, sir,” he replied, “what ’tis I dunno, but the little ’un belonging to a gamekeeper as used to live in these parts see it, and it was never much good afterward. Some say as it’s a poor mad thing, others says as it’s a kind of animal; but whatever it is, it ain’t good to see.”

“Well, I’ll keep on, then,” I said. “Goodnight.”

He went back whistling cheerily until his footsteps died away in the distance, and I followed the road he had indicated until it divided into three, any one of which to a stranger might be said to lead straight on. I was now cold and tired, and having half made up my mind walked slowly back toward the house.

At first all I could see of it was the little patch of light at the window. I made for that until it disappeared suddenly, and I found myself walking into a tall hedge. I felt my way round this until I came to a small gate, and opening it cautiously, walked, not without some little nervousness, up a long path which led to the door. There was no light and no sound from within. Half repenting of my temerity I shortened my stick and knocked lightly upon the door.

I waited a couple of minutes and then knocked again, and my stick was still beating the door when it opened suddenly and a tall bony old woman, holding a candle, confronted me.

“What do you want?” she demanded gruffly.

“I’ve lost my way,” I said, civilly; “I want to get to Ashville.”

“Don’t know it,” said the old woman.

She was about to close the door when a man emerged from a room at the side of the hall and came toward us. An old man of great height and breadth of shoulder.

“Ashville is fifteen miles distant,” he said slowly.

“If you will direct me to the nearest village, I shall be grateful,” I remarked.

He made no reply, but exchanged a quick, furtive glance with the woman. She made a gesture of dissent.

“The nearest place is three miles off,” he said, turning to me and apparently trying to soften a naturally harsh voice; “if you will give me the pleasure of your company, I will make you as comfortable as I can.”

I hesitated. They were certainly a queer-looking couple, and the gloomy hall with the shadows thrown by the candle looked hardly more inviting than the darkness outside.

“You are very kind,” I murmured, irresolutely, “but—”

“Come in,” he said quickly; “shut the door, Anne.”

Almost before I knew it I was standing inside and the old woman, muttering to herself, had closed the door behind me. With a queer sensation of being trapped I followed my host into the room, and taking the proffered chair warmed my frozen fingers at the fire.

“Dinner will soon be ready,” said the old man, regarding me closely. “If you will excuse me.”

I bowed and he left the room. A minute afterward I heard voices; his and the old woman’s, and, I fancied, a third. Before I had finished my inspection of the room he returned, and regarded me with the same strange look I had noticed before.

“There will be three of us at dinner,” he said, at length. “We two and my son.”

I bowed again, and secretly hoped that that look didn’t run in the family.

“I suppose you don’t mind dining in the dark,” he said, abruptly.

“Not at all,” I replied, hiding my surprise as well as I could, “but really I’m afraid I’m intruding. If you’ll allow me—”

He waved his huge gaunt hands. “We’re not going to lose you now we’ve got you,” he said, with a dry laugh. “It’s seldom we have company, and now we’ve got you we’ll keep you. My son’s eyes are bad, and he can’t stand the light. Ah, here is Anne.”

As he spoke the old woman entered, and, eyeing me stealthily, began to lay the cloth, while my host, taking a chair the other side of the hearth, sat looking silently into the fire. The table set, the old woman brought in a pair of fowls ready carved in a dish, and placing three chairs, left the room. The old man hesitated a moment, and then, rising from his chair, placed a large screen in front of the fire and slowly extinguished the candles.

“Blind man’s holiday,” he said, with clumsy jocosity, and groping his way to the door opened it. Somebody came back into the room with him, and in a slow, uncertain fashion took a seat at the table, and the strangest voice I have ever heard broke a silence which was fast becoming oppressive.

“A cold night,” it said slowly.

I replied in the affirmative, and light or no light, fell to with an appetite which had only been sharpened by the snack in the middle of the day. It was somewhat difficult eating in the dark, and it was evident from the behaviour of my invisible companions that they were as unused to dining under such circumstances as I was. We ate in silence until the old woman blundered into the room with some sweets and put them with a crash upon the table.

“Are you a stranger about here?” inquired the curious voice again.

I replied in the affirmative, and murmured something about my luck in stumbling upon such a good dinner.

“Stumbling is a very good word for it,” said the voice grimly. “You have forgotten the port, father.”

“So I have,” said the old man, rising. “It’s a bottle of the ‘Celebrated’ today; I will get it myself.”

He felt his way to the door, and closing it behind him, left me alone with my unseen neighbour. There was something so strange about the whole business that I must confess to more than a slight feeling of uneasiness.

My host seemed to be absent a long time. I heard the man opposite lay down his fork and spoon, and half fancied I could see a pair of wild eyes shining through the gloom like a cat’s.

With a growing sense of uneasiness I pushed my chair back. It caught the hearthrug, and in my efforts to disentangle it the screen fell over with a crash and in the flickering light of the fire I saw the face of the creature opposite. With a sharp catch of my breath I left my chair and stood with clenched fists beside it. Man or beast, which was it? The flame leaped up and then went out, and in the mere red glow of the fire it looked more devilish than before.

For a few moments we regarded each other in silence; then the door opened and the old man returned. He stood aghast as he saw the warm firelight, and then approaching the table mechanically put down a couple of bottles.

“I beg your pardon,” said I, reassured by his presence, “but I have accidentally overturned the screen. Allow me to replace it.”

“No,” said the old man, gently, “let it be. We have had enough of the dark. I’ll give you a light.”

He struck a match and slowly lit the candles. Then — I saw that the man opposite had but the remnant of a face, a gaunt wolfish face in which one unquenched eye, the sole remaining feature, still glittered. I was greatly moved, some suspicion of the truth occurring to me.

“My son was injured some years ago in a burning house,” said the old man. “Since then we have lived a very retired life. When you came to the door we—” his voice trembled, “that is — my son—”

“I thought,” said the son simply, “that it would be better for me not to come to the dinner-table. But it happens to be my birthday, and my father would not hear of my dining alone, so we hit upon this foolish plan of dining in the dark. I’m sorry I startled you.”

“I am sorry,” said I, as I reached across the table and gripped his hand, “that I am such a fool; but it was only in the dark that you startled me.”

From a faint tinge in the old man’s cheek and a certain pleasant softening of the poor solitary eye in front of me I secretly congratulated myself upon this last remark.

“We never see a friend,” said the old man, apologetically, “and the temptation to have company was too much for us. Besides, I don’t know what else you could have done.”

“Nothing else half so good, I’m sure,” said I.

“Come,” said my host, with almost a sprightly air. “Now we know each other, draw our chairs to the fire and let’s keep this birthday in a proper fashion.”

He drew a small table to the fire for the glasses and produced a box of cigars, and placing a chair for the old servant, sternly bade her to sit down and drink. If the talk was not sparkling, it did not lack for vivacity, and we were soon as merry a party as I have ever seen. The night wore on so rapidly that we could hardly believe our ears when in a lull in the conversation a clock in the hall struck twelve.

“A last toast before we retire,” said my host, pitching the end of his cigar into the fire and turning to the small table.

We had drunk several before this, but there was something impressive in the old man’s manner as he rose and took up his glass. His tall figure seemed to get taller, and his voice rang as he gazed proudly at his disfigured son.

“The health of the children my boy saved!” he said, and drained his glass at a draught.

“Ainslee’s Magazine”, Apr. 1899

THE GREY CAT

Barry Pain

1901

I heard this story from Archdeacon M———. I should imagine that it would not be very difficult, by trimming it a little and altering the facts here and there, to make it capable of some simple explanation; but I have preferred to tell it as it was told to me.

