{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_12592/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_12592","id":"gutenberg_12592","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12592","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Crime, Thrillers and Mystery","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Ghost stories"],"text":"J.S. LE FANU'S GHOSTLY TALES\n\nBY\n\nJ.S. LE FANU\n\nVOLUME 5\n\n\n\n\n  CONTENTS\n\n\n  LAURA SILVER BELL (1872)\n\n  WICKED CAPTAIN WALSHAWE, OF WAULING (1869)\n\n  THE CHILD THAT WENT WITH THE FAIRIES (1870)\n\n  STORIES OF LOUGH GUIR (1870)\n    The Magician Earl\n    Moll Rial's Adventure\n    The Banshee\n    The Governess's Dream\n    The Earl's Hall\n\n  THE VISION OF TOM CHUFF (1870)\n\n  DICKON THE DEVIL (1872)\n\n\n\n\nLAURA SILVER BELL\n\n\nIn the five Northumbrian counties you will scarcely find so bleak,\nugly, and yet, in a savage way, so picturesque a moor as Dardale Moss.\nThe moor itself spreads north, south, east, and west, a great\nundulating sea of black peat and heath.\n\nWhat we may term its shores are wooded wildly with birch, hazel, and\ndwarf-oak. No towering mountains surround it, but here and there you\nhave a rocky knoll rising among the trees, and many a wooded\npromontory of the same pretty, because utterly wild, forest, running\nout into its dark level.\n\nHabitations are thinly scattered in this barren territory, and a full\nmile away from the meanest was the stone cottage of Mother Carke.\n\nLet not my southern reader who associates ideas of comfort with the\nterm \"cottage\" mistake. This thing is built of shingle, with low\nwalls. Its thatch is hollow; the peat-smoke curls stingily from its\nstunted chimney. It is worthy of its savage surroundings.\n\nThe primitive neighbours remark that no rowan-tree grows near, nor\nholly, nor bracken, and no horseshoe is nailed on the door.\n\nNot far from the birches and hazels that straggle about the rude wall\nof the little enclosure, on the contrary, they say, you may discover\nthe broom and the rag-wort, in which witches mysteriously delight. But\nthis is perhaps a scandal.\n\nMall Carke was for many a year the _sage femme_ of this wild domain.\nShe has renounced practice, however, for some years; and now, under\nthe rose, she dabbles, it is thought, in the black art, in which she\nhas always been secretly skilled, tells fortunes, practises charms,\nand in popular esteem is little better than a witch.\n\nMother Carke has been away to the town of Willarden, to sell knit\nstockings, and is returning to her rude dwelling by Dardale Moss. To\nher right, as far away as the eye can reach, the moor stretches. The\nnarrow track she has followed here tops a gentle upland, and at her\nleft a sort of jungle of dwarf-oak and brushwood approaches its edge.\nThe sun is sinking blood-red in the west. His disk has touched the\nbroad black level of the moor, and his parting beams glare athwart the\ngaunt figure of the old beldame, as she strides homeward stick in\nhand, and bring into relief the folds of her mantle, which gleam like\nthe draperies of a bronze image in the light of a fire. For a few\nmoments this light floods the air--tree, gorse, rock, and bracken\nglare; and then it is out, and gray twilight over everything.\n\nAll is still and sombre. At this hour the simple traffic of the\nthinly-peopled country is over, and nothing can be more solitary.\n\nFrom this jungle, nevertheless, through which the mists of evening are\nalready creeping, she sees a gigantic man approaching her.\n\nIn that poor and primitive country robbery is a crime unknown. She,\ntherefore, has no fears for her pound of tea, and pint of gin, and\nsixteen shillings in silver which she is bringing home in her pocket.\nBut there is something that would have frighted another woman about\nthis man.\n\nHe is gaunt, sombre, bony, dirty, and dressed in a black suit which a\nbeggar would hardly care to pick out of the dust.\n\nThis ill-looking man nodded to her as he stepped on the road.\n\n\"I don't know you,\" she said.\n\nHe nodded again.\n\n\"I never sid ye neyawheere,\" she exclaimed sternly.\n\n\"Fine evening, Mother Carke,\" he says, and holds his snuff-box toward\nher.\n\nShe widened the distance between them by a step or so, and said again\nsternly and pale,\n\n\"I hev nowt to say to thee, whoe'er thou beest.\"\n\n\"You know Laura Silver Bell?\"\n\n\"That's a byneyam; the lass's neyam is Laura Lew,\" she answered,\nlooking straight before her.\n\n\"One name's as good as another for one that was never christened,\nmother.\"\n\n\"How know ye that?\" she asked grimly; for it is a received opinion in\nthat part of the world that the fairies have power over those who have\nnever been baptised.\n\nThe stranger turned on her a malignant smile.\n\n\"There is a young lord in love with her,\" the stranger says, \"and I'm\nthat lord. Have her at your house to-morrow night at eight o'clock,\nand you must stick cross pins through the candle, as you have done for\nmany a one before, to bring her lover thither by ten, and her\nfortune's made. And take this for your trouble.\"\n\nHe extended his long finger and thumb toward her, with a guinea\ntemptingly displayed.\n\n\"I have nowt to do wi' thee. I nivver sid thee afoore. Git thee awa'!\nI earned nea goold o' thee, and I'll tak' nane. Awa' wi' thee, or I'll\nfind ane that will mak' thee!\"\n\nThe old woman had stopped, and was quivering in every limb as she thus\nspoke.\n\nHe looked very angry. Sulkily he turned away at her words, and strode\nslowly toward the wood from which he had come; and as he approached\nit, he seemed to her to grow taller and taller, and stalked into it as\nhigh as a tree.\n\n\"I conceited there would come something o't\", she said to herself.\n\"Farmer Lew must git it done nesht Sunda'. The a'ad awpy!\"\n\nOld Farmer Lew was one of that sect who insist that baptism shall be\nbut once administered, and not until the Christian candidate had\nattained to adult years. The girl had indeed for some time been of an\nage not only, according to this theory, to be baptised, but if need be\nto be married.\n\nHer story was a sad little romance. A lady some seventeen years before\nhad come down and paid Farmer Lew for two rooms in his house. She told\nhim that her husband would follow her in a fortnight, and that he was\nin the mean time delayed by business in Liverpool.\n\nIn ten days after her arrival her baby was born, Mall Carke acting as\n_sage femme_ on the occasion; and on the evening of that day the poor\nyoung mother died. No husband came; no wedding-ring, they said, was on\nher finger. About fifty pounds was found in her desk, which Farmer\nLew, who was a kind old fellow and had lost his two children, put in\nbank for the little girl, and resolved to keep her until a rightful\nowner should step forward to claim her.\n\nThey found half-a-dozen love-letters signed \"Francis,\" and calling the\ndead woman \"Laura.\"\n\nSo Farmer Lew called the little girl Laura; and her _sobriquet_ of\n\"Silver Bell\" was derived from a tiny silver bell, once gilt, which\nwas found among her poor mother's little treasures after her death,\nand which the child wore on a ribbon round her neck.\n\nThus, being very pretty and merry, she grew up as a North-country\nfarmer's daughter; and the old man, as she needed more looking after,\ngrew older and less able to take care of her; so she was, in fact,\nvery nearly her own mistress, and did pretty much in all things as she\nliked.\n\nOld Mall Carke, by some caprice for which no one could account,\ncherished an affection for the girl, who saw her often, and paid her\nmany a small fee in exchange for the secret indications of the future.\n\nIt was too late when Mother Carke reached her home to look for a visit\nfrom Laura Silver Bell that day.\n\nAbout three o'clock next afternoon, Mother Carke was sitting knitting,\nwith her glasses on, outside her door on the stone bench, when she saw\nthe pretty girl mount lightly to the top of the stile at her left\nunder the birch, against the silver stem of which she leaned her\nslender hand, and called,\n\n\"Mall, Mall! Mother Carke, are ye alane all by yersel'?\"\n\n\"Ay, Laura lass, we can be clooas enoo, if ye want a word wi' me,\"\nsays the old woman, rising, with a mysterious nod, and beckoning her\nstiffly with her long fingers.\n\nThe girl was, assuredly, pretty enough for a \"lord\" to fall in love\nwith. Only look at her. A profusion of brown rippling hair, parted low\nin the middle of her forehead, almost touched her eyebrows, and made\nthe pretty oval of her face, by the breadth of that rich line, more\nmarked. What a pretty little nose! what scarlet lips, and large, dark,\nlong-fringed eyes!\n\nHer face is transparently tinged with those clear Murillo tints which\nappear in deeper dyes on her wrists and the backs of her hands. These\nare the beautiful gipsy-tints with which the sun dyes young skins so\nrichly.\n\nThe old woman eyes all this, and her pretty figure, so round and\nslender, and her shapely little feet, cased in the thick shoes that\ncan't hide their comely proportions, as she stands on the top of the\nstile. But it is with a dark and saturnine aspect.\n\n\"Come, lass, what stand ye for atoppa t' wall, whar folk may chance to\nsee thee? I hev a thing to tell thee, lass.\"\n\nShe beckoned her again.\n\n\"An' I hev a thing to tell _thee_, Mall.\"\n\n\"Come hidder,\" said the old woman peremptorily.\n\n\"But ye munna gie me the creepin's\" (make me tremble). \"I winna look\nagain into the glass o' water, mind ye.\"\n\nThe old woman smiled grimly, and changed her tone.\n\n\"Now, hunny, git tha down, and let ma see thy canny feyace,\" and she\nbeckoned her again.\n\nLaura Silver Bell did get down, and stepped lightly toward the door of\nthe old woman's dwelling.\n\n\"Tak this,\" said the girl, unfolding a piece of bacon from her apron,\n\"and I hev a silver sixpence to gie thee, when I'm gaen away heyam.\"\n\nThey entered the dark kitchen of the cottage, and the old woman stood\nby the door, lest their conference should be lighted on by surprise.\n\n\"Afoore ye begin,\" said Mother Carke (I soften her patois), \"I mun\ntell ye there's ill folk watchin' ye. What's auld Farmer Lew about, he\ndoesna get t' sir\" (the clergyman) \"to baptise thee? If he lets Sunda'\nnext pass, I'm afeared ye'll never be sprinkled nor signed wi' cross,\nwhile there's a sky aboon us.\"\n\n\"Agoy!\" exclaims the girl, \"who's lookin' after me?\"\n\n\"A big black fella, as high as the kipples, came out o' the wood near\nDeadman's Grike, just after the sun gaed down yester e'en; I knew weel\nwhat he was, for his feet ne'er touched the road while he made as if\nhe walked beside me. And he wanted to gie me snuff first, and I\nwouldna hev that; and then he offered me a gowden guinea, but I was no\nsic awpy, and to bring you here to-night, and cross the candle wi'\npins, to call your lover in. And he said he's a great lord, and in\nluve wi' thee.\"\n\n\"And you refused him?\"\n\n\"Well for thee I did, lass,\" says Mother Carke.\n\n\"Why, it's every word true!\" cries the girl vehemently, starting to\nher feet, for she had seated herself on the great oak chest.\n\n\"True, lass? Come, say what ye mean,\" demanded Mall Carke, with a dark\nand searching gaze.\n\n\"Last night I was coming heyam from the wake, wi' auld farmer Dykes\nand his wife and his daughter Nell, and when we came to the stile, I\nbid them good-night, and we parted.\"\n\n\"And ye came by the path alone in the night-time, did ye?\" exclaimed\nold Mall Carke sternly.\n\n\"I wasna afeared, I don't know why; the path heyam leads down by the\nwa'as o' auld Hawarth Castle.\"\n\n\"I knaa it weel, and a dowly path it is; ye'll keep indoors o' nights\nfor a while, or ye'll rue it. What saw ye?\"\n\n\"No freetin, mother; nowt I was feared on.\"\n\n\"Ye heard a voice callin' yer neyame?\"\n\n\"I heard nowt that was dow, but the hullyhoo in the auld castle wa's,\"\nanswered the pretty girl. \"I heard nor sid nowt that's dow, but mickle\nthat's conny and gladsome. I heard singin' and laughin' a long way\noff, I consaited; and I stopped a bit to listen. Then I walked on a\nstep or two, and there, sure enough in the Pie-Mag field, under the\ncastle wa's, not twenty steps away, I sid a grand company; silks and\nsatins, and men wi' velvet coats, wi' gowd-lace striped over them, and\nladies wi' necklaces that would dazzle ye, and fans as big as\ngriddles; and powdered footmen, like what the shirra hed behind his\ncoach, only these was ten times as grand.\"\n\n\"It was full moon last night,\" said the old woman.\n\n\"Sa bright 'twould blind ye to look at it,\" said the girl.\n\n\"Never an ill sight but the deaul finds a light,\" quoth the old woman.\n\"There's a rinnin brook thar--you were at this side, and they at that;\ndid they try to mak ye cross over?\"\n\n\"Agoy! didn't they? Nowt but civility and kindness, though. But ye mun\nlet me tell it my own way. They was talkin' and laughin', and eatin',\nand drinkin' out o' long glasses and goud cups, seated on the grass,\nand music was playin'; and I keekin' behind a bush at all the grand\ndoin's; and up they gits to dance; and says a tall fella I didna see\nafoore, 'Ye mun step across, and dance wi' a young lord that's faan in\nluv wi' thee, and that's mysel',' and sure enow I keeked at him under\nmy lashes and a conny lad he is, to my teyaste, though he be dressed\nin black, wi' sword and sash, velvet twice as fine as they sells in\nthe shop at Gouden Friars; and keekin' at me again fra the corners o'\nhis een. And the same fella telt me he was mad in luv wi' me, and his\nfadder was there, and his sister, and they came all the way from\nCatstean Castle to see me that night; and that's t' other side o'\nGouden Friars.\"\n\n\"Come, lass, yer no mafflin; tell me true. What was he like? Was his\nfeyace grimed wi' sut? a tall fella wi' wide shouthers, and lukt like\nan ill-thing, wi' black clothes amaist in rags?\"\n\n\"His feyace was long, but weel-faured, and darker nor a gipsy; and his\nclothes were black and grand, and made o' velvet, and he said he was\nthe young lord himsel'; and he lukt like it.\"\n\n\"That will be the same fella I sid at Deadman's Grike,\" said Mall\nCarke, with an anxious frown.\n\n\"Hoot, mudder! how cud that be?\" cried the lass, with a toss of her\npretty head and a smile of scorn. But the fortune-teller made no\nanswer, and the girl went on with her story.\n\n\"When they began to dance,\" continued Laura Silver Bell, \"he urged me\nagain, but I wudna step o'er; 'twas partly pride, coz I wasna dressed\nfine enough, and partly contrairiness, or something, but gaa I wudna,\nnot a fut. No but I more nor half wished it a' the time.\"\n\n\"Weel for thee thou dudstna cross the brook.\"\n\n\"Hoity-toity, why not?\"\n\n\"Keep at heyame after nightfall, and don't ye be walking by yersel' by\ndaylight or any light lang lonesome ways, till after ye're baptised,\"\nsaid Mall Carke.\n\n\"I'm like to be married first.\"\n\n\"Tak care _that_ marriage won't hang i' the bell-ropes,\" said Mother\nCarke.\n\n\"Leave me alane for that. The young lord said he was maist daft wi'\nluv o' me. He wanted to gie me a conny ring wi' a beautiful stone in\nit. But, drat it, I was sic an awpy I wudna tak it, and he a young\nlord!\"\n\n\"Lord, indeed! are ye daft or dreamin'? Those fine folk, what were\nthey? I'll tell ye. Dobies and fairies; and if ye don't du as yer bid,\nthey'll tak ye, and ye'll never git out o' their hands again while\ngrass grows,\" said the old woman grimly.\n\n\"Od wite it!\" replies the girl impatiently, \"who's daft or dreamin'\nnoo? I'd a bin dead wi' fear, if 'twas any such thing. It cudna be;\nall was sa luvesome, and bonny, and shaply.\"\n\n\"Weel, and what do ye want o' me, lass?\" asked the old woman sharply.\n\n\"I want to know--here's t' sixpence--what I sud du,\" said the young\nlass. \"'Twud be a pity to lose such a marrow, hey?\"\n\n\"Say yer prayers, lass; _I_ can't help ye,\" says the old woman darkly.\n\"If ye gaa wi' _the_ people, ye'll never come back. Ye munna talk wi'\nthem, nor eat wi' them, nor drink wi' them, nor tak a pin's-worth by\nway o' gift fra them--mark weel what I say--or ye're _lost!_\"\n\nThe girl looked down, plainly much vexed.\n\nThe old woman stared at her with a mysterious frown steadily, for a\nfew seconds.\n\n\"Tell me, lass, and tell me true, are ye in luve wi' that lad?\"\n\n\"What for sud I?\" said the girl with a careless toss of her head, and\nblushing up to her very temples.\n\n\"I see how it is,\" said the old woman, with a groan, and repeated the\nwords, sadly thinking; and walked out of the door a step or two, and\nlooked jealously round. \"The lass is witched, the lass is witched!\"\n\n\"Did ye see him since?\" asked Mother Carke, returning.\n\nThe girl was still embarrassed; and now she spoke in a lower tone, and\nseemed subdued.\n\n\"I thought I sid him as I came here, walkin' beside me among the\ntrees; but I consait it was only the trees themsels that lukt like\nrinnin' one behind another, as I walked on.\"\n\n\"I can tell thee nowt, lass, but what I telt ye afoore,\" answered the\nold woman peremptorily. \"Get ye heyame, and don't delay on the way;\nand say yer prayers as ye gaa; and let none but good thoughts come\nnigh ye; and put nayer foot autside the door-steyan again till ye gaa\nto be christened; and get that done a Sunda' next.\"\n\nAnd with this charge, given with grizzly earnestness, she saw her over\nthe stile, and stood upon it watching her retreat, until the trees\nquite hid her and her path from view.\n\nThe sky grew cloudy and thunderous, and the air darkened rapidly, as\nthe girl, a little frightened by Mall Carke's view of the case, walked\nhomeward by the lonely path among the trees.\n\nA black cat, which had walked close by her--for these creatures\nsometimes take a ramble in search of their prey among the woods and\nthickets--crept from under the hollow of an oak, and was again with\nher. It seemed to her to grow bigger and bigger as the darkness\ndeepened, and its green eyes glared as large as halfpennies in her\naffrighted vision as the thunder came booming along the heights from\nthe Willarden-road.\n\nShe tried to drive it away; but it growled and hissed awfully, and set\nup its back as if it would spring at her, and finally it skipped up\ninto a tree, where they grew thickest at each side of her path, and\naccompanied her, high over head, hopping from bough to bough as if\nmeditating a pounce upon her shoulders. Her fancy being full of\nstrange thoughts, she was frightened, and she fancied that it was\nhaunting her steps, and destined to undergo some hideous\ntransformation, the moment she ceased to guard her path with prayers.\n\nShe was frightened for a while after she got home. The dark looks of\nMother Carke were always before her eyes, and a secret dread prevented\nher passing the threshold of her home again that night.\n\nNext day it was different. She had got rid of the awe with which\nMother Carke had inspired her. She could not get the tall\ndark-featured lord, in the black velvet dress, out of her head. He had\n\"taken her fancy\"; she was growing to love him. She could think of\nnothing else.\n\nBessie Hennock, a neighbour's daughter, came to see her that day, and\nproposed a walk toward the ruins of Hawarth Castle, to gather\n\"blaebirries.