Title: In a Glass Darkly
Author: Sheridan Le Fanu
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Language: English
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Title: In a Glass Darkly
Author: Sheridan Le Fanu
CONTENTS
GREEN TEA
PROLOGUE - Martin Hesselius, the German Physician
Chapter I - Dr. Hesselius Relates How He Met the Rev. Mr. Jennings
Chapter II - The Doctor Questions Lady Mary and She Answers
Chapter III - Dr. Hesselius Picks Up Something in Latin Books
Chapter IV - Four Eyes Were Reading the Passage
Chapter V - Dr. Hesselius is Summoned to Richmond
Chapter VI - How Mr. Jennings Met His Companion
Chapter VII - The Journey: First Stage
Chapter VIII - The Second Stage
Chapter IX - The Third Stage
Chapter X - Home
Conclusion - A Word for Those Who Suffer/h2>
THE FAMILIAR
Prologue
Chapter I - Foot-steps
Chapter II - The Watcher
Chapter III - An Advertisement
Chapter IV - He Talks With a Clergyman
Chapter V - Mr. Barton States His Case
Chapter VI - Seen Again
Chapter VII - Flight
Chapter VIII - Softened
Chapter IX - Requiescat
MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE
Prologue
Chapter I - The Judge's House
Chapter II - Mr. Peters
Chapter III - Lewis Pyneweck
Chapter IV - Interruption in Court
Chapter V - Caleb Searcher
Chapter VI - Arrested
Chapter VII - Chief-Justice Twofold
Chapter VIII - Somebody Has Got Into the House
Chapter IX - The Judge Leaves His House
THE ROOM IN THE DRAGON VOLANT
Prologue
Chapter I - On the Road
Chapter II - The Inn-yard of the Belle Étoile
Chapter III - Death and Love Together Mated
Chapter IV - Monsieur Droqville
Chapter V - Supper at the Belle Étoile
Chapter VI - The Naked Sword
Chapter VII - The White Rose
Chapter VIII - A Three Minutes' Visit
Chapter IX - Gossip and Counsel
Chapter X - The Black Veil
Chapter XI - The Dragon Volant
Chapter XII - The Magician
Chapter XIII - The Oracle Tells Me Wonders
Chapter XIV - Mademoiselle de la Vallière
Chapter XV - Strange Story of the Dragon Volant
Chapter XVI - The Parc of the Château de la Carque
Chapter XVII - The Tenant of the Palanquin
Chapter XVIII - The Churchyard
Chapter XIX - The Key
Chapter XX - A High-cauld-cap
Chapter Xxi - I See Three Men in a Mirror
Chapter XXII - Rapture
Chapter XXIII - A Cup of Coffee
Chapter XXIV - Hope
Chapter XXV - Despair
Chapter XXVI - Catastrophe
CARMILLA
Prologue
Chapter I - An Early Fright
Chapter II - A Guest
Chapter III - We Compare Notes
Chapter IV - Her Habits—A Saunter
Chapter V - A Wonderful Likeness
Chapter VI - A Very Strange Agony
Chapter VII - Descending
Chapter VIII - Search
Chapter IX - The Doctor
Chapter X - Bereaved
Chapter XI - The Story
Chapter XII - A Petition
Chapter XIII - The Woodman
Chapter XIV - The Meeting
Chapter XV - Ordeal and Execution
Chapter XVI - Conclusion
* * * * *
GREEN TEA (1871)
PROLOGUE - _Martin Hesselius, the German Physician_
Though carefully educated in medicine and surgery, I have never
practised either. The study of each continues, nevertheless, to interest
me profoundly. Neither idleness nor caprice caused my secession from the
honourable calling which I had just entered. The cause was a very
trifling scratch inflicted by a dissecting knife. This trifle cost me
the loss of two fingers, amputated promptly, and the more painful loss
of my health, for I have never been quite well since, and have seldom
been twelve months together in the same place.
In my wanderings I became acquainted with Dr. Martin Hesselius, a
wanderer like myself, like me a physician, and like me an enthusiast in
his profession. Unlike me in this, that his wanderings were voluntary,
and he a man, if not of fortune, as we estimate fortune in England, at
least in what our forefathers used to term "easy circumstances." He was
an old man when I first saw him; nearly five-and-thirty years my senior.
In Dr. Martin Hesselius, I found my master. His knowledge was immense,
his grasp of a case was an intuition. He was the very man to inspire a
young enthusiast, like me, with awe and delight. My admiration has stood
the test of time and survived the separation of death. I am sure it was
well-founded.
For nearly twenty years I acted as his medical secretary. His immense
collection of papers he has left in my care, to be arranged, indexed and
bound. His treatment of some of these cases is curious. He writes in two
distinct characters. He describes what he saw and heard as an
intelligent layman might, and when in this style of narrative he had
seen the patient either through his own hall-door, to the light of day,
or through the gates of darkness to the caverns of the dead, he returns
upon the narrative, and in the terms of his art and with all the force
and originality of genius, proceeds to the work of analysis, diagnosis
and illustration.
Here and there a case strikes me as of a kind to amuse or horrify a lay
reader with an interest quite different from the peculiar one which it
may possess for an expert. With slight modifications, chiefly of
language, and of course a change of names, I copy the following. The
narrator is Dr. Martin Hesselius. I find it among the voluminous notes
of cases which he made during a tour in England about sixty-four years
ago.
It is related in series of letters to his friend Professor Van Loo of
Leyden. The professor was not a physician, but a chemist, and a man who
read history and metaphysics and medicine, and had, in his day, written
a play.
The narrative is therefore, if somewhat less valuable as a medical
record, necessarily written in a manner more likely to interest an
unlearned reader.
These letters, from a memorandum attached, appear to have been returned
on the death of the professor, in 1819, to Dr. Hesselius. They are
written, some in English, some in French, but the greater part in
German. I am a faithful, though I am conscious, by no means a graceful
translator, and although here and there I omit some passages, and
shorten others, and disguise names, I have interpolated nothing.
CHAPTER I - _Dr. Hesselius Relates How He Met the Rev. Mr. Jennings_
The Rev. Mr. Jennings is tall and thin. He is middle-aged, and dresses
with a natty, old-fashioned, high-church precision. He is naturally a
little stately, but not at all stiff. His features, without being
handsome, are well formed, and their expression extremely kind, but also
shy.
I met him one evening at Lady Mary Heyduke's. The modesty and
benevolence of his countenance are extremely prepossessing.
We were but a small party, and he joined agreeably enough in the
conversation, He seems to enjoy listening very much more than
contributing to the talk; but what he says is always to the purpose and
well said. He is a great favourite of Lady Mary's, who it seems,
consults him upon many things, and thinks him the most happy and blessed
person on earth. Little knows she about him.
The Rev. Mr. Jennings is a bachelor, and has, they say sixty thousand
pounds in the funds. He is a charitable man. He is most anxious to be
actively employed in his sacred profession, and yet though always
tolerably well elsewhere, when he goes down to his vicarage in
Warwickshire, to engage in the actual duties of his sacred calling, his
health soon fails him, and in a very strange way. So says Lady Mary.
There is no doubt that Mr. Jennings' health does break down in,
generally, a sudden and mysterious way, sometimes in the very act of
officiating in his old and pretty church at Kenlis. It may be his heart,
it may be his brain. But so it has happened three or four times, or
oftener, that after proceeding a certain way in the service, he has on a
sudden stopped short, and after a silence, apparently quite unable to
resume, he has fallen into solitary, inaudible prayer, his hands and his
eyes uplifted, and then pale as death, and in the agitation of a strange
shame and horror, descended trembling, and got into the vestry-room,
leaving his congregation, without explanation, to themselves. This
occurred when his curate was absent. When he goes down to Kenlis now, he
always takes care to provide a clergyman to share his duty, and to
supply his place on the instant should he become thus suddenly
incapacitated.
When Mr. Jennings breaks down quite, and beats a retreat from the
vicarage, and returns to London, where, in a dark street off Piccadilly,
he inhabits a very narrow house, Lady Mary says that he is always
perfectly well. I have my own opinion about that. There are degrees of
course. We shall see.
Mr. Jennings is a perfectly gentlemanlike man. People, however, remark
something odd. There is an impression a little ambiguous. One thing
which certainly contributes to it, people I think don't remember; or,
perhaps, distinctly remark. But I did, almost immediately. Mr. Jennings
has a way of looking sidelong upon the carpet, as if his eye followed
the movements of something there. This, of course, is not always. It
occurs now and then. But often enough to give a certain oddity, as I
have said, to his manner, and in this glance travelling along the floor
there is something both shy and anxious.
A medical philosopher, as you are good enough to call me, elaborating
theories by the aid of cases sought out by himself, and by him watched
and scrutinised with more time at command, and consequently infinitely
more minuteness than the ordinary practitioner can afford, falls
insensibly into habits of observation, which accompany him everywhere,
and are exercised, as some people would say, impertinently, upon every
subject that presents itself with the least likelihood of rewarding
inquiry.
There was a promise of this kind in the slight, timid, kindly, but
reserved gentleman, whom I met for the first time at this agreeable
little evening gathering. I observed, of course, more than I here set
down; but I reserve all that borders on the technical for a strictly
scientific paper.
I may remark, that when I here speak of medical science, I do so, as I
hope some day to see it more generally understood, in a much more
comprehensive sense than its generally material treatment would warrant.
I believe the entire natural world is but the ultimate expression of
that spiritual world from which, and in which alone, it has its life. I
believe that the essential man is a spirit, that the spirit is an
organised substance, but as different in point of material from what we
ordinarily understand by matter, as light or electricity is; that the
material body is, in the most literal sense, a vesture, and death
consequently no interruption of the living man's existence, but simply
his extrication from the natural body--a process which commences at the
moment of what we term death, and the completion of which, at furthest a
few days later, is the resurrection "in power."
The person who weighs the consequences of these positions will probably
see their practical bearing upon medical science. This is, however, by
no means the proper place for displaying the proofs and discussing the
consequences of this too generally unrecognized state of facts.
In pursuance of my habit, I was covertly observing Mr. Jennings, with
all my caution--I think he perceived it--and I saw plainly that he was
as cautiously observing me. Lady Mary happening to address me by my
name, as Dr. Hesselius, I saw that he glanced at me more sharply, and
then became thoughtful for a few minutes.
After this, as I conversed with a gentleman at the other end of the
room, I saw him look at me more steadily, and with an interest which I
thought I understood. I then saw him take an opportunity of chatting
with Lady Mary, and was, as one always is, perfectly aware of being the
subject of a distant inquiry and answer.
This tall clergyman approached me by-and-by; and in a little time we had
got into conversation. When two people, who like reading, and know books
and places, having travelled, wish to discourse, it is very strange if
they can't find topics. It was not accident that brought him near me,
and led him into conversation. He knew German and had read my Essays on
Metaphysical Medicine which suggest more than they actually say.
This courteous man, gentle, shy, plainly a man of thought and reading,
who moving and talking among us, was not altogether of us, and whom I
already suspected of leading a life whose transactions and alarms were
carefully concealed, with an impenetrable reserve from, not only the
world, but his best beloved friends--was cautiously weighing in his own
mind the idea of taking a certain step with regard to me.
I penetrated his thoughts without his being aware of it, and was careful
to say nothing which could betray to his sensitive vigilance my
suspicions respecting his position, or my surmises about his plans
respecting myself.
We chatted upon indifferent subjects for a time but at last he said:
"I was very much interested by some papers of yours, Dr. Hesselius, upon
what you term Metaphysical Medicine--I read them in German, ten or
twelve years ago--have they been translated?"
"No, I'm sure they have not--I should have heard. They would have asked
my leave, I think."
"I asked the publishers here, a few months ago, to get the book for me
in the original German; but they tell me it is out of print."
"So it is, and has been for some years; but it flatters me as an author
to find that you have not forgotten my little book, although," I added,
laughing, "ten or twelve years is a considerable time to have managed
without it; but I suppose you have been turning the subject over again
in your mind, or something has happened lately to revive your interest
in it."
At this remark, accompanied by a glance of inquiry, a sudden
embarrassment disturbed Mr. Jennings, analogous to that which makes a
young lady blush and look foolish. He dropped his eyes, and folded his
hands together uneasily, and looked oddly, and you would have said,
guiltily, for a moment.
I helped him out of his awkwardness in the best way, by appearing not to
observe it, and going straight on, I said: "Those revivals of interest
in a subject happen to me often; one book suggests another, and often
sends me back a wild-goose chase over an interval of twenty years. But
if you still care to possess a copy, I shall be only too happy to
provide you; I have still got two or three by me--and if you allow me to
present one I shall be very much honoured."
"You are very good indeed," he said, quite at his ease again, in a
moment: "I almost despaired--I don't know how to thank you."
"Pray don't say a word; the thing is really so little worth that I am
only ashamed of having offered it, and if you thank me any more I shall
throw it into the fire in a fit of modesty."
Mr. Jennings laughed. He inquired where I was staying in London, and
after a little more conversation on a variety of subjects, he took his
departure.