After all, there is some explanation possible, even if there is not one definite and simple explanation clearly indicated. It must rest with the reader whether he will prefer to believe that some of the so-called uncivilized races may possess occult powers transcending anything of which the so-called civilized are capable, or whether he will consider that a series of coincidences is sufficient to account for the extraordinary incidents which, in a plain brief way, I am about to relate. It does not seem to me essential to state which view I hold myself, or if I hold neither, and have reasons for not stating a third possible explanation.

I must add a word or two with regard to Archdeacon M———. At the time of this story he was in his fiftieth year. He was a fine scholar, a man of considerable learning. His religious views were remarkably broad; his enemies said remarkably thin. In his younger days he had been something of an athlete, but owing to age, sedentary habits, and some amount of self-indulgence, he had grown stout, and no longer took exercise in any form. He had no nervous trouble of any kind. His death, from heart disease, took place about three years ago. He told me the story twice, at my request; there was an interval of about six weeks between the two narrations; some of the details were elicited by questions of my own. With this preliminary note, we may proceed to the story.

•   •   •

In January, 1881, Archdeacon M———, who was a great admirer of Tennyson’s poetry, came up to London for a few days, chiefly in order to witness the performance of “The Cup,” at the Lyceum. He was not present on the first night (Monday, January 3), but on a later night in the same week. At that time, of course, the poet had not received his peerage, nor the actor his knighthood.

On leaving the theatre, less satisfied with the play than with the magnificence of the setting, the Archdeacon found some slight difficulty in getting a cab. He walked a little way down the Strand to find one, when he encountered unexpectedly his old friend, Guy Breddon.

Breddon (that was not his real name) was a man of considerable fortune, a member of the learned societies, and devoted to Central African exploration. He was two or three years younger than the Archdeacon, and a man of tremendous physique.

Breddon was surprised to find the Archdeacon in London, and the Archdeacon was equally surprised to find Breddon in England at all. Breddon carried off the Archdeacon with him to his rooms, and sent a servant in a cab to the Langham to pay the Archdeacon’s bill and fetch his luggage. The Archdeacon protested, but faintly, and Breddon would not hear of his hospitality being refused.

Breddon’s rooms were an expensive suite immediately over a ruinous upholsterer’s in a street off Berkeley Square. There was a private street-door, and from it a private staircase to the first and second floors.

The suite of rooms on the first floor, occupied by Breddon, was entirely shut off from the staircase by a door. The second floor suite, tenanted by an Irish M.P., was similarly shut off and at that time was unoccupied.

Breddon and the Archdeacon passed through the street-door and up the stairs to the first landing, from whence, by the staircase-door, they entered the flat. Breddon had only recently taken the flat, and the Archdeacon had never been there before. It consisted of a broad L-shaped passage with rooms opening into it. There were many trophies on the walls. Horned heads glared at them; stealthy but stuffed beasts watched them furtively from under tables. There was a perfect arsenal of murderous weapons gleaming brightly under the shaded gaslights.

Breddon’s servant prepared supper for them before leaving for the Langham, and soon the two men were discussing Mr. Tennyson, Mr. Irving, and a parody of the “Queen of the May” which had recently appeared in Punch, and doing justice to some oysters, a cold pheasant with an excellent salad, and a bottle of ’74 Pommery. It was characteristic of the Archdeacon that he remembered exactly the items of the supper, and that Breddon rather neglected the wine.

After supper they passed into the library, where a bright fire was burning. The Archdeacon walked towards the fire, rubbing his plump hands together. As he did so, a portion of the great rug of grey fur on which he was standing seemed to rise up. It was a grey cat of enormous size, larger than any that the Archdeacon had ever seen before, and of the same colour as the rug on which it had been sleeping. It rubbed itself affectionately against the Archdeacon’s leg, and purred as he bent down to stroke it.

“What an extraordinary animal!” said the Archdeacon. “I had no idea cats could grow to this size. Its head’s queer, too — so much too small for the body.”

“Yes,” said Breddon, “and his feet are just as much too big.”

The grey cat stretched himself voluptuously under the Archdeacon’s caressing hand, and the feet could be seen plainly. They were very broad, and the claws, which shot out, seemed unusually powerful and well developed. The beast’s coat was short, thick, and wiry.

“Most extraordinary!” the Archdeacon repeated.

He lowered himself into a comfortable chair by the fire. He was still bending over the cat and playing with it when a slight chink made him look up. Breddon was putting something down on the table behind the liquor decanters.

“Any particular breed?” the Archdeacon asked.

“Not that I know of. Freakish, I should say. We found him on board the boat when I left for home — may have come there after mice. He’d have been thrown overboard but for me. I got rather interested in him. Smoke?”

“Oh, thank you.”

Outside a cold north wind screamed in quick gusts. Within came the sharp scratch of the match on the ribbed glass as the Archdeacon lit his cigar, the bubble of the rose-water in Breddon’s hookah, the soft step of Breddon’s man carrying the Archdeacon’s luggage into the bedroom at the end of the L-shaped passage, and the constant purring of the big grey cat.

“And what’s the cat’s name?” the Archdeacon asked.

Breddon laughed.

“Well, if you must have the plain truth, he’s called Gray Devil — or, more frequently, Devil tout court.”

“Really, now, really, you can’t expect an Archdeacon to use such abominable language. I shall call him Gray — or perhaps Mr. Gray would be more respectful, seeing the shortness of our acquaintance. Do you object to the smell of smoke, Mr. Gray? The intelligent beast does not object. Probably you’ve accustomed him to it.”

“Well, seeing what his name is, he could hardly object to smoke, could he?”

Breddon’s servant entered. As the door opened and shut, one heard for a moment the crackle of the newly-lit fire in the room that awaited the Archdeacon. The servant swept up the hearth, and, under Archidiaconal direction, mixed a lengthy brandy-and-soda. He retired with the information that he would not be wanted again that night.

“Did you notice,” asked the Archdeacon, “the way Mr. Gray followed your man about? I never saw a more affectionate cat.”

“Think so?” said Breddon. “Watch this time.”

For the first time he approached the grey cat, and stretched out his hand as if to pet him. In an instant the cat seemed to have gone mad. Its claws shot out, its back hooped, its coat bristled, its tail stood erect; it cursed and spat, and its small green eyes glared. But a close observer would have noticed that all the time it watched not only Breddon, but also that object which had chinked as Breddon had put it down behind the decanters.

The Archdeacon lay back in his chair and laughed heartily.

“What funny creatures they are, and never so funny as when they lose their tempers! Really, Mr. Gray, out of respect to my cloth, you might have refrained from swearing like that. Poor Mr. Gray! Poor puss!”

Breddon resumed his seat with a grim smile. The grey cat slowly subsided, and then thrust its head, as though demanding sympathy, into the fat palm of the Archdeacon’s dependent hand.

Suddenly the Archdeacon’s eye lighted on the object which the cat had been watching, visible now that the servant had displaced the decanters.

“Goodness me!” he exclaimed, “you’ve got a revolver there.”

“That is so,” said Breddon.

“Not loaded, I trust?”

“Oh yes, fully loaded.”

“But isn’t that very dangerous?”