\" So off the two girls went together.\n\nIn the thicket, along the slopes near the ivied walls of Hawarth\nCastle, the companions began to fill their baskets. Hours passed. The\nsun was sinking near the west, and Laura Silver Bell had not come\nhome.\n\nOver the hatch of the farm-house door the maids leant ever and anon\nwith outstretched necks, watching for a sign of the girl's return, and\nwondering, as the shadows lengthened, what had become of her.\n\nAt last, just as the rosy sunset gilding began to overspread the\nlandscape, Bessie Hennock, weeping into her apron, made her appearance\nwithout her companion.\n\nHer account of their adventures was curious.\n\nI will relate the substance of it more connectedly than her agitation\nwould allow her to give it, and without the disguise of the rude\nNorthumbrian dialect.\n\nThe girl said, that, as they got along together among the brambles\nthat grow beside the brook that bounds the Pie-Mag field, she on a\nsudden saw a very tall big-boned man, with an ill-favoured smirched\nface, and dressed in worn and rusty black, standing at the other side\nof a little stream. She was frightened; and while looking at this\ndirty, wicked, starved figure, Laura Silver Bell touched her, gazing\nat the same tall scarecrow, but with a countenance full of confusion\nand even rapture. She was peeping through the bush behind which she\nstood, and with a sigh she said:\n\n\"Is na that a conny lad? Agoy! See his bonny velvet clothes, his sword\nand sash; that's a lord, I can tell ye; and weel I know who he\nfollows, who he luves, and who he'll wed.\"\n\nBessie Hennock thought her companion daft.\n\n\"See how luvesome he luks!\" whispered Laura.\n\nBessie looked again, and saw him gazing at her companion with a\nmalignant smile, and at the same time he beckoned her to approach.\n\n\"Darrat ta! gaa not near him! he'll wring thy neck!\" gasped Bessie in\ngreat fear, as she saw Laura step forward with a look of beautiful\nbashfulness and joy.\n\nShe took the hand he stretched across the stream, more for love of the\nhand than any need of help, and in a moment was across and by his\nside, and his long arm about her waist.\n\n\"Fares te weel, Bessie, I'm gain my ways,\" she called, leaning her\nhead to his shoulder; \"and tell gud Fadder Lew I'm gain my ways to be\nhappy, and may be, at lang last, I'll see him again.\"\n\nAnd with a farewell wave of her hand, she went away with her dismal\npartner; and Laura Silver Bell was never more seen at home, or among\nthe \"coppies\" and \"wickwoods,\" the bonny fields and bosky hollows, by\nDardale Moss.\n\nBessie Hennock followed them for a time.\n\nShe crossed the brook, and though they seemed to move slowly enough,\nshe was obliged to run to keep them in view; and she all the time\ncried to her continually, \"Come back, come back, bonnie Laurie!\"\nuntil, getting over a bank, she was met by a white-faced old man, and\nso frightened was she, that she thought she fainted outright. At all\nevents, she did not come to herself until the birds were singing their\nvespers in the amber light of sunset, and the day was over.\n\nNo trace of the direction of the girl's flight was ever discovered.\nWeeks and months passed, and more than a year.\n\nAt the end of that time, one of Mall Carke's goats died, as she\nsuspected, by the envious practices of a rival witch who lived at the\nfar end of Dardale Moss.\n\nAll alone in her stone cabin the old woman had prepared her charm to\nascertain the author of her misfortune.\n\nThe heart of the dead animal, stuck all over with pins, was burnt in\nthe fire; the windows, doors, and every other aperture of the house\nbeing first carefully stopped. After the heart, thus prepared with\nsuitable incantations, is consumed in the fire, the first person who\ncomes to the door or passes by it is the offending magician.\n\nMother Carke completed these lonely rites at dead of night. It was a\ndark night, with the glimmer of the stars only, and a melancholy\nnight-wind was soughing through the scattered woods that spread\naround.\n\nAfter a long and dead silence, there came a heavy thump at the door,\nand a deep voice called her by name.\n\nShe was startled, for she expected no man's voice; and peeping from\nthe window, she saw, in the dim light, a coach and four horses, with\ngold-laced footmen, and coachman in wig and cocked hat, turned out as\nif for a state occasion.\n\nShe unbarred the door; and a tall gentleman, dressed in black, waiting\nat the threshold, entreated her, as the only _sage femme_ within\nreach, to come in the coach and attend Lady Lairdale, who was about to\ngive birth to a baby, promising her handsome payment.\n\nLady Lairdale! She had never heard of her.\n\n\"How far away is it?\"\n\n\"Twelve miles on the old road to Golden Friars.\"\n\nHer avarice is roused, and she steps into the coach. The footman\nclaps-to the door; the glass jingles with the sound of a laugh. The\ntall dark-faced gentleman in black is seated opposite; they are\ndriving at a furious pace; they have turned out of the road into a\nnarrower one, dark with thicker and loftier forest than she was\naccustomed to. She grows anxious; for she knows every road and by-path\nin the country round, and she has never seen this one.\n\nHe encourages her. The moon has risen above the edge of the horizon,\nand she sees a noble old castle. Its summit of tower, watchtower and\nbattlement, glimmers faintly in the moonlight. This is their\ndestination.\n\nShe feels on a sudden all but overpowered by sleep; but although she\nnods, she is quite conscious of the continued motion, which has become\neven rougher.\n\nShe makes an effort, and rouses herself. What has become of the\ncoach, the castle, the servants? Nothing but the strange forest\nremains the same.\n\nShe is jolting along on a rude hurdle, seated on rushes, and a tall,\nbig-boned man, in rags, sits in front, kicking with his heel the\nill-favoured beast that pulls them along, every bone of which sticks\nout, and holding the halter which serves for reins. They stop at the\ndoor of a miserable building of loose stone, with a thatch so sunk and\nrotten, that the roof-tree and couples protrude in crooked corners,\nlike the bones of the wretched horse, with enormous head and ears,\nthat dragged them to the door.\n\nThe long gaunt man gets down, his sinister face grimed like his hands.\n\nIt was the same grimy giant who had accosted her on the lonely road\nnear Deadman's Grike. But she feels that she \"must go through with it\"\nnow, and she follows him into the house.\n\nTwo rushlights were burning in the large and miserable room, and on a\ncoarse ragged bed lay a woman groaning piteously.\n\n\"That's Lady Lairdale,\" says the gaunt dark man, who then began to\nstride up and down the room rolling his head, stamping furiously, and\nthumping one hand on the palm of the other, and talking and laughing\nin the corners, where there was no one visible to hear or to answer.\n\nOld Mall Carke recognized in the faded half-starved creature who lay\non the bed, as dark now and grimy as the man, and looking as if she\nhad never in her life washed hands or face, the once blithe and pretty\nLaura Lew.\n\nThe hideous being who was her mate continued in the same odd\nfluctuations of fury, grief, and merriment; and whenever she uttered a\ngroan, he parodied it with another, as Mother Carke thought, in\nsaturnine derision.\n\nAt length he strode into another room, and banged the door after him.\n\nIn due time the poor woman's pains were over, and a daughter was born.\n\nSuch an imp! with long pointed ears, flat nose, and enormous restless\neyes and mouth. It instantly began to yell and talk in some unknown\nlanguage, at the noise of which the father looked into the room, and\ntold the _sage femme_ that she should not go unrewarded.\n\nThe sick woman seized the moment of his absence to say in the ear of\nMall Carke:\n\n\"If ye had not been at ill work tonight, he could not hev fetched ye.\nTak no more now than your rightful fee, or he'll keep ye here.\"\n\nAt this moment he returned with a bag of gold and silver coins, which\nhe emptied on the table, and told her to help herself.\n\nShe took four shillings, which was her primitive fee, neither more nor\nless; and all his urgency could not prevail with her to take a\nfarthing more. He looked so terrible at her refusal, that she rushed\nout of the house.\n\nHe ran after her.\n\n\"You'll take your money with you,\" he roared, snatching up the bag,\nstill half full, and flung it after her.\n\nIt lighted on her shoulder; and partly from the blow, partly from\nterror, she fell to the ground; and when she came to herself, it was\nmorning, and she was lying across her own door-stone.\n\nIt is said that she never more told fortune or practised spell. And\nthough all that happened sixty years ago and more, Laura Silver Bell,\nwise folk think, is still living, and will so continue till the day of\ndoom among the fairies.\n\n\n\n\nWICKED CAPTAIN WALSHAWE, OF WAULING\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n_Peg O'Neill Pays the Captain's Debts_\n\nA very odd thing happened to my uncle, Mr. Watson, of Haddlestone; and\nto enable you to understand it, I must begin at the beginning.\n\nIn the year 1822, Mr. James Walshawe, more commonly known as Captain\nWalshawe, died at the age of eighty-one years. The Captain in his\nearly days, and so long as health and strength permitted, was a scamp\nof the active, intriguing sort; and spent his days and nights in\nsowing his wild oats, of which he seemed to have an inexhaustible\nstock. The harvest of this tillage was plentifully interspersed with\nthorns, nettles, and thistles, which stung the husbandman\nunpleasantly, and did not enrich him.\n\nCaptain Walshawe was very well known in the neighborhood of Wauling,\nand very generally avoided there. A \"captain\" by courtesy, for he had\nnever reached that rank in the army list. He had quitted the service\nin 1766, at the age of twenty-five; immediately previous to which\nperiod his debts had grown so troublesome, that he was induced to\nextricate himself by running away with and marrying an heiress.\n\nThough not so wealthy quite as he had imagined, she proved a very\ncomfortable investment for what remained of his shattered affections;\nand he lived and enjoyed himself very much in his old way, upon her\nincome, getting into no end of scrapes and scandals, and a good deal\nof debt and money trouble.\n\nWhen he married his wife, he was quartered in Ireland, at Clonmel,\nwhere was a nunnery, in which, as pensioner, resided Miss O'Neill, or\nas she was called in the country, Peg O'Neill--the heiress of whom I\nhave spoken.\n\nHer situation was the only ingredient of romance in the affair, for\nthe young lady was decidedly plain, though good-humoured looking, with\nthat style of features which is termed _potato_; and in figure she was\na little too plump, and rather short. But she was impressible; and the\nhandsome young English Lieutenant was too much for her monastic\ntendencies, and she eloped.\n\nIn England there are traditions of Irish fortune-hunters, and in\nIreland of English. The fact is, it was the vagrant class of each\ncountry that chiefly visited the other in old times; and a handsome\nvagabond, whether at home or abroad, I suppose, made the most of his\nface, which was also his fortune.\n\nAt all events, he carried off the fair one from the sanctuary; and for\nsome sufficient reason, I suppose, they took up their abode at\nWauling, in Lancashire.\n\nHere the gallant captain amused himself after his fashion, sometimes\nrunning up, of course on business, to London. I believe few wives have\never cried more in a given time than did that poor, dumpy,\npotato-faced heiress, who got over the nunnery garden wall, and jumped\ninto the handsome Captain's arms, for love.\n\nHe spent her income, frightened her out of her wits with oaths and\nthreats, and broke her heart.\n\nLatterly she shut herself up pretty nearly altogether in her room. She\nhad an old, rather grim, Irish servant-woman in attendance upon her.\nThis domestic was tall, lean, and religious, and the Captain knew\ninstinctively she hated him; and he hated her in return, often\nthreatened to put her out of the house, and sometimes even to kick her\nout of the window. And whenever a wet day confined him to the house,\nor the stable, and he grew tired of smoking, he would begin to swear\nand curse at her for a _diddled_ old mischief-maker, that could never\nbe easy, and was always troubling the house with her cursed stories,\nand so forth.\n\nBut years passed away, and old Molly Doyle remained still in her\noriginal position. Perhaps he thought that there must be somebody\nthere, and that he was not, after all, very likely to change for the\nbetter.\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n_The Blessed Candle_\n\nHe tolerated another intrusion, too, and thought himself a paragon of\npatience and easy good nature for so doing. A Roman Catholic\nclergyman, in a long black frock, with a low standing collar, and a\nlittle white muslin fillet round his neck--tall, sallow, with blue\nchin, and dark steady eyes--used to glide up and down the stairs, and\nthrough the passages; and the Captain sometimes met him in one place\nand sometimes in another. But by a caprice incident to such tempers he\ntreated this cleric exceptionally, and even with a surly sort of\ncourtesy, though he grumbled about his visits behind his back.\n\nI do not know that he had a great deal of moral courage, and the\necclesiastic looked severe and self-possessed; and somehow he thought\nhe had no good opinion of him, and if a natural occasion were offered,\nmight say extremely unpleasant things, and hard to be answered.\n\nWell the time came at last, when poor Peg O'Neill--in an evil hour\nMrs. James Walshawe--must cry, and quake, and pray her last. The\ndoctor came from Penlynden, and was just as vague as usual, but more\ngloomy, and for about a week came and went oftener. The cleric in the\nlong black frock was also daily there. And at last came that last\nsacrament in the gates of death, when the sinner is traversing those\ndread steps that never can be retraced; when the face is turned for\never from life, and we see a receding shape, and hear a voice already\nirrevocably in the land of spirits.\n\nSo the poor lady died; and some people said the Captain \"felt it very\nmuch.\" I don't think he did. But he was not very well just then, and\nlooked the part of mourner and penitent to admiration--being seedy and\nsick. He drank a great deal of brandy and water that night, and called\nin Farmer Dobbs, for want of better company, to drink with him; and\ntold him all his grievances, and how happy he and \"the poor lady\nup-stairs\" might have been, had it not been for liars, and\npick-thanks, and tale-bearers, and the like, who came between\nthem--meaning Molly Doyle--whom, as he waxed eloquent over his liquor,\nhe came at last to curse and rail at by name, with more than his\naccustomed freedom. And he described his own natural character and\namiability in such moving terms, that he wept maudlin tears of\nsensibility over his theme; and when Dobbs was gone, drank some more\ngrog, and took to railing and cursing again by himself; and then\nmounted the stairs unsteadily, to see \"what the devil Doyle and the\nother ---- old witches were about in poor Peg's room.\"\n\nWhen he pushed open the door, he found some half-dozen crones, chiefly\nIrish, from the neighbouring town of Hackleton, sitting over tea and\nsnuff, etc., with candles lighted round the corpse, which was arrayed\nin a strangely cut robe of brown serge. She had secretly belonged to\nsome order--I think the Carmelite, but I am not certain--and wore the\nhabit in her coffin.\n\n\"What the d---- are you doing with my wife?\" cried the Captain, rather\nthickly. \"How dare you dress her up in this ---- trumpery, you--you\ncheating old witch; and what's that candle doing in her hand?\"\n\nI think he was a little startled, for the spectacle was grisly\nenough. The dead lady was arrayed in this strange brown robe, and in\nher rigid fingers, as in a socket, with the large wooden beads and\ncross wound round it, burned a wax candle, shedding its white light\nover the sharp features of the corpse. Moll Doyle was not to be put\ndown by the Captain, whom she hated, and accordingly, in her phrase,\n\"he got as good as he gave.\" And the Captain's wrath waxed fiercer,\nand he chucked the wax taper from the dead hand, and was on the point\nof flinging it at the old serving-woman's head.\n\n\"The holy candle, you sinner!\" cried she.\n\n\"I've a mind to make you eat it, you beast,\" cried the Captain.\n\nBut I think he had not known before what it was, for he subsided a\nlittle sulkily, and he stuffed his hand with the candle (quite extinct\nby this time) into his pocket, and said he--\n\n\"You know devilish well you had no business going on with y-y-your\nd---- _witch_-craft about my poor wife, without my leave--you do--and\nyou'll please take off that d---- brown pinafore, and get her decently\ninto her coffin, and I'll pitch your devil's waxlight into the sink.\"\n\nAnd the Captain stalked out of the room.\n\n\"An' now her poor sowl's in prison, you wretch, be the mains o' ye;\nan' may yer own be shut into the wick o' that same candle, till it's\nburned out, ye savage.\"\n\n\"I'd have you ducked for a witch, for two-pence,\" roared the Captain\nup the staircase, with his hand on the banisters, standing on the\nlobby. But the door of the chamber of death clapped angrily, and he\nwent down to the parlour, where he examined the holy candle for a\nwhile, with a tipsy gravity, and then with something of that\nreverential feeling for the symbolic, which is not uncommon in rakes\nand scamps, he thoughtfully locked it up in a press, where were\naccumulated all sorts of obsolete rubbish--soiled packs of cards,\ndisused tobacco pipes, broken powder flasks, his military sword, and a\ndusky bundle of the \"Flash Songster,\" and other questionable\nliterature.\n\nHe did not trouble the dead lady's room any more. Being a volatile man\nit is probable that more cheerful plans and occupations began to\nentertain his fancy.\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n_My Uncle Watson Visits Wauling_\n\nSo the poor lady was buried decently, and Captain Walshawe reigned\nalone for many years at Wauling. He was too shrewd and too experienced\nby this time to run violently down the steep hill that leads to ruin.\nSo there was a method in his madness; and after a widowed career of\nmore than forty years, he, too, died at last with some guineas in his\npurse.\n\nForty years and upwards is a great _edax rerum_, and a wonderful\nchemical power. It acted forcibly upon the gay Captain Walshawe. Gout\nsupervened, and was no more conducive to temper than to enjoyment, and\nmade his elegant hands lumpy at all the small joints, and turned them\nslowly into crippled claws. He grew stout when his exercise was\ninterfered with, and ultimately almost corpulent. He suffered from\nwhat Mr. Holloway calls \"bad legs,\" and was wheeled about in a great\nleathern-backed chair, and his infirmities went on accumulating with\nhis years.