{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_12647/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_12647","id":"gutenberg_12647","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12647","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Ghost stories"],"text":"J. S. LE FANU'S GHOSTLY TALES, VOLUME 4\n\nGhost Stories of Chapelizod (1851)\nThe Drunkard's Dream (1838)\nThe Ghost and the Bone-setter (1838)\nThe Mysterious Lodger (1850)\n\nby\n\nJoseph Sheridan Le Fanu\n\n\n\n\n\n\nGHOST STORIES OF CHAPELIZOD\n\n\n\n\nTake my word for it, there is no such thing as an ancient village,\nespecially if it has seen better days, unillustrated by its legends of\nterror. You might as well expect to find a decayed cheese without mites,\nor an old house without rats, as an antique and dilapidated town without\nan authentic population of goblins. Now, although this class of\ninhabitants are in nowise amenable to the police authorities, yet, as\ntheir demeanor directly affects the comforts of her Majesty's subjects, I\ncannot but regard it as a grave omission that the public have hitherto\nbeen left without any statistical returns of their numbers, activity,\netc., etc. And I am persuaded that a Commission to inquire into and\nreport upon the numerical strength, habits, haunts, etc., etc., of\nsupernatural agents resident in Ireland, would be a great deal more\ninnocent and entertaining than half the Commissions for which the country\npays, and at least as instructive. This I say, more from a sense of duty,\nand to deliver my mind of a grave truth, than with any hope of seeing the\nsuggestion adopted. But, I am sure, my readers will deplore with me that\nthe comprehensive powers of belief, and apparently illimitable leisure,\npossessed by parliamentary commissions of inquiry, should never have been\napplied to the subject I have named, and that the collection of that\nspecies of information should be confided to the gratuitous and desultory\nlabours of individuals, who, like myself, have other occupations to\nattend to. This, however, by the way.\n\nAmong the village outposts of Dublin, Chapelizod once held a\nconsiderable, if not a foremost rank. Without mentioning its connexion\nwith the history of the great Kilmainham Preceptory of the Knights of St.\nJohn, it will be enough to remind the reader of its ancient and\ncelebrated Castle, not one vestige of which now remains, and of the fact\nthat it was for, we believe, some centuries, the summer residence of the\nViceroys of Ireland. The circumstance of its being up, we believe, to the\nperiod at which that corps was disbanded, the headquarters of the Royal\nIrish Artillery, gave it also a consequence of an humbler, but not less\nsubstantial kind. With these advantages in its favour, it is not\nwonderful that the town exhibited at one time an air of substantial and\nsemi-aristocratic prosperity unknown to Irish villages in modern times.\n\nA broad street, with a well-paved footpath, and houses as lofty as were\nat that time to be found in the fashionable streets of Dublin; a goodly\nstone-fronted barrack; an ancient church, vaulted beneath, and with a\ntower clothed from its summit to its base with the richest ivy; an humble\nRoman Catholic chapel; a steep bridge spanning the Liffey, and a great\nold mill at the near end of it, were the principal features of the town.\nThese, or at least most of them, remain still, but the greater part in a\nvery changed and forlorn condition. Some of them indeed are superseded,\nthough not obliterated by modern erections, such as the bridge, the\nchapel, and the church in part; the rest forsaken by the order who\noriginally raised them, and delivered up to poverty, and in some cases to\nabsolute decay.\n\nThe village lies in the lap of the rich and wooded valley of the Liffey,\nand is overlooked by the high grounds of the beautiful Phoenix Park on\nthe one side, and by the ridge of the Palmerstown hills on the other. Its\nsituation, therefore, is eminently picturesque; and factory-fronts and\nchimneys notwithstanding, it has, I think, even in its decay, a sort of\nmelancholy picturesqueness of its own. Be that as it may, I mean to\nrelate two or three stories of that sort which may be read with very good\neffect by a blazing fire on a shrewd winter's night, and are all directly\nconnected with the altered and somewhat melancholy little town I have\nnamed. The first I shall relate concerns\n\n\n\n\nThe Village Bully\n\n\nAbout thirty years ago there lived in the town of Chapelizod an\nill-conditioned fellow of herculean strength, well known throughout the\nneighbourhood by the title of Bully Larkin. In addition to his remarkable\nphysical superiority, this fellow had acquired a degree of skill as a\npugilist which alone would have made him formidable. As it was, he was\nthe autocrat of the village, and carried not the sceptre in vain.\nConscious of his superiority, and perfectly secure of impunity, he lorded\nit over his fellows in a spirit of cowardly and brutal insolence, which\nmade him hated even more profoundly than he was feared.\n\nUpon more than one occasion he had deliberately forced quarrels upon men\nwhom he had singled out for the exhibition of his savage prowess; and in\nevery encounter his over-matched antagonist had received an amount of\n\"punishment\" which edified and appalled the spectators, and in some\ninstances left ineffaceable scars and lasting injuries after it.\n\nBully Larkin's pluck had never been fairly tried. For, owing to his\nprodigious superiority in weight, strength, and skill, his victories had\nalways been certain and easy; and in proportion to the facility with\nwhich he uniformly smashed an antagonist, his pugnacity and insolence\nwere inflamed. He thus became an odious nuisance in the neighbourhood,\nand the terror of every mother who had a son, and of every wife who had a\nhusband who possessed a spirit to resent insult, or the smallest\nconfidence in his own pugilistic capabilities.\n\nNow it happened that there was a young fellow named Ned Moran--better\nknown by the soubriquet of \"Long Ned,\" from his slender, lathy\nproportions--at that time living in the town. He was, in truth, a mere\nlad, nineteen years of age, and fully twelve years younger than the\nstalwart bully. This, however, as the reader will see, secured for him no\nexemption from the dastardly provocations of the ill-conditioned\npugilist. Long Ned, in an evil hour, had thrown eyes of affection upon a\ncertain buxom damsel, who, notwithstanding Bully Larkin's amorous\nrivalry, inclined to reciprocate them.\n\nI need not say how easily the spark of jealousy, once kindled, is blown\ninto a flame, and how naturally, in a coarse and ungoverned nature, it\nexplodes in acts of violence and outrage.\n\n\"The bully\" watched his opportunity, and contrived to provoke Ned Moran,\nwhile drinking in a public-house with a party of friends, into an\naltercation, in the course of which he failed not to put such insults\nupon his rival as manhood could not tolerate. Long Ned, though a simple,\ngood-natured sort of fellow, was by no means deficient in spirit, and\nretorted in a tone of defiance which edified the more timid, and gave his\nopponent the opportunity he secretly coveted.\n\nBully Larkin challenged the heroic youth, whose pretty face he had\nprivately consigned to the mangling and bloody discipline he was himself\nso capable of administering. The quarrel, which he had himself contrived\nto get up, to a certain degree covered the ill blood and malignant\npremeditation which inspired his proceedings, and Long Ned, being full of\ngenerous ire and whiskey punch, accepted the gauge of battle on the\ninstant. The whole party, accompanied by a mob of idle men and boys, and\nin short by all who could snatch a moment from the calls of business,\nproceeded in slow procession through the old gate into the Phoenix Park,\nand mounting the hill overlooking the town, selected near its summit a\nlevel spot on which to decide the quarrel.\n\nThe combatants stripped, and a child might have seen in the contrast\npresented by the slight, lank form and limbs of the lad, and the muscular\nand massive build of his veteran antagonist, how desperate was the chance\nof poor Ned Moran.\n\n\"Seconds\" and \"bottle-holders\"--selected of course for their love of the\ngame--were appointed, and \"the fight\" commenced.\n\nI will not shock my readers with a description of the cool-blooded\nbutchery that followed. The result of the combat was what anybody might\nhave predicted. At the eleventh round, poor Ned refused to \"give in\"; the\nbrawny pugilist, unhurt, in good wind, and pale with concentrated and as\nyet unslaked revenge, had the gratification of seeing his opponent seated\nupon his second's knee, unable to hold up his head, his left arm\ndisabled; his face a bloody, swollen, and shapeless mass; his breast\nscarred and bloody, and his whole body panting and quivering with rage\nand exhaustion.\n\n\"Give in, Ned, my boy,\" cried more than one of the bystanders.\n\n\"Never, never,\" shrieked he, with a voice hoarse and choking.\n\nTime being \"up,\" his second placed him on his feet again. Blinded with\nhis own blood, panting and staggering, he presented but a helpless mark\nfor the blows of his stalwart opponent. It was plain that a touch would\nhave been sufficient to throw him to the earth. But Larkin had no notion\nof letting him off so easily. He closed with him without striking a blow\n(the effect of which, prematurely dealt, would have been to bring him at\nonce to the ground, and so put an end to the combat), and getting his\nbattered and almost senseless head under his arm, fast in that peculiar\n\"fix\" known to the fancy pleasantly by the name of \"chancery,\" he held\nhim firmly, while with monotonous and brutal strokes he beat his fist, as\nit seemed, almost into his face. A cry of \"shame\" broke from the crowd,\nfor it was plain that the beaten man was now insensible, and supported\nonly by the herculean arm of the bully. The round and the fight ended by\nhis hurling him upon the ground, falling upon him at the same time with\nhis knee upon his chest.\n\nThe bully rose, wiping the perspiration from his white face with his\nblood-stained hands, but Ned lay stretched and motionless upon the grass.\nIt was impossible to get him upon his legs for another round. So he was\ncarried down, just as he was, to the pond which then lay close to the old\nPark gate, and his head and body were washed beside it. Contrary to the\nbelief of all he was not dead. He was carried home, and after some months\nto a certain extent recovered. But he never held up his head again, and\nbefore the year was over he had died of consumption. Nobody could doubt\nhow the disease had been induced, but there was no actual proof to\nconnect the cause and effect, and the ruffian Larkin escaped the\nvengeance of the law. A strange retribution, however, awaited him.\n\nAfter the death of Long Ned, he became less quarrelsome than before, but\nmore sullen and reserved. Some said \"he took it to heart,\" and others,\nthat his conscience was not at ease about it. Be this as it may, however,\nhis health did not suffer by reason of his presumed agitations, nor was\nhis worldly prosperity marred by the blasting curses with which poor\nMoran's enraged mother pursued him; on the contrary he had rather risen\nin the world, and obtained regular and well-remunerated employment from\nthe Chief Secretary's gardener, at the other side of the Park. He still\nlived in Chapelizod, whither, on the close of his day's work, he used to\nreturn across the Fifteen Acres.\n\nIt was about three years after the catastrophe we have mentioned, and\nlate in the autumn, when, one night, contrary to his habit, he did not\nappear at the house where he lodged, neither had he been seen anywhere,\nduring the evening, in the village. His hours of return had been so very\nregular, that his absence excited considerable surprise, though, of\ncourse, no actual alarm; and, at the usual hour, the house was closed for\nthe night, and the absent lodger consigned to the mercy of the elements,\nand the care of his presiding star. Early in the morning, however, he was\nfound lying in a state of utter helplessness upon the slope immediately\noverlooking the Chapelizod gate. He had been smitten with a paralytic\nstroke: his right side was dead; and it was many weeks before he had\nrecovered his speech sufficiently to make himself at all understood.\n\nHe then made the following relation:--He had been detained, it appeared,\nlater than usual, and darkness had closed before he commenced his\nhomeward walk across the Park. It was a moonlit night, but masses of\nragged clouds were slowly drifting across the heavens. He had not\nencountered a human figure, and no sounds but the softened rush of the\nwind sweeping through bushes and hollows met his ear. These wild and\nmonotonous sounds, and the utter solitude which surrounded him, did not,\nhowever, excite any of those uneasy sensations which are ascribed to\nsuperstition, although he said he did feel depressed, or, in his own\nphraseology, \"lonesome.\" Just as he crossed the brow of the hill which\nshelters the town of Chapelizod, the moon shone out for some moments\nwith unclouded lustre, and his eye, which happened to wander by the\nshadowy enclosures which lay at the foot of the slope, was arrested by\nthe sight of a human figure climbing, with all the haste of one pursued,\nover the churchyard wall, and running up the steep ascent directly\ntowards him. Stories of \"resurrectionists\" crossed his recollection, as\nhe observed this suspicious-looking figure. But he began, momentarily,\nto be aware with a sort of fearful instinct which he could not explain,\nthat the running figure was directing his steps, with a sinister\npurpose, towards himself.\n\nThe form was that of a man with a loose coat about him, which, as he ran,\nhe disengaged, and as well as Larkin could see, for the moon was again\nwading in clouds, threw from him. The figure thus advanced until within\nsome two score yards of him, it arrested its speed, and approached with a\nloose, swaggering gait. The moon again shone out bright and clear, and,\ngracious God! what was the spectacle before him? He saw as distinctly as\nif he had been presented there in the flesh, Ned Moran, himself, stripped\nnaked from the waist upward, as if for pugilistic combat, and drawing\ntowards him in silence. Larkin would have shouted, prayed, cursed, fled\nacross the Park, but he was absolutely powerless; the apparition stopped\nwithin a few steps, and leered on him with a ghastly mimicry of the\ndefiant stare with which pugilists strive to cow one another before\ncombat. For a time, which he could not so much as conjecture, he was held\nin the fascination of that unearthly gaze, and at last the thing,\nwhatever it was, on a sudden swaggered close up to him with extended\npalms. With an impulse of horror, Larkin put out his hand to keep the\nfigure off, and their palms touched--at least, so he believed--for a\nthrill of unspeakable agony, running through his arm, pervaded his entire\nframe, and he fell senseless to the earth.\n\nThough Larkin lived for many years after, his punishment was terrible. He\nwas incurably maimed; and being unable to work, he was forced, for\nexistence, to beg alms of those who had once feared and flattered him. He\nsuffered, too, increasingly, under his own horrible interpretation of the\npreternatural encounter which was the beginning of all his miseries. It\nwas vain to endeavour to shake his faith in the reality of the\napparition, and equally vain, as some compassionately did, to try to\npersuade him that the greeting with which his vision closed was intended,\nwhile inflicting a temporary trial, to signify a compensating\nreconciliation.\n\n\"No, no,\" he used to say, \"all won't do. I know the meaning of it well\nenough; it is a challenge to meet him in the other world--in Hell, where\nI am going--that's what it means, and nothing else.\"\n\nAnd so, miserable and refusing comfort, he lived on for some years, and\nthen died, and was buried in the same narrow churchyard which contains\nthe remains of his victim.\n\nI need hardly say, how absolute was the faith of the honest inhabitants,\nat the time when I heard the story, in the reality of the preternatural\nsummons which, through the portals of terror, sickness, and misery, had\nsummoned Bully Larkin to his long, last home, and that, too, upon the\nvery ground on which he had signalised the guiltiest triumph of his\nviolent and vindictive career.\n\nI recollect another story of the preternatural sort, which made no small\nsensation, some five-and-thirty years ago, among the good gossips of the\ntown; and, with your leave, courteous reader, I shall relate it.\n\n\n\n\nThe Sexton's Adventure\n\n\nThose who remember Chapelizod a quarter of a century ago, or more, may\npossibly recollect the parish sexton. Bob Martin was held much in awe by\ntruant boys who sauntered into the churchyard on Sundays, to read the\ntombstones, or play leap frog over them, or climb the ivy in search of\nbats or sparrows' nests, or peep into the mysterious aperture under the\neastern window, which opened a dim perspective of descending steps\nlosing themselves among profounder darkness, where lidless coffins gaped\nhorribly among tattered velvet, bones, and dust, which time and\nmortality had strewn there. Of such horribly curious, and otherwise\nenterprising juveniles, Bob was, of course, the special scourge and\nterror. But terrible as was the official aspect of the sexton, and\nrepugnant as his lank form, clothed in rusty, sable vesture, his small,\nfrosty visage, suspicious grey eyes, and rusty, brown scratch-wig, might\nappear to all notions of genial frailty; it was yet true, that Bob\nMartin's severe morality sometimes nodded, and that Bacchus did not\nalways solicit him in vain.\n\nBob had a curious mind, a memory well stored with \"merry tales,\" and\ntales of terror. His profession familiarized him with graves and goblins,\nand his tastes with weddings, wassail, and sly frolics of all sorts. And\nas his personal recollections ran back nearly three score years into the\nperspective of the village history, his fund of local anecdote was\ncopious, accurate, and edifying.\n\nAs his ecclesiastical revenues were by no means considerable, he was not\nunfrequently obliged, for the indulgence of his tastes, to arts which\nwere, at the best, undignified.\n\nHe frequently invited himself when his entertainers had forgotten to do\nso; he dropped in accidentally upon small drinking parties of his\nacquaintance in public houses, and entertained them with stories, queer\nor terrible, from his inexhaustible reservoir, never scrupling to accept\nan acknowledgment in the shape of hot whiskey-punch, or whatever else\nwas going.\n\nThere was at that time a certain atrabilious publican, called Philip\nSlaney, established in a shop nearly opposite the old turnpike. This man\nwas not, when left to himself, immoderately given to drinking; but being\nnaturally of a saturnine complexion, and his spirits constantly requiring\na fillip, he acquired a prodigious liking for Bob Martin's company. The\nsexton's society, in fact, gradually became the solace of his existence,\nand he seemed to lose his constitutional melancholy in the fascination of\nhis sly jokes and marvellous stories.\n\nThis intimacy did not redound to the prosperity or reputation of the\nconvivial allies. Bob Martin drank a good deal more punch than was good\nfor his health, or consistent with the character of an ecclesiastical\nfunctionary. Philip Slaney, too, was drawn into similar indulgences, for\nit was hard to resist the genial seductions of his gifted companion; and\nas he was obliged to pay for both, his purse was believed to have\nsuffered even more than his head and liver.\n\nBe this as it may, Bob Martin had the credit of having made a drunkard of\n\"black Phil Slaney\"--for by this cognomen was he distinguished; and Phil\nSlaney had also the reputation of having made the sexton, if possible, a\n\"bigger bliggard\" than ever. Under these circumstances, the accounts of\nthe concern opposite the turnpike became somewhat entangled; and it came\nto pass one drowsy summer morning, the weather being at once sultry and\ncloudy, that Phil Slaney went into a small back parlour, where he kept\nhis books, and which commanded, through its dirty window-panes, a full\nview of a dead wall, and having bolted the door, he took a loaded pistol,\nand clapping the muzzle in his mouth, blew the upper part of his skull\nthrough the ceiling.\n\nThis horrid catastrophe shocked Bob Martin extremely; and partly on this\naccount, and partly because having been, on several late occasions, found\nat night in a state of abstraction, bordering on insensibility, upon the\nhigh road, he had been threatened with dismissal; and, as some said,\npartly also because of the difficulty of finding anybody to \"treat\" him\nas poor Phil Slaney used to do, he for a time forswore alcohol in all its\ncombinations, and became an eminent example of temperance and sobriety.\n\nBob observed his good resolutions, greatly to the comfort of his wife,\nand the edification of the neighbourhood, with tolerable punctuality. He\nwas seldom tipsy, and never drunk, and was greeted by the better part of\nsociety with all the honours of the prodigal son.\n\nNow it happened, about a year after the grisly event we have mentioned,\nthat the curate having received, by the post, due notice of a funeral to\nbe consummated in the churchyard of Chapelizod, with certain instructions\nrespecting the site of the grave, despatched a summons for Bob Martin,\nwith a view to communicate to that functionary these official details.\n\nIt was a lowering autumn night: piles of lurid thunder-clouds, slowly\nrising from the earth, had loaded the sky with a solemn and boding canopy\nof storm. The growl of the distant thunder was heard afar off upon the\ndull, still air, and all nature seemed, as it were, hushed and cowering\nunder the oppressive influence of the approaching tempest.\n\nIt was past nine o'clock when Bob, putting on his official coat of seedy\nblack, prepared to attend his professional superior.\n\n\"Bobby, darlin',\" said his wife, before she delivered the hat she held in\nher hand to his keeping, \"sure you won't, Bobby, darlin'--you won't--you\nknow what.\"\n\n\"I _don't_ know what,\" he retorted, smartly, grasping at his hat.\n\n\"You won't be throwing up the little finger, Bobby, acushla?\" she said,\nevading his grasp.\n\n\"Arrah, why would I, woman? there, give me my hat, will you?\"\n\n\"But won't you promise me, Bobby darlin'--won't you, alanna?\"\n\n\"Ay, ay, to be sure I will--why not?--there, give me my hat, and\nlet me go.\"\n\n\"Ay, but you're not promisin', Bobby, mavourneen; you're not promisin'\nall the time.\"\n\n\"Well, divil carry me if I drink a drop till I come back again,\" said the\nsexton, angrily; \"will that do you? And _now_ will you give me my hat?\"\n\n\"Here it is, darlin',\" she said, \"and God send you safe back.\"\n\nAnd with this parting blessing she closed the door upon his retreating\nfigure, for it was now quite dark, and resumed her knitting till his\nreturn, very much relieved; for she thought he had of late been oftener\ntipsy than was consistent with his thorough reformation, and feared the\nallurements of the half dozen \"publics\" which he had at that time to pass\non his way to the other end of the town.\n\nThey were still open, and exhaled a delicious reek of whiskey, as Bob\nglided wistfully by them; but he stuck his hands in his pockets and\nlooked the other way, whistling resolutely, and filling his mind with the\nimage of the curate and anticipations of his coming fee. Thus he steered\nhis morality safely through these rocks of offence, and reached the\ncurate's lodging in safety.\n\nHe had, however, an unexpected sick call to attend, and was not at home,\nso that Bob Martin had to sit in the hall and amuse himself with the\ndevil's tattoo until his return. This, unfortunately, was very long\ndelayed, and it must have been fully twelve o'clock when Bob Martin set\nout upon his homeward way. By this time the storm had gathered to a\npitchy darkness, the bellowing thunder was heard among the rocks and\nhollows of the Dublin mountains, and the pale, blue lightning shone upon\nthe staring fronts of the houses.\n\nBy this time, too, every door was closed; but as Bob trudged homeward,\nhis eye mechanically sought the public-house which had once belonged to\nPhil Slaney. A faint light was making its way through the shutters and\nthe glass panes over the doorway, which made a sort of dull, foggy halo\nabout the front of the house.\n\nAs Bob's eyes had become accustomed to the obscurity by this time, the\nlight in question was quite sufficient to enable him to see a man in a\nsort of loose riding-coat seated upon a bench which, at that time, was\nfixed under the window of the house. He wore his hat very much over his\neyes, and was smoking a long pipe. The outline of a glass and a quart\nbottle were also dimly traceable beside him; and a large horse saddled,\nbut faintly discernible, was patiently awaiting his master's leisure.\n\nThere was something odd, no doubt, in the appearance of a traveller\nrefreshing himself at such an hour in the open street; but the sexton\naccounted for it easily by supposing that, on the closing of the house\nfor the night, he had taken what remained of his refection to the place\nwhere he was now discussing it al fresco.\n\nAt another time Bob might have saluted the stranger as he passed with a\nfriendly \"good night\"; but, somehow, he was out of humour and in no\ngenial mood, and was about passing without any courtesy of the sort,\nwhen the stranger, without taking the pipe from his mouth, raised the\nbottle, and with it beckoned him familiarly, while, with a sort of lurch\nof the head and shoulders, and at the same time shifting his seat to the\nend of the bench, he pantomimically invited him to share his seat and\nhis cheer. There was a divine fragrance of whiskey about the spot, and\nBob half relented; but he remembered his promise just as he began to\nwaver, and said:\n\n\"No, I thank you, sir, I can't stop to-night.\"\n\nThe stranger beckoned with vehement welcome, and pointed to the vacant\nspace on the seat beside him.\n\n\"I thank you for your polite offer,\" said Bob, \"but it's what I'm too\nlate as it is, and haven't time to spare, so I wish you a good night.\"\n\nThe traveller jingled the glass against the neck of the bottle, as if to\nintimate that he might at least swallow a dram without losing time. Bob\nwas mentally quite of the same opinion; but, though his mouth watered, he\nremembered his promise, and shaking his head with incorruptible\nresolution, walked on.\n\nThe stranger, pipe in mouth, rose from his bench, the bottle in one hand,\nand the glass in the other, and followed at the sexton's heels, his dusky\nhorse keeping close in his wake.\n\nThere was something suspicious and unaccountable in this importunity.\n\nBob quickened his pace, but the stranger followed close. The sexton began\nto feel queer, and turned about. His pursuer was behind, and still\ninviting him with impatient gestures to taste his liquor.\n\n\"I told you before,\" said Bob, who was both angry and frightened, \"that I\nwould not taste it, and that's enough. I don't want to have anything to\nsay to you or your bottle; and in God's name,\" he added, more vehemently,\nobserving that he was approaching still closer, \"fall back and don't be\ntormenting me this way.\"\n\nThese words, as it seemed, incensed the stranger, for he shook the bottle\nwith violent menace at Bob Martin; but, notwithstanding this gesture of\ndefiance, he suffered the distance between them to increase. Bob,\nhowever, beheld him dogging him still in the distance, for his pipe shed\na wonderful red glow, which duskily illuminated his entire figure like\nthe lurid atmosphere of a meteor.\n\n\"I wish the devil had his own, my boy,\" muttered the excited sexton, \"and\nI know well enough where you'd be.\"\n\nThe next time he looked over his shoulder, to his dismay he observed the\nimportunate stranger as close as ever upon his track.\n\n\"Confound you,\" cried the man of skulls and shovels, almost beside\nhimself with rage and horror, \"what is it you want of me?\"\n\nThe stranger appeared more confident, and kept wagging his head and\nextending both glass and bottle toward him as he drew near, and Bob\nMartin heard the horse snorting as it followed in the dark.\n\n\"Keep it to yourself, whatever it is, for there is neither grace nor\nluck about you,\" cried Bob Martin, freezing with terror; \"leave me\nalone, will you.