{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_509/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_509","id":"gutenberg_509","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/509","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Crime, Thrillers and Mystery","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Fantasy fiction, English","Ireland -- Fiction"],"text":"Produced by Judith Boss and Charles Keller\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE PURCELL PAPERS.\n\nBY THE LATE\n\nJOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU,\n\nAUTHOR OF 'UNCLE SILAS.'\n\n\nWith a Memoir by\n\nALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES\n\n\nIN THREE VOLUMES.\n\n\nVOL. I.\n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOL. I.\n\n     MEMOIR OF JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU\n     THE GHOST AND THE BONE-SETTER\n     THE FORTUNES OF SIR ROBERT ARDAGH\n     THE LAST HEIR OF CASTLE CONNOR\n     THE DRUNKARD'S DREAM\n\n\n\n\n\nMEMOIR OF JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU.\n\nA noble Huguenot family, owning considerable property in Normandy, the\nLe Fanus of Caen, were, upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,\ndeprived of their ancestral estates of Mandeville, Sequeville, and\nCresseron; but, owing to their possessing influential relatives at the\ncourt of Louis the Fourteenth, were allowed to quit their country for\nEngland, unmolested, with their personal property. We meet with John Le\nFanu de Sequeville and Charles Le Fanu de Cresseron, as cavalry officers\nin William the Third's army; Charles being so distinguished a member of\nthe King's staff that he was presented with William's portrait from his\nmaster's own hand. He afterwards served as a major of dragoons under\nMarlborough.\n\nAt the beginning of the eighteenth century, William Le Fanu was the sole\nsurvivor of his family. He married Henrietta Raboteau de Puggibaut,\nthe last of another great and noble Huguenot family, whose escape\nfrom France, as a child, by the aid of a Roman Catholic uncle in high\nposition at the French court, was effected after adventures of the most\nromantic danger.\n\nJoseph Le Fanu, the eldest of the sons of this marriage who left issue,\nheld the office of Clerk of the Coast in Ireland. He married for the\nsecond time Alicia, daughter of Thomas Sheridan and sister of Richard\nBrinsley Sheridan; his brother, Captain Henry Le Fanu, of Leamington,\nbeing united to the only other sister of the great wit and orator.\n\nDean Thomas Philip Le Fanu, the eldest son of Joseph Le Fanu, became by\nhis wife Emma, daughter of Dr. Dobbin, F.T.C.D., the father of Joseph\nSheridan Le Fanu, the subject of this memoir, whose name is so familiar\nto English and American readers as one of the greatest masters of the\nweird and the terrible amongst our modern novelists.\n\nBorn in Dublin on the 28th of August, 1814, he did not begin to speak\nuntil he was more than two years of age; but when he had once started,\nthe boy showed an unusual aptitude in acquiring fresh words, and using\nthem correctly.\n\nThe first evidence of literary taste which he gave was in his sixth\nyear, when he made several little sketches with explanatory remarks\nwritten beneath them, after the manner of Du Maurier's, or Charles\nKeene's humorous illustrations in 'Punch.'\n\nOne of these, preserved long afterwards by his mother, represented a\nballoon in mid-air, and two aeronauts, who had occupied it, falling\nheadlong to earth, the disaster being explained by these words: 'See the\neffects of trying to go to Heaven.'\n\nAs a mere child, he was a remarkably good actor, both in tragic and\ncomic pieces, and was hardly twelve years old when he began to write\nverses of singular spirit for one so young. At fourteen, he produced\na long Irish poem, which he never permitted anyone but his mother and\nbrother to read. To that brother, Mr. William Le Fanu, Commissioner of\nPublic Works, Ireland, to whom, as the suggester of Sheridan Le Fanu's\n'Phaudrig Croohore' and 'Shamus O'Brien,' Irish ballad literature owes\na delightful debt, and whose richly humorous and passionately pathetic\npowers as a raconteur of these poems have only doubled that obligation\nin the hearts of those who have been happy enough to be his hearers--to\nMr. William Le Fanu we are indebted for the following extracts from the\nfirst of his works, which the boy-author seems to have set any store by:\n\n     'Muse of Green Erin, break thine icy slumbers!\n        Strike once again thy wreathed lyre!\n      Burst forth once more and wake thy tuneful numbers!\n        Kindle again thy long-extinguished fire!\n\n     'Why should I bid thee, Muse of Erin, waken?\n        Why should I bid thee strike thy harp once more?\n      Better to leave thee silent and forsaken\n        Than wake thee but thy glories to deplore.\n\n     'How could I bid thee tell of Tara's Towers,\n        Where once thy sceptred Princes sate in state--\n      Where rose thy music, at the festive hours,\n        Through the proud halls where listening thousands\n             sate?\n\n     'Fallen are thy fair palaces, thy country's glory,\n        Thy tuneful bards were banished or were slain,\n      Some rest in glory on their deathbeds gory,\n        And some have lived to feel a foeman's chain.\n\n     'Yet for the sake of thy unhappy nation,\n        Yet for the sake of Freedom's spirit fled,\n      Let thy wild harpstrings, thrilled with indignation,\n        Peal a deep requiem o'er thy sons that bled.\n\n     'O yes! like the last breath of evening sighing,\n        Sweep thy cold hand the silent strings along,\n      Flash like the lamp beside the hero dying,\n        Then hushed for ever be thy plaintive song.'\n\n\nTo Mr. William Le Fanu we are further indebted for the accompanying\nspecimens of his brother's serious and humorous powers in verse, written\nwhen he was quite a lad, as valentines to a Miss G. K.:\n\n\n     'Life were too long for me to bear\n        If banished from thy view;\n      Life were too short, a thousand year,\n        If life were passed with you.\n\n     'Wise men have said \"Man's lot on earth\n        Is grief and melancholy,\"\n      But where thou art, there joyous mirth\n        Proves all their wisdom folly.\n\n     'If fate withhold thy love from me,\n        All else in vain were given;\n      Heaven were imperfect wanting thee,\n        And with thee earth were heaven.'\n\n     A few days after, he sent the following sequel:\n\n'My dear good Madam, You can't think how very sad I'm. I sent you, or\nI mistake myself foully, A very excellent imitation of the poet Cowley,\nContaining three very fair stanzas, Which number Longinus, a very\ncritical man, says, And Aristotle, who was a critic ten times more\ncaustic, To a nicety fits a valentine or an acrostic. And yet for all my\npains to this moving epistle, I have got no answer, so I suppose I may\ngo whistle. Perhaps you'd have preferred that like an old monk I\nhad pattered on In the style and after the manner of the unfortunate\nChatterton; Or that, unlike my reverend daddy's son, I had attempted the\nclassicalities of the dull, though immortal Addison.\n\n     I can't endure this silence another week;\n     What shall I do in order to make you speak?\n                 Shall I give you a trope\n                 In the manner of Pope,\n     Or hammer my brains like an old smith\n     To get out something like Goldsmith?\n     Or shall I aspire on\n     To tune my poetic lyre on\n     The same key touched by Byron,\n     And laying my hand its wire on,\n     With its music your soul set fire on\n     By themes you ne'er could tire on?\n                 Or say,\n                 I pray,\n                 Would a lay\n                 Like Gay\n                 Be more in your way?\n            I leave it to you,\n            Which am I to do?\n            It plain on the surface is\n            That any metamorphosis,\n            To affect your study\n            You may work on my soul or body.\n     Your frown or your smile makes me Savage or Gay\n       In action, as well as in song;\n     And if 'tis decreed I at length become Gray,\n       Express but the word and I'm Young;\n     And if in the Church I should ever aspire\n       With friars and abbots to cope,\n     By a nod, if you please, you can make me a Prior--\n       By a word you render me Pope.\n     If you'd eat, I'm a Crab; if you'd cut, I'm your Steel,\n       As sharp as you'd get from the cutler;\n     I'm your Cotton whene'er you're in want of a reel,\n       And your livery carry, as Butler.\n                 I'll ever rest your debtor\n                 If you'll answer my first letter;\n                 Or must, alas, eternity\n                 Witness your taciturnity?\n                 Speak--and oh! speak quickly\n                 Or else I shall grow sickly,\n                           And pine,\n                           And whine,\n                 And grow yellow and brown\n                   As e'er was mahogany,\n                 And lie me down\n                   And die in agony.\n\n        P.S.--You'll allow I have the gift\n              To write like the immortal Swift.'\n\n\nBut besides the poetical powers with which he was endowed, in common\nwith the great Brinsley, Lady Dufferin, and the Hon. Mrs. Norton, young\nSheridan Le Fanu also possessed an irresistible humour and oratorical\ngift that, as a student of Old Trinity, made him a formidable rival of\nthe best of the young debaters of his time at the 'College Historical,'\nnot a few of whom have since reached the highest eminence at the Irish\nBar, after having long enlivened and charmed St. Stephen's by their wit\nand oratory.\n\nAmongst his compeers he was remarkable for his sudden fiery eloquence of\nattack, and ready and rapid powers of repartee when on his defence.\nBut Le Fanu, whose understanding was elevated by a deep love of the\nclassics, in which he took university honours, and further heightened by\nan admirable knowledge of our own great authors, was not to be tempted\naway by oratory from literature, his first and, as it proved, his last\nlove.\n\nVery soon after leaving college, and just when he was called to the\nBar, about the year 1838, he bought the 'Warder,' a Dublin newspaper,\nof which he was editor, and took what many of his best friends and\nadmirers, looking to his high prospects as a barrister, regarded at the\ntime as a fatal step in his career to fame.\n\nJust before this period, Le Fanu had taken to writing humorous Irish\nstories, afterwards published in the 'Dublin University Magazine,' such\nas the 'Quare Gander,' 'Jim Sulivan's Adventure,' 'The Ghost and the\nBone-setter,' etc.\n\nThese stories his brother William Le Fanu was in the habit of repeating\nfor his friends' amusement, and about the year 1837, when he was about\ntwenty-three years of age, Joseph Le Fanu said to him that he thought an\nIrish story in verse would tell well, and that if he would choose him\na subject suitable for recitation, he would write him one. 'Write me an\nIrish \"Young Lochinvar,\"' said his brother; and in a few days he handed\nhim 'Phaudrig Croohore'--Anglice, 'Patrick Crohore.'\n\nOf course this poem has the disadvantage not only of being written after\n'Young Lochinvar,' but also that of having been directly inspired by\nit; and yet, although wanting in the rare and graceful finish of the\noriginal, the Irish copy has, we feel, so much fire and feeling that it\nat least tempts us to regret that Scott's poem was not written in that\nheart-stirring Northern dialect without which the noblest of our British\nballads would lose half their spirit. Indeed, we may safely say that\nsome of Le Fanu's lines are finer than any in 'Young Lochinvar,' simply\nbecause they seem to speak straight from a people's heart, not to be the\nmere echoes of medieval romance.\n\n'Phaudrig Croohore' did not appear in print in the 'Dublin University\nMagazine' till 1844, twelve years after its composition, when it was\nincluded amongst the Purcell Papers.\n\nTo return to the year 1837. Mr. William Le Fanu, the suggester of this\nballad, who was from home at the time, now received daily instalments\nof the second and more remarkable of his brother's Irish poems--'Shamus\nO'Brien' (James O'Brien)--learning them by heart as they reached him,\nand, fortunately, never forgetting them, for his brother Joseph kept no\ncopy of the ballad, and he had himself to write it out from memory ten\nyears after, when the poem appeared in the 'University Magazine.'\n\nFew will deny that this poem contains passages most faithfully, if\nfearfully, picturesque, and that it is characterised throughout by\na profound pathos, and an abundant though at times a too grotesquely\nincongruous humour. Can we wonder, then, at the immense popularity\nwith which Samuel Lover recited it in the United States? For to Lover's\nadmiration of the poem, and his addition of it to his entertainment,\n'Shamus O'Brien' owes its introduction into America, where it is now\nso popular. Lover added some lines of his own to the poem, made Shamus\nemigrate to the States, and set up a public-house. These added lines\nappeared in most of the published versions of the poem. But they are\nindifferent as verse, and certainly injure the dramatic effect of the\npoem.\n\n'Shamus O'Brien' is so generally attributed to Lover (indeed we remember\nseeing it advertised for recitation on the occasion of a benefit at a\nleading London theatre as 'by Samuel Lover') that it is a satisfaction\nto be able to reproduce the following letter upon the subject from Lover\nto William le Fanu:\n\n               'Astor House,\n                 'New York, U.S. America.\n                      'Sept. 30, 1846.\n\n  'My dear Le Fanu,\n\n'In reading over your brother's poem while I crossed the Atlantic,\nI became more and more impressed with its great beauty and dramatic\neffect--so much so that I determined to test its effect in public, and\nhave done so here, on my first appearance, with the greatest success.\nNow I have no doubt there will be great praises of the poem, and people\nwill suppose, most likely, that the composition is mine, and as you know\n(I take for granted) that I would not wish to wear a borrowed feather, I\nshould be glad to give your brother's name as the author, should he not\nobject to have it known; but as his writings are often of so different a\ntone, I would not speak without permission to do so. It is true that in\nmy programme my name is attached to other pieces, and no name appended\nto the recitation; so far, you will see, I have done all I could to\navoid \"appropriating,\" the spirit of which I might have caught here,\nwith Irish aptitude; but I would like to have the means of telling all\nwhom it may concern the name of the author, to whose head and heart it\ndoes so much honour. Pray, my dear Le Fanu, inquire, and answer me here\nby next packet, or as soon as convenient. My success here has been quite\ntriumphant.\n\n'Yours very truly,\n\n'SAMUEL LOVER.'\n\n\nWe have heard it said (though without having inquired into the truth\nof the tradition) that 'Shamus O'Brien' was the result of a match at\npseudo-national ballad writing made between Le Fanu and several of the\nmost brilliant of his young literary confreres at T. C. D. But however\nthis may be, Le Fanu undoubtedly was no young Irelander; indeed he did\nthe stoutest service as a press writer in the Conservative interest, and\nwas no doubt provoked as well as amused at the unexpected popularity\nto which his poem attained amongst the Irish Nationalists. And here\nit should be remembered that the ballad was written some eleven years\nbefore the outbreak of '48, and at a time when a '98 subject might\nfairly have been regarded as legitimate literary property amongst the\nmost loyal.\n\nWe left Le Fanu as editor of the 'Warder.' He afterwards purchased the\n'Dublin Evening Packet,' and much later the half-proprietorship of the\n'Dublin Evening Mail.' Eleven or twelve years ago he also became the\nowner and editor of the 'Dublin University Magazine,' in which his\nlater as well as earlier Irish Stories appeared. He sold it about a year\nbefore his death in 1873, having previously parted with the 'Warder' and\nhis share in the 'Evening Mail.'\n\nHe had previously published in the 'Dublin University Magazine' a number\nof charming lyrics, generally anonymously, and it is to be feared that\nall clue to the identification of most of these is lost, except that of\ninternal evidence.\n\nThe following poem, undoubtedly his, should make general our regret at\nbeing unable to fix with certainty upon its fellows:\n\n\n     'One wild and distant bugle sound\n        Breathed o'er Killarney's magic shore\n      Will shed sweet floating echoes round\n        When that which made them is no more.\n\n     'So slumber in the human heart\n        Wild echoes, that will sweetly thrill\n      The words of kindness when the voice\n        That uttered them for aye is still.\n\n     'Oh! memory, though thy records tell\n        Full many a tale of grief and sorrow,\n      Of mad excess, of hope decayed,\n        Of dark and cheerless melancholy;\n\n     'Still, memory, to me thou art\n        The dearest of the gifts of mind,\n      For all the joys that touch my heart\n        Are joys that I have left behind.\n\n\nLe Fanu's literary life may be divided into three distinct periods.\nDuring the first of these, and till his thirtieth year, he was an Irish\nballad, song, and story writer, his first published story being the\n'Adventures of Sir Robert Ardagh,' which appeared in the 'Dublin\nUniversity Magazine' of 1838.\n\nIn 1844 he was united to Miss Susan Bennett, the beautiful daughter of\nthe late George Bennett, Q.C. From this time until her decease, in 1858,\nhe devoted his energies almost entirely to press work, making, however,\nhis first essays in novel writing during that period. The 'Cock and\nAnchor,' a chronicle of old Dublin city, his first and, in the opinion\nof competent critics, one of the best of his novels, seeing the light\nabout the year 1850. This work, it is to be feared, is out of print,\nthough there is now a cheap edition of 'Torlogh O'Brien,' its immediate\nsuccessor. The comparative want of success of these novels seems to have\ndeterred Le Fanu from using his pen, except as a press writer, until\n1863, when the 'House by the Churchyard' was published, and was soon\nfollowed by 'Uncle Silas' and his five other well-known novels.