\n\nI am sorry to say, I never heard that he repented, or turned his\nthoughts seriously to the future. On the contrary, his talk grew\nfouler, and his fun ran upon his favourite sins, and his temper waxed\nmore truculent. But he did not sink into dotage. Considering his\nbodily infirmities, his energies and his malignities, which were many\nand active, were marvellously little abated by time. So he went on to\nthe close. When his temper was stirred, he cursed and swore in a way\nthat made decent people tremble. It was a word and a blow with him;\nthe latter, luckily, not very sure now. But he would seize his crutch\nand make a swoop or a pound at the offender, or shy his\nmedicine-bottle, or his tumbler, at his head.\n\nIt was a peculiarity of Captain Walshawe, that he, by this time, hated\nnearly everybody. My uncle, Mr. Watson, of Haddlestone, was cousin to\nthe Captain, and his heir-at-law. But my uncle had lent him money on\nmortgage of his estates, and there had been a treaty to sell, and\nterms and a price were agreed upon, in \"articles\" which the lawyers\nsaid were still in force.\n\nI think the ill-conditioned Captain bore him a grudge for being richer\nthan he, and would have liked to do him an ill turn. But it did not\nlie in his way; at least while he was living.\n\nMy uncle Watson was a Methodist, and what they call a \"classleader\";\nand, on the whole, a very good man. He was now near fifty--grave, as\nbeseemed his profession--somewhat dry--and a little severe,\nperhaps--but a just man.\n\nA letter from the Penlynden doctor reached him at Haddlestone,\nannouncing the death of the wicked old Captain; and suggesting his\nattendance at the funeral, and the expediency of his being on the spot\nto look after things at Wauling. The reasonableness of this striking\nmy good uncle, he made his journey to the old house in Lancashire\nincontinently, and reached it in time for the funeral.\n\nMy uncle, whose traditions of the Captain were derived from his\nmother, who remembered him in his slim, handsome youth--in shorts,\ncocked-hat and lace, was amazed at the bulk of the coffin which\ncontained his mortal remains; but the lid being already screwed down,\nhe did not see the face of the bloated old sinner.\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n_In the Parlour_\n\nWhat I relate, I had from the lips of my uncle, who was a truthful\nman, and not prone to fancies.\n\nThe day turning out awfully rainy and tempestuous, he persuaded the\ndoctor and the attorney to remain for the night at Wauling.\n\nThere was no will--the attorney was sure of that; for the Captain's\nenmities were perpetually shifting, and he could never quite make up\nhis mind, as to how best to give effect to a malignity whose direction\nwas constantly being modified. He had had instructions for drawing a\nwill a dozen times over. But the process had always been arrested by\nthe intending testator.\n\nSearch being made, no will was found. The papers, indeed, were all\nright, with one important exception: the leases were nowhere to be\nseen. There were special circumstances connected with several of the\nprincipal tenancies on the estate--unnecessary here to detail--which\nrendered the loss of these documents one of very serious moment, and\neven of very obvious danger.\n\nMy uncle, therefore, searched strenuously. The attorney was at his\nelbow, and the doctor helped with a suggestion now and then. The old\nserving-man seemed an honest deaf creature, and really knew nothing.\n\nMy uncle Watson was very much perturbed. He fancied--but this possibly\nwas only fancy--that he had detected for a moment a queer look in the\nattorney's face; and from that instant it became fixed in his mind\nthat he knew all about the leases. Mr. Watson expounded that evening\nin the parlour to the doctor, the attorney, and the deaf servant.\nAnanias and Sapphira figured in the foreground; and the awful nature\nof fraud and theft, of tampering in anywise with the plain rule of\nhonesty in matters pertaining to estates, etc., were pointedly dwelt\nupon; and then came a long and strenuous prayer, in which he entreated\nwith fervour and aplomb that the hard heart of the sinner who had\nabstracted the leases might be softened or broken in such a way as to\nlead to their restitution; or that, if he continued reserved and\ncontumacious, it might at least be the will of Heaven to bring him to\npublic justice and the documents to light. The fact is, that he was\npraying all this time at the attorney.\n\nWhen these religious exercises were over, the visitors retired to\ntheir rooms, and my Uncle Watson wrote two or three pressing letters\nby the fire. When his task was done, it had grown late; the candles\nwere flaring in their sockets, and all in bed, and, I suppose, asleep,\nbut he.\n\nThe fire was nearly out, he chilly, and the flame of the candles\nthrobbing strangely in their sockets, shed alternate glare and shadow\nround the old wainscoted room and its quaint furniture. Outside were\nall the wild thunder and piping of the storm; and the rattling of\ndistant windows sounded through the passages, and down the stairs,\nlike angry people astir in the house.\n\nMy Uncle Watson belonged to a sect who by no means rejected the\nsupernatural, and whose founder, on the contrary, has sanctioned\nghosts in the most emphatic way. He was glad therefore to remember,\nthat in prosecuting his search that day, he had seen some six inches\nof wax candle in the press in the parlour; for he had no fancy to be\novertaken by darkness in his present situation. He had no time to\nlose; and taking the bunch of keys--of which he was now master--he\nsoon fitted the lock, and secured the candle--a treasure in his\ncircumstances; and lighting it, he stuffed it into the socket of one\nof the expiring candles, and extinguishing the other, he looked round\nthe room in the steady light reassured. At the same moment, an unusual\nviolent gust of the storm blew a handful of gravel against the parlour\nwindow, with a sharp rattle that startled him in the midst of the roar\nand hubbub; and the flame of the candle itself was agitated by the\nair.\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n_The Bed-Chamber_\n\nMy uncle walked up to bed, guarding his candle with his hand, for the\nlobby windows were rattling furiously, and he disliked the idea of\nbeing left in the dark more than ever.\n\nHis bedroom was comfortable, though old-fashioned. He shut and bolted\nthe door. There was a tall looking-glass opposite the foot of his\nfour-poster, on the dressing-table between the windows. He tried to\nmake the curtains meet, but they would not draw; and like many a\ngentleman in a like perplexity, he did not possess a pin, nor was\nthere one in the huge pincushion beneath the glass.\n\nHe turned the face of the mirror away therefore, so that its back was\npresented to the bed, pulled the curtains together, and placed a chair\nagainst them, to prevent their falling open again. There was a good\nfire, and a reinforcement of round coal and wood inside the fender. So\nhe piled it up to ensure a cheerful blaze through the night, and\nplacing a little black mahogany table, with the legs of a satyr,\nbeside the bed, and his candle upon it, he got between the sheets, and\nlaid his red nightcapped head upon his pillow, and disposed himself to\nsleep.\n\nThe first thing that made him uncomfortable was a sound at the foot of\nhis bed, quite distinct in a momentary lull of the storm. It was only\nthe gentle rustle and rush of the curtains, which fell open again; and\nas his eyes opened, he saw them resuming their perpendicular\ndependence, and sat up in his bed almost expecting to see something\nuncanny in the aperture.\n\nThere was nothing, however, but the dressing-table, and other dark\nfurniture, and the window-curtains faintly undulating in the violence\nof the storm. He did not care to get up, therefore--the fire being\nbright and cheery--to replace the curtains by a chair, in the position\nin which he had left them, anticipating possibly a new recurrence of\nthe relapse which had startled him from his incipient doze.\n\nSo he got to sleep in a little while again, but he was disturbed by a\nsound, as he fancied, at the table on which stood the candle. He could\nnot say what it was, only that he wakened with a start, and lying so\nin some amaze, he did distinctly hear a sound which startled him a\ngood deal, though there was nothing necessarily supernatural in it. He\ndescribed it as resembling what would occur if you fancied a thinnish\ntable-leaf, with a convex warp in it, depressed the reverse way, and\nsuddenly with a spring recovering its natural convexity. It was a\nloud, sudden thump, which made the heavy candlestick jump, and there\nwas an end, except that my uncle did not get again into a doze for ten\nminutes at least.\n\nThe next time he awoke, it was in that odd, serene way that sometimes\noccurs. We open our eyes, we know not why, quite placidly, and are on\nthe instant wide awake. He had had a nap of some duration this time,\nfor his candle-flame was fluttering and flaring, _in articulo_, in the\nsilver socket. But the fire was still bright and cheery; so he popped\nthe extinguisher on the socket, and almost at the same time there came\na tap at his door, and a sort of crescendo \"hush-sh-sh!\" Once more my\nuncle was sitting up, scared and perturbed, in his bed. He\nrecollected, however, that he had bolted his door; and such inveterate\nmaterialists are we in the midst of our spiritualism, that this\nreassured him, and he breathed a deep sigh, and began to grow\ntranquil. But after a rest of a minute or two, there came a louder and\nsharper knock at his door; so that instinctively he called out, \"Who's\nthere?\" in a loud, stern key. There was no sort of response, however.\nThe nervous effect of the start subsided; and I think my uncle must\nhave remembered how constantly, especially on a stormy night, these\ncreaks or cracks which simulate all manner of goblin noises, make\nthemselves naturally audible.\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n_The Extinguisher Is Lifted_\n\nAfter a while, then, he lay down with his back turned toward that side\nof the bed at which was the door, and his face toward the table on\nwhich stood the massive old candlestick, capped with its extinguisher,\nand in that position he closed his eyes. But sleep would not revisit\nthem. All kinds of queer fancies began to trouble him--some of them I\nremember.\n\nHe felt the point of a finger, he averred, pressed most distinctly on\nthe tip of his great toe, as if a living hand were between his sheets,\nand making a sort of signal of attention or silence. Then again he\nfelt something as large as a rat make a sudden bounce in the middle of\nhis bolster, just under his head. Then a voice said \"Oh!\" very gently,\nclose at the back of his head. All these things he felt certain of,\nand yet investigation led to nothing. He felt odd little cramps\nstealing now and then about him; and then, on a sudden, the middle\nfinger of his right hand was plucked backwards, with a light playful\njerk that frightened him awfully.\n\nMeanwhile the storm kept singing, and howling, and ha-ha-hooing\nhoarsely among the limbs of the old trees and the chimney-pots; and my\nUncle Watson, although he prayed and meditated as was his wont when he\nlay awake, felt his heart throb excitedly, and sometimes thought he\nwas beset with evil spirits, and at others that he was in the early\nstage of a fever.\n\nHe resolutely kept his eyes closed, however, and, like St. Paul's\nshipwrecked companions, wished for the day. At last another little\ndoze seems to have stolen upon his senses, for he awoke quietly and\ncompletely as before--opening his eyes all at once, and seeing\neverything as if he had not slept for a moment.\n\nThe fire was still blazing redly--nothing uncertain in the light--the\nmassive silver candlestick, topped with its tall extinguisher, stood\non the centre of the black mahogany table as before; and, looking by\nwhat seemed a sort of accident to the apex of this, he beheld\nsomething which made him quite misdoubt the evidence of his eyes.\n\nHe saw the extinguisher lifted by a tiny hand, from beneath, and a\nsmall human face, no bigger than a thumb-nail, with nicely\nproportioned features, peep from beneath it. In this Lilliputian\ncountenance was such a ghastly consternation as horrified my uncle\nunspeakably. Out came a little foot then and there, and a pair of wee\nlegs, in short silk stockings and buckled shoes, then the rest of the\nfigure; and, with the arms holding about the socket, the little legs\nstretched and stretched, hanging about the stem of the candlestick\ntill the feet reached the base, and so down the satyr-like leg of the\ntable, till they reached the floor, extending elastically, and\nstrangely enlarging in all proportions as they approached the ground,\nwhere the feet and buckles were those of a well-shaped, full grown\nman, and the figure tapering upward until it dwindled to its original\nfairy dimensions at the top, like an object seen in some strangely\ncurved mirror.\n\nStanding upon the floor he expanded, my amazed uncle could not tell\nhow, into his proper proportions; and stood pretty nearly in profile\nat the bedside, a handsome and elegantly shaped young man, in a bygone\nmilitary costume, with a small laced, three-cocked hat and plume on\nhis head, but looking like a man going to be hanged--in unspeakable\ndespair.\n\nHe stepped lightly to the hearth, and turned for a few seconds very\ndejectedly with his back toward the bed and the mantel-piece, and he\nsaw the hilt of his rapier glittering in the firelight; and then\nwalking across the room he placed himself at the dressing-table,\nvisible through the divided curtains at the foot of the bed. The fire\nwas blazing still so brightly that my uncle saw him as distinctly as\nif half a dozen candles were burning.\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n_The Visitation Culminates_\n\nThe looking-glass was an old-fashioned piece of furniture, and had a\ndrawer beneath it. My uncle had searched it carefully for the papers\nin the daytime; but the silent figure pulled the drawer quite out,\npressed a spring at the side, disclosing a false receptable behind it,\nand from this he drew a parcel of papers tied together with pink tape.\n\nAll this time my uncle was staring at him in a horrified state,\nneither winking nor breathing, and the apparition had not once given\nthe smallest intimation of consciousness that a living person was in\nthe same room. But now, for the first time, it turned its livid stare\nfull upon my uncle with a hateful smile of significance, lifting up\nthe little parcel of papers between his slender finger and thumb. Then\nhe made a long, cunning wink at him, and seemed to blow out one of his\ncheeks in a burlesque grimace, which, but for the horrific\ncircumstances, would have been ludicrous. My uncle could not tell\nwhether this was really an intentional distortion or only one of those\nhorrid ripples and deflections which were constantly disturbing the\nproportions of the figure, as if it were seen through some unequal and\nperverting medium.\n\nThe figure now approached the bed, seeming to grow exhausted and\nmalignant as it did so. My uncle's terror nearly culminated at this\npoint, for he believed it was drawing near him with an evil purpose.\nBut it was not so; for the soldier, over whom twenty years seemed to\nhave passed in his brief transit to the dressing-table and back again,\nthrew himself into a great high-backed arm-chair of stuffed leather at\nthe far side of the fire, and placed his heels on the fender. His feet\nand legs seemed indistinctly to swell, and swathings showed themselves\nround them, and they grew into something enormous, and the upper\nfigure swayed and shaped itself into corresponding proportions, a\ngreat mass of corpulence, with a cadaverous and malignant face, and\nthe furrows of a great old age, and colourless glassy eyes; and with\nthese changes, which came indefinitely but rapidly as those of a\nsunset cloud, the fine regimentals faded away, and a loose, gray,\nwoollen drapery, somehow, was there in its stead; and all seemed to be\nstained and rotten, for swarms of worms seemed creeping in and out,\nwhile the figure grew paler and paler, till my uncle, who liked his\npipe, and employed the simile naturally, said the whole effigy grew to\nthe colour of tobacco ashes, and the clusters of worms into little\nwriggling knots of sparks such as we see running over the residuum of\na burnt sheet of paper. And so with the strong draught caused by the\nfire, and the current of air from the window, which was rattling in\nthe storm, the feet seemed to be drawn into the fire-place, and the\nwhole figure, light as ashes, floated away with them, and disappeared\nwith a whisk up the capacious old chimney.\n\nIt seemed to my uncle that the fire suddenly darkened and the air grew\nicy cold, and there came an awful roar and riot of tempest, which\nshook the old house from top to base, and sounded like the yelling of\na blood-thirsty mob on receiving a new and long-expected victim.\n\nGood Uncle Watson used to say, \"I have been in many situations of fear\nand danger in the course of my life, but never did I pray with so much\nagony before or since; for then, as now, it was clear beyond a cavil\nthat I had actually beheld the phantom of an evil spirit.\"\n\n\nCONCLUSION\n\nNow there are two curious circumstances to be observed in this\nrelation of my uncle's, who was, as I have said, a perfectly veracious\nman.\n\nFirst--The wax candle which he took from the press in the parlour and\nburnt at his bedside on that horrible night was unquestionably,\naccording to the testimony of the old deaf servant, who had been fifty\nyears at Wauling, that identical piece of \"holy candle\" which had\nstood in the fingers of the poor lady's corpse, and concerning which\nthe old Irish crone, long since dead, had delivered the curious curse\nI have mentioned against the Captain.\n\nSecondly--Behind the drawer under the looking-glass, he did actually\ndiscover a second but secret drawer, in which were concealed the\nidentical papers which he had suspected the attorney of having made\naway with. There were circumstances, too, afterwards disclosed which\nconvinced my uncle that the old man had deposited them there\npreparatory to burning them, which he had nearly made up his mind to\ndo.\n\nNow, a very remarkable ingredient in this tale of my Uncle Watson was\nthis, that so far as my father, who had never seen Captain Walshawe in\nthe course of his life, could gather, the phantom had exhibited a\nhorrible and grotesque, but unmistakeable resemblance to that defunct\nscamp in the various stages of his long life.\n\nWauling was sold in the year 1837, and the old house shortly after\npulled down, and a new one built nearer to the river. I often wonder\nwhether it was rumoured to be haunted, and, if so, what stories were\ncurrent about it. It was a commodious and stanch old house, and withal\nrather handsome; and its demolition was certainly suspicious.