CHAPTER II - _The Doctor Questions Lady Mary and She Answers_
"I like your vicar so much, Lady Mary," said I, as soon as he was gone.
"He has read, travelled, and thought, and having also suffered, he ought
to be an accomplished companion."
"So he is, and, better still, he is a really good man," said she. "His
advice is invaluable about my schools, and all my little undertakings at
Dawlbridge, and he's so painstaking, he takes so much trouble--you have
no idea--wherever he thinks he can be of use: he's so good-natured and
so sensible."
"It is pleasant to hear so good an account of his neighbourly virtues. I
can only testify to his being an agreeable and gentle companion, and in
addition to what you have told me, I think I can tell you two or three
things about him," said I.
"Really!"
"Yes, to begin with, he's unmarried."
"Yes, that's right--go on."
"He has been writing, that is he _was_, but for two or three years
perhaps, he has not gone on with his work, and the book was upon some
rather abstract subject--perhaps theology."
"Well, he was writing a book, as you say; I'm not quite sure what it was
about, but only that it was nothing that I cared for; very likely you are
right, and he certainly did stop--yes."
"And although he only drank a little coffee here to-night, he likes tea,
at least, did like it extravagantly."
"Yes, that's _quite_ true."
"He drank green tea, a good deal, didn't he?" I pursued.
"Well, that's very odd! Green tea was a subject on which we used almost
to quarrel."
"But he has quite given that up," said I.
"So he has."
"And, now, one more fact. His mother or his father, did you know them?"
"Yes, both; his father is only ten years dead, and their place is near
Dawlbridge. We knew them very well," she answered.
"Well, either his mother or his father--I should rather think his
father, saw a ghost," said I.
"Well, you really are a conjurer, Dr. Hesselius."
"Conjurer or no, haven't I said right?" I answered merrily.
"You certainly have, and it _was_ his father: he was a silent, whimsical
man, and he used to bore my father about his dreams, and at last he told
him a story about a ghost he had seen and talked with, and a very odd
story it was. I remember it particularly, because I was so afraid of
him. This story was long before he died--when I was quite a child--and
his ways were so silent and moping, and he used to drop in sometimes, in
the dusk, when I was alone in the drawing-room, and I used to fancy
there were ghosts about him."
I smiled and nodded.
"And now, having established my character as a conjurer, I think I must
say good-night," said I.
"But how _did_ you find it out?"
"By the planets, of course, as the gipsies do," I answered, and so,
gaily we said good-night.
Next morning I sent the little book he had been inquiring after, and a
note to Mr. Jennings, and on returning late that evening, I found that
he had called at my lodgings, and left his card. He asked whether I was
at home, and asked at what hour he would be most likely to find me.
Does he intend opening his case, and consulting me "professionally," as
they say? I hope so. I have already conceived a theory about him. It is
supported by Lady Mary's answers to my parting questions. I should like
much to ascertain from his own lips. But what can I do consistently with
good breeding to invite a confession? Nothing. I rather think he
meditates one. At all events, my dear Van L., I shan't make myself
difficult of access; I mean to return his visit tomorrow. It will be
only civil in return for his politeness, to ask to see him. Perhaps
something may come of it. Whether much, little, or nothing, my dear Van
L., you shall hear.
CHAPTER III - _Dr. Hesselius Picks Up Something in Latin Books_
Well, I have called at Blank Street.
On inquiring at the door, the servant told me that Mr. Jennings was
engaged very particularly with a gentleman, a clergyman from Kenlis, his
parish in the country. Intending to reserve my privilege, and to call
again, I merely intimated that I should try another time, and had turned
to go, when the servant begged my pardon, and asked me, looking at me a
little more attentively than well-bred persons of his order usually do,
whether I was Dr. Hesselius; and, on learning that I was, he said,
"Perhaps then, sir, you would allow me to mention it to Mr. Jennings,
for I am sure he wishes to see you."
The servant returned in a moment, with a message from Mr. Jennings,
asking me to go into his study, which was in effect his back drawing-room,
promising to be with me in a very few minutes.
This was really a study--almost a library. The room was lofty, with two
tall slender windows, and rich dark curtains. It was much larger than I
had expected, and stored with books on every side, from the floor to the
ceiling. The upper carpet--for to my tread it felt that there were two
or three--was a Turkey carpet. My steps fell noiselessly. The bookcases
standing out, placed the windows, particularly narrow ones, in deep
recesses. The effect of the room was, although extremely comfortable,
and even luxurious, decidedly gloomy, and aided by the silence, almost
oppressive. Perhaps, however, I ought to have allowed something for
association. My mind had connected peculiar ideas with Mr. Jennings. I
stepped into this perfectly silent room, of a very silent house, with a
peculiar foreboding; and its darkness, and solemn clothing of books, for
except where two narrow looking-glasses were set in the wall, they were
everywhere, helped this somber feeling.
While awaiting Mr. Jennings' arrival, I amused myself by looking into
some of the books with which his shelves were laden. Not among these,
but immediately under them, with their backs upward, on the floor, I
lighted upon a complete set of Swedenborg's "Arcana Caelestia," in the
original Latin, a very fine folio set, bound in the natty livery which
theology affects, pure vellum, namely, gold letters, and carmine edges.
There were paper markers in several of these volumes, I raised and
placed them, one after the other, upon the table, and opening where
these papers were placed, I read in the solemn Latin phraseology, a
series of sentences indicated by a pencilled line at the margin. Of
these I copy here a few, translating them into English.
"When man's interior sight is opened, which is that of his spirit, then
there appear the things of another life, which cannot possibly be made
visible to the bodily sight."...
"By the internal sight it has been granted me to see the things that are
in the other life, more clearly than I see those that are in the world.
From these considerations, it is evident that external vision exists
from interior vision, and this from a vision still more interior, and so
on."...
"There are with every man at least two evil spirits."...
"With wicked genii there is also a fluent speech, but harsh and grating.
There is also among them a speech which is not fluent, wherein the
dissent of the thoughts is perceived as something secretly creeping
along within it."
"The evil spirits associated with man are, indeed from the hells, but
when with man they are not then in hell, but are taken out thence. The
place where they then are, is in the midst between heaven and hell, and
is called the world of spirits--when the evil spirits who are with man,
are in that world, they are not in any infernal torment, but in every
thought and affection of man, and so, in all that the man himself
enjoys. But when they are remitted into their hell, they return to their
former state."...
"If evil spirits could perceive that they were associated with man, and
yet that they were spirits separate from him, and if they could flow in
into the things of his body, they would attempt by a thousand means to
destroy him; for they hate man with a deadly hatred."...
"Knowing, therefore, that I was a man in the body, they were continually
striving to destroy me, not as to the body only, but especially as to
the soul; for to destroy any man or spirit is the very delight of the
life of all who are in hell; but I have been continually protected by
the Lord. Hence it appears how dangerous it is for man to be in a living
consort with spirits, unless he be in the good of faith."...
"Nothing is more carefully guarded from the knowledge of associate
spirits than their being thus conjoint with a man, for if they knew it
they would speak to him, with the intention to destroy him."...
"The delight of hell is to do evil to man, and to hasten his eternal
ruin."
A long note, written with a very sharp and fine pencil, in Mr. Jennings'
neat hand, at the foot of the page, caught my eye. Expecting his
criticism upon the text, I read a word or two, and stopped, for it was
something quite different, and began with these words, _Deus misereatur
mei_--"May God compassionate me." Thus warned of its private nature, I
averted my eyes, and shut the book, replacing all the volumes as I had
found them, except one which interested me, and in which, as men
studious and solitary in their habits will do, I grew so absorbed as to
take no cognisance of the outer world, nor to remember where I was.
I was reading some pages which refer to "representatives" and
"correspondents," in the technical language of Swedenborg, and had
arrived at a passage, the substance of which is, that evil spirits, when
seen by other eyes than those of their infernal associates, present
themselves, by "correspondence," in the shape of the beast (_fera_)
which represents their particular lust and life, in aspect direful and
atrocious. This is a long passage, and particularises a number of those
bestial forms.
CHAPTER IV - _Four Eyes Were Reading the Passage_
I was running the head of my pencil-case along the line as I read it,
and something caused me to raise my eyes.
Directly before me was one of the mirrors I have mentioned, in which I
saw reflected the tall shape of my friend, Mr. Jennings, leaning over my
shoulder, and reading the page at which I was busy, and with a face so
dark and wild that I should hardly have known him.
I turned and rose. He stood erect also, and with an effort laughed a
little, saying:
"I came in and asked you how you did, but without succeeding in awaking
you from your book; so I could not restrain my curiosity, and very
impertinently, I'm afraid, peeped over your shoulder. This is not your
first time of looking into those pages. You have looked into Swedenborg,
no doubt, long ago?"
"Oh dear, yes! I owe Swedenborg a great deal; you will discover traces
of him in the little book on Metaphysical Medicine, which you were so good
as to remember."
Although my friend affected a gaiety of manner, there was a slight flush
in his face, and I could perceive that he was inwardly much perturbed.
"I'm scarcely yet qualified, I know so little of Swedenborg. I've only
had them a fortnight," he answered, "and I think they are rather likely
to make a solitary man nervous--that is, judging from the very little I
have read--I don't say that they have made me so," he laughed; "and I'm
so very much obliged for the book. I hope you got my note?"
I made all proper acknowledgments and modest disclaimers.
"I never read a book that I go with, so entirely, as that of yours," he
continued. "I saw at once there is more in it than is quite unfolded. Do
you know Dr. Harley?" he asked, rather abruptly.
In passing, the editor remarks that the physician here named was one of
the most eminent who had ever practised in England.
I did, having had letters to him, and had experienced from him great
courtesy and considerable assistance during my visit to England.
"I think that man one of the very greatest fools I ever met in my life,"
said Mr. Jennings.
This was the first time I had ever heard him say a sharp thing of
anybody, and such a term applied to so high a name a little startled me.
"Really! and in what way?" I asked.
"In his profession," he answered.
I smiled.
"I mean this," he said: "he seems to me, one half, blind--I mean one
half of all he looks at is dark--preternaturally bright and vivid all
the rest; and the worst of it is, it seems _wilful_. I can't get him--I
mean he won't--I've had some experience of him as a physician, but I
look on him as, in that sense, no better than a paralytic mind, an
intellect half dead. I'll tell you--I know I shall some time--all about
it," he said, with a little agitation. "You stay some months longer in
England. If I should be out of town during your stay for a little time,
would you allow me to trouble you with a letter?"
"I should be only too happy," I assured him.
"Very good of you. I am so utterly dissatisfied with Harley."
"A little leaning to the materialistic school," I said.
"A _mere_ materialist," he corrected me; "you can't think how that sort
of thing worries one who knows better. You won't tell any one--any of my
friends you know--that I am hippish; now, for instance, no one knows--not
even Lady Mary--that I have seen Dr. Harley, or any other doctor. So
pray don't mention it; and, if I should have any threatening of an
attack, you'll kindly let me write, or, should I be in town, have a
little talk with you."
I was full of conjecture, and unconsciously I found I had fixed my eyes
gravely on him, for he lowered his for a moment, and he said:
"I see you think I might as well tell you now, or else you are forming a
conjecture; but you may as well give it up. If you were guessing all the
rest of your life, you will never hit on it."
He shook his head smiling, and over that wintry sunshine a black cloud
suddenly came down, and he drew his breath in, through his teeth as men
do in pain.
"Sorry, of course, to learn that you apprehend occasion to consult any
of us; but, command me when and how you like, and I need not assure you
that your confidence is sacred."
He then talked of quite other things, and in a comparatively cheerful
way and after a little time, I took my leave.
CHAPTER V - _Dr. Hesselius is Summoned to Richmond_
We parted cheerfully, but he was not cheerful, nor was I. There are
certain expressions of that powerful organ of spirit--the human
face--which, although I have seen them often, and possess a doctor's
nerve, yet disturb me profoundly. One look of Mr. Jennings haunted me. It
had seized my imagination with so dismal a power that I changed my plans
for the evening, and went to the opera, feeling that I wanted a change of
ideas.
I heard nothing of or from him for two or three days, when a note in his
hand reached me. It was cheerful, and full of hope. He said that he had
been for some little time so much better--quite well, in fact--that he
was going to make a little experiment, and run down for a month or so to
his parish, to try whether a little work might not quite set him up.
There was in it a fervent religious expression of gratitude for his
restoration, as he now almost hoped he might call it.
A day or two later I saw Lady Mary, who repeated what his note had
announced, and told me that he was actually in Warwickshire, having
resumed his clerical duties at Kenlis; and she added, "I begin to think
that he is really perfectly well, and that there never was anything the
matter, more than nerves and fancy; we are all nervous, but I fancy
there is nothing like a little hard work for that kind of weakness, and
he has made up his mind to try it. I should not be surprised if he did
not come back for a year."
Notwithstanding all this confidence, only two days later I had this
note, dated from his house off Piccadilly:
Dear Sir,--I have returned disappointed. If I should feel at all
able to see you, I shall write to ask you kindly to call. At
present, I am too low, and, in fact, simply unable to say all I wish
to say. Pray don't mention my name to my friends. I can see no one.