\n\nWe have considered Le Fanu as a ballad writer and poet. As a press\nwriter he is still most honourably remembered for his learning and\nbrilliancy, and the power and point of his sarcasm, which long made the\n'Dublin Evening Mail' one of the most formidable of Irish press critics;\nbut let us now pass to the consideration of him in the capacity of a\nnovelist, and in particular as the author of 'Uncle Silas.'\n\nThere are evidences in 'Shamus O'Brien,' and even in 'Phaudrig\nCroohore,' of a power over the mysterious, the grotesque, and the\nhorrible, which so singularly distinguish him as a writer of prose\nfiction.\n\n'Uncle Silas,' the fairest as well as most familiar instance of this\nenthralling spell over his readers, is too well known a story to tell\nin detail. But how intensely and painfully distinct is the opening\ndescription of the silent, inflexible Austin Ruthyn of Knowl, and\nhis shy, sweet daughter Maude, the one so resolutely confident in his\nbrother's honour, the other so romantically and yet anxiously\ninterested in her uncle--the sudden arrival of Dr. Bryerly, the strange\nSwedenborgian, followed by the equally unexpected apparition of Madame\nde la Rougiere, Austin Ruthyn's painful death, and the reading of his\nstrange will consigning poor Maude to the protection of her unknown\nUncle Silas--her cousin, good, bright devoted Monica Knollys, and her\ndreadful distrust of Silas--Bartram Haugh and its uncanny occupants, and\nforemost amongst them Uncle Silas.\n\nThis is his portrait:\n\n'A face like marble, with a fearful monumental look, and for an old man,\nsingularly vivid, strange eyes, the singularity of which rather grew\nupon me as I looked; for his eyebrows were still black, though his hair\ndescended from his temples in long locks of the purest silver and fine\nas silk, nearly to his shoulders.\n\n'He rose, tall and slight, a little stooped, all in black, with an ample\nblack velvet tunic, which was rather a gown than a coat....\n\n'I know I can't convey in words an idea of this apparition, drawn, as it\nseemed, in black and white, venerable, bloodless, fiery-eyed, with\nits singular look of power, and an expression so bewildering--was it\nderision, or anguish, or cruelty, or patience?\n\n'The wild eyes of this strange old man were fixed on me as he rose; an\nhabitual contraction, which in certain lights took the character of\na scowl, did not relax as he advanced towards me with a thin-lipped\nsmile.'\n\nOld Dicken and his daughter Beauty, old L'Amour and Dudley Ruthyn, now\nenter upon the scene, each a fresh shadow to deepen its already sombre\nhue, while the gloom gathers in spite of the glimpse of sunshine shot\nthrough it by the visit to Elverston. Dudley's brutal encounter with\nCaptain Oakley, and vile persecution of poor Maude till his love\nmarriage comes to light, lead us on to the ghastly catastrophe, the\nhideous conspiracy of Silas and his son against the life of the innocent\ngirl.\n\nIt is interesting to know that the germ of Uncle Silas first appeared\nin the 'Dublin University Magazine' of 1837 or 1838, as the short tale,\nentitled, 'A Passage from the Secret History of an Irish Countess,'\nwhich is printed in this collection of Stories. It next was published as\n'The Murdered Cousin' in a collection of Christmas stories, and finally\ndeveloped into the three-volume novel we have just noticed.\n\nThere are about Le Fanu's narratives touches of nature which reconcile\nus to their always remarkable and often supernatural incidents. His\ncharacters are well conceived and distinctly drawn, and strong soliloquy\nand easy dialogue spring unaffectedly from their lips. He is a close\nobserver of Nature, and reproduces her wilder effects of storm and gloom\nwith singular vividness; while he is equally at home in his descriptions\nof still life, some of which remind us of the faithfully minute detail\nof old Dutch pictures.\n\nMr. Wilkie Collins, amongst our living novelists, best compares with\nLe Fanu. Both of these writers are remarkable for the ingenious mystery\nwith which they develop their plots, and for the absorbing, if often\nover-sensational, nature of their incidents; but whilst Mr. Collins\nexcites and fascinates our attention by an intense power of realism\nwhich carries us with unreasoning haste from cover to cover of his\nworks, Le Fanu is an idealist, full of high imagination, and an\nartist who devotes deep attention to the most delicate detail in his\nportraiture of men and women, and his descriptions of the outdoor and\nindoor worlds--a writer, therefore, through whose pages it would be\noften an indignity to hasten. And this more leisurely, and certainly\nmore classical, conduct of his stories makes us remember them more fully\nand faithfully than those of the author of the 'Woman in White.' Mr.\nCollins is generally dramatic, and sometimes stagy, in his effects. Le\nFanu, while less careful to arrange his plots, so as to admit of their\nbeing readily adapted for the stage, often surprises us by scenes of so\nmuch greater tragic intensity that we cannot but lament that he did\nnot, as Mr. Collins has done, attempt the drama, and so furnish another\nground of comparison with his fellow-countryman, Maturin (also, if we\nmistake not, of French origin), whom, in his writings, Le Fanu far\nmore closely resembles than Mr. Collins, as a master of the darker and\nstronger emotions of human character. But, to institute a broader ground\nof comparison between Le Fanu and Mr. Collins, whilst the idiosyncrasies\nof the former's characters, however immaterial those characters may\nbe, seem always to suggest the minutest detail of his story, the latter\nwould appear to consider plot as the prime, character as a subsidiary\nelement in the art of novel writing.\n\nThose who possessed the rare privilege of Le Fanu's friendship, and only\nthey, can form any idea of the true character of the man; for after the\ndeath of his wife, to whom he was most deeply devoted, he quite forsook\ngeneral society, in which his fine features, distinguished bearing, and\ncharm of conversation marked him out as the beau-ideal of an Irish wit\nand scholar of the old school.\n\nFrom this society he vanished so entirely that Dublin, always ready with\na nickname, dubbed him 'The Invisible Prince;' and indeed he was for\nlong almost invisible, except to his family and most familiar friends,\nunless at odd hours of the evening, when he might occasionally be seen\nstealing, like the ghost of his former self, between his newspaper\noffice and his home in Merrion Square; sometimes, too, he was to be\nencountered in an old out-of-the-way bookshop poring over some rare\nblack letter Astrology or Demonology.\n\nTo one of these old bookshops he was at one time a pretty frequent\nvisitor, and the bookseller relates how he used to come in and ask with\nhis peculiarly pleasant voice and smile, 'Any more ghost stories for me,\nMr. -----?' and how, on a fresh one being handed to him, he would\nseldom leave the shop until he had looked it through. This taste for the\nsupernatural seems to have grown upon him after his wife's death, and\ninfluenced him so deeply that, had he not been possessed of a deal of\nshrewd common sense, there might have been danger of his embracing some\nof the visionary doctrines in which he was so learned. But no! even\nSpiritualism, to which not a few of his brother novelists succumbed,\nwhilst affording congenial material for our artist of the superhuman to\nwork upon, did not escape his severest satire.\n\nShortly after completing his last novel, strange to say, bearing the\ntitle 'Willing to Die,' Le Fanu breathed his last at his home No. 18,\nMerrion Square South, at the age of fifty-nine.\n\n'He was a man,' writes the author of a brief memoir of him in the\n'Dublin University Magazine,' 'who thought deeply, especially on\nreligious subjects. To those who knew him he was very dear; they admired\nhim for his learning, his sparkling wit, and pleasant conversation, and\nloved him for his manly virtues, for his noble and generous qualities,\nhis gentleness, and his loving, affectionate nature.' And all who knew\nthe man must feel how deeply deserved are these simple words of sincere\nregard for Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.\n\nLe Fanu's novels are accessible to all; but his Purcell Papers are now\nfor the first time collected and published, by the permission of his\neldest son (the late Mr. Philip Le Fanu), and very much owing to the\nfriendly and active assistance of his brother, Mr. William Le Fanu.\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\nduties of a parish priest in the south of Ireland, I met with the\nfollowing document. It is one of many such; for he was a curious and\nindustrious collector of old local traditions--a commodity in which\nthe quarter where he resided mightily abounded. The collection and\narrangement of such legends was, as long as I can remember him, his\nhobby; but I had never learned that his love of the marvellous and\nwhimsical had carried him so far as to prompt him to commit the results\nof his inquiries to writing, until, in the character of residuary\nlegatee, his will put me in possession of all his manuscript papers.\nTo such as may think the composing of such productions as these\ninconsistent with the character and habits of a country priest, it is\nnecessary to observe, that there did exist a race of priests--those of\nthe old school, a race now nearly extinct--whose education abroad tended\nto produce in them tastes more literary than have yet been evinced by\nthe 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,\nduring his juniority of interment, to supply his brother tenants of\nthe churchyard in which he lies, with fresh water to allay the burning\nthirst of purgatory, is prevalent throughout the south of Ireland.\n\nThe writer can vouch for a case in which a respectable and wealthy\nfarmer, on the borders of Tipperary, in tenderness to the corns of his\ndeparted helpmate, enclosed in her coffin two pair of brogues, a light\nand a heavy, the one for dry, the other for sloppy weather; seeking thus\nto mitigate the fatigues of her inevitable perambulations in procuring\nwater and administering it to the thirsty souls of purgatory. Fierce\nand desperate 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\nhow strongly 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\nExtract from the MS. Papers of the late Rev. Francis Purcell, of\nDrumcoolagh.\n\n\nI tell the following particulars, as nearly as I can recollect them, in\nthe 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 words\nin the course of this narrative, more distinguished for euphonious\neffect than for correctness of application. I proceed then, without\nfurther preface, to lay before you the wonderful adventures of Terry\nNeil.\n\n\n'Why, thin, 'tis a quare story, an' as thrue as you're sittin' there;\nand I'd make bould to say there isn't a boy in the seven parishes could\ntell it 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\ngot into any unlucky throuble, he was the boy id go into the court an'\nprove; but that doesn't signify--he was as honest and as sober a man,\nbarrin' he was a little bit too partial to the glass, as you'd find in a\nday's walk; an' there wasn't the likes of him in the counthry round for\nnate labourin' an' baan diggin'; and he was mighty handy entirely for\ncarpenther's work, and men din' ould spudethrees, an' the likes i' that.\nAn' so he tuk up with bone-settin', 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\nknown in the memory of man. Well, Terry Neil--for that was my father's\nname--began to feel his heart growin' light, and his purse heavy; an'\nhe took a bit iv a farm in Squire Phelim's ground, just undher the ould\ncastle, an' a pleasant little spot it was; an' day an' mornin' poor\ncrathurs not able to put a foot to the ground, with broken arms and\nbroken legs, id be comin' ramblin' in from all quarters to have their\nbones spliced up. Well, yer honour, all this was as well as well could\nbe; but it was customary when Sir Phelim id go anywhere out iv the\ncountry, for some iv the tinants to sit up to watch in the ould castle,\njust for a kind of compliment to the ould family--an' a mighty unplisant\ncompliment it was for the tinants, for there wasn't a man of them but\nknew there was something quare about the ould castle. The neighbours\nhad it, that the squire's ould grandfather, as good a gintlenlan--God\nbe with him--as I heer'd, as ever stood in shoe-leather, used to keep\nwalkin' about in the middle iv the night, ever sinst he bursted a blood\nvessel pullin' out a cork out iv a bottle, as you or I might be doin',\nand will too, plase God--but that doesn't signify. So, as I was sayin',\nthe ould squire used to come down out of the frame, where his picthur\nwas hung up, and to break the bottles and glasses--God be marciful to us\nall--an' dthrink all he could come at--an' small blame to him for that\nsame; and then if any of the family id be comin' in, he id be up again\nin his place, looking as quite an' as innocent as if he didn't know\nanything about it--the mischievous 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\nof the tinants had to sit up in the castle, and the third night it kem\nto my father's turn. \"Oh, tare an' ouns!\" says he unto himself, \"an'\nmust I sit up all night, and that ould vagabone of a sperit, glory be\nto God,\" says he, \"serenadin' through the house, an' doin' all sorts iv\nmischief?\" However, there was no gettin' aff, and so he put a bould\nface on 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 what with the rain he got, and the holy\nwather he sprinkled on himself, it wasn't long till he had to swally a\ncup iv the pottieen, to keep the cowld out iv his heart. It was the ould\nsteward, Lawrence Connor, that opened the door--and he an' my father wor\nalways very great. So when he seen who it was, an' my father tould him\nhow it was his turn to watch in the castle, he offered to sit up along\nwith him; and you may be sure my father wasn't sorry for that same. So\nsays 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\nsquire's picthur 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\nunproper 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 wint 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 beginned to talk, an' to\nsmoke, an' to dhrink a small taste iv the pottieen; and, moreover, they\nhad a good rousin' fire o' 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\nhe, \"to keep out the parfume o' the tibacky smoke, that's makin' them\nwather,\" says he. \"So don't you mind other people's business,\" says\nhe, stiff 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 plisant 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\nit, I believe there never was the likes heerd sinst nor before, for\nhe bawled out every word av it, as if the life was fairly lavin' him,\nthrying to keep ould Larry awake; but, faix, it was no use, for the\nhoorsness came an him, an' before he kem to the end of his story Larry\nO'Connor beginned 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 complately alone, an' that\nid be 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\nis asleep,\" 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 dthrunk 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\nhe pulled a big arm-chair close beside Lawrence, an' settled himself in\nit as well as he could.\n\n'But there was one quare thing I forgot to tell you. He couldn't\nhelp, in spite av himself, lookin' now an' thin at the picthur, an' he\nimmediately obsarved that the eyes av it was follyin' him about, an'\nstarin' at him, an' winkin' at him, wheriver he wint. \"Oh,\" says he,\nwhen he seen that, \"it's a poor chance I have,\" says he; \"an' bad luck\nwas with me the day I kem into this unforthunate place,\" says he. \"But\nany way there's no use in bein' freckened now,\" says he; \"for if I am to\ndie, I may as well parspire 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\nthe storm was groanin' and creakin' through the great heavy branches\noutside, an' whistlin' through the ould chimleys iv the castle. Well,\nafther one great roarin' blast iv the wind, you'd think the walls iv the\ncastle was just goin' to fall, quite an' clane, with the shakin' iv it.\nAll av a suddint the storm stopt, as silent an' as quite as if it was\na July evenin'. Well, your honour, it wasn't stopped blowin' for\nthree minnites, before he thought he hard a sort iv a noise over the\nchimley-piece; an' with that my father just opened his eyes the smallest\ntaste in life, an' sure enough he seen the ould squire gettin' out iv\nthe picthur, for all the world as if he was throwin' aff his ridin'\ncoat, until he stept out clane an' complate, out av the chimley-piece,\nan' thrun himself down an the floor. Well, the slieveen ould chap--an'\nmy father thought it was the dirtiest turn iv all--before he beginned\nto do anything out iv the way, he stopped for a while to listen wor they\nboth asleep; an' as soon as he thought all was quite, he put out his\nhand and tuk hould iv the whisky bottle, an dhrank at laste a pint iv\nit. Well, your honour, when he tuk his turn out iv it, he settled it\nback mighty cute entirely, in the very same spot it was in before. An'\nhe beginned to walk up an' down the room, lookin' as sober an' as solid\nas if he never done the likes at all. An' whinever he went apast my\nfather, he thought he felt a great scent of brimstone, an' it was that\nthat freckened him entirely; for he knew it was brimstone that was\nburned in hell, savin' your presence. At any rate, he often heerd it\nfrom Father Murphy, an' he had a right to know what belonged to it--he's\ndead since, God rest him. Well, your honour, my father was asy enough\nuntil the sperit kem past him; so close, God be marciful to us all, that\nthe smell iv the sulphur tuk the breath clane out iv him; an' with that\nhe tuk such a fit iv coughin', that it al-a-most shuk him out iv the\nchair 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\nlet him, for he was more dead than alive), \"an' it's proud I am to see\nyour honour to-night,\" says he.\n\n'\"Terence,\" says the squire, \"you're a respectable man\" (an' it was\nthrue for him), \"an industhrious, sober man, an' an example of inebriety\nto the whole parish,\" says he.\n\n'\"Thank your honour,\" says my father, gettin' courage, \"you were always\na civil 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 undther 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\niv you, that I came UP--down I mane,\" says he--(an' as little as the\nmistake was, my father tuk 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\nlie for 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 gintlemin,\" 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\nhad a 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 wondther 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 opossite\nmy father; \"it's not my sowl that's annoyin' me most--I'm unasy on my\nright leg,\" says he, \"that I bruk 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 fence that runs along by the glin.