\"\n\nAnd he fumbled in vain among the seething confusion of his ideas for a\nprayer or an exorcism. He quickened his pace almost to a run; he was now\nclose to his own door, under the impending bank by the river side.\n\n\"Let me in, let me in, for God's sake; Molly, open the door,\" he cried,\nas he ran to the threshold, and leant his back against the plank. His\npursuer confronted him upon the road; the pipe was no longer in his\nmouth, but the dusky red glow still lingered round him. He uttered some\ninarticulate cavernous sounds, which were wolfish and indescribable,\nwhile he seemed employed in pouring out a glass from the bottle.\n\nThe sexton kicked with all his force against the door, and cried at the\nsame time with a despairing voice.\n\n\"In the name of God Almighty, once for all, leave me alone.\"\n\nHis pursuer furiously flung the contents of the bottle at Bob Martin;\nbut instead of fluid it issued out in a stream of flame, which expanded\nand whirled round them, and for a moment they were both enveloped in a\nfaint blaze; at the same instant a sudden gust whisked off the\nstranger's hat, and the sexton beheld that his skull was roofless. For\nan instant he beheld the gaping aperture, black and shattered, and then\nhe fell senseless into his own doorway, which his affrighted wife had\njust unbarred.\n\nI need hardly give my reader the key to this most intelligible and\nauthentic narrative. The traveller was acknowledged by all to have been\nthe spectre of the suicide, called up by the Evil One to tempt the\nconvivial sexton into a violation of his promise, sealed, as it was, by\nan imprecation. Had he succeeded, no doubt the dusky steed, which Bob had\nseen saddled in attendance, was destined to have carried back a double\nburden to the place from whence he came.\n\nAs an attestation of the reality of this visitation, the old thorn tree\nwhich overhung the doorway was found in the morning to have been blasted\nwith the infernal fires which had issued from the bottle, just as if a\nthunder-bolt had scorched it.\n\nThe moral of the above tale is upon the surface, apparent, and, so to\nspeak, _self-acting_--a circumstance which happily obviates the\nnecessity of our discussing it together. Taking our leave, therefore, of\nhonest Bob Martin, who now sleeps soundly in the same solemn dormitory\nwhere, in his day, he made so many beds for others, I come to a legend\nof the Royal Irish Artillery, whose headquarters were for so long a time\nin the town of Chapelizod. I don't mean to say that I cannot tell a\ngreat many more stories, equally authentic and marvellous, touching this\nold town; but as I may possibly have to perform a like office for other\nlocalities, and as Anthony Poplar is known, like Atropos, to carry a\nshears, wherewith to snip across all \"yarns\" which exceed reasonable\nbounds, I consider it, on the whole, safer to despatch the traditions of\nChapelizod with one tale more.\n\nLet me, however, first give it a name; for an author can no more despatch\na tale without a title, than an apothecary can deliver his physic without\na label. We shall, therefore, call it--\n\n\n\n\nThe Spectre Lovers\n\n\nThere lived some fifteen years since in a small and ruinous house, little\nbetter than a hovel, an old woman who was reported to have considerably\nexceeded her eightieth year, and who rejoiced in the name of Alice, or\npopularly, Ally Moran. Her society was not much courted, for she was\nneither rich, nor, as the reader may suppose, beautiful. In addition to a\nlean cur and a cat she had one human companion, her grandson, Peter\nBrien, whom, with laudable good nature, she had supported from the period\nof his orphanage down to that of my story, which finds him in his\ntwentieth year. Peter was a good-natured slob of a fellow, much more\naddicted to wrestling, dancing, and love-making, than to hard work, and\nfonder of whiskey-punch than good advice. His grandmother had a high\nopinion of his accomplishments, which indeed was but natural, and also of\nhis genius, for Peter had of late years begun to apply his mind to\npolitics; and as it was plain that he had a mortal hatred of honest\nlabour, his grandmother predicted, like a true fortuneteller, that he was\nborn to marry an heiress, and Peter himself (who had no mind to forego\nhis freedom even on such terms) that he was destined to find a pot of\ngold. Upon one point both agreed, that being unfitted by the peculiar\nbias of his genius for work, he was to acquire the immense fortune to\nwhich his merits entitled him by means of a pure run of good luck. This\nsolution of Peter's future had the double effect of reconciling both\nhimself and his grandmother to his idle courses, and also of maintaining\nthat even flow of hilarious spirits which made him everywhere welcome,\nand which was in truth the natural result of his consciousness of\napproaching affluence.\n\nIt happened one night that Peter had enjoyed himself to a very late hour\nwith two or three choice spirits near Palmerstown. They had talked\npolitics and love, sung songs, and told stories, and, above all, had\nswallowed, in the chastened disguise of punch, at least a pint of good\nwhiskey, every man.\n\nIt was considerably past one o'clock when Peter bid his companions\ngoodbye, with a sigh and a hiccough, and lighting his pipe set forth on\nhis solitary homeward way.\n\nThe bridge of Chapelizod was pretty nearly the midway point of his night\nmarch, and from one cause or another his progress was rather slow, and it\nwas past two o'clock by the time he found himself leaning over its old\nbattlements, and looking up the river, over whose winding current and\nwooded banks the soft moonlight was falling.\n\nThe cold breeze that blew lightly down the stream was grateful to him. It\ncooled his throbbing head, and he drank it in at his hot lips. The scene,\ntoo, had, without his being well sensible of it, a secret fascination.\nThe village was sunk in the profoundest slumber, not a mortal stirring,\nnot a sound afloat, a soft haze covered it all, and the fairy moonlight\nhovered over the entire landscape.\n\nIn a state between rumination and rapture, Peter continued to lean over\nthe battlements of the old bridge, and as he did so he saw, or fancied he\nsaw, emerging one after another along the river bank in the little\ngardens and enclosures in the rear of the street of Chapelizod, the\nqueerest little white-washed huts and cabins he had ever seen there\nbefore. They had not been there that evening when he passed the bridge on\nthe way to his merry tryst. But the most remarkable thing about it was\nthe odd way in which these quaint little cabins showed themselves. First\nhe saw one or two of them just with the corner of his eye, and when he\nlooked full at them, strange to say, they faded away and disappeared.\nThen another and another came in view, but all in the same coy way, just\nappearing and gone again before he could well fix his gaze upon them; in\na little while, however, they began to bear a fuller gaze, and he found,\nas it seemed to himself, that he was able by an effort of attention to\nfix the vision for a longer and a longer time, and when they waxed faint\nand nearly vanished, he had the power of recalling them into light and\nsubstance, until at last their vacillating indistinctness became less and\nless, and they assumed a permanent place in the moonlit landscape.\n\n\"Be the hokey,\" said Peter, lost in amazement, and dropping his pipe into\nthe river unconsciously, \"them is the quarist bits iv mud cabins I ever\nseen, growing up like musharoons in the dew of an evening, and poppin' up\nhere and down again there, and up again in another place, like so many\nwhite rabbits in a warren; and there they stand at last as firm and fast\nas if they were there from the Deluge; bedad it's enough to make a man\na'most believe in the fairies.\"\n\nThis latter was a large concession from Peter, who was a bit of a\nfree-thinker, and spoke contemptuously in his ordinary conversation of\nthat class of agencies.\n\nHaving treated himself to a long last stare at these mysterious fabrics,\nPeter prepared to pursue his homeward way; having crossed the bridge and\npassed the mill, he arrived at the corner of the main-street of the\nlittle town, and casting a careless look up the Dublin road, his eye was\narrested by a most unexpected spectacle.\n\nThis was no other than a column of foot soldiers, marching with perfect\nregularity towards the village, and headed by an officer on horseback.\nThey were at the far side of the turnpike, which was closed; but much to\nhis perplexity he perceived that they marched on through it without\nappearing to sustain the least check from that barrier.\n\nOn they came at a slow march; and what was most singular in the matter\nwas, that they were drawing several cannons along with them; some held\nropes, others spoked the wheels, and others again marched in front of the\nguns and behind them, with muskets shouldered, giving a stately character\nof parade and regularity to this, as it seemed to Peter, most unmilitary\nprocedure.\n\nIt was owing either to some temporary defect in Peter's vision, or to\nsome illusion attendant upon mist and moonlight, or perhaps to some other\ncause, that the whole procession had a certain waving and vapoury\ncharacter which perplexed and tasked his eyes not a little. It was like\nthe pictured pageant of a phantasmagoria reflected upon smoke. It was as\nif every breath disturbed it; sometimes it was blurred, sometimes\nobliterated; now here, now there. Sometimes, while the upper part was\nquite distinct, the legs of the column would nearly fade away or vanish\noutright, and then again they would come out into clear relief, marching\non with measured tread, while the cocked hats and shoulders grew, as it\nwere, transparent, and all but disappeared.\n\nNotwithstanding these strange optical fluctuations, however, the column\ncontinued steadily to advance. Peter crossed the street from the corner\nnear the old bridge, running on tip-toe, and with his body stooped to\navoid observation, and took up a position upon the raised footpath in the\nshadow of the houses, where, as the soldiers kept the middle of the road,\nhe calculated that he might, himself undetected, see them distinctly\nenough as they passed.\n\n\"What the div--, what on airth,\" he muttered, checking the irreligious\nejaculation with which he was about to start, for certain queer\nmisgivings were hovering about his heart, notwithstanding the factitious\ncourage of the whiskey bottle. \"What on airth is the manin' of all this?\nis it the French that's landed at last to give us a hand and help us in\nairnest to this blessed repale? If it is not them, I simply ask who the\ndiv--, I mane who on airth are they, for such sogers as them I never\nseen before in my born days?\"\n\nBy this time the foremost of them were quite near, and truth to say they\nwere the queerest soldiers he had ever seen in the course of his life.\nThey wore long gaiters and leather breeches, three-cornered hats, bound\nwith silver lace, long blue coats, with scarlet facings and linings,\nwhich latter were shewn by a fastening which held together the two\nopposite corners of the skirt behind; and in front the breasts were in\nlike manner connected at a single point, where and below which they\nsloped back, disclosing a long-flapped waistcoat of snowy whiteness; they\nhad very large, long cross-belts, and wore enormous pouches of white\nleather hung extraordinarily low, and on each of which a little silver\nstar was glittering. But what struck him as most grotesque and outlandish\nin their costume was their extraordinary display of shirt-frill in front,\nand of ruffle about their wrists, and the strange manner in which their\nhair was frizzled out and powdered under their hats, and clubbed up into\ngreat rolls behind. But one of the party was mounted. He rode a tall\nwhite horse, with high action and arching neck; he had a snow-white\nfeather in his three-cornered hat, and his coat was shimmering all over\nwith a profusion of silver lace. From these circumstances Peter concluded\nthat he must be the commander of the detachment, and examined him as he\npassed attentively. He was a slight, tall man, whose legs did not half\nfill his leather breeches, and he appeared to be at the wrong side of\nsixty. He had a shrunken, weather-beaten, mulberry-coloured face, carried\na large black patch over one eye, and turned neither to the right nor to\nthe left, but rode on at the head of his men, with a grim, military\ninflexibility.\n\nThe countenances of these soldiers, officers as well as men, seemed all\nfull of trouble, and, so to speak, scared and wild. He watched in vain\nfor a single contented or comely face. They had, one and all, a\nmelancholy and hang-dog look; and as they passed by, Peter fancied that\nthe air grew cold and thrilling.\n\nHe had seated himself upon a stone bench, from which, staring with all\nhis might, he gazed upon the grotesque and noiseless procession as it\nfiled by him. Noiseless it was; he could neither hear the jingle of\naccoutrements, the tread of feet, nor the rumble of the wheels; and when\nthe old colonel turned his horse a little, and made as though he were\ngiving the word of command, and a trumpeter, with a swollen blue nose and\nwhite feather fringe round his hat, who was walking beside him, turned\nabout and put his bugle to his lips, still Peter heard nothing, although\nit was plain the sound had reached the soldiers, for they instantly\nchanged their front to three abreast.\n\n\"Botheration!\" muttered Peter, \"is it deaf I'm growing?\"\n\nBut that could not be, for he heard the sighing of the breeze and the\nrush of the neighbouring Liffey plain enough.\n\n\"Well,\" said he, in the same cautious key, \"by the piper, this bangs\nBanagher fairly! It's either the Frinch army that's in it, come to take\nthe town iv Chapelizod by surprise, an' makin' no noise for feard iv\nwakenin' the inhabitants; or else it's--it's--what it's--somethin' else.\nBut, tundher-an-ouns, what's gone wid Fitzpatrick's shop across the way?\"\n\nThe brown, dingy stone building at the opposite side of the street looked\nnewer and cleaner than he had been used to see it; the front door of it\nstood open, and a sentry, in the same grotesque uniform, with shouldered\nmusket, was pacing noiselessly to and fro before it. At the angle of this\nbuilding, in like manner, a wide gate (of which Peter had no recollection\nwhatever) stood open, before which, also, a similar sentry was gliding,\nand into this gateway the whole column gradually passed, and Peter\nfinally lost sight of it.\n\n\"I'm not asleep; I'm not dhramin',\" said he, rubbing his eyes, and\nstamping slightly on the pavement, to assure himself that he was wide\nawake. \"It is a quare business, whatever it is; an' it's not alone that,\nbut everything about town looks strange to me. There's Tresham's house\nnew painted, bedad, an' them flowers in the windies! An' Delany's house,\ntoo, that had not a whole pane of glass in it this morning, and scarce a\nslate on the roof of it! It is not possible it's what it's dhrunk I am.\nSure there's the big tree, and not a leaf of it changed since I passed,\nand the stars overhead, all right. I don't think it is in my eyes it is.\"\n\nAnd so looking about him, and every moment finding or fancying new food\nfor wonder, he walked along the pavement, intending, without further\ndelay, to make his way home.\n\nBut his adventures for the night were not concluded. He had nearly\nreached the angle of the short land that leads up to the church, when for\nthe first time he perceived that an officer, in the uniform he had just\nseen, was walking before, only a few yards in advance of him.\n\nThe officer was walking along at an easy, swinging gait, and carried\nhis sword under his arm, and was looking down on the pavement with an\nair of reverie.\n\nIn the very fact that he seemed unconscious of Peter's presence, and\ndisposed to keep his reflections to himself, there was something\nreassuring. Besides, the reader must please to remember that our hero had\na quantum sufficit of good punch before his adventure commenced, and was\nthus fortified against those qualms and terrors under which, in a more\nreasonable state of mind, he might not impossibly have sunk.\n\nThe idea of the French invasion revived in full power in Peter's fuddled\nimagination, as he pursued the nonchalant swagger of the officer.\n\n\"Be the powers iv Moll Kelly, I'll ax him what it is,\" said Peter, with a\nsudden accession of rashness. \"He may tell me or not, as he plases, but\nhe can't be offinded, anyhow.\"\n\nWith this reflection having inspired himself, Peter cleared his voice\nand began--\n\n\"Captain!\" said he, \"I ax your pardon, captain, an' maybe you'd be so\ncondescindin' to my ignorance as to tell me, if it's plasin' to yer\nhonour, whether your honour is not a Frinchman, if it's plasin' to you.\"\n\nThis he asked, not thinking that, had it been as he suspected, not one\nword of his question in all probability would have been intelligible to\nthe person he addressed. He was, however, understood, for the officer\nanswered him in English, at the same time slackening his pace and moving\na little to the side of the pathway, as if to invite his interrogator to\ntake his place beside him.\n\n\"No; I am an Irishman,\" he answered.\n\n\"I humbly thank your honour,\" said Peter, drawing nearer--for the\naffability and the nativity of the officer encouraged him--\"but maybe\nyour honour is in the _sarvice_ of the King of France?\"\n\n\"I serve the same King as you do,\" he answered, with a sorrowful\nsignificance which Peter did not comprehend at the time; and,\ninterrogating in turn, he asked, \"But what calls you forth at this hour\nof the day?\"\n\n\"The _day,_ your honour!--the night, you mane.\"\n\n\"It was always our way to turn night into day, and we keep to it still,\"\nremarked the soldier. \"But, no matter, come up here to my house; I have a\njob for you, if you wish to earn some money easily. I live here.\"\n\nAs he said this, he beckoned authoritatively to Peter, who followed\nalmost mechanically at his heels, and they turned up a little lane near\nthe old Roman Catholic chapel, at the end of which stood, in Peter's\ntime, the ruins of a tall, stone-built house.\n\nLike everything else in the town, it had suffered a metamorphosis. The\nstained and ragged walls were now erect, perfect, and covered with\npebble-dash; window-panes glittered coldly in every window; the green\nhall-door had a bright brass knocker on it. Peter did not know whether to\nbelieve his previous or his present impressions; seeing is believing, and\nPeter could not dispute the reality of the scene. All the records of his\nmemory seemed but the images of a tipsy dream. In a trance of\nastonishment and perplexity, therefore, he submitted himself to the\nchances of his adventure.\n\nThe door opened, the officer beckoned with a melancholy air of authority\nto Peter, and entered. Our hero followed him into a sort of hall, which\nwas very dark, but he was guided by the steps of the soldier, and, in\nsilence, they ascended the stairs. The moonlight, which shone in at the\nlobbies, showed an old, dark wainscoting, and a heavy, oak banister. They\npassed by closed doors at different landing-places, but all was dark and\nsilent as, indeed, became that late hour of the night.\n\nNow they ascended to the topmost floor. The captain paused for a minute\nat the nearest door, and, with a heavy groan, pushing it open, entered\nthe room. Peter remained at the threshold. A slight female form in a\nsort of loose, white robe, and with a great deal of dark hair hanging\nloosely about her, was standing in the middle of the floor, with her\nback towards them.\n\nThe soldier stopped short before he reached her, and said, in a voice of\ngreat anguish, \"Still the same, sweet bird--sweet bird! still the same.\"\nWhereupon, she turned suddenly, and threw her arms about the neck of the\nofficer, with a gesture of fondness and despair, and her frame was\nagitated as if by a burst of sobs. He held her close to his breast in\nsilence; and honest Peter felt a strange terror creep over him, as he\nwitnessed these mysterious sorrows and endearments.\n\n\"To-night, to-night--and then ten years more--ten long years--another\nten years.\"\n\nThe officer and the lady seemed to speak these words together; her voice\nmingled with his in a musical and fearful wail, like a distant summer\nwind, in the dead hour of night, wandering through ruins. Then he heard\nthe officer say, alone, in a voice of anguish--\n\n\"Upon me be it all, for ever, sweet birdie, upon me.\"\n\nAnd again they seemed to mourn together in the same soft and desolate\nwail, like sounds of grief heard from a great distance.\n\nPeter was thrilled with horror, but he was also under a strange\nfascination; and an intense and dreadful curiosity held him fast.\n\nThe moon was shining obliquely into the room, and through the window\nPeter saw the familiar slopes of the Park, sleeping mistily under its\nshimmer. He could also see the furniture of the room with tolerable\ndistinctness--the old balloon-backed chairs, a four-post bed in a sort of\nrecess, and a rack against the wall, from which hung some military\nclothes and accoutrements; and the sight of all these homely objects\nreassured him somewhat, and he could not help feeling unspeakably curious\nto see the face of the girl whose long hair was streaming over the\nofficer's epaulet.\n\nPeter, accordingly, coughed, at first slightly, and afterward more\nloudly, to recall her from her reverie of grief; and, apparently, he\nsucceeded; for she turned round, as did her companion, and both, standing\nhand in hand, gazed upon him fixedly. He thought he had never seen such\nlarge, strange eyes in all his life; and their gaze seemed to chill the\nvery air around him, and arrest the pulses of his heart. An eternity of\nmisery and remorse was in the shadowy faces that looked upon him.\n\nIf Peter had taken less whisky by a single thimbleful, it is probable\nthat he would have lost heart altogether before these figures, which\nseemed every moment to assume a more marked and fearful, though hardly\ndefinable, contrast to ordinary human shapes.\n\n\"What is it you want with me?\" he stammered.\n\n\"To bring my lost treasure to the churchyard,\" replied the lady, in a\nsilvery voice of more than mortal desolation.\n\nThe word \"treasure\" revived the resolution of Peter, although a cold\nsweat was covering him, and his hair was bristling with horror; he\nbelieved, however, that he was on the brink of fortune, if he could but\ncommand nerve to brave the interview to its close.\n\n\"And where,\" he gasped, \"is it hid--where will I find it?\"\n\nThey both pointed to the sill of the window, through which the moon was\nshining at the far end of the room, and the soldier said--\n\n\"Under that stone.\"\n\nPeter drew a long breath, and wiped the cold dew from his face,\npreparatory to passing to the window, where he expected to secure the\nreward of his protracted terrors. But looking steadfastly at the window,\nhe saw the faint image of a new-born child sitting upon the sill in the\nmoonlight, with its little arms stretched toward him, and a smile so\nheavenly as he never beheld before.\n\nAt sight of this, strange to say, his heart entirely failed him, he\nlooked on the figures that stood near, and beheld them gazing on the\ninfantine form with a smile so guilty and distorted, that he felt as if\nhe were entering alive among the scenery of hell, and shuddering, he\ncried in an irrepressible agony of horror--\n\n\"I'll have nothing to say with you, and nothing to do with you; I don't\nknow what yez are or what yez want iv me, but let me go this minute,\nevery one of yez, in the name of God.\"\n\nWith these words there came a strange rumbling and sighing about\nPeter's ears; he lost sight of everything, and felt that peculiar and\nnot unpleasant sensation of falling softly, that sometimes supervenes\nin sleep, ending in a dull shock. After that he had neither dream nor\nconsciousness till he wakened, chill and stiff, stretched between two\npiles of old rubbish, among the black and roofless walls of the\nruined house.\n\nWe need hardly mention that the village had put on its wonted air of\nneglect and decay, or that Peter looked around him in vain for traces of\nthose novelties which had so puzzled and distracted him upon the\nprevious night.\n\n\"Ay, ay,\" said his grandmother, removing her pipe, as he ended his\ndescription of the view from the bridge, \"sure enough I remember myself,\nwhen I was a slip of a girl, these little white cabins among the gardens\nby the river side. The artillery sogers that was married, or had not room\nin the barracks, used to be in them, but they're all gone long ago.\n\n\"The Lord be merciful to us!\" she resumed, when he had described the\nmilitary procession, \"It's often I seen the regiment marchin' into the\ntown, jist as you saw it last night, acushla. Oh, voch, but it makes my\nheart sore to think iv them days; they were pleasant times, sure enough;\nbut is not it terrible, avick, to think it's what it was the ghost of the\nrigiment you seen? The Lord betune us an' harm, for it was nothing else,\nas sure as I'm sittin' here.\"\n\nWhen he mentioned the peculiar physiognomy and figure of the old officer\nwho rode at the head of the regiment--\n\n\"That,\" said the old crone, dogmatically, \"was ould Colonel Grimshaw, the\nLord presarve us! he's buried in the churchyard iv Chapelizod, and well I\nremember him, when I was a young thing, an' a cross ould floggin' fellow\nhe was wid the men, an' a devil's boy among the girls--rest his soul!\"\n\n\"Amen!\" said Peter; \"it's often I read his tombstone myself; but he's a\nlong time dead.\"\n\n\"Sure, I tell you he died when I was no more nor a slip iv a girl--the\nLord betune us and harm!\"\n\n\"I'm afeard it is what I'm not long for this world myself, afther seeing\nsuch a sight as that,\" said Peter, fearfully.\n\n\"Nonsinse, avourneen,\" retorted his grandmother, indignantly, though she\nhad herself misgivings on the subject; \"sure there was Phil Doolan, the\nferryman, that seen black Ann Scanlan in his own boat, and what harm ever\nkem of it?\"\n\nPeter proceeded with his narrative, but when he came to the description\nof the house, in which his adventure had had so sinister a conclusion,\nthe old woman was at fault.\n\n\"I know the house and the ould walls well, an' I can remember the time\nthere was a roof on it, and the doors an' windows in it, but it had a bad\nname about being haunted, but by who, or for what, I forget intirely.\"\n\n\"Did you ever hear was there goold or silver there?\" he inquired.\n\n\"No, no, avick, don't be thinking about the likes; take a fool's advice,\nand never go next to near them ugly black walls again the longest day you\nhave to live; an' I'd take my davy, it's what it's the same word the\npriest himself id be afther sayin' to you if you wor to ax his raverence\nconsarnin' it, for it's plain to be seen it was nothing good you seen\nthere, and there's neither luck nor grace about it.\"\n\nPeter's adventure made no little noise in the neighbourhood, as the\nreader may well suppose; and a few evenings after it, being on an errand\nto old Major Vandeleur, who lived in a snug old-fashioned house, close by\nthe river, under a perfect bower of ancient trees, he was called on to\nrelate the story in the parlour.\n\nThe Major was, as I have said, an old man; he was small, lean, and\nupright, with a mahogany complexion, and a wooden inflexibility of face;\nhe was a man, besides, of few words, and if _he_ was old, it follows\nplainly that his mother was older still. Nobody could guess or tell _how_\nold, but it was admitted that her own generation had long passed away,\nand that she had not a competitor left. She had French blood in her\nveins, and although she did not retain her charms quite so well as Ninon\nde l'Enclos, she was in full possession of all her mental activity, and\ntalked quite enough for herself and the Major.\n\n\"So, Peter,\" she said, \"you have seen the dear, old Royal Irish again in\nthe streets of Chapelizod. Make him a tumbler of punch, Frank; and Peter,\nsit down, and while you take it let us have the story.\"\n\nPeter accordingly, seated, near the door, with a tumbler of the nectarian\nstimulant steaming beside him, proceeded with marvellous courage,\nconsidering they had no light but the uncertain glare of the fire, to\nrelate with minute particularity his awful adventure. The old lady\nlistened at first with a smile of good-natured incredulity; her\ncross-examination touching the drinking-bout at Palmerstown had been\nteazing, but as the narrative proceeded she became attentive, and at\nlength absorbed, and once or twice she uttered ejaculations of pity or\nawe. When it was over, the old lady looked with a somewhat sad and stern\nabstraction on the table, patting her cat assiduously meanwhile, and then\nsuddenly looking upon her son, the Major, she said--\n\n\"Frank, as sure as I live he has seen the wicked Captain Devereux.