“Well, no; I’m used to these things, and I’m not careless with them. I should have thought it more dangerous to have introduced Gray Devil to you without it. He’s much more powerful than an ordinary cat, and I fancy there’s something beside cat in his pedigree. When I bring a stranger to see him I keep the cat covered with the revolver until I see how the land lies. To do the brute justice, he has always been most friendly with everybody except myself. I’m his only antipathy. He’d have gone for me just now but that he’s smart enough to be afraid of this.”

He tapped the revolver.

“I see,” said the Archdeacon seriously, “and can guess how it happened. You scared him one day by firing the revolver for joke; the report frightened him, and he’s never forgiven you or forgotten the revolver. Wonderful memory some of these animals have!”

“Yes,” said Breddon, “but that guess won’t do. I have never, intentionally or by chance, given the ‘Devil’ any reason for his enmity. So far as I know he has never heard a firearm, and certainly he has never heard one since I made his acquaintance. Somebody may have scared him before, and I’m inclined to think that somebody did, for there can be no doubt that the brute knows all that a cat need know about a revolver, and that he’s scared of it.

“The first time we met was almost in darkness. I’d got some cases that I was particular about, and the captain had said I could go down to look after them. Well, this beast suddenly came out of a lump of black and flew at me. I didn’t even recognise that it was a cat, because he’s so mighty big. I fetched him a clip on the side of the head that knocked him off, and whipped out my iron. He was away in a streak. He knew. And I’ve had plenty of proof since that he knows. He’d bite me now if he had the chance, but he understands that he hasn’t got the chance. I’m often half inclined to take him on plain — shooting barred — and to feel my own hands breaking his damned neck!”

“Really, old man, really!” said the Archdeacon in perfunctory protest, as he rose and mixed himself another drink.

“Sorry to use strong language, but I don’t love that cat, you know.”

The Archdeacon expressed his surprise that in that case Breddon did not get rid of the brute.

“You come across him on board ship and he flies at you. You save his life, give him board and lodging, and he still hates you so much that he won’t let you touch him, and you are no fonder of him than he is of you. Why don’t you part company?”

“As for his board, I’ve rarely known him to eat anything except his own kill. He goes out hunting every night. I keep him simply and solely because I’m afraid of him. As long as I can keep him I know my nerves are all right. If I let my funk of him make any difference — well, I shouldn’t be much good in a Central African forest. At first I had some idea of taming him — and, besides, there was a queer coincidence.”

He rose and opened the window, and Gray Devil slowly slunk up to it. He paused a few moments on the windowsill and then suddenly sprang and vanished.

“What was the coincidence?”

“What do you think of that?”

Breddon handed the Archdeacon a figure of a cat which he had taken from the mantelpiece. It was a little thing about three inches high. In colour, in the small head, enormous feet, and curiously human eyes, it seemed an exact reproduction of Gray Devil.

“A perfect likeness. How did you get it made?”

“I got the likeness before I got the original. A little Jew dealer sold it me the night before I left for England. He thought it was Egyptian, and described it as an idol. Anyhow, it was a niceish piece of jade.”

“I always thought jade was bright green.”

“It may be — or white — or brown. It varies. I don’t think there can be any doubt that this little figure is old, though I doubt if it’s Egyptian.”

Breddon put it back in its place.

“By the way, that same night the little Jew came to try and buy it back again. He offered me twice what I had given for it. I said he must have found somebody who was pretty keen on it. I asked if it was a collector. The Jew thought not; said it was a coloured gentleman. Well, that finished it. I wasn’t going to do anything to oblige a nigger. The Jew pleaded that it was a particularly fine buck-nigger, with mountains of money, who’d been tracking the thing for years, and hinted at all manner of mumbo-jumbo business — to scare me, I suppose. However, I wouldn’t listen, and kicked him out. Then came the coincidence. Having bought the likeness, next day I found the living original. Rum, wasn’t it?”

At this moment the clock struck, and the Archdeacon recognised with horror that it was very, very much past the time when respectable Archdeacons should be in bed and asleep. He rose and said goodnight, observing that he’d like to hear more about it on the morrow.

This was extremely unfortunate, for it will be seen it is just at this part of the story that one wants full details, and on the morrow it became impossible to elicit them.

Before leaving the library Breddon closed the window, and the Archdeacon asked how “Mr. Gray,” as he called him, would get back.

“Very likely he’s back already. He’s got a special window in the kitchen, made on purpose, just big enough to let him get in and out as he likes.”

“But don’t other cats get in, too?”

“No,” said Breddon. “Other cats avoid Gray Devil.”

The Archdeacon found himself unaccountably nervous when he got to his room. He owned to me that he had to satisfy himself that there was no one concealed under the bed or in the wardrobe. However, he got into bed, and after a little while fell into a deep sleep; his fire was burning brightly, and the room was quite light.

Shortly after four, he was awakened by a loud scream. Still sleepy, he did not for the moment locate the sound, thinking that it must have come from the street outside. But almost immediately afterwards he heard the report of a revolver fired twice in quick succession, and then, after a short pause, a third time.

The Archdeacon was terribly frightened, He did not know what had happened, and thought of armed burglars. For a time — he did not think it could have been more than a minute — fear held him motionless. Then with an effort he rose, lit the gas, and hurried on his clothes. As he was dressing, he heard a step down the passage and a knock at his door.

He opened it, and found Breddon’s servant. The man had put on a blue overcoat over his night-things, and wore slippers. He was shivering with cold and terror.

“Oh, my God, sir!” he exclaimed, “Mr. Breddon’s shot himself. Would you come, sir?”

The Archdeacon followed the man to Breddon’s bedroom. The smoke still hung thickly in the room. A mirror had been smashed, and lay in fragments on the floor. On the bed, with his back to the Archdeacon, lay Breddon, dead. His right hand still grasped the revolver, and there was a blackened wound behind the right ear.

When the Archdeacon came round to look at the face he turned faint, and the servant took him out into the library and gave him brandy, the glasses and decanters still standing there. Breddon’s face certainly had looked very ghastly; it had been scratched, torn and bitten; one eye was gone, and the whole face was covered with blood.

“Do you think it was that brute did it?”

“Sure of it, sir; sprang on his face while he was asleep. I knew it would happen one of these nights. He knew it too; always slept with the revolver by his side. He fired twice at the brute, but couldn’t see for the blood. Then he killed himself.”

It seemed likely enough, with his eyesight gone, horribly mauled, in an agony of pain, possibly believing that he was saving himself from a death still more horrible, Breddon might very well have turned the weapon on himself.

“What do we do now?” the man asked.

“We must get a doctor and fetch the police at once. Come on.”

As they turned the corner of the passage, they saw that the door communicating with the staircase was open.

“Did you open that door?” asked the Archdeacon.

“No,” said the man, aghast.

“Then who did?”

“Don’t know, sir. Looks as if we weren’t at the end of this yet.”

They passed down the stairs together, and found the street-door also ajar. On the pavement outside lay a policeman slowly recovering consciousness. Breddon’s man took the policeman’s whistle and blew it. A passing hansom, going back to the mews, slowed up; the cab was sent to fetch a doctor, and communication with the police-station rapidly followed.

The injured policeman told a curious story. He was passing the house when he heard shots fired. Almost immediately afterwards he heard the bolts of the front-door being drawn, and stepped back into the neighbouring doorway. The front-door opened, and a negro emerged clad in a grey tweed suit with a grey overcoat. The policeman jumped out, and without a second’s hesitation the black man felled him. “It was all done before you could think,” was the policeman’s phrase.

“What kind of negro?” asked the Archdeacon.