\n\n'\"I hope,\" says my father, \"your honour's not unasy about the killin' iv\nhim?\"\n\n'\"Hould your tongue, ye fool,\" said the squire, \"an' I'll tell you why\nI'm unasy on 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;\n\"for I must tell you,\" says he, \"the people where I am is ancommonly\nfond iv cowld wather, for there is nothin' betther to be had; an',\nmoreover, the weather is hotter than is altogether plisant,\" says he;\n\"and I'm appinted,\" says he, \"to assist in carryin' the wather, an' gets\na mighty poor share iv it myself,\" says he, \"an' a mighty throublesome,\nwearin' job it is, I can tell you,\" says he; \"for they're all iv them\nsurprisinly dthry, an' dthrinks it as fast as my legs can carry it,\"\nsays he; \"but what kills me intirely,\" says he, \"is the wakeness in my\nleg,\" says he, \"an' I want you to give it a pull or two to bring it to\nshape,\" says he, \"and that'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 impidence 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',\nso he tuk hould iv the leg, an' he kep' 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 tuk\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\nspake av it but seldom. An', as for the squire, that is the sperit,\nwhether it was that he did not like his liquor, or by rason iv the loss\niv his leg, he was never known to walk agin.'\n\n\n\n\nTHE FORTUNES OF SIR ROBERT ARDAGH.\n\nBeing a second Extract from the Papers of the late Father Purcell.\n\n     'The earth hath bubbles as the water hath--\n       And these are of them.'\n\nIn the south of Ireland, and on the borders of the county of Limerick,\nthere lies a district of two or three miles in length, which is rendered\ninteresting by the fact that it is one of the very few spots throughout\nthis country, in which some vestiges of aboriginal forest still remain.\nIt has little or none of the lordly character of the American forest,\nfor the axe has felled its oldest and its grandest trees; but in the\nclose wood which survives, live all the wild and pleasing peculiarities\nof nature: its complete irregularity, its vistas, in whose perspective\nthe quiet cattle are peacefully browsing; its refreshing glades, where\nthe grey rocks arise from amid the nodding fern; the silvery shafts of\nthe old birch trees; the knotted trunks of the hoary oak, the grotesque\nbut graceful branches which never shed their honours under the tyrant\npruning-hook; the soft green sward; the chequered light and shade; the\nwild luxuriant weeds; the lichen and the moss--all, all are beautiful\nalike in the green freshness of spring, or in the sadness and sere of\nautumn. Their beauty is of that kind which makes the heart full with\njoy--appealing to the affections with a power which belongs to nature\nonly. This wood runs up, from below the base, to the ridge of a long\nline of irregular hills, having perhaps, in primitive times, formed but\nthe skirting of some mighty forest which occupied the level below.\n\nBut now, alas! whither have we drifted? whither has the tide of\ncivilisation borne us? It has passed over a land unprepared for\nit--it has left nakedness behind it; we have lost our forests, but our\nmarauders remain; we have destroyed all that is picturesque, while we\nhave retained everything that is revolting in barbarism. Through the\nmidst of this woodland there runs a deep gully or glen, where\nthe stillness of the scene is broken in upon by the brawling of a\nmountain-stream, which, however, in the winter season, swells into a\nrapid and formidable torrent.\n\nThere is one point at which the glen becomes extremely deep and narrow;\nthe sides descend to the depth of some hundred feet, and are so steep as\nto be nearly perpendicular. The wild trees which have taken root in the\ncrannies and chasms of the rock have so intersected and entangled, that\none can with difficulty catch a glimpse of the stream, which wheels,\nflashes, and foams below, as if exulting in the surrounding silence and\nsolitude.\n\nThis spot was not unwisely chosen, as a point of no ordinary strength,\nfor the erection of a massive square tower or keep, one side of which\nrises as if in continuation of the precipitous cliff on which it is\nbased. Originally, the only mode of ingress was by a narrow portal in\nthe very wall which overtopped the precipice, opening upon a ledge\nof rock which afforded a precarious pathway, cautiously intersected,\nhowever, by a deep trench cut with great labour in the living rock; so\nthat, in its original state, and before the introduction of artillery\ninto the art of war, this tower might have been pronounced, and that not\npresumptuously, almost impregnable.\n\nThe progress of improvement and the increasing security of the times\nhad, however, tempted its successive proprietors, if not to adorn, at\nleast to enlarge their premises, and at about the middle of the last\ncentury, when the castle was last inhabited, the original square tower\nformed but a small part of the edifice.\n\nThe castle, and a wide tract of the surrounding country, had from time\nimmemorial belonged to a family which, for distinctness, we shall call\nby the name of Ardagh; and owing to the associations which, in Ireland,\nalmost always attach to scenes which have long witnessed alike the\nexercise of stern feudal authority, and of that savage hospitality which\ndistinguished the good old times, this building has become the subject\nand the scene of many wild and extraordinary traditions. One of them I\nhave been enabled, by a personal acquaintance with an eye-witness of the\nevents, to trace to its origin; and yet it is hard to say whether the\nevents which I am about to record appear more strange or improbable as\nseen through the distorting medium of tradition, or in the appalling\ndimness of uncertainty which surrounds the reality.\n\nTradition says that, sometime in the last century, Sir Robert Ardagh, a\nyoung man, and the last heir of that family, went abroad and served\nin foreign armies; and that, having acquired considerable honour and\nemolument, he settled at Castle Ardagh, the building we have just now\nattempted to describe. He was what the country people call a DARK man;\nthat is, he was considered morose, reserved, and ill-tempered; and, as\nit was supposed from the utter solitude of his life, was upon no terms\nof cordiality with the other members of his family.\n\nThe only occasion upon which he broke through the solitary monotony\nof his life was during the continuance of the racing season, and\nimmediately subsequent to it; at which time he was to be seen among\nthe busiest upon the course, betting deeply and unhesitatingly, and\ninvariably with success. Sir Robert was, however, too well known as a\nman of honour, and of too high a family, to be suspected of any unfair\ndealing. He was, moreover, a soldier, and a man of an intrepid as well\nas of a haughty character; and no one cared to hazard a surmise, the\nconsequences of which would be felt most probably by its originator\nonly.\n\nGossip, however, was not silent; it was remarked that Sir Robert never\nappeared at the race-ground, which was the only place of public resort\nwhich he frequented, except in company with a certain strange-looking\nperson, who was never seen elsewhere, or under other circumstances. It\nwas remarked, too, that this man, whose relation to Sir Robert was never\ndistinctly ascertained, was the only person to whom he seemed to speak\nunnecessarily; it was observed that while with the country gentry\nhe exchanged no further communication than what was unavoidable in\narranging his sporting transactions, with this person he would converse\nearnestly and frequently. Tradition asserts that, to enhance the\ncuriosity which this unaccountable and exclusive preference excited, the\nstranger possessed some striking and unpleasant peculiarities of person\nand of garb--she does not say, however, what these were--but they, in\nconjunction with Sir Robert's secluded habits and extraordinary run of\nluck--a success which was supposed to result from the suggestions and\nimmediate advice of the unknown--were sufficient to warrant report in\npronouncing that there was something QUEER in the wind, and in surmising\nthat Sir Robert was playing a fearful and a hazardous game, and that, in\nshort, his strange companion was little better than the devil himself.\n\nYears, however, rolled quietly away, and nothing novel occurred in the\narrangements of Castle Ardagh, excepting that Sir Robert parted with his\nodd companion, but as nobody could tell whence he came, so nobody could\nsay whither he had gone. Sir Robert's habits, however, underwent no\nconsequent change; he continued regularly to frequent the race\nmeetings, without mixing at all in the convivialities of the gentry,\nand immediately afterwards to relapse into the secluded monotony of his\nordinary life.\n\nIt was said that he had accumulated vast sums of money--and, as his bets\nwere always successful, and always large, such must have been the case.\nHe did not suffer the acquisition of wealth, however, to influence his\nhospitality or his housekeeping--he neither purchased land, nor extended\nhis establishment; and his mode of enjoying his money must have been\naltogether that of the miser--consisting merely in the pleasure of\ntouching and telling his gold, and in the consciousness of wealth.\n\nSir Robert's temper, so far from improving, became more than ever gloomy\nand morose. He sometimes carried the indulgence of his evil dispositions\nto such a height that it bordered upon insanity. During these paroxysms\nhe would neither eat, drink, nor sleep. On such occasions he insisted on\nperfect privacy, even from the intrusion of his most trusted servants;\nhis voice was frequently heard, sometimes in earnest supplication,\nsometime as if in loud and angry altercation with some unknown visitant;\nsometimes he would, for hours together, walk to and fro throughout the\nlong oak wainscoted apartment, which he generally occupied, with wild\ngesticulations and agitated pace, in the manner of one who has been\nroused to a state of unnatural excitement by some sudden and appalling\nintimation.\n\nThese paroxysms of apparent lunacy were so frightful, that during\ntheir continuance even his oldest and most-faithful domestics dared not\napproach him; consequently, his hours of agony were never intruded upon,\nand the mysterious causes of his sufferings appeared likely to remain\nhidden for ever.\n\nOn one occasion a fit of this kind continued for an unusual time, the\nordinary term of their duration--about two days--had been long past,\nand the old servant who generally waited upon Sir Robert after these\nvisitations, having in vain listened for the well-known tinkle of his\nmaster's hand-bell, began to feel extremely anxious; he feared that his\nmaster might have died from sheer exhaustion, or perhaps put an end to\nhis own existence during his miserable depression. These fears at length\nbecame so strong, that having in vain urged some of his brother servants\nto accompany him, he determined to go up alone, and himself see whether\nany accident had befallen Sir Robert.\n\nHe traversed the several passages which conducted from the new to the\nmore ancient parts of the mansion, and having arrived in the old hall of\nthe castle, the utter silence of the hour, for it was very late in the\nnight, the idea of the nature of the enterprise in which he was\nengaging himself, a sensation of remoteness from anything like human\ncompanionship, but, more than all, the vivid but undefined anticipation\nof something horrible, came upon him with such oppressive weight that\nhe hesitated as to whether he should proceed. Real uneasiness, however,\nrespecting the fate of his master, for whom he felt that kind of\nattachment which the force of habitual intercourse not unfrequently\nengenders respecting objects not in themselves amiable, and also a\nlatent unwillingness to expose his weakness to the ridicule of his\nfellow-servants, combined to overcome his reluctance; and he had just\nplaced his foot upon the first step of the staircase which conducted\nto his master's chamber, when his attention was arrested by a low but\ndistinct knocking at the hall-door. Not, perhaps, very sorry at finding\nthus an excuse even for deferring his intended expedition, he placed\nthe candle upon a stone block which lay in the hall, and approached the\ndoor, uncertain whether his ears had not deceived him. This doubt was\njustified by the circumstance that the hall entrance had been for nearly\nfifty years disused as a mode of ingress to the castle. The situation\nof this gate also, which we have endeavoured to describe, opening upon\na narrow ledge of rock which overhangs a perilous cliff, rendered it\nat all times, but particularly at night, a dangerous entrance. This\nshelving platform of rock, which formed the only avenue to the door, was\ndivided, as I have already stated, by a broad chasm, the planks across\nwhich had long disappeared by decay or otherwise, so that it seemed at\nleast highly improbable that any man could have found his way across the\npassage in safety to the door, more particularly on a night like that,\nof singular darkness. The old man, therefore, listened attentively, to\nascertain whether the first application should be followed by another.\nHe had not long to wait; the same low but singularly distinct knocking\nwas repeated; so low that it seemed as if the applicant had employed no\nharder or heavier instrument than his hand, and yet, despite the immense\nthickness of the door, with such strength that the sound was distinctly\naudible.\n\nThe knock was repeated a third time, without any increase of loudness;\nand the old man, obeying an impulse for which to his dying hour he could\nnever account, proceeded to remove, one by one, the three great oaken\nbars which secured the door. Time and damp had effectually corroded the\niron chambers of the lock, so that it afforded little resistance. With\nsome effort, as he believed, assisted from without, the old servant\nsucceeded in opening the door; and a low, square-built figure,\napparently that of a man wrapped in a large black cloak, entered\nthe hall. The servant could not see much of this visitant with any\ndistinctness; his dress appeared foreign, the skirt of his ample cloak\nwas thrown over one shoulder; he wore a large felt hat, with a very\nheavy leaf, from under which escaped what appeared to be a mass of long\nsooty-black hair; his feet were cased in heavy riding-boots. Such were\nthe few particulars which the servant had time and light to observe. The\nstranger desired him to let his master know instantly that a friend\nhad come, by appointment, to settle some business with him. The servant\nhesitated, but a slight motion on the part of his visitor, as if to\npossess himself of the candle, determined him; so, taking it in his\nhand, he ascended the castle stairs, leaving his guest in the hall.\n\nOn reaching the apartment which opened upon the oak-chamber he was\nsurprised to observe the door of that room partly open, and the room\nitself lit up. He paused, but there was no sound; he looked in, and\nsaw Sir Robert, his head and the upper part of his body reclining on\na table, upon which burned a lamp; his arms were stretched forward on\neither side, and perfectly motionless; it appeared that, having been\nsitting at the table, he had thus sunk forward, either dead or in a\nswoon. There was no sound of breathing; all was silent, except the sharp\nticking of a watch, which lay beside the lamp. The servant coughed\ntwice or thrice, but with no effect; his fears now almost amounted to\ncertainty, and he was approaching the table on which his master partly\nlay, to satisfy himself of his death, when Sir Robert slowly raised\nhis head, and throwing himself back in his chair, fixed his eyes in a\nghastly and uncertain gaze upon his attendant. At length he said, slowly\nand painfully, as if he dreaded the answer:\n\n'In God's name, what are you?'\n\n'Sir,' said the servant, 'a strange gentleman wants to see you below.'\n\nAt this intimation Sir Robert, starting on his feet and tossing his arms\nwildly upwards, uttered a shriek of such appalling and despairing terror\nthat it was almost too fearful for human endurance; and long after\nthe sound had ceased it seemed to the terrified imagination of the old\nservant to roll through the deserted passages in bursts of unnatural\nlaughter. After a few moments Sir Robert said:\n\n'Can't you send him away? Why does he come so soon? O God! O God! let\nhim leave me for an hour; a little time. I can't see him now; try to\nget him away. You see I can't go down now; I have not strength. O God!\nO God! let him come back in an hour; it is not long to wait. He cannot\nlose anything by it; nothing, nothing, nothing. Tell him that; say\nanything to him.'\n\nThe servant went down. In his own words, he did not feel the stairs\nunder him till he got to the hall. The figure stood exactly as he had\nleft it. He delivered his master's message as coherently as he could.\nThe stranger replied in a careless tone:\n\n'If Sir Robert will not come down to me, I must go up to him.'\n\nThe man returned, and to his surprise he found his master much more\ncomposed in manner. He listened to the message, and though the cold\nperspiration rose in drops upon his forehead faster than he could wipe\nit away, his manner had lost the dreadful agitation which had marked\nit before. He rose feebly, and casting a last look of agony behind him,\npassed from the room to the lobby, where he signed to his attendant not\nto follow him. The man moved as far as the head of the staircase,\nfrom whence he had a tolerably distinct view of the hall, which was\nimperfectly lighted by the candle he had left there.\n\nHe saw his master reel, rather than walk down the stairs, clinging all\nthe way to the banisters. He walked on, as if about to sink every moment\nfrom weakness. The figure advanced as if to meet him, and in passing\nstruck down the light. The servant could see no more; but there was\na sound of struggling, renewed at intervals with silent but fearful\nenergy. It was evident, however, that the parties were approaching the\ndoor, for he heard the solid oak sound twice or thrice, as the feet of\nthe combatants, in shuffling hither and thither over the floor, struck\nupon it. After a slight pause he heard the door thrown open with such\nviolence that the leaf seemed to strike the side-wall of the hall, for\nit was so dark without that this could only be surmised by the sound.