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHILD THAT WENT WITH THE FAIRIES\n\n\nEastward of the old city of Limerick, about ten Irish miles under the\nrange of mountains known as the Slieveelim hills, famous as having\nafforded Sarsfield a shelter among their rocks and hollows, when he\ncrossed them in his gallant descent upon the cannon and ammunition of\nKing William, on its way to the beleaguering army, there runs a very\nold and narrow road. It connects the Limerick road to Tipperary with\nthe old road from Limerick to Dublin, and runs by bog and pasture,\nhill and hollow, straw-thatched village, and roofless castle, not far\nfrom twenty miles.\n\nSkirting the healthy mountains of which I have spoken, at one part it\nbecomes singularly lonely. For more than three Irish miles it\ntraverses a deserted country. A wide, black bog, level as a lake,\nskirted with copse, spreads at the left, as you journey northward, and\nthe long and irregular line of mountain rises at the right, clothed in\nheath, broken with lines of grey rock that resemble the bold and\nirregular outlines of fortifications, and riven with many a gully,\nexpanding here and there into rocky and wooded glens, which open as\nthey approach the road.\n\nA scanty pasturage, on which browsed a few scattered sheep or kine,\nskirts this solitary road for some miles, and under shelter of a\nhillock, and of two or three great ash-trees, stood, not many years\nago, the little thatched cabin of a widow named Mary Ryan.\n\nPoor was this widow in a land of poverty. The thatch had acquired the\ngrey tint and sunken outlines, that show how the alternations of rain\nand sun have told upon that perishable shelter.\n\nBut whatever other dangers threatened, there was one well provided\nagainst by the care of other times. Round the cabin stood half a dozen\nmountain ashes, as the rowans, inimical to witches, are there called.\nOn the worn planks of the door were nailed two horse-shoes, and over\nthe lintel and spreading along the thatch, grew, luxuriant, patches of\nthat ancient cure for many maladies, and prophylactic against the\nmachinations of the evil one, the house-leek. Descending into the\ndoorway, in the _chiaroscuro_ of the interior, when your eye grew\nsufficiently accustomed to that dim light, you might discover, hanging\nat the head of the widow's wooden-roofed bed, her beads and a phial of\nholy water.\n\nHere certainly were defences and bulwarks against the intrusion of\nthat unearthly and evil power, of whose vicinity this solitary family\nwere constantly reminded by the outline of Lisnavoura, that lonely\nhillhaunt of the \"Good people,\" as the fairies are called\neuphemistically, whose strangely dome-like summit rose not half a mile\naway, looking like an outwork of the long line of mountain that sweeps\nby it.\n\nIt was at the fall of the leaf, and an autumnal sunset threw the\nlengthening shadow of haunted Lisnavoura, close in front of the\nsolitary little cabin, over the undulating slopes and sides of\nSlieveelim. The birds were singing among the branches in the thinning\nleaves of the melancholy ash-trees that grew at the roadside in front\nof the door. The widow's three younger children were playing on the\nroad, and their voices mingled with the evening song of the birds.\nTheir elder sister, Nell, was \"within in the house,\" as their phrase\nis, seeing after the boiling of the potatoes for supper.\n\nTheir mother had gone down to the bog, to carry up a hamper of turf on\nher back. It is, or was at least, a charitable custom--and if not\ndisused, long may it continue--for the wealthier people when cutting\ntheir turf and stacking it in the bog, to make a smaller stack for the\nbehoof of the poor, who were welcome to take from it so long as it\nlasted, and thus the potato pot was kept boiling, and hearth warm that\nwould have been cold enough but for that good-natured bounty, through\nwintry months.\n\nMoll Ryan trudged up the steep \"bohereen\" whose banks were overgrown\nwith thorn and brambles, and stooping under her burden, re-entered her\ndoor, where her dark-haired daughter Nell met her with a welcome, and\nrelieved her of her hamper.\n\nMoll Ryan looked round with a sigh of relief, and drying her forehead,\nuttered the Munster ejaculation:\n\n\"Eiah, wisha! It's tired I am with it, God bless it. And where's the\ncraythurs, Nell?\"\n\n\"Playin' out on the road, mother; didn't ye see them and you comin'\nup?\"\n\n\"No; there was no one before me on the road,\" she said, uneasily; \"not\na soul, Nell; and why didn't ye keep an eye on them?\"\n\n\"Well, they're in the haggard, playin' there, or round by the back o'\nthe house. Will I call them in?\"\n\n\"Do so, good girl, in the name o' God. The hens is comin' home, see,\nand the sun was just down over Knockdoulah, an' I comin' up.\"\n\nSo out ran tall, dark-haired Nell, and standing on the road, looked up\nand down it; but not a sign of her two little brothers, Con and Bill,\nor her little sister, Peg, could she see. She called them; but no\nanswer came from the little haggard, fenced with straggling bushes.\nShe listened, but the sound of their voices was missing. Over the\nstile, and behind the house she ran--but there all was silent and\ndeserted.\n\nShe looked down toward the bog, as far as she could see; but they did\nnot appear. Again she listened--but in vain. At first she had felt\nangry, but now a different feeling overcame her, and she grew pale.\nWith an undefined boding she looked toward the heathy boss of\nLisnavoura, now darkening into the deepest purple against the flaming\nsky of sunset.\n\nAgain she listened with a sinking heart, and heard nothing but the\nfarewell twitter and whistle of the birds in the bushes around. How\nmany stories had she listened to by the winter hearth, of children\nstolen by the fairies, at nightfall, in lonely places! With this fear\nshe knew her mother was haunted.\n\nNo one in the country round gathered her little flock about her so\nearly as this frightened widow, and no door \"in the seven parishes\"\nwas barred so early.\n\nSufficiently fearful, as all young people in that part of the world\nare of such dreaded and subtle agents, Nell was even more than usually\nafraid of them, for her terrors were infected and redoubled by her\nmother's. She was looking towards Lisnavoura in a trance of fear, and\ncrossed herself again and again, and whispered prayer after prayer.\nShe was interrupted by her mother's voice on the road calling her\nloudly. She answered, and ran round to the front of the cabin, where\nshe found her standing.\n\n\"And where in the world's the craythurs--did ye see sight o' them\nanywhere?\" cried Mrs. Ryan, as the girl came over the stile.\n\n\"Arrah! mother, 'tis only what they're run down the road a bit. We'll\nsee them this minute coming back. It's like goats they are, climbin'\nhere and runnin' there; an' if I had them here, in my hand, maybe I\nwouldn't give them a hiding all round.\"\n\n\"May the Lord forgive you, Nell! the childhers gone. They're took, and\nnot a soul near us, and Father Tom three miles away! And what'll I do,\nor who's to help us this night? Oh, wirristhru, wirristhru! The\ncraythurs is gone!\"\n\n\"Whisht, mother, be aisy: don't ye see them comin' up?\"\n\nAnd then she shouted in menacing accents, waving her arm, and\nbeckoning the children, who were seen approaching on the road, which\nsome little way off made a slight dip, which had concealed them. They\nwere approaching from the westward, and from the direction of the\ndreaded hill of Lisnavoura.\n\nBut there were only two of the children, and one of them, the little\ngirl, was crying. Their mother and sister hurried forward to meet\nthem, more alarmed than ever.\n\n\"Where is Billy--where is he?\" cried the mother, nearly breathless, so\nsoon as she was within hearing.\n\n\"He's gone--they took him away; but they said he'll come back again,\"\nanswered little Con, with the dark brown hair.\n\n\"He's gone away with the grand ladies,\" blubbered the little girl.\n\n\"What ladies--where? Oh, Leum, asthora! My darlin', are you gone away\nat last? Where is he? Who took him? What ladies are you talkin' about?\nWhat way did he go?\" she cried in distraction.\n\n\"I couldn't see where he went, mother; 'twas like as if he was going\nto Lisnavoura.\"\n\nWith a wild exclamation the distracted woman ran on towards the hill\nalone, clapping her hands, and crying aloud the name of her lost\nchild.\n\nScared and horrified, Nell, not daring to follow, gazed after her, and\nburst into tears; and the other children raised high their\nlamentations in shrill rivalry.\n\nTwilight was deepening. It was long past the time when they were\nusually barred securely within their habitation. Nell led the younger\nchildren into the cabin, and made them sit down by the turf fire,\nwhile she stood in the open door, watching in great fear for the\nreturn of her mother.\n\nAfter a long while they did see their mother return. She came in and\nsat down by the fire, and cried as if her heart would break.\n\n\"Will I bar the doore, mother?\" asked Nell.\n\n\"Ay, do--didn't I lose enough, this night, without lavin' the doore\nopen, for more o' yez to go; but first take an' sprinkle a dust o' the\nholy waters over ye, acuishla, and bring it here till I throw a taste\niv it over myself and the craythurs; an' I wondher, Nell, you'd forget\nto do the like yourself, lettin' the craythurs out so near nightfall.\nCome here and sit on my knees, asthora, come to me, mavourneen, and\nhould me fast, in the name o' God, and I'll hould you fast that none\ncan take yez from me, and tell me all about it, and what it was--the\nLord between us and harm--an' how it happened, and who was in it.\"\n\nAnd the door being barred, the two children, sometimes speaking\ntogether, often interrupting one another, often interrupted by their\nmother, managed to tell this strange story, which I had better relate\nconnectedly and in my own language.\n\nThe Widow Ryan's three children were playing, as I have said, upon the\nnarrow old road in front of her door. Little Bill or Leum, about five\nyears old, with golden hair and large blue eyes, was a very pretty\nboy, with all the clear tints of healthy childhood, and that gaze of\nearnest simplicity which belongs not to town children of the same age.\nHis little sister Peg, about a year older, and his brother Con, a\nlittle more than a year elder than she, made up the little group.\n\nUnder the great old ash-trees, whose last leaves were falling at their\nfeet, in the light of an October sunset, they were playing with the\nhilarity and eagerness of rustic children, clamouring together, and\ntheir faces were turned toward the west and storied hill of\nLisnavoura.\n\nSuddenly a startling voice with a screech called to them from behind,\nordering them to get out of the way, and turning, they saw a sight,\nsuch as they never beheld before. It was a carriage drawn by four\nhorses that were pawing and snorting, in impatience, as it just pulled\nup. The children were almost under their feet, and scrambled to the\nside of the road next their own door.\n\nThis carriage and all its appointments were old-fashioned and\ngorgeous, and presented to the children, who had never seen anything\nfiner than a turf car, and once, an old chaise that passed that way\nfrom Killaloe, a spectacle perfectly dazzling.\n\nHere was antique splendour. The harness and trappings were scarlet,\nand blazing with gold. The horses were huge, and snow white, with\ngreat manes, that as they tossed and shook them in the air, seemed to\nstream and float sometimes longer and sometimes shorter, like so much\nsmoke--their tails were long, and tied up in bows of broad scarlet and\ngold ribbon. The coach itself was glowing with colours, gilded and\nemblazoned. There were footmen in gay liveries, and three-cocked hats,\nlike the coachman's; but he had a great wig, like a judge's, and their\nhair was frizzed out and powdered, and a long thick \"pigtail,\" with a\nbow to it, hung down the back of each.\n\nAll these servants were diminutive, and ludicrously out of proportion\nwith the enormous horses of the equipage, and had sharp, sallow\nfeatures, and small, restless fiery eyes, and faces of cunning and\nmalice that chilled the children. The little coachman was scowling and\nshowing his white fangs under his cocked hat, and his little blazing\nbeads of eyes were quivering with fury in their sockets as he whirled\nhis whip round and round over their heads, till the lash of it looked\nlike a streak of fire in the evening sun, and sounded like the cry of\na legion of \"fillapoueeks\" in the air.\n\n\"Stop the princess on the highway!\" cried the coachman, in a piercing\ntreble.\n\n\"Stop the princess on the highway!\" piped each footman in turn,\nscowling over his shoulder down on the children, and grinding his keen\nteeth.\n\nThe children were so frightened they could only gape and turn white in\ntheir panic. But a very sweet voice from the open window of the\ncarriage reassured them, and arrested the attack of the lackeys.\n\nA beautiful and \"very grand-looking\" lady was smiling from it on them,\nand they all felt pleased in the strange light of that smile.\n\n\"The boy with the golden hair, I think,\" said the lady, bending her\nlarge and wonderfully clear eyes on little Leum.\n\nThe upper sides of the carriage were chiefly of glass, so that the\nchildren could see another woman inside, whom they did not like so\nwell.\n\nThis was a black woman, with a wonderfully long neck, hung round with\nmany strings of large variously-coloured beads, and on her head was a\nsort of turban of silk striped with all the colours of the rainbow,\nand fixed in it was a golden star.\n\nThis black woman had a face as thin almost as a death's-head, with\nhigh cheekbones, and great goggle eyes, the whites of which, as well\nas her wide range of teeth, showed in brilliant contrast with her\nskin, as she looked over the beautiful lady's shoulder, and whispered\nsomething in her ear.\n\n\"Yes; the boy with the golden hair, I think,\" repeated the lady.\n\nAnd her voice sounded sweet as a silver bell in the children's ears,\nand her smile beguiled them like the light of an enchanted lamp, as\nshe leaned from the window with a look of ineffable fondness on the\ngolden-haired boy, with the large blue eyes; insomuch that little\nBilly, looking up, smiled in return with a wondering fondness, and\nwhen she stooped down, and stretched her jewelled arms towards him, he\nstretched his little hands up, and how they touched the other children\ndid not know; but, saying, \"Come and give me a kiss, my darling,\" she\nraised him, and he seemed to ascend in her small fingers as lightly as\na feather, and she held him in her lap and covered him with kisses.\n\nNothing daunted, the other children would have been only too happy to\nchange places with their favoured little brother. There was only one\nthing that was unpleasant, and a little frightened them, and that was\nthe black woman, who stood and stretched forward, in the carriage as\nbefore. She gathered a rich silk and gold handkerchief that was in her\nfingers up to her lips, and seemed to thrust ever so much of it, fold\nafter fold, into her capacious mouth, as they thought to smother her\nlaughter, with which she seemed convulsed, for she was shaking and\nquivering, as it seemed, with suppressed merriment; but her eyes,\nwhich remained uncovered, looked angrier than they had ever seen eyes\nlook before.\n\nBut the lady was so beautiful they looked on her instead, and she\ncontinued to caress and kiss the little boy on her knee; and smiling\nat the other children she held up a large russet apple in her fingers,\nand the carriage began to move slowly on, and with a nod inviting them\nto take the fruit, she dropped it on the road from the window; it\nrolled some way beside the wheels, they following, and then she\ndropped another, and then another, and so on. And the same thing\nhappened to all; for just as either of the children who ran beside had\ncaught the rolling apple, somehow it slipt into a hole or ran into a\nditch, and looking up they saw the lady drop another from the window,\nand so the chase was taken up and continued till they got, hardly\nknowing how far they had gone, to the old cross-road that leads to\nOwney. It seemed that there the horses' hoofs and carriage wheels\nrolled up a wonderful dust, which being caught in one of those eddies\nthat whirl the dust up into a column, on the calmest day, enveloped\nthe children for a moment, and passed whirling on towards Lisnavoura,\nthe carriage, as they fancied, driving in the centre of it; but\nsuddenly it subsided, the straws and leaves floated to the ground, the\ndust dissipated itself, but the white horses and the lackeys, the\ngilded carriage, the lady and their little golden-haired brother were\ngone.\n\nAt the same moment suddenly the upper rim of the clear setting sun\ndisappeared behind the hill of Knockdoula, and it was twilight. Each\nchild felt the transition like a shock--and the sight of the rounded\nsummit of Lisnavoura, now closely overhanging them, struck them with a\nnew fear.\n\nThey screamed their brother's name after him, but their cries were\nlost in the vacant air. At the same time they thought they heard a\nhollow voice say, close to them, \"Go home.\"\n\nLooking round and seeing no one, they were scared, and hand in\nhand--the little girl crying wildly, and the boy white as ashes, from\nfear, they trotted homeward, at their best speed, to tell, as we have\nseen, their strange story.\n\nMolly Ryan never more saw her darling. But something of the lost\nlittle boy was seen by his former playmates.\n\nSometimes when their mother was away earning a trifle at haymaking,\nand Nelly washing the potatoes for their dinner, or \"beatling\" clothes\nin the little stream that flows in the hollow close by, they saw the\npretty face of little Billy peeping in archly at the door, and smiling\nsilently at them, and as they ran to embrace him, with cries of\ndelight, he drew back, still smiling archly, and when they got out\ninto the open day, he was gone, and they could see no trace of him\nanywhere.\n\nThis happened often, with slight variations in the circumstances of\nthe visit. Sometimes he would peep for a longer time, sometimes for a\nshorter time, sometimes his little hand would come in, and, with\nbended finger, beckon them to follow; but always he was smiling with\nthe same arch look and wary silence--and always he was gone when they\nreached the door. Gradually these visits grew less and less frequent,\nand in about eight months they ceased altogether, and little Billy,\nirretrievably lost, took rank in their memories with the dead.\n\nOne wintry morning, nearly a year and a half after his disappearance,\ntheir mother having set out for Limerick soon after cockcrow, to sell\nsome fowls at the market, the little girl, lying by the side of her\nelder sister, who was fast asleep, just at the grey of the morning\nheard the latch lifted softly, and saw little Billy enter and close\nthe door gently after him. There was light enough to see that he was\nbarefoot and ragged, and looked pale and famished. He went straight to\nthe fire, and cowered over the turf embers, and rubbed his hands\nslowly, and seemed to shiver as he gathered the smouldering turf\ntogether.\n\nThe little girl clutched her sister in terror and whispered, \"Waken,\nNelly, waken; here's Billy come back!