By-and-by, please God, you shall hear from me. I mean to take a run
into Shropshire, where some of my people are. God bless you! May we,
on my return, meet more happily than I can now write.
About a week after this I saw Lady Mary at her own house, the last
person, she said, left in town, and just on the wing for Brighton, for
the London season was quite over. She told me that she had heard from
Mr. Jenning's niece, Martha, in Shropshire. There was nothing to be
gathered from her letter, more than that he was low and nervous. In
those words, of which healthy people think so lightly, what a world of
suffering is sometimes hidden!
Nearly five weeks had passed without any further news of Mr. Jennings.
At the end of that time I received a note from him. He wrote:
"I have been in the country, and have had change of air, change of
scene, change of faces, change of everything--and in everything--but
_myself_. I have made up my mind, so far as the most irresolute creature
on earth can do it, to tell my case fully to you. If your engagements
will permit, pray come to me to-day, to-morrow, or the next day; but,
pray defer as little as possible. You know not how much I need help. I
have a quiet house at Richmond, where I now am. Perhaps you can manage
to come to dinner, or to luncheon, or even to tea. You shall have no
trouble in finding me out. The servant at Blank Street, who takes this
note, will have a carriage at your door at any hour you please; and I am
always to be found. You will say that I ought not to be alone. I have
tried everything. Come and see."
I called up the servant, and decided on going out the same evening,
which accordingly I did.
He would have been much better in a lodging-house, or hotel, I thought,
as I drove up through a short double row of sombre elms to a very
old-fashioned brick house, darkened by the foliage of these trees, which
overtopped, and nearly surrounded it. It was a perverse choice, for
nothing could be imagined more triste and silent. The house, I found,
belonged to him. He had stayed for a day or two in town, and, finding it
for some cause insupportable, had come out here, probably because being
furnished and his own, he was relieved of the thought and delay of
selection, by coming here.
The sun had already set, and the red reflected light of the western sky
illuminated the scene with the peculiar effect with which we are all
familiar. The hall seemed very dark, but, getting to the back drawing-room,
whose windows command the west, I was again in the same dusky light.
I sat down, looking out upon the richly-wooded landscape that glowed in
the grand and melancholy light which was every moment fading. The
corners of the room were already dark; all was growing dim, and the
gloom was insensibly toning my mind, already prepared for what was
sinister. I was waiting alone for his arrival, which soon took place.
The door communicating with the front room opened, and the tall figure
of Mr. Jennings, faintly seen in the ruddy twilight, came, with quiet
stealthy steps, into the room.
We shook hands, and, taking a chair to the window, where there was still
light enough to enable us to see each other's faces, he sat down beside
me, and, placing his hand upon my arm, with scarcely a word of preface
began his narrative.
CHAPTER VI - _How Mr. Jennings Met His Companion_
The faint glow of the west, the pomp of the then lonely woods of
Richmond, were before us, behind and about us the darkening room, and on
the stony face of the sufferer--for the character of his face, though
still gentle and sweet, was changed--rested that dim, odd glow which
seems to descend and produce, where it touches, lights, sudden though
faint, which are lost, almost without gradation, in darkness. The
silence, too, was utter: not a distant wheel, or bark, or whistle from
without; and within the depressing stillness of an invalid bachelor's
house.
I guessed well the nature, though not even vaguely the particulars of
the revelations I was about to receive, from that fixed face of
suffering that so oddly flushed stood out, like a portrait of
Schalken's, before its background of darkness.
"It began," he said, "on the 15th of October, three years and eleven
weeks ago, and two days--I keep very accurate count, for every day is
torment. If I leave anywhere a chasm in my narrative tell me.
"About four years ago I began a work, which had cost me very much
thought and reading. It was upon the religious metaphysics of the
ancients."
"I know," said I, "the actual religion of educated and thinking
paganism, quite apart from symbolic worship? A wide and very interesting
field."
"Yes, but not good for the mind--the Christian mind, I mean. Paganism is
all bound together in essential unity, and, with evil sympathy, their
religion involves their art, and both their manners, and the subject is
a degrading fascination and the Nemesis sure. God forgive me!
"I wrote a great deal; I wrote late at night. I was always thinking on
the subject, walking about, wherever I was, everywhere. It thoroughly
infected me. You are to remember that all the material ideas connected
with it were more or less of the beautiful, the subject itself
delightfully interesting, and I, then, without a care."
He sighed heavily.
"I believe, that every one who sets about writing in earnest does his
work, as a friend of mine phrased it, _on_ something--tea, or coffee, or
tobacco. I suppose there is a material waste that must be hourly
supplied in such occupations, or that we should grow too abstracted, and
the mind, as it were, pass out of the body, unless it were reminded
often enough of the connection by actual sensation. At all events, I
felt the want, and I supplied it. Tea was my companion--at first the
ordinary black tea, made in the usual way, not too strong: but I drank a
good deal, and increased its strength as I went on. I never experienced
an uncomfortable symptom from it. I began to take a little green tea. I
found the effect pleasanter, it cleared and intensified the power of
thought so, I had come to take it frequently, but not stronger than one
might take it for pleasure. I wrote a great deal out here, it was so
quiet, and in this room. I used to sit up very late, and it became a
habit with me to sip my tea--green tea--every now and then as my work
proceeded. I had a little kettle on my table, that swung over a lamp,
and made tea two or three times between eleven o'clock and two or three
in the morning, my hours of going to bed. I used to go into town every
day. I was not a monk, and, although I spent an hour or two in a
library, hunting up authorities and looking out lights upon my theme, I
was in no morbid state as far as I can judge. I met my friends pretty
much as usual and enjoyed their society, and, on the whole, existence
had never been, I think, so pleasant before.
"I had met with a man who had some odd old books, German editions in
mediaeval Latin, and I was only too happy to be permitted access to
them. This obliging person's books were in the City, a very
out-of-the-way part of it. I had rather out-stayed my intended hour, and,
on coming out, seeing no cab near, I was tempted to get into the omnibus
which used to drive past this house. It was darker than this by the time
the 'bus had reached an old house, you may have remarked, with four poplars
at each side of the door, and there the last passenger but myself got
out. We drove along rather faster. It was twilight now. I leaned back in
my corner next the door ruminating pleasantly.
"The interior of the omnibus was nearly dark. I had observed in the
corner opposite to me at the other side, and at the end next the horses,
two small circular reflections, as it seemed to me of a reddish light.
They were about two inches apart, and about the size of those small
brass buttons that yachting men used to put upon their jackets. I began
to speculate, as listless men will, upon this trifle, as it seemed. From
what centre did that faint but deep red light come, and from what--glass
beads, buttons, toy decorations--was it reflected? We were lumbering
along gently, having nearly a mile still to go. I had not solved the
puzzle, and it became in another minute more odd, for these two luminous
points, with a sudden jerk, descended nearer and nearer the floor,
keeping still their relative distance and horizontal position, and then,
as suddenly, they rose to the level of the seat on which I was sitting
and I saw them no more.
"My curiosity was now really excited, and, before I had time to think, I
saw again these two dull lamps, again together near the floor; again
they disappeared, and again in their old corner I saw them.
"So, keeping my eyes upon them, I edged quietly up my own side, towards
the end at which I still saw these tiny discs of red.
"There was very little light in the 'bus. It was nearly dark. I leaned
forward to aid my endeavour to discover what these little circles really
were. They shifted position a little as I did so. I began now to
perceive an outline of something black, and I soon saw, with tolerable
distinctness, the outline of a small black monkey, pushing its face
forward in mimicry to meet mine; those were its eyes, and I now dimly
saw its teeth grinning at me.
"I drew back, not knowing whether it might not meditate a spring. I
fancied that one of the passengers had forgot this ugly pet, and wishing
to ascertain something of its temper, though not caring to trust my
fingers to it, I poked my umbrella softly towards it. It remained
immovable--up to it--_through_ it. For through it, and back and forward
it passed, without the slightest resistance.
"I can't, in the least, convey to you the kind of horror that I felt.
When I had ascertained that the thing was an illusion, as I then
supposed, there came a misgiving about myself and a terror that
fascinated me in impotence to remove my gaze from the eyes of the brute
for some moments. As I looked, it made a little skip back, quite into
the corner, and I, in a panic, found myself at the door, having put my
head out, drawing deep breaths of the outer air, and staring at the
lights and tress we were passing, too glad to reassure myself of
reality.
"I stopped the 'bus and got out. I perceived the man look oddly at me as
I paid him. I dare say there was something unusual in my looks and
manner, for I had never felt so strangely before."
CHAPTER VII - _The Journey: First Stage_
"When the omnibus drove on, and I was alone upon the road, I looked
carefully round to ascertain whether the monkey had followed me. To my
indescribable relief I saw it nowhere. I can't describe easily what a
shock I had received, and my sense of genuine gratitude on finding
myself, as I supposed, quite rid of it.
"I had got out a little before we reached this house, two or three
hundred steps. A brick wall runs along the footpath, and inside the wall
is a hedge of yew, or some dark evergreen of that kind, and within that
again the row of fine trees which you may have remarked as you came.
"This brick wall is about as high as my shoulder, and happening to raise
my eyes I saw the monkey, with that stooping gait, on all fours, walking
or creeping, close beside me, on top of the wall. I stopped, looking at
it with a feeling of loathing and horror. As I stopped so did it. It sat
up on the wall with its long hands on its knees looking at me. There was
not light enough to see it much more than in outline, nor was it dark
enough to bring the peculiar light of its eyes into strong relief. I
still saw, however, that red foggy light plainly enough. It did not show
its teeth, nor exhibit any sign of irritation, but seemed jaded and
sulky, and was observing me steadily.
"I drew back into the middle of the road. It was an unconscious recoil,
and there I stood, still looking at it. It did not move.
"With an instinctive determination to try something--anything, I turned
about and walked briskly towards town with askance look, all the time,
watching the movements of the beast. It crept swiftly along the wall, at
exactly my pace.
"Where the wall ends, near the turn of the road, it came down, and with
a wiry spring or two brought itself close to my feet, and continued to
keep up with me, as I quickened my pace. It was at my left side, so
close to my leg that I felt every moment as if I should tread upon it.
"The road was quite deserted and silent, and it was darker every moment.
I stopped dismayed and bewildered, turning as I did so, the other way--I
mean, towards this house, away from which I had been walking. When I
stood still, the monkey drew back to a distance of, I suppose, about
five or six yards, and remained stationary, watching me.
"I had been more agitated than I have said. I had read, of course, as
everyone has, something about 'spectral illusions,' as you physicians
term the phenomena of such cases. I considered my situation, and looked
my misfortune in the face.
"These affections, I had read, are sometimes transitory and sometimes
obstinate. I had read of cases in which the appearance, at first
harmless, had, step by step, degenerated into something direful and
insupportable, and ended by wearing its victim out. Still as I stood
there, but for my bestial companion, quite alone, I tried to comfort
myself by repeating again and again the assurance, 'the thing is purely
disease, a well-known physical affection, as distinctly as small-pox or
neuralgia. Doctors are all agreed on that, philosophy demonstrates it. I
must not be a fool. I've been sitting up too late, and I daresay my
digestion is quite wrong, and, with God's help, I shall be all right,
and this is but a symptom of nervous dyspepsia.' Did I believe all this?
Not one word of it, no more than any other miserable being ever did who
is once seized and riveted in this satanic captivity. Against my
convictions, I might say my knowledge, I was simply bullying myself into
a false courage.
"I now walked homeward. I had only a few hundred yards to go. I had
forced myself into a sort of resignation, but I had not got over the
sickening shock and the flurry of the first certainty of my misfortune.
"I made up my mind to pass the night at home. The brute moved close
beside me, and I fancied there was the sort of anxious drawing toward
the house, which one sees in tired horses or dogs, sometimes as they
come toward home.
"I was afraid to go into town, I was afraid of any one's seeing and
recognizing me. I was conscious of an irrepressible agitation in my
manner. Also, I was afraid of any violent change in my habits, such as
going to a place of amusement, or walking from home in order to fatigue
myself. At the hall door it waited till I mounted the steps, and when
the door was opened entered with me.
"I drank no tea that night. I got cigars and some brandy and water. My
idea was that I should act upon my material system, and by living for a
while in sensation apart from thought, send myself forcibly, as it were,
into a new groove. I came up here to this drawing-room. I sat just here.
The monkey then got upon a small table that then stood _there_. It
looked dazed and languid. An irrepressible uneasiness as to its
movements kept my eyes always upon it. Its eyes were half closed, but I
could see them glow. It was looking steadily at me. In all situations,
at all hours, it is awake and looking at me. That never changes.
"I shall not continue in detail my narrative of this particular night. I
shall describe, rather, the phenomena of the first year, which never
varied, essentially. I shall describe the monkey as it appeared in
daylight. In the dark, as you shall presently hear, there are
peculiarities. It is a small monkey, perfectly black. It had only one
peculiarity--a character of malignity--unfathomable malignity. During
the first year it looked sullen and sick. But this character of intense
malice and vigilance was always underlying that surly languor. During
all that time it acted as if on a plan of giving me as little trouble as
was consistent with watching me. Its eyes were never off me. I have
never lost sight of it, except in my sleep, light or dark, day or night,
since it came here, excepting when it withdraws for some weeks at a
time, unaccountably.