\nThe struggle was renewed with an agony and intenseness of energy\nthat betrayed itself in deep-drawn gasps. One desperate effort, which\nterminated in the breaking of some part of the door, producing a sound\nas if the door-post was wrenched from its position, was followed by\nanother wrestle, evidently upon the narrow ledge which ran outside the\ndoor, overtopping the precipice. This proved to be the final struggle,\nfor it was followed by a crashing sound as if some heavy body had fallen\nover, and was rushing down the precipice, through the light boughs that\ncrossed near the top. All then became still as the grave, except when\nthe moan of the night wind sighed up the wooded glen.\n\nThe old servant had not nerve to return through the hall, and to him the\ndarkness seemed all but endless; but morning at length came, and with\nit the disclosure of the events of the night. Near the door, upon the\nground, lay Sir Robert's sword-belt, which had given way in the scuffle.\nA huge splinter from the massive door-post had been wrenched off by\nan almost superhuman effort--one which nothing but the gripe of a\ndespairing man could have severed--and on the rock outside were left the\nmarks of the slipping and sliding of feet.\n\nAt the foot of the precipice, not immediately under the castle, but\ndragged some way up the glen, were found the remains of Sir Robert, with\nhardly a vestige of a limb or feature left distinguishable. The right\nhand, however, was uninjured, and in its fingers were clutched, with the\nfixedness of death, a long lock of coarse sooty hair--the only direct\ncircumstantial evidence of the presence of a second person. So says\ntradition.\n\nThis story, as I have mentioned, was current among the dealers in such\nlore; but the original facts are so dissimilar in all but the name of\nthe principal person mentioned and his mode of life, and the fact that\nhis death was accompanied with circumstances of extraordinary mystery,\nthat the two narratives are totally irreconcilable (even allowing the\nutmost for the exaggerating influence of tradition), except by supposing\nreport to have combined and blended together the fabulous histories\nof several distinct bearers of the family name. However this may be, I\nshall lay before the reader a distinct recital of the events from which\nthe foregoing tradition arose. With respect to these there can be no\nmistake; they are authenticated as fully as anything can be by human\ntestimony; and I state them principally upon the evidence of a lady who\nherself bore a prominent part in the strange events which she related,\nand which I now record as being among the few well-attested tales of the\nmarvellous which it has been my fate to hear. I shall, as far as I am\nable, arrange in one combined narrative the evidence of several distinct\npersons who were eye-witnesses of what they related, and with the truth\nof whose testimony I am solemnly and deeply impressed.\n\nSir Robert Ardagh, as we choose to call him, was the heir and\nrepresentative of the family whose name he bore; but owing to the\nprodigality of his father, the estates descended to him in a very\nimpaired condition. Urged by the restless spirit of youth, or more\nprobably by a feeling of pride which could not submit to witness, in\nthe paternal mansion, what he considered a humiliating alteration in\nthe style and hospitality which up to that time had distinguished\nhis family, Sir Robert left Ireland and went abroad. How he occupied\nhimself, or what countries he visited during his absence, was never\nknown, nor did he afterwards make any allusion or encourage any\ninquiries touching his foreign sojourn. He left Ireland in the year\n1742, being then just of age, and was not heard of until the year\n1760--about eighteen years afterwards--at which time he returned. His\npersonal appearance was, as might have been expected, very greatly\naltered, more altered, indeed, than the time of his absence might\nhave warranted one in supposing likely. But to counterbalance the\nunfavourable change which time had wrought in his form and features, he\nhad acquired all the advantages of polish of manner and refinement of\ntaste which foreign travel is supposed to bestow. But what was truly\nsurprising was that it soon became evident that Sir Robert was very\nwealthy--wealthy to an extraordinary and unaccountable degree; and this\nfact was made manifest, not only by his expensive style of living,\nbut by his proceeding to disembarrass his property, and to purchase\nextensive estates in addition. Moreover, there could be nothing\ndeceptive in these appearances, for he paid ready money for everything,\nfrom the most important purchase to the most trifling.\n\nSir Robert was a remarkably agreeable man, and possessing the combined\nadvantages of birth and property, he was, as a matter of course, gladly\nreceived into the highest society which the metropolis then commanded.\nIt was thus that he became acquainted with the two beautiful Miss\nF----ds, then among the brightest ornaments of the highest circle of\nDublin fashion. Their family was in more than one direction allied to\nnobility; and Lady D----, their elder sister by many years, and sometime\nmarried to a once well-known nobleman, was now their protectress. These\nconsiderations, beside the fact that the young ladies were what is\nusually termed heiresses, though not to a very great amount, secured to\nthem a high position in the best society which Ireland then produced.\nThe two young ladies differed strongly, alike in appearance and in\ncharacter. The elder of the two, Emily, was generally considered the\nhandsomer--for her beauty was of that impressive kind which never\nfailed to strike even at the first glance, possessing as it did all the\nadvantages of a fine person and a commanding carriage. The beauty of her\nfeatures strikingly assorted in character with that of her figure and\ndeportment. Her hair was raven-black and richly luxuriant, beautifully\ncontrasting with the perfect whiteness of her forehead--her finely\npencilled brows were black as the ringlets that clustered near them--and\nher blue eyes, full, lustrous, and animated, possessed all the power and\nbrilliancy of brown ones, with more than their softness and variety of\nexpression. She was not, however, merely the tragedy queen. When she\nsmiled, and that was not seldom, the dimpling of cheek and chin, the\nlaughing display of the small and beautiful teeth--but, more than all,\nthe roguish archness of her deep, bright eye, showed that nature had not\nneglected in her the lighter and the softer characteristics of woman.\n\nHer younger sister Mary was, as I believe not unfrequently occurs in\nthe case of sisters, quite in the opposite style of beauty. She was\nlight-haired, had more colour, had nearly equal grace, with much more\nliveliness of manner. Her eyes were of that dark grey which poets so\nmuch admire--full of expression and vivacity. She was altogether a very\nbeautiful and animated girl--though as unlike her sister as the presence\nof those two qualities would permit her to be. Their dissimilarity did\nnot stop here--it was deeper than mere appearance--the character of\ntheir minds differed almost as strikingly as did their complexion.\nThe fair-haired beauty had a large proportion of that softness and\npliability of temper which physiognomists assign as the characteristics\nof such complexions. She was much more the creature of impulse than of\nfeeling, and consequently more the victim of extrinsic circumstances\nthan was her sister. Emily, on the contrary, possessed considerable\nfirmness and decision. She was less excitable, but when excited her\nfeelings were more intense and enduring. She wanted much of the gaiety,\nbut with it the volatility of her younger sister. Her opinions\nwere adopted, and her friendships formed more reflectively, and\nher affections seemed to move, as it were, more slowly, but more\ndeterminedly. This firmness of character did not amount to anything\nmasculine, and did not at all impair the feminine grace of her manners.\n\nSir Robert Ardagh was for a long time apparently equally attentive to\nthe two sisters, and many were the conjectures and the surmises as to\nwhich would be the lady of his choice. At length, however, these doubts\nwere determined; he proposed for and was accepted by the dark beauty,\nEmily F----d.\n\nThe bridals were celebrated in a manner becoming the wealth and\nconnections of the parties; and Sir Robert and Lady Ardagh left Dublin\nto pass the honeymoon at the family mansion, Castle Ardagh, which had\nlately been fitted up in a style bordering upon magnificent. Whether\nin compliance with the wishes of his lady, or owing to some whim of his\nown, his habits were henceforward strikingly altered; and from having\nmoved among the gayest if not the most profligate of the votaries\nof fashion, he suddenly settled down into a quiet, domestic, country\ngentleman, and seldom, if ever, visited the capital, and then his\nsojourns were as brief as the nature of his business would permit.\n\nLady Ardagh, however, did not suffer from this change further than in\nbeing secluded from general society; for Sir Robert's wealth, and the\nhospitality which he had established in the family mansion, commanded\nthat of such of his lady's friends and relatives as had leisure or\ninclination to visit the castle; and as their style of living was very\nhandsome, and its internal resources of amusement considerable, few\ninvitations from Sir Robert or his lady were neglected.\n\nMany years passed quietly away, during which Sir Robert's and Lady\nArdagh's hopes of issue were several times disappointed. In the lapse of\nall this time there occurred but one event worth recording. Sir Robert\nhad brought with him from abroad a valet, who sometimes professed\nhimself to be French, at others Italian, and at others again German. He\nspoke all these languages with equal fluency, and seemed to take a kind\nof pleasure in puzzling the sagacity and balking the curiosity of such\nof the visitors at the castle as at any time happened to enter into\nconversation with him, or who, struck by his singularities, became\ninquisitive respecting his country and origin. Sir Robert called him by\nthe French name, JACQUE, and among the lower orders he was familiarly\nknown by the title of 'Jack, the devil,' an appellation which originated\nin a supposed malignity of disposition and a real reluctance to mix in\nthe society of those who were believed to be his equals. This morose\nreserve, coupled with the mystery which enveloped all about him,\nrendered him an object of suspicion and inquiry to his fellow-servants,\namongst whom it was whispered that this man in secret governed the\nactions of Sir Robert with a despotic dictation, and that, as if to\nindemnify himself for his public and apparent servitude and self-denial,\nhe in private exacted a degree of respectful homage from his so-called\nmaster, totally inconsistent with the relation generally supposed to\nexist between them.\n\nThis man's personal appearance was, to say the least of it, extremely\nodd; he was low in stature; and this defect was enhanced by a distortion\nof the spine, so considerable as almost to amount to a hunch; his\nfeatures, too, had all that sharpness and sickliness of hue which\ngenerally accompany deformity; he wore his hair, which was black as\nsoot, in heavy neglected ringlets about his shoulders, and always\nwithout powder--a peculiarity in those days. There was something\nunpleasant, too, in the circumstance that he never raised his eyes to\nmeet those of another; this fact was often cited as a proof of his being\nsomething not quite right, and said to result not from the timidity\nwhich is supposed in most cases to induce this habit, but from a\nconsciousness that his eye possessed a power which, if exhibited, would\nbetray a supernatural origin. Once, and once only, had he violated this\nsinister observance: it was on the occasion of Sir Robert's hopes having\nbeen most bitterly disappointed; his lady, after a severe and dangerous\nconfinement, gave birth to a dead child. Immediately after the\nintelligence had been made known, a servant, having upon some business\npassed outside the gate of the castle-yard, was met by Jacque, who,\ncontrary to his wont, accosted him, observing, 'So, after all the\npother, the son and heir is still-born.' This remark was accompanied\nby a chuckling laugh, the only approach to merriment which he was ever\nknown to exhibit. The servant, who was really disappointed, having hoped\nfor holiday times, feasting and debauchery with impunity during the\nrejoicings which would have accompanied a christening, turned tartly\nupon the little valet, telling him that he should let Sir Robert know\nhow he had received the tidings which should have filled any faithful\nservant with sorrow; and having once broken the ice, he was proceeding\nwith increasing fluency, when his harangue was cut short and his\ntemerity punished, by the little man raising his head and treating him\nto a scowl so fearful, half-demoniac, half-insane, that it haunted his\nimagination in nightmares and nervous tremors for months after.\n\nTo this man Lady Ardagh had, at first sight, conceived an antipathy\namounting to horror, a mixture of loathing and dread so very powerful\nthat she had made it a particular and urgent request to Sir Robert, that\nhe would dismiss him, offering herself, from that property which Sir\nRobert had by the marriage settlements left at her own disposal, to\nprovide handsomely for him, provided only she might be relieved from\nthe continual anxiety and discomfort which the fear of encountering him\ninduced.\n\nSir Robert, however, would not hear of it; the request seemed at first\nto agitate and distress him; but when still urged in defiance of his\nperemptory refusal, he burst into a violent fit of fury; he spoke\ndarkly of great sacrifices which he had made, and threatened that if the\nrequest were at any time renewed he would leave both her and the country\nfor ever. This was, however, a solitary instance of violence; his\ngeneral conduct towards Lady Ardagh, though at no time uxorious, was\ncertainly kind and respectful, and he was more than repaid in the\nfervent attachment which she bore him in return.\n\nSome short time after this strange interview between Sir Robert and\nLady Ardagh; one night after the family had retired to bed, and when\neverything had been quiet for some time, the bell of Sir Robert's\ndressing-room rang suddenly and violently; the ringing was repeated\nagain and again at still shorter intervals, and with increasing\nviolence, as if the person who pulled the bell was agitated by the\npresence of some terrifying and imminent danger. A servant named Donovan\nwas the first to answer it; he threw on his clothes, and hurried to the\nroom.\n\nSir Robert had selected for his private room an apartment remote from\nthe bed-chambers of the castle, most of which lay in the more modern\nparts of the mansion, and secured at its entrance by a double door. As\nthe servant opened the first of these, Sir Robert's bell again sounded\nwith a longer and louder peal; the inner door resisted his efforts to\nopen it; but after a few violent struggles, not having been perfectly\nsecured, or owing to the inadequacy of the bolt itself, it gave way, and\nthe servant rushed into the apartment, advancing several paces before\nhe could recover himself. As he entered, he heard Sir Robert's\nvoice exclaiming loudly--'Wait without, do not come in yet;' but the\nprohibition came too late. Near a low truckle-bed, upon which Sir Robert\nsometimes slept, for he was a whimsical man, in a large armchair, sat,\nor rather lounged, the form of the valet Jacque, his arms folded, and\nhis heels stretched forward on the floor, so as fully to exhibit his\nmisshapen legs, his head thrown back, and his eyes fixed upon his master\nwith a look of indescribable defiance and derision, while, as if to add\nto the strange insolence of his attitude and expression, he had placed\nupon his head the black cloth cap which it was his habit to wear.\n\nSir Robert was standing before him, at the distance of several yards,\nin a posture expressive of despair, terror, and what might be called an\nagony of humility. He waved his hand twice or thrice, as if to dismiss\nthe servant, who, however, remained fixed on the spot where he had first\nstood; and then, as if forgetting everything but the agony within him,\nhe pressed his clenched hands on his cold damp brow, and dashed away the\nheavy drops that gathered chill and thickly there.\n\nJacque broke the silence.\n\n'Donovan,' said he, 'shake up that drone and drunkard, Carlton; tell\nhim that his master directs that the travelling carriage shall be at the\ndoor within half-an-hour.'\n\nThe servant paused, as if in doubt as to what he should do; but his\nscruples were resolved by Sir Robert's saying hurriedly, 'Go--go, do\nwhatever he directs; his commands are mine; tell Carlton the same.'\n\nThe servant hurried to obey, and in about half-an-hour the carriage\nwas at the door, and Jacque, having directed the coachman to drive to\nB----n, a small town at about the distance of twelve miles--the nearest\npoint, however, at which post-horses could be obtained--stepped into the\nvehicle, which accordingly quitted the castle immediately.\n\nAlthough it was a fine moonlight night, the carriage made its way but\nvery slowly, and after the lapse of two hours the travellers had arrived\nat a point about eight miles from the castle, at which the road strikes\nthrough a desolate and heathy flat, sloping up distantly at either side\ninto bleak undulatory hills, in whose monotonous sweep the imagination\nbeholds the heaving of some dark sluggish sea, arrested in its first\ncommotion by some preternatural power. It is a gloomy and divested spot;\nthere is neither tree nor habitation near it; its monotony is unbroken,\nexcept by here and there the grey front of a rock peering above the\nheath, and the effect is rendered yet more dreary and spectral by the\nexaggerated and misty shadows which the moon casts along the sloping\nsides of the hills.