\"\n\nNelly slept soundly on, but the little boy, whose hands were extended\nclose over the coals, turned and looked toward the bed, it seemed to\nher, in fear, and she saw the glare of the embers reflected on his\nthin cheek as he turned toward her. He rose and went, on tiptoe,\nquickly to the door, in silence, and let himself out as softly as he\nhad come in.\n\nAfter that, the little boy was never seen any more by any one of his\nkindred.\n\n\"Fairy doctors,\" as the dealers in the preternatural, who in such\ncases were called in, are termed, did all that in them lay--but in\nvain. Father Tom came down, and tried what holier rites could do, but\nequally without result. So little Billy was dead to mother, brother,\nand sisters; but no grave received him. Others whom affection\ncherished, lay in holy ground, in the old churchyard of Abington, with\nheadstone to mark the spot over which the survivor might kneel and say\na kind prayer for the peace of the departed soul. But there was no\nlandmark to show where little Billy was hidden from their loving eyes,\nunless it was in the old hill of Lisnavoura, that cast its long shadow\nat sunset before the cabin-door; or that, white and filmy in the\nmoonlight, in later years, would occupy his brother's gaze as he\nreturned from fair or market, and draw from him a sigh and a prayer\nfor the little brother he had lost so long ago, and was never to see\nagain.\n\n\n\n\nSTORIES OF LOUGH GUIR\n\n\nWhen the present writer was a boy of twelve or thirteen, he first made\nthe acquaintance of Miss Anne Baily, of Lough Guir, in the county of\nLimerick. She and her sister were the last representatives at that\nplace, of an extremely good old name in the county. They were both\nwhat is termed \"old maids,\" and at that time past sixty. But never\nwere old ladies more hospitable, lively, and kind, especially to young\npeople. They were both remarkably agreeable and clever. Like all old\ncounty ladies of their time, they were great genealogists, and could\nrecount the origin, generations, and intermarriages, of every county\nfamily of note.\n\nThese ladies were visited at their house at Lough Guir by Mr. Crofton\nCroker; and are, I think, mentioned, by name, in the second series of\nhis fairy legends; the series in which (probably communicated by Miss\nAnne Baily), he recounts some of the picturesque traditions of those\nbeautiful lakes--lakes, I should no longer say, for the smaller and\nprettier has since been drained, and gave up from its depths some long\nlost and very interesting relics.\n\nIn their drawing-room stood a curious relic of another sort: old\nenough, too, though belonging to a much more modern period. It was the\nancient stirrup cup of the hospitable house of Lough Guir. Crofton\nCroker has preserved a sketch of this curious glass. I have often had\nit in my hand. It had a short stem; and the cup part, having the\nbottom rounded, rose cylindrically, and, being of a capacity to\ncontain a whole bottle of claret, and almost as narrow as an\nold-fashioned ale glass, was tall to a degree that filled me with\nwonder. As it obliged the rider to extend his arm as he raised the\nglass, it must have tried a tipsy man, sitting in the saddle, pretty\nseverely. The wonder was that the marvellous tall glass had come down\nto our times without a crack.\n\nThere was another glass worthy of remark in the same drawing-room. It\nwas gigantic, and shaped conically, like one of those old-fashioned\njelly glasses which used to be seen upon the shelves of confectioners.\nIt was engraved round the rim with the words, \"The glorious, pious,\nand immortal memory\"; and on grand occasions, was filled to the brim,\nand after the manner of a loving cup, made the circuit of the Whig\nguests, who owed all to the hero whose memory its legend invoked.\n\nIt was now but the transparent phantom of those solemn convivialities\nof a generation, who lived, as it were, within hearing of the cannon\nand shoutings of those stirring times. When I saw it, this glass had\nlong retired from politics and carousals, and stood peacefully on a\nlittle table in the drawing-room, where ladies' hands replenished it\nwith fair water, and crowned it daily with flowers from the garden.\n\nMiss Anne Baily's conversation ran oftener than her sister's upon the\nlegendary and supernatural; she told her stories with the sympathy,\nthe colour, and the mysterious air which contribute so powerfully to\neffect, and never wearied of answering questions about the old castle,\nand amusing her young audience with fascinating little glimpses of old\nadventure and bygone days. My memory retains the picture of my early\nfriend very distinctly. A slim straight figure, above the middle\nheight; a general likeness to the full-length portrait of that\ndelightful Countess d'Aulnois, to whom we all owe our earliest and\nmost brilliant glimpses of fairy-land; something of her\ngravely-pleasant countenance, plain, but refined and ladylike, with\nthat kindly mystery in her side-long glance and uplifted finger, which\nindicated the approaching climax of a tale of wonder.\n\nLough Guir is a kind of centre of the operations of the Munster\nfairies. When a child is stolen by the \"good people,\" Lough Guir is\nconjectured to be the place of its unearthly transmutation from the\nhuman to the fairy state. And beneath its waters lie enchanted, the\ngrand old castle of the Desmonds, the great earl himself, his\nbeautiful young countess, and all the retinue that surrounded him in\nthe years of his splendour, and at the moment of his catastrophe.\n\nHere, too, are historic associations. The huge square tower that rises\nat one side of the stable-yard close to the old house, to a height\nthat amazed my young eyes, though robbed of its battlements and one\nstory, was a stronghold of the last rebellious Earl of Desmond, and is\nspecially mentioned in that delightful old folio, the _Hibernia\nPacata_, as having, with its Irish garrison on the battlements, defied\nthe army of the lord deputy, then marching by upon the summits of the\noverhanging hills. The house, built under shelter of this stronghold\nof the once proud and turbulent Desmonds, is old, but snug, with a\nmultitude of small low rooms, such as I have seen in houses of the\nsame age in Shropshire and the neighbouring English counties.\n\nThe hills that overhang the lakes appeared to me, in my young days\n(and I have not seen them since), to be clothed with a short soft\nverdure, of a hue so dark and vivid as I had never seen before.\n\nIn one of the lakes is a small island, rocky and wooded, which is\nbelieved by the peasantry to represent the top of the highest tower of\nthe castle which sank, under a spell, to the bottom. In certain states\nof the atmosphere, I have heard educated people say, when in a boat\nyou have reached a certain distance, the island appears to rise some\nfeet from the water, its rocks assume the appearance of masonry, and\nthe whole circuit presents very much the effect of the battlements of\na castle rising above the surface of the lake.\n\nThis was Miss Anne Baily's story of the submersion of this lost\ncastle:\n\n\n_The Magician Earl_\n\nIt is well known that the great Earl of Desmond, though history\npretends to dispose of him differently, lives to this hour enchanted\nin his castle, with all his household, at the bottom of the lake.\n\nThere was not, in his day, in all the world, so accomplished a\nmagician as he. His fairest castle stood upon an island in the lake,\nand to this he brought his young and beautiful bride, whom he loved\nbut too well; for she prevailed upon his folly to risk all to gratify\nher imperious caprice.\n\nThey had not been long in this beautiful castle, when she one day\npresented herself in the chamber in which her husband studied his\nforbidden art, and there implored him to exhibit before her some of\nthe wonders of his evil science. He resisted long; but her entreaties,\ntears, and wheedlings were at length too much for him and he\nconsented.\n\nBut before beginning those astonishing transformations with which he\nwas about to amaze her, he explained to her the awful conditions and\ndangers of the experiment.\n\nAlone in this vast apartment, the walls of which were lapped, far\nbelow, by the lake whose dark waters lay waiting to swallow them, she\nmust witness a certain series of frightful phenomena, which once\ncommenced, he could neither abridge nor mitigate; and if throughout\ntheir ghastly succession she spoke one word, or uttered one\nexclamation, the castle and all that it contained would in one instant\nsubside to the bottom of the lake, there to remain, under the\nservitude of a strong spell, for ages.\n\nThe dauntless curiosity of the lady having prevailed, and the oaken\ndoor of the study being locked and barred, the fatal experiments\ncommenced.\n\nMuttering a spell, as he stood before her, feathers sprouted thickly\nover him, his face became contracted and hooked, a cadaverous smell\nfilled the air, and, with heavy winnowing wings, a gigantic vulture\nrose in his stead, and swept round and round the room, as if on the\npoint of pouncing upon her.\n\nThe lady commanded herself through this trial, and instantly another\nbegan.\n\nThe bird alighted near the door, and in less than a minute changed,\nshe saw not how, into a horribly deformed and dwarfish hag: who, with\nyellow skin hanging about her face and enormous eyes, swung herself on\ncrutches toward the lady, her mouth foaming with fury, and her\ngrimaces and contortions becoming more and more hideous every moment,\ntill she rolled with a yell on the floor, in a horrible convulsion, at\nthe lady's feet, and then changed into a huge serpent, with crest\nerect, and quivering tongue. Suddenly, as it seemed on the point of\ndarting at her, she saw her husband in its stead, standing pale before\nher, and, with his finger on his lip, enforcing the continued\nnecessity of silence. He then placed himself at his length on the\nfloor, and began to stretch himself out and out, longer and longer,\nuntil his head nearly reached to one end of the vast room, and his\nfeet to the other.\n\nThis horror overcame her. The ill-starred lady uttered a wild scream,\nwhereupon the castle and all that was within it, sank in a moment to\nthe bottom of the lake.\n\nBut, once in every seven years, by night, the Earl of Desmond and his\nretinue emerge, and cross the lake, in shadowy cavalcade. His white\nhorse is shod with silver. On that one night, the earl may ride till\ndaybreak, and it behoves him to make good use of his time; for, until\nthe silver shoes of his steed be worn through, the spell that holds\nhim and his beneath the lake, will retain its power.\n\nWhen I (Miss Anne Baily) was a child, there was still living a man\nnamed Teigue O'Neill, who had a strange story to tell.\n\nHe was a smith, and his forge stood on the brow of the hill,\noverlooking the lake, on a lonely part of the road to Cahir Conlish.\nOne bright moonlight night, he was working very late, and quite alone.\nThe clink of his hammer, and the wavering glow reflected through the\nopen door on the bushes at the other side of the narrow road, were the\nonly tokens that told of life and vigil for miles around.\n\nIn one of the pauses of his work, he heard the ring of many hoofs\nascending the steep road that passed his forge, and, standing in this\ndoorway, he was just in time to see a gentleman, on a white horse, who\nwas dressed in a fashion the like of which the smith had never seen\nbefore. This man was accompanied and followed by a mounted retinue, as\nstrangely dressed as he.\n\nThey seemed, by the clang and clatter that announced their approach,\nto be riding up the hill at a hard hurry-scurry gallop; but the pace\nabated as they drew near, and the rider of the white horse who, from\nhis grave and lordly air, he assumed to be a man of rank, and\naccustomed to command, drew bridle and came to a halt before the\nsmith's door.\n\nHe did not speak, and all his train were silent, but he beckoned to\nthe smith, and pointed down to one of his horse's hoofs.\n\nTeigue stooped and raised it, and held it just long enough to see that\nit was shod with a silver shoe; which, in one place, he said, was worn\nas thin as a shilling. Instantaneously, his situation was made\napparent to him by this sign, and he recoiled with a terrified prayer.\nThe lordly rider, with a look of pain and fury, struck at him\nsuddenly, with something that whistled in the air like a whip; and an\nicy streak seemed to traverse his body as if he had been cut through\nwith a leaf of steel. But he was without scathe or scar, as he\nafterwards found. At the same moment he saw the whole cavalcade break\ninto a gallop and disappear down the hill, with a momentary hurtling\nin the air, like the flight of a volley of cannon shot.\n\nHere had been the earl himself. He had tried one of his accustomed\nstratagems to lead the smith to speak to him. For it is well known\nthat either for the purpose of abridging or of mitigating his period\nof enchantment, he seeks to lead people to accost him. But what, in\nthe event of his succeeding, would befall the person whom he had thus\nensnared, no one knows.\n\n\n_Moll Rial's Adventure_\n\nWhen Miss Anne Baily was a child, Moll Rial was an old woman. She had\nlived all her days with the Bailys of Lough Guir; in and about whose\nhouse, as was the Irish custom of those days, were a troop of\nbare-footed country girls, scullery maids, or laundresses, or employed\nabout the poultry yard, or running of errands.\n\nAmong these was Moll Rial, then a stout good-humoured lass, with\nlittle to think of, and nothing to fret about. She was once washing\nclothes by the process known universally in Munster as beetling. The\nwasher stands up to her ankles in water, in which she has immersed the\nclothes, which she lays in that state on a great flat stone, and\nsmacks with lusty strokes of an instrument which bears a rude\nresemblance to a cricket bat, only shorter, broader, and light enough\nto be wielded freely with one hand. Thus, they smack the dripping\nclothes, turning them over and over, sousing them in the water, and\nreplacing them on the same stone, to undergo a repetition of the\nprocess, until they are thoroughly washed.\n\nMoll Rial was plying her \"beetle\" at the margin of the lake, close\nunder the old house and castle. It was between eight and nine o'clock\non a fine summer morning, everything looked bright and beautiful.\nThough quite alone, and though she could not see even the windows of\nthe house (hidden from her view by the irregular ascent and some\ninterposing bushes), her loneliness was not depressing.\n\nStanding up from her work, she saw a gentleman walking slowly down the\nslope toward her. He was a \"grand-looking\" gentleman, arrayed in a\nflowered silk dressing-gown, with a cap of velvet on his head; and as\nhe stepped toward her, in his slippered feet, he showed a very\nhandsome leg. He was smiling graciously as he approached, and drawing\na ring from his finger with an air of gracious meaning, which seemed\nto imply that he wished to make her a present, he raised it in his\nfingers with a pleased look, and placed it on the flat stones beside\nthe clothes she had been beetling so industriously.\n\nHe drew back a little, and continued to look at her with an\nencouraging smile, which seemed to say: \"You have earned your reward;\nyou must not be afraid to take it.\"\n\nThe girl fancied that this was some gentleman who had arrived, as\noften happened in those hospitable and haphazard times, late and\nunexpectedly the night before, and who was now taking a little\nindolent ramble before breakfast.\n\nMoll Rial was a little shy, and more so at having been discovered by\nso grand a gentleman with her petticoats gathered a little high about\nher bare shins. She looked down, therefore, upon the water at her\nfeet, and then she saw a ripple of blood, and then another, ring after\nring, coming and going to and from her feet. She cried out the sacred\nname in horror, and, lifting her eyes, the courtly gentleman was gone,\nbut the blood-rings about her feet spread with the speed of light over\nthe surface of the lake, which for a moment glowed like one vast\nestuary of blood.\n\nHere was the earl once again, and Moll Rial declared that if it had\nnot been for that frightful transformation of the water she would have\nspoken to him next minute, and would thus have passed under a spell,\nperhaps as direful as his own.\n\n\n_The Banshee_\n\nSo old a Munster family as the Bailys, of Lough Guir, could not fail\nto have their attendant banshee. Everyone attached to the family knew\nthis well, and could cite evidences of that unearthly distinction. I\nheard Miss Baily relate the only experience she had personally had of\nthat wild spiritual sympathy.\n\nShe said that, being then young, she and Miss Susan undertook a long\nattendance upon the sick bed of their sister, Miss Kitty, whom I have\nheard remembered among her contemporaries as the merriest and most\nentertaining of human beings. This light-hearted young lady was dying\nof consumption. The sad duties of such attendance being divided among\nmany sisters, as there then were, the night watches devolved upon the\ntwo ladies I have named: I think, as being the eldest.\n\nIt is not improbable that these long and melancholy vigils, lowering\nthe spirits and exciting the nervous system, prepared them for\nillusions. At all events, one night at dead of night, Miss Baily and\nher sister, sitting in the dying lady's room, heard such sweet and\nmelancholy music as they had never heard before. It seemed to them\nlike distant cathedral music. The room of the dying girl had its\nwindows toward the yard, and the old castle stood near, and full in\nsight. The music was not in the house, but seemed to come from the\nyard, or beyond it. Miss Anne Baily took a candle, and went down the\nback stairs. She opened the back door, and, standing there, heard the\nsame faint but solemn harmony, and could not tell whether it most\nresembled the distant music of instruments, or a choir of voices. It\nseemed to come through the windows of the old castle, high in the\nair. But when she approached the tower, the music, she thought, came\nfrom above the house, at the other side of the yard; and thus\nperplexed, and at last frightened, she returned.\n\nThis aerial music both she and her sister, Miss Susan Baily, avowed\nthat they distinctly heard, and for a long time. Of the fact she was\nclear, and she spoke of it with great awe.\n\n\n_The Governess's Dream_\n\nThis lady, one morning, with a grave countenance that indicated\nsomething weighty upon her mind, told her pupils that she had, on the\nnight before, had a very remarkable dream.\n\nThe first room you enter in the old castle, having reached the foot of\nthe spiral stone stair, is a large hall, dim and lofty, having only a\nsmall window or two, set high in deep recesses in the wall. When I saw\nthe castle many years ago, a portion of this capacious chamber was\nused as a store for the turf laid in to last the year.\n\nHer dream placed her, alone, in this room, and there entered a\ngrave-looking man, having something very remarkable in his\ncountenance: which impressed her, as a fine portrait sometimes will,\nwith a haunting sense of character and individuality.