\"\n\nThe Major uttered an inarticulate expression of wonder.\n\n\"The house was precisely that he has described. I have told you the story\noften, as I heard it from your dear grandmother, about the poor young\nlady he ruined, and the dreadful suspicion about the little baby. _She_,\npoor thing, died in that house heart-broken, and you know he was shot\nshortly after in a duel.\"\n\nThis was the only light that Peter ever received respecting his\nadventure. It was supposed, however, that he still clung to the hope that\ntreasure of some sort was hidden about the old house, for he was often\nseen lurking about its walls, and at last his fate overtook him, poor\nfellow, in the pursuit; for climbing near the summit one day, his holding\ngave way, and he fell upon the hard uneven ground, fracturing a leg and a\nrib, and after a short interval died, and he, like the other heroes of\nthese true tales, lies buried in the little churchyard of Chapelizod.\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTHE DRUNKARD'S DREAM\n\n\n_Being a Fourth Extract from the Legacy of the Late F. Purcell, P. P. of\nDrumcoolagh_\n\n\"All this _he_ told with some confusion and\nDismay, the usual consequence of dreams\nOf the unpleasant kind, with none at hand\nTo expound their vain and visionary gleams.\nI've known some odd ones which seemed really planned\nProphetically, as that which one deems\n'A strange coincidence,' to use a phrase\nBy which such things are settled now-a-days.\"\n\nBYRON.\n\n\nDreams--What age, or what country of the world has not felt and\nacknowledged the mystery of their origin and end? I have thought not a\nlittle upon the subject, seeing it is one which has been often forced\nupon my attention, and sometimes strangely enough; and yet I have never\narrived at any thing which at all appeared a satisfactory conclusion. It\ndoes appear that a mental phenomenon so extraordinary cannot be wholly\nwithout its use. We know, indeed, that in the olden times it has been\nmade the organ of communication between the Deity and his creatures; and\nwhen, as I have seen, a dream produces upon a mind, to all appearance\nhopelessly reprobate and depraved, an effect so powerful and so lasting\nas to break down the inveterate habits, and to reform the life of an\nabandoned sinner. We see in the result, in the reformation of morals,\nwhich appeared incorrigible in the reclamation of a human soul which\nseemed to be irretrievably lost, something more than could be produced by\na mere chimaera of the slumbering fancy, something more than could arise\nfrom the capricious images of a terrified imagination; but once\nprevented, we behold in all these things, in the tremendous and\nmysterious results, the operation of the hand of God. And while Reason\nrejects as absurd the superstition which will read a prophecy in every\ndream, she may, without violence to herself, recognize, even in the\nwildest and most incongruous of the wanderings of a slumbering intellect,\nthe evidences and the fragments of a language which may be spoken, which\n_has_ been spoken to terrify, to warn, and to command. We have reason to\nbelieve too, by the promptness of action, which in the age of the\nprophets, followed all intimations of this kind, and by the strength of\nconviction and strange permanence of the effects resulting from certain\ndreams in latter times, which effects ourselves may have witnessed, that\nwhen this medium of communication has been employed by the Deity, the\nevidences of his presence have been unequivocal. My thoughts were\ndirected to this subject, in a manner to leave a lasting impression upon\nmy mind, by the events which I shall now relate, the statement of which,\nhowever extraordinary, is nevertheless _accurately correct_.\n\nAbout the year l7-- having been appointed to the living of C----h, I\nrented a small house in the town, which bears the same name: one morning,\nin the month of November, I was awakened before my usual time, by my\nservant, who bustled into my bedroom for the purpose of announcing a sick\ncall. As the Catholic Church holds her last rites to be totally\nindispensable to the safety of the departing sinner, no conscientious\nclergyman can afford a moment's unnecessary delay, and in little more\nthan five minutes I stood ready cloaked and booted for the road in the\nsmall front parlour, in which the messenger, who was to act as my guide,\nawaited my coming. I found a poor little girl crying piteously near the\ndoor, and after some slight difficulty I ascertained that her father was\neither dead, or just dying.\n\n\"And what may be your father's name, my poor child?\" said I. She held\ndown her head, as if ashamed. I repeated the question, and the wretched\nlittle creature burst into floods of tears, still more bitter than she\nhad shed before. At length, almost provoked by conduct which appeared to\nme so unreasonable, I began to lose patience, spite of the pity which I\ncould not help feeling towards her, and I said rather harshly, \"If you\nwill not tell me the name of the person to whom you would lead me, your\nsilence can arise from no good motive, and I might be justified in\nrefusing to go with you at all.\"\n\n\"Oh! don't say that, don't say that,\" cried she. \"Oh! sir, it was that I\nwas afeard of when I would not tell you--I was afeard when you heard his\nname you would not come with me; but it is no use hidin' it now--it's Pat\nConnell, the carpenter, your honour.\"\n\nShe looked in my face with the most earnest anxiety, as if her very\nexistence depended upon what she should read there; but I relieved her at\nonce. The name, indeed, was most unpleasantly familiar to me; but,\nhowever fruitless my visits and advice might have been at another time,\nthe present was too fearful an occasion to suffer my doubts of their\nutility as my reluctance to re-attempting what appeared a hopeless task\nto weigh even against the lightest chance, that a consciousness of his\nimminent danger might produce in him a more docile and tractable\ndisposition. Accordingly I told the child to lead the way, and followed\nher in silence. She hurried rapidly through the long narrow street which\nforms the great thoroughfare of the town. The darkness of the hour,\nrendered still deeper by the close approach of the old fashioned houses,\nwhich lowered in tall obscurity on either side of the way; the damp\ndreary chill which renders the advance of morning peculiarly cheerless,\ncombined with the object of my walk, to visit the death-bed of a\npresumptuous sinner, to endeavour, almost against my own conviction, to\ninfuse a hope into the heart of a dying reprobate--a drunkard, but too\nprobably perishing under the consequences of some mad fit of\nintoxication; all these circumstances united served to enhance the gloom\nand solemnity of my feelings, as I silently followed my little guide, who\nwith quick steps traversed the uneven pavement of the main street. After\na walk of about five minutes she turned off into a narrow lane, of that\nobscure and comfortless class which are to be found in almost all small\nold fashioned towns, chill without ventilation, reeking with all manner\nof offensive effluviae, dingy, smoky, sickly and pent-up buildings,\nfrequently not only in a wretched but in a dangerous condition.\n\n\"Your father has changed his abode since I last visited him, and, I am\nafraid, much for the worse,\" said I.\n\n\"Indeed he has, sir, but we must not complain,\" replied she; \"we have to\nthank God that we have lodging and food, though it's poor enough, it is,\nyour honour.\"\n\nPoor child! thought I, how many an older head might learn wisdom from\nthee--how many a luxurious philosopher, who is skilled to preach but not\nto suffer, might not thy patient words put to the blush! The manner and\nlanguage of this child were alike above her years and station; and,\nindeed, in all cases in which the cares and sorrows of life have\nanticipated their usual date, and have fallen, as they sometimes do, with\nmelancholy prematurity to the lot of childhood, I have observed the\nresult to have proved uniformly the same. A young mind, to which joy and\nindulgence have been strangers, and to which suffering and self-denial\nhave been familiarised from the first, acquires a solidity and an\nelevation which no other discipline could have bestowed, and which, in\nthe present case, communicated a striking but mournful peculiarity to the\nmanners, even to the voice of the child. We paused before a narrow, crazy\ndoor, which she opened by means of a latch, and we forthwith began to\nascend the steep and broken stairs, which led upwards to the sick man's\nroom. As we mounted flight after flight towards the garret floor, I heard\nmore and more distinctly the hurried talking of many voices. I could also\ndistinguish the low sobbing of a female. On arriving upon the uppermost\nlobby, these sounds became fully audible.\n\n\"This way, your honor,\" said my little conductress, at the same time\npushing open a door of patched and half rotten plank, she admitted me\ninto the squalid chamber of death and misery. But one candle, held in the\nfingers of a scared and haggard-looking child, was burning in the room,\nand that so dim that all was twilight or darkness except within its\nimmediate influence. The general obscurity, however, served to throw into\nprominent and startling relief the death-bed and its occupant. The light\nwas nearly approximated to, and fell with horrible clearness upon, the\nblue and swollen features of the drunkard. I did not think it possible\nthat a human countenance could look so terrific. The lips were black and\ndrawn apart--the teeth were firmly set--the eyes a little unclosed, and\nnothing but the whites appearing--every feature was fixed and livid, and\nthe whole face wore a ghastly and rigid expression of despairing terror\nsuch as I never saw equalled; his hands were crossed upon his breast, and\nfirmly clenched, while, as if to add to the corpse-like effect of the\nwhole, some white cloths, dipped in water, were wound about the forehead\nand temples. As soon as I could remove my eyes from this horrible\nspectacle, I observed my friend Dr. D----, one of the most humane of a\nhumane profession, standing by the bedside. He had been attempting, but\nunsuccessfully, to bleed the patient, and had now applied his finger to\nthe pulse.\n\n\"Is there any hope?\" I inquired in a whisper.\n\nA shake of the head was the reply. There was a pause while he continued\nto hold the wrist; but he waited in vain for the throb of life, it was\nnot there, and when he let go the hand it fell stiffly back into its\nformer position upon the other.\n\n\"The man is dead,\" said the physician, as he turned from the bed where\nthe terrible figure lay.\n\nDead! thought I, scarcely venturing to look upon the tremendous and\nrevolting spectacle--dead! without an hour for repentance, even a\nmoment for reflection--dead! without the rites which even the best\nshould have. Is there a hope for him? The glaring eyeball, the grinning\nmouth, the distorted brow--that unutterable look in which a painter\nwould have sought to embody the fixed despair of the nethermost\nhell--these were my answer.\n\nThe poor wife sat at a little distance, crying as if her heart would\nbreak--the younger children clustered round the bed, looking, with\nwondering curiosity, upon the form of death, never seen before. When the\nfirst tumult of uncontrollable sorrow had passed away, availing myself of\nthe solemnity and impressiveness of the scene, I desired the\nheart-stricken family to accompany me in prayer, and all knelt down,\nwhile I solemnly and fervently repeated some of those prayers which\nappeared most applicable to the occasion. I employed myself thus in a\nmanner which, I trusted, was not unprofitable, at least to the living,\nfor about ten minutes, and having accomplished my task, I was the first\nto arise. I looked upon the poor, sobbing, helpless creatures who knelt\nso humbly around me, and my heart bled for them. With a natural\ntransition, I turned my eyes from them to the bed in which the body lay,\nand, great God! what was the revulsion, the horror which I experienced on\nseeing the corpse-like, terrific thing seated half upright before me--the\nwhite cloths, which had been wound about the head, had now partly slipped\nfrom their position, and were hanging in grotesque festoons about the\nface and shoulders, while the distorted eyes leered from amid them--\n\n\"A sight to dream of, not to tell.\"\n\nI stood actually rivetted to the spot. The figure nodded its head and\nlifted its arm, I thought with a menacing gesture. A thousand confused\nand horrible thoughts at once rushed upon my mind. I had often read that\nthe body of a presumptuous sinner, who, during life, had been the willing\ncreature of every satanic impulse, after the human tenant had deserted\nit, had been known to become the horrible sport of demoniac possession. I\nwas roused from the stupefaction of terror in which I stood, by the\npiercing scream of the mother, who now, for the first time, perceived the\nchange which had taken place. She rushed towards the bed, but, stunned by\nthe shock and overcome by the conflict of violent emotions, before she\nreached it, she fell prostrate upon the floor. I am perfectly convinced\nthat had I not been startled from the torpidity of horror in which I was\nbound, by some powerful and arousing stimulant, I should have gazed upon\nthis unearthly apparition until I had fairly lost my senses. As it was,\nhowever, the spell was broken, superstition gave way to reason: the man\nwhom all believed to have been actually dead, was living! Dr. D---- was\ninstantly standing by the bedside, and, upon examination, he found that a\nsudden and copious flow of blood had taken place from the wound which the\nlancet had left, and this, no doubt, had effected his sudden and almost\npreternatural restoration to an existence from which all thought he had\nbeen for ever removed. The man was still speechless, but he seemed to\nunderstand the physician when he forbid his repeating the painful and\nfruitless attempts which he made to articulate, and he at once resigned\nhimself quietly into his hands.\n\nI left the patient with leeches upon his temples, and bleeding\nfreely--apparently with little of the drowsiness which accompanies\napoplexy; indeed, Dr. D---- told me that he had never before witnessed a\nseizure which seemed to combine the symptoms of so many kinds, and yet\nwhich belonged to none of the recognized classes; it certainly was not\napoplexy, catalepsy, _nor delirium tremens_, and yet it seemed, in some\ndegree, to partake of the properties of all--it was strange, but stranger\nthings are coming.\n\nDuring two or three days Dr. D---- would not allow his patient to\nconverse in a manner which could excite or exhaust him, with any one; he\nsuffered him merely, as briefly as possible, to express his immediate\nwants, and it was not until the fourth day after my early visit, the\nparticulars of which I have just detailed, that it was thought expedient\nthat I should see him, and then only because it appeared that his extreme\nimportunity and impatience were likely to retard his recovery more than\nthe mere exhaustion attendant upon a short conversation could possibly\ndo; perhaps, too, my friend entertained some hope that if by holy\nconfession his patient's bosom were eased of the perilous stuff, which no\ndoubt, oppressed it, his recovery would be more assured and rapid. It\nwas, then, as I have said, upon the fourth day after my first\nprofessional call, that I found myself once more in the dreary chamber of\nwant and sickness. The man was in bed, and appeared low and restless. On\nmy entering the room he raised himself in the bed, and muttered twice or\nthrice--\"Thank God! thank God.\" I signed to those of his family who stood\nby, to leave the room, and took a chair beside the bed. So soon as we\nwere alone, he said, rather doggedly--\"There's no use now in telling me\nof the sinfulness of bad ways--I know it all--I know where they lead\nto--I seen everything about it with my own eyesight, as plain as I see\nyou.\" He rolled himself in the bed, as if to hide his face in the\nclothes, and then suddenly raising himself, he exclaimed with startling\nvehemence--\"Look, sir, there is no use in mincing the matter; I'm blasted\nwith the fires of hell; I have been in hell; what do you think of\nthat?--in hell--I'm lost for ever--I have not a chance--I am damned\nalready--damned--damned--.\" The end of this sentence he actually\nshouted; his vehemence was perfectly terrific; he threw himself back, and\nlaughed, and sobbed hysterically. I poured some water into a tea-cup, and\ngave it to him. After he had swallowed it, I told him if he had anything\nto communicate, to do so as briefly as he could, and in a manner as\nlittle agitating to himself as possible; threatening at the same time,\nthough I had no intention of doing so, to leave him at once, in case he\nagain gave way to such passionate excitement. \"It's only foolishness,\" he\ncontinued, \"for me to try to thank you for coming to such a villain as\nmyself at all; it's no use for me to wish good to you, or to bless you;\nfor such as me has no blessings to give.\" I told him that I had but done\nmy duty, and urged him to proceed to the matter which weighed upon his\nmind; he then spoke nearly as follows:--\"I came in drunk on Friday night\nlast, and got to my bed here, I don't remember how; sometime in the\nnight, it seemed to me, I wakened, and feeling unasy in myself, I got up\nout of the bed. I wanted the fresh air, but I would not make a noise to\nopen the window, for fear I'd waken the crathurs. It was very dark, and\nthroublesome to find the door; but at last I did get it, and I groped my\nway out, and went down as asy as I could. I felt quite sober, and I\ncounted the steps one after another, as I was going down, that I might\nnot stumble at the bottom. When I came to the first landing-place, God be\nabout us always! the floor of it sunk under me, and I went down, down,\ndown, till the senses almost left me. I do not know how long I was\nfalling, but it seemed to me a great while. When I came rightly to myself\nat last, I was sitting at a great table, near the top of it; and I could\nnot see the end of it, if it had any, it was so far off; and there was\nmen beyond reckoning, sitting down, all along by it, at each side, as far\nas I could see at all. I did not know at first was it in the open air;\nbut there was a close smothering feel in it, that was not natural, and\nthere was a kind of light that my eyesight never saw before, red and\nunsteady, and I did not see for a long time where it was coming from,\nuntil I looked straight up, and then I seen that it came from great balls\nof blood-coloured fire, that were rolling high over head with a sort of\nrushing, trembling sound, and I perceived that they shone on the ribs of\na great roof of rock that was arched overhead instead of the sky. When I\nseen this, scarce knowing what I did, I got up, and I said, 'I have no\nright to be here; I must go,' and the man that was sitting at my left\nhand, only smiled, and said, 'sit down again, you can _never_ leave this\nplace,' and his voice was weaker than any child's voice I ever heerd, and\nwhen he was done speaking he smiled again. Then I spoke out very loud and\nbold, and I said--'in the name of God, let me out of this bad place.' And\nthere was a great man, that I did not see before, sitting at the end of\nthe table that I was near, and he was taller than twelve men, and his\nface was very proud and terrible to look at, and he stood up and\nstretched out his hand before him, and when he stood up, all that was\nthere, great and small, bowed down with a sighing sound, and a dread came\non my heart, and he looked at me, and I could not speak. I felt I was his\nown, to do what he liked with, for I knew at once who he was, and he\nsaid, 'if you promise to return, you may depart for a season'; and the\nvoice he spoke with was terrible and mournful, and the echoes of it went\nrolling and swelling down the endless cave, and mixing with the trembling\nof the fire overhead; so that, when he sate down, there was a sound after\nhim, all through the place like the roaring of a furnace, and I said,\nwith all the strength I had, 'I promise to come back; in God's name let\nme go,' and with that I lost the sight and the hearing of all that was\nthere, and when my senses came to me again, I was sitting in the bed with\nthe blood all over me, and you and the rest praying around the room.\"\nHere he paused and wiped away the chill drops of horror which hung upon\nhis forehead.\n\nI remained silent for some moments. The vision which he had just\ndescribed struck my imagination not a little, for this was long before\nVathek and the \"Hall of Iblis\" had delighted the world; and the\ndescription which he gave had, as I received it, all the attractions of\nnovelty beside the impressiveness which always belongs to the narration\nof an _eye-witness_, whether in the body or in the spirit, of the scenes\nwhich he describes. There was something, too, in the stern horror with\nwhich the man related these things, and in the incongruity of his\ndescription, with the vulgarly received notions of the great place of\npunishment, and of its presiding spirit, which struck my mind with awe,\nalmost with fear. At length he said, with an expression of horrible,\nimploring earnestness, which I shall never forget--\"Well, sir, is there\nany hope; is there any chance at all? or, is my soul pledged and promised\naway for ever? is it gone out of my power? must I go back to the place?\"\n\nIn answering him I had no easy task to perform; for however clear might\nbe my internal conviction of the groundlessness of his fears, and however\nstrong my scepticism respecting the reality of what he had described, I\nnevertheless felt that his impression to the contrary, and his humility\nand terror resulting from it, might be made available as no mean engines\nin the work of his conversion from profligacy, and of his restoration to\ndecent habits, and to religious feeling. I therefore told him that he was\nto regard his dream rather in the light of a warning than in that of a\nprophecy; that our salvation depended not upon the word or deed of a\nmoment, but upon the habits of a life; that, in fine, if he at once\ndiscarded his idle companions and evil habits, and firmly adhered to a\nsober, industrious, and religious course of life, the powers of darkness\nmight claim his soul in vain, for that there were higher and firmer\npledges than human tongue could utter, which promised salvation to him\nwho should repent and lead a new life.\n\nI left him much comforted, and with a promise to return upon the next\nday. I did so, and found him much more cheerful, and without any remains\nof the dogged sullenness which I suppose had arisen from his despair.\nHis promises of amendment were given in that tone of deliberate\nearnestness, which belongs to deep and solemn determination; and it was\nwith no small delight that I observed, after repeated visits, that his\ngood resolutions, so far from failing, did but gather strength by time;\nand when I saw that man shake off the idle and debauched companions,\nwhose society had for years formed alike his amusement and his ruin, and\nrevive his long discarded habits of industry and sobriety, I said within\nmyself, there is something more in all this than the operation of an\nidle dream. One day, sometime after his perfect restoration to health, I\nwas surprised on ascending the stairs, for the purpose of visiting this\nman, to find him busily employed in nailing down some planks upon the\nlanding place, through which, at the commencement of his mysterious\nvision, it seemed to him that he had sunk. I perceived at once that he\nwas strengthening the floor with a view to securing himself against such\na catastrophe, and could scarcely forbear a smile as I bid \"God bless\nhis work.\"\n\nHe perceived my thoughts, I suppose, for he immediately said,\n\n\"I can never pass over that floor without trembling. I'd leave this\nhouse if I could, but I can't find another lodging in the town so cheap,\nand I'll not take a better till I've paid off all my debts, please God;\nbut I could not be asy in my mind till I made it as safe as I could.\nYou'll hardly believe me, your honor, that while I'm working, maybe a\nmile away, my heart is in a flutter the whole way back, with the bare\nthoughts of the two little steps I have to walk upon this bit of a\nfloor. So it's no wonder, sir, I'd thry to make it sound and firm with\nany idle timber I have.\"\n\nI applauded his resolution to pay off his debts, and the steadiness with\nwhich he pursued his plans of conscientious economy, and passed on.\n\nMany months elapsed, and still there appeared no alteration in his\nresolutions of amendment. He was a good workman, and with his better\nhabits he recovered his former extensive and profitable employment. Every\nthing seemed to promise comfort and respectability. I have little more to\nadd, and that shall be told quickly. I had one evening met Pat Connell,\nas he returned from his work, and as usual, after a mutual, and on his\nside respectful salutation, I spoke a few words of encouragement and\napproval. I left him industrious, active, healthy--when next I saw him,\nnot three days after, he was a corpse. The circumstances which marked the\nevent of his death were somewhat strange--I might say fearful. The\nunfortunate man had accidentally met an early friend, just returned,\nafter a long absence, and in a moment of excitement, forgetting\neverything in the warmth of his joy, he yielded to his urgent invitation\nto accompany him into a public house, which lay close by the spot where\nthe encounter had taken place. Connell, however, previously to entering\nthe room, had announced his determination to take nothing more than the\nstrictest temperance would warrant. But oh! who can describe the\ninveterate tenacity with which a drunkard's habits cling to him through\nlife. He may repent--he may reform--he may look with actual abhorrence\nupon his past profligacy; but amid all this reformation and compunction,\nwho can tell the moment in which the base and ruinous propensity may not\nrecur, triumphing over resolution, remorse, shame, everything, and\nprostrating its victim once more in all that is destructive and revolting\nin that fatal vice.\n\nThe wretched man left the place in a state of utter intoxication. He was\nbrought home nearly insensible, and placed in his bed, where he lay in\nthe deep calm lethargy of drunkenness. The younger part of the family\nretired to rest much after their usual hour; but the poor wife remained\nup sitting by the fire, too much grieved and shocked at the recurrence of\nwhat she had so little expected, to settle to rest; fatigue, however, at\nlength overcame her, and she sunk gradually into an uneasy slumber. She\ncould not tell how long she had remained in this state, when she\nawakened, and immediately on opening her eyes, she perceived by the faint\nred light of the smouldering turf embers, two persons, one of whom she\nrecognized as her husband noiselessly gliding out of the room.\n\n\"Pat, darling, where are you going?\" said she. There was no answer--the\ndoor closed after them; but in a moment she was startled and terrified by\na loud and heavy crash, as if some ponderous body had been hurled down\nthe stair. Much alarmed, she started up, and going to the head of the\nstaircase, she called repeatedly upon her husband, but in vain. She\nreturned to the room, and with the assistance of her daughter, whom I had\noccasion to mention before, she succeeded in finding and lighting a\ncandle, with which she hurried again to the head of the staircase. At the\nbottom lay what seemed to be a bundle of clothes, heaped together,\nmotionless, lifeless--it was her husband. In going down the stairs, for\nwhat purpose can never now be known, he had fallen helplessly and\nviolently to the bottom, and coming head foremost, the spine at the neck\nhad been dislocated by the shock, and instant death must have ensued. The\nbody lay upon that landing-place to which his dream had referred. It is\nscarcely worth endeavouring to clear up a single point in a narrative\nwhere all is mystery; yet I could not help suspecting that the second\nfigure which had been seen in the room by Connell's wife on the night of\nhis death, might have been no other than his own shadow. I suggested this\nsolution of the difficulty; but she told me that the unknown person had\nbeen considerably in advance of the other, and on reaching the door, had\nturned back as if to communicate something to his companion--it was then\na mystery. Was the dream verified?