“A big man — stood over six foot, and black as coal. He never waited to be challenged; the moment he knew that he was seen he hit out.”

The policeman was not a very intelligent fellow, and there was little more to be got out of him. He had heard the shots, seen the street-door open and the man in grey appear, and had been felled by a lightning blow before he had time to do anything.

The doctor, a plain, matter-of-fact little man, had no hesitation in saying that Breddon was dead, and must have died almost immediately. After the injuries received, respiration and heart-action must have ceased at once. He was explaining something which oozed from the dead man’s ear, when the Archdeacon could stand it no longer, and staggered out into the library. There he found Breddon’s servant, still in the blue overcoat, explaining to a policeman with a notebook that as far as he knew nothing was fusing except a jade image or idol of cat which formerly stood on the mantelpiece.

The cat known as “Gray Devil” as also missing, and, although a description of it was circulated in the public press, nothing was ever heard of it again. But grey fur was found in the clenched left hand of the dead man.

The inquest resulted in the customary verdict, and brought to light no new facts. But it may be as well to give what the police theory of the case was. According to the police the suicide took place much as Breddon’s servant had supposed. Mad with pain and unable to bear the thought of his awful mutilation, Breddon had shot himself.

The story of the jade image, as far as it was known, was told at the inquest. The police held that this image was an idol, that some uncivilized tribe was much perturbed by the theft of it, and was ready to pay an enormously high price for its recovery. The negro was assumed to be aware of this, and to have determined to obtain possession of the idol by fair means or foul. Fair means failing, it was suggested that the negro followed Breddon to England, tracked him out, and on the night in question found some means to conceal himself in Breddon’s flat. There it was assumed that he fell asleep, was awakened by the screams and the sound of the firing, and, being scared, caught up the jade image and made off. Realizing that the shots would have been heard outside, and that his departure at that moment would be considered extremely suspicious, he was ready as he opened the street-door to fell the first man that he saw. The temporary unconsciousness of the policeman gave him time to get away.

The theory sounds at first sight like the only possible theory. When the Archdeacon first told me the story I tried to find out indirectly whether he accepted it. Finding him rather disposed to fence with my hints and suggestions, I put the question to him plainly and bluntly:

“Do you believe in the police theory?”

He hesitated, and then answered with complete frankness:

“No, most emphatically not.”

“Why?” I asked; and he went over the evidence with me.

“In the first place, I do not believe that Breddon, in the ordinary sense, committed suicide. No amount of physical pain would have made him even think of it. He had unending pluck. He would have taken the facial disfigurement and loss of sight as the chances of war, and would have done the best that could be done by a man with such awful disabilities. One must admit that he fired the fatal shot — the medical evidence on that point is too strong to be gainsaid — but he fired it under circumstances of supernatural horror of which we, thank God! know nothing.”

“I’m naturally slow to admit supernatural explanation.”

“Well, let’s go on. What’s this mysterious tribe the police talk about? I want to know where it lives and what its name is. It’s wealthy enough to offer a huge reward; it must be of some importance. The negro managed to get in and secrete himself. How? Where? I know the flat, and that theory won’t do. We don’t even know that it was the negro who took that little image, though I believe it was. Anyhow, how did the negro get away at that hour of the morning absolutely unobserved? Negroes are not so common in London that they can walk about without being noticed; yet not one trace of him was ever found, and equally mysterious is the disappearance of the Gray Cat. It was such an extraordinary brute, and the description of it was so widely circulated that it would have seemed almost certain we should hear of it again. Well, we’ve not heard.”

We discussed the police theory for some little time, and something which he happened to say led me to exclaim:

“Really! do you mean to say that the Gray Cat actually was the negro?”

“No,” he replied, “not exactly that, but something near it. Cats are strange animals, anyhow. I needn’t remind you of their connection with certain old religions or with that witchcraft in which even in England today some still believe, and not so long ago almost all believed. I have never, by the way, seen a good explanation of the fact that there are people who cannot bear to be in a room with a cat, and are aware of its presence as if by some mysterious extra sense. Let me remind you of the belief which undoubtedly exists both in China and Japan, that evil spirits may enter into certain of the lower animals, the fox and badger especially. Every student of demonology knows about these things.”

“But that idea of evil spirits taking possession of cats or foxes is surely a heathen superstition which you can’t hold.”

“Well, I have read of the evil spirits that entered into the swine. Think it over, and keep an open mind.”

Stories in the Dark (1901)

THE STALLS OF
BARCHESTER CATHEDRAL

M. R. James

1910

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 1783 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, affords 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 Flacus, 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 disguised 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. Farther 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 west front 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 maidservant 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 at 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 connexion 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 business-like, 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 cheekbones, 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. 30th 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 thereis 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 become more cheerful, and, indeed, no symptom of depression is discernible until 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 me 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 were 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 fell 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 of 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 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 unrecognisable. 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 anyone 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 drempt, 26 Febr. Anno 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.”

“The Contemporary Review”, Apr. 1910

THE GOVERNESS’S STORY

Amyas Northcote

1921

We were sitting, a large group of us, round the blazing fire in the old hall one Christmas Eve and the conversation, guided by both hour and place, drifted on to things supernatural. Among those present was old Miss Hosmer, a lady well-known and popular, who, after an early life of struggle and poverty, was now spending her declining years in comfort on a modest fortune, derived from the bequest of a distant relative. In her youth Miss Hosmer had earned her livelihood as a governess and in the course of her scholastic career she had lived in various families and had undergone various experiences, some grave, some, but, alas, fewer, gay; she had seen the skeletons kept in more than one cupboard and had been the confidante of more than one curious story.

As a rule she was chary of recounting her experiences, since she rightly held that the histories of others, however discovered, should be kept confidential, and that more mischief is the result of idle gossip than comes from malicious tale-bearing. In person, she was small, grey-haired, old-fashioned, with a keen sense of humour twinkling in her blue eyes and a warm corner in her heart for those in difficulty or distress. During the early part of our talk, she had remained silent, listening with a queer expression of detachment to the various stories that circulated round the circle, and contributing nothing to them till directly appealed to by Mrs. Leveson, one of her former and well loved pupils.

In a pause of the conversation, Mrs. Leveson turned abruptly to Miss Hosmer and said:

“Can’t you tell us a story, Miss Hosmer? I know you have told me more than once that when you were quite a young woman you saw a ghost.”

“No, my dear,” answered Miss Hosmer, “I never told you that. I never saw a ghost in all my life.”

“But surely you had some queer experience of that nature, didn’t you?” returned Mrs. Leveson.

“Well,” said the other, “I did once have an adventure of the sort you mention. I don’t often speak of it nowadays, and I try to think of it as little as I can.”

“Why?” I interrupted, “Is it anything so very dreadful?”

“No,” said Miss Hosmer slowly. “It was not really dreadful, but it was very, very sad, and I feel, perhaps, that I should be doing harm and causing pain to perfectly innocent people by repeating it.”

“But not if you conceal the names and places,” answered Mr. Davies, the barrister, “and, now you have roused our curiosity so much, surely you will gratify it and tell us the story.”

Miss Hosmer hesitated for a few minutes, and then replied:

“Well, perhaps you are right and, in any case, I hope and believe that I can so conceal identities that none of you will know of whom I am speaking. But I beg,” she went on, “that if any of you do guess, you will keep your guesses to yourselves. Two of the people implicated are alive today, and I would not for the world that either of them should have the slightest inkling of what happened in their family when they were little children.”

We promised as she desired, and Miss Hosmer began.