\n\nIn his hand this man carried a wand, about the length of an ordinary\nwalking cane. He told her to observe and remember its length, and to\nmark well the measurements he was about to make, the result of which\nshe was to communicate to Mr. Baily of Lough Guir.\n\nFrom a certain point in the wall, with this wand, he measured along\nthe floor, at right angles with the wall, a certain number of its\nlengths, which he counted aloud; and then, in the same way, from the\nadjoining wall he measured a certain number of its lengths, which he\nalso counted distinctly. He then told her that at the point where\nthese two lines met, at a depth of a certain number of feet which he\nalso told her, treasure lay buried. And so the dream broke up, and her\nremarkable visitant vanished.\n\nShe took the girls with her to the old castle, where, having cut a\nswitch to the length represented to her in her dream, she measured the\ndistances, and ascertained, as she supposed, the point on the floor\nbeneath which the treasure lay. The same day she related her dream to\nMr. Baily. But he treated it laughingly, and took no step in\nconsequence.\n\nSome time after this, she again saw, in a dream, the same\nremarkable-looking man, who repeated his message, and appeared\ndispleased. But the dream was treated by Mr. Baily as before.\n\nThe same dream occurred again, and the children became so clamorous to\nhave the castle floor explored, with pick and shovel, at the point\nindicated by the thrice-seen messenger, that at length Mr. Baily\nconsented, and the floor was opened, and a trench was sunk at the spot\nwhich the governess had pointed out.\n\nMiss Anne Baily, and nearly all the members of the family, her father\nincluded, were present at this operation. As the workmen approached\nthe depth described in the vision, the interest and suspense of all\nincreased; and when the iron implements met the solid resistance of a\nbroad flagstone, which returned a cavernous sound to the stroke, the\nexcitement of all present rose to its acme.\n\nWith some difficulty the flag was raised, and a chamber of stone work,\nlarge enough to receive a moderately-sized crock or pit, was\ndisclosed. Alas! it was empty. But in the earth at the bottom of it,\nMiss Baily said, she herself saw, as every other bystander plainly\ndid, the circular impression of a vessel: which had stood there, as\nthe mark seemed to indicate, for a very long time.\n\nBoth the Miss Bailys were strong in their belief hereafterwards, that\nthe treasure which they were convinced had actually been deposited\nthere, had been removed by some more trusting and active listener than\ntheir father had proved.\n\nThis same governess remained with them to the time of her death, which\noccurred some years later, under the following circumstances as\nextraordinary as her dream.\n\n\n_The Earl's Hall_\n\nThe good governess had a particular liking for the old castle, and\nwhen lessons were over, would take her book or her work into a large\nroom in the ancient building, called the Earl's Hall. Here she caused\na table and chair to be placed for her use, and in the chiaroscuro\nwould so sit at her favourite occupations, with just a little ray of\nsubdued light, admitted through one of the glassless windows above\nher, and falling upon her table.\n\nThe Earl's Hall is entered by a narrow-arched door, opening close to\nthe winding stair. It is a very large and gloomy room, pretty nearly\nsquare, with a lofty vaulted ceiling, and a stone floor. Being\nsituated high in the castle, the walls of which are immensely thick,\nand the windows very small and few, the silence that reigns here is\nlike that of a subterranean cavern. You hear nothing in this solitude,\nexcept perhaps twice in a day, the twitter of a swallow in one of the\nsmall windows high in the wall.\n\nThis good lady having one day retired to her accustomed solitude, was\nmissed from the house at her wonted hour of return. This in a country\nhouse, such as Irish houses were in those days, excited little\nsurprise, and no harm. But when the dinner hour came, which was then,\nin country houses, five o'clock, and the governess had not appeared,\nsome of her young friends, it being not yet winter, and sufficient\nlight remaining to guide them through the gloom of the dim ascent and\npassages, mounted the old stone stair to the level of the Earl's Hall,\ngaily calling to her as they approached.\n\nThere was no answer. On the stone floor, outside the door of the\nEarl's Hall, to their horror, they found her lying insensible. By the\nusual means she was restored to consciousness; but she continued very\nill, and was conveyed to the house, where she took to her bed.\n\nIt was there and then that she related what had occurred to her. She\nhad placed herself, as usual, at her little work table, and had been\neither working or reading--I forget which--for some time, and felt in\nher usual health and serene spirits. Raising her eyes, and looking\ntowards the door, she saw a horrible-looking little man enter. He was\ndressed in red, was very short, had a singularly dark face, and a most\natrocious countenance. Having walked some steps into the room, with\nhis eyes fixed on her, he stopped, and beckoning to her to follow,\nmoved back toward the door. About half way, again he stopped once more\nand turned. She was so terrified that she sat staring at the\napparition without moving or speaking. Seeing that she had not obeyed\nhim, his face became more frightful and menacing, and as it underwent\nthis change, he raised his hand and stamped on the floor. Gesture,\nlook, and all, expressed diabolical fury. Through sheer extremity of\nterror she did rise, and, as he turned again, followed him a step or\ntwo in the direction of the door. He again stopped, and with the same\nmute menace, compelled her again to follow him.\n\nShe reached the narrow stone doorway of the Earl's Hall, through which\nhe had passed; from the threshold she saw him standing a little way\noff, with his eyes still fixed on her. Again he signed to her, and\nbegan to move along the short passage that leads to the winding stair.\nBut instead of following him further, she fell on the floor in a fit.\n\nThe poor lady was thoroughly persuaded that she was not long to\nsurvive this vision, and her foreboding proved true. From her bed she\nnever rose. Fever and delirium supervened in a few days and she died.\nOf course it is possible that fever, already approaching, had touched\nher brain when she was visited by the phantom, and that it had no\nexternal existence.\n\n\n\n\nTHE VISION OF TOM CHUFF\n\n\nAt the edge of melancholy Catstean Moor, in the north of England, with\nhalf-a-dozen ancient poplar-trees with rugged and hoary stems around,\none smashed across the middle by a flash of lightning thirty summers\nbefore, and all by their great height dwarfing the abode near which\nthey stand, there squats a rude stone house, with a thick chimney, a\nkitchen and bedroom on the ground-floor, and a loft, accessible by a\nladder, under the shingle roof, divided into two rooms.\n\nIts owner was a man of ill repute. Tom Chuff was his name. A\nshock-headed, broad-shouldered, powerful man, though somewhat short,\nwith lowering brows and a sullen eye. He was a poacher, and hardly\nmade an ostensible pretence of earning his bread by any honest\nindustry. He was a drunkard. He beat his wife, and led his children a\nlife of terror and lamentation, when he was at home. It was a blessing\nto his frightened little family when he absented himself, as he\nsometimes did, for a week or more together.\n\nOn the night I speak of he knocked at the door with his cudgel at\nabout eight o'clock. It was winter, and the night was very dark. Had\nthe summons been that of a bogie from the moor, the inmates of this\nsmall house could hardly have heard it with greater terror.\n\nHis wife unbarred the door in fear and haste. Her hunchbacked sister\nstood by the hearth, staring toward the threshold. The children\ncowered behind.\n\nTom Chuff entered with his cudgel in his hand, without speaking, and\nthrew himself into a chair opposite the fire. He had been away two or\nthree days. He looked haggard, and his eyes were bloodshot. They knew\nhe had been drinking.\n\nTom raked and knocked the peat fire with his stick, and thrust his\nfeet close to it. He signed towards the little dresser, and nodded to\nhis wife, and she knew he wanted a cup, which in silence she gave him.\nHe pulled a bottle of gin from his coat-pocket, and nearly filling the\nteacup, drank off the dram at a few gulps.\n\nHe usually refreshed himself with two or three drams of this kind\nbefore beating the inmates of his house. His three little children,\ncowering in a corner, eyed him from under a table, as Jack did the\nogre in the nursery tale. His wife, Nell, standing behind a chair,\nwhich she was ready to snatch up to meet the blow of the cudgel, which\nmight be levelled at her at any moment, never took her eyes off him;\nand hunchbacked Mary showed the whites of a large pair of eyes,\nsimilarly employed, as she stood against the oaken press, her dark\nface hardly distinguishable in the distance from the brown panel\nbehind it.\n\nTom Chuff was at his third dram, and had not yet spoken a word since\nhis entrance, and the suspense was growing dreadful, when, on a\nsudden, he leaned back in his rude seat, the cudgel slipped from his\nhand, a change and a death-like pallor came over his face.\n\nFor a while they all stared on; such was their fear of him, they dared\nnot speak or move, lest it should prove to have been but a doze, and\nTom should wake up and proceed forthwith to gratify his temper and\nexercise his cudgel.\n\nIn a very little time, however, things began to look so odd, that they\nventured, his wife and Mary, to exchange glances full of doubt and\nwonder. He hung so much over the side of the chair, that if it had not\nbeen one of cyclopean clumsiness and weight, he would have borne it to\nthe floor. A leaden tint was darkening the pallor of his face. They\nwere becoming alarmed, and finally braving everything his wife timidly\nsaid, \"Tom!\" and then more sharply repeated it, and finally cried the\nappellative loudly, and again and again, with the terrified\naccompaniment, \"He's dying--he's dying!\" her voice rising to a scream,\nas she found that neither it nor her plucks and shakings of him by the\nshoulder had the slightest effect in recalling him from his torpor.\n\nAnd now from sheer terror of a new kind the children added their\nshrilly piping to the talk and cries of their seniors; and if anything\ncould have called Tom up from his lethargy, it might have been the\npiercing chorus that made the rude chamber of the poacher's habitation\nring again. But Tom continued unmoved, deaf, and stirless.\n\nHis wife sent Mary down to the village, hardly a quarter of a mile\naway, to implore of the doctor, for whose family she did duty as\nlaundress, to come down and look at her husband, who seemed to be\ndying.\n\nThe doctor, who was a good-natured fellow, arrived. With his hat still\non, he looked at Tom, examined him, and when he found that the emetic\nhe had brought with him, on conjecture from Mary's description, did\nnot act, and that his lancet brought no blood, and that he felt a\npulseless wrist, he shook his head, and inwardly thought:\n\n\"What the plague is the woman crying for? Could she have desired a\ngreater blessing for her children and herself than the very thing that\nhas happened?\"\n\nTom, in fact, seemed quite gone. At his lips no breath was\nperceptible. The doctor could discover no pulse. His hands and feet\nwere cold, and the chill was stealing up into his body.\n\nThe doctor, after a stay of twenty minutes, had buttoned up his\ngreat-coat again and pulled down his hat, and told Mrs. Chuff that\nthere was no use in his remaining any longer, when, all of a sudden, a\nlittle rill of blood began to trickle from the lancet-cut in Tom\nChuffs temple.\n\n\"That's very odd,\" said the doctor. \"Let us wait a little.\"\n\nI must describe now the sensations which Tom Chuff had experienced.\n\nWith his elbows on his knees, and his chin upon his hands, he was\nstaring into the embers, with his gin beside him, when suddenly a\nswimming came in his head, he lost sight of the fire, and a sound like\none stroke of a loud church bell smote his brain.\n\nThen he heard a confused humming, and the leaden weight of his head\nheld him backward as he sank in his chair, and consciousness quite\nforsook him.\n\nWhen he came to himself he felt chilled, and was leaning against a\nhuge leafless tree. The night was moonless, and when he looked up he\nthought he had never seen stars so large and bright, or sky so black.\nThe stars, too, seemed to blink down with longer intervals of\ndarkness, and fiercer and more dazzling emergence, and something, he\nvaguely thought, of the character of silent menace and fury.\n\nHe had a confused recollection of having come there, or rather of\nhaving been carried along, as if on men's shoulders, with a sort of\nrushing motion. But it was utterly indistinct; the imperfect\nrecollection simply of a sensation. He had seen or heard nothing on\nhis way.\n\nHe looked round. There was not a sign of a living creature near. And\nhe began with a sense of awe to recognise the place.\n\nThe tree against which he had been leaning was one of the noble old\nbeeches that surround at irregular intervals the churchyard of\nShackleton, which spreads its green and wavy lap on the edge of the\nMoor of Catstean, at the opposite side of which stands the rude\ncottage in which he had just lost consciousness. It was six miles or\nmore across the moor to his habitation, and the black expanse lay\nbefore him, disappearing dismally in the darkness. So that, looking\nstraight before him, sky and land blended together in an\nundistinguishable and awful blank.\n\nThere was a silence quite unnatural over the place. The distant murmur\nof the brook, which he knew so well, was dead; not a whisper in the\nleaves about him; the air, earth, everything about and above was\nindescribably still; and he experienced that quaking of the heart that\nseems to portend the approach of something awful. He would have set\nout upon his return across the moor, had he not an undefined\npresentiment that he was waylaid by something he dared not pass.\n\nThe old grey church and tower of Shackleton stood like a shadow in the\nrear. His eye had grown accustomed to the obscurity, and he could just\ntrace its outline. There were no comforting associations in his mind\nconnected with it; nothing but menace and misgiving. His early\ntraining in his lawless calling was connected with this very spot.\nHere his father used to meet two other poachers, and bring his son,\nthen but a boy, with him.\n\nUnder the church porch, towards morning, they used to divide the game\nthey had taken, and take account of the sales they had made on the\nprevious day, and make partition of the money, and drink their gin. It\nwas here he had taken his early lessons in drinking, cursing, and\nlawlessness. His father's grave was hardly eight steps from the spot\nwhere he stood. In his present state of awful dejection, no scene on\nearth could have so helped to heighten his fear.\n\nThere was one object close by which added to his gloom. About a yard\naway, in rear of the tree, behind himself, and extending to his left,\nwas an open grave, the mould and rubbish piled on the other side. At\nthe head of this grave stood the beech-tree; its columnar stem rose\nlike a huge monumental pillar. He knew every line and crease on its\nsmooth surface. The initial letters of his own name, cut in its bark\nlong ago, had spread out and wrinkled like the grotesque capitals of a\nfanciful engraver, and now with a sinister significance overlooked the\nopen grave, as if answering his mental question, \"Who for is t' grave\ncut?\"\n\nHe felt still a little stunned, and there was a faint tremor in his\njoints that disinclined him to exert himself; and, further, he had a\nvague apprehension that take what direction he might, there was danger\naround him worse than that of staying where he was.\n\nOn a sudden the stars began to blink more fiercely, a faint wild light\noverspread for a minute the bleak landscape, and he saw approaching\nfrom the moor a figure at a kind of swinging trot, with now and then a\nzig-zag hop or two, such as men accustomed to cross such places make,\nto avoid the patches of slob or quag that meet them here and there.\nThis figure resembled his father's, and like him, whistled through his\nfinger by way of signal as he approached; but the whistle sounded not\nnow shrilly and sharp, as in old times, but immensely far away, and\nseemed to sing strangely through Tom's head. From habit or from fear,\nin answer to the signal, Tom whistled as he used to do five-and-twenty\nyears ago and more, although he was already chilled with an unearthly\nfear.\n\nLike his father, too, the figure held up the bag that was in his left\nhand as he drew near, when it was his custom to call out to him what\nwas in it. It did not reassure the watcher, you may be certain, when a\nshout unnaturally faint reached him, as the phantom dangled the bag\nin the air, and he heard with a faint distinctness the words, \"Tom\nChuff's soul!\"\n\nScarcely fifty yards away from the low churchyard fence at which Tom\nwas standing, there was a wider chasm in the peat, which there threw\nup a growth of reeds and bulrushes, among which, as the old poacher\nused to do on a sudden alarm, the approaching figure suddenly cast\nitself down.\n\nFrom the same patch of tall reeds and rushes emerged instantaneously\nwhat he at first mistook for the same figure creeping on all-fours,\nbut what he soon perceived to be an enormous black dog with a rough\ncoat like a bear's, which at first sniffed about, and then started\ntowards him in what seemed to be a sportive amble, bouncing this way\nand that, but as it drew near it displayed a pair of fearful eyes that\nglowed like live coals, and emitted from the monstrous expanse of its\njaws a terrifying growl.\n\nThis beast seemed on the point of seizing him, and Tom recoiled in\npanic and fell into the open grave behind him. The edge which he\ncaught as he tumbled gave way, and down he went, expecting almost at\nthe same instant to reach the bottom. But never was such a fall!\nBottomless seemed the abyss! Down, down, down, with immeasurable and\nstill increasing speed, through utter darkness, with hair streaming\nstraight upward, breathless, he shot with a rush of air against him,\nthe force of which whirled up his very arms, second after second,\nminute after minute, through the chasm downward he flew, the icy\nperspiration of horror covering his body, and suddenly, as he expected\nto be dashed into annihilation, his descent was in an instant arrested\nwith a tremendous shock, which, however, did not deprive him of\nconsciousness even for a moment.\n\nHe looked about him. The place resembled a smoke-stained cavern or\ncatacomb, the roof of which, except for a ribbed arch here and there\nfaintly visible, was lost in darkness. From several rude passages,\nlike the galleries of a gigantic mine, which opened from this centre\nchamber, was very dimly emitted a dull glow as of charcoal, which was\nthe only light by which he could imperfectly discern the objects\nimmediately about him.