--whither had the disembodied spirit\nsped?--who can say? We know not. But I left the house of death that day\nin a state of horror which I could not describe. It seemed to me that I\nwas scarce awake. I heard and saw everything as if under the spell of a\nnightmare. The coincidence was terrible.\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTHE GHOST AND THE BONE-SETTER\n\n\nIn looking over the papers of my late valued and respected friend,\nFrancis Purcell, who for nearly fifty years discharged the arduous duties\nof a parish priest in the south of Ireland, I met with the following\ndocument. It is one of many such, for he was a curious and industrious\ncollector of old local traditions--a commodity in which the quarter where\nhe resided mightily abounded. The collection and arrangement of such\nlegends was, as long as I can remember him, his _hobby_; but I had never\nlearned that his love of the marvellous and whimsical had carried him so\nfar as to prompt him to commit the results of his enquiries to writing,\nuntil, in the character of _residuary legatee_, his will put me in\npossession of all his manuscript papers. To such as may think the\ncomposing of such productions as these inconsistent with the character\nand habits of a country priest, it is necessary to observe, that there\ndid exist a race of priests--those of the old school, a race now nearly\nextinct--whose habits were from many causes more refined, and whose\ntastes more literary than are those of the alumni of Maynooth.\n\nIt is perhaps necessary to add that the superstition illustrated by the\nfollowing story, namely, that the corpse last buried is obliged, during\nhis juniority of interment, to supply his brother tenants of the\nchurchyard in which he lies, with fresh water to allay the burning thirst\nof purgatory, is prevalent throughout the south of Ireland. The writer\ncan vouch for a case in which a respectable and wealthy farmer, on the\nborders of Tipperary, in tenderness to the corns of his departed\nhelpmate, enclosed in her coffin two pair of brogues, a light and a\nheavy, the one for dry, the other for sloppy weather; seeking thus to\nmitigate the fatigues of her inevitable perambulations in procuring\nwater, and administering it to the thirsty souls of purgatory. Fierce and\ndesperate conflicts have ensued in the case of two funeral parties\napproaching the same churchyard together, each endeavouring to secure to\nhis own dead priority of sepulture, and a consequent immunity from the\ntax levied upon the pedestrian powers of the last comer. An instance not\nlong since occurred, in which one of two such parties, through fear of\nlosing to their deceased friend this inestimable advantage, made their\nway to the churchyard by a _short cut_, and in violation of one of their\nstrongest prejudices, actually threw the coffin over the wall, lest time\nshould be lost in making their entrance through the gate. Innumerable\ninstances of the same kind might be quoted, all tending to show how\nstrongly, among the peasantry of the south, this superstition is\nentertained. However, I shall not detain the reader further, by any\nprefatory remarks, but shall proceed to lay before him the following:--\n\n_Extract from the Ms. Papers of the Late Rev. Francis Purcell, of\nDrumcoolagh_\n\n\"I tell the following particulars, as nearly as I can recollect them,\nin the words of the narrator. It may be necessary to observe that he\nwas what is termed a _well-spoken_ man, having for a considerable time\ninstructed the ingenious youth of his native parish in such of the\nliberal arts and sciences as he found it convenient to profess--a\ncircumstance which may account for the occurrence of several big\nwords, in the course of this narrative, more distinguished for\neuphonious effect, than for correctness of application. I proceed\nthen, without further preface, to lay before you the wonderful\nadventures of Terry Neil.\n\n\"Why, thin, 'tis a quare story, an' as thrue as you're sittin' there; and\nI'd make bould to say there isn't a boy in the seven parishes could tell\nit better nor crickther than myself, for 'twas my father himself it\nhappened to, an' many's the time I heerd it out iv his own mouth; an' I\ncan say, an' I'm proud av that same, my father's word was as incredible\nas any squire's oath in the counthry; and so signs an' if a poor man got\ninto any unlucky throuble, he was the boy id go into the court an' prove;\nbut that dosen't signify--he was as honest and as sober a man, barrin' he\nwas a little bit too partial to the glass, as you'd find in a day's walk;\nan' there wasn't the likes of him in the counthry round for nate\nlabourin' an' _baan_ diggin'; and he was mighty handy entirely for\ncarpenther's work, and mendin' ould spudethrees, an' the likes i' that.\nAn' so he tuck up with bone-setting, as was most nathural, for none of\nthem could come up to him in mendin' the leg iv a stool or a table; an'\nsure, there never was a bone-setter got so much custom--man an' child,\nyoung an' ould--there never was such breakin' and mendin' of bones known\nin the memory of man. Well, Terry Neil, for that was my father's name,\nbegan to feel his heart growin' light and his purse heavy; an' he took a\nbit iv a farm in Squire Phalim's ground, just undher the ould castle, an'\na pleasant little spot it was; an' day an' mornin', poor crathurs not\nable to put a foot to the ground, with broken arms and broken legs, id be\ncomin' ramblin' in from all quarters to have their bones spliced up.\nWell, yer honour, all this was as well as well could be; but it was\ncustomary when Sir Phelim id go any where out iv the country, for some iv\nthe tinants to sit up to watch in the ould castle, just for a kind of a\ncompliment to the ould family--an' a mighty unpleasant compliment it was\nfor the tinants, for there wasn't a man of them but knew there was some\nthing quare about the ould castle. The neighbours had it, that the\nsquire's ould grandfather, as good a gintleman, God be with him, as I\nheer'd as ever stood in shoe leather, used to keep walkin' about in the\nmiddle iv the night, ever sinst he bursted a blood vessel pullin' out a\ncork out iv a bottle, as you or I might be doin', and will too, plase\nGod; but that dosen't signify. So, as I was sayin', the ould squire used\nto come down out of the frame, where his picthur was hung up, and to\nbrake the bottles and glasses, God be marciful to us all, an' dhrink all\nhe could come at--an' small blame to him for that same; and then if any\nof the family id be comin' in, he id be up again in his place, looking as\nquite an' innocent as if he didn't know any thing about it--the\nmischievous ould chap.\n\n\"Well, your honour, as I was sayin', one time the family up at the\ncastle was stayin' in Dublin for a week or two; and so as usual, some of\nthe tenants had to sit up in the castle, and the third night it kem to\nmy father's turn. 'Oh, tare an ouns,' says he unto himself, 'an' must I\nsit up all night, and that ould vagabond of a sperit, glory be to God,'\nsays he, 'serenading through the house, an' doin' all sorts iv\nmischief.' However, there was no gettin' aff, and so he put a bould face\non it, an' he went up at nightfall with a bottle of pottieen, and\nanother of holy wather.\n\n\"It was rainin' smart enough, an' the evenin' was darksome and gloomy,\nwhen my father got in, and the holy wather he sprinkled on himself, it\nwasn't long till he had to swallee a cup iv the pottieen, to keep the\ncowld out iv his heart. It was the ould steward, Lawrence Connor, that\nopened the door--and he an' my father wor always very great. So when he\nseen who it was, an' my father tould him how it was his turn to watch in\nthe castle, he offered to sit up along with him; and you may be sure my\nfather wasn't sorry for that same. So says Larry,\n\n\"'We'll have a bit iv fire in the parlour,' says he.\n\n\"'An' why not in the hall?' says my father, for he knew that the squire's\npicthur was hung in the parlour.\n\n\"'No fire can be lit in the hall,' says Lawrence, 'for there's an ould\njackdaw's nest in the chimney.'\n\n\"'Oh thin,' says my father, 'let us stop in the kitchen, for it's very\numproper for the likes iv me to be sittin' in the parlour,' says he.\n\n\"'Oh, Terry, that can't be,' says Lawrence; 'if we keep up the ould\ncustom at all, we may as well keep it up properly,' says he.\n\n\"'Divil sweep the ould custom,' says my father--to himself, do ye mind,\nfor he didn't like to let Lawrence see that he was more afeard himself.\n\n\"'Oh, very well,' says he. 'I'm agreeable, Lawrence,' says he; and so\ndown they both went to the kitchen, until the fire id be lit in the\nparlour--an' that same wasn't long doin'.\n\n\"Well, your honour, they soon wint up again, an' sat down mighty\ncomfortable by the parlour fire, and they beginn'd to talk, an' to smoke,\nan' to dhrink a small taste iv the pottieen; and, moreover, they had a\ngood rousing fire of bogwood and turf, to warm their shins over.\n\n\"Well, sir, as I was sayin' they kep convarsin' and smokin' together\nmost agreeable, until Lawrence beginn'd to get sleepy, as was but\nnathural for him, for he was an ould sarvint man, and was used to a\ngreat dale iv sleep.\n\n\"'Sure it's impossible,' says my father, 'it's gettin' sleepy you are?'\n\n\"'Oh, divil a taste,' says Larry, 'I'm only shuttin' my eyes,' says he,\n'to keep out the parfume of the tibacky smoke, that's makin' them\nwather,' says he. 'So don't you mind other people's business,' says he\nstiff enough (for he had a mighty high stomach av his own, rest his\nsowl), 'and go on,' says he, 'with your story, for I'm listenin',' says\nhe, shuttin' down his eyes.\n\n\"Well, when my father seen spakin' was no use, he went on with his\nstory.--By the same token, it was the story of Jim Soolivan and his ould\ngoat he was tellin'--an' a pleasant story it is--an' there was so much\ndivarsion in it, that it was enough to waken a dormouse, let alone to\npervint a Christian goin' asleep. But, faix, the way my father tould it,\nI believe there never was the likes heerd sinst nor before for he bawled\nout every word av it, as if the life was fairly leavin' him thrying to\nkeep ould Larry awake; but, faix, it was no use, for the hoorsness came\nan him, an' before he kem to the end of his story, Larry O'Connor\nbeginned to snore like a bagpipes.\n\n\"'Oh, blur an' agres,' says my father, 'isn't this a hard case,' says\nhe, 'that ould villain, lettin' on to be my friend, and to go asleep\nthis way, an' us both in the very room with a sperit,' says he. 'The\ncrass o' Christ about us,' says he; and with that he was goin' to shake\nLawrence to waken him, but he just remimbered if he roused him, that\nhe'd surely go off to his bed, an lave him completely alone, an' that id\nbe by far worse.\n\n\"'Oh thin,' says my father, 'I'll not disturb the poor boy. It id be\nneither friendly nor good-nathured,' says he, 'to tormint him while he is\nasleep,' says he; 'only I wish I was the same way myself,' says he.\n\n\"An' with that he beginned to walk up an' down, an' sayin' his prayers,\nuntil he worked himself into a sweat, savin' your presence. But it was\nall no good; so he dhrunk about a pint of sperits, to compose his mind.\n\n\"'Oh,' says he, 'I wish to the Lord I was as asy in my mind as Larry\nthere. Maybe,' says he, 'if I thried I could go asleep'; an' with that he\npulled a big arm-chair close beside Lawrence, an' settled himself in it\nas well as he could.\n\n\"But there was one quare thing I forgot to tell you. He couldn't help, in\nspite av himself, lookin' now an' thin at the picthur, an' he immediately\nobserved that the eyes av it was follyin' him about, an' starin' at him,\nan' winkin' at him, wherever he wint. 'Oh,' says he, when he seen that,\n'it's a poor chance I have,' says he; 'an' bad luck was with me the day I\nkem into this unforthunate place,' says he; 'but any way there's no use\nin bein' freckened now,' says he; 'for if I am to die, I may as well\nparspire undaunted,' says he.\n\n\"Well, your honour, he thried to keep himself quite an' asy, an' he\nthought two or three times he might have wint asleep, but for the way the\nstorm was groanin' and creekin' through the great heavy branches outside,\nan' whistlin' through the ould chimnies iv the castle. Well, afther one\ngreat roarin' blast iv the wind, you'd think the walls iv the castle was\njust goin' to fall, quite an' clane, with the shakin' iv it. All av a\nsuddint the storm stopt, as silent an' as quite as if it was a July\nevenin'. Well, your honour, it wasn't stopped blowin' for three minnites,\nbefore he thought he hard a sort iv a noise over the chimney-piece; an'\nwith that my father just opened his eyes the smallest taste in life, an'\nsure enough he seen the ould squire gettin' out iv the picthur, for all\nthe world as if he was throwin' aff his ridin' coat, until he stept out\nclane an' complate, out av the chimly-piece, an' thrun himself down an\nthe floor. Well, the slieveen ould chap--an' my father thought it was the\ndirtiest turn iv all--before he beginned to do anything out iv the way,\nhe stopped, for a while, to listen wor they both asleep; an' as soon as\nhe thought all was quite, he put out his hand, and tuck hould iv the\nwhiskey bottle, an' dhrank at laste a pint iv it. Well, your honour, when\nhe tuck his turn out iv it, he settled it back mighty cute intirely, in\nthe very same spot it was in before. An' he beginn'd to walk up an' down\nthe room, lookin' as sober an' as solid as if he never done the likes at\nall. An' whinever he went apast my father, he thought he felt a great\nscent of brimstone, an' it was that that freckened him entirely; for he\nknew it was brimstone that was burned in hell, savin' your presence. At\nany rate, he often heer'd it from Father Murphy, an' he had a right to\nknow what belonged to it--he's dead since, God rest him. Well, your\nhonour, my father was asy enough until the sperit kem past him; so close,\nGod be marciful to us all, that the smell iv the sulphur tuck the breath\nclane out iv him; an' with that he tuck such a fit iv coughin', that it\nal-a-most shuck him out iv the chair he was sittin' in.\n\n\"'Ho, ho!' says the squire, stoppin' short about two steps aff, and\nturnin' round facin' my father, 'is it you that's in it?--an' how's all\nwith you, Terry Neil?'\n\n\"'At your honour's sarvice,' says my father (as well as the fright id let\nhim, for he was more dead than alive), 'an' it's proud I am to see your\nhonour to-night,' says he.\n\n\"'Terence,' says the squire, 'you're a respectable man (an' it was thrue\nfor him), an industhrious, sober man, an' an example of inebriety to the\nwhole parish,' says he.\n\n\"'Thank your honour,' says my father, gettin' courage, 'you were always a\ncivil spoken gintleman, God rest your honour.'\n\n\"'Rest my honour,' says the sperit (fairly gettin' red in the face with\nthe madness), 'Rest my honour?' says he. 'Why, you ignorant spalpeen,'\nsays he, 'you mane, niggarly ignoramush,' says he, 'where did you lave\nyour manners?' says he. 'If I _am_ dead, it's no fault iv mine,' says he;\n'an' it's not to be thrun in my teeth at every hand's turn, by the likes\niv you,' says he, stampin' his foot an the flure, that you'd think the\nboords id smash undher him.\n\n\"'Oh,' says my father, 'I'm only a foolish, ignorant, poor man,' says he.\n\n\"'You're nothing else,' says the squire; 'but any way,' says he, 'it's\nnot to be listenin' to your gosther, nor convarsin' with the likes iv\nyou, that I came _up_--down I mane,' says he--(an' as little as the\nmistake was, my father tuck notice iv it). 'Listen to me now, Terence\nNeil,' says he, 'I was always a good masther to Pathrick Neil, your\ngrandfather,' says he.\n\n\"'Tis thrue for your honour,' says my father.\n\n\"'And, moreover, I think I was always a sober, riglar gintleman,' says\nthe squire.\n\n\"'That's your name, sure enough,' says my father (though it was a big lie\nfor him, but he could not help it).\n\n\"'Well,' says the sperit, 'although I was as sober as most men--at laste\nas most gintlemen'--says he; 'an' though I was at different pariods a\nmost extempory Christian, and most charitable and inhuman to the poor,'\nsays he; 'for all that I'm not as asy where I am now,' says he, 'as I had\na right to expect,' says he.\n\n\"'An' more's the pity,' says my father; 'maybe your honour id wish to\nhave a word with Father Murphy?'\n\n\"'Hould your tongue, you misherable bliggard,' says the squire; 'it's\nnot iv my sowl I'm thinkin'--an' I wondher you'd have the impitence to\ntalk to a gintleman consarnin' his sowl;--and when I want _that_ fixed,'\nsays he, slappin' his thigh, 'I'll go to them that knows what belongs to\nthe likes,' says he. 'It's not my sowl,' says he, sittin' down opposite\nmy father; 'it's not my sowl that's annoyin' me most--I'm unasy on my\nright leg,' says he, 'that I bruck at Glenvarloch cover the day I killed\nblack Barney.'\n\n\"(My father found out afther, it was a favourite horse that fell undher\nhim, afther leapin' the big fince that runs along by the glen.)\n\n\"'I hope,' says my father, 'your honour's not unasy about the\nkillin' iv him?\n\n\"'Hould your tongue, ye fool,' said the squire, 'an' I'll tell you why\nI'm anasy an my leg,' says he. 'In the place, where I spend most iv my\ntime,' says he, 'except the little leisure I have for lookin' about me\nhere,' says he, 'I have to walk a great dale more than I was ever used\nto,' says he, 'and by far more than is good for me either,' says he; 'for\nI must tell you,' says he, 'the people where I am is ancommonly fond iv\ncould wather, for there is nothin' betther to be had; an', moreover, the\nweather is hotter than is altogether plisint,' says he; 'and I'm\nappinted,' says he, 'to assist in carryin' the wather, an' gets a mighty\npoor share iv it myself,' says he, 'an' a mighty throublesome, warin' job\nit is, I can tell you,' says he; 'for they're all iv them surprisingly\ndhry, an' dhrinks it as fast as my legs can carry it,' says he; 'but what\nkills me intirely,' says he, 'is the wakeness in my leg,' says he, 'an' I\nwant you to give it a pull or two to bring it to shape,' says he, 'and\nthat's the long an' the short iv it,' says he.\n\n\"'Oh, plase your honour,' says my father (for he didn't like to handle\nthe sperit at all), 'I wouldn't have the impitence to do the likes to\nyour honour,' says he; 'it's only to poor crathurs like myself I'd do it\nto,' says he.\n\n\"'None iv your blarney,' says the squire, 'here's my leg,' says he,\ncockin' it up to him, 'pull it for the bare life,' says he; 'an' if you\ndon't, by the immortial powers I'll not lave a bone in your carcish I'll\nnot powdher,' says he.\n\n\"'When my father heerd that, he seen there was no use in purtendin', so\nhe tuck hould iv the leg, an' he kept pullin' an' pullin', till the\nsweat, God bless us, beginned to pour down his face.\n\n\"'Pull, you divil', says the squire.\n\n\"'At your sarvice, your honour,' says my father.\n\n\"'Pull harder,' says the squire.\n\n\"My father pulled like the divil.\n\n\"'I'll take a little sup,' says the squire, rachin' over his hand to the\nbottle, 'to keep up my courage,' says he, lettin' an to be very wake in\nhimself intirely. But, as cute as he was, he was out here, for he tuck\nthe wrong one. 'Here's to your good health, Terence,' says he, 'an' now\npull like the very divil,' 'an' with that he lifted the bottle of holy\nwather, but it was hardly to his mouth, whin he let a screech out, you'd\nthink the room id fairly split with it, an' made one chuck that sent the\nleg clane aff his body in my father's hands; down wint the squire over\nthe table, an' bang wint my father half way across the room on his back,\nupon the flure. Whin he kem to himself the cheerful mornin' sun was\nshinin' through the windy shutthers, an' he was lying flat an his back,\nwith the leg iv one of the great ould chairs pulled clane out iv the\nsocket an' tight in his hand, pintin' up to the ceilin', an' ould Larry\nfast asleep, an' snorin' as loud as ever. My father wint that mornin' to\nFather Murphy, an' from that to the day of his death, he never neglected\nconfission nor mass, an' what he tould was betther believed that he spake\nav it but seldom. An', as for the squire, that is the sperit, whether it\nwas that he did not like his liquor, or by rason iv the loss iv his leg,\nhe was never known to walk again.\"\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTHE MYSTERIOUS LODGER\n\n\n\n\nPART I\n\n\nAbout the year 1822 I resided in a comfortable and roomy old house, the\nexact locality of which I need not particularise, further than to say\nthat it was not very far from Old Brompton, in the immediate\nneighbourhood, or rather continuity (as even my Connemara readers\nperfectly well know), of the renowned city of London.\n\nThough this house was roomy and comfortable, as I have said, it was not,\nby any means, a handsome one. It was composed of dark red brick, with\nsmall windows, and thick white sashes; a porch, too--none of your flimsy\ntrellis-work, but a solid projection of the same vermillion\nmasonry--surmounted by a leaded balcony, with heavy, half-rotten\nbalustrades, darkened the hall-door with a perennial gloom. The mansion\nitself stood in a walled enclosure, which had, perhaps, from the date of\nthe erection itself, been devoted to shrubs and flowers. Some of the\nformer had grown there almost to the dignity of trees; and two dark\nlittle yews stood at each side of the porch, like swart and inauspicious\ndwarfs, guarding the entrance of an enchanted castle. Not that my\ndomicile in any respect deserved the comparison: it had no reputation as\na haunted house; if it ever had any ghosts, nobody remembered them. Its\nhistory was not known to me: it may have witnessed plots, cabals, and\nforgeries, bloody suicides and cruel murders. It was certainly old enough\nto have become acquainted with iniquity; a small stone slab, under the\nbalustrade, and over the arch of the porch I mentioned, had the date\n1672, and a half-effaced coat of arms, which I might have deciphered any\nday, had I taken the trouble to get a ladder, but always put it off. All\nI can say for the house is, that it was well stricken in years, with a\ncertain air of sombre comfort about it; contained a vast number of rooms\nand closets; and, what was of far greater importance, was got by me a\ndead bargain.\n\nIts individuality attracted me. I grew fond of it for itself, and for its\nassociations, until other associations of a hateful kind first disturbed,\nand then destroyed, their charm. I forgave its dull red brick, and\npinched white windows, for the sake of the beloved and cheerful faces\nwithin: its ugliness was softened by its age; and its sombre evergreens,\nand moss-grown stone flower-pots, were relieved by the brilliant hues of\na thousand gay and graceful flowers that peeped among them, or nodded\nover the grass.\n\nWithin that old house lay my life's treasure! I had a darling little\ngirl of nine, and another little darling--a boy--just four years of age;\nand dearer, unspeakably, than either--a wife--the prettiest, gayest,\nbest little wife in all London. When I tell you that our income was\nscarcely \u00a3380 a-year, you will perceive that our establishment cannot\nhave been a magnificent one; yet, I do assure you, we were more\ncomfortable than a great many lords, and happier, I dare say, than the\nwhole peerage put together.\n\nThis happiness was not, however, what it ought to have been. The reader\nwill understand at once, and save me a world of moralising\ncircumlocution, when he learns, bluntly and nakedly, that, among all my\ncomforts and blessings, I was an infidel.\n\nI had not been without religious training; on the contrary, more than\naverage pains had been bestowed upon my religious instruction from my\nearliest childhood. My father, a good, plain, country clergyman, had\nworked hard to make me as good as himself; and had succeeded, at least,\nin training me in godly habits. He died, however, when I was but twelve\nyears of age; and fate had long before deprived me of the gentle care of\na mother. A boarding-school, followed by a college life, where nobody\nhaving any very direct interest in realising in my behalf the ancient\nblessing, that in fulness of time I should \"die a good old man,\" I was\nleft very much to my own devices, which, in truth, were none of the best.\n\nAmong these were the study of Voltaire, Tom Paine, Hume, Shelley, and the\nwhole school of infidels, poetical as well as prose. This pursuit, and\nthe all but blasphemous vehemence with which I gave myself up to it, was,\nperhaps, partly reactionary. A somewhat injudicious austerity and\nprecision had indissolubly associated in my childish days the ideas of\nrestraint and gloom with religion. I bore it a grudge; and so, when I\nbecame thus early my own master, I set about paying off, after my own\nfashion, the old score I owed it. I was besides, like every other young\ninfidel whom it has been my fate to meet, a conceited coxcomb. A\nsmattering of literature, without any real knowledge, and a great\nassortment of all the cut-and-dry flippancies of the school I had\nembraced, constituted my intellectual stock in trade. I was, like most of\nmy school of philosophy, very proud of being an unbeliever; and fancied\nmyself, in the complacency of my wretched ignorance, at an immeasurable\nelevation above the church-going, Bible-reading herd, whom I treated with\na good-humoured superciliousness which I thought vastly indulgent.\n\nMy wife was an excellent little creature and truly pious. She had married\nme in the full confidence that my levity was merely put on, and would at\nonce give way before the influence she hoped to exert upon my mind. Poor\nlittle thing! she deceived herself. I allowed her, indeed, to do entirely\nas she pleased; but for myself, I carried my infidelity to the length of\nan absolute superstition. I made an ostentation of it. I would rather\nhave been in a \"hell\" than in a church on Sunday; and though I did not\nprevent my wife's instilling her own principles into the minds of our\nchildren, I, in turn, took especial care to deliver mine upon all\noccasions in their hearing, by which means I trusted to sow the seeds of\nthat unprejudiced scepticism in which I prided myself, at least as early\nas my good little partner dropped those of her own gentle \"superstition\"\ninto their infant minds. Had I had my own absurd and impious will in this\nmatter, my children should have had absolutely no religious education\nwhatsoever, and been left wholly unshackled to choose for themselves\namong all existing systems, infidelity included, precisely as chance,\nfancy, or interest might hereafter determine.\n\nIt is not to be supposed that such a state of things did not afford her\ngreat uneasiness. Nevertheless, we were so very fond of one another,\nand in our humble way enjoyed so many blessings, that we were as\nentirely happy as any pair can be without the holy influence of\nreligious sympathy.\n\nBut the even flow of prosperity which had for so long gladdened my little\nhousehold was not destined to last for ever. It was ordained that I\nshould experience the bitter truth of more than one of the wise man's\nproverbs, and first, especially, of that which declares that \"he that\nhateth suretyship is sure.\" I found myself involved (as how many have\nbeen before) by a \"d--d good-natured friend,\" for more than two hundred\npounds. This agreeable intelligence was conveyed to me in an attorney's\nletter, which, to obviate unpleasant measures, considerately advised my\npaying the entire amount within just one week of the date of his pleasant\nepistle. Had I been called upon within that time to produce the Pitt\ndiamond, or to make title to the Buckingham estates, the demand would\nhave been just as easily complied with.\n\nI have no wish to bore my reader further with this little worry--a very\nserious one to me, however--and it will be enough to mention, that the\nkindness of a friend extricated me from the clutches of the law by a\ntimely advance, which, however, I was bound to replace within two years.\nTo enable me to fulfill this engagement, my wife and I, after repeated\nconsultations, resolved upon the course which resulted in the odd and\nunpleasant consequences which form the subject of this narrative.\n\nWe resolved to advertise for a lodger, with or without board, &c.; and by\nresolutely submitting, for a single year, to the economy we had\nprescribed for ourselves, as well as to the annoyance of a stranger's\nintrusion, we calculated that at the end of that term we should have\nliquidated our debt.