\n\nWhen they had gained about the centre of this tract, Carlton, the\ncoachman, was surprised to see a figure standing at some distance in\nadvance, immediately beside the road, and still more so when, on coming\nup, he observed that it was no other than Jacque whom he believed to be\nat that moment quietly seated in the carriage; the coachman drew up, and\nnodding to him, the little valet exclaimed:\n\n'Carlton, I have got the start of you; the roads are heavy, so I shall\neven take care of myself the rest of the way. Do you make your way back\nas best you can, and I shall follow my own nose.'\n\nSo saying, he chucked a purse into the lap of the coachman, and turning\noff at a right angle with the road, he began to move rapidly away in the\ndirection of the dark ridge that lowered in the distance.\n\nThe servant watched him until he was lost in the shadowy haze of night;\nand neither he nor any of the inmates of the castle saw Jacque again.\nHis disappearance, as might have been expected, did not cause any regret\namong the servants and dependants at the castle; and Lady Ardagh did\nnot attempt to conceal her delight; but with Sir Robert matters were\ndifferent, for two or three days subsequent to this event he confined\nhimself to his room, and when he did return to his ordinary occupations,\nit was with a gloomy indifference, which showed that he did so more\nfrom habit than from any interest he felt in them. He appeared from that\nmoment unaccountably and strikingly changed, and thenceforward walked\nthrough life as a thing from which he could derive neither profit nor\npleasure. His temper, however, so far from growing wayward or morose,\nbecame, though gloomy, very--almost unnaturally--placid and cold; but\nhis spirits totally failed, and he grew silent and abstracted.\n\nThese sombre habits of mind, as might have been anticipated, very\nmaterially affected the gay house-keeping of the castle; and the dark\nand melancholy spirit of its master seemed to have communicated itself\nto the very domestics, almost to the very walls of the mansion.\n\nSeveral years rolled on in this way, and the sounds of mirth and wassail\nhad long been strangers to the castle, when Sir Robert requested his\nlady, to her great astonishment, to invite some twenty or thirty of\ntheir friends to spend the Christmas, which was fast approaching, at\nthe castle. Lady Ardagh gladly complied, and her sister Mary, who still\ncontinued unmarried, and Lady D---- were of course included in the\ninvitations. Lady Ardagh had requested her sisters to set forward as\nearly as possible, in order that she might enjoy a little of their\nsociety before the arrival of the other guests; and in compliance with\nthis request they left Dublin almost immediately upon receiving the\ninvitation, a little more than a week before the arrival of the festival\nwhich was to be the period at which the whole party were to muster.\n\nFor expedition's sake it was arranged that they should post, while Lady\nD----'s groom was to follow with her horses, she taking with herself\nher own maid and one male servant. They left the city when the day was\nconsiderably spent, and consequently made but three stages in the first\nday; upon the second, at about eight in the evening, they had reached\nthe town of K----k, distant about fifteen miles from Castle Ardagh.\nHere, owing to Miss F----d's great fatigue, she having been for a\nconsiderable time in a very delicate state of health, it was determined\nto put up for the night. They, accordingly, took possession of the best\nsitting-room which the inn commanded, and Lady D----remained in it\nto direct and urge the preparations for some refreshment, which the\nfatigues of the day had rendered necessary, while her younger sister\nretired to her bed-chamber to rest there for a little time, as the\nparlour commanded no such luxury as a sofa.\n\nMiss F----d was, as I have already stated, at this time in very delicate\nhealth; and upon this occasion the exhaustion of fatigue, and the dreary\nbadness of the weather, combined to depress her spirits. Lady D----\nhad not been left long to herself, when the door communicating with the\npassage was abruptly opened, and her sister Mary entered in a state of\ngreat agitation; she sat down pale and trembling upon one of the chairs,\nand it was not until a copious flood of tears had relieved her, that\nshe became sufficiently calm to relate the cause of her excitement and\ndistress. It was simply this. Almost immediately upon lying down upon\nthe bed she sank into a feverish and unrefreshing slumber; images of all\ngrotesque shapes and startling colours flitted before her sleeping fancy\nwith all the rapidity and variety of the changes in a kaleidoscope. At\nlength, as she described it, a mist seemed to interpose itself between\nher sight and the ever-shifting scenery which sported before her\nimagination, and out of this cloudy shadow gradually emerged a figure\nwhose back seemed turned towards the sleeper; it was that of a lady,\nwho, in perfect silence, was expressing as far as pantomimic gesture\ncould, by wringing her hands, and throwing her head from side to side,\nin the manner of one who is exhausted by the over indulgence, by the\nvery sickness and impatience of grief; the extremity of misery. For\na long time she sought in vain to catch a glimpse of the face of the\napparition, who thus seemed to stir and live before her. But at length\nthe figure seemed to move with an air of authority, as if about to give\ndirections to some inferior, and in doing so, it turned its head so as\nto display, with a ghastly distinctness, the features of Lady Ardagh,\npale as death, with her dark hair all dishevelled, and her eyes dim\nand sunken with weeping. The revulsion of feeling which Miss\nF----d experienced at this disclosure--for up to that point she had\ncontemplated the appearance rather with a sense of curiosity and of\ninterest, than of anything deeper--was so horrible, that the shock awoke\nher perfectly. She sat up in the bed, and looked fearfully around the\nroom, which was imperfectly lighted by a single candle burning dimly, as\nif she almost expected to see the reality of her dreadful vision lurking\nin some corner of the chamber. Her fears were, however, verified, though\nnot in the way she expected; yet in a manner sufficiently horrible--for\nshe had hardly time to breathe and to collect her thoughts, when she\nheard, or thought she heard, the voice of her sister, Lady Ardagh,\nsometimes sobbing violently, and sometimes almost shrieking as if in\nterror, and calling upon her and Lady D----, with the most imploring\nearnestness of despair, for God's sake to lose no time in coming to her.\nAll this was so horribly distinct, that it seemed as if the mourner\nwas standing within a few yards of the spot where Miss F----d lay. She\nsprang from the bed, and leaving the candle in the room behind her, she\nmade her way in the dark through the passage, the voice still following\nher, until as she arrived at the door of the sitting-room it seemed to\ndie away in low sobbing.\n\nAs soon as Miss F----d was tolerably recovered, she declared her\ndetermination to proceed directly, and without further loss of time,\nto Castle Ardagh. It was not without much difficulty that Lady D----\nat length prevailed upon her to consent to remain where they then were,\nuntil morning should arrive, when it was to be expected that the young\nlady would be much refreshed by at least remaining quiet for the night,\neven though sleep were out of the question. Lady D---- was convinced,\nfrom the nervous and feverish symptoms which her sister exhibited, that\nshe had already done too much, and was more than ever satisfied of the\nnecessity of prosecuting the journey no further upon that day. After\nsome time she persuaded her sister to return to her room, where she\nremained with her until she had gone to bed, and appeared comparatively\ncomposed. Lady D---- then returned to the parlour, and not finding\nherself sleepy, she remained sitting by the fire. Her solitude was\na second time broken in upon, by the entrance of her sister, who now\nappeared, if possible, more agitated than before. She said that Lady\nD---- had not long left the room, when she was roused by a repetition of\nthe same wailing and lamentations, accompanied by the wildest and most\nagonized supplications that no time should be lost in coming to Castle\nArdagh, and all in her sister's voice, and uttered at the same proximity\nas before. This time the voice had followed her to the very door of the\nsitting-room, and until she closed it, seemed to pour forth its cries\nand sobs at the very threshold.\n\nMiss F----d now most positively declared that nothing should prevent her\nproceeding instantly to the castle, adding that if Lady D---- would not\naccompany her, she would go on by herself. Superstitious feelings are at\nall times more or less contagious, and the last century afforded a soil\nmuch more congenial to their growth than the present. Lady D---- was so\nfar affected by her sister's terrors, that she became, at least, uneasy;\nand seeing that her sister was immovably determined upon setting forward\nimmediately, she consented to accompany her forthwith. After a slight\ndelay, fresh horses were procured, and the two ladies and their\nattendants renewed their journey, with strong injunctions to the driver\nto quicken their rate of travelling as much as possible, and promises of\nreward in case of his doing so.\n\nRoads were then in much worse condition throughout the south, even than\nthey now are; and the fifteen miles which modern posting would have\npassed in little more than an hour and a half, were not completed even\nwith every possible exertion in twice the time. Miss F----d had been\nnervously restless during the journey. Her head had been constantly\nout of the carriage window; and as they approached the entrance to the\ncastle demesne, which lay about a mile from the building, her anxiety\nbegan to communicate itself to her sister. The postillion had just\ndismounted, and was endeavouring to open the gate--at that time a\nnecessary trouble; for in the middle of the last century porter's lodges\nwere not common in the south of Ireland, and locks and keys almost\nunknown. He had just succeeded in rolling back the heavy oaken gate so\nas to admit the vehicle, when a mounted servant rode rapidly down the\navenue, and drawing up at the carriage, asked of the postillion who the\nparty were; and on hearing, he rode round to the carriage window and\nhanded in a note, which Lady D---- received. By the assistance of one\nof the coach-lamps they succeeded in deciphering it. It was scrawled in\ngreat agitation, and ran thus:\n\n\n'MY DEAR SISTER--MY DEAR SISTERS BOTH,--In God's name lose no time, I am\nfrightened and miserable; I cannot explain all till you come. I am too\nmuch terrified to write coherently; but understand me--hasten--do not\nwaste a minute. I am afraid you will come too late.\n\n'E. A.'\n\n\nThe servant could tell nothing more than that the castle was in great\nconfusion, and that Lady Ardagh had been crying bitterly all the night.\nSir Robert was perfectly well. Altogether at a loss as to the cause\nof Lady Ardagh's great distress, they urged their way up the steep and\nbroken avenue which wound through the crowding trees, whose wild and\ngrotesque branches, now left stripped and naked by the blasts of winter,\nstretched drearily across the road. As the carriage drew up in the area\nbefore the door, the anxiety of the ladies almost amounted to agony; and\nscarcely waiting for the assistance of their attendant, they sprang to\nthe ground, and in an instant stood at the castle door. From within\nwere distinctly audible the sounds of lamentation and weeping, and\nthe suppressed hum of voices as if of those endeavouring to soothe the\nmourner. The door was speedily opened, and when the ladies entered, the\nfirst object which met their view was their sister, Lady Ardagh, sitting\non a form in the hall, weeping and wringing her hands in deep agony.\nBeside her stood two old, withered crones, who were each endeavouring in\ntheir own way to administer consolation, without even knowing or caring\nwhat the subject of her grief might be.\n\nImmediately on Lady Ardagh's seeing her sisters, she started up, fell on\ntheir necks, and kissed them again and again without speaking, and then\ntaking them each by a hand, still weeping bitterly, she led them into\na small room adjoining the hall, in which burned a light, and, having\nclosed the door, she sat down between them. After thanking them for the\nhaste they had made, she proceeded to tell them, in words incoherent\nfrom agitation, that Sir Robert had in private, and in the most solemn\nmanner, told her that he should die upon that night, and that he\nhad occupied himself during the evening in giving minute directions\nrespecting the arrangements of his funeral. Lady D---- here suggested\nthe possibility of his labouring under the hallucinations of a fever;\nbut to this Lady Ardagh quickly replied:\n\n'Oh! no, no! Would to God I could think it. Oh! no, no! Wait till you\nhave seen him. There is a frightful calmness about all he says and\ndoes; and his directions are all so clear, and his mind so perfectly\ncollected, it is impossible, quite impossible.' And she wept yet more\nbitterly.\n\nAt that moment Sir Robert's voice was heard in issuing some directions,\nas he came downstairs; and Lady Ardagh exclaimed, hurriedly:\n\n'Go now and see him yourself. He is in the hall.'\n\nLady D---- accordingly went out into the hall, where Sir Robert met her;\nand, saluting her with kind politeness, he said, after a pause:\n\n'You are come upon a melancholy mission--the house is in great\nconfusion, and some of its inmates in considerable grief.' He took her\nhand, and looking fixedly in her face, continued: 'I shall not live to\nsee to-morrow's sun shine.'\n\n'You are ill, sir, I have no doubt,' replied she; 'but I am very\ncertain we shall see you much better to-morrow, and still better the day\nfollowing.'\n\n'I am NOT ill, sister,' replied he. 'Feel my temples, they are cool; lay\nyour finger to my pulse, its throb is slow and temperate. I never was\nmore perfectly in health, and yet do I know that ere three hours be\npast, I shall be no more.'\n\n'Sir, sir,' said she, a good deal startled, but wishing to conceal\nthe impression which the calm solemnity of his manner had, in her own\ndespite, made upon her, 'Sir, you should not jest; you should not even\nspeak lightly upon such subjects. You trifle with what is sacred--you\nare sporting with the best affections of your wife----'\n\n'Stay, my good lady,' said he; 'if when this clock shall strike the hour\nof three, I shall be anything but a helpless clod, then upbraid me. Pray\nreturn now to your sister. Lady Ardagh is, indeed, much to be pitied;\nbut what is past cannot now be helped. I have now a few papers to\narrange, and some to destroy. I shall see you and Lady Ardagh before my\ndeath; try to compose her--her sufferings distress me much; but what is\npast cannot now be mended.'\n\nThus saying, he went upstairs, and Lady D---- returned to the room where\nher sisters were sitting.\n\n'Well,' exclaimed Lady Ardagh, as she re-entered, 'is it not so?--do you\nstill doubt?--do you think there is any hope?'\n\nLady D---- was silent.\n\n'Oh! none, none, none,' continued she; 'I see, I see you are convinced.'\nAnd she wrung her hands in bitter agony.\n\n'My dear sister,' said Lady D----, 'there is, no doubt, something\nstrange in all that has appeared in this matter; but still I cannot but\nhope that there may be something deceptive in all the apparent calmness\nof Sir Robert. I still must believe that some latent fever has affected\nhis mind, or that, owing to the state of nervous depression into which\nhe has been sinking, some trivial occurrence has been converted, in\nhis disordered imagination, into an augury foreboding his immediate\ndissolution.'\n\nIn such suggestions, unsatisfactory even to those who originated them,\nand doubly so to her whom they were intended to comfort, more than two\nhours passed; and Lady D---- was beginning to hope that the fated term\nmight elapse without the occurrence of any tragical event, when Sir\nRobert entered the room. On coming in, he placed his finger with a\nwarning gesture upon his lips, as if to enjoin silence; and then having\nsuccessively pressed the hands of his two sisters-in-law, he stooped\nsadly over the fainting form of his lady, and twice pressed her cold,\npale forehead, with his lips, and then passed silently out of the room.\n\nLady D----, starting up, followed to the door, and saw him take a\ncandle in the hall, and walk deliberately up the stairs. Stimulated by\na feeling of horrible curiosity, she continued to follow him at a\ndistance. She saw him enter his own private room, and heard him close\nand lock the door after him. Continuing to follow him as far as she\ncould, she placed herself at the door of the chamber, as noiselessly as\npossible, where after a little time she was joined by her two sisters,\nLady Ardagh and Miss F----d. In breathless silence they listened to what\nshould pass within. They distinctly heard Sir Robert pacing up and down\nthe room for some time; and then, after a pause, a sound as if some\none had thrown himself heavily upon the bed. At this moment Lady D----,\nforgetting that the door had been secured within, turned the handle for\nthe purpose of entering; when some one from the inside, close to the\ndoor, said, 'Hush! hush!' The same lady, now much alarmed, knocked\nviolently at the door; there was no answer. She knocked again more\nviolently, with no further success. Lady Ardagh, now uttering a piercing\nshriek, sank in a swoon upon the floor. Three or four servants,\nalarmed by the noise, now hurried upstairs, and Lady Ardagh was carried\napparently lifeless to her own chamber. They then, after having knocked\nlong and loudly in vain, applied themselves to forcing an entrance into\nSir Robert's room. After resisting some violent efforts, the door at\nlength gave way, and all entered the room nearly together. There was a\nsingle candle burning upon a table at the far end of the apartment; and\nstretched upon the bed lay Sir Robert Ardagh. He was a corpse--the eyes\nwere open--no convulsion had passed over the features, or distorted\nthe limbs--it seemed as if the soul had sped from the body without a\nstruggle to remain there. On touching the body it was found to be cold\nas clay--all lingering of the vital heat had left it. They closed the\nghastly eyes of the corpse, and leaving it to the care of those who\nseem to consider it a privilege of their age and sex to gloat over the\nrevolting spectacle of death in all its stages, they returned to\nLady Ardagh, now a widow. The party assembled at the castle, but the\natmosphere was tainted with death. Grief there was not much, but awe and\npanic were expressed in every face. The guests talked in whispers, and\nthe servants walked on tiptoe, as if afraid of the very noise of their\nown footsteps.