\n\nWhat seemed like a projecting piece of the rock, at the corner of one\nof these murky entrances, moved on a sudden, and proved to be a human\nfigure, that beckoned to him. He approached, and saw his father. He\ncould barely recognise him, he was so monstrously altered.\n\n\"I've been looking for you, Tom. Welcome home, lad; come along to your\nplace.\"\n\nTom's heart sank as he heard these words, which were spoken in a\nhollow and, he thought, derisive voice that made him tremble. But he\ncould not help accompanying the wicked spirit, who led him into a\nplace, in passing which he heard, as it were from within the rock,\ndeadful cries and appeals for mercy.\n\n\"What is this?\" said he.\n\n\"Never mind.\"\n\n\"Who are they?\"\n\n\"New-comers, like yourself, lad,\" answered his father apathetically.\n\"They give over that work in time, finding it is no use.\"\n\n\"What shall I do?\" said Tom, in an agony.\n\n\"It's all one.\"\n\n\"But what shall I do?\" reiterated Tom, quivering in every joint and\nnerve.\n\n\"Grin and bear it, I suppose.\"\n\n\"For God's sake, if ever you cared for me, as I am your own child, let\nme out of this!\"\n\n\"There's no way out.\"\n\n\"If there's a way in there's a way out, and for Heaven's sake let me\nout of this.\"\n\nBut the dreadful figure made no further answer, and glided backwards\nby his shoulder to the rear; and others appeared in view, each with a\nfaint red halo round it, staring on him with frightful eyes, images,\nall in hideous variety, of eternal fury or derision. He was growing\nmad, it seemed, under the stare of so many eyes, increasing in number\nand drawing closer every moment, and at the same time myriads and\nmyriads of voices were calling him by his name, some far away, some\nnear, some from one point, some from another, some from behind, close\nto his ears. These cries were increased in rapidity and multitude, and\nmingled with laughter, with flitting blasphemies, with broken insults\nand mockeries, succeeded and obliterated by others, before he could\nhalf catch their meaning.\n\nAll this time, in proportion to the rapidity and urgency of these\ndreadful sights and sounds, the epilepsy of terror was creeping up to\nhis brain, and with a long and dreadful scream he lost consciousness.\n\nWhen he recovered his senses, he found himself in a small stone\nchamber, vaulted above, and with a ponderous door. A single point of\nlight in the wall, with a strange brilliancy illuminated this cell.\n\nSeated opposite to him was a venerable man with a snowy beard of\nimmense length; an image of awful purity and severity. He was dressed\nin a coarse robe, with three large keys suspensed from his girdle. He\nmight have filled one's idea of an ancient porter of a city gate; such\nspiritual cities, I should say, as John Bunyan loved to describe.\n\nThis old man's eyes were brilliant and awful, and fixed on him as they\nwere, Tom Chuff felt himself helplessly in his power. At length he\nspoke:\n\n\"The command is given to let you forth for one trial more. But if you\nare found again drinking with the drunken, and beating your\nfellow-servants, you shall return through the door by which you came,\nand go out no more.\"\n\nWith these words the old man took him by the wrist and led him through\nthe first door, and then unlocking one that stood in the cavern\noutside, he struck Tom Chuff sharply on the shoulder, and the door\nshut behind him with a sound that boomed peal after peal of thunder\nnear and far away, and all round and above, till it rolled off\ngradually into silence. It was totally dark, but there was a fanning\nof fresh cool air that overpowered him. He felt that he was in the\nupper world again.\n\nIn a few minutes he began to hear voices which he knew, and first a\nfaint point of light appeared before his eyes, and gradually he saw\nthe flame of the candle, and, after that, the familiar faces of his\nwife and children, and he heard them faintly when they spoke to him,\nalthough he was as yet unable to answer.\n\nHe also saw the doctor, like an isolated figure in the dark, and heard\nhim say:\n\n\"There, now, you have him back. He'll do, I think.\"\n\nHis first words, when he could speak and saw clearly all about him,\nand felt the blood on his neck and shirt, were:\n\n\"Wife, forgie me. I'm a changed man. Send for't sir.\"\n\nWhich last phrase means, \"Send for the clergyman.\"\n\nWhen the vicar came and entered the little bedroom where the scared\npoacher, whose soul had died within him, was lying, still sick and\nweak, in his bed, and with a spirit that was prostrate with terror,\nTom Chuff feebly beckoned the rest from the room, and, the door being\nclosed, the good parson heard the strange confession, and with equal\namazement the man's earnest and agitated vows of amendment, and his\nhelpless appeals to him for support and counsel.\n\nThese, of course, were kindly met; and the visits of the rector, for\nsome time, were frequent.\n\nOne day, when he took Tom Chuff's hand on bidding him good-bye, the\nsick man held it still, and said:\n\n\"Ye'r vicar o' Shackleton, sir, and if I sud dee, ye'll promise me a'e\nthing, as I a promised ye a many. I a said I'll never gie wife, nor\nbarn, nor folk o' no sort, skelp nor sizzup more, and ye'll know o' me\nno more among the sipers. Nor never will Tom draw trigger, nor set a\nsnare again, but in an honest way, and after that ye'll no make it a\nbootless bene for me, but bein', as I say, vicar o' Shackleton, and\nable to do as ye list, ye'll no let them bury me within twenty good\nyerd-wands measure o' the a'd beech trees that's round the churchyard\nof Shackleton.\"\n\n\"I see; you would have your grave, when your time really comes, a good\nway from the place where lay the grave you dreamed of.\"\n\n\"That's jest it. I'd lie at the bottom o' a marl-pit liefer! And I'd\nbe laid in anither churchyard just to be shut o' my fear o' that, but\nthat a' my kinsfolk is buried beyond in Shackleton, and ye'll gie me\nyer promise, and no break yer word.\"\n\n\"I do promise, certainly. I'm not likely to outlive you; but, if I\nshould, and still be vicar of Shackleton, you shall be buried\nsomewhere as near the middle of the churchyard as we can find space.\"\n\n\"That'll do.\"\n\nAnd so content they parted.\n\nThe effect of the vision upon Tom Chuff was powerful, and promised to\nbe lasting. With a sore effort he exchanged his life of desultory\nadventure and comparative idleness for one of regular industry. He\ngave up drinking; he was as kind as an originally surly nature would\nallow to his wife and family; he went to church; in fine weather they\ncrossed the moor to Shackleton Church; the vicar said he came there to\nlook at the scenery of his vision, and to fortify his good resolutions\nby the reminder.\n\nImpressions upon the imagination, however, are but transitory, and a\nbad man acting under fear is not a free agent; his real character does\nnot appear. But as the images of the imagination fade, and the action\nof fear abates, the essential qualities of the man reassert\nthemselves.\n\nSo, after a time, Tom Chuff began to grow weary of his new life; he\ngrew lazy, and people began to say that he was catching hares, and\npursuing his old contraband way of life, under the rose.\n\nHe came home one hard night, with signs of the bottle in his thick\nspeech and violent temper. Next day he was sorry, or frightened, at\nall events repentant, and for a week or more something of the old\nhorror returned, and he was once more on his good behaviour. But in a\nlittle time came a relapse, and another repentance, and then a relapse\nagain, and gradually the return of old habits and the flooding in of\nall his old way of life, with more violence and gloom, in proportion\nas the man was alarmed and exasperated by the remembrance of his\ndespised, but terrible, warning.\n\nWith the old life returned the misery of the cottage. The smiles,\nwhich had begun to appear with the unwonted sunshine, were seen no\nmore. Instead, returned to his poor wife's face the old pale and\nheartbroken look. The cottage lost its neat and cheerful air, and the\nmelancholy of neglect was visible. Sometimes at night were overheard,\nby a chance passer-by, cries and sobs from that ill-omened dwelling.\nTom Chuff was now often drunk, and not very often at home, except when\nhe came in to sweep away his poor wife's earnings.\n\nTom had long lost sight of the honest old parson. There was shame\nmixed with his degradation. He had grace enough left when he saw the\nthin figure of \"t' sir\" walking along the road to turn out of his way\nand avoid meeting him. The clergyman shook his head, and sometimes\ngroaned, when his name was mentioned. His horror and regret were more\nfor the poor wife than for the relapsed sinner, for her case was\npitiable indeed.\n\nHer brother, Jack Everton, coming over from Hexley, having heard\nstories of all this, determined to beat Tom, for his ill-treatment of\nhis sister, within an inch of his life. Luckily, perhaps, for all\nconcerned, Tom happened to be away upon one of his long excursions,\nand poor Nell besought her brother, in extremity of terror, not to\ninterpose between them. So he took his leave and went home muttering\nand sulky.\n\nNow it happened a few months later that Nelly Chuff fell sick. She had\nbeen ailing, as heartbroken people do, for a good while. But now the\nend had come.\n\nThere was a coroner's inquest when she died, for the doctor had\ndoubts as to whether a blow had not, at least, hastened her death.\nNothing certain, however, came of the inquiry. Tom Chuff had left his\nhome more than two days before his wife's death. He was absent upon\nhis lawless business still when the coroner had held his quest.\n\nJack Everton came over from Hexley to attend the dismal obsequies of\nhis sister. He was more incensed than ever with the wicked husband,\nwho, one way or other, had hastened Nelly's death. The inquest had\nclosed early in the day. The husband had not appeared.\n\nAn occasional companion--perhaps I ought to say accomplice--of Chuff's\nhappened to turn up. He had left him on the borders of Westmoreland,\nand said he would probably be home next day. But Everton affected not\nto believe it. Perhaps it was to Tom Chuff, he suggested, a secret\nsatisfaction to crown the history of his bad married life with the\nscandal of his absence from the funeral of his neglected and abused\nwife.\n\nEverton had taken on himself the direction of the melancholy\npreparations. He had ordered a grave to be opened for his sister\nbeside her mother's, in Shackleton churchyard, at the other side of\nthe moor. For the purpose, as I have said, of marking the callous\nneglect of her husband, he determined that the funeral should take\nplace that night. His brother Dick had accompanied him, and they and\nhis sister, with Mary and the children, and a couple of the\nneighbours, formed the humble cort\u251c\u0118ge.\n\nJack Everton said he would wait behind, on the chance of Tom Chuff\ncoming in time, that he might tell him what had happened, and make him\ncross the moor with him to meet the funeral. His real object, I think,\nwas to inflict upon the villain the drubbing he had so long wished to\ngive him. Anyhow, he was resolved, by crossing the moor, to reach the\nchurchyard in time to anticipate the arrival of the funeral, and to\nhave a few words with the vicar, clerk, and sexton, all old friends of\nhis, for the parish of Shackleton was the place of his birth and early\nrecollections.\n\nBut Tom Chuff did not appear at his house that night. In surly mood,\nand without a shilling in his pocket, he was making his way homeward.\nHis bottle of gin, his last investment, half emptied, with its neck\nprotruding, as usual on such returns, was in his coat-pocket.\n\nHis way home lay across the moor of Catstean, and the point at which\nhe best knew the passage was from the churchyard of Shackleton. He\nvaulted the low wall that forms its boundary, and strode across the\ngraves, and over many a flat, half-buried tombstone, toward the side\nof the churchyard next Catstean Moor.\n\nThe old church of Shackleton and its tower rose, close at his right,\nlike a black shadow against the sky. It was a moonless night, but\nclear. By this time he had reached the low boundary wall, at the other\nside, that overlooks the wide expanse of Catstean Moor. He stood by\none of the huge old beech-trees, and leaned his back to its smooth\ntrunk. Had he ever seen the sky look so black, and the stars shine\nout and blink so vividly? There was a deathlike silence over the\nscene, like the hush that precedes thunder in sultry weather. The\nexpanse before him was lost in utter blackness. A strange quaking\nunnerved his heart. It was the sky and scenery of his vision! The same\nhorror and misgiving. The same invincible fear of venturing from the\nspot where he stood. He would have prayed if he dared. His sinking\nheart demanded a restorative of some sort, and he grasped the bottle\nin his coat-pocket. Turning to his left, as he did so, he saw the\npiled-up mould of an open grave that gaped with its head close to the\nbase of the great tree against which he was leaning.\n\nHe stood aghast. His dream was returning and slowly enveloping him.\nEverything he saw was weaving itself into the texture of his vision.\nThe chill of horror stole over him.\n\nA faint whistle came shrill and clear over the moor, and he saw a\nfigure approaching at a swinging trot, with a zig-zag course, hopping\nnow here and now there, as men do over a surface where one has need to\nchoose their steps. Through the jungle of reeds and bulrushes in the\nforeground this figure advanced; and with the same unaccountable\nimpulse that had coerced him in his dream, he answered the whistle of\nthe advancing figure.\n\nOn that signal it directed its course straight toward him. It mounted\nthe low wall, and, standing there, looked into the graveyard.\n\n\"Who med answer?\" challenged the new-comer from his post of\nobservation.\n\n\"Me,\" answered Tom.\n\n\"Who are you?\" repeated the man upon the wall.\n\n\"Tom Chuff; and who's this grave cut for?\" He answered in a savage\ntone, to cover the secret shudder of his panic.\n\n\"I'll tell you that, ye villain!\" answered the stranger, descending\nfrom the wall, \"I a' looked for you far and near, and waited long, and\nnow you're found at last.\"\n\nNot knowing what to make of the figure that advanced upon him, Tom\nChuff recoiled, stumbled, and fell backward into the open grave. He\ncaught at the sides as he fell, but without retarding his fall.\n\nAn hour later, when lights came with the coffin, the corpse of Tom\nChuff was found at the bottom of the grave. He had fallen direct upon\nhis head, and his neck was broken. His death must have been\nsimultaneous with his fall. Thus far his dream was accomplished.\n\nIt was his brother-in-law who had crossed the moor and approached the\nchurchyard of Shackleton, exactly in the line which the image of his\nfather had seemed to take in his strange vision. Fortunately for Jack\nEverton, the sexton and clerk of Shackleton church were, unseen by\nhim, crossing the churchyard toward the grave of Nelly Chuff, just as\nTom the poacher stumbled and fell. Suspicion of direct violence would\notherwise have inevitably attached to the exasperated brother. As it\nwas, the catastrophe was followed by no legal consequences.\n\nThe good vicar kept his word, and the grave of Tom Chuff is still\npointed out by the old inhabitants of Shackleton pretty nearly in the\ncentre of the churchyard. This conscientious compliance with the\nentreaty of the panic-stricken man as to the place of his sepulture\ngave a horrible and mocking emphasis to the strange combination by\nwhich fate had defeated his precaution, and fixed the place of his\ndeath.\n\nThe story was for many a year, and we believe still is, told round\nmany a cottage hearth, and though it appeals to what many would term\nsuperstition, it yet sounded, in the ears of a rude and simple\naudience, a thrilling, and let us hope, not altogether fruitless\nhomily.\n\n\n\n\nDICKON THE DEVIL\n\n\nAbout thirty years ago I was selected by two rich old maids to visit a\nproperty in that part of Lancashire which lies near the famous forest\nof Pendle, with which Mr. Ainsworth's \"Lancashire Witches\" has made us\nso pleasantly familiar. My business was to make partition of a small\nproperty, including a house and demesne, to which they had a long time\nbefore succeeded as co-heiresses.\n\nThe last forty miles of my journey I was obliged to post, chiefly by\ncross-roads, little known, and less frequented, and presenting scenery\noften extremely interesting and pretty. The picturesqueness of the\nlandscape was enhanced by the season, the beginning of September, at\nwhich I was travelling.\n\nI had never been in this part of the world before; I am told it is now\na great deal less wild, and, consequently, less beautiful.\n\nAt the inn where I had stopped for a relay of horses and some\ndinner--for it was then past five o'clock--I found the host, a hale\nold fellow of five-and-sixty, as he told me, a man of easy and\ngarrulous benevolence, willing to accommodate his guests with any\namount of talk, which the slightest tap sufficed to set flowing, on\nany subject you pleased.\n\nI was curious to learn something about Barwyke, which was the name of\nthe demesne and house I was going to. As there was no inn within some\nmiles of it, I had written to the steward to put me up there, the best\nway he could, for a night.\n\nThe host of the \"Three Nuns,\" which was the sign under which he\nentertained wayfarers, had not a great deal to tell. It was twenty\nyears, or more, since old Squire Bowes died, and no one had lived in\nthe Hall ever since, except the gardener and his wife.\n\n\"Tom Wyndsour will be as old a man as myself; but he's a bit taller,\nand not so much in flesh, quite,\" said the fat innkeeper.\n\n\"But there were stories about the house,\" I repeated, \"that they said,\nprevented tenants from coming into it?\"\n\n\"Old wives' tales; many years ago, that will be, sir; I forget 'em; I\nforget 'em all. Oh yes, there always will be, when a house is left so;\nfoolish folk will always be talkin'; but I hadn't heard a word about\nit this twenty year.\"\n\nIt was vain trying to pump him; the old landlord of the \"Three Nuns,\"\nfor some reason, did not choose to tell tales of Barwyke Hall, if he\nreally did, as I suspected, remember them.\n\nI paid my reckoning, and resumed my journey, well pleased with the\ngood cheer of that old-world inn, but a little disappointed.\n\nWe had been driving for more than an hour, when we began to cross a\nwild common; and I knew that, this passed, a quarter of an hour would\nbring me to the door of Barwyke Hall.\n\nThe peat and furze were pretty soon left behind; we were again in the\nwooded scenery that I enjoyed so much, so entirely natural and pretty,\nand so little disturbed by traffic of any kind. I was looking from the\nchaise-window, and soon detected the object of which, for some time,\nmy eye had been in search. Barwyke Hall was a large, quaint house, of\nthat cage-work fashion known as \"black-and-white,\" in which the bars\nand angles of an oak framework contrast, black as ebony, with the\nwhite plaster that overspreads the masonry built into its interstices.