\n\nAccordingly, without losing time, we composed an advertisement in the\nmost tempting phraseology we could devise, consistently with that\neconomic laconism which the cost per line in the columns of the _Times_\nnewspaper imposes upon the rhetoric of the advertising public.\n\nSomehow we were unlucky; for although we repeated our public notification\nthree times in the course of a fortnight, we had but two applications.\nThe one was from a clergyman in ill health--a man of great ability and\nzealous piety, whom we both knew by reputation, and who has since been\ncalled to his rest. My good little wife was very anxious that we should\nclose with his offer, which was very considerably under what we had fixed\nupon; and I have no doubt that she was influenced by the hope that his\ntalents and zeal might exert a happy influence upon my stubborn and\nunbelieving heart. For my part, his religious character displeased me. I\ndid not wish my children's heads to be filled with mythic dogmas--for so\nI judged the doctrines of our holy faith--and instinctively wished him\naway. I therefore declined his offer; and I have often since thought not\nquite so graciously as I ought to have done. The other offer--if so it\ncan be called--was so very inadequate that we could not entertain it.\n\nI was now beginning to grow seriously uneasy--our little project, so far\nfrom bringing in the gains on which we had calculated, had put me\nconsiderably out of pocket; for, independently of the cost of the\nadvertisement I have mentioned, there were sundry little expenses\ninvolved in preparing for the meet reception of our expected inmate,\nwhich, under ordinary circumstances, we should not have dreamed of.\nMatters were in this posture, when an occurrence took place which\nimmediately revived my flagging hopes.\n\nAs we had no superfluity of servants, our children were early obliged to\nacquire habits of independence; and my little girl, then just nine years\nof age, was frequently consigned with no other care than that of her own\ngood sense, to the companionship of a little band of playmates, pretty\nsimilarly circumstanced, with whom it was her wont to play. Having one\nfine summer afternoon gone out as usual with these little companions, she\ndid not return quite so soon as we had expected her; when she did so, she\nwas out of breath, and excited.\n\n\"Oh, papa,\" she said, \"I have seen such a nice old, kind gentleman, and\nhe told me to tell you that he has a particular friend who wants a\nlodging in a quiet place, and that he thinks your house would suit him\nexactly, and ever so much more; and, look here, he gave me this.\"\n\nShe opened her hand, and shewed me a sovereign.\n\n\"Well, this does look promisingly,\" I said, my wife and I having first\nexchanged a smiling glance.\n\n\"And what kind of gentleman was he, dear?\" inquired she. \"Was he well\ndressed--whom was he like?\"\n\n\"He was not like any one that I know,\" she answered; \"but he had very\nnice new clothes on, and he was one of the fattest men I ever saw; and\nI am sure he is sick, for he looks very pale, and he had a crutch\nbeside him.\"\n\n\"Dear me, how strange!\" exclaimed my wife; though, in truth there was\nnothing very wonderful in the matter. \"Go on, child,\" I said; \"let us\nhear it all out.\"\n\n\"Well, papa, he had such an immense yellow waistcoat!--I never did see\nsuch a waistcoat,\" she resumed; \"and he was sitting or leaning, I can't\nsay which, against the bank of the green lane; I suppose to rest himself,\nfor he seems very weak, poor gentleman!\"\n\n\"And how did you happen to speak to him?\" asked my wife.\n\n\"When we were passing by, none of us saw him at all but I suppose he\nheard them talking to me, and saying my name; for he said,\n'Fanny--little Fanny--so, that's your name--come here child, I have a\nquestion to ask you.'\"\n\n\"And so you went to him?\" I said.\n\n\"Yes,\" she continued, \"he beckoned to me, and I did go over to him, but\nnot very near, for I was greatly afraid of him at first.\"\n\n\"Afraid! dear, and why afraid?\" asked I.\n\n\"I was afraid, because he looked very old, very frightful, and as if he\nwould hurt me.\"\n\n\"What was there so old and frightful about him?\" I asked.\n\nShe paused and reflected a little, and then said--\n\n\"His face was very large and pale, and it was looking upwards: it seemed\nvery angry, I thought, but maybe it was angry from pain; and sometimes\none side of it used to twitch and tremble for a minute, and then to grow\nquite still again; and all the time he was speaking to me, he never\nlooked at me once, but always kept his face and eyes turned upwards; but\nhis voice was very soft, and he called me little Fanny, and gave me this\npound to buy toys with; so I was not so frightened in a little time, and\nthen he sent a long message to you, papa, and told me if I forgot it he\nwould beat me; but I knew he was only joking, so that did not frighten\nme either.\"\n\n\"And what was the message, my girl?\" I asked, patting her pretty head\nwith my hand.\n\n\"Now, let me remember it all,\" she said, reflectively; \"for he told it to\nme twice. He asked me if there was a good bedroom at the top of the\nhouse, standing by itself--and you know there is, so I told him so; it\nwas exactly the kind of room that he described. And then he said that his\nfriend would pay two hundred pounds a-year for that bedroom, his board\nand attendance; and he told me to ask you, and have your answer when he\nshould next meet me.\"\n\n\"Two hundred pounds!\" ejaculated my poor little wife; \"why that is nearly\ntwice as much as we expected.\"\n\n\"But did he say that his friend was sick, or very old; or that he had any\nservant to be supported also?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh! no; he told me that he was quite able to take care of himself, and\nthat he had, I think he called it, an asthma, but nothing else the\nmatter; and that he would give no trouble at all, and that any friend who\ncame to see him, he would see, not in the house, but only in the garden.\"\n\n\"In the garden!\" I echoed, laughing in spite of myself.\n\n\"Yes, indeed he said so; and he told me to say that he would pay one\nhundred pounds when he came here, and the next hundred in six months, and\nso on,\" continued she.\n\n\"Oh, ho! half-yearly in advance--better and better,\" said I.\n\n\"And he bid me say, too, if you should ask about his character, that he\nis just as good as the master of the house himself,\" she added; \"and when\nhe said that, he laughed a little.\"\n\n\"Why, if he gives us a hundred pounds in advance,\" I answered, turning to\nmy wife, \"we are safe enough; for he will not find half that value in\nplate and jewels in the entire household, if he is disposed to rob us. So\nI see no reason against closing with the offer, should it be seriously\nmeant--do you, dear?\"\n\n\"Quite the contrary, love,\" said she. \"I think it most desirable--indeed,\nmost _providential_.\"\n\n\"Providential! my dear little bigot!\" I repeated, with a smile. \"Well, be\nit so. I call it _lucky_ merely; but, perhaps, you are happier in your\nfaith, than I in my philosophy. Yes, you are _grateful_ for the chance\nthat I only rejoice at. You receive it as a proof of a divine and tender\nlove--I as an accident. Delusions are often more elevating than truth.\"\n\nAnd so saying, I kissed away the saddened cloud that for a moment\novercast her face.\n\n\"Papa, he bid me be sure to have an answer for him when we meet again,\"\nresumed the child. \"What shall I say to him when he asks me?\"\n\n\"Say that we agree to his proposal, my dear--or stay,\" I said, addressing\nmy wife, \"may it not be prudent to reduce what the child says to writing,\nand accept the offer so? This will prevent misunderstanding, as she may\npossibly have made some mistake.\"\n\nMy wife agreed, and I wrote a brief note, stating that I was willing to\nreceive an inmate upon the terms recounted by little Fanny, and which I\ndistinctly specified, so that no mistake could possibly arise owing to\nthe vagueness of what lawyers term a parole agreement. This important\nmemorandum I placed in the hands of my little girl, who was to deliver\nit whenever the old gentleman in the yellow waistcoat should chance to\nmeet her. And all these arrangements completed, I awaited the issue of\nthe affair with as much patience as I could affect. Meanwhile, my wife\nand I talked it over incessantly; and she, good little soul, almost wore\nherself to death in settling and unsettling the furniture and\ndecorations of our expected inmate's apartments. Days passed away--days\nof hopes deferred, tedious and anxious. We were beginning to despond\nagain, when one morning our little girl ran into the breakfast-parlour,\nmore excited even than she had been before, and fresh from a new\ninterview with the gentleman in the yellow waistcoat. She had\nencountered him suddenly, pretty nearly where she had met him before,\nand the result was, that he had read the little note I have mentioned,\nand desired the child to inform me that his friend, _Mr. Smith_, would\ntake possession of the apartments I proposed setting, on the terms\nagreed between us, that very evening.\n\n\"This evening!\" exclaimed my wife and I simultaneously--_I_ full of the\nidea of making a first instalment on the day following; _she_, of the\nhundred-and-one preparations which still remained to be completed.\n\n\"And so Smith is his name! Well, that does not tell us much,\" said I;\n\"but where did you meet your friend on this occasion, and how long is\nit since?\"\n\n\"Near the corner of the wall-flower lane (so we indicated one which\nabounded in these fragrant plants); he was leaning with his back against\nthe old tree you cut my name on, and his crutch was under his arm.\"\n\n\"But how long ago?\" I urged.\n\n\"Only this moment; I ran home as fast as I could,\" she replied.\n\n\"Why, you little blockhead, you should have told me that at first,\" I\ncried, snatching up my hat, and darting away in pursuit of the yellow\nwaistcoat, whose acquaintance I not unnaturally coveted, inasmuch as a\nman who, for the first time, admits a stranger into his house, on the\nfooting of permanent residence, desires generally to know a little more\nabout him than that his name is Smith.\n\nThe place indicated was only, as we say, a step away; and as yellow\nwaistcoat was fat, and used a crutch, I calculated on easily overtaking\nhim. I was, however, disappointed; crutch, waistcoat, and all had\ndisappeared. I climbed to the top of the wall, and from this commanding\npoint of view made a sweeping observation--but in vain. I returned\nhome, cursing my ill-luck, the child's dulness, and the fat old\nfellow's activity.\n\nI need hardly say that Mr. Smith, in all his aspects, moral, social,\nphysical, and monetary, formed a fruitful and interesting topic of\nspeculation during dinner. How many phantom Smiths, short and long, stout\nand lean, ill-tempered and well-tempered--rich, respectable, or highly\ndangerous merchants, spies, forgers, nabobs, swindlers, danced before us,\nin the endless mazes of fanciful conjecture, during that anxious\n_t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate_, which was probably to be interrupted by the arrival of the\ngentleman himself.\n\nMy wife and I puzzled over the problem as people would over the possible\n_d\u00e9nouement_ of a French novel; and at last, by mutual consent, we came\nto the conclusion that Smith could, and would turn out to be no other\nthan the good-natured valetudinarian in the yellow waistcoat himself, a\nhumorist, as was evident enough, and a millionaire, as we unhesitatingly\npronounced, who had no immediate relatives, and as I hoped, and my wife\n\"was certain,\" taken a decided fancy to our little Fanny; I patted the\nchild's head with something akin to pride, as I thought of the\nmagnificent, though remote possibilities, in store for her.\n\nMeanwhile, hour after hour stole away. It was a beautiful autumn evening,\nand the amber lustre of the declining sun fell softly upon the yews and\nflowers, and gave an air, half melancholy, half cheerful, to the dark-red\nbrick piers surmounted with their cracked and grass-grown stone urns, and\nfurnished with the light foliage of untended creeping plants. Down the\nshort broad walk leading to this sombre entrance, my eye constantly\nwandered; but no impatient rattle on the latch, no battering at the gate,\nindicated the presence of a visited, and the lazy bell hung dumbly among\nthe honey-suckles.\n\n\"When will he come? Yellow waistcoat promised _this evening_! It has\nbeen evening a good hour and a half, and yet he is not here. When will\nhe come? It will soon be dark--the evening will have passed--will he\ncome at all?\"\n\nSuch were the uneasy speculations which began to trouble us. Redder and\nduskier grew the light of the setting sun, till it saddened into the\nmists of night. Twilight came, and then darkness, and still no arrival,\nno summons at the gate. I would not admit even to my wife the excess of\nmy own impatience. I could, however, stand it no longer; so I took my hat\nand walked to the gate, where I stood by the side of the public road,\nwatching every vehicle and person that approached, in a fever of\nexpectation. Even these, however, began to fail me, and the road grew\ncomparatively quiet and deserted. Having kept guard like a sentinel for\nmore than half an hour, I returned in no very good humour, with the\npunctuality of an expected inmate--ordered the servant to draw the\ncurtains and secure the hall-door; and so my wife and I sate down to our\ndisconsolate cup of tea. It must have been about ten o'clock, and we were\nboth sitting silently--she working, I looking moodily into a paper--and\nneither of us any longer entertaining a hope that anything but\ndisappointment would come of the matter, when a sudden tapping, very loud\nand sustained, upon the window pane, startled us both in an instant from\nour reveries.\n\nI am not sure whether I mentioned before that the sitting-room we\noccupied was upon the ground-floor, and the sward came close under the\nwindow. I drew the curtains, and opened the shutters with a revived hope;\nand looking out, saw a very tall thin figure, a good deal wrapped up,\nstanding about a yard before me, and motioning with head and hand\nimpatiently towards the hall-door. Though the night was clear, there was\nno moon, and therefore I could see no more than the black outline, like\nthat of an _ombre chinoise_ figure, signing to me with mop and moe. In a\nmoment I was at the hall-door, candle in hand; the stranger stept in--his\nlong fingers clutched in the handle of a valise, and a bag which trailed\nupon the ground behind him.\n\nThe light fell full upon him. He wore a long, ill-made, black surtout,\nbuttoned across, and which wrinkled and bagged about his lank figure; his\nhat was none of the best, and rather broad in the brim; a sort of white\nwoollen muffler enveloped the lower part of his face; a pair of prominent\ngreen goggles, fenced round with leather, completely concealed his eyes;\nand nothing of the genuine man, but a little bit of yellow forehead, and\na small transverse segment of equally yellow cheek and nose, encountered\nthe curious gaze of your humble servant.\n\n\"You are--I suppose\"--I began; for I really was a little doubtful\nabout my man.\n\n\"Mr. Smith--the same; be good enough to show me to my bedchamber,\"\ninterrupted the stranger, brusquely, and in a tone which, spite of the\nmuffler that enveloped his mouth, was sharp and grating enough.\n\n\"Ha!--Mr. Smith--so I supposed. I hope you may find everything as\ncomfortable as we desire to make it--\"\n\nI was about making a speech, but was cut short by a slight bow, and a\ndecisive gesture of the hand in the direction of the staircase. It was\nplain that the stranger hated ceremony.\n\nTogether, accordingly, we mounted the staircase; he still pulling his\nluggage after him, and striding lightly up without articulating a word;\nand on reaching his bedroom, he immediately removed his hat, showing a\nsinister, black scratch-wig underneath, and then began unrolling the\nmighty woolen wrapping of his mouth and chin.\n\n\"Come,\" thought I, \"we _shall_ see something of your face after all.\"\n\nThis something, however, proved to be very little; for under his muffler\nwas a loose cravat, which stood up in front of his chin and upon his\nmouth, he wore a respirator--an instrument which I had never seen before,\nand of the use of which I was wholly ignorant.\n\nThere was something so excessively odd in the effect of this piece of\nunknown mechanism upon his mouth, surmounted by the huge goggles which\nencased his eyes, that I believe I should have laughed outright, were\nit not for a certain unpleasant and peculiar impressiveness in the\n_tout ensemble_ of the narrow-chested, long-limbed, and cadaverous\nfigure in black. As it was, we stood looking at one another in silence\nfor several seconds.\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" at last he said, abruptly. \"I shan't want anything\nwhatever to-night; if you can only spare me this candle.\"\n\nI assented; and, becoming more communicative, he added--\n\n\"I am, though an invalid, an independent sort of fellow enough. I am a\nbit of a philosopher; I am my own servant, and, I hope, my own master,\ntoo. I rely upon myself in matters of the body and of the mind. I place\nvalets and priests in the same category--fellows who live by our\nlaziness, intellectual or corporeal. I am a Voltaire, without his\nluxuries--a Robinson Crusoe, without his Bible--an anchorite, without a\nsuperstition--in short, my indulgence is asceticism, and my faith\ninfidelity. Therefore, I shan't disturb your servants much with my bell,\nnor yourselves with my psalmody. You have got a rational lodger, who\nknows how to attend upon himself.\"\n\nDuring this singular address he was drawing off his ill-fitting black\ngloves, and when he had done so, a bank-note, which had been slipped\nunderneath for safety, remained in his hand.\n\n\"Punctuality, sir, is one of my poor pleasures,\" he said; \"will you allow\nme to enjoy it now? To-morrow you may acknowledge this; I should not rest\nwere you to decline it.\"\n\nHe extended his bony and discoloured fingers, and placed the note in my\nhand. Oh, Fortune and Plutus! It was a \u00a3100 bank-note.\n\n\"Pray, not one word, my dear sir,\" he continued, unbending still further;\n\"it is simply done pursuant to agreement. We shall know one another\nbetter, I hope, in a little time; you will find me always equally\npunctual. At present pray give yourself no further trouble; I require\nnothing more. Good night.\"\n\nI returned the valediction, closed his door, and groped my way down the\nstairs. It was not until I had nearly reached the hall, that I\nrecollected that I had omitted to ask our new inmate at what hour he\nwould desire to be called in the morning, and so I groped my way back\nagain. As I reached the lobby on which his chamber opened, I perceived a\nlong line of light issuing from the partially-opened door, within which\nstood Mr. Smith, the same odd figure I had just left; while along the\nboards was creeping towards him across the lobby, a great, big-headed,\nbuff-coloured cat. I had never seen this ugly animal before; and it had\nreached the threshold of his door, arching its back, and rubbing itself\non the post, before either appeared conscious of my approach, when, with\nan angry growl, it sprang into the stranger's room.\n\n\"What do you want?\" he demanded, sharply, standing in the doorway.\n\nI explained my errand.\n\n\"I shall call myself,\" was his sole reply; and he shut the door with a\ncrash that indicated no very pleasurable emotions.\n\nI cared very little about my lodger's temper. The stealthy rustle of his\nbank-note in my waistcoat pocket was music enough to sweeten the harshest\ntones of his voice, and to keep alive a cheerful good humour in my heart;\nand although there was, indisputably, something queer about him, I was,\non the whole, very well pleased with my bargain.\n\nThe next day our new inmate did not ring his bell until noon. As soon\nas he had had some breakfast, of which he very sparingly partook, he\ntold the servant that, for the future, he desired that a certain\nquantity of milk and bread might be left outside his door; and this\nbeing done, he would dispense with regular meals. He desired, too,\nthat, on my return, I should be acquainted that he wished to see me in\nhis own room at about nine o'clock; and, meanwhile, he directed that he\nshould be left undisturbed. I found my little wife full of astonishment\nat Mr. Smith's strange frugality and seclusion, and very curious to\nlearn the object of the interview he had desired with me. At nine\no'clock I repaired to his room.\n\nI found him in precisely the costume in which I had left him--the same\ngreen goggles--the same muffling of the mouth, except that being now no\nmore than a broadly-folded black silk handkerchief, very loose, and\ncovering even the lower part of the nose, it was obviously intended for\nthe sole purpose of concealment. It was plain I was not to see more of\nhis features than he had chosen to disclose at our first interview. The\neffect was as if the lower part of his face had some hideous wound or\nsore. He closed the door with his own hand on my entrance, nodded\nslightly, and took his seat. I expected him to begin, but he was so long\nsilent that I was at last constrained to address him.\n\nI said, for want of something more to the purpose, that I hoped he had\nnot been tormented by the strange cat the night before.\n\n\"What cat?\" he asked, abruptly; \"what the plague do you mean?\"\n\n\"Why, I certainly did see a cat go into your room last night,\" I resumed.\n\n\"Hey, and what if you did--though I fancy you dreamed it--I'm not afraid\nof a cat; are you?\" he interrupted, tartly.\n\nAt this moment there came a low growling mew from the closet which opened\nfrom the room in which we sat.\n\n\"Talk of the devil,\" said I, pointing towards the closet. My companion,\nwithout any exact change of expression, looked, I thought, somehow\nstill more sinister and lowering; and I felt for a moment a sort of\nsuperstitious misgiving, which made the rest of the sentence die away\non my lips.\n\nPerhaps Mr. Smith perceived this, for he said, in a tone calculated to\nreassure me--\n\n\"Well, sir, I think I am bound to tell you that I like my apartments very\nwell; they suit me, and I shall probably be your tenant for much longer\nthan at first you anticipated.\"\n\nI expressed my gratification.\n\nHe then began to talk, something in the strain in which he had spoken of\nhis own peculiarities of habit and thinking upon the previous evening. He\ndisposed of all classes and denominations of superstition with an easy\nsarcastic slang, which for me was so captivating, that I soon lost all\nreserve, and found myself listening and suggesting by turns--acquiescent\nand pleased--sometimes hazarding dissent; but whenever I did, foiled and\nfloored by a few pointed satirical sentences, whose sophistry, for such I\nmust now believe it, confounded me with a rapidity which, were it not for\nthe admiration with which he had insensibly inspired me, would have\npiqued and irritated my vanity not a little.\n\nWhile this was going on, from time to time the mewing and growling of a\ncat within the closet became more and more audible. At last these sounds\nbecame so loud, accompanied by scratching at the door, that I paused in\nthe midst of a sentence, and observed--\n\n\"There certainly is a cat shut up in the closet?\"\n\n\"Is there?\" he ejaculated, in a surprised tone; \"nay, I do not hear it.\"\n\nHe rose abruptly and approached the door; his back was towards me, but I\nobserved he raised the goggles which usually covered his eyes, and looked\nsteadfastly at the closet door. The angry sounds all died away into a\nlow, protracted growl, which again subsided into silence. He continued in\nthe same attitude for some moments, and then returned.\n\n\"I do not hear it,\" he said, as he resumed his place, and taking a book\nfrom his capacious pocket, asked me if I had seen it before? I never had,\nand this surprised me, for I had flattered myself that I knew, at least\nby name, every work published in England during the last fifty years in\nfavour of that philosophy in which we both delighted. The book, moreover,\nwas an odd one, as both its title and table of contents demonstrated.\n\nWhile we were discoursing upon these subjects, I became more and more\ndistinctly conscious of a new class of sounds proceeding from the same\ncloset. I plainly heard a measured and heavy tread, accompanied by the\ntapping of some hard and heavy substance like the end of a staff, pass up\nand down the floor--first, as it seemed, stealthily, and then more and\nmore unconcealedly. I began to feel very uncomfortable and suspicious. As\nthe noise proceeded, and became more and more unequivocal, Mr. Smith\nabruptly rose, opened the closet door, just enough to admit his own\nlath-like person, and steal within the threshold for some seconds. What\nhe did I could not see--I felt conscious he had an associate concealed\nthere; and though my eyes remained fixed on the book, I could not avoid\nlistening for some audible words, or signal of caution. I heard, however,\nnothing of the kind. Mr. Smith turned back--walked a step or two towards\nme, and said--\n\n\"I fancied I heard a sound from that closet, but there is\nnothing--nothing--nothing whatever; bring the candle, let us both look.\"\n\nI obeyed with some little trepidation, for I fully anticipated that I\nshould detect the intruder, of whose presence my own ears had given me,\nfor nearly half an hour, the most unequivocal proofs. We entered the\ncloset together; it contained but a few chairs and a small spider table.\nAt the far end of the room there was a sort of grey woollen cloth upon\nthe floor, and a bundle of something underneath it. I looked jealously at\nit, and half thought I could trace the outline of a human figure; but, if\nso, it was perfectly motionless.\n\n\"Some of my poor wardrobe,\" he muttered, as he pointed his lean finger in\nthe direction. \"It did not sound like a cat, did it--hey--did it?\" he\nmuttered; and without attending to my answer, he went about the\napartment, clapping his hands, and crying, \"Hish--hish--hish!\"\n\nThe game, however, whatever it was, did not start. As I entered I had\nseen, however, a large crutch reposing against the wall in the corner\nopposite to the door. This was the only article in the room, except that\nI have mentioned, with which I was not familiar. With the exception of\nour two selves, there was not a living creature to be seen there; no\nshadow but ours upon the bare walls; no feet but our own upon the\ncomfortless floor.\n\nI had never before felt so strange and unpleasant a sensation.\n\n\"There is nothing unusual in the room but that crutch,\" I said.\n\n\"What crutch, you dolt? I see no crutch,\" he ejaculated, in a tone of\nsudden but suppressed fury.\n\n\"Why, _that_ crutch,\" I answered (for somehow I neither felt nor resented\nhis rudeness), turning and pointing to the spot where I had seen it. It\nwas gone!--it was neither there nor anywhere else. It must have been an\nillusion--rather an odd one, to be sure. And yet I could at this moment,\nwith a safe conscience, _swear_ that I never saw an object more\ndistinctly than I had seen it but a second before.\n\nMy companion was muttering fast to himself as we withdrew; his presence\nrather scared than reassured me; and I felt something almost amounting to\nhorror, as, holding the candle above his cadaverous and sable figure, he\nstood at his threshold, while I descended the stairs, and said, in a sort\nof whisper--\n\n\"Why, but that I am, like yourself, a philosopher, I should say that your\nhouse is--is--a--ha! ha! ha!--HAUNTED!\"\n\n\"You look very pale, my love,\" said my wife, as I entered the\ndrawing-room, where she had been long awaiting my return. \"Nothing\nunpleasant has happened?\"\n\n\"Nothing, nothing, I assure you. Pale!--_do_ I look pale?\" I answered.\n\"We are excellent friends, I assure you. So far from having had the\nsmallest disagreement, there is every prospect of our agreeing but too\nwell, as you will say; for I find that he holds all my opinions upon\nspeculative subjects. We have had a great deal of conversation this\nevening, I assure you; and I never met, I think, so scholarlike and\nable a man.\"\n\n\"I am sorry for it, dearest,\" she said, sadly. \"The greater his talents,\nif such be his opinions, the more dangerous a companion is he.