•   •   •   •   •

What I am going to tell you is an experience that I actually underwent many years ago, when I was quite a girl, and had only recently taken up governessing as a means of earning my daily bread. I had been out of a situation for some little time, and was beginning to grow anxious as to my future; so that it was with a feeling of real happiness that one morning I opened a letter from Miss Butler, at whose agency I was registered, in which she asked me to come round to her office as soon as possible. It was not long before I was with her, when she told me that she had just had an application from Lady K., the widow of the late Sir Arthur K., G.C.M.G., for a young lady to come to her in the country to educate her two children, a boy of nine and a little girl of seven, and to give especial attention to preparing the boy for school. Up to the present, so far as I could gather, Lady K. had had entire charge of the education of the children since her husband’s death, but she did not feel herself capable of instructing the boy sufficiently to prepare him for school, and she also desired a resident governess to continue the girl’s education after the boy had left home.

Miss Butler gave me Lady K.’s letter to read, and I gleaned from it that the family resided always at the family seat Wyke Hall, near the town of Delhingham, in one of the Midland Counties. The work appeared to be exactly what I wanted and felt capable of undertaking; the terms offered were quite satisfactory, and the quietness of the life was by no means distasteful to me, since I have always been a lover of the country. It was accordingly arranged that I should write to Lady K. and seek an interview with her to go further into the matter. I returned to my rooms without delay and, having written and posted my letter, I hunted up an old book of reference that had belonged to my father to see what mention it made of the K. family. I quickly found what I sought and learned that Sir Arthur K. had died in 1887, leaving three children. He had been twice married, once to a Miss C. in 1874, by whom he had had one son, Edward, born in 1877, and again in 1883 to a Miss Constance G. by whom he had had two children, Arthur, born in 1884, and Eleanor, born in 1886. As the year of which I am speaking was 1893, this would make the ages of the three children sixteen, nine, and seven respectively. Except that the family residence was Wyke Hall, which I knew already, this was all the information my rather out-of-date reference book contained about the K. family.

In course of post I received a reply from Lady K. stating that she would be at a certain hotel in London, on a certain not distant date, and asking me to call and see her there. I complied with her request, and one fine morning late in August, 1893, beheld me ushered in a rather nervous condition into the presence of Lady K. On entering the private sitting-room where she was awaiting me, as she rose from her chair to greet me I saw before me a tall, stately, handsome woman of about thirty-five years of age. She was a blonde with aquiline features, a handsome, well preserved figure, dressed in handsome though rather old-fashioned clothes. Her voice was gentle, low and cold, with a curiously monotonous intonation. Her manners were dignified and reserved, though perfectly courteous. She was in half-mourning, and wore no jewellery.

In short, a first glance displayed a rather fine, if cold-looking woman of the world; a closer inspection revealed something else. Beneath all her perfect manners and frigid exterior there seethed a medley of strong passions; and among these, lurking in the depths and only occasionally peeping forth, was fear. I have always been something of a physiognomist, and I felt sure I was not deceived. Of what she was in fear, and of what was concealed beneath that calm exterior, I could not even hazard a guess; but that Lady K. possessed a secret, and a painful if not a terrible one, I was not an instant in doubt. After our formal greetings we stood looking at each other, and in that brief moment I formed the conviction that I did not and never could like Lady K. However, it is not for a hard-up governess to pick and choose. If Lady K. liked me, I felt I was bound to accept her situation; it would have been impossible for me to go back to Miss Butler and tell her that I had refused an excellent position with a family of standing, simply because I did not like an indescribable something in my would-be employer’s face.

Well, I need not go into the details of my interview with Lady K. except to say that she made most particular and minute inquiries into my capabilities, qualities, failings, good points, family and, in fact, every conceivable thing about me. My sense of dislike to her was not intensified by this inquisition, in fact it rather raised her in my opinion as being evidence that she was a careful and conscientious woman. I noticed also that the mention of her children was the sole thing that brought a gleam of light and happiness into that cold, hard face.

Evidently she adored her little Arthur, her little Eleanor. After a long interview we parted, I going out with the assurance of Lady K. that, if the references with which I had supplied her were as satisfactory as our conversation, I might consider myself engaged to come to Wyke Hall after the holidays were over — in about a month’s time.

The references proved satisfactory, and one evening in late September saw me arriving at Dellingham Station. It was a fine evening, but the journey from town had been long and tedious and it was growing dark by the time I left the station. Outside, I found awaiting me a well appointed, single-horse brougham, driven by a neatly liveried and respectful groom. Into this I mounted and my luggage having been bestowed on the carriage rack we started off for Wyke Hall. So far as I could see, after we had disengaged ourselves from the streets of the little town of Dellingham, we drove through a typical English midland county landscape; gentle rolling hills, green pasture and well-kept arable land were intermingled, and our road seemed to follow generally the course of the little river Dell. We passed smiling farmhouses, and pleasant cottages during the drive: our lines lay in peaceful and homelike places. About five miles from Dellingham, so far as I could judge, the brougham turned up an elm-shaded avenue, and in a few minutes more stopped before the door of Wyke Hall. It was now almost dark, and I could see but little of the house, except that it appeared to be of fair size and to be surrounded by a broad, stone-flagged terrace.

The front door was opened by a neat looking footman in livery, behind whom loomed the more dignified form of a middle-aged butler, and I entered the hall, which was of considerable size. Opposite the front door was another, which led into Lady K.’s private sitting and business room. Close to this second door, the main staircase of the house commenced; this led up to a wide gallery on the first floor. Out of this gallery on the left-hand side opened a swing-door which gave access to the upper passage of the wing. The butler, having relieved me of my handbag and umbrella, led the way across the hall and ushered me into Lady K.’s room.

Lady K. greeted me with as much cordiality as she appeared capable of assuming, seated me by the fire, ordered me up a belated, but much welcome tea, inquired about my journey and generally did her best to give me a polite welcome. I still, however, could not get over that faint sense of dislike towards her, which I had felt from the first, and it was with relief that I heard her say as I put down my tea cup: “Well, now I suppose you would like to meet the children. I will send for them to come down.”

And in a few minutes down they came, and at once I fell in love with both of them. It has been my lot to teach and to love many young people, but, assuredly, I can say that in all my experience I never met two to whom I took so quick and warm a fancy, and from whom I received so soon such affectionate devotion. Of the two, perhaps my favourite was the boy, Arthur; he was fair like his mother, but instead of her cold expression he was bubbling over with life and good spirits. He was the leader of the two, and ruled his little sister with a vigour, which, if it had not been loving, would have been merciless. She reciprocated his devotion, and was never so happy as when trotting after him and carrying out his instructions. She was dark — I presume she took after her father — and intelligent, but Arthur was an unusually brilliant child.

We spent a little time in making acquaintance, and I became confirmed in my original opinion that the one really soft spot in Lady K. was her passionate adoration of her children.

After about half an hour thus spent, Lady K. rose and said she was sure I would wish to see my own quarters, and we accordingly all of us proceeded upstairs. On reaching the swing-door on the upper floor Lady K. pushed it open, and descending a couple of steps we entered the wing of the house, which was traversed by a wide but not lengthy passage terminating in a large window. Lady K. threw open the first door on the right hand of this passage and disclosed a large, cheerful looking room, the schoolroom and general living room, in which the children spent the bulk of their waking hours. Having duly inspected this apartment, we proceeded down the passage to the door of a second room which formed the end room of the house.