\n\nThe funeral was conducted almost with splendour. The body, having been\nconveyed, in compliance with Sir Robert's last directions, to Dublin,\nwas there laid within the ancient walls of St. Audoen's Church--where I\nhave read the epitaph, telling the age and titles of the departed dust.\nNeither painted escutcheon, nor marble slab, have served to rescue from\noblivion the story of the dead, whose very name will ere long moulder\nfrom their tracery,\n\n          'Et sunt sua fata sepulchris.'(1)\n\n\n     (1) This prophecy has since been realised; for the aisle in\n     which Sir Robert's remains were laid has been suffered to\n     fall completely to decay; and the tomb which marked his\n     grave, and other monuments more curious, form now one\n     indistinguishable mass of rubbish.\n\n\nThe events which I have recorded are not imaginary. They are FACTS;\nand there lives one whose authority none would venture to question, who\ncould vindicate the accuracy of every statement which I have set down,\nand that, too, with all the circumstantiality of an eye-witness.(2)\n\n\n     (2) This paper, from a memorandum, I find to have been\n     written in 1803. The lady to whom allusion is made, I\n     believe to be Miss Mary F----d. She never married, and\n     survived both her sisters, living to a very advanced age.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LAST HEIR OF CASTLE CONNOR.\n\nBeing a third Extract from the legacy of the late Francis Purcell, P. P.\nof Drumcoolagh.\n\nThere is something in the decay of ancient grandeur to interest even the\nmost unconcerned spectator--the evidences of greatness, of power, and of\npride that survive the wreck of time, proving, in mournful contrast with\npresent desolation and decay, what WAS in other days, appeal, with a\nresistless power, to the sympathies of our nature. And when, as we gaze\non the scion of some ruined family, the first impulse of nature that\nbids us regard his fate with interest and respect is justified by the\nrecollection of great exertions and self-devotion and sacrifices in\nthe cause of a lost country and of a despised religion--sacrifices and\nefforts made with all the motives of faithfulness and of honour, and\nterminating in ruin--in such a case respect becomes veneration, and the\ninterest we feel amounts almost to a passion.\n\nIt is this feeling which has thrown the magic veil of romance over every\nroofless castle and ruined turret throughout our country; it is this\nfeeling that, so long as a tower remains above the level of the soil, so\nlong as one scion of a prostrate and impoverished family survives,\nwill never suffer Ireland to yield to the stranger more than the 'mouth\nhonour' which fear compels.(3) I who have conversed viva voce et propria\npersona with those whose recollections could run back so far as the\ntimes previous to the confiscations which followed the Revolution of\n1688--whose memory could repeople halls long roofless and desolate, and\npoint out the places where greatness once had been, may feel all this\nmore strongly, and with a more vivid interest, than can those whose\nsympathies are awakened by the feebler influence of what may be called\nthe PICTURESQUE effects of ruin and decay.\n\n\n     (3) This passage serves (mirabile dictu) to corroborate a\n     statement of Mr. O'Connell's, which occurs in his evidence\n     given before the House of Commons, wherein he affirms that\n     the principles of the Irish priesthood 'ARE democratic, and\n     were those of Jacobinism.'--See digest of the evidence upon\n     the state of Ireland, given before the House of Commons.\n\n\nThere do, indeed, still exist some fragments of the ancient Catholic\nfamilies of Ireland; but, alas! what VERY fragments! They linger like\nthe remnants of her aboriginal forests, reft indeed of their strength\nand greatness, but proud even in decay. Every winter thins their ranks,\nand strews the ground with the wreck of their loftiest branches; they\nare at best but tolerated in the land which gave them birth--objects of\ncuriosity, perhaps of pity, to one class, but of veneration to another.\n\nThe O'Connors, of Castle Connor, were an ancient Irish family. The name\nrecurs frequently in our history, and is generally to be found in a\nprominent place whenever periods of tumult or of peril called forth\nthe courage and the enterprise of this country. After the accession of\nWilliam III., the storm of confiscation which swept over the land\nmade woeful havoc in their broad domains. Some fragments of property,\nhowever, did remain to them, and with it the building which had for ages\nformed the family residence.\n\nAbout the year 17--, my uncle, a Catholic priest, became acquainted with\nthe inmates of Castle Connor, and after a time introduced me, then a lad\nof about fifteen, full of spirits, and little dreaming that a profession\nso grave as his should ever become mine.\n\nThe family at that time consisted of but two members, a widow lady and\nher only son, a young man aged about eighteen. In our early days the\nprogress from acquaintance to intimacy, and from intimacy to friendship\nis proverbially rapid; and young O'Connor and I became, in less than a\nmonth, close and confidential companions--an intercourse which ripened\ngradually into an attachment ardent, deep, and devoted--such as I\nbelieve young hearts only are capable of forming.\n\nHe had been left early fatherless, and the representative and heir of\nhis family. His mother's affection for him was intense in proportion as\nthere existed no other object to divide it--indeed--such love as that\nshe bore him I have never seen elsewhere. Her love was better bestowed\nthan that of mothers generally is, for young O'Connor, not without some\nof the faults, had certainly many of the most engaging qualities of\nyouth. He had all the frankness and gaiety which attract, and the\ngenerosity of heart which confirms friendship; indeed, I never saw a\nperson so universally popular; his very faults seemed to recommend\nhim; he was wild, extravagant, thoughtless, and fearlessly\nadventurous--defects of character which, among the peasantry of Ireland,\nare honoured as virtues. The combination of these qualities, and the\nposition which O'Connor occupied as representative of an ancient Irish\nCatholic family--a peculiarly interesting one to me, one of the old\nfaith--endeared him to me so much that I have never felt the pangs of\nparting more keenly than when it became necessary, for the finishing of\nhis education, that he should go abroad.\n\nThree years had passed away before I saw him again. During the interval,\nhowever, I had frequently heard from him, so that absence had not abated\nthe warmth of our attachment. Who could tell of the rejoicings that\nmarked the evening of his return? The horses were removed from the\nchaise at the distance of a mile from the castle, while it and its\ncontents were borne rapidly onward almost by the pressure of the\nmultitude, like a log upon a torrent. Bonfires blared far and\nnear--bagpipes roared and fiddles squeaked; and, amid the thundering\nshouts of thousands, the carriage drew up before the castle.\n\nIn an instant young O'Connor was upon the ground, crying, 'Thank you,\nboys--thank you, boys;' while a thousand hands were stretched out from\nall sides to grasp even a finger of his. Still, amid shouts of 'God\nbless your honour--long may you reign!' and 'Make room there, boys!\nclear the road for the masther!' he reached the threshold of the castle,\nwhere stood his mother weeping for joy.\n\nOh! who could describe that embrace, or the enthusiasm with which it was\nwitnessed? 'God bless him to you, my lady--glory to ye both!' and 'Oh,\nbut he is a fine young gentleman, God bless him!' resounded on all\nsides, while hats flew up in volleys that darkened the moon; and when at\nlength, amid the broad delighted grins of the thronging domestics, whose\nsense of decorum precluded any more boisterous evidence of joy, they\nreached the parlour, then giving way to the fulness of her joy the\nwidowed mother kissed and blessed him and wept in turn. Well might\nany parent be proud to claim as son the handsome stripling who now\nrepresented the Castle Connor family; but to her his beauty had a\npeculiar charm, for it bore a striking resemblance to that of her\nhusband, the last O'Connor.\n\nI know not whether partiality blinded me, or that I did no more than\njustice to my friend in believing that I had never seen so handsome a\nyoung man. I am inclined to think the latter. He was rather tall,\nvery slightly and elegantly made; his face was oval, and his features\ndecidedly Spanish in cast and complexion, but with far more vivacity\nof expression than generally belongs to the beauty of that nation.\nThe extreme delicacy of his features and the varied animation of his\ncountenance made him appear even younger than his years--an illusion\nwhich the total absence of everything studied in his manners seemed\nto confirm. Time had wrought no small change in me, alike in mind and\nspirits; but in the case of O'Connor it seemed to have lost its power to\nalter. His gaiety was undamped, his generosity unchilled; and though\nthe space which had intervened between our parting and reunion was\nbut brief, yet at the period of life at which we were, even a shorter\ninterval than that of three years has frequently served to form or\nDEform a character.\n\nWeeks had passed away since the return of O'Connor, and scarce a day had\nelapsed without my seeing him, when the neighbourhood was thrown into\nan unusual state of excitement by the announcement of a race-ball to be\ncelebrated at the assembly-room of the town of T----, distant scarcely\ntwo miles from Castle Connor.\n\nYoung O'Connor, as I had expected, determined at once to attend it; and\nhaving directed in vain all the powers of his rhetoric to persuade his\nmother to accompany him, he turned the whole battery of his logic upon\nme, who, at that time, felt a reluctance stronger than that of mere\napathy to mixing in any of these scenes of noisy pleasure for which for\nmany reasons I felt myself unfitted. He was so urgent and persevering,\nhowever, that I could not refuse; and I found myself reluctantly\nobliged to make up my mind to attend him upon the important night to the\nspacious but ill-finished building, which the fashion and beauty of the\ncounty were pleased to term an assembly-room.\n\nWhen we entered the apartment, we found a select few, surrounded by a\ncrowd of spectators, busily performing a minuet, with all the congees\nand flourishes which belonged to that courtly dance; and my companion,\ninfected by the contagion of example, was soon, as I had anticipated,\nwaving his chapeau bras, and gracefully bowing before one of the\nprettiest girls in the room. I had neither skill nor spirits to qualify\nme to follow his example; and as the fulness of the room rendered it\neasy to do so without its appearing singular, I determined to be merely\na spectator of the scene which surrounded me, without taking an active\npart in its amusements.\n\nThe room was indeed very much crowded, so that its various groups,\nformed as design or accident had thrown the parties together, afforded\nno small fund of entertainment to the contemplative observer. There were\nthe dancers, all gaiety and good-humour; a little further off were the\ntables at which sat the card-players, some plying their vocation with\ndeep and silent anxiety--for in those days gaming often ran very high in\nsuch places--and others disputing with all the vociferous pertinacity\nof undisguised ill-temper. There, again, were the sallow, blue-nosed,\ngrey-eyed dealers in whispered scandal; and, in short, there is scarcely\na group or combination to be met with in the court of kings which might\nnot have found a humble parallel in the assembly-room of T----.\n\nI was allowed to indulge in undisturbed contemplation, for I suppose I\nwas not known to more than five or six in the room. I thus had leisure\nnot only to observe the different classes into which the company had\ndivided itself, but to amuse myself by speculating as to the rank and\ncharacter of many of the individual actors in the drama.\n\nAmong many who have long since passed from my memory, one person for\nsome time engaged my attention, and that person, for many reasons, I\nshall not soon forget. He was a tall, square-shouldered man, who stood\nin a careless attitude, leaning with his back to the wall; he seemed to\nhave secluded himself from the busy multitudes which moved noisily and\ngaily around him, and nobody seemed to observe or to converse with him.\nHe was fashionably dressed, but perhaps rather extravagantly; his face\nwas full and heavy, expressive of sullenness and stupidity, and marked\nwith the lines of strong vulgarity; his age might be somewhere between\nforty and fifty. Such as I have endeavoured to describe him, he remained\nmotionless, his arms doggedly folded across his broad chest, and turning\nhis sullen eyes from corner to corner of the room, as if eager to detect\nsome object on which to vent his ill-humour.\n\nIt is strange, and yet it is true, that one sometimes finds even in the\nmost commonplace countenance an undefinable something, which fascinates\nthe attention, and forces it to recur again and again, while it is\nimpossible to tell whether the peculiarity which thus attracts us lies\nin feature or in expression, or in both combined, and why it is that our\nobservation should be engrossed by an object which, when analysed, seems\nto possess no claim to interest or even to notice. This unaccountable\nfeeling I have often experienced, and I believe I am not singular.\nbut never in so remarkable a degree as upon this occasion. My friend\nO'Connor, having disposed of his fair partner, was crossing the room\nfor the purpose of joining me, in doing which I was surprised to see him\nexchange a familiar, almost a cordial, greeting with the object of\nmy curiosity. I say I was surprised, for independent of his very\nquestionable appearance, it struck me as strange that though so\nconstantly associated with O'Connor, and, as I thought, personally\nacquainted with all his intimates, I had never before even seen this\nindividual. I did not fail immediately to ask him who this gentleman\nwas. I thought he seemed slightly embarrassed, but after a moment's\npause he laughingly said that his friend over the way was too mysterious\na personage to have his name announced in so giddy a scene as the\npresent; but that on the morrow he would furnish me with all the\ninformation which I could desire. There was, I thought, in his affected\njocularity a real awkwardness which appeared to me unaccountable, and\nconsequently increased my curiosity; its gratification, however, I was\nobliged to defer. At length, wearied with witnessing amusements in which\nI could not sympathise, I left the room, and did not see O'Connor until\nlate in the next day.\n\nI had ridden down towards the castle for the purpose of visiting the\nO'Connors, and had nearly reached the avenue leading to the mansion,\nwhen I met my friend. He was also mounted; and having answered my\ninquiries respecting his mother, he easily persuaded me to accompany\nhim in his ramble. We had chatted as usual for some time, when, after a\npause, O'Connor said:\n\n'By the way, Purcell, you expressed some curiosity respecting the tall,\nhandsome fellow to whom I spoke last night.'\n\n'I certainly did question you about a TALL gentleman, but was not aware\nof his claims to beauty,' replied I.\n\n'Well, that is as it may be,' said he; 'the ladies think him handsome,\nand their opinion upon that score is more valuable than yours or mine.\nDo you know,' he continued, 'I sometimes feel half sorry that I ever\nmade the fellow's acquaintance: he is quite a marked man here, and they\ntell stories of him that are anything but reputable, though I am sure\nwithout foundation. I think I know enough about him to warrant me in\nsaying so.'\n\n'May I ask his name?' inquired I.\n\n'Oh! did not I tell you his name?' rejoined he. 'You should have heard\nthat first; he and his name are equally well known. You will recognise\nthe individual at once when I tell you that his name is--Fitzgerald.'\n\n'Fitzgerald!' I repeated. 'Fitzgerald!--can it be Fitzgerald the\nduellist?'\n\n'Upon my word you have hit it,' replied he, laughing; 'but you have\naccompanied the discovery with a look of horror more tragic than\nappropriate. He is not the monster you take him for--he has a good deal\nof old Irish pride; his temper is hasty, and he has been unfortunately\nthrown in the way of men who have not made allowance for these things.\nI am convinced that in every case in which Fitzgerald has fought, if the\ntruth could be discovered, he would be found to have acted throughout\nupon the defensive. No man is mad enough to risk his own life, except\nwhen the doing so is an alternative to submitting tamely to what he\nconsiders an insult. I am certain that no man ever engaged in a duel\nunder the consciousness that he had acted an intentionally aggressive\npart.'\n\n'When did you make his acquaintance?' said I.\n\n'About two years ago,' he replied. 'I met him in France, and you know\nwhen one is abroad it is an ungracious task to reject the advances\nof one's countryman, otherwise I think I should have avoided\nhis society--less upon my own account than because I am sure the\nacquaintance would be a source of continual though groundless uneasiness\nto my mother. I know, therefore, that you will not unnecessarily mention\nits existence to her.'\n\nI gave him the desired assurance, and added:\n\n'May I ask you. O'Connor, if, indeed, it be a fair question, whether\nthis Fitzgerald at any time attempted to engage you in anything like\ngaming?'\n\nThis question was suggested by my having frequently heard Fitzgerald\nmentioned as a noted gambler, and sometimes even as a blackleg. O'Connor\nseemed, I thought, slightly embarrassed. He answered:\n\n'No, no--I cannot say that he ever attempted anything of the kind. I\ncertainly have played with him, but never lost to any serious amount;\nnor can I recollect that he ever solicited me--indeed he knows that I\nhave a strong objection to deep play. YOU must be aware that my finances\ncould not bear much pruning down. I never lost more to him at a sitting\nthan about five pounds, which you know is nothing. No, you wrong him if\nyou imagine that he attached himself to me merely for the sake of such\ncontemptible winnings as those which a broken-down Irish gentleman could\nafford him. Come, Purcell, you are too hard upon him--you judge only by\nreport; you must see him, and decide for yourself.