\"\n\nWe turned, however, to more cheerful topics, and it was late before we\nretired to rest. I believe it was pride--perhaps only vanity--but, at all\nevents, some obstructive and stubborn instinct of my nature, which I\ncould not overcome--that prevented my telling my wife the odd occurrences\nwhich had disturbed my visit to our guest. I was unable or ashamed to\nconfess that so slight a matter had disturbed me; and, above all, that\nany accident could possibly have clouded, even for a moment, the frosty\nclearness of my pure and lofty scepticism with the shadows of\nsuperstition.\n\nAlmost every day seemed to develop some new eccentricity of our strange\nguest. His dietary consisted, without any variety or relief, of the\nmonotonous bread and milk with which he started; his bed had not been\nmade for nearly a week; nobody had been admitted into his room since my\nvisit, just described; and he never ventured down stairs, or out of\ndoors, until after nightfall, when he used sometimes to glide swiftly\nround our little enclosed shrubbery, and at others stand quite\nmotionless, composed, as if in an attitude of deep attention. After\nemploying about an hour in this way, he would return, and steal up stairs\nto his room, when he would shut himself up, and not be seen again until\nthe next night--or, it might be, the night after that--when, perhaps, he\nwould repeat his odd excursion.\n\nStrange as his habits were, their eccentricity was all upon the side\nleast troublesome to us. He required literally no attendance; and as to\nhis occasional night ramble, even _it_ caused not the slightest\ndisturbance of our routine hour for securing the house and locking up the\nhall-door for the night, inasmuch as he had invariably retired before\nthat hour arrived.\n\nAll this stimulated curiosity, and, in no small degree, that of my wife,\nwho, notwithstanding her vigilance and her anxiety to see our strange\ninmate, had been hitherto foiled by a series of cross accidents. We were\nsitting together somewhere about ten o'clock at night, when there came a\ntap at the room-door. We had just been discussing the unaccountable\nSmith; and I felt a sheepish consciousness that he might be himself at\nthe door, and have possibly even overheard our speculation--some of them\nanything but complimentary, respecting himself.\n\n\"Come in,\" cried, I, with an effort; and the tall form of our lodger\nglided into the room. My wife was positively frightened, and stood\nlooking at him, as he advanced, with a stare of manifest apprehension,\nand even recoiled mechanically, and caught my hand.\n\nSensitiveness, however, was not his fault: he made a kind of stiff nod as\nI mumbled an introduction; and seating himself unasked, began at once to\nchat in that odd, off-hand, and sneering style, in which he excelled, and\nwhich had, as he wielded it, a sort of fascination of which I can pretend\nto convey no idea.\n\nMy wife's alarm subsided, and although she still manifestly felt some\nsort of misgiving about our visitor, she yet listened to his\nconversation, and, spite of herself, soon began to enjoy it. He stayed\nfor nearly half an hour. But although he glanced at a great variety of\ntopics, he did not approach the subject of religion. As soon as he was\ngone, my wife delivered judgment upon him in form. She admitted he was\nagreeable; but then he was such an unnatural, awful-looking object: there\nwas, besides, something indescribably frightful, she thought, in his\nmanner--the very tone of his voice was strange and hateful; and, on the\nwhole, she felt unutterably relieved at his departure.\n\nA few days after, on my return, I found my poor little wife agitated and\ndispirited. Mr. Smith had paid her a visit, and brought with him a book,\nwhich he stated he had been reading, and which contained some references\nto the Bible which he begged of her to explain in that profounder and\nless obvious sense in which they had been cited. This she had endeavoured\nto do; and affecting to be much gratified by her satisfactory exposition,\nhe had requested her to reconcile some discrepancies which he said had\noften troubled him when reading the Scriptures. Some of them were quite\nnew to my good little wife; they startled and even horrified her. He\npursued this theme, still pretending only to seek for information to\nquiet his own doubts, while in reality he was sowing in her mind the\nseeds of the first perturbations that had ever troubled the sources of\nher peace. He had been with her, she thought, no more than a quarter of\nan hour; but he had contrived to leave her abundant topics on which to\nruminate for days. I found her shocked and horrified at the doubts which\nthis potent Magus had summoned from the pit--doubts which she knew not\nhow to combat, and from the torment of which she could not escape.\n\n\"He has made me very miserable with his deceitful questions. I never\nthought of them before; and, merciful Heaven! I cannot answer them! What\nam I to do? My serenity is gone; I shall never be happy again.\"\n\nIn truth, she was so very miserable, and, as it seemed to me, so\ndisproportionately excited, that, inconsistent in me as the task would\nhave been, I would gladly have explained away her difficulties, and\nrestored to her mind its wonted confidence and serenity, had I possessed\nsufficient knowledge for the purpose. I really pitied her, and heartily\nwished Mr. Smith, for the nonce, at the devil.\n\nI observed after this that my wife's spirits appeared permanently\naffected. There was a constantly-recurring anxiety, and I thought\nsomething was lying still more heavily at her heart than the\nuncertainties inspired by our lodger.\n\nOne evening, as we two were sitting together, after a long silence, she\nsuddenly laid her hand upon my arm, and said--\n\n\"Oh, Richard, my darling! would to God you could pray for me!\"\n\nThere was something so agitated, and even terrified, in her manner,\nthat I was absolutely startled. I urged her to disclose whatever preyed\nupon her mind.\n\n\"You can't sympathise with me--you can't help me--you can scarcely\ncompassionate me in my misery! Oh, dearest Richard! Some evil influence\nhas been gaining upon my heart, dulling and destroying my convictions,\nkilling all my holy affections, and--and absolutely transforming me. I\nlook inward upon myself with amazement, with terror--with--oh, God!--with\nactual despair!\"\n\nSaying this, she threw herself on her knees, and wept an agonised flood\nof tears, with her head reposing in my lap.\n\nPoor little thing, my heart bled for her! But what could I do or say?\n\nAll I could suggest was what I really thought, that she was\nunwell--hysterical--and needed to take better care of her precious self;\nthat her change of feeling was fancied, not real; and that a few days\nwould restore her to her old health and former spirits and serenity.\n\n\"And sometimes,\" she resumed, after I had ended a consolatory discussion,\nwhich it was but too manifest had fallen unprofitably upon her ear, \"such\ndreadful, impious thoughts come into my mind, whether I choose it or not;\nthey come, and stay, and return, strive as I may; and I can't pray\nagainst them. They are forced upon me with the strength of an independent\nwill; and oh!--horrible--frightful--they blaspheme the character of God\nhimself. They upbraid the Almighty upon his throne, and I can't pray\nagainst them; there is something in me now that resists prayer.\"\n\nThere was such a real and fearful anguish in the agitation of my gentle\ncompanion, that it shook my very soul within me, even while I was\naffecting to make light of her confessions. I had never before witnessed\na struggle at all like this, and I was awe-struck at the spectacle.\n\nAt length she became comparatively calm. I did gradually succeed, though\nvery imperfectly, in reassuring her. She strove hard against her\ndepression, and recovered a little of her wonted cheerfulness.\n\nAfter a while, however, the cloud returned. She grew sad and earnest,\nthough no longer excited; and entreated, or rather implored, of me to\ngrant her one special favour, and this was, to avoid the society of\nour lodger.\n\n\"I never,\" she said, \"could understand till now the instinctive dread\nwith which poor Margaret, in _Faust_, shrinks from the hateful presence\nof Mephistopheles. I now feel it in myself. The dislike and suspicion I\nfirst felt for that man--Smith, or whatever else he may call himself--has\ngrown into literal detestation and terror. I hate him--I am afraid of\nhim--I never knew what anguish of mind was until he entered our doors;\nand would to God--would to God he were gone.\"\n\nI reasoned with her--kissed her--laughed at her; but could not dissipate,\nin the least degree, the intense and preternatural horror with which she\nhad grown to regard the poor philosophic invalid, who was probably, at\nthat moment, poring over some metaphysical book in his solitary\nbedchamber.\n\nThe circumstance I am about to mention will give you some notion of the\nextreme to which these excited feelings had worked upon her nerves. I was\nthat night suddenly awakened by a piercing scream--I started upright in\nthe bed, and saw my wife standing at the bedside, white as ashes with\nterror. It was some seconds, so startled was I, before I could find words\nto ask her the cause of her affright. She caught my wrist in her icy\ngrasp, and climbed, trembling violently, into bed. Notwithstanding my\nrepeated entreaties, she continued for a long time stupified and dumb. At\nlength, however, she told me, that having lain awake for a long time, she\nfelt, on a sudden, that she could pray, and lighting the candle, she had\nstolen from beside me, and kneeled down for the purpose. She had,\nhowever, scarcely assumed the attitude of prayer, when somebody, she\nsaid, clutched her arm violently near the wrist, and she heard, at the\nsame instant, some blasphemous menace, the import of which escaped her\nthe moment it was spoken, muttered close in her ear. This terrifying\ninterruption was the cause of the scream which had awakened me; and the\ncondition in which she continued during the remainder of the night\nconfirmed me more than ever in the conviction, that she was suffering\nunder some morbid action of the nervous system.\n\nAfter this event, which _I_ had no hesitation in attributing to fancy,\nshe became literally afraid to pray, and her misery and despondency\nincreased proportionately.\n\nIt was shortly after this that an unusual pressure of business called me\ninto town one evening after office hours. I had left my dear little wife\ntolerably well, and little Fanny was to be her companion until I\nreturned. She and her little companion occupied the same room in which we\nsat on the memorable evening which witnessed the arrival of our eccentric\nguest. Though usually a lively child, it most provokingly happened upon\nthis night that Fanny was heavy and drowsy to excess. Her mamma would\nhave sent her to bed, but that she now literally feared to be left alone;\nalthough, however, she could not so far overcome her horror of solitude\nas to do this, she yet would not persist in combating the poor child's\nsleepiness.\n\nAccordingly, little Fanny was soon locked in a sound sleep, while her\nmamma quietly pursued her work beside her. They had been perhaps some\nten minutes thus circumstanced, when my wife heard the window softly\nraised from without--a bony hand parted the curtains, and Mr. Smith\nleaned into the room.\n\nShe was so utterly overpowered at sight of this apparition, that even had\nit, as she expected, climbed into the room, she told me she could not\nhave uttered a sound, or stirred from the spot where she sate transfixed\nand petrified.\n\n\"Ha, ha!\" he said gently, \"I hope you'll excuse this, I must admit, very\nodd intrusion; but I knew I should find you here, and could not resist\nthe opportunity of raising the window just for a moment, to look in upon\na little family picture, and say a word to yourself. I understand that\nyou are troubled, because for some cause you cannot say your\nprayers--because what you call your 'faith' is, so to speak, dead and\ngone, and also because what _you_ consider bad thoughts are constantly\nrecurring to your mind. Now, all that is very silly. If it is really\nimpossible for you to believe and to pray, what are you to infer from\nthat? It is perfectly plain your Christian system can't be a true\none--faith and _prayer_ it everywhere represents as the conditions of\ngrace, acceptance, and salvation; and yet your Creator will not _permit_\nyou either to believe or pray. The Christian system is, forsooth, a\n_free_ gift, and yet he who formed _you_ and _it_, makes it absolutely\nimpossible for you to accept it. _Is_ it, I ask you, from your own\nexperience--is it a free gift? And if your own experience, in which you\ncan't be mistaken, gives its pretensions the lie, why, in the name of\ncommon sense, will you persist in believing it? I say it is downright\nblasphemy to think it has emanated from the Good Spirit--assuming that\nthere is one. It tells you that you must be tormented hereafter in a way\nonly to be made intelligible by the image of eternal fires--pretty\nstrong, we must all allow--unless you comply with certain conditions,\nwhich it pretends are so easy that it is a positive pleasure to embrace\nand perform them; and yet, for the life of you, you can't--physically\n_can't_--do either. Is this truth and mercy?--or is it swindling and\ncruelty? Is it the part of the Redeemer, or that of the tyrant, deceiver,\nand tormentor?\"\n\nUp to that moment, my wife had sate breathless and motionless, listening,\nin the catalepsy of nightmare, to a sort of echo of the vile and impious\nreasoning which had haunted her for so long. At the last words of the\nsentence his voice became harsh and thrilling; and his whole manner\nbespoke a sort of crouching and terrific hatred, the like of which she\ncould not have conceived.\n\nWhatever may have been the cause, she was on a sudden disenchanted. She\nstarted to her feet; and, freezing with horror though she was, in a\nshrill cry of agony commanded him, in the name of God, to depart from\nher. His whole frame seemed to darken; he drew back silently; the\ncurtains dropped into their places, the window was let down again as\nstealthily as it had just been raised; and my wife found herself alone in\nthe chamber with our little child, who had been startled from her sleep\nby her mother's cry of anguish, and with the fearful words, \"tempter,\"\n\"destroyer,\" \"devil,\" still ringing in her ears, was weeping bitterly,\nand holding her terrified mother's hand.\n\nThere is nothing, I believe, more infectious than that species of\nnervousness which shows itself in superstitious fears. I began--although\nI could not bring myself to admit anything the least like it--to partake\ninsensibly, but strongly of the peculiar feelings with which my wife, and\nindeed my whole household, already regarded the lodger up stairs. The\nfact was, beside, that the state of my poor wife's mind began to make me\nseriously uneasy; and, although I was fully sensible of the pecuniary and\nother advantages attendant upon his stay, they were yet far from\noutweighing the constant gloom and frequent misery in which the\nprotracted sojourn was involving my once cheerful house. I resolved,\ntherefore, at whatever monetary sacrifice, to put an end to these\ncommotions; and, after several debates with my wife, in which the subject\nwas, as usual, turned in all its possible and impossible bearings, we\nagreed that, deducting a fair proportion for his five weeks' sojourn, I\nshould return the remainder of his \u00a3100, and request immediate possession\nof his apartments. Like a man suddenly relieved of an insufferable load,\nand breathing freely once more, I instantly prepared to carry into effect\nthe result of our deliberations.\n\nIn pursuance of this resolution, I waited upon Mr. Smith. This time my\ncall was made in the morning, somewhere about nine o'clock. He\nreceived me at his door, standing as usual in the stealthy opening\nwhich barely admitted his lank person. There he stood, fully equipped\nwith goggles and respirator, and swathed, rather than dressed, in his\npuckered black garments.\n\nAs he did not seem disposed to invite me into his apartment, although\nI had announced my visit as one of business, I was obliged to open my\nerrand where I stood; and after a great deal of fumbling and\nmuttering, I contrived to place before him distinctly the resolution\nto which I had come.\n\n\"But I can't think of taking back any portion of the sum I have paid\nyou,\" said he, with a cool, dry emphasis.\n\n\"Your reluctance to do so, Mr. Smith, is most handsome, and I assure you,\nappreciated,\" I replied. \"It is very generous; but, at the same time, it\nis quite impossible for me to accept what I have no right to take, and I\nmust beg of you not to mention that part of the subject again.\"\n\n\"And why should _I_ take it?\" demanded Mr. Smith.\n\n\"Because you have paid this hundred pounds for six months, and you are\nleaving me with nearly five months of the term still unexpired,\" I\nreplied. \"I expect to receive fair play myself, and always give it.\"\n\n\"But who on earth said that I was going away so soon?\" pursued Mr. Smith,\nin the same dry, sarcastic key. \"_I_ have not said so--because I really\ndon't intend it; I mean to stay here to the last day of the six months\nfor which I have paid you. I have no notion of vacating my hired\nlodgings, simply because you say, _go_. I shan't quarrel with you--I\nnever quarrel with anybody. I'm as much your friend as ever; but, without\nthe least wish to disoblige, I can't do this, positively I cannot. Is\nthere anything else?\"\n\nI had not anticipated in the least the difficulty which thus\nencountered and upset our plans. I had so set my heart upon effecting\nthe immediate retirement of our inauspicious inmate, that the\ndisappointment literally stunned me for a moment. I, however, returned\nto the charge: I urged, and prayed, and almost besought him to give up\nhis apartments, and to leave us. I offered to repay every farthing of\nthe sum he had paid me--reserving nothing on account of the time he had\nalready been with us. I suggested all the disadvantages of the house. I\nshifted my ground, and told him that my wife wanted the rooms; I\npressed his gallantry--his good nature--his economy; in short, I\nassailed him upon every point--but in vain, he did not even take the\ntrouble of repeating what he had said before--he neither relented, nor\nshowed the least irritation, but simply said--\n\n\"I can't do this; here I am, and here I stay until the half-year has\nexpired. You wanted a lodger, and you have got one--the quietest, least\ntroublesome, least expensive person you could have; and though your\nhouse, servants, and furniture are none of the best, I don't care for\nthat. I pursue my own poor business and enjoyments here entirely to my\nsatisfaction.\"\n\nHaving thus spoken, he gave me a sort of nod, and closed the door.\n\nSo, instead of getting rid of him the next day, as we had hoped, we had\nnearly five months more of his company in expectancy; I hated, and my\nwife dreaded the prospect. She was literally miserable and panic-struck\nat her disappointment--and grew so nervous and wretched that I made up my\nmind to look out for lodgings for her and the children (subversive of all\nour schemes of retrenchment as such a step would be), and surrendering\nthe house absolutely to Mr. Smith and the servants during the remainder\nof his term.\n\nCircumstances, however, occurred to prevent our putting this plan in\nexecution. My wife, meanwhile, was, if possible, more depressed and\nnervous every day. The servants seemed to sympathise in the dread and\ngloom which involved ourselves; the very children grew timid and\nspiritless, without knowing why--and the entire house was pervaded with\nan atmosphere of uncertainty and fear. A poorhouse or a dungeon would\nhave been cheerful, compared with a dwelling haunted unceasingly with\nunearthly suspicions and alarms. I would have made any sacrifice short of\nruin, to emancipate our household from the odious mental and moral\nthraldom which was invisibly established over us--overcasting us with\nstrange anxieties and an undefined terror.\n\nAbout this time my wife had a dream which troubled her much, although\nshe could not explain its supposed significance satisfactorily by any\nof the ordinary rules of interpretation in such matters. The vision was\nas follows.\n\nShe dreamed that we were busily employed in carrying out our scheme of\nremoval, and that I came into the parlour where she was making some\narrangements, and, with rather an agitated manner, told her that the\ncarriage had come for the children. She thought she went out to the hall,\nin consequence, holding little Fanny by one hand, and the boy--or, as we\nstill called him, \"baby,\"--by the other, and feeling, as she did so, an\nunaccountable gloom, almost amounting to terror, steal over her. The\nchildren, too, seemed, she thought, frightened, and disposed to cry.\n\nSo close to the hall-door as to exclude the light, stood some kind of\nvehicle, of which she could see nothing but that its door was wide open,\nand the interior involved in total darkness. The children, she thought,\nshrunk back in great trepidation, and she addressed herself to induce\nthem, by persuasion, to enter, telling them that they were only \"going to\ntheir new home.\" So, in a while, little Fanny approached it; but, at the\nsame instant, some person came swiftly up from behind, and, raising the\nlittle boy in his hands, said fiercely, \"No, the baby first\"; and placed\nhim in the carriage. This person was our lodger, Mr. Smith, and was gone\nas soon as seen. My wife, even in her dream, could not act or speak; but\nas the child was lifted into the carriage-door, a man, whose face was\nfull of beautiful tenderness and compassion, leaned forward from the\ncarriage and received the little child, which, stretching his arms to the\nstranger, looked back with a strange smile upon his mother.\n\n\"He is safe with me, and I will deliver him to you when you come.\"\n\nThese words the man spoke, looking upon her, as he received him, and\nimmediately the carriage-door shut, and the noise of its closing wakened\nmy wife from her nightmare.\n\nThis dream troubled her very much, and even haunted my mind unpleasantly\ntoo. We agreed, however, not to speak of it to anybody, not to divulge\nany of our misgivings respecting the stranger. We were anxious that\nneither the children nor the servants should catch the contagion of those\nfears which had seized upon my poor little wife, and, if truth were\nspoken, upon myself in some degree also. But this precaution was, I\nbelieve, needless, for, as I said before, everybody under the same roof\nwith Mr. Smith was, to a certain extent, affected with the same nervous\ngloom and apprehension.\n\nAnd now commences a melancholy chapter in my life. My poor little Fanny\nwas attacked with a cough which soon grew very violent, and after a time\ndegenerated into a sharp attack of inflammation. We were seriously\nalarmed for her life, and nothing that care and medicine could effect\nwas spared to save it. Her mother was indefatigable, and scarcely left\nher night or day; and, indeed, for some time, we all but despaired of\nher recovery.\n\nOne night, when she was at the worst, her poor mother, who had sat for\nmany a melancholy hour listening, by her bedside, to those plaintive\nincoherences of delirium and moanings of fever, which have harrowed so\nmany a fond heart, gained gradually from her very despair the courage\nwhich she had so long wanted, and knelt down at the side of her sick\ndarling's bed to pray for her deliverance.\n\nWith clasped hands, in an agony of supplication, she prayed that God\nwould, in his mercy, spare her little child--that, justly as she herself\ndeserved the sorest chastisement his hand could inflict, he would yet\ndeal patiently and tenderly with her in this one thing. She poured out\nher sorrows before the mercy-seat--she opened her heart, and declared her\nonly hope to be in his pity; without which, she felt that her darling\nwould only leave the bed where she was lying for her grave.\n\nExactly as she came to this part of her supplication, the child, who had\ngrown, as it seemed, more and more restless, and moaned and muttered with\nincreasing pain and irritation, on a sudden started upright in her bed,\nand, in a thrilling voice, cried--\n\n\"No! no!--the baby first.\"\n\nThe mysterious sentence which had secretly tormented her for so long,\nthus piercingly uttered by this delirious, and, perhaps, dying child,\nwith what seemed a preternatural earnestness and strength, arrested her\ndevotions, and froze her with a feeling akin to terror.\n\n\"Hush, hush, my darling!\" said the poor mother, almost wildly, as she\nclasped the attenuated frame of the sick child in her arms; \"hush, my\ndarling; don't cry out so loudly--there--there--my own love.\"\n\nThe child did not appear to see or hear her, but sate up still with\nfeverish cheeks, and bright unsteady eyes, while her dry lips were\nmuttering inaudible words.\n\n\"Lie down, my sweet child--lie down, for your own mother,\" she said;\n\"if you tire yourself, you can't grow well, and your poor mother will\nlose you.\"\n\nAt these words, the child suddenly cried out again, in precisely the same\nloud, strong voice--\"No! no! the baby first, the baby first\"--and\nimmediately afterwards lay down, and fell, for the first time since her\nillness into a tranquil sleep.\n\nMy good little wife sate, crying bitterly by her bedside. The child was\nbetter--_that_ was, indeed, delightful. But then there was an omen in the\nwords, thus echoed from her dream, which she dared not trust herself to\ninterpret, and which yet had seized, with a grasp of iron, upon every\nfibre of her brain.\n\n\"Oh, Richard,\" she cried, as she threw her arms about my neck, \"I am\nterrified at this horrible menace from the unseen world. Oh! poor,\ndarling little baby, I shall lose you--I am sure I shall lose you.\nComfort me, darling, and say he is not to die.\"\n\nAnd so I did; and tasked all my powers of argument and persuasion to\nconvince her how unsubstantial was the ground of her anxiety. The little\nboy was perfectly well, and, even were he to die before his sister that\nevent might not occur for seventy years to come. I could not, however,\nconceal from myself that there was something odd and unpleasant in the\ncoincidence; and my poor wife had grown so nervous and excitable, that a\nmuch less ominous conjecture would have sufficed to alarm her.\n\nMeanwhile, the unaccountable terror which our lodger's presence inspired\ncontinued to increase. One of our maids gave us warning, solely from her\ndread of our queer inmate, and the strange accessories which haunted him.\nShe said--and this was corroborated by her fellow-servant--that Mr. Smith\nseemed to have constantly a companion in his room; that although they\nnever heard them speak, they continually and distinctly heard the tread\nof two persons walking up and down the room together, and described\naccurately the peculiar sound of a stick or crutch tapping upon the\nfloor, which my own ears had heard. They also had seen the large,\nill-conditioned cat I have mentioned, frequently steal in and out of the\nstranger's room; and observed that when our little girl was in greatest\ndanger, the hateful animal was constantly writhing, fawning, and crawling\nabout the door of the sick room after nightfall. They were thoroughly\npersuaded that this ill-omened beast was the foul fiend himself, and I\nconfess I could not--sceptic as I was--bring myself absolutely to the\nbelief that he was nothing more than a \"harmless, necessary cat.\" These\nand similar reports--implicitly believed as they palpably were by those\nwho made them--were certainly little calculated to allay the perturbation\nand alarm with which our household was filled.\n\nThe evenings had by this time shortened very much, and darkness often\novertook us before we sate down to our early tea. It happened just at\nthis period of which I have been speaking, after my little girl had begun\ndecidedly to mend, that I was sitting in our dining-parlour, with my\nlittle boy fast asleep upon my knees, and thinking of I know not what, my\nwife having gone up stairs, as usual, to sit in the room with little\nFanny. As I thus sate in what was to me, in effect, total solitude,\ndarkness unperceived stole on us.\n\nOn a sudden, as I sate, with my elbow leaning upon the table, and my\nother arm round the sleeping child, I felt, as I thought, a cold\ncurrent of air faintly blowing upon my forehead. I raised my head, and\nsaw, as nearly as I could calculate, at the far end of the table on\nwhich my arm rested, two large green eyes confronting me. I could see\nno more, but instantly concluded they were those of the abominable cat.