\nThis steep-roofed Elizabethan house stood in the midst of park-like\ngrounds of no great extent, but rendered imposing by the noble stature\nof the old trees that now cast their lengthening shadows eastward over\nthe sward, from the declining sun.\n\nThe park-wall was grey with age, and in many places laden with ivy. In\ndeep grey shadow, that contrasted with the dim fires of evening\nreflected on the foliage above it, in a gentle hollow, stretched a\nlake that looked cold and black, and seemed, as it were, to skulk from\nobservation with a guilty knowledge.\n\nI had forgot that there was a lake at Barwyke; but the moment this\ncaught my eye, like the cold polish of a snake in the shadow, my\ninstinct seemed to recognize something dangerous, and I knew that the\nlake was connected, I could not remember how, with the story I had\nheard of this place in my boyhood.\n\nI drove up a grass-grown avenue, under the boughs of these noble\ntrees, whose foliage, dyed in autumnal red and yellow, returned the\nbeams of the western sun gorgeously.\n\nWe drew up at the door. I got out, and had a good look at the front of\nthe house; it was a large and melancholy mansion, with signs of long\nneglect upon it; great wooden shutters, in the old fashion, were\nbarred, outside, across the windows; grass, and even nettles, were\ngrowing thick on the courtyard, and a thin moss streaked the timber\nbeams; the plaster was discoloured by time and weather, and bore great\nrusset and yellow stains. The gloom was increased by several grand\nold trees that crowded close about the house.\n\nI mounted the steps, and looked round; the dark lake lay near me now,\na little to the left. It was not large; it may have covered some ten\nor twelve acres; but it added to the melancholy of the scene. Near the\ncentre of it was a small island, with two old ash trees, leaning\ntoward each other, their pensive images reflected in the stirless\nwater. The only cheery influence in this scene of antiquity, solitude,\nand neglect was that the house and landscape were warmed with the\nruddy western beams. I knocked, and my summons resounded hollow and\nungenial in my ear; and the bell, from far away, returned a\ndeep-mouthed and surly ring, as if it resented being roused from a\nscore years' slumber.\n\nA light-limbed, jolly-looking old fellow, in a barracan jacket and\ngaiters, with a smile of welcome, and a very sharp, red nose, that\nseemed to promise good cheer, opened the door with a promptitude that\nindicated a hospitable expectation of my arrival.\n\nThere was but little light in the hall, and that little lost itself in\ndarkness in the background. It was very spacious and lofty, with a\ngallery running round it, which, when the door was open, was visible\nat two or three points. Almost in the dark my new acquaintance led me\nacross this wide hall into the room destined for my reception. It was\nspacious, and wainscoted up to the ceiling. The furniture of this\ncapacious chamber was old-fashioned and clumsy. There were curtains\nstill to the windows, and a piece of Turkey carpet lay upon the floor;\nthose windows were two in number, looking out, through the trunks of\nthe trees close to the house, upon the lake. It needed all the fire,\nand all the pleasant associations of my entertainer's red nose, to\nlight up this melancholy chamber. A door at its farther end admitted\nto the room that was prepared for my sleeping apartment. It was\nwainscoted, like the other. It had a four-post bed, with heavy\ntapestry curtains, and in other respects was furnished in the same\nold-world and ponderous style as the other room. Its window, like\nthose of that apartment, looked out upon the lake.\n\nSombre and sad as these rooms were, they were yet scrupulously clean.\nI had nothing to complain of; but the effect was rather dispiriting.\nHaving given some directions about supper--a pleasant incident to look\nforward to--and made a rapid toilet, I called on my friend with the\ngaiters and red nose (Tom Wyndsour) whose occupation was that of a\n\"bailiff,\" or under-steward, of the property, to accompany me, as we\nhad still an hour or so of sun and twilight, in a walk over the\ngrounds.\n\nIt was a sweet autumn evening, and my guide, a hardy old fellow,\nstrode at a pace that tasked me to keep up with.\n\nAmong clumps of trees at the northern boundary of the demesne we\nlighted upon the little antique parish church. I was looking down upon\nit, from an eminence, and the park-wall interposed; but a little way\ndown was a stile affording access to the road, and by this we\napproached the iron gate of the churchyard. I saw the church door\nopen; the sexton was replacing his pick, shovel, and spade, with which\nhe had just been digging a grave in the churchyard, in their little\nrepository under the stone stair of the tower. He was a polite, shrewd\nlittle hunchback, who was very happy to show me over the church. Among\nthe monuments was one that interested me; it was erected to\ncommemorate the very Squire Bowes from whom my two old maids had\ninherited the house and estate of Barwyke. It spoke of him in terms of\ngrandiloquent eulogy, and informed the Christian reader that he had\ndied, in the bosom of the Church of England, at the age of\nseventy-one.\n\nI read this inscription by the parting beams of the setting sun, which\ndisappeared behind the horizon just as we passed out from under the\nporch.\n\n\"Twenty years since the Squire died,\" said I, reflecting as I loitered\nstill in the churchyard.\n\n\"Ay, sir; 'twill be twenty year the ninth o' last month.\"\n\n\"And a very good old gentleman?\"\n\n\"Good-natured enough, and an easy gentleman he was, sir; I don't think\nwhile he lived he ever hurt a fly,\" acquiesced Tom Wyndsour. \"It ain't\nalways easy sayin' what's in 'em though, and what they may take or\nturn to afterwards; and some o' them sort, I think, goes mad.\"\n\n\"You don't think he was out of his mind?\" I asked.\n\n\"He? La! no; not he, sir; a bit lazy, mayhap, like other old fellows;\nbut a knew devilish well what he was about.\"\n\nTom Wyndsour's account was a little enigmatical; but, like old Squire\nBowes, I was \"a bit lazy\" that evening, and asked no more questions\nabout him.\n\nWe got over the stile upon the narrow road that skirts the churchyard.\nIt is overhung by elms more than a hundred years old, and in the\ntwilight, which now prevailed, was growing very dark. As side-by-side\nwe walked along this road, hemmed in by two loose stone-like walls,\nsomething running towards us in a zig-zag line passed us at a wild\npace, with a sound like a frightened laugh or a shudder, and I saw, as\nit passed, that it was a human figure. I may confess now, that I was a\nlittle startled. The dress of this figure was, in part, white: I know\nI mistook it at first for a white horse coming down the road at a\ngallop. Tom Wyndsour turned about and looked after the retreating\nfigure.\n\n\"He'll be on his travels to-night,\" he said, in a low tone. \"Easy\nserved with a bed, _that_ lad be; six foot o' dry peat or heath, or a\nnook in a dry ditch. That lad hasn't slept once in a house this twenty\nyear, and never will while grass grows.\"\n\n\"Is he mad?\" I asked.\n\n\"Something that way, sir; he's an idiot, an awpy; we call him 'Dickon\nthe devil,' because the devil's almost the only word that's ever in\nhis mouth.\"\n\nIt struck me that this idiot was in some way connected with the story\nof old Squire Bowes.\n\n\"Queer things are told of him, I dare say?\" I suggested.\n\n\"More or less, sir; more or less. Queer stories, some.\"\n\n\"Twenty years since he slept in a house? That's about the time the\nSquire died,\" I continued.\n\n\"So it will be, sir; and not very long after.\"\n\n\"You must tell me all about that, Tom, to-night, when I can hear it\ncomfortably, after supper.\"\n\nTom did not seem to like my invitation; and looking straight before\nhim as we trudged on, he said,\n\n\"You see, sir, the house has been quiet, and nout's been troubling\nfolk inside the walls or out, all round the woods of Barwyke, this ten\nyear, or more; and my old woman, down there, is clear against talking\nabout such matters, and thinks it best--and so do I--to let sleepin'\ndogs be.\"\n\nHe dropped his voice towards the close of the sentence, and nodded\nsignificantly.\n\nWe soon reached a point where he unlocked a wicket in the park wall,\nby which we entered the grounds of Barwyke once more.\n\nThe twilight deepening over the landscape, the huge and solemn trees,\nand the distant outline of the haunted house, exercised a sombre\ninfluence on me, which, together with the fatigue of a day of travel,\nand the brisk walk we had had, disinclined me to interrupt the silence\nin which my companion now indulged.\n\nA certain air of comparative comfort, on our arrival, in great measure\ndissipated the gloom that was stealing over me. Although it was by no\nmeans a cold night, I was very glad to see some wood blazing in the\ngrate; and a pair of candles aiding the light of the fire, made the\nroom look cheerful. A small table, with a very white cloth, and\npreparations for supper, was also a very agreeable object.\n\nI should have liked very well, under these influences, to have\nlistened to Tom Wyndsour's story; but after supper I grew too sleepy\nto attempt to lead him to the subject; and after yawning for a time, I\nfound there was no use in contending against my drowsiness, so I\nbetook myself to my bedroom, and by ten o'clock was fast asleep.\n\nWhat interruption I experienced that night I shall tell you presently.\nIt was not much, but it was very odd.\n\nBy next night I had completed my work at Barwyke. From early morning\ntill then I was so incessantly occupied and hard-worked, that I had\nnot time to think over the singular occurrence to which I have just\nreferred. Behold me, however, at length once more seated at my little\nsupper-table, having ended a comfortable meal. It had been a sultry\nday, and I had thrown one of the large windows up as high as it would\ngo. I was sitting near it, with my brandy and water at my elbow,\nlooking out into the dark. There was no moon, and the trees that are\ngrouped about the house make the darkness round it supernaturally\nprofound on such nights.\n\n\"Tom,\" said I, so soon as the jug of hot punch I had supplied him\nwith began to exercise its genial and communicative influence; \"you\nmust tell me who beside your wife and you and myself slept in the\nhouse last night.\"\n\nTom, sitting near the door, set down his tumbler, and looked at me\naskance, while you might count seven, without speaking a word.\n\n\"Who else slept in the house?\" he repeated, very deliberately. \"Not a\nliving soul, sir\"; and he looked hard at me, still evidently expecting\nsomething more.\n\n\"That _is_ very odd,\" I said returning his stare, and feeling really a\nlittle odd. \"You are sure _you_ were not in my room last night?\"\n\n\"Not till I came to call you, sir, this morning; _I_ can make oath of\nthat.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said I, \"there was some one there, _I_ can make oath of that.\nI was so tired I could not make up my mind to get up; but I was waked\nby a sound that I thought was some one flinging down the two tin boxes\nin which my papers were locked up violently on the floor. I heard a\nslow step on the ground, and there was light in the room, although I\nremembered having put out my candle. I thought it must have been you,\nwho had come in for my clothes, and upset the boxes by accident.\nWhoever it was, he went out and the light with him. I was about to\nsettle again, when, the curtain being a little open at the foot of the\nbed, I saw a light on the wall opposite; such as a candle from outside\nwould cast if the door were very cautiously opening. I started up in\nthe bed, drew the side curtain, and saw that the door _was_ opening,\nand admitting light from outside. It is close, you know, to the head\nof the bed. A hand was holding on the edge of the door and pushing it\nopen; not a bit like yours; a very singular hand. Let me look at\nyours.\"\n\nHe extended it for my inspection.\n\n\"Oh no; there's nothing wrong with your hand. This was differently\nshaped; fatter; and the middle finger was stunted, and shorter than\nthe rest, looking as if it had once been broken, and the nail was\ncrooked like a claw. I called out 'Who's there?' and the light and the\nhand were withdrawn, and I saw and heard no more of my visitor.\"\n\n\"So sure as you're a living man, that was him!\" exclaimed Tom\nWyndsour, his very nose growing pale, and his eyes almost starting out\nof his head.\n\n\"Who?\" I asked.\n\n\"Old Squire Bowes; 'twas _his_ hand you saw; the Lord a' mercy on us!\"\nanswered Tom. \"The broken finger, and the nail bent like a hoop. Well\nfor you, sir, he didn't come back when you called, that time. You came\nhere about them Miss Dymock's business, and he never meant they should\nhave a foot o' ground in Barwyke; and he was making a will to give it\naway quite different, when death took him short. He never was uncivil\nto no one; but he couldn't abide them ladies. My mind misgave me when\nI heard 'twas about their business you were coming; and now you see\nhow it is; he'll be at his old tricks again!\"\n\nWith some pressure and a little more punch, I induced Tom Wyndsour to\nexplain his mysterious allusions by recounting the occurrences which\nfollowed the old Squire's death.\n\n\"Squire Bowes of Barwyke died without making a will, as you know,\"\nsaid Tom. \"And all the folk round were sorry; that is to say, sir, as\nsorry as folk will be for an old man that has seen a long tale of\nyears, and has no right to grumble that death has knocked an hour too\nsoon at his door. The Squire was well liked; he was never in a\npassion, or said a hard word; and he would not hurt a fly; and that\nmade what happened after his decease the more surprising.\n\n\"The first thing these ladies did, when they got the property, was to\nbuy stock for the park.\n\n\"It was not wise, in any case, to graze the land on their own account.\nBut they little knew all they had to contend with.\n\n\"Before long something went wrong with the cattle; first one, and then\nanother, took sick and died, and so on, till the loss began to grow\nheavy. Then, queer stories, little by little, began to be told. It was\nsaid, first by one, then by another, that Squire Bowes was seen, about\nevening time, walking, just as he used to do when he was alive, among\nthe old trees, leaning on his stick; and, sometimes when he came up\nwith the cattle, he would stop and lay his hand kindly like on the\nback of one of them; and that one was sure to fall sick next day, and\ndie soon after.\n\n\"No one ever met him in the park, or in the woods, or ever saw him,\nexcept a good distance off. But they knew his gait and his figure\nwell, and the clothes he used to wear; and they could tell the beast\nhe laid his hand on by its colour--white, dun, or black; and that\nbeast was sure to sicken and die. The neighbours grew shy of taking\nthe path over the park; and no one liked to walk in the woods, or come\ninside the bounds of Barwyke: and the cattle went on sickening and\ndying as before.\n\n\"At that time there was one Thomas Pyke; he had been a groom to the\nold Squire; and he was in care of the place, and was the only one that\nused to sleep in the house.\n\n\"Tom was vexed, hearing these stories; which he did not believe the\nhalf on 'em; and more especial as he could not get man or boy to herd\nthe cattle; all being afeared. So he wrote to Matlock in Derbyshire,\nfor his brother, Richard Pyke, a clever lad, and one that knew nout o'\nthe story of the old Squire walking.\n\n\"Dick came; and the cattle was better; folk said they could still see\nthe old Squire, sometimes, walking, as before, in openings of the\nwood, with his stick in his hand; but he was shy of coming nigh the\ncattle, whatever his reason might be, since Dickon Pyke came; and he\nused to stand a long bit off, looking at them, with no more stir in\nhim than a trunk o' one of the old trees, for an hour at a time, till\nthe shape melted away, little by little, like the smoke of a fire that\nburns out.\n\n\"Tom Pyke and his brother Dickon, being the only living souls in the\nhouse, lay in the big bed in the servants' room, the house being fast\nbarred and locked, one night in November.\n\n\"Tom was lying next the wall, and he told me, as wide awake as ever\nhe was at noonday. His brother Dickon lay outside, and was sound\nasleep.\n\n\"Well, as Tom lay thinking, with his eyes turned toward the door, it\nopens slowly, and who should come in but old Squire Bowes, his face\nlookin' as dead as he was in his coffin.\n\n\"Tom's very breath left his body; he could not take his eyes off him;\nand he felt the hair rising up on his head.\n\n\"The Squire came to the side of the bed, and put his arms under\nDickon, and lifted the boy--in a dead sleep all the time--and carried\nhim out so, at the door.\n\n\"Such was the appearance, to Tom Pyke's eyes, and he was ready to\nswear to it, anywhere.\n\n\"When this happened, the light, wherever it came from, all on a sudden\nwent out, and Tom could not see his own hand before him.\n\n\"More dead than alive, he lay till daylight.\n\n\"Sure enough his brother Dickon was gone. No sign of him could he\ndiscover about the house; and with some trouble he got a couple of the\nneighbours to help him to search the woods and grounds. Not a sign of\nhim anywhere.\n\n\"At last one of them thought of the island in the lake; the little\nboat was moored to the old post at the water's edge. In they got,\nthough with small hope of finding him there. Find him, nevertheless,\nthey did, sitting under the big ash tree, quite out of his wits; and\nto all their questions he answered nothing but one cry--'Bowes, the\ndevil! See him; see him; Bowes, the devil!' An idiot they found him;\nand so he will be till God sets all things right. No one could ever\nget him to sleep under roof-tree more. He wanders from house to house\nwhile daylight lasts; and no one cares to lock the harmless creature\nin the workhouse. And folk would rather not meet him after nightfall,\nfor they think where he is there may be worse things near.\"\n\nA silence followed Tom's story. He and I were alone in that large room;\nI was sitting near the open window, looking into the dark night air. I\nfancied I saw something white move across it; and I heard a sound like low\ntalking that swelled into a discordant shriek--\"Hoo-oo-oo! Bowes, the\ndevil! Over your shoulder. Hoo-oo-oo! ha! ha! ha!\" I started up, and saw,\nby the light of the candle with which Tom strode to the window, the wild\neyes and blighted face of the idiot, as, with a sudden change of mood,\nhe drew off, whispering and tittering to himself, and holding up his long\nfingers, and looking at the tips like a \"hand of glory.\"\n\nTom pulled down the window. The story and its epilogue were over. I\nconfess I was rather glad when I heard the sound of the horses' hoofs\non the court-yard, a few minutes later; and still gladder when, having\nbidden Tom a kind farewell, I had left the neglected house of Barwyke\na mile behind me.","title":"J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":27425}