--Suppose we call upon\nhim now; he is at the inn, in the High Street, not a mile off.'\n\nI declined the proposal drily.\n\n'Your caution is too easily alarmed,' said he. 'I do not wish you to\nmake this man your bosom friend: I merely desire that you should see and\nspeak to him, and if you form any acquaintance with him, it must be of\nthat slight nature which can be dropped or continued at pleasure.'\n\nFrom the time that O'Connor had announced the fact that his friend\nwas no other than the notorious Fitzgerald, a foreboding of something\ncalamitous had come upon me, and it now occurred to me that if any\nunpleasantness were to be feared as likely to result to O'Connor\nfrom their connection, I might find my attempts to extricate him much\nfacilitated by my being acquainted, however slightly, with Fitzgerald. I\nknow not whether the idea was reasonable--it was certainly natural; and\nI told O'Connor that upon second thoughts I would ride down with him to\nthe town, and wait upon Mr. Fitzgerald.\n\nWe found him at home; and chatted with him for a considerable time. To\nmy surprise his manners were perfectly those of a gentleman, and his\nconversation, if not peculiarly engaging, was certainly amusing. The\npoliteness of his demeanour, and the easy fluency with which he told his\nstories and his anecdotes, many of them curious, and all more or less\nentertaining, accounted to my mind at once for the facility with which\nhe had improved his acquaintance with O'Connor; and when he pressed\nupon us an invitation to sup with him that night, I had almost joined\nO'Connor in accepting it. I determined, however, against doing so, for\nI had no wish to be on terms of familiarity with Mr. Fitzgerald; and\nI knew that one evening spent together as he proposed would go further\ntowards establishing an intimacy between us than fifty morning visits\ncould do. When I arose to depart, it was with feelings almost favourable\nto Fitzgerald; indeed I was more than half ashamed to acknowledge to my\ncompanion how complete a revolution in my opinion respecting his\nfriend half an hour's conversation with him had wrought. His appearance\ncertainly WAS against him; but then, under the influence of his manner,\none lost sight of much of its ungainliness, and of nearly all its\nvulgarity; and, on the whole, I felt convinced that report had done\nhim grievous wrong, inasmuch as anybody, by an observance of the common\ncourtesies of society, might easily avoid coming into personal collision\nwith a gentleman so studiously polite as Fitzgerald. At parting,\nO'Connor requested me to call upon him the next day, as he intended to\nmake trial of the merits of a pair of greyhounds, which he had thoughts\nof purchasing; adding, that if he could escape in anything like\ntolerable time from Fitzgerald's supper-party, he would take the field\nsoon after ten on the next morning. At the appointed hour, or perhaps a\nlittle later, I dismounted at Castle Connor; and, on entering the\nhall, I observed a gentleman issuing from O'Connor's private room. I\nrecognised him, as he approached, as a Mr. M'Donough, and, being but\nslightly acquainted with him, was about to pass him with a bow, when he\nstopped me. There was something in his manner which struck me as odd;\nhe seemed a good deal flurried if not agitated, and said, in a hurried\ntone:\n\n'This is a very foolish business, Mr. Purcell. You have some influence\nwith my friend O'Connor; I hope you can induce him to adopt some more\nmoderate line of conduct than that he has decided upon. If you will\nallow me, I will return for a moment with you, and talk over the matter\nagain with O'Connor.'\n\nAs M'Donough uttered these words, I felt that sudden sinking of the\nheart which accompanies the immediate anticipation of something dreaded\nand dreadful. I was instantly convinced that O'Connor had quarrelled\nwith Fitzgerald, and I knew that if such were the case, nothing short\nof a miracle could extricate him from the consequences. I signed to\nM'Donough to lead the way, and we entered the little study together.\nO'Connor was standing with his back to the fire; on the table lay the\nbreakfast-things in the disorder in which a hurried meal had left them;\nand on another smaller table, placed near the hearth, lay pen, ink,\nand paper. As soon as O'Connor saw me, he came forward and shook me\ncordially by the hand.\n\n'My dear Purcell,' said he, 'you are the very man I wanted. I have got\ninto an ugly scrape, and I trust to my friends to get me out of it.'\n\n'You have had no dispute with that man--that Fitzgerald, I hope,' said\nI, giving utterance to the conjecture whose truth I most dreaded.\n\n'Faith, I cannot say exactly what passed between us,' said he, 'inasmuch\nas I was at the time nearly half seas over; but of this much I am\ncertain, that we exchanged angry words last night. I lost my temper most\nconfoundedly; but, as well as I can recollect, he appeared perfectly\ncool and collected. What he said was, therefore, deliberately said, and\non that account must be resented.'\n\n'My dear O'Connor, are you mad?' I exclaimed. 'Why will you seek to\ndrive to a deadly issue a few hasty words, uttered under the influence\nof wine, and forgotten almost as soon as uttered? A quarrel with\nFitzgerald it is twenty chances to one would terminate fatally to you.'\n\n'It is exactly because Fitzgerald IS such an accomplished shot,'\nsaid he, 'that I become liable to the most injurious and intolerable\nsuspicions if I submit to anything from him which could be construed\ninto an affront; and for that reason Fitzgerald is the very last man to\nwhom I would concede an inch in a case of honour.'\n\n'I do not require you to make any, the slightest sacrifice of what\nyou term your honour,' I replied; 'but if you have actually written a\nchallenge to Fitzgerald, as I suspect you have done, I conjure you to\nreconsider the matter before you despatch it. From all that I have heard\nyou say, Fitzgerald has more to complain of in the altercation which has\ntaken place than you. You owe it to your only surviving parent not to\nthrust yourself thus wantonly upon--I will say it, the most appalling\ndanger. Nobody, my dear O'Connor, can have a doubt of your courage; and\nif at any time, which God forbid, you shall be called upon thus to risk\nyour life, you should have it in your power to enter the field under the\nconsciousness that you have acted throughout temperately and like a man,\nand not, as I fear you now would do, having rashly and most causelessly\nendangered your own life and that of your friend.'\n\n'I believe, Purcell, your are right,' said he. 'I believe I HAVE viewed\nthe matter in too decided a light; my note, I think, scarcely allows\nhim an honourable alternative, and that is certainly going a step too\nfar--further than I intended. Mr. M'Donough, I'll thank you to hand me\nthe note.'\n\nHe broke the seal, and, casting his eye hastily over it, he continued:\n\n'It is, indeed, a monument of folly. I am very glad, Purcell, you\nhappened to come in, otherwise it would have reached its destination by\nthis time.'\n\nHe threw it into the fire; and, after a moment's pause, resumed:\n\n'You must not mistake me, however. I am perfectly satisfied as to the\npropriety, nay, the necessity, of communicating with Fitzgerald. The\ndifficulty is in what tone I should address him. I cannot say that the\nman directly affronted me--I cannot recollect any one expression which\nI could lay hold upon as offensive--but his language was ambiguous, and\nadmitted frequently of the most insulting construction, and his manner\nthroughout was insupportably domineering. I know it impressed me with\nthe idea that he presumed upon his reputation as a DEAD SHOT, and that\nwould be utterly unendurable.'\n\n'I would now recommend, as I have already done,' said M'Donough, 'that\nif you write to Fitzgerald, it should be in such a strain as to leave\nhim at perfect liberty, without a compromise of honour, in a friendly\nway, to satisfy your doubts as to his conduct.'\n\nI seconded the proposal warmly, and O'Connor, in a few minutes, finished\na note, which he desired us to read. It was to this effect:\n\n\n'O'Connor, of Castle Connor, feeling that some expressions employed by\nMr. Fitzgerald upon last night, admitted of a construction offensive\nto him, and injurious to his character, requests to know whether Mr.\nFitzgerald intended to convey such a meaning.\n\n'Castle Connor, Thursday morning.'\n\n\nThis note was consigned to the care of Mr. M'Donough, who forthwith\ndeparted to execute his mission. The sound of his horse's hoofs, as\nhe rode rapidly away, struck heavily at my heart; but I found some\nsatisfaction in the reflection that M'Donough appeared as averse from\nextreme measures as I was myself, for I well knew, with respect to the\nfinal result of the affair, that as much depended upon the tone adopted\nby the SECOND, as upon the nature of the written communication.\n\nI have seldom passed a more anxious hour than that which intervened\nbetween the departure and the return of that gentleman. Every instant I\nimagined I heard the tramp of a horse approaching, and every time that\na door opened I fancied it was to give entrance to the eagerly expected\ncourier. At length I did hear the hollow and rapid tread of a horse's\nhoof upon the avenue. It approached--it stopped--a hurried step\ntraversed the hall--the room door opened, and M'Donough entered.\n\n'You have made great haste,' said O'Connor; 'did you find him at home?'\n\n'I did,' replied M'Donough, 'and made the greater haste as Fitzgerald\ndid not let me know the contents of his reply.'\n\nAt the same time he handed a note to O'Connor, who instantly broke the\nseal. The words were as follow:\n\n\n'Mr. Fitzgerald regrets that anything which has fallen from him should\nhave appeared to Mr. O'Connor to be intended to convey a reflection upon\nhis honour (none such having been meant), and begs leave to disavow any\nwish to quarrel unnecessarily with Mr. O'Connor.\n\n'T---- Inn, Thursday morning.'\n\n\nI cannot describe how much I felt relieved on reading the above\ncommunication. I took O'Connor's hand and pressed it warmly, but my\nemotions were deeper and stronger than I cared to show, for I was\nconvinced that he had escaped a most imminent danger. Nobody whose\nnotions upon the subject are derived from the duelling of modern times,\nin which matters are conducted without any very sanguinary determination\nupon either side, and with equal want of skill and coolness by both\nparties, can form a just estimate of the danger incurred by one who\nventured to encounter a duellist of the old school. Perfect coolness\nin the field, and a steadiness and accuracy (which to the unpractised\nappeared almost miraculous) in the use of the pistol, formed the\ncharacteristics of this class; and in addition to this there generally\nexisted a kind of professional pride, which prompted the duellist, in\ndefault of any more malignant feeling, from motives of mere vanity,\nto seek the life of his antagonist. Fitzgerald's career had been a\nremarkably successful one, and I knew that out of thirteen duels which\nhe had fought in Ireland, in nine cases he had KILLED his man. In\nthose days one never heard of the parties leaving the field, as not\nunfrequently now occurs, without blood having been spilt; and the\nodds were, of course, in all cases tremendously against a young and\nunpractised man, when matched with an experienced antagonist. My\nimpression respecting the magnitude of the danger which my friend had\nincurred was therefore by no means unwarranted.\n\nI now questioned O'Connor more accurately respecting the circumstances\nof his quarrel with Fitzgerald. It arose from some dispute respecting\nthe application of a rule of piquet, at which game they had been\nplaying, each interpreting it favourably to himself, and O'Connor,\nhaving lost considerably, was in no mood to conduct an argument with\ntemper--an altercation ensued, and that of rather a pungent nature,\nand the result was that he left Fitzgerald's room rather abruptly,\ndetermined to demand an explanation in the most peremptory tone. For\nthis purpose he had sent for M'Donough, and had commissioned him to\ndeliver the note, which my arrival had fortunately intercepted.\n\nAs it was now past noon, O'Connor made me promise to remain with him\nto dinner; and we sat down a party of three, all in high spirits at\nthe termination of our anxieties. It is necessary to mention, for the\npurpose of accounting for what follows, that Mrs. O'Connor, or, as she\nwas more euphoniously styled, the lady of Castle Connor, was precluded\nby ill-health from taking her place at the dinner-table, and, indeed,\nseldom left her room before four o'clock.(4) We were sitting after\ndinner sipping our claret, and talking, and laughing, and enjoying\nourselves exceedingly, when a servant, stepping into the room, informed\nhis master that a gentleman wanted to speak with him.\n\n\n     (4) It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader, that at\n     the period spoken of, the important hour of dinner occurred\n     very nearly at noon.\n\n\n'Request him, with my compliments, to walk in,' said O'Connor; and in a\nfew moments a gentleman entered the room.\n\nHis appearance was anything but prepossessing. He was a little above the\nmiddle size, spare, and raw-boned; his face very red, his features sharp\nand bluish, and his age might be about sixty. His attire savoured a good\ndeal of the SHABBY-GENTEEL; his clothes, which had much of tarnished\nand faded pretension about them, did not fit him, and had not improbably\nfluttered in the stalls of Plunket Street. We had risen on his entrance,\nand O'Connor had twice requested of him to take a chair at the table,\nwithout his hearing, or at least noticing, the invitation; while with\na slow pace, and with an air of mingled importance and effrontery, he\nadvanced into the centre of the apartment, and regarding our small party\nwith a supercilious air, he said:\n\n'I take the liberty of introducing myself--I am Captain M'Creagh,\nformerly of the--infantry. My business here is with a Mr. O'Connor, and\nthe sooner it is despatched the better.'\n\n'I am the gentleman you name,' said O'Connor; 'and as you appear\nimpatient, we had better proceed to your commission without delay.'\n\n'Then, Mr. O'Connor, you will please to read that note,' said the\ncaptain, placing a sealed paper in his hand.\n\nO'Connor read it through, and then observed:\n\n'This is very extraordinary indeed. This note appears to me perfectly\nunaccountable.'\n\n'You are very young, Mr. O'Connor,' said the captain, with vulgar\nfamiliarity; 'but, without much experience in these matters, I think\nyou might have anticipated something like this. You know the old saying,\n\"Second thoughts are best;\" and so they are like to prove, by G--!'\n\n'You will have no objection, Captain M'Creagh, on the part of your\nfriend, to my reading this note to these gentlemen; they are both\nconfidential friends of mine, and one of them has already acted for me\nin this business.'\n\n'I can have no objection,' replied the captain, 'to your doing what you\nplease with your own. I have nothing more to do with that note once I\nput it safe into your hand; and when that is once done, it is all one to\nme, if you read it to half the world--that's YOUR concern, and no affair\nof mine.'\n\nO'Connor then read the following:\n\n\n'Mr. Fitzgerald begs leave to state, that upon re-perusing Mr.\nO'Connor's communication of this morning carefully, with an experienced\nfriend, he is forced to consider himself as challenged. His friend,\nCaptain M'Creagh, has been empowered by him to make all the necessary\narrangements.\n\n'T---- Inn, Thursday.'\n\n\nI can hardly describe the astonishment with which I heard this note. I\nturned to the captain, and said:\n\n'Surely, sir, there is some mistake in all this?'\n\n'Not the slightest, I'll assure you, sir.' said he, coolly; 'the case is\na very clear one, and I think my friend has pretty well made up his mind\nupon it. May I request your answer?' he continued, turning to O'Connor;\n'time is precious, you know.'\n\nO'Connor expressed his willingness to comply with the suggestion, and in\na few minutes had folded and directed the following rejoinder:\n\n\n'Mr. O'Connor having received a satisfactory explanation from Mr.\nFitzgerald, of the language used by that gentleman, feels that there no\nlonger exists any grounds for misunderstanding, and wishes further to\nstate, that the note of which Mr. Fitzgerald speaks was not intended as\na challenge.'\n\n\nWith this note the captain departed; and as we did not doubt that the\nmessage which he had delivered had been suggested by some unintentional\nmisconstruction of O'Connor's first billet, we felt assured that the\nconclusion of his last note would set the matter at rest. In this\nbelief, however, we were mistaken; before we had left the table, and in\nan incredibly short time, the captain returned. He entered the room\nwith a countenance evidently tasked to avoid expressing the satisfaction\nwhich a consciousness of the nature of his mission had conferred; but\nin spite of all his efforts to look gravely unconcerned, there was a\ntwinkle in the small grey eye, and an almost imperceptible motion in the\ncorner of the mouth, which sufficiently betrayed his internal glee, as\nhe placed a note in the hand of O'Connor. As the young man cast his eye\nover it, he coloured deeply, and turning to M'Donough, he said:\n\n'You will have the goodness to make all the necessary arrangements for\na meeting. Something has occurred to render one between me and Mr.\nFitzgerald inevitable. Understand me literally, when I say that it is\nnow totally impossible that this affair should be amicably arranged.\nYou will have the goodness, M'Donough, to let me know as soon as all\nthe particulars are arranged. Purcell,' he continued, 'will you have\nthe kindness to accompany me?' and having bowed to M'Creagh, we left the\nroom.\n\nAs I closed the door after me, I heard the captain laugh, and thought I\ncould distinguish the words--'By ---- I knew Fitzgerald would bring him\nto his way of thinking before he stopped.'