\nYielding to an impulse of horror and abhorrence, I caught a water-croft\nthat was close to my hand, and threw it full at it with all my force. I\nmust have missed my object, for the shining eyes continued fixed for a\nsecond, and then glided still nearer to me, and then a little nearer\nstill. The noise of the glass smashed with so much force upon the table\ncalled in the servant, who happened to be passing. She had a candle in\nher hand, and, perhaps, the light alarmed the odious beast, for as she\ncame in it was gone.\n\nI had had an undefined idea that its approach was somehow connected with\na designed injury of some sort to the sleeping child. I could not be\nmistaken as to the fact that I had plainly seen the two broad, glaring,\ngreen eyes. Where the cursed animal had gone I had not observed: it\nmight, indeed, easily have run out at the door as the servant opened it,\nbut neither of us had seen it do so; and we were every one of us in such\na state of nervous excitement, that even this incident was something in\nthe catalogue of our ambiguous experiences.\n\nIt was a great happiness to see our darling little Fanny every day\nmending, and now quite out of danger: this was cheering and delightful.\nIt was also something to know that more than two months of our lodger's\nterm of occupation had already expired; and to realise, as we now could\ndo, by anticipation, the unspeakable relief of his departure.\n\nMy wife strove hard to turn our dear child's recovery to good account for\nme; but the impressions of fear soon depart, and those of religious\ngratitude must be preceded by religious faith. All as yet was but as seed\nstrewn upon the rock.\n\nLittle Fanny, though recovering rapidly, was still very weak, and her\nmother usually passed a considerable part of every evening in her\nbedroom--for the child was sometimes uneasy and restless at night. It\nhappened at this period that, sitting as usual at Fanny's bedside, she\nwitnessed an occurrence which agitated her not a little.\n\nThe child had been, as it seems, growing sleepy, and was lying\nlistlessly, with eyes half open, apparently taking no note of what was\npassing. Suddenly, however, with an expression of the wildest terror, she\ndrew up her limbs, and cowered in the bed's head, gazing at some object;\nwhich, judging from the motion of her eyes, must have been slowly\nadvancing from the end of the room next the door.\n\nThe child made a low shuddering cry, as she grasped her mother's hand,\nand, with features white and tense with terror, slowly following with her\neyes the noiseless course of some unseen spectre, shrinking more and more\nfearfully backward every moment.\n\n\"What is it? Where? What is it that frightens you, my darling?\" asked the\npoor mother, who, thrilled with horror, looked in vain for the apparition\nwhich seemed to have all but bereft the child of reason.\n\n\"Stay with me--save me--keep it away--look, look at it--making signs to\nme--don't let it hurt me--it is angry--Oh! mamma, save me, save me!\"\n\nThe child said this, all the time clinging to her with both her hands, in\nan ecstasy of panic.\n\n\"There--there, my darling,\" said my poor wife, \"don't be afraid; there's\nnothing but me--your own mamma--and little baby in the room; nothing, my\ndarling; nothing indeed.\"\n\n\"Mamma, mamma, don't move; don't go near him\"; the child continued\nwildly. \"It's only his back now; don't make him turn again; he's untying\nhis handkerchief. Oh! baby, baby; he'll _kill_ baby! and he's lifting up\nthose green things from his eyes; don't you see him doing it? Mamma,\nmamma, why does he come here? Oh, mamma, poor baby--poor little baby!\"\n\nShe was looking with a terrified gaze at the little boy's bed, which lay\ndirectly opposite to her own, and in which he was sleeping calmly.\n\n\"Hush, hush, my darling child,\" said my wife, with difficulty\nrestraining an hysterical burst of tears; \"for God's sake don't speak so\nwildly, my own precious love--there, there--don't be frightened--there,\ndarling, there.\"\n\n\"Oh! poor baby--poor little darling baby,\" the child continued as before;\n\"will no one save him--tell that wicked man to go away--oh--there--why,\nmamma--don't--oh, sure you won't let him--don't--don't--he'll take the\nchild's life--will you let him lie down that way on the bed--save poor\nlittle baby--oh, baby, baby, waken--his head is on your face.\"\n\nAs she said this she raised her voice to a cry of despairing terror which\nmade the whole room ring again.\n\nThis cry, or rather yell, reached my ears as I sate reading in the\nparlour by myself, and fearing I knew not what, I rushed to the\napartment; before I reached it, the sound had subsided into low but\nviolent sobbing; and, just as I arrived at the threshold I heard, close\nat my feet, a fierce protracted growl, and something rubbing along the\nsurbase. I was in the dark, but, with a feeling of mingled terror and\nfury, I stamped and struck at the abhorred brute with my feet, but in\nvain. The next moment I was in the room, and heard little Fanny, through\nher sobs, cry--\n\n\"Oh, poor baby is killed--that wicked man has killed him--he uncovered\nhis face, and put it on him, and lay upon the bed and killed poor baby. I\nknew he came to kill him. Ah, papa, papa, why did you not come up before\nhe went?--he is gone, he went away as soon as he killed our poor little\ndarling baby.\"\n\nI could not conceal my agitation, quite, and I said to my wife--\n\n\"Has he, Smith, been here?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"What is it, then?\"\n\n\"The child has seen _some_ one.\"\n\n\"Seen whom? Who? Who has been here?\"\n\n\"I did not see it; but--but I am sure the child saw--that is, _thought_\nshe saw _him_;--the person you have named. Oh, God, in mercy deliver us!\nWhat shall I do--what shall I do!\"\n\nThus saying, the dear little woman burst into tears, and crying, as if\nher heart would break, sobbed out an entreaty that I would look at baby;\nadding, that she herself had not courage to see whether her darling was\nsleeping or dead.\n\n\"Dead!\" I exclaimed. \"Tut, tut, my darling; you must not give way to such\nmorbid fancies--he is very well, I see him breathing;\" and so saying, I\nwent over to the bed where our little boy was lying. He was slumbering;\nthough it seemed to me very heavily, and his cheeks were flushed.\n\n\"Sleeping tranquilly, my darling--tranquilly, and deeply; and with a\nwarm colour in his cheeks,\" I said, rearranging the coverlet, and\nretiring to my wife, who sate almost breathless whilst I was looking at\nour little boy.\n\n\"Thank God--thank God,\" she said quietly; and she wept again; and rising,\ncame to his bedside.\n\n\"Yes, yes--alive; thank God; but it seems to me he is breathing very\nshort, and with difficulty, and he looks--_does_ he not look hot and\nfeverish? Yes, he _is_ very hot; feel his little hand--feel his neck;\nmerciful heaven! he is burning.\"\n\nIt was, indeed, very true, that his skin was unnaturally dry and hot; his\nlittle pulse, too, was going at a fearful rate.\n\n\"I do think,\" said I--resolved to conceal the extent of my own\napprehensions--\"I do think that he is just a _little_ feverish; but he\nhas often been much more so; and will, I dare say, in the morning, be\nperfectly well again. I dare say, but for little Fanny's _dream_, we\nshould not have observed it at all.\"\n\n\"Oh, my darling, my darling, my darling!\" sobbed the poor little woman,\nleaning over the bed, with her hands locked together, and looking the\nvery picture of despair. \"Oh, my darling, what has happened to you? I put\nyou into your bed, looking so well and beautiful, this evening, and here\nyou are, stricken with sickness, my own little love. Oh, you will\nnot--you cannot, leave your poor mother!\"\n\nIt was quite plain that she despaired of the child from the moment we had\nascertained that it was unwell. As it happened, her presentiment was but\ntoo truly prophetic. The apothecary said the child's ailment was\n\"suppressed small-pox\"; the physician pronounced it \"typhus.\" The only\ncertainty about it was the issue--the child died.\n\nTo me few things appear so beautiful as a very young child in its\nshroud. The little innocent face looks so sublimely simple and confiding\namongst the cold terrors of death--crimeless, and fearless, that little\nmortal has passed alone under the shadow, and explored the mystery of\ndissolution. There is death in its sublimest and purest image--no\nhatred, no hypocrisy, no suspicion, no care for the morrow ever darkened\nthat little face; death has come lovingly upon it; there is nothing\ncruel, or harsh, in his victory. The yearnings of love, indeed, cannot\nbe stifled; for the prattle, and smiles, and all the little world of\nthoughts that were so delightful, are gone for ever. Awe, too, will\novercast us in its presence--for we are looking on death; but we do not\nfear for the little, lonely voyager--for the child has gone, simple and\ntrusting, into the presence of its all-wise Father; and of such, we\nknow, is the kingdom of heaven.\n\nAnd so we parted from poor little baby. I and his poor old nurse\ndrove in a mourning carriage, in which lay the little coffin, early\nin the morning, to the churchyard of ----. Sore, indeed, was my\nheart, as I followed that little coffin to the grave! Another burial\nhad just concluded as we entered the churchyard, and the mourners\nstood in clusters round the grave, into which the sexton was now\nshovelling the mould.\n\nAs I stood, with head uncovered, listening to the sublime and touching\nservice which our ritual prescribes, I found that a gentleman had drawn\nnear also, and was standing at my elbow. I did not turn to look at him\nuntil the earth had closed over my darling boy; I then walked a little\nway apart, that I might be alone, and drying my eyes, sat down upon a\ntombstone, to let the confusion of my mind subside.\n\nWhile I was thus lost in a sorrowful reverie, the gentleman who had stood\nnear me at the grave was once more at my side. The face of the stranger,\nthough I could not call it handsome, was very remarkable; its expression\nwas the purest and noblest I could conceive, and it was made very\nbeautiful by a look of such compassion as I never saw before.\n\n\"Why do you sorrow as one without hope?\" he said, gently.\n\n\"I _have_ no hope,\" I answered.\n\n\"Nay, I think you have,\" he answered again; \"and I am sure you will soon\nhave more. That little child for which you grieve, has escaped the\ndangers and miseries of life; its body has perished; but he will receive\nin the end the crown of life. God has given him an early victory.\"\n\nI know not what it was in him that rebuked my sullen pride, and humbled\nand saddened me, as I listened to this man. He was dressed in deep\nmourning, and looked more serene, noble, and sweet than any I had ever\nseen. He was young, too, as I have said, and his voice very clear and\nharmonious. He talked to me for a long time, and I listened to him with\ninvoluntary reverence. At last, however, he left me, saying he had often\nseen me walking into town, about the same hour that he used to go that\nway, and that if he saw me again he would walk with me, and so we might\nreason of these things together.\n\nIt was late when I returned to my home, now a house of mourning.\n\n\n\n\nPART II\n\n\nOur home was one of sorrow and of fear. The child's death had stricken us\nwith terror no less than grief. Referring it, as we both tacitly did, to\nthe mysterious and fiendish agency of the abhorred being whom, in an evil\nhour, we had admitted into our house, we both viewed him with a degree\nand species of fear for which I can find no name.\n\nI felt that some further calamity was impending. I could not hope that we\nwere to be delivered from the presence of the malignant agent who\nhaunted, rather than inhabited our home, without some additional proofs\nalike of his malice and his power.\n\nMy poor wife's presentiments were still more terrible and overpowering,\nthough not more defined, than my own. She was never tranquil while our\nlittle girl was out of her sight; always dreading and expecting some new\nrevelation of the evil influence which, as we were indeed both persuaded,\nhad bereft our darling little boy of life. Against an hostility so\nunearthly and intangible there was no guarding, and the sense of\nhelplessness intensified the misery of our situation. Tormented with\ndoubts of the very basis of her religion, and recoiling from the ordeal\nof prayer with the strange horror with which the victim of hydrophobia\nrepels the pure water, she no longer found the consolation which, had\nsorrow reached her in any other shape, she would have drawn from the\nhealing influence of religion. We were both of us unhappy, dismayed,\nDEMON-STRICKEN.\n\nMeanwhile, our lodger's habits continued precisely the same. If, indeed,\nthe sounds which came from his apartments were to be trusted, he and his\nagents were more on the alert than ever. I can convey to you, good\nreader, no notion, even the faintest, of the dreadful sensation always\nmore or less present to my mind, and sometimes with a reality which\nthrilled me almost to frenzy--the apprehension that I had admitted into\nmy house the incarnate spirit of the dead or damned, to torment me and\nmy family.\n\nIt was some nights after the burial of our dear little baby; we had not\ngone to bed until late, and I had slept, I suppose, some hours, when I\nwas awakened by my wife, who clung to me with the energy of terror. She\nsaid nothing, but grasped and shook me with more than her natural\nstrength. She had crept close to me, and was cowering with her head under\nthe bedclothes.\n\nThe room was perfectly dark, as usual, for we burned no night-light; but\nfrom the side of the bed next her proceeded a voice as of one sitting\nthere with his head within a foot of the curtains--and, merciful heavens!\nit was the voice of our lodger.\n\nHe was discoursing of the death of our baby, and inveighing, in the old\nmocking tone of hate and suppressed fury, against the justice, mercy, and\ngoodness of God. He did this with a terrible plausibility of sophistry,\nand with a resolute emphasis and precision, which seemed to imply, \"I\nhave got something to tell you, and, whether you like it or like it not,\nI _will_ say out my say.\"\n\nTo pretend that I felt anger at his intrusion, or emotion of any sort,\nsave the one sense of palsied terror, would be to depart from the truth.\nI lay, cold and breathless, as if frozen to death--unable to move, unable\nto utter a cry--with the voice of that demon pouring, in the dark, his\nundisguised blasphemies and temptations close into my ears. At last the\ndreadful voice ceased--whether the speaker went or stayed I could not\ntell--the silence, which he might be improving for the purpose of some\nhellish strategem, was to me more tremendous even than his speech.\n\nWe both lay awake, not daring to move or speak, scarcely even breathing,\nbut clasping one another fast, until at length the welcome light of day\nstreamed into the room through the opening door, as the servant came in\nto call us. I need not say that our nocturnal visitant had left us.\n\nThe magnanimous reader will, perhaps, pronounce that I ought to have\npulled on my boots and inexpressibles with all available despatch, run to\nmy lodger's bedroom, and kicked him forthwith downstairs, and the entire\nway moreover out to the public road, as some compensation for the\nscandalous affront put upon me and my wife by his impertinent visit. Now,\nat that time, I had no scruples against what are termed the laws of\nhonour, was by no means deficient in \"pluck,\" and gifted, moreover, with\na somewhat excitable temper. Yet, I will honestly avow that, so far from\ncourting a collision with the dreaded stranger, I would have recoiled at\nhis very sight, and given my eyes to avoid him, such was the ascendancy\nwhich he had acquired over me, as well as everybody else in my household,\nin his own quiet, irresistible, hellish way.\n\nThe shuddering antipathy which our guest inspired did not rob his\ninfernal homily of its effect. It was not a new or strange thing which\nhe presented to our minds. There was an awful subtlety in the train of\nhis suggestions. All that he had said had floated through my own mind\nbefore, without order, indeed, or shew of logic. From my own rebellious\nheart the same evil thoughts had risen, like pale apparitions hovering\nand lost in the fumes of a necromancer's cauldron. His was like the\nsumming up of all this--a reflection of my own feelings and fancies--but\nreduced to an awful order and definiteness, and clothed with a\nsophistical form of argument. The effect of it was powerful. It revived\nand exaggerated these bad emotions--it methodised and justified\nthem--and gave to impulses and impressions, vague and desultory before,\nsomething of the compactness of a system.\n\nMy misfortune, therefore, did not soften, it exasperated me. I regarded\nthe Great Disposer of events as a persecutor of the human race, who took\ndelight in their miseries. I asked why my innocent child had been smitten\ndown into the grave?--and why my darling wife, whose first object, I\nknew, had ever been to serve and glorify her Maker, should have been thus\ntortured and desolated by the cruelest calamity which the malignity of a\ndemon could have devised? I railed and blasphemed, and even in my agony\ndefied God with the impotent rage and desperation of a devil, in his\neverlasting torment.\n\nIn my bitterness, I could not forbear speaking these impenitent\nrepetitions of the language of our nightly visitant, even in the presence\nof my wife. She heard me with agony, almost with terror. I pitied and\nloved her too much not to respect even her weaknesses--for so I\ncharacterised her humble submission to the chastisements of heaven. But\neven while I spared her reverential sensitiveness, the spectacle of her\npatience but enhanced my own gloomy and impenitent rage.\n\nI was walking into town in this evil mood, when I was overtaken by the\ngentleman whom I had spoken with in the churchyard on the morning when my\nlittle boy was buried. I call him _gentleman_, but I could not say _what_\nwas his rank--I never thought about it; there was a grace, a purity, a\ncompassion, and a grandeur of intellect in his countenance, in his\nlanguage, in his mien, that was beautiful and kinglike. I felt, in his\ncompany, a delightful awe, and an humbleness more gratifying than any\nelation of earthly pride.\n\nHe divined my state of feeling, but he said nothing harsh. He did not\nrebuke, but he reasoned with me--and oh! how mighty was that\nreasoning--without formality--without effort--as the flower grows and\nblossoms. Its process was in harmony with the successions of\nnature--gentle, spontaneous, irresistible.\n\nAt last he left me. I was grieved at his departure--I was\nwonder-stricken. His discourse had made me cry tears at once sweet and\nbitter; it had sounded depths I knew not of, and my heart was disquieted\nwithin me. Yet my trouble was happier than the resentful and defiant calm\nthat had reigned within me before.\n\nWhen I came home, I told my wife of my having met the same good, wise man\nI had first seen by the grave of my child. I recounted to her his\ndiscourse, and, as I brought it again to mind, my tears flowed afresh,\nand I was happy while I wept.\n\nI now see that the calamity which bore at first such evil fruit, was good\nfor me. It fixed my mind, however rebelliously, upon God, and it stirred\nup all the passions of my heart. Levity, inattention, and\nself-complacency are obstacles harder to be overcome than the violence of\nevil passions--the transition from hate is easier than from indifference,\nto love. A mighty change was making on my mind.\n\nI need not particularise the occasions upon which I again met my\nfriend, for so I knew him to be, nor detail the train of reasoning and\nfeeling which in such interviews he followed out; it is enough to say,\nthat he assiduously cultivated the good seed he had sown, and that his\nbenignant teachings took deep root, and flourished in my soul,\nheretofore so barren.\n\nOne evening, having enjoyed on the morning of the same day another of\nthose delightful and convincing conversations, I was returning on foot\nhomeward; and as darkness had nearly closed, and the night threatened\ncold and fog, the footpaths were nearly deserted.\n\nAs I walked on, deeply absorbed in the discourse I had heard on the same\nmorning, a person overtook me, and continued to walk, without much\nincreasing the interval between us, a little in advance of me. There came\nupon me, at the same moment, an indefinable sinking of the heart, a\nstrange and unaccountable fear. The pleasing topics of my meditations\nmelted away, and gave place to a sense of danger, all the more unpleasant\nthat it was vague and objectless. I looked up. What was that which moved\nbefore me? I stared--I faltered; my heart fluttered as if it would choke\nme, and then stood still. It was the peculiar and unmistakeable form of\nour lodger.\n\nExactly as I looked at him, he turned his head, and looked at me over his\nshoulder. His face was muffled as usual. I cannot have seen its features\nwith any completeness, yet I felt that his look was one of fury. The next\ninstant he was at my side; and my heart quailed within me--my limbs all\nbut refused their office; yet the very emotions of terror, which might\nhave overcome me, acted as a stimulus, and I quickened my pace.\n\n\"Hey! what a pious person! So I suppose you have learned at last that\n'evil communications corrupt good manners'; and you are absolutely afraid\nof the old infidel, the old blasphemer, hey?\"\n\nI made him no answer; I was indeed too much agitated to speak.\n\n\"You'll make a good Christian, no doubt,\" he continued; \"the independent\nman, who thinks for himself, reasons his way to his principles, and\nsticks fast to them, is sure to be true to whatever system he embraces.\nYou have been so consistent a philosopher, that I am sure you will make a\nsteady Christian. You're not the man to be led by the nose by a\nsophistical mumbler. _You_ could never be made the prey of a grasping\nproselytism; _you_ are not the sport of every whiff of doctrine, nor the\nfacile slave of whatever superstition is last buzzed in your ear. No, no:\nyou've got a masculine intellect, and think for yourself, hey?\"\n\nI was incapable of answering him. I quickened my pace to escape from his\ndetested persecution; but he was close beside me still.\n\nWe walked on together thus for a time, during which I heard him muttering\nfast to himself, like a man under fierce and malignant excitement. We\nreached, at length, the gateway of my dwelling; and I turned the\nlatch-key in the wicket, and entered the enclosure. As we stood together\nwithin, he turned full upon me, and confronting me with an aspect whose\ncharacter I felt rather than saw, he said--\n\n\"And so you mean to be a Christian, after all! Now just reflect how very\nabsurdly you are choosing. Leave the Bible to that class of fanatics who\nmay hope to be saved under its system, and, in the name of common sense,\nstudy the Koran, or some less ascetic tome. Don't be gulled by a\nplausible slave, who wants nothing more than to multiply _professors_ of\nhis theory. Why don't you _read_ the Bible, you miserable, puling\npoltroon, before you hug it as a treasure? Why don't you read it, and\nlearn out of the mouth of the founder of Christianity, that there is one\nsin for which there is _no_ forgiveness--blasphemy against the Holy\nGhost, hey?--and that sin I myself have heard you commit by the hour--in\nmy presence--in my room. I have heard you commit it in our free\ndiscussions a dozen times. The Bible seals against you the lips of mercy.\nIf _it_ be true, you are this moment as irrevocably damned as if you had\ndied with those blasphemies on your lips.\"\n\nHaving thus spoken, he glided into the house. I followed slowly.\n\nHis words rang in my ears--I was stunned. What he had said I feared might\nbe true. Giant despair felled me to the earth. He had recalled, and\nlighted up with a glare from the pit, remembrances with which I knew not\nhow to cope. It was true I had spoken with daring impiety of subjects\nwhose sacredness I now began to appreciate. With trembling hands I opened\nthe Bible. I read and re-read the mysterious doom recorded by the\nRedeemer himself against blasphemers of the Holy Ghost--monsters set\napart from the human race, and damned and dead, even while they live and\nwalk upon the earth. I groaned--I wept. Henceforward the Bible, I\nthought, must be to me a dreadful record of despair. I dared not read it.\n\nI will not weary you with all my mental agonies. My dear little wife did\nsomething toward relieving my mind, but it was reserved for the friend,\nto whose heavenly society I owed so much, to tranquillise it once more.\nHe talked this time to me longer, and even more earnestly than before. I\nsoon encountered him again. He expounded to me the ways of Providence,\nand showed me how needful sorrow was for every servant of God. How mercy\nwas disguised in tribulation, and our best happiness came to us, like our\nchildren, in tears and wailing. He showed me that trials were sent to\ncall us up, with a voice of preternatural power, from the mortal apathy\nof sin and the world. And then, again, in our new and better state, to\nprove our patience and our faith--\n\n\"The more trouble befalls you, the nearer is God to you. He visits you in\nsorrow--and sorrow, as well as joy, is a sign of his presence. If, then,\nother griefs overtake you, remember this--be patient, be faithful; and\nbless the name of God.\"\n\nI returned home comforted and happy, although I felt assured that some\nfurther and sadder trial was before me.\n\nStill our household was overcast by the same insurmountable dread of our\ntenant. The same strange habits characterised him, and the same\nunaccountable sounds disquieted us--an atmosphere of death and malice\nhovered about his door, and we all hated and feared to pass it.\n\nLet me now tell, as well and briefly as I may, the dreadful circumstances\nof my last great trial. One morning, my wife being about her household\naffairs, and I on the point of starting for town, I went into the parlour\nfor some letters which I was to take with me. I cannot easily describe my\nconsternation when, on entering the room, I saw our lodger seated near\nthe window, with our darling little girl upon his knee.\n\nHis back was toward the door, but I could plainly perceive that the\nrespirator had been removed from his mouth, and that the odious green\ngoggles were raised. He was sitting, as it seemed, absolutely without\nmotion, and his face was advanced close to that of the child.\n\nI stood looking at this group in a state of stupor for some seconds. He\nwas, I suppose, conscious of my presence, for although he did not turn\nhis head, or otherwise take any note of my arrival, he readjusted the\nmuffler which usually covered his mouth, and lowered the clumsy\nspectacles to their proper place.\n\nThe child was sitting upon his knee as motionless as he himself, with a\ncountenance white and rigid as that of a corpse, and from which every\ntrace of meaning, except some vague character of terror, had fled, and\nstaring with a fixed and dilated gaze into his face.\n\nAs it seemed, she did not perceive my presence. Her eyes were transfixed\nand fascinated. She did not even seem to me to breathe. Horror and\nanguish at last overcame my stupefaction.\n\n\"What--what is it?\" I cried; \"what ails my child, my darling child?\"\n\n\"I'd be glad to know, myself,\" he replied, coolly; \"it is certainly\nsomething very queer.\"\n\n\"What is it, darling?\" I repeated, frantically, addressing the child.\n\n\"What is it?\" he reiterated. \"Why it's pretty plain, I should suppose,\nthat the child is ill.\"\n\n\"Oh merciful God!\" I cried, half furious, half terrified--\"You have\ninjured her--you have terrified her. Give me my child--give her to me.\"\n\nThese words I absolutely shouted, and stamped upon the floor in my horrid\nexcitement.\n\n\"Pooh, pooh!\" he said, with a sort of ugly sneer; \"the child is\nnervous--you'll make her more so--be quiet and she'll probably find her\ntongue presently. I have had her on my knee some minutes, but the sweet\nbird could not tell what ails her.\"\n\n\"Let the child go,\" I shouted in a voice of thunder; \"let her go, I\nsay--let her go.\"\n\nHe took the passive, death-like child, and placed her standing by the\nwindow, and rising, he simply said--\n\n\"As soon as you grow cool, you are welcome to ask me what questions you\nlike. The child is plainly ill. I should not wonder if she had seen\nsomething that frightened her.