This was my bedroom, and I confess to a feeling of surprise and pleasure at seeing the bright and pretty room, a cheerful fire blazing in the grate, a vase of autumn flowers on the dressing-table, and books and knickknacks scattered round.

After a brief pause we returned to the main part of the house, Lady K. explaining that the room opposite mine was an unused spare bedroom, whilst the space opposite the schoolroom was occupied by a bath-room, housemaids’ closet and similar small offices. On entering the main hall, Lady K. pointed out her bedroom, which adjoined the schoolroom, and was situated above the room downstairs into which I had first been shown. In this, she explained, Eleanor slept with her, whilst Arthur’s bedroom was the adjoining one, and had formerly been her husband’s dressing-room. Beyond these rooms I could see the vista of the main passage through the body of the mansion, but my story does not concern itself with any other than the part of the house I have described, save that I should mention that shortly beyond Arthur’s room I saw the bottom of the staircase leading up to the servants’ attics overhead.

Our inspection of the house concluded, Lady K. suggested that I should probably wish to retire to my room to unpack and rest, and departed downstairs, taking the children with her.

I went back to my bedroom, where my luggage, unstrapped and prepared for unpacking, stood neatly ranged, and sat down to think over the events of the last hour. My thoughts should have been pleasant. Here I was welcomed with the utmost courtesy, my future pupils appeared charming and lovable, my surroundings were most comfortable and my convenience had been thoughtfully studied. I should mention that before the children had come down Lady K. had outlined her ideas as to hours of study and recreation, subject to my approval, and had arranged that I should breakfast and have tea with the children in the schoolroom, lunch with her and them downstairs, and that after they had retired for the night I should be served with my evening meal upstairs, so that I might have my entire evenings free and to myself. These plans suited me perfectly; all seemed rose coloured, and yet I could not dispel a lurking feeling of ill-ease for which I could not account. On the whole I felt that it centred round the personality of Lady K. Nothing could be more civil than her manner, nothing could excel her apparent kindness, but — I could not complete my thought, and whilst I was still dreaming there came a tap at the door and an old woman, evidently a confidential upper servant, entered. She at once introduced herself as Mason, whom I had heard mentioned as Lady K.’s personal maid and hitherto the attendant on the children as well. She was a quiet, self-effaced woman, grey haired, blue eyed, and with a sad but not unpleasing face. She explained that she had ventured to come to see if I needed any help, but I suspected that her real motive was to get an early inspection of me, her supplanter with the children. However, I had no wish not to be friendly, and begged her to sit down. She took a chair, and we very quickly found ourselves in friendly talk; she was eloquent on the subject of both the children, but especially of Arthur, and I gleaned a good deal of information from her about their ways and characters. All I heard was satisfactory, but I observed that once or twice when I endeavoured to turn the conversation in the direction of Lady K. Mason immediately became uncommunicative, and swung the talk back on to the merits of the young people. Our chat lasted perhaps half an hour, when Mason departed to assist Lady K. at her evening toilet, and shortly after a neat, smiling maidservant, who informed me that she was the schoolroom-maid, knocked at my door with the intelligence that my evening meal was ready in the schoolroom.

Supper finished, I sat awhile still trying to analyse my thoughts and, not succeeding, I returned to my bedroom where I busied myself with my unpacking until feeling rather tired I desisted and went to bed.

It was not long, I think, before I fell asleep and slept soundly till I was gradually awakened at what I afterwards ascertained was about half-past eleven by the sound of someone walking about in the room above mine. At first the footsteps seemed to mingle with my dreams, but as my senses became clearer the sounds also became more distinct. They were the footsteps of someone walking hastily and irregularly: at times they fell slowly or stopped, at others they hurried almost into a run. They moved all about the room, not confining themselves to any single path or beat, and, though clear and distinct, were not heavy. I remember wondering at the sex of the walker: the steps sounded too light for those of a man and too long for those of a woman. A slight sense of annoyance passed over me; surely it was very late for a servant to be up, and very improper for one of the apparently highly trained domestics of Wyke Hall to be indulging in such antics. Suddenly I heard a window in the room above thrown wide open with a crash and then followed absolute silence. The steps had ceased, and in a little while I fell asleep to wake the next morning to pouring rain.

The day was a hopeless one and going out was not to be thought of. Accordingly, after we had finished our first morning’s schoolroom work, at which I was delighted with the manners and attitude of both my pupils, Lady K., who had come in more than once to watch our progress, suggested a game in the billiard-room. This room proved to be in the space below the schoolroom and my bedroom, and the game was a great treat to the children, since they explained they were never allowed to play about on the billiard table by themselves, and that Lady K. hardly ever used to indulge them by rushing about after the balls. The rest of the day passed without incident, and I retired to rest feeling myself gradually becoming at home and inclined to laugh at my uncomfortable feelings of the evening before.

I suppose it was the lack of exercise, but I did not fall asleep as promptly as is my usual custom and, as I lay wakeful, all at once I heard the footsteps in the room above. They began absolutely without warning, and as on the previous night moved irregularly about the room, now fast, now slow. I looked at my watch: it was a little after half-past eleven. As on the previous night, I heard the window thrown violently open, and then came silence. I slept after a while undisturbed and woke in the morning with one of my trying sick, headaches.

It was a prostrating one, but I had my duty to attend to, and I got through the morning somehow, but when Lady K. came into the schoolroom, towards the end of the lesson I saw her eye me sharply and, I thought, uneasily.

“Are you not well, Miss Hosmer?” she said.

“I have only got a tiresome headache,” I replied. “I am afraid I am rather subject to them, and I expect it was not getting out yesterday, and sleeping badly brought it on, but it will soon pass off.”

“Did you not sleep well?” queried Lady K. with, I thought, a trace of excitement and anxiety in her voice. She hesitated an instant and went on, “I hope nothing disturbed you.”

Yes, there was no doubt — there was anxiety in that last sentence. At the moment the thought of the steps had faded from my mind: as a matter of fact, they had not really disturbed me the night before, or been the cause of my headache.

“I did not sleep well,” I replied, “but it was my headache coming on; my room and bed are most comfortable.”

Lady K. looked relieved.

“Well, you must be quiet now,” she said. “I will take the children out and you must rest and get your head better.”

I followed her instructions, lay down, and my headache was so far recovered that I was able to come down to luncheon and go on with the day’s programme in the afternoon. This involved an out-of-door excursion, in the shape of a walk; the children lamented the rule, as they wanted to take me round the gardens and stables to exhibit their various treasures, but Lady K. had laid down a strict rule. “A walk in the afternoon, playing in the garden in the morning,” and Lady K. was not one to disobey. So we explored the surrounding Park, and got various views of the house, which showed itself as a finer and larger place than my first nocturnal glimpse had led me to believe. That night the exhaustion following my headache soon put me to sleep, and if the restless domestic walked above me my ears were closed to his or her footsteps.