"In total dark it is visible as in daylight. I do not mean merely its
eyes. It is _all_ visible distinctly in a halo that resembles a glow of
red embers, and which accompanies it in all its movements.
"When it leaves me for a time, it is always at night, in the dark,
and in the same way. It grows at first uneasy, and then furious, and
then advances towards me, grinning and shaking, its paws clenched, and,
at the same time, there comes the appearance of fire in the grate. I
never have any fire. I can't sleep in the room where there is any, and
it draws nearer and nearer to the chimney, quivering, it seems, with
rage, and when its fury rises to the highest pitch, it springs into the
grate, and up the chimney, and I see it no more.
"When first this happened, I thought I was released. I was now a new
man. A day passed--a night--and no return, and a blessed week--a
week--another week. I was always on my knees, Dr. Hesselius, always,
thanking God and praying. A whole month passed of liberty, but on a
sudden, it was with me again."
CHAPTER VIII - _The Second Stage_
"It was with me, and the malice which before was torpid under a sullen
exterior, was now active. It was perfectly unchanged in every other
respect. This new energy was apparent in its activity and its looks, and
soon in other ways.
"For a time, you will understand, the change was shown only in an
increased vivacity, and an air of menace, as if it were always brooding
over some atrocious plan. Its eyes, as before, were never off me."
"Is it here now?" I asked.
"No," he replied, "it has been absent exactly a fortnight and a
day--fifteen days. It has sometimes been away so long as nearly two
months, once for three. Its absence always exceeds a fortnight, although
it may be but by a single day. Fifteen days having past since I saw it
last, it may return now at any moment."
"Is its return," I asked, "accompanied by any peculiar manifestation?"
"Nothing--no," he said. "It is simply with me again. On lifting my eyes
from a book, or turning my head, I see it, as usual, looking at me, and
then it remains, as before, for its appointed time. I have never told so
much and so minutely before to any one."
I perceived that he was agitated, and looking like death, and he
repeatedly applied his handkerchief to his forehead; I suggested that he
might be tired, and told him that I would call, with pleasure, in the
morning, but he said:
"No, if you don't mind hearing it all now. I have got so far, and I
should prefer making one effort of it. When I spoke to Dr. Harley, I had
nothing like so much to tell. You are a philosophic physician. You give
spirit its proper rank. If this thing is real--"
He paused looking at me with agitated inquiry.
"We can discuss it by-and-by, and very fully. I will give you all I
think," I answered, after an interval.
"Well--very well. If it is anything real, I say, it is prevailing,
little by little, and drawing me more interiorly into hell. Optic
nerves, he talked of. Ah! well--there are other nerves of communication.
May God Almighty help me! You shall hear.
"Its power of action, I tell you, had increased. Its malice became, in a
way, aggressive. About two years ago, some questions that were pending
between me and the bishop having been settled, I went down to my parish
in Warwickshire, anxious to find occupation in my profession. I was not
prepared for what happened, although I have since thought I might have
apprehended something like it. The reason of my saying so is this--"
He was beginning to speak with a great deal more effort and reluctance,
and sighed often, and seemed at times nearly overcome. But at this time
his manner was not agitated. It was more like that of a sinking patient,
who has given himself up.
"Yes, but I will first tell you about Kenlis, my parish.
"It was with me when I left this place for Dawlbridge. It was my silent
travelling companion, and it remained with me at the vicarage. When I
entered on the discharge of my duties, another change took place. The
thing exhibited an atrocious determination to thwart me. It was with me
in the church--in the reading-desk--in the pulpit--within the communion
rails. At last, it reached this extremity, that while I was reading to
the congregation, it would spring upon the book and squat there, so that
I was unable to see the page. This happened more than once.
"I left Dawlbridge for a time. I placed myself in Dr. Harley's hands. I
did everything he told me. He gave my case a great deal of thought. It
interested him, I think. He seemed successful. For nearly three months I
was perfectly free from a return. I began to think I was safe. With his
full assent I returned to Dawlbridge.
"I travelled in a chaise. I was in good spirits. I was more--I was happy
and grateful. I was returning, as I thought, delivered from a dreadful
hallucination, to the scene of duties which I longed to enter upon. It
was a beautiful sunny evening, everything looked serene and cheerful,
and I was delighted. I remember looking out of the window to see the
spire of my church at Kenlis among the trees, at the point where one has
the earliest view of it. It is exactly where the little stream that
bounds the parish passes under the road by a culvert, and where it
emerges at the road-side, a stone with an old inscription is placed. As
we passed this point, I drew my head in and sat down, and in the corner
of the chaise was the monkey.
"For a moment I felt faint, and then quite wild with despair and horror.
I called to the driver, and got out, and sat down at the road-side, and
prayed to God silently for mercy. A despairing resignation supervened.
My companion was with me as I re-entered the vicarage. The same
persecution followed. After a short struggle I submitted, and soon I
left the place.
"I told you," he said, "that the beast has before this become in certain
ways aggressive. I will explain a little. It seemed to be actuated by
intense and increasing fury, whenever I said my prayers, or even
meditated prayer. It amounted at last to a dreadful interruption. You
will ask, how could a silent immaterial phantom effect that? It was
thus, whenever I meditated praying; It was always before me, and nearer
and nearer.
"It used to spring on a table, on the back of a chair, on the
chimney-piece, and slowly to swing itself from side to side, looking at me
all the time. There is in its motion an indefinable power to dissipate
thought, and to contract one's attention to that monotony, till the
ideas shrink, as it were, to a point, and at last to nothing--and unless
I had started up, and shook off the catalepsy I have felt as if my mind
were on the point of losing itself. There are other ways," he sighed
heavily; "thus, for instance, while I pray with my eyes closed, it comes
closer and closer, and I see it. I know it is not to be accounted for
physically, but I do actually see it, though my lids are dosed, and so
it rocks my mind, as it were, and overpowers me, and I am obliged to
rise from my knees. If you had ever yourself known this, you would be
acquainted with desperation."
CHAPTER IX - _The Third Stage_
"I see, Dr. Hesselius, that you don't lose one word of my statement. I
need not ask you to listen specially to what I am now going to tell you.
They talk of the optic nerves, and of spectral illusions, as if the
organ of sight was the only point assailable by the influences that have
fastened upon me--I know better. For two years in my direful case that
limitation prevailed. But as food is taken in softly at the lips, and
then brought under the teeth, as the tip of the little finger caught in
a mill crank will draw in the hand, and the arm, and the whole body, so
the miserable mortal who has been once caught firmly by the end of the
finest fibre of his nerve, is drawn in and in, by the enormous machinery
of hell, until he is as I am. Yes, Doctor, as _I_ am, for a while I talk
to you, and implore relief, I feel that my prayer is for the impossible,
and my pleading with the inexorable."
I endeavoured to calm his visibly increasing agitation, and told him
that he must not despair.
While we talked the night had overtaken us. The filmy moonlight was wide
over the scene which the window commanded, and I said:
"Perhaps you would prefer having candles. This light, you know, is odd.
I should wish you, as much as possible, under your usual conditions
while I make my diagnosis, shall I call it--otherwise I don't care."
"All lights are the same to me," he said; "except when I read or write,
I care not if night were perpetual. I am going to tell you what happened
about a year ago. The thing began to speak to me."
"Speak! How do you mean--speak as a man does, do you mean?"
"Yes; speak in words and consecutive sentences, with perfect coherence
and articulation; but there is a peculiarity. It is not like the tone of
a human voice. It is not by my ears it reaches me--it comes like a
singing through my head.
"This faculty, the power of speaking to me, will be my undoing. It won't
let me pray, it interrupts me with dreadful blasphemies. I dare not go
on, I could not. Oh! Doctor, can the skill, and thought, and prayers of
man avail me nothing!"
"You must promise me, my dear sir, not to trouble yourself with
unnecessarily exciting thoughts; confine yourself strictly to the
narrative of _facts_; and recollect, above all, that even if the thing
that infests you be, you seem to suppose a reality with an actual
independent life and will, yet it can have no power to hurt you, unless
it be given from above: its access to your senses depends mainly upon
your physical condition--this is, under God, your comfort and reliance:
we are all alike environed. It is only that in your case, the
_'paries,'_ the veil of the flesh, the screen, is a little out of
repair, and sights and sounds are transmitted. We must enter on a new
course, sir,--be encouraged. I'll give to-night to the careful
consideration of the whole case."
"You are very good, sir; you think it worth trying, you don't give me
quite up; but, sir, you don't know, it is gaining such an influence over
me: it orders me about, it is such a tyrant, and I'm growing so
helpless. May God deliver me!"
"It orders you about--of course you mean by speech?"
"Yes, yes; it is always urging me to crimes, to injure others, or
myself. You see, Doctor, the situation is urgent, it is indeed. When I
was in Shropshire, a few weeks ago" (Mr. Jennings was speaking rapidly
and trembling now, holding my arm with one hand, and looking in my
face), "I went out one day with a party of friends for a walk: my
persecutor, I tell you, was with me at the time. I lagged behind the
rest: the country near the Dee, you know, is beautiful. Our path
happened to lie near a coal mine, and at the verge of the wood is a
perpendicular shaft, they say, a hundred and fifty feet deep. My niece
had remained behind with me--she knows, of course nothing of the nature
of my sufferings. She knew, however, that I had been ill, and was low,
and she remained to prevent my being quite alone. As we loitered slowly
on together, the brute that accompanied me was urging me to throw myself
down the shaft. I tell you now--oh, sir, think of it!--the one
consideration that saved me from that hideous death was the fear lest
the shock of witnessing the occurrence should be too much for the poor
girl. I asked her to go on and walk with her friends, saying that I
could go no further. She made excuses, and the more I urged her the
firmer she became. She looked doubtful and frightened. I suppose there
was something in my looks or manner that alarmed her; but she would not
go, and that literally saved me. You had no idea, sir, that a living man
could be made so abject a slave of Satan," he said, with a ghastly groan
and a shudder.
There was a pause here, and I said, "You _were_ preserved nevertheless.
It was the act of God. You are in His hands and in the power of no other
being: be therefore confident for the future."
CHAPTER X - _Home_
I made him have candles lighted, and saw the room looking cheery and
inhabited before I left him. I told him that he must regard his illness
strictly as one dependent on physical, though _subtle_ physical causes.
I told him that he had evidence of God's care and love in the
deliverance which he had just described, and that I had perceived with
pain that he seemed to regard its peculiar features as indicating that
he had been delivered over to spiritual reprobation. Than such a
conclusion nothing could be, I insisted, less warranted; and not only
so, but more contrary to facts, as disclosed in his mysterious
deliverance from that murderous influence during his Shropshire
excursion. First, his niece had been retained by his side without his
intending to keep her near him; and, secondly, there had been infused
into his mind an irresistible repugnance to execute the dreadful
suggestion in her presence.
As I reasoned this point with him, Mr. Jennings wept. He seemed
comforted. One promise I exacted, which was that should the monkey at
any time return, I should be sent for immediately; and, repeating my
assurance that I would give neither time nor thought to any other
subject until I had thoroughly investigated his case, and that to-morrow
he should hear the result, I took my leave.
Before getting into the carriage I told the servant that his master was
far from well, and that he should make a point of frequently looking
into his room. My own arrangements I made with a view to being quite
secure from interruption.
I merely called at my lodgings, and with a travelling-desk and carpet-bag,
set off in a hackney carriage for an inn about two miles out of town,
called "The Horns," a very quiet and comfortable house, with good thick
walls. And there I resolved, without the possibility of intrusion
or distraction, to devote some hours of the night, in my comfortable
sitting-room, to Mr. Jennings' case, and so much of the morning as it
might require.
(There occurs here a careful note of Dr. Hesselius' opinion upon the
case, and of the habits, dietary, and medicines which he prescribed. It
is curious--some persons would say mystical. But, on the whole, I doubt
whether it would sufficiently interest a reader of the kind I am likely
to meet with, to warrant its being here reprinted. The whole letter was
plainly written at the inn where he had hid himself for the occasion.
The next letter is dated from his town lodgings.)
I left town for the inn where I slept last night at half-past nine, and
did not arrive at my room in town until one o'clock this afternoon. I
found a letter in Mr. Jennings' hand upon my table. It had not come by
post, and, on inquiry, I learned that Mr. Jennings' servant had brought
it, and on learning that I was not to return until to-day, and that no
one could tell him my address, he seemed very uncomfortable, and said
his orders from his master were that that he was not to return without
an answer.
I opened the letter and read:
DEAR DR. HESSELIUS.--It is here. You had not been an hour gone when
it returned. It is speaking. It knows all that has happened. It
knows everything--it knows you, and is frantic and atrocious. It
reviles. I send you this. It knows every word I have written--I
write. This I promised, and I therefore write, but I fear very
confused, very incoherently. I am so interrupted, disturbed.
Ever yours, sincerely yours,
Robert Lynder Jennings.
"When did this come?" I asked.