\"\n\nHaving thus spoken, he passed from the room. I felt as if I spoke, saw,\nand walked in a horrid dream. I seized the darling child in my arms, and\nbore her away to her mother.\n\n\"What is it--for mercy's sake what is the matter?\" she cried, growing in\nan instant as pale as the poor child herself.\n\n\"I found that--that _demon_--in the parlour with the child on his lap,\nstaring in her face. She is manifestly terrified.\"\n\n\"Oh! gracious God! she is lost--she is killed,\" cried the poor\nmother, frantically looking into the white, apathetic, meaningless\nface of the child.\n\n\"Fanny, darling Fanny, tell us if you are ill,\" I cried, pressing the\nlittle girl in terror to my heart.\n\n\"Tell your own mother, my darling,\" echoed my poor little wife. \"Oh!\ndarling, darling child, speak to your poor mother.\"\n\nIt was all in vain. Still the same dilated, imploring gaze--the same pale\nface--wild and dumb. We brought her to the open window--we gave her cold\nwater to drink--we sprinkled it in her face. We sent for the apothecary,\nwho lived hard by, and he arrived in a few moments, with a parcel of\ntranquillising medicines. These, however, were equally unavailing.\n\nHour after hour passed away. The darling child looked upon us as if she\nwould have given the world to speak to us, or to weep, but she uttered no\nsound. Now and then she drew a long breath as though preparing to say\nsomething, but still she was mute. She often put her hand to her throat,\nas if there was some pain or obstruction there.\n\nI never can, while I live, lose one line of that mournful and terrible\nportrait--the face of my stricken child. As hour after hour passed away,\nwithout bringing the smallest change or amendment, we grew both alarmed,\nand at length absolutely terrified for her safety.\n\nWe called in a physician toward night, and told him that we had reason to\nsuspect that the child had somehow been frightened, and that in no other\nway could we at all account for the extraordinary condition in which he\nfound her.\n\nThis was a man, I may as well observe, though I do not name him, of the\nhighest eminence in his profession, and one in whose skill, from past\npersonal experience, I had the best possible reasons for implicitly\nconfiding.\n\nHe asked a multiplicity of questions, the answers to which seemed to\nbaffle his attempts to arrive at a satisfactory diagnosis. There was\nsomething undoubtedly anomalous in the case, and I saw plainly that there\nwere features in it which puzzled and perplexed him not a little.\n\nAt length, however, he wrote his prescription, and promised to return at\nnine o'clock. I remember there was something to be rubbed along her\nspine, and some medicines beside.\n\nBut these remedies were as entirely unavailing as the others. In a state\nof dismay and distraction we watched by the bed in which, in accordance\nwith the physician's direction, we had placed her. The absolute\nchangelessness of her condition filled us with despair. The day which had\nelapsed had not witnessed even a transitory variation in the dreadful\ncharacter of her seizure. Any change, even a change for the worse, would\nhave been better than this sluggish, hopeless monotony of suffering.\n\nAt the appointed hour the physician returned. He appeared disappointed,\nalmost shocked, at the failure of his prescriptions. On feeling her pulse\nhe declared that she must have a little wine. There had been a wonderful\nprostration of all the vital powers since he had seen her before. He\nevidently thought the case a strange and precarious one.\n\nShe was made to swallow the wine, and her pulse rallied for a time, but\nsoon subsided again. I and the physician were standing by the fire,\ntalking in whispers of the darling child's symptoms, and likelihood of\nrecovery, when we were arrested in our conversation by a cry of anguish\nfrom the poor mother, who had never left the bedside of her little child,\nand this cry broke into bitter and convulsive weeping.\n\nThe poor little child had, on a sudden, stretched down her little hands\nand feet, and died. There is no mistaking the features of death: the\nfilmy eye and dropt jaw once seen, are recognised whenever we meet them\nagain. Yet, spite of our belief, we cling to hope; and the distracted\nmother called on the physician, in accents which might have moved a\nstatue, to say that her darling was not dead, not quite dead--that\nsomething might still be done--that it could not be all over. Silently\nhe satisfied himself that no throb of life still fluttered in that\nlittle frame.\n\n\"It is, indeed, all over,\" he said, in tones scarce above a whisper; and\npressing my hand kindly, he said, \"comfort your poor wife\"; and so, after\na momentary pause, he left the room.\n\nThis blow had smitten me with stunning suddenness. I looked at the dead\nchild, and from her to her poor mother. Grief and pity were both\nswallowed up in transports of fury and detestation with which the\npresence in my house of the wretch who had wrought all this destruction\nand misery filled my soul. My heart swelled with ungovernable rage; for a\nmoment my habitual fear of him was neutralised by the vehemence of these\npassions. I seized a candle in silence, and mounted the stairs. The sight\nof the accursed cat, flitting across the lobby, and the loneliness of the\nhour, made me hesitate for an instant. I had, however, gone so far, that\nshame sustained me. Overcoming a momentary thrill of dismay, and\ndetermined to repel and defy the influence that had so long awed me, I\nknocked sharply at the door, and, almost at the same instant, pushed it\nopen, and entered our lodger's chamber.\n\nHe had had no candle in the room, and it was lighted only by the\n\"darkness visible\" that entered through the window. The candle which I\nheld very imperfectly illuminated the large apartment; but I saw his\nspectral form floating, rather than walking, back and forward in front of\nthe windows.\n\nAt sight of him, though I hated him more than ever, my instinctive fear\nreturned. He confronted me, and drew nearer and nearer, without speaking.\nThere was something indefinably fearful in the silent attraction which\nseemed to be drawing him to me. I could not help recoiling, little by\nlittle, as he came toward me, and with an effort I said--\n\n\"You know why I have come: the child--she's dead!\"\n\n\"Dead--ha!--_dead_--is she?\" he said, in his odious, mocking tone.\n\n\"Yes--dead!\" I cried, with an excitement which chilled my very marrow\nwith horror; \"and _you_ have killed her, as you killed my other.\"\n\n\"How?--I killed her!--eh?--ha, ha!\" he said, still edging nearer\nand nearer.\n\n\"Yes; I say you!\" I shouted, trembling in every joint, but\npossessed by that unaccountable infatuation which has made men\ninvoke, spite of themselves, their own destruction, and which I was\npowerless to resist--\"deny it as you may, it is you who killed\nher--wretch!--FIEND!--no wonder she could not stand the breath and\nglare of HELL!\"\n\n\"And you are one of those who believe that not a sparrow falls to the\nground without your Creator's consent,\" he said, with icy sarcasm; \"and\nthis is a specimen of Christian resignation--hey? You charge his act upon\na poor fellow like me, simply that you may cheat the devil, and rave and\nrebel against the decrees of heaven, under pretence of abusing me. The\nbreath and flare of hell!--eh? You mean that I removed this and these\n(touching the covering of his mouth and eyes successively) as I _shall_\ndo now again, and show you there's no great harm in that.\"\n\nThere was a tone of menace in his concluding words not to be mistaken.\n\n\"Murderer and liar from the beginning, as you are, I defy you!\" I\nshouted, in a frenzy of hate and horror, stamping furiously on the floor.\n\nAs I said this, it seemed to me that he darkened and dilated before my\neyes. My senses, thoughts, consciousness, grew horribly confused, as if\nsome powerful, extraneous will, were seizing upon the functions of my\nbrain. Whether I were to be mastered by death, or madness, or possession,\nI knew not; but hideous destruction of some sort was impending: all hung\nupon the moment, and I cried aloud, in my agony, an adjuration in the\nname of the three persons of the Trinity, that he should not torment me.\n\nStunned, bewildered, like a man recovered from a drunken fall, I stood,\nfreezing and breathless, in the same spot, looking into the room, which\nwore, in my eyes, a strange, unearthly character. Mr. Smith was cowering\ndarkly in the window, and, after a silence, spoke to me in a croaking,\nsulky tone, which was, however, unusually submissive.\n\n\"Don't it strike you as an odd procedure to break into a gentleman's\napartment at such an hour, for the purpose of railing at him in the\ncoarsest language? If you have any charge to make against me, do so; I\ninvite inquiry and defy your worst. If you think you can bring home to me\nthe smallest share of blame in this unlucky matter, call the coroner, and\nlet his inquest examine and cross-examine me, and sift the matter--if,\nindeed, there is anything to _be_ sifted--to the bottom. Meanwhile, go\nyou about your business, and leave me to mine. But I see how the wind\nsits; you want to get rid of me, and so you make the place odious to me.\nBut it won't do; and if you take to making criminal charges against me,\nyou had better look to yourself; for two can play at that game.\"\n\nThere was a suppressed whine in all this, which strangely contrasted with\nthe cool and threatening tone of his previous conversation.\n\nWithout answering a word I hurried from the room, and scarcely felt\nsecure, even when once more in the melancholy chamber, where my poor wife\nwas weeping.\n\nMiserable, horrible was the night that followed. The loss of our child\nwas a calamity which we had not dared to think of. It had come, and with\na suddenness enough to bereave me of reason. It seemed all unreal, all\nfantastic. It needed an effort to convince me, minute after minute, that\nthe dreadful truth was so; and the old accustomed feeling that she was\nstill alive, still running from room to room, and the expectation that I\nshould hear her step and her voice, and see her entering at the door,\nwould return. But still the sense of dismay, of having received some\nstunning, irreparable blow, remained behind; and then came the horrible\neffort, like that with which one rouses himself from a haunted sleep, the\nquestion, \"What disaster is this that has befallen?\"--answered, alas! but\ntoo easily, too terribly! Amidst all this was perpetually rising before\nmy fancy the obscure, dilated figure of our lodger, as he had confronted\nme in his malign power that night. I dismissed the image with a shudder\nas often as it recurred; and even now, at this distance of time, I have\nfelt more than I could well describe in the mere effort to fix my\nrecollection upon its hated traits, while writing the passages I have\njust concluded.\n\nThis hateful scene I did not recount to my poor wife. Its horrors were\ntoo fresh upon me. I had not courage to trust myself with the agitating\nnarrative; and so I sate beside her, with her hand locked in mine: I had\nno comfort to offer but the dear love I bore her.\n\nAt last, like a child, she cried herself to sleep--the dull, heavy\nslumber of worn-out grief. As for me, the agitation of my soul was too\nfearful and profound for repose. My eye accidentally rested on the holy\nvolume, which lay upon the table open, as I had left it in the morning;\nand the first words which met my eye were these--\"For our light\naffliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more\nexceeding and eternal weight of glory.\" This blessed sentence riveted my\nattention, and shed a stream of solemn joy upon my heart; and so the\ngreater part of that mournful night, I continued to draw comfort and\nheavenly wisdom from the same inspired source.\n\nNext day brought the odious incident, the visit of the undertaker--the\ncarpentery, upholstery, and millinery of death. Why has not civilisation\nabolished these repulsive and shocking formalities? What has the poor\ncorpse to do with frills, and pillows, and napkins, and all the equipage\nin which it rides on its last journey? There is no intrusion so jarring\nto the decent grief of surviving affection, no conceivable mummery more\nderisive of mortality.\n\nIn the room which we had been so long used to call \"the nursery,\" now\ndesolate and mute, the unclosed coffin lay, with our darling shrouded in\nit. Before we went to our rest at night we visited it. In the morning the\nlid was to close over that sweet face, and I was to see the child laid by\nher little brother. We looked upon the well-known and loved features,\npurified in the sublime serenity of death, for a long time, whispering to\none another, among our sobs, how sweet and beautiful we thought she\nlooked; and at length, weeping bitterly, we tore ourselves away.\n\nWe talked and wept for many hours, and at last, in sheer exhaustion,\ndropt asleep. My little wife awaked me, and said--\n\n\"I think they have come--the--the undertakers.\"\n\nIt was still dark, so I could not consult my watch; but they were to have\narrived early, and as it was winter, and the nights long, the hour of\ntheir visit might well have arrived.\n\n\"What, darling, is your reason for thinking so?\" I asked.\n\n\"I am sure I have heard them for some time in the nursery,\" she answered.\n\"Oh! dear, dear little Fanny! Don't allow them to close the coffin until\nI have seen my darling once more.\"\n\nI got up, and threw some clothes hastily about me. I opened the door and\nlistened. A sound like a muffled knocking reached me from the nursery.\n\n\"Yes, my darling!\" I said, \"I think they have come. I will go and desire\nthem to wait until you have seen her again.\"\n\nAnd, so saying, I hastened from the room.\n\nOur bedchamber lay at the end of a short corridor, opening from the\nlobby, at the head of the stairs, and the nursery was situated nearly at\nthe end of a corresponding passage, which opened from the same lobby at\nthe opposite side As I hurried along I distinctly heard the same sounds.\nThe light of dawn had not yet appeared, but there was a strong moonlight\nshining through the windows. I thought the morning could hardly be so far\nadvanced as we had at first supposed; but still, strangely as it now\nseems to me, suspecting nothing amiss, I walked on in noiseless,\nslippered feet, to the nursery-door. It stood half open; some one had\nunquestionably visited it since we had been there. I stepped forward, and\nentered. At the threshold horror arrested my advance.\n\nThe coffin was placed upon tressles at the further extremity of the\nchamber, with the foot of it nearly towards the door, and a large window\nat the side of it admitted the cold lustre of the moon full upon the\napparatus of mortality, and the objects immediately about it.\n\nAt the foot of the coffin stood the ungainly form of our lodger. He\nseemed to be intently watching the face of the corpse, and was stooped a\nlittle, while with his hands he tapped sharply, from time to time at the\nsides of the coffin, like one who designs to awaken a slumberer. Perched\nupon the body of the child, and nuzzling among the grave-clothes, with a\nstrange kind of ecstasy, was the detested brute, the cat I have so often\nmentioned.\n\nThe group thus revealed, I looked upon but for one instant; in the next I\nshouted, in absolute terror--\n\n\"In God's name! what are you doing?\"\n\nOur lodger shuffled away abruptly, as if disconcerted; but the\nill-favoured cat, whisking round, stood like a demon sentinel upon the\ncorpse, growling and hissing, with arched back and glaring eyes.\n\nThe lodger, turning abruptly toward me, motioned me to one side.\nMechanically I obeyed his gesture, and he hurried hastily from the room.\n\nSick and dizzy, I returned to my own chamber. I confess I had not nerve\nto combat the infernal brute, which still held possession of the room,\nand so I left it undisturbed.\n\nThis incident I did not tell to my wife until some time afterwards; and I\nmention it here because it was, and is, in my mind associated with a\npainful circumstance which very soon afterwards came to light.\n\nThat morning I witnessed the burial of my darling child. Sore and\ndesolate was my heart; but with infinite gratitude to the great\ncontroller of all events, I recognised in it a change which nothing but\nthe spirit of all good can effect. The love and fear of God had grown\nstrong within me--in humbleness I bowed to his awful will--with a sincere\ntrust I relied upon the goodness, the wisdom, and the mercy of him who\nhad sent this great affliction. But a further incident connected with\nthis very calamity was to test this trust and patience to the uttermost.\n\nIt was still early when I returned, having completed the last sad office.\nMy wife, as I afterwards learned, still lay weeping upon her bed. But\nsomebody awaited my return in the hall, and opened the door, anticipating\nmy knock. This person was our lodger.\n\nI was too much appalled by the sudden presentation of this abhorred\nspectre even to retreat, as my instinct would have directed, through the\nopen door.\n\n\"I have been expecting your return,\" he said, \"with the design of saying\nsomething which it might have profited you to learn, but now I apprehend\nit is too late. What a pity you are so violent and impatient; you would\nnot have heard me, in all probability, this morning. You cannot think\nhow cross-grained and intemperate you have grown since you became a\nsaint--but that is your affair, not mine. You have buried your little\ndaughter this morning. It requires a good deal of that new attribute of\nyours, _faith_, which judges all things by a rule of contraries, and can\nnever see anything but kindness in the worst afflictions which malignity\ncould devise, to discover benignity and mercy in the torturing calamity\nwhich has just punished you and your wife for _nothing_! But I fancy\nthat it will be harder still when I tell you what I more than\nsuspect--ha, ha. It would be really ridiculous, if it were not\nheart-rending; that your little girl has been actually buried _alive_;\ndo you comprehend me?--alive. For, upon my life, I fancy she was not\ndead as she lay in her coffin.\"\n\nI knew the wretch was exulting in the fresh anguish he had just\ninflicted. I know not how it was, but any announcement of _disaster_ from\nhis lips, seemed to me to be necessarily true. Half-stifled with the\ndreadful emotions he had raised, palpitating between hope and terror, I\nrushed frantically back again, the way I had just come, running as fast\nas my speed could carry me, toward the, alas! distant burial-ground where\nmy darling lay.\n\nI stopped a cab slowly returning to town, at the corner of the lane,\nsprang into it, directed the man to drive to the church of ----, and\npromised him anything and everything for despatch. The man seemed amazed;\ndoubtful, perhaps, whether he carried a maniac or a malefactor. Still he\ntook his chance for the promised reward, and galloped his horse, while I,\ntortured with suspense, yelled my frantic incentives to further speed.\n\nAt last, in a space immeasurably short, but which to me was protracted\nalmost beyond endurance, we reached the spot. I halloed to the sexton,\nwho was now employed upon another grave, to follow me. I myself seized a\nmattock, and in obedience to my incoherent and agonised commands, he\nworked as he had never worked before. The crumbling mould flew swiftly to\nthe upper soil--deeper and deeper, every moment, grew the narrow\ngrave--at last I sobbed, \"Thank God--thank God,\" as I saw the face of the\ncoffin emerge; a few seconds more and it lay upon the sward beside me,\nand we both, with the edges of our spades, ripped up the lid.\n\n_There_ was the corpse--but not the tranquil statue I had seen it last.\nIts knees were both raised, and one of its little hands drawn up and\nclenched near its throat, as if in a feeble but agonised struggle to\nforce up the superincumbent mass. The eyes, that I had last seen closed,\nwere now open, and the face no longer serenely pale, but livid and\ndistorted.\n\nI had time to see all in an instant; the whole scene reeled and darkened\nbefore me, and I swooned away.\n\nWhen I came to myself, I found that I had been removed to the\nvestry-room. The open coffin was in the aisle of the church, surrounded\nby a curious crowd. A medical gentleman had examined the body carefully,\nand had pronounced life totally extinct. The trepidation and horror I\nexperienced were indescribable. I felt like the murderer of my own child.\nDesperate as I was of any chance of its life, I dispatched messengers for\nno less than three of the most eminent physicians then practising in\nLondon. All concurred--the child was now as dead as any other, the oldest\ntenant of the churchyard.\n\nNotwithstanding which, I would not permit the body to be reinterred for\nseveral days, until the symptoms of decay became unequivocal, and the\nmost fantastic imagination could no longer cherish a doubt. This,\nhowever, I mention only parenthetically, as I hasten to the conclusion of\nmy narrative. The circumstance which I have last described found its way\nto the public, and caused no small sensation at the time.\n\nI drove part of the way home, and then discharged the cab, and walked the\nremainder. On my way, with an emotion of ecstasy I cannot describe, I met\nthe good being to whom I owed so much. I ran to meet him, and felt as if\nI could throw myself at his feet, and kiss the very ground before him. I\nknew by his heavenly countenance he was come to speak comfort and healing\nto my heart.\n\nWith humbleness and gratitude, I drank in his sage and holy discourse. I\nneed not follow the gracious and delightful exposition of God's revealed\nwill and character with which he cheered and confirmed my faltering\nspirit. A solemn joy, a peace and trust, streamed on my heart. The wreck\nand desolation there, lost their bleak and ghastly character, like ruins\nilluminated by the mellow beams of a solemn summer sunset.\n\nIn this conversation, I told him what I had never revealed to any one\nbefore--the absolute terror, in all its stupendous and maddening\namplitude, with which I regarded our ill-omened lodger, and my agonised\nanxiety to rid my house of him. My companion answered me--\n\n\"I know the person of whom you speak--he designs no good for you or any\nother. He, too, knows me, and I have intimated to him that he must now\nleave you, and visit you no more. Be firm and bold, trusting in God,\nthrough his Son, like a good soldier, and you will win the victory from a\ngreater and even worse than he--the _unseen_ enemy of mankind. You need\nnot see or speak with your evil tenant any more. Call to him from your\nhall, in the name of the Most Holy, to leave you bodily, with all that\nappertains to him, this evening. He knows that he must go, and will obey\nyou. But leave the house as soon as may be yourself; you will scarce have\npeace in it. Your own remembrances will trouble you and _other minds have\nestablished associations within its walls and chambers too_.\"\n\nThese words sounded mysteriously in my ears.\n\nLet me say here, before I bring my reminiscences to a close, a word or\ntwo about the house in which these detested scenes occurred, and which I\ndid not long continue to inhabit. What I afterwards learned of it, seemed\nto supply in part a dim explanation of these words.\n\nIn a country village there is no difficulty in accounting for the\ntenacity with which the sinister character of a haunted tenement cleaves\nto it. Thin neighbourhoods are favourable to scandal; and in such\nlocalities the reputation of a house, like that of a woman, once blown\nupon, never quite recovers. In huge London, however, it is quite another\nmatter; and, therefore, it was with some surprise that, five years after\nI had vacated the house in which the occurrences I have described took\nplace, I learned that a respectable family who had taken it were obliged\nto give it up, on account of annoyances, for which they could not\naccount, and all proceeding from the apartments formerly occupied by our\n\"lodger.\" Among the sounds described were footsteps restlessly\ntraversing the floor of that room, accompanied by the peculiar tapping\nof the crutch.\n\nI was so anxious about this occurrence, that I contrived to have strict\ninquiries made into the matter. The result, however, added little to what\nI had at first learned--except, indeed, that our old friend, the cat,\nbore a part in the transaction as I suspected; for the servant, who had\nbeen placed to sleep in the room, complained that something bounded on\nand off, and ran to-and-fro along the foot of the bed, in the dark. The\nsame servant, while in the room, in the broad daylight, had heard the\nsound of walking, and even the rustling of clothes near him, as of people\npassing and repassing; and, although he had never seen anything, he yet\nbecame so terrified that he would not remain in the house, and\nultimately, in a short time, left his situation.\n\nThese sounds, attention having been called to them, were now incessantly\nobserved--the measured walking up and down the room, the opening and\nclosing of the door, and the teazing tap of the crutch--all these sounds\nwere continually repeated, until at last, worn out, frightened, and\nworried, its occupants resolved on abandoning the house.\n\nAbout four years since, having had occasion to visit the capital, I\nresolved on a ramble by Old Brompton, just to see if the house were still\ninhabited. I searched for it, however, in vain, and at length, with\ndifficulty, ascertained its site, upon which now stood two small,\nstaring, bran-new brick houses, with each a gay enclosure of flowers.\nEvery trace of our old mansion, and, let us hope, of our \"mysterious\nlodger,\" had entirely vanished.\n\nLet me, however, return to my narrative where I left it.\n\nDiscoursing upon heavenly matters, my good and gracious friend\naccompanied me even within the outer gate of my own house. I asked him to\ncome in and rest himself, but he would not; and before he turned to\ndepart, he lifted up his hand, and blessed me and my household.\n\nHaving done this, he went away. My eyes followed him till he disappeared,\nand I turned to the house. My darling wife was standing at the window of\nthe parlour. There was a seraphic smile on her face--pale, pure, and\nbeautiful as death. She was gazing with an humble, heavenly earnestness\non us. The parting blessing of the stranger shed a sweet and hallowed\ninfluence on my heart. I went into the parlour, to my darling: childless\nshe was now; I had now need to be a tender companion to her.\n\nShe raised her arms in a sort of transport, with the same smile of\ngratitude and purity, and, throwing them round my neck, she said--\n\n\"I have seen him--it is he--the man that came with you to the door, and\nblessed us as he went away--is the same I saw in my dream--the same who\ntook little baby in his arms, and said he would take care of him, and\ngive him safely to me again.\"\n\nMore than a quarter of a century has glided away since then; other\nchildren have been given us by the good God--children who have been, from\ninfancy to maturity, a pride and blessing to us. Sorrows and reverses,\ntoo, have occasionally visited us; yet, on the whole, we have been\ngreatly blessed; prosperity has long since ended all the cares of the\n_res angusta domi_, and expanded our power of doing good to our\nfellow-creatures. God has given it; and God, we trust, directs its\ndispensation. In our children, and--would you think it?--our\n_grand_-children, too, the same beneficent God has given us objects that\nelicit and return all the delightful affections, and exchange the sweet\nconverse that makes home and family dearer than aught else, save that\nblessed home where the Christian family shall meet at last.\n\nThe dear companion of my early love and sorrows still lives, blessed be\nHeaven! The evening tints of life have fallen upon her; but the dear\nremembrance of a first love, that never grew cold, makes her beauty\nchangeless for me. As for your humble servant, he is considerably her\nsenior, and looks it: time has stolen away his raven locks, and given\nhim a _chevelure_ of snow instead. But, as I said before, I and my wife\nlove, and, I believe, _admire_ one another more than ever; and I have\noften seen our elder children smile archly at one another, when they\nthought we did not observe them, thinking, no doubt, how like a pair of\nlovers we two were.","title":"J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":40411}