The next day broke quiet and uneventful. I felt quite settled down now, my affection for the children grew steadily, and I think they reciprocated it; the servants including Mason were civil and accommodating, and even my subconscious feeling about Lady K. was beginning to diminish. But my peace of mind was to receive a shock that day, and that shock came through the innocent instrumentality of my pupils. We had been rambling about the gardens and stables and farmyard, and I had made the acquaintance of “Galloper” and “Queenie,” the two ponies, of the carriage horses, of the big Newfoundland “Steady,” and of the stable terrier “Spot.” I had duly admired the two little plots dignified by the names of Master Arthur’s and Miss Eleanor’s gardens. I had looked at the pigs and at the poultry, and had gazed from afar upon those more formidable creatures, the cows, and we were now returning home rather hastily, for the lunch hour was close upon us, when an argument arose between the two children, as to the proper allocation of the windows in the façade of the house, Eleanor maintaining and Arthur stoutly disputing as to which exactly were the windows of the schoolroom. Finally I was called upon to umpire the question, and, glancing at the windows in question, I was easily able to give my decision. But as I looked at the house, and at my windows adjoining those in dispute, I had a curious feeling of something being wrong. For a moment I was at a loss, and then it suddenly flashed across me: there were attics over the main body of the house, but the schoolroom and my bedroom were in the wing, and there were no attics above them. Where, then, could be the room above mine in which someone walked at night, and opened the window? A queer uncanny sensation passed over me, but I had no time to think the matter out, for we had reached the house and the luncheon bell was ringing.

At luncheon Lady K. proposed that the afternoon should be devoted to driving into Dellingham to endeavour to acquire certain books, which I had asked for as necessary for my pupils, and I had accordingly no further opportunity to investigate the problem of the footsteps. That evening, though I was rather tired, I must confess that, after the schoolroom maid had removed my supper things and left me alone in the wing of the house, I felt just a trifle nervous and wakeful. However, I got resolutely to bed, and, leaving my candle alight, waited. The expected happened. Just after half-past eleven, without the slightest warning, the steps recommenced their restless pacing. I had nerved myself as to what to do, and I instantly got out of bed and, slipping on my dressing-gown, went out into the passage and closed my door. As soon as I had done so the sound of the footsteps diminished greatly; I went on into the schoolroom and here I could no longer hear them at all. I returned to the passage and, bracing up my courage, opened the door of the spare room. In this room, also, the steps were inaudible; I went back to my bedroom and again they rang out clear and distinct, and in a few minutes more I heard the window thrown up and all became silent. It was clear, therefore, that whatever caused the sound must be directly over my head. I lay awake that night for some time, absorbed in the problem; so far I was puzzled, and slightly nervous, but not exactly frightened. I did not believe in spiritual manifestations, and was convinced that some physical cause was the explanation of the mysterious sounds. At the same time I was sufficiently disturbed in mind to feel that I must discover this cause, or else that I should fall a prey to my nervous imagination. Ultimately I decided on taking the opportunity of the upper part of the house being empty during the servants’ dinner hour, and of the children’s half an hour with Lady K. after our luncheon, to make an exploration of the top story of the mansion. So resolving, I fell asleep.

The following day I ran briskly upstairs as soon as lunch was finished; the upper floors were deserted as I anticipated, and I made my way undisturbed to the attics. Here, I found the same long passage as below, save for the notable difference that in place of the swing-door opening into the wing there was a closed archway which appeared as if a door had existed there at one time and had been closed up, and instead there was a window in this archway, which gave light to that end of the passage. I approached the window, and opening it looked out. Beneath me, there was nothing except two low gables with a gutter between them which stretched away towards the end of the wing. One of these gables was clearly over my room and the schoolroom, the other over the rooms on the opposite side of the wing passage. A moment’s inspection showed clearly enough that it was absolutely impossible for any room to exist within these gables, which could not have been above four feet high at their topmost point. I leaned out of the window for closer inspection, and suddenly noticed with something of a shock that both the roof and the end wall of the house appeared new, not above a few years old at most. Greatly puzzled, I drew back and tried the door of the attic above Lady K.’s room. It opened easily, and disclosed a room littered with boxes, disused furniture and other lumber. The room was so filled that it would have been impossible for anyone to have paced about it in the fashion I have described; the window also showed no signs of having been opened for a considerable time. Opposite this room was the empty space of the main hall, which extended clear up through the house. I was now greatly puzzled, and, I think, beginning to grow frightened. Who was the walker by night, and where did he walk?

I had no further time to consider the question as I was compelled to return to my charges, but I decided to take Mason into my confidence and see if she could throw light upon the problem. That afternoon we sallied forth on our usual walk, and this time the children who were my eager guides led me in a new direction. The path which we traversed led us near Wyke churchyard, and we wandered into it to get a nearer view of the quaint old church. As we walked round the outside of the church, Arthur suddenly pulled my arm gently and pointing to a vault a few yards away said:

“That’s where Papa is buried, and poor Brother Edward too.”

The words gave me a start. I knew, of course, that Sir Arthur was dead, and probably buried in the neighbourhood of Wyke, but it had never occurred to me to think that his eldest son should be lying beside him. It is true that I had never up to this moment heard his name mentioned, but I had scarcely thought of him at all; I had supposed him away at school; I had never conceived the possibility of his being dead.

It has always been my fixed rule never to try and obtain information as to their family affairs from my pupils, but in this instance I could not restrain myself from the question:

“I did not know your brother was dead. When did it happen?”

“Oh, a long time ago,” said Arthur. “Eleanor cannot even remember him, but I can.”

“I remember him too,” said Eleanor.

“Yes, but you were too little to play with him like I did,” said her brother.

I did not like to press the discussion and the conversation came to an end; but I was more determined than ever to have a talk with old Mason. That evening I was doomed to disappointment, however, for on asking the schoolroom maid if Mason was in her room I was told that she had gone to stay the night with her brother, a tradesman in Dellingham.

That night I lay awake and listened for the coming of the steps with a haunting sense of fear. There seemed to be no human agency accountable for them; was there some superhuman cause? Had I felt more at my ease with Lady K. I think I should have spoken to her, but there seemed to be some bar between us, which forbade any but formal intercourse. And in some way which I cannot define it was borne in upon me that she understood those steps, that in her hands lay the key of the mystery.

The evening hours passed on, and at the appointed time the steps overhead once more sounded. My nerves had reached such a pitch of excitement that I felt I could have faced anything rather than remain in ignorance of their meaning. Had it been possible for me to have transported myself bodily to whatever place the walker moved in, I verily believe I should have rushed thither to face the unknown, to discover the secret. But it was impossible. I felt that night too terrified to leave my bed for the quiet of the schoolroom and, paradoxical as it seems, though I would have faced a ghost or an evil spirit in the unseen, unknown room above me, I could not face the well-known, quiet passage outside my door. The sounds above me ran their usual course, the steps ceased, the window was flung open, silence ensued and I finally forgot myself in an uneasy sleep.

I woke the next morning nervous and unrefreshed; at lunch-time my state of nervousness was increased by my becoming painfully conscious of the fact that Lady K. was watching me covertly, gloomily, and withal with a certain indefinable expression as of one who expects and awaits a disaster. She talked nothing but commonplaces as usual, and I began to feel more and more confident that in her hands lay the key of the mystery of the night walker. Towards the end of luncheon Lady K. observed that as it was Saturday she thought the children might enjoy a ride. This suggestion was eagerly embraced by both of them, and I found myself with the whole afternoon free before me.

In due course after luncheon, the ponies were announced to be ready, and having seen my charges safely started off in the highest spirits, under the care of a fatherly-looking old coachman, I mounted the stairs, and went directly to Mason’s room, which was a small one in the main body of the house not far removed from Lady K’s. own bedroom.

When I entered Mason’s room in answer to her “Come in,” I fancied that for a moment she looked slightly discomposed, and as if my visit was not over welcome. However, she greeted me civilly, begged me to be seated, and, taking up her needle, resumed her sewing. For a moment there was silence, and then she began to ask questions about the children and their lessons in a vague and preoccupied way, as if solely for the purpose of making conversation and avoiding a disagreeable topic. I answered her as briefly as in courtesy I could do, and then plunged at once into my subject:

“Mason, who is it that walks about every night over my head?”