"About eleven last night: the man was here again, and has been here
three times to-day. The last time is about an hour since."
Thus answered, and with the notes I had made upon his case in my pocket,
I was in a few minutes driving towards Richmond, to see Mr. Jennings.
I by no means, as you perceive, despaired of Mr. Jennings' case. He had
himself remembered and applied, though quite in a mistaken way, the
principle which I lay down in my Metaphysical Medicine, and which
governs all such cases. I was about to apply it in earnest. I was
profoundly interested, and very anxious to see and examine him while the
"enemy" was actually present.
I drove up to the sombre house, and ran up the steps, and knocked. The
door, in a little time, was opened by a tall woman in black silk. She
looked ill, and as if she had been crying. She curtseyed, and heard my
question, but she did not answer. She turned her face away, extending
her hand towards two men who were coming down-stairs; and thus having,
as it were, tacitly made me over to them, she passed through a side-door
hastily and shut it.
The man who was nearest the hall, I at once accosted, but being now
close to him, I was shocked to see that both his hands were covered with
blood.
I drew back a little, and the man, passing downstairs, merely said in a
low tone, "Here's the servant, sir."
The servant had stopped on the stairs, confounded and dumb at seeing me.
He was rubbing his hands in a handkerchief, and it was steeped in blood.
"Jones, what is it? what has happened?" I asked, while a sickening
suspicion overpowered me.
The man asked me to come up to the lobby. I was beside him in a moment,
and, frowning and pallid, with contracted eyes, he told me the horror
which I already half guessed.
His master had made away with himself.
I went upstairs with him to the room--what I saw there I won't tell you.
He had cut his throat with his razor. It was a frightful gash. The two
men had laid him on the bed, and composed his limbs. It had happened, as
the immense pool of blood on the floor declared, at some distance
between the bed and the window. There was carpet round his bed, and a
carpet under his dressing-table, but none on the rest of the floor, for
the man said he did not like a carpet on his bedroom. In this sombre and
now terrible room, one of the great elms that darkened the house was
slowly moving the shadow of one of its great boughs upon this dreadful
floor.
I beckoned to the servant, and we went downstairs together. I turned off
the hall into an old-fashioned panelled room, and there standing, I
heard all the servant had to tell. It was not a great deal.
"I concluded, sir, from your words, and looks, sir, as you left last
night, that you thought my master was seriously ill. I thought it might
be that you were afraid of a fit, or something. So I attended very close
to your directions. He sat up late, till past three o'clock. He was not
writing or reading. He was talking a great deal to himself, but that was
nothing unusual. At about that hour I assisted him to undress, and left
him in his slippers and dressing-gown. I went back softly in about
half-an-hour. He was in his bed, quite undressed, and a pair of candles
lighted on the table beside his bed. He was leaning on his elbow, and
looking out at the other side of the bed when I came in. I asked him if
he wanted anything, and he said No.
"I don't know whether it was what you said to me, sir, or something a
little unusual about him, but I was uneasy, uncommon uneasy about him
last night.
"In another half hour, or it might be a little more, I went up again. I
did not hear him talking as before. I opened the door a little. The
candles were both out, which was not usual. I had a bedroom candle, and
I let the light in, a little bit, looking softly round. I saw him
sitting in that chair beside the dressing-table with his clothes on
again. He turned round and looked at me. I thought it strange he should
get up and dress, and put out the candles to sit in the dark, that way.
But I only asked him again if I could do anything for him. He said, No,
rather sharp, I thought. I asked him if I might light the candles, and
he said, 'Do as you like, Jones.' So I lighted them, and I lingered
about the room, and he said, 'Tell me truth, Jones; why did you come
again--you did not hear anyone cursing?' 'No, sir,' I said, wondering
what he could mean.
"'No,' said he, after me, 'of course, no;' and I said to him, 'Wouldn't
it be well, sir, you went to bed? It's just five o'clock;' and he said
nothing, but, 'Very likely; good-night, Jones.' So I went, sir, but in
less than an hour I came again. The door was fast, and he heard me, and
called as I thought from the bed to know what I wanted, and he desired
me not to disturb him again. I lay down and slept for a little. It must
have been between six and seven when I went up again. The door was still
fast, and he made no answer, so I did not like to disturb him, and
thinking he was asleep, I left him till nine. It was his custom to ring
when he wished me to come, and I had no particular hour for calling him.
I tapped very gently, and getting no answer, I stayed away a good while,
supposing he was getting some rest then. It was not till eleven o'clock
I grew really uncomfortable about him--for at the latest he was never,
that I could remember, later than half-past ten. I got no answer. I
knocked and called, and still no answer. So not being able to force the
door, I called Thomas from the stables, and together we forced it, and
found him in the shocking way you saw."
Jones had no more to tell. Poor Mr. Jennings was very gentle, and very
kind. All his people were fond of him. I could see that the servant was
very much moved.
So, dejected and agitated, I passed from that terrible house, and its
dark canopy of elms, and I hope I shall never see it more. While I write
to you I feel like a man who has but half waked from a frightful and
monotonous dream. My memory rejects the picture with incredulity and
horror. Yet I know it is true. It is the story of the process of a
poison, a poison which excites the reciprocal action of spirit and
nerve, and paralyses the tissue that separates those cognate functions
of the senses, the external and the interior. Thus we find strange
bed-fellows, and the mortal and immortal prematurely make acquaintance.
CONCLUSION
_A Word for Those Who Suffer_
My dear Van L----, you have suffered from an affection similar to that
which I have just described. You twice complained of a return of it.
Who, under God, cured you? Your humble servant, Martin Hesselius. Let me
rather adopt the more emphasised piety of a certain good old French
surgeon of three hundred years ago: "I treated, and God cured you."
Come, my friend, you are not to be hippish. Let me tell you a fact.
I have met with, and treated, as my book shows, fifty-seven cases of
this kind of vision, which I term indifferently "sublimated,"
"precocious," and "interior."
There is another class of affections which are truly termed--though
commonly confounded with those which I describe--spectral illusions.
These latter I look upon as being no less simply curable than a cold in
the head or a trifling dyspepsia.
It is those which rank in the first category that test our promptitude
of thought. Fifty-seven such cases have I encountered, neither more nor
less. And in how many of these have I failed? In no one single instance.
There is no one affliction of mortality more easily and certainly
reducible, with a little patience, and a rational confidence in the
physician. With these simple conditions, I look upon the cure as
absolutely certain.
You are to remember that I had not even commenced to treat Mr. Jennings'
case. I have not any doubt that I should have cured him perfectly in
eighteen months, or possibly it might have extended to two years. Some
cases are very rapidly curable, others extremely tedious. Every
intelligent physician who will give thought and diligence to the task,
will effect a cure.
You know my tract on "The Cardinal Functions of the Brain." I there, by
the evidence of innumerable facts, prove, as I think, the high
probability of a circulation arterial and venous in its mechanism,
through the nerves. Of this system, thus considered, the brain is the
heart. The fluid, which is propagated hence through one class of nerves,
returns in an altered state through another, and the nature of that
fluid is spiritual, though not immaterial, any more than, as I before
remarked, light or electricity are so.
By various abuses, among which the habitual use of such agents as green
tea is one, this fluid may be affected as to its quality, but it is more
frequently disturbed as to equilibrium. This fluid being that which we
have in common with spirits, a congestion found upon the masses of brain
or nerve, connected with the interior sense, forms a surface unduly
exposed, on which disembodied spirits may operate: communication is thus
more or less effectually established. Between this brain circulation and
the heart circulation there is an intimate sympathy. The seat, or rather
the instrument of exterior vision, is the eye. The seat of interior
vision is the nervous tissue and brain, immediately about and above the
eyebrow. You remember how effectually I dissipated your pictures by the
simple application of iced eau-de-cologne. Few cases, however, can be
treated exactly alike with anything like rapid success. Cold acts
powerfully as a repellant of the nervous fluid. Long enough continued it
will even produce that permanent insensibility which we call numbness,
and a little longer, muscular as well as sensational paralysis.
I have not, I repeat, the slightest doubt that I should have first
dimmed and ultimately sealed that inner eye which Mr. Jennings had
inadvertently opened. The same senses are opened in delirium tremens,
and entirely shut up again when the overaction of the cerebral heart,
and the prodigious nervous congestions that attend it, are terminated by
a decided change in the state of the body. It is by acting steadily upon
the body, by a simple process, that this result is produced--and
inevitably produced--I have never yet failed.
Poor Mr. Jennings made away with himself. But that catastrophe was the
result of a totally different malady, which, as it were, projected
itself upon the disease which was established. His case was in the
distinctive manner a complication, and the complaint under which he
really succumbed, was hereditary suicidal mania. Poor Mr. Jennings I
cannot call a patient of mine, for I had not even begun to treat his
case, and he had not yet given me, I am convinced, his full and
unreserved confidence. If the patient do not array himself on the side
of the disease, his cure is certain.
THE FAMILIAR
PROLOGUE
Out of about two hundred and thirty cases, more or less nearly akin to
that I have entitled "Green Tea," I select the following, which I call
"The Familiar."
To this MS. Doctor Hesselius, has, after his wont, attached some sheets
of letter-paper, on which are written, in his hand nearly as compact as
print, his own remarks upon the case. He says--
"In point of conscience, no more unexceptionable narrator, than the
venerable Irish Clergyman who has given me this paper, on Mr. Barton's
case, could have been chosen. The statement is, however, medically
imperfect. The report of an intelligent physician, who had marked its
progress, and attended the patient, from its earlier stages to its close,
would have supplied what is wanting to enable me to pronounce with
confidence. I should have been acquainted with Mr. Barton's probable
hereditary pre-dispositions; I should have known, possibly, by very early
indications, something of a remoter origin of the disease than can now be
ascertained.
"In a rough way, we may reduce all similar cases to three distinct
classes. They are founded on the primary distinction between the
subjective and the objective. Of those whose senses are alleged to be
subject to supernatural impressions--some are simply visionaries, and
propagate the illusions of which they complain, from diseased brain or
nerves. Others are, unquestionably, infested by, as we term them,
spiritual agencies, exterior to themselves. Others, again, owe their
sufferings to a mixed condition. The interior sense, it is true, is
opened; but it has been and continues open by the action of disease. This
form of disease may, in one sense, be compared to the loss of the
scarf-skin, and a consequent exposure of surfaces for whose excessive
sensitiveness, nature has provided a muffling. The loss of this covering
is attended by an habitual impassability, by influences against which we
were intended to be guarded. But in the case of the brain, and the nerves
immediately connected with its functions and its sensuous impressions,
the cerebral circulation undergoes periodically that vibratory
disturbance, which, I believe, I have satisfactorily examined and
demonstrated, in my MS. Essay, A. 17. This vibratory disturbance differs,
as I there prove, essentially from the congestive disturbance, the
phenomena of which are examined in A. 19. It is, when excessive,
invariably accompanied by illusions.
"Had I seen Mr. Barton, and examined him upon the points, in his case,
which need elucidation, I should have without difficulty referred those
phenomena to their proper disease. My diagnosis is now, necessarily,
conjectural."
Thus writes Doctor Hesselius; and adds a great deal which is of interest
only to a scientific physician.
The Narrative of the Rev. Thomas Herbert, which furnishes all that is
known of the case, will be found in the chapters that follow.
CHAPTER I - Foot-steps
I was a young man at the time, and intimately acquainted with some of the
actors in this strange tale; the impression which its incidents made on
me, therefore, were deep, and lasting. I shall now endeavour, with
precision, to relate them all, combining, of course, in the narrative,
whatever I have learned from various sources, tending, however
imperfectly, to illuminate the darkness which involves its progress and
termination.
Somewhere about the year 1794, the younger brother of a certain baronet,
whom I shall call Sir James Barton, returned to Dublin. He had served in
the navy with some distinction, having commanded one of His Majesty's
frigates during the greater part of the American war. Captain Barton was
apparently some two or three-and-forty years of age. He was an
intelligent and agreeable companion when he pleased it, though generally
reserved, and occasionally even moody.
In society, however, he deported himself as a man of the world, and a
gentleman. He had not contracted any of the noisy brusqueness sometimes
acquired at sea; on the contrary, his manners were remarkably easy,
quiet, and even polished. He was in person about the middle size, and
somewhat strongly formed--his countenance was marked with the lines of
thought, and on the whole wore an expression of gravity and melancholy;
being, however, as I have said, a man of perfect breeding, as well as of
good family, and in affluent circumstances, he had, of course, ready
access to the best society of Dublin, without the necessity of any other
credentials.
In his personal habits Mr. Barton was unexpensive. He occupied lodgings
in one of the then fashionable streets in the south side of the
town--kept but one horse and one servant--and though a reputed
free-thinker, yet lived an orderly and moral life--indulging neither in
gaming, drinking, nor any other vicious pursuit--living very much to
himself, without forming intimacies, or choosing any companions, and
appearing to mix in gay society rather for the sake of its bustle and
distraction, than for any opportunities it offered of interchanging
thought or feeling with its votaries.
Barton was therefore pronounced a saving, prudent, unsocial sort of
fellow, who bid fair to maintain his celibacy alike against stratagem and
assault, and was likely to live to a good old age, die rich, and leave
his money to a hospital.
It was now apparent, however, that the nature of Mr. Barton's plans had
been totally misconceived. A young lady, whom I shall call Miss Montague,
was at this time introduced into the gay world, by her aunt, the Dowager
Lady L--. Miss Montague was decidedly pretty and accomplished, and having
some natural cleverness, and a great deal of gaiety, became for a while a
reigning toast.
Her popularity, however, gained her, for a time, nothing more than that
unsubstantial admiration which, however, pleasant as an incense to
vanity, is by no means necessarily antecedent to matrimony--for,
unhappily for the young lady in question, it was an understood thing,
that beyond her personal attractions, she had no kind of earthly
provision. Such being the state of affairs, it will readily be believed
that no little surprise was consequent upon the appearance of Captain
Barton as the avowed lover of the penniless Miss Montague.
His suit prospered, as might have been expected, and in a short time it
was communicated by old Lady L-- to each of her hundred-and-fifty
particular friends in succession, that Captain Barton had actually
tendered proposals of marriage, with her approbation, to her niece, Miss
Montague, who had, moreover, accepted the offer of his hand,
conditionally upon the consent of her father, who was then upon his
homeward voyage from India, and expected in two or three weeks at the
furthest.
About this consent there could be no doubt--the delay, therefore, was one
merely of form--they were looked upon as absolutely engaged, and Lady
L--, with a rigour of old-fashioned decorum with which her niece would,
no doubt, gladly have dispensed, withdrew her thenceforward from all
further participation in the gaieties of the town.
Captain Barton was a constant visitor, as well as a frequent guest at the
house, and was permitted all the privileges of intimacy which a betrothed
suitor is usually accorded. Such was the relation of parties, when the
mysterious circumstances which darken this narrative first began to
unfold themselves.
Lady L-- resided in a handsome mansion at the north side of Dublin, and
Captain Barton's lodgings, as we have already said, were situated at the
south. The distance intervening was considerable, and it was Captain
Barton's habit generally to walk home without an attendant, as often as
he passed the evening with the old lady and her fair charge.
His shortest way in such nocturnal walks, lay, for a considerable space,
through a line of street which had as yet merely been laid out, and
little more than the foundations of the houses constructed.
One night, shortly after his engagement with Miss Montague had commenced,
he happened to remain unusually late; in company with her and Lady L--.
The conversation had turned upon the evidences of revelation, which he
had disputed with the callous scepticism of a confirmed infidel. What
were called "French principles," had in those days found their way a good
deal into fashionable society, especially that portion of it which
professed allegiance to Whiggism, and neither the old lady nor her charge
were so perfectly free from the taint, as to look upon Mr. Barton's views
as any serious objection to the proposed union.
The discussion had degenerated into one upon the supernatural and the
marvellous, in which he had pursued precisely the same line of argument
and ridicule. In all this, it is but truth to state, Captain Barton was
guilty of no affectation--the doctrines upon which he insisted, were, in
reality, but too truly the basis of his own fixed belief, if so it might
be called; and perhaps not the least strange of the many strange
circumstances connected with my narrative, was the fact that the subject
of the fearful influences I am about to describe was himself, from the
deliberate conviction of years, an utter disbeliever in what are usually
termed preternatural agencies.
It was considerably past midnight when Mr. Barton took his leave, and set
out upon his solitary walk homeward. He had now reached the lonely road,
with its unfinished dwarf walls tracing the foundations of the projected
row of houses on either side--the moon was shining mistily, and its
imperfect light made the road he trod but additionally dreary--that utter
silence which has in it something indefinably exciting, reigned there,
and made the sound of his steps, which alone broke it, unnaturally loud
and distinct.
He had proceeded thus some way, when he, on a sudden, heard other
footfalls, pattering at a measured pace, and, as it seemed, about two
score steps behind him.
The suspicion of being dogged is at all times unpleasant; it is, however,
especially so in a spot so lonely; and this suspicion became so strong in
the mind of Captain Barton, that he abruptly turned about to confront his
pursuer, but, though there was quite sufficient moonlight to disclose any
object upon the road he had traversed, no form of any kind was visible
there.
The steps he had heard could not have been the reverberation of his own,
for he stamped his foot upon the ground, and walked briskly up and down,
in the vain attempt to awake an echo; though by no means a fanciful
person, therefore he was at last fain to charge the sounds upon his
imagination, and treat them as an illusion. Thus satisfying himself, he
resumed his walk, and before he had proceeded a dozen paces, the
mysterious footfall was again audible from behind, and this time, as if
with the special design of showing that the sounds were not the
responses of an echo--the steps sometimes slackened nearly to a halt,
and sometimes hurried for six or eight strides to a run, and again
abated to a walk.
Captain Barton, as before, turned suddenly round, and with the same
result--no object was visible above the deserted level of the road. He
walked back over the same ground, determined that, whatever might have
been the cause of the sounds which had so disconcerted him, it should not
escape his search--the endeavour, however, was unrewarded.
In spite of all his scepticism, he felt something like a superstitious
fear stealing fast upon him, and with these unwonted and uncomfortable
sensations, he once more turned and pursued his way. There was no
repetition of these haunting sounds, until he had reached the point where
he had last stopped to retrace his steps--here they were resumed--and
with sudden starts of running, which threatened to bring the unseen
pursuer up to the alarmed pedestrian.
Captain Barton arrested his course as formerly--the unaccountable nature
of the occurrence filled him with vague and disagreeable sensations--and
yielding to the excitement that was gaining upon him, he shouted sternly,
"Who goes there?" The sound of one's own voice, thus exerted, in utter
solitude, and followed by total silence, has in it something unpleasantly
dismaying, and he felt a degree of nervousness which, perhaps, from no
cause had he ever known before.
To the very end of this solitary street the steps pursued him--and it
required a strong effort of stubborn pride on his part, to resist the
impulse that prompted him every moment to run for safety at the top of
his speed. It was not until he had reached his lodging, and sate by his
own fire-side, that he felt sufficiently reassured to rearrange and
reconsider in his own mind the occurrences which had so discomposed him.
So little a matter, after all, is sufficient to upset the pride of
scepticism and vindicate the old simple laws of nature within us.
CHAPTER II - The Watcher
Mr. Barton was next morning sitting at a late breakfast, reflecting upon
the incidents of the previous night, with more of inquisitiveness than
awe, so speedily do gloomy impressions upon the fancy disappear under the
cheerful influence of day, when a letter just delivered by the postman
was placed upon the table before him.
There was nothing remarkable in the address of this missive, except that
it was written in a hand which he did not know--perhaps it was
disguised--for the tall narrow characters were sloped backward; and with
the self-inflicted suspense which we often see practised in such cases,
he puzzled over the inscription for a full minute before he broke the
seal. When he did so, he read the following words, written in the same
hand:
"Mr. Barton, late captain of the Dolphin, is warned of DANGER. He will do
wisely to avoid -- street--[here the locality of his last night's
adventure was named]--if he walks there as usual he will meet with
something unlucky--let him take warning, once for all, for he has reason
to dread THE WATCHER."
Captain Barton read and re-read this strange effusion; in every light and
in every direction he turned it over and over; he examined the paper on
which it was written, and scrutinized the hand-writing once more.
Defeated here, he turned to the seal; it was nothing but a patch of wax,
upon which the accidental impression of a thumb was imperfectly visible.
There was not the slightest mark, or clue of any kind, to lead him to
even a guess as to its possible origin. The writer's object seemed a
friendly one, and yet he subscribed himself as one whom he had "reason to
dread." Altogether the letter, its author, and its real purpose were to
him an inexplicable puzzle, and one, moreover, unpleasantly suggestive,
in his mind, of other associations connected with his last night's
adventure.
In obedience to some feeling--perhaps of pride--Mr. Barton did not
communicate, even to his intended bride, the occurrences which I have
just detailed. Trifling as they might appear, they had in reality most
disagreeably affected his imagination, and he cared not to disclose, even
to the young lady in question, what she might possibly look upon as
evidences of weakness. The letter might very well be but a hoax, and the
mysterious footfall but a delusion or a trick. But although he affected
to treat the whole affair as unworthy of a thought it yet haunted him
pertinaciously, tormenting him with perplexing doubts, and depressing him
with undefined apprehensions. Certain it is, that for a considerable time
afterwards he carefully avoided the street indicated in the letter as the
scene of danger.
It was not until about a week after the receipt of the letter which I
have transcribed, that anything further occurred to remind Captain Barton
of its contents, or to counteract the gradual disappearance from his mind
of the disagreeable impressions then received.
He was returning one night, after the interval I have stated, from the
theatre, which was then situated in Crow Street, and having there seen
Miss Montague and Lady L-- into their carriage, he loitered for some time
with two or three acquaintances.
With these, however, he parted close to the college, and pursued his way
alone. It was now fully one o'clock, and the streets were quite deserted.
During the whole of his walk with the companions from whom he had just
parted, he had been at times painfully aware of the sound of steps, as it
seemed, dogging them on their way.
Once or twice he had looked back, in the uneasy anticipation that he was
again about to experience the same mysterious annoyances which had so
disconcerted him a week before, and earnestly hoping that he might see
some form to account naturally for the sounds. But the street was
deserted--no one was visible.
Proceeding now quite alone upon his homeward way, he grew really nervous
and uncomfortable, as he became sensible, with increased distinctness, of
the well-known and now absolutely dreaded sounds.
By the side of the dead wall which bounded the college park, the sounds
followed, recommencing almost simultaneously with his own steps. The same
unequal pace--sometimes slow, sometimes for a score yards or so,
quickened almost to a run--was audible from behind him. Again and again
he turned; quickly and stealthily he glanced over his shoulder--almost at
every half-dozen steps; but no one was visible.
The irritation of this intangible and unseen pursuit became gradually all
but intolerable; and when at last he reached his borne, his nerves were
strung to such a pitch of excitement that he could not rest, and did not
attempt even to lie down until after the daylight had broken.
He was awakened by a knock at his chamber-door, and his servant
entering, handed him several letters which had just been received by the
penny post. One among them instantly arrested his attention--a single
glance at the direction aroused him thoroughly. He at once recognised
its character, and read as follows:
"You may as well think, Captain Barton, to escape from your own shadow as
from me; do what you may, I will see you as often as I please, and you
shall see me, for I do not want to hide myself, as you fancy. Do not let
it trouble your rest, Captain Barton; for, with a good conscience, what
need you fear from the eye of THE WATCHER."
It is scarcely necessary to dwell upon the feelings that accompanied a
perusal of this strange communication. Captain Barton was observed to be
unusually absent and out of spirits for several days afterwards, but no
one divined the cause.
Whatever he might think as to the phantom steps which followed him, there
could be no possible illusion about the letters he had received; and, to
say the least, their immediate sequence upon the mysterious sounds which
had haunted him, was an odd coincidence.
The whole circumstance was, in his own mind, vaguely and instinctively
connected with certain passages in his past life, which, of all others,
he hated to remember.
It happened, however, that in addition to his own approaching nuptials,
Captain Barton had just then--fortunately, perhaps, for himself--some
business of an engrossing kind connected with the adjustment of a large
and long-litigated claim upon certain properties.
The hurry and excitement of business had its natural effect in gradually
dispelling the gloom which had for a time occasionally oppressed him, and
in a little while his spirits had entirely recovered their accustomed
tone.
During all this time, however, he was, now and then, dismayed by
indistinct and half-hearted repetitions of the same annoyance, and that
in lonely places, in the day-time as well as after nightfall. These
renewals of the strange impressions from which he had suffered so much,
were, however, desultory and faint, insomuch that often he really could
not, to his own satisfaction, distinguish between them and the mere
suggestions of an excited imagination.
One evening he walked down to the House of Commons with a Member, an
acquaintance of his and mine. This was one of the few occasions upon
which I have been in company with Captain Barton. As we walked down
together, I observed that he became absent and silent, and to a degree
that seemed to argue the pressure of some urgent and absorbing anxiety.
I afterwards learned that during the whole of our walk, he had heard the
well-known footsteps tracking him as we proceeded.
This, however, was the last time he suffered from this phase of the
persecution, of which he was already the anxious victim. A new and a very
different one was about to be presented.
CHAPTER III - An Advertisement
Of the new series of impressions which were afterwards gradually to work
out his destiny, I that evening witnessed the first; and but for its
relation to the train of events which followed, the incident would
scarcely have been now remembered by me.
As we were walking in at the passage from College Green, a man, of whom I
remember only that he was short in stature, looked like a foreigner, and
wore a kind of fur travelling-cap, walked very rapidly, and as if under
fierce excitement, directly towards us, muttering to himself, fast and
vehemently the while.
This odd-looking person walked straight towards Barton, who was foremost
of the three, and halted, regarding him for a moment or two with a look
of maniacal menace and fury; and then turning about as abruptly, he
walked before us at the same agitated pace, and disappeared at a side
passage. I do distinctly remember being a good deal shocked at the
countenance and bearing of this man, which indeed irresistibly impressed
me with an undefined sense of danger, such as I have never felt before or
since from the presence of anything human; but these sensations were, on
my part, far from amounting to anything so disconcerting as to flurry or
excite me--I had seen only a singularly evil countenance, agitated, as it
seemed, with the excitement of madness.