I paused and looked at her. She slowly laid down her work and, paling steadily till she grew a deathly white, sat staring at me in silence.

“I cannot understand it,” I went on, “What does it mean?”

She seemed to find her voice with an effort.

“I don’t know what you are talking about, miss,” she said. “There is nobody walks about this house at night.”

“I did not say that,” I answered. “But there is someone who walks about over my head every night about half-past eleven and then throws open a window loud enough for anyone in the house to hear him.”

“Throws open the window,” whispered Mason to herself, “Oh, my God! my God!” Then in a louder tone she went on, “You must be mistaken, miss, there is no room above yours.”

“That makes it all the stranger,” I answered. “I know there is no room there, and yet I know the steps are there and nowhere else. What is it, oh, tell me what it is!”

The strangeness of the episode, the old woman’s obvious fear were telling on me; I felt I was losing my self-control, was giving way to panic. By a great effort, I regained my composure, and looking steadily at her said:

“Mason, there is a story, a dreadful story connected with what I have heard at night. You know it, and you must tell it to me, or I shall go straight to Lady K. and ask her to tell me.”

“For the love of God do not do that, miss,” cried Mason.

“Very well then, tell me the story,” I answered.

There was a pause, then Mason said in a low voice:

“Have you ever heard of Master Edward?”

I nodded.

“And that he is dead?” she went on.

“Yes,” I replied, “I have seen his grave.”

“Who told you about him?” said the old woman. “Did anyone tell you he killed himself?”

“Killed himself!” I exclaimed. “Oh no, oh no. Why, he must have been only a child.”

“I don’t know,” said Mason. “I don’t know,” she went on with increasing agitation. “I have always felt sure it was an accident. The jury said it was, but why does he walk? If, poor lamb, he fell out by accident, he would be at rest in heaven, and yet he walks. You, who are a stranger to us all, have heard him. Oh, my lady, my lady, why did you drive him to it?”

Her agitation was pitiable, and absorbed in that I seemed to forget my own fear. But, as Mason grew calmer, I determined to reach the bottom of the mystery, and at last after much persuasion and many questions I elicited from her the following story:

Sir Arthur K. had been deeply in love with his second wife, and she had apparently returned his affection. At the time of the marriage in 1883, when Mason first came into contact with him, Edward, the child of the first wife, was six years old. He was a pretty, affectionate, spirited boy, a little inclined to be unduly sensitive, but on the whole a perfectly normal, healthy boy. Sir Arthur was much attached to him, and his stepmother treated him with the greatest kindness. This treatment continued after the births of her own two children, all three were treated as her own, and Mason declared that she as well as Sir Arthur believed Lady K. really felt an almost equal devotion to them all.

A change came soon after the death of Sir Arthur in 1887. The bulk of Sir Arthur’s estate consisted of the Wyke property, and, at the date of the first marriage, this estate had been settled on the first wife and her children. There was, therefore, little that Sir Arthur could do for the children of his second marriage, save economize and thus form a fund for their benefit, but his brief tenure of life after his second marriage precluded him from accomplishing much in that respect. It is true that he made a will bequeathing any contingent benefit in his estate to his second wife and her children, but this was all. Lady K. herself had no fortune to speak of.

On his papers being opened after his death it was found that Sir Arthur had left his wife and an elderly clergyman, a Mr. Cameron who had been an early friend of his, joint guardians of the children. Practically, this amounted to Lady K. becoming sole guardian, since Mr. Cameron lived in a remote part of England, was in poor health and really took no interest whatever in his wards.

Mason was most emphatic that at no time was actual cruelty shown the boy, but she admitted that he was neglected. He was neglected in everything, education, manners, health, companions: all that Lady K. had was lavished on her own children whilst Edward was stinted in every direction. It speaks volumes for the natural goodness of the boy that he did not grow to hate his little half-brother and sister, but to the last he was always affectionate and gentle with them, and loved their society. With his stepmother it was different. Violent disputes took place between them, battles in which the impetuous, warm-hearted, neglected child dashed himself in vain against the cold-blooded, heartless woman. Into further details we need not go. Suffice it to say that one evening there was an unusually violent outburst, which ended in Edward rushing, sobbing and distracted, up to his little attic in the wing, for to this remote corner was the future owner of Wyke Hall now exiled. In the morning a gardener found the boy lying on the stone-flagged terrace beneath his window — dead.

There was an inquest of course, but in deference to the position of the family the inquiry made was as formal as possible. The usual verdict was returned: Death by misadventure; and Lady K. found herself in the position of own mother to the future lord of Wyke.

But her demeanour did not change, the coldness and hardness, only melted by her children’s embraces, which had been growing on her now for the past few years remained, and she shut herself off deliberately from the neighbours to live solitary with her children.

After a while rumours began to spread: something had happened at Wyke Hall, the house was haunted. All was very vague, but servants began to leave and it became difficult to replace them. At last Lady K. called her household together in the hall and boldly broached the subject to them. Presently she challenged the assembled party.

“Well, you say that the room my poor Edward lived in is haunted. Will you admit that you are wrong if I pass tonight alone and in peace and quiet there?”

There was a murmur of assent.

Lady K. was as good as her word. She passed that night alone in the attic; she left it next morning as calm and composed as ever, but, as the servants noticed, a deathly white. And in a week’s time workmen came and the attics over the wing were pulled down.

Since that date, the wing, except for the schoolroom, had not been used; I was the first person to spend a night in it since Lady K. had done so three years before.

This was all Mason could tell me. When she had finished, she sat looking at me.

“And now you know,” she said.

I was shaking with a mixture of fear and anger.

“I will stay no longer than I must in this house,” I answered as quietly as I could, “and I will never pass another night in that bedroom.”

“I knew you would say that,” said Mason, “I will have your things moved at once to the room next to mine.”

“Thank you,” I said, and left her.

All was done as Mason had promised, and that evening saw me installed in my new room. I have never known what the servants thought of the sudden change. I said nothing to the maid, nor she to me. Nor did Lady K. make a single comment. At luncheon the next day she was calm and composed as ever; I caught her more than once eyeing me covertly, but she said nothing of note. That evening, having fully made up my mind, I handed her a note informing her that I desired to leave at the end of the term. I gave no reasons. She read my note in my presence, and in a perfectly unmoved voice said:

“I shall be sorry to lose you, Miss Hosmer.”

Nothing further of the slightest interest transpired during the remainder of my stay at Wyke Hall. I was careful always to leave the schoolroom early in the evening and retire to my new room, and I heard the footsteps no more. My relations with Lady K. remained on the same cool and polite footing as ever. Occasionally I thought I saw a look of malice and fear in her eyes, but outwardly we were at peace. To the children I became really attached, and my sole regret at leaving that charming, that dreadful house, was my being parted from them. In fact, as my acquaintance with them grew, I began seriously to regret the approaching close of my relationship with them. I feared I had acted too hastily in resigning my engagement, but it was now too late to draw back. I knew Lady K.’s secret, and she knew that I knew it; to part was the only alternative.

•   •   •   •   •

“Many years have passed since then,” said Miss Hosmer, winding up her story, “and I have never seen or heard of the family again. I have a vague impression that Lady K. is dead, and I pray nightly even now that the wandering spirit of that dead child whom she hunted to his grave has also found eternal rest.”

In Ghostly Company (1921)