I was absolutely astonished, however, at the effect of this apparition
upon Captain Barton. I knew him to be a man of proud courage and coolness
in real danger--a circumstance which made his conduct upon this occasion
the more conspicuously odd. He recoiled a step or two as the stranger
advanced, and clutched my arm in silence, with what seemed to be a spasm
of agony or terror! and then, as the figure disappeared, shoving me
roughly back, he followed it for a few paces, stopped in great disorder,
and sat down upon a form. I never beheld a countenance more ghastly and
haggard.
"For God's sake, Barton, what is the matter?" said --, our companion,
really alarmed at his appearance. "You're not hurt, are you?--or unwell?
What is it?
"What did he say?--I did not hear it--what was it?" asked Barton, wholly
disregarding the question.
"Nonsense," said --, greatly surprised; "who cares what the fellow said.
You are unwell, Barton--decidedly unwell; let me call a coach."
"Unwell! No--not unwell," he said, evidently making an effort to recover
his self-possession; "but, to say the truth, I am fatigued--a little
over-worked--and perhaps over anxious. You know I have been in chancery,
and the winding up of a suit is always a nervous affair. I have felt
uncomfortable all this evening; but I am better now. Come, come--shall we
go on?"
"No, no. Take my advice, Barton, and go home; you really do need rest!
you are looking quite ill. I really do insist on your allowing me to see
you home," replied his friend.
I seconded --'s advice, the more readily as it was obvious that Barton
was not himself disinclined to be persuaded. He left us, declining our
offered escort. I was not sufficiently intimate with -- to discuss the
scene we had both just witnessed. I was, however, convinced from his
manner in the few common-place comments and regrets we exchanged, that he
was just as little satisfied as I with the extempore plea of illness with
which he had accounted for the strange exhibition, and that we were both
agreed in suspecting some lurking mystery in the matter.
I called next day at Barton's lodgings, to enquire for him, and learned
from the servant that he had not left his room since his return the night
before; but that he was not seriously indisposed, and hoped to be out in
a few days. That evening he sent for Dr. R--, then in large and
fashionable practice in Dublin, and their interview was, it is said, an
odd one.
He entered into a detail of his own symptoms in an abstracted and
desultory way, which seemed to argue a strange want of interest in his
own cure, and, at all events, made it manifest that there was some topic
engaging his mind of more engrossing importance than his present ailment.
He complained of occasional palpitations and headache.
Doctor R-- asked him among other questions whether there was any
irritating circumstance or anxiety then occupying his thoughts. This he
denied quickly and almost peevishly; and the physician thereupon declared
his opinion, that there was nothing amiss except some slight derangement
of the digestion, for which he accordingly wrote a prescription, and was
about to withdraw, when Mr. Barton, with the air of a man who recollects
a topic which had nearly escaped him, recalled him.
"I beg your pardon, Doctor, but I really almost forgot; will you permit
me to ask you two or three medical questions--rather odd ones, perhaps,
but as a wager depends upon their solutions you will, I hope, excuse my
unreasonableness."
The physician readily undertook to satisfy the inquirer.
Barton seemed to have some difficulty about opening the proposed
interrogatories, for he was silent for a minute, then walked to his
book-case, and returned as he had gone; at last he sat down, and said--
"You'll think them very childish questions, but I can't recover my wager
without a decision; so I must put them. I want to know first about
lock-jaw. If a man actually has had that complaint, and appears to have
died of it--so much so, that a physician of average skill pronounces him
actually dead--may he, after all, recover?"
The physician smiled, and shook his head.
"But--but a blunder may be made," resumed Barton. "Suppose an ignorant
pretender to medical skill; may he be so deceived by any stage of the
complaint, as to mistake what is only a part of the progress of the
disease, for death itself?"
"No one who had ever seen death," answered he, "could mistake it in a
case of lock-jaw."
Barton mused for a few minutes. "I am going to ask you a question,
perhaps, still more childish; but first, tell me, are the regulations of
foreign hospitals, such as that of, let us say, Naples, very lax and
bungling. May not all kinds of blunders and slips occur in their entries
of names, and so forth?"
Doctor R-- professed his incompetence to answer that query.
"Well, then, Doctor, here is the last of my questions. You will,
probably, laugh at it; but it must out, nevertheless. Is there any
disease, in all the range of human maladies, which would have the effect
of perceptibly contracting the stature, and the whole frame--causing the
man to shrink in all his proportions, and yet to preserve his exact
resemblance to himself in every particular--with the one exception, his
height and bulk; any disease, mark--no matter how rare--how little
believed in, generally--which could possibly result in producing such an
effect?"
The physician replied with a smile, and a very decided negative.
"Tell me, then," said Barton, abruptly, "if a man be in reasonable fear
of assault from a lunatic who is at large, can he not procure a warrant
for his arrest and detention?"
"Really that is more a lawyer's question than one in my way," replied
Dr. R--, "but I believe, on applying to a magistrate, such a course would
be directed."
The physician then took his leave; but, just as he reached the hall-door,
remembered that he had left his cane upstairs, and returned. His
reappearance was awkward, for a piece of paper, which he recognised as
his own prescription, was slowly burning upon the fire, and Barton
sitting close by with an expression of settled gloom and dismay.
Doctor R-- had too much tact to observe what presented itself; but he had
seen quite enough to assure him that the mind, and not the body, of
Captain Barton was in reality the seat of suffering.
A few days afterwards, the following advertisement appeared in the Dublin
newspapers.
"If Sylvester Yelland, formerly a foremastman on board his Majesty's
frigate Dolphin, or his nearest of kin, will apply to Mr. Hubert Smith,
attorney, at his office, Dame Street, he or they may hear of something
greatly to his or their advantage. Admission may be had at any hour up to
twelve o'clock at night, should parties desire to avoid observation; and
the strictest secrecy, as to all communications intended to be
confidential, shall be honourably observed."
The Dolphin, as I have mentioned, was the vessel which Captain Barton had
commanded; and this circumstance, connected with the extraordinary
exertions made by the circulation of handbills, &c., as well as by
repeated advertisements, to secure for this strange notice the utmost
possible publicity, suggested to Dr. R-- the idea that Captain Barton's
extreme uneasiness was somehow connected with the individual to whom the
advertisement was addressed, and he himself the author of it.
This, however, it is needless to add, was no more than a conjecture. No
information whatsoever, as to the real purpose of the advertisement was
divulged by the agent, nor yet any hint as to who his employer might be.
CHAPTER IV - He Talks With a Clergyman
Mr. Barton, although he had latterly begun to earn for himself the
character of an hypochondriac, was yet very far from deserving it. Though
by no means lively, he had yet, naturally, what are termed "even
spirits," and was not subject to undue depressions.
He soon, therefore, began to return to his former habits; and one of the
earliest symptoms of this healthier tone of spirits was, his appearing at
a grand dinner of the Freemasons, of which worthy fraternity he was
himself a brother. Barton, who had been at first gloomy and abstracted,
drank much more freely than was his wont--possibly with the purpose of
dispelling his own secret anxieties--and under the influence of good
wine, and pleasant company, became gradually (unlike himself) talkative,
and even noisy.
It was under this unwonted excitement that he left his company at about
half-past ten o'clock; and, as conviviality is a strong incentive to
gallantry, it occurred to him to proceed forthwith to Lady L--'s and pass
the remainder of the evening with her and his destined bride.
Accordingly, he was soon at -- street, and chatting gaily with the
ladies. It is not to be supposed that Captain Barton had exceeded the
limits which propriety prescribes to good fellowship--he had merely taken
enough wine to raise his spirits, without, however, in the least degree
unsteadying his mind, or affecting his manners.
With this undue elevation of spirits had supervened an entire oblivion or
contempt of those undefined apprehensions which had for so long weighed
upon his mind, and to a certain extent estranged him from society; but as
the night wore away, and his artificial gaiety began to flag, these
painful feelings gradually intruded themselves again, and he grew
abstracted and anxious as heretofore.
He took his leave at length, with an unpleasant foreboding of some coming
mischief, and with a mind haunted with a thousand mysterious
apprehensions, such as, even while he acutely felt their pressure, he,
nevertheless, inwardly strove, or affected to contemn.
It was this proud defiance of what he regarded as his own weakness, which
prompted him upon the present occasion to that course which brought about
the adventure I am now about to relate.
Mr. Barton might have easily called a coach, but he was conscious that
his strong inclination to do so proceeded from no cause other than what
he desperately persisted in representing to himself to be his own
superstitious tremors.
He might also have returned home by a route different from that against
which he had been warned by his mysterious correspondent; but for the
same reason he dismissed this idea also, and with a dogged and half
desperate resolution to force matters to a crisis of some kind, if there
were any reality in the causes of his former suffering, and if not,
satisfactorily to bring their delusiveness to the proof, he determined to
follow precisely the course which he had trodden upon the night so
painfully memorable in his own mind as that on which his strange
persecution commenced. Though, sooth to say, the pilot who for the first
time steers his vessel under the muzzles of a hostile battery, never felt
his resolution more severely tasked than did Captain Barton as he
breathlessly pursued this solitary path--a path which, spite of every
effort of scepticism and reason, he felt to be infested by some (as
respected him) malignant being.
He pursued his way steadily and rapidly, scarcely breathing from
intensity of suspense; he, however, was troubled by no renewal of the
dreaded footsteps, and was beginning to feel a return of confidence, as
more than three-fourths of the way being accomplished with impunity, he
approached the long line of twinkling oil lamps which indicated the
frequented streets.
This feeling of self-congratulation was, however, but momentary. The
report of a musket at some hundred yards behind him, and the whistle of a
bullet close to his head, disagreeably and startlingly dispelled it. His
first impulse was to retrace his steps in pursuit of the assassin; but
the road on either side was, as we have said, embarrassed by the
foundations of a street, beyond which extended waste fields, full of
rubbish and neglected lime and brick-kilns, and all now as utterly silent
as though no sound had ever disturbed their dark and unsightly solitude.
The futility of, single-handed, attempting, under such circumstances, a
search for the murderer, was apparent, especially as no sound, either of
retreating steps or any other kind, was audible to direct his pursuit.
With the tumultuous sensations of one whose life has just been exposed to
a murderous attempt, and whose escape has been the narrowest possible,
Captain Barton turned again; and without, however, quickening his pace
actually to a run, hurriedly pursued his way.
He had turned, as I have said, after a pause of a few seconds, and had
just commenced his rapid retreat, when on a sudden he met the
well-remembered little man in the fur cap. The encounter was but
momentary. The figure was walking at the same exaggerated pace, and with
the same strange air of menace as before; and as it passed him, he
thought he heard it say, in a furious whisper, "Still alive--still
alive!"
The state of Mr. Barton's spirits began now to work a corresponding
alteration in his health and looks, and to such a degree that it was
impossible that the change should escape general remark.
For some reasons, known but to himself, he took no step whatsoever to
bring the attempt upon his life, which he had so narrowly escaped, under
the notice of the authorities; on the contrary, he kept it jealously to
himself; and it was not for many weeks after the occurrence that he
mentioned it, and then in strict confidence, to a gentleman, whom the
torments of his mind at last compelled him to consult.
Spite of his blue devils, however, poor Barton, having no satisfactory
reason to render to the public for any undue remissness in the attentions
exacted by the relation subsisting between him and Miss Montague was
obliged to exert himself, and present to the world a confident and
cheerful bearing.
The true source of his sufferings, and every circumstance connected with
them, he guarded with a reserve so jealous, that it seemed dictated by at
least a suspicion that the origin of his strange persecution was known to
himself, and that it was of a nature which, upon his own account, he
could not or dared not disclose.
The mind thus turned in upon itself, and constantly occupied with a
haunting anxiety which it dared not reveal or confide to any human
breast, became daily more excited, and, of course, more vividly
impressible, by a system of attack which operated through the nervous
system; and in this state he was destined to sustain, with increasing
frequency, the stealthy visitations of that apparition which from the
first had seemed to possess so terrible a hold upon his imagination.
* * *
It was about this time that Captain Barton called upon the then
celebrated preacher, Dr. --, with whom he had a slight acquaintance, and
an extraordinary conversation ensued.
The divine was seated in his chambers in college, surrounded with works
upon his favourite pursuit, and deep in theology, when Barton was
announced.
There was something at once embarrassed and excited in his manner, which,
along with his wan and haggard countenance, impressed the student with
the unpleasant consciousness that his visitor must have recently suffered
terribly indeed, to account for an alteration so striking--almost
shocking.
After the usual interchange of polite greeting, and a few commonplace
remarks, Captain Barton, who obviously perceived the surprise which his
visit had excited, and which Doctor -- was unable wholly to conceal,
interrupted a brief pause by remarking--
"This is a strange call, Doctor --, perhaps scarcely warranted by an
acquaintance so slight as mine with you. I should not under ordinary
circumstances have ventured to disturb you; but my visit is neither an
idle nor impertinent intrusion. I am sure you will not so account it,
when I tell you how afflicted I am."
Doctor -- interrupted him with assurances such as good breeding
suggested, and Barton resumed--
"I am come to task your patience by asking your advice. When I say your
patience, I might, indeed, say more; I might have said your
humanity--your compassion; for I have been and am a great sufferer."
"My dear sir," replied the churchman, "it will, indeed, afford me
infinite gratification if I can give you comfort in any distress of mind;
but--you know--"
"I know what you would say," resumed Barton, quickly; "I am an
unbeliever, and, therefore, incapable of deriving help from religion; but
don't take that for granted. At least you must not assume that, however
unsettled my convictions may be, I do not feel a deep--a very deep--
interest in the subject. Circumstances have lately forced it upon my
attention, in such a way as to compel me to review the whole question in
a more candid and teachable spirit, I believe, than I ever studied it in
before."
"Your difficulties, I take it for granted, refer to the evidences of
revelation," suggested the clergyman.
"Why--no-not altogether; in fact I am ashamed to say I have not
considered even my objections sufficiently to state them connectedly;
but--but there is one subject on which I feel a peculiar interest."
He paused again, and Doctor pressed him to proceed.
"The fact is," said Barton, "whatever may be my uncertainty as to the
authenticity of what we are taught to call revelation, of one fact I am
deeply and horribly convinced, that there does exist beyond this a
spiritual world--a system whose workings are generally in mercy hidden
from us--a system which may be, and which is sometimes, partially and
terribly revealed. I am sure--I know," continued Barton, with increasing
excitement, "that there is a God--a dreadful God--and that retribution
follows guilt, in ways the most mysterious and stupendous--by agencies
the most inexplicable and terrific;--there is a spiritual system--great
God, how I have been convinced!--a system malignant, and implacable, and
omnipotent, under whose persecutions I am, and have been, suffering the
torments of the damned!--yes, sir--yes--the fires and frenzy of hell!"
As Barton spoke, his agitation became so vehement that the Divine was
shocked, and even alarmed. The wild and excited rapidity with which he
spoke, and, above all, the indefinable horror, that stamped his features,
afforded a contrast to his ordinary cool and unimpassioned
self-possession striking and painful in the last degree.
CHAPTER V - Mr. Barton States His Case
"My dear sir," said Doctor --, after a brief pause, "I fear you have been
very unhappy, indeed; but I venture to predict that the depression under
which you labour will be found to originate in purely physical causes,
and that with a change of air, and the aid of a few tonics, your spirits
will return, and the tone of your mind be once more cheerful and tranquil
as heretofore. There was, after all, more truth than we are quite willing
to admit in the classic theories which assigned the undue predominance of
any one affection of the mind, to the undue action or torpidity of one or
other of our bodily organs. Believe me, that a little attention to diet,
exercise, and the other essentials of health, under competent direction,
will make you as much yourself as you can wish."
"Doctor --," said Barton, with something like a shudder, "I cannot delude
myself with such a hope. I have no hope to cling to but one, and that is,
that by some other spiritual agency more potent than that which tortures
me, it may be combated, and I delivered. If this may not be, I am
lost--now and for ever lost."
"But, Mr. Barton, you must remember," urged his companion, "that others
have suffered as you have done, and--"
"No, no, no," interrupted he, with irritability--"no, sir, I am not a
credulous--far from a superstitious man. I have been, perhaps, too much
the reverse--too sceptical, too slow of belief; but unless I were one
whom no amount of evidence could convince, unless I were to contemn the
repeated, the perpetual evidence of my own senses, I am now--now at last
constrained to believe--I have no escape from the conviction--the
overwhelming certainty--that I am haunted and dogged, go where I may,
by--by a DEMON!"
There was a preternatural energy of horror in Barton's face, as, with its
damp and death-like lineaments turned towards his companion, he thus
delivered himself.
"God help you, my poor friend," said Dr. --, much shocked, "God help you;
for, indeed, you are a sufferer, however your sufferings may have been
caused."
"Ay, ay, God help me," echoed Barton, sternly; "but will he help me--will
he help me?" "Pray to him--pray in an humble and trusting spirit," said
he.
"Pray, pray," echoed he again; "I can't pray--I could as easily move a
mountain by an effort of my will. I have not belief enough to pray; there
is something within me that will not pray. You prescribe
impossibilities--literal impossibilities."
"You will not find it so, if you will but try," said Doctor --.
"Try! I have tried, and the attempt only fills me with confusion; and,
sometimes, terror; I have tried in vain, and more than in vain. The
awful, unutterable idea of eternity and infinity oppresses and
maddens my brain whenever my mind approaches the contemplation of the
Creator; I recoil from the effort scared. I tell you, Doctor --, if I am
to be saved, it must be by other means. The idea of an eternal Creator is
to me intolerable--my mind cannot support it."
"Say, then, my dear sir," urged he, "say how you would have me serve
you--what you would learn of me--what I can do or say to relieve you?"
"Listen to me first," replied Captain Barton, with a subdued air, and an
effort to suppress his excitement, "listen to me while I detail the
circumstances of the persecution under which my life has become all but
intolerable--a persecution which has made me fear death and the world
beyond the grave as much as I have grown to hate existence."
Barton then proceeded to relate the circumstances which I have already
detailed, and then continued:
"This has now become habitual--an accustomed thing. I do not mean the
actual seeing him in the flesh--thank God, that at least is not permitted
daily. Thank God, from the ineffable horrors of that visitation I have
been mercifully allowed intervals of repose, though none of security; but
from the consciousness that a malignant spirit is following and watching
me wherever I go, I have never, for a single instant, a temporary
respite. I am pursued with blasphemies, cries of despair and appalling
hatred. I hear those dreadful sounds called after me as I turn the
corners of the streets; they come in the night-time, while I sit in my
chamber alone; they haunt me everywhere, charging me with hideous crimes,
and--great God!--threatening me with coming vengeance and eternal misery.
Hush! do you hear that?" he cried with a horrible smile of triumph;
"there--there, will that convince you?"
The clergyman felt a chill of horror steal over him, while, during the
wail of a sudden gust of wind, he heard, or fancied he heard, the half
articulate sounds of rage and derision mingling in the sough.
"Well, what do you think of that?" at length Barton cried, drawing a long
breath through his teeth.
"I heard the wind," said Doctor --. "What should I think of it--what is
there remarkable about it?"
"The prince of the powers of the air," muttered Barton, with a shudder.
"Tut, tut! my dear sir," said the student, with an effort to reassure
himself; for though it was broad daylight, there was nevertheless
something disagreeably contagious in the nervous excitement under which
his visitor so miserably suffered. "You must not give way to those wild
fancies; you must resist these impulses of the imagination."
"Ay, ay; 'resist the devil and he will flee from thee,'" said Barton, in
the same tone; "but how resist him? ay, there it is--there is the rub.
What--what am I to do? what can I do?"
"My dear sir, this is fancy," said the man of folios; "you are your own
tormentor."
"No, no, sir--fancy has no part in it," answered Barton, somewhat
sternly. "Fancy! was it that made you, as well as me, hear, but this
moment, those accents of hell? Fancy, indeed! No, no."
"But you have seen this person frequently," said the ecclesiastic; "why
have you not accosted or secured him? Is it not a little precipitate, to
say no more, to assume, as you have done, the existence of preternatural
agency, when, after all, everything may be easily accountable, if only
proper means were taken to sift the matter."
"There are circumstances connected with this--this appearance," said
Barton, "which it is needless to disclose, but which to me are proof of
its horrible nature. I know that the being that follows me is not
human--I say I know this; I could prove it to your own conviction." He
paused for a minute, and then added, "And as to accosting it, I dare
not, I could not; when I see it I am powerless; I stand in the gaze of
death, in the triumphant presence of infernal power and malignity. My
strength, and faculties, and memory, all forsake me. O God, I fear, sir,
you know not what you speak of. Mercy, mercy; heaven have pity on me!"
He leaned his elbow on the table, and passed his hand across his eyes, as
if to exclude some image of horror, muttering the last words of the
sentence he had just concluded, again and again.
"Doctor," he said, abruptly raising himself, and looking full upon the
clergyman with an imploring eye, "I know you will do for me whatever may
be done. You know now fully the circumstances and the nature of my
affliction. I tell you I cannot help myself; I cannot hope to escape; I
am utterly passive. I conjure you, then, to weigh my case well, and if
anything may be done for me by vicarious supplication--by the
intercession of the good--or by any aid or influence whatsoever, I
implore of you, I adjure you in the name of the Most High, give me the
benefit of that influence--deliver me from the body of this death. Strive
for me, pity me; I know you will; you cannot refuse this; it is the
purpose and object of my visit. Send me away with some hope, however
little, some faint hope of ultimate deliverance, and I will nerve myself
to endure, from hour to hour, the hideous dream into which my existence
has been transformed."
Doctor -- assured him that all he could do was to pray earnestly for him,
and that so much he would not fail to do. They parted with a hurried and
melancholy valediction. Barton hastened to the carriage that awaited him
at the door, drew down the blinds, and drove away, while Doctor -- returned
to his chamber, to ruminate at leisure upon the strange interview which
had just interrupted his studies.
CHAPTER VI - Seen Again
It was not to be expected that Captain Barton's changed and eccentric
habits should long escape remark and discussion. Various were the
theories suggested to account for it. Some attributed the alteration to
the pressure of secret pecuniary embarrassments; others to a repugnance
to fulfil an engagement into which he was presumed to have too
precipitately entered; and others, again, to the supposed incipiency of
mental disease, which latter, indeed, was the most plausible as well as
the most generally received of the hypotheses circulated in the gossip of
the day.
From the very commencement of this change, at first so gradual in its
advances, Miss Montague had of course been aware of it. The intimacy
involved in their peculiar relation, as well as the near interest which
it inspired afforded, in her case, a like opportunity and motive for the
successful exercise of that keen and penetrating observation peculiar to
her sex.
Her visits became, at length, so interrupted, and his manner, while the
lasted, so abstracted, strange, and agitated, that Lady L--, after
hinting her anxiety and her suspicions more than once, at length
distinctly stated her anxiety, and pressed for an explanation.
The explanation was given, and although its nature at first relieved the
worst solicitudes of the old lady and her niece, yet the circumstances
which attended it, and the really dreadful consequences which it
obviously indicated, as regarded the spirits, and indeed the reason of
the now wretched man, who made the strange declaration, were enough, upon
little reflection, to fill their minds with perturbation and alarm.
General Montague, the young lady's father, at length arrived. He had
himself slightly known Barton, some ten or twelve years previously, and
being aware of his fortune and connexions, was disposed to regard him as
an unexceptionable and indeed a most desirable match for his daughter.
He laughed at the story of Barton's supernatural visitations, and lost
no time in calling upon his intended son-in-law.
"My dear Barton," he continued, gaily, "after a little conversation, my
sister tells me that you are a victim to blue devils, in quite a new and
original shape."
Barton changed countenance, and sighed profoundly.
"Come, come; I protest this will never do," continued the General; "you
are more like a man on his way to the gallows than to the altar. These
devils have made quite a saint of you." Barton made an effort to change
the conversation.
"No, no, it won't do," said his visitor laughing; "I am resolved to say
what I have to say upon this magnificent mock mystery of yours. You must
not be angry, but really it is too bad to see you at your time of life,
absolutely frightened into good behaviour, like a naughty child by a
bugaboo, and as far as I can learn, a very contemptible one. Seriously, I
have been a good deal annoyed at what they tell me; but at the same time
thoroughly convinced that there is nothing in the matter that may not be
cleared up, with a little attention and management, within a week at
furthest."
"Ah, General, you do not know--" he began.
"Yes, but I do know quite enough to warrant my confidence," interrupted
the soldier; "don't I know that all your annoyance proceeds from the
occasional appearance of a certain little man in a cap and great-coat,
with a red vest and a bad face, who follows you about, and pops upon you
at corners of lanes, and throws you into ague fits. Now, my dear fellow,
I'll make it my business to catch this mischievous little mountebank, and
either beat him to a jelly with my own hands, or have him whipped through
the town, at the cart's-tail, before a month passes."
"If you knew what I knew," said Barton, with gloomy agitation, "you would
speak very differently. Don't imagine that I am so weak as to assume,
without proof the most overwhelming, the conclusion to which I have been
forced--the proofs are here, locked up here." As he spoke he tapped upon
his breast, and with an anxious sigh continued to walk up and down the
room.
"Well, well, Barton," said his visitor, "I'll wager a rump and a dozen I
collar the ghost, and convince even you before many days are over."
He was running on in the same strain when he was suddenly arrested, and
not a little shocked, by observing Barton, who had approached the window,
stagger slowly back, like one who had received a stunning blow; his arm
extended toward the street--his face and his very lips white as
ashes--while he muttered, "There--by heaven!--there--there!"
General Montague started mechanically to his feet, and from the window of
the drawing-room, saw a figure corresponding as well as his hurry would
permit him to discern, with the description of the person, whose
appearance so persistently disturbed the repose of his friend.
The figure was just turning from the rails of the area upon which it had
been leaning