\n\nI followed O'Connor into his study, and on entering, the door being\nclosed, he showed me the communication which had determined him upon\nhostilities. Its language was grossly impertinent, and it concluded by\nactually threatening to 'POST' him, in case he further attempted 'to\nbe OFF.' I cannot describe the agony of indignation in which O'Connor\nwrithed under this insult. He said repeatedly that 'he was a degraded\nand dishohoured man,' that 'he was dragged into the field,' that 'there\nwas ignominy in the very thought that such a letter should have\nbeen directed to him.' It was in vain that I reasoned against this\nimpression; the conviction that he had been disgraced had taken\npossession of his mind. He said again and again that nothing but his\nDEATH could remove the stain which his indecision had cast upon the\nname of his family. I hurried to the hall, on hearing M'Donough and the\ncaptain passing, and reached the door just in time to hear the latter\nsay, as he mounted his horse:\n\n'All the rest can be arranged on the spot; and so farewell, Mr.\nM'Donough--we'll meet at Philippi, you know;' and with this classical\nallusion, which was accompanied with a grin and a bow, and probably\nserved many such occasions, the captain took his departure.\n\nM'Donough briefly stated the few particulars which had been arranged.\nThe parties were to meet at the stand-house, in the race-ground, which\nlay at about an equal distance between Castle Connor and the town of\nT----. The hour appointed was half-past five on the next morning, at\nwhich time the twilight would be sufficiently advanced to afford a\ndistinct view; and the weapons to be employed were PISTOLS--M'Creagh\nhaving claimed, on the part of his friend, all the advantages of the\nCHALLENGED party, and having, consequently, insisted upon the choice of\n'TOOLS,' as he expressed himself; and it was further stipulated that the\nutmost secrecy should be observed, as Fitzgerald would incur great risk\nfrom the violence of the peasantry, in case the affair took wind. These\nconditions were, of course, agreed upon by O'Connor, and M'Donough left\nthe castle, having appointed four o'clock upon the next morning as the\nhour of his return, by which time it would be his business to provide\neverything necessary for the meeting. On his departure, O'Connor\nrequested me to remain with him upon that evening, saying that 'he\ncould not bear to be alone with his mother.' It was to me a most painful\nrequest, but at the same time one which I could not think of refusing.\nI felt, however, that the difficulty at least of the task which I had\nto perform would be in some measure mitigated by the arrival of two\nrelations of O'Connor upon that evening.\n\n'It is very fortunate,' said O'Connor, whose thoughts had been running\nupon the same subject, 'that the O'Gradys will be with us to-night;\ntheir gaiety and good-humour will relieve us from a heavy task. I trust\nthat nothing may occur to prevent their coming.' Fervently concurring in\nthe same wish, I accompanied O'Connor into the parlour, there to await\nthe arrival of his mother.\n\nGod grant that I may never spend such another evening! The O'Gradys DID\ncome, but their high and noisy spirits, so far from relieving me, did\nbut give additional gloom to the despondency, I might say the despair,\nwhich filled my heart with misery--the terrible forebodings which I\ncould not for an instant silence, turned their laughter into discord,\nand seemed to mock the smiles and jests of the unconscious party. When\nI turned my eyes upon the mother, I thought I never had seen her look so\nproudly and so lovingly upon her son before--it cut me to the heart--oh,\nhow cruelly I was deceiving her! I was a hundred times on the very point\nof starting up, and, at all hazards, declaring to her how matters\nwere; but other feelings subdued my better emotions. Oh, what monsters\nare we made of by the fashions of the world! how are our kindlier and\nnobler feelings warped or destroyed by their baleful influences! I felt\nthat it would not be HONOURABLE, that it would not be ETIQUETTE, to\nbetray O'Connor's secret. I sacrificed a higher and a nobler duty than I\nhave since been called upon to perform, to the dastardly fear of bearing\nthe unmerited censure of a world from which I was about to retire. O\nFashion! thou gaudy idol, whose feet are red with the blood of human\nsacrifice, would I had always felt towards thee as I now do!\n\nO'Connor was not dejected; on the contrary, he joined with loud and\nlively alacrity in the hilarity of the little party; but I could see in\nthe flush of his cheek, and in the unusual brightness of his eye, all\nthe excitement of fever--he was making an effort almost beyond his\nstrength, but he succeeded--and when his mother rose to leave the\nroom, it was with the impression that her son was the gayest and most\nlight-hearted of the company. Twice or thrice she had risen with the\nintention of retiring, but O'Connor, with an eagerness which I alone\ncould understand, had persuaded her to remain until the usual hour of\nher departure had long passed; and when at length she arose, declaring\nthat she could not possibly stay longer, I alone could comprehend the\ndesolate change which passed over his manner; and when I saw them part,\nit was with the sickening conviction that those two beings, so dear to\none another, so loved, so cherished, should meet no more.\n\nO'Connor briefly informed his cousins of the position in which he was\nplaced, requesting them at the same time to accompany him to the field,\nand this having been settled, we separated, each to his own apartment.\nI had wished to sit up with O'Connor, who had matters to arrange\nsufficient to employ him until the hour appointed for M'Donough's visit;\nbut he would not hear of it, and I was forced, though sorely against\nmy will, to leave him without a companion. I went to my room, and, in\na state of excitement which I cannot describe, I paced for hours up and\ndown its narrow precincts. I could not--who could?--analyse the strange,\ncontradictory, torturing feelings which, while I recoiled in shrinking\nhorror from the scene which the morning was to bring, yet forced me to\nwish the intervening time annihilated; each hour that the clock told\nseemed to vibrate and tinkle through every nerve; my agitation was\ndreadful; fancy conjured up the forms of those who filled my thoughts\nwith more than the vividness of reality; things seemed to glide through\nthe dusky shadows of the room. I saw the dreaded form of Fitzgerald--I\nheard the hated laugh of the captain--and again the features of O'Connor\nwould appear before me, with ghastly distinctness, pale and writhed in\ndeath, the gouts of gore clotted in the mouth, and the eye-balls\nglared and staring. Scared with the visions which seemed to throng with\nunceasing rapidity and vividness, I threw open the window and looked out\nupon the quiet scene around. I turned my eyes in the direction of the\ntown; a heavy cloud was lowering darkly about it, and I, in impious\nfrenzy, prayed to God that it might burst in avenging fires upon the\nmurderous wretch who lay beneath. At length, sick and giddy with excess\nof excitement, I threw myself upon the bed without removing my clothes,\nand endeavoured to compose myself so far as to remain quiet until the\nhour for our assembling should arrive.\n\nA few minutes before four o'clock I stole noiselessly downstairs, and\nmade my way to the small study already mentioned. A candle was burning\nwithin; and, when I opened the door, O'Connor was reading a book, which,\non seeing me, he hastily closed, colouring slightly as he did so. We\nexchanged a cordial but mournful greeting; and after a slight pause he\nsaid, laying his hand upon the volume which he had shut a moment before:\n\n'Purcell, I feel perfectly calm, though I cannot say that I have much\nhope as to the issue of this morning's rencounter. I shall avoid half\nthe danger. If I must fall, I am determined I shall not go down to\nthe grave with his blood upon my hands. I have resolved not to fire at\nFitzgerald--that is, to fire in such a direction as to assure myself\nagainst hitting him. Do not say a word of this to the O'Gradys. Your\ndoing so would only produce fruitless altercation; they could not\nunderstand my motives. I feel convinced that I shall not leave the\nfield alive. If I must die to-day, I shall avoid an awful aggravation\nof wretchedness. Purcell,' he continued, after a little space, 'I was so\nweak as to feel almost ashamed of the manner in which I was occupied as\nyou entered the room. Yes, _I--I_ who will be, before this evening,\na cold and lifeless clod, was ashamed to have spent my last moment of\nreflection in prayer. God pardon me! God pardon me!' he repeated.\n\nI took his hand and pressed it, but I could not speak. I sought for\nwords of comfort, but they would not come. To have uttered one cheering\nsentence I must have contradicted every impression of my own mind. I\nfelt too much awed to attempt it. Shortly afterwards, M'Donough arrived.\nNo wretched patient ever underwent a more thrilling revulsion at the\nfirst sight of the case of surgical instruments under which he had to\nsuffer, than did I upon beholding a certain oblong flat mahogany box,\nbound with brass, and of about two feet in length, laid upon the table\nin the hall. O'Connor, thanking him for his punctuality, requested\nhim to come into his study for a moment, when, with a melancholy\ncollectedness, he proceeded to make arrangements for our witnessing\nhis will. The document was a brief one, and the whole matter was just\narranged, when the two O'Gradys crept softly into the room.\n\n'So! last will and testament,' said the elder. 'Why, you have a very\nBLUE notion of these matters. I tell you, you need not be uneasy.\nI remember very well, when young Ryan of Ballykealey met M'Neil the\nduellist, bets ran twenty to one against him. I stole away from school,\nand had a peep at the fun as well as the best of them. They fired\ntogether. Ryan received the ball through the collar of his coat, and\nM'Neil in the temple; he spun like a top: it was a most unexpected\nthing, and disappointed his friends damnably. It was admitted, however,\nto have been very pretty shooting upon both sides. To be sure,' he\ncontinued, pointing to the will, 'you are in the right to keep upon the\nsafe side of fortune; but then, there is no occasion to be altogether so\ndevilish down in the mouth as you appear to be.'\n\n'You will allow,' said O'Connor, 'that the chances are heavily against\nme.'\n\n'Why, let me see,' he replied, 'not so hollow a thin, either. Let me\nsee, we'll say about four to one against you; you may chance to throw\ndoublets like him I told you of, and then what becomes of the odds I'd\nlike to know? But let things go as they will, I'll give and take four to\none, in pounds and tens of pounds. There, M'Donough, there's a GET\nfor you; b--t me, if it is not. Poh! the fellow is stolen away,' he\ncontinued, observing that the object of his proposal had left the room;\n'but d---- it, Purcell, you are fond of a SOFT THING, too, in a quiet\nway--I'm sure you are--so curse me if I do not make you the same\noffer-is it a go?'\n\nI was too much disgusted to make any reply, but I believe my looks\nexpressed my feelings sufficiently, for in a moment he said:\n\n'Well, I see there is nothing to be done, so we may as well be stirring.\nM'Donough, myself, and my brother will saddle the horses in a jiffy,\nwhile you and Purcell settle anything which remains to be arranged.'\n\nSo saying, he left the room with as much alacrity as if it were to\nprepare for a foxhunt. Selfish, heartless fool! I have often since heard\nhim spoken of as A CURSED GOOD-NATURED DOG and a D---- GOOD FELLOW; but\nsuch eulogies as these are not calculated to mitigate the abhorrence\nwith which his conduct upon that morning inspired me.\n\nThe chill mists of night were still hovering on the landscape as our\nparty left the castle. It was a raw, comfortless morning--a kind of\ndrizzling fog hung heavily over the scene, dimming the light of the\nsun, which had now risen, into a pale and even a grey glimmer. As the\nappointed hour was fast approaching, it was proposed that we should\nenter the race-ground at a point close to the stand-house--a measure\nwhich would save us a ride of nearly two miles, over a broken road; at\nwhich distance there was an open entrance into the race-ground. Here,\naccordingly, we dismounted, and leaving our horses in the care of\na country fellow who happened to be stirring at that early hour, we\nproceeded up a narrow lane, over a side wall of which we were to climb\ninto the open ground where stood the now deserted building, under which\nthe meeting was to take place. Our progress was intercepted by the\nunexpected appearance of an old woman, who, in the scarlet cloak which\nis the picturesque characteristic of the female peasantry of the south,\nwas moving slowly down the avenue to meet us, uttering that peculiarly\nwild and piteous lamentation well known by the name of 'the Irish cry,'\naccompanied throughout by all the customary gesticulation of\npassionate grief. This rencounter was more awkward than we had at first\nanticipated; for, upon a nearer approach, the person proved to be no\nother than an old attached dependent of the family, and who had herself\nnursed O'Connor. She quickened her pace as we advanced almost to a run;\nand, throwing her arms round O'Connor's neck, she poured forth such a\ntorrent of lamentation, reproach, and endearment, as showed that she was\naware of the nature of our purpose, whence and by what means I knew not.\nIt was in vain that he sought to satisfy her by evasion, and gently\nto extricate himself from her embrace. She knelt upon the ground, and\nclasped her arms round his legs, uttering all the while such touching\nsupplications, such cutting and passionate expressions of woe, as went\nto my very heart.\n\nAt length, with much difficulty, we passed this most painful\ninterruption; and, crossing the boundary wall, were placed beyond her\nreach. The O'Gradys damned her for a troublesome hag, and passed on\nwith O'Connor, but I remained behind for a moment. The poor woman looked\nhopelessly at the high wall which separated her from him she had loved\nfrom infancy, and to be with whom at that minute she would have given\nworlds, she took her seat upon a solitary stone under the opposite wall,\nand there, in a low, subdued key, she continued to utter her sorrow in\nwords so desolate, yet expressing such a tenderness of devotion as wrung\nmy heart.\n\n'My poor woman,' I said, laying my hand gently upon her shoulder, 'you\nwill make yourself ill; the morning is very cold, and your cloak is but\na thin defence against the damp and chill. Pray return home and take\nthis; it may be useful to you.'\n\nSo saying, I dropped a purse, with what money I had about me, into her\nlap, but it lay there unheeded; she did not hear me.\n\n'Oh I my child, my child, my darlin',' she sobbed, 'are you gone from\nme? are you gone from me? Ah, mavourneen, mavourneen, you'll never come\nback alive to me again. The crathur that slept on my bosom--the lovin'\ncrathur that I was so proud of--they'll kill him, they'll kill him. Oh,\nvoh! voh!'\n\nThe affecting tone, the feeling, the abandonment with which all this was\nuttered, none can conceive who have not heard the lamentations of the\nIrish peasantry. It brought tears to my eyes. I saw that no consolation\nof mine could soothe her grief, so I turned and departed; but as I\nrapidly traversed the level sward which separated me from my companions,\nnow considerably in advance, I could still hear the wailings of the\nsolitary mourner.\n\nAs we approached the stand-house, it was evident that our antagonists\nhad already arrived. Our path lay by the side of a high fence\nconstructed of loose stones, and on turning a sharp angle at its\nextremity, we found ourselves close to the appointed spot, and within\na few yards of a crowd of persons, some mounted and some on foot,\nevidently awaiting our arrival. The affair had unaccountably taken wind,\nas the number of the expectants clearly showed; but for this there was\nnow no remedy.\n\nAs our little party advanced we were met and saluted by several\nacquaintances, whom curiosity, if no deeper feeling, had brought to the\nplace. Fitzgerald and the Captain had arrived, and having dismounted,\nwere standing upon the sod. The former, as we approached, bowed slightly\nand sullenly--while the latter, evidently in high good humour, made his\nmost courteous obeisance. No time was to be lost; and the two seconds\nimmediately withdrew to a slight distance, for the purpose of completing\nthe last minute arrangements. It was a brief but horrible interval--each\nreturned to his principal to communicate the result, which was soon\ncaught up and repeated from mouth to mouth throughout the crowd. I\nfelt a strange and insurmountable reluctance to hear the sickening\nparticulars detailed; and as I stood irresolute at some distance from\nthe principal parties, a top-booted squireen, with a hunting whip in his\nhand, bustling up to a companion of his, exclaimed:\n\n'Not fire together!--did you ever hear the like? If Fitzgerald gets the\nfirst shot all is over. M'Donough sold the pass, by----, and that is the\nlong and the short of it.'\n\nThe parties now moved down a little to a small level space, suited to\nthe purpose; and the captain, addressing M'Donough, said:\n\n'Mr. M'Donough, you'll now have the goodness to toss for choice of\nground; as the light comes from the east the line must of course run\nnorth and south. Will you be so obliging as to toss up a crown-piece,\nwhile I call?'\n\nA coin was instantly chucked into the air. The captain cried, 'Harp.'\nThe HEAD was uppermost, and M'Donough immediately made choice of the\nsouthern point at which to place his friend--a position which it will\nbe easily seen had the advantage of turning his back upon the light--no\ntrifling superiority of location. The captain turned with a kind of\nlaugh, and said:\n\n'By ----, sir, you are as cunning as a dead pig; but you forgot one\nthing. My friend is a left-handed gunner, though never a bit the worse\nfor that; so you see there is no odds as far as the choice of light\ngoes.'\n\nHe then proceeded to measure nine paces in a direction running north and\nsouth, and the principals took their ground.\n\n'I must be troublesome to you once again, Mr. M'Donough. One toss more,\nand everything is complete. We must settle who is to have the FIRST\nSLAP.'\n\nA piece of money was again thrown into the air; again the captain lost\nthe toss and M'Donough proceeded to load the pistols. I happened to\nstand near Fitzgerald, and I overheard the captain, with a chuckle, say\nsomething to him in which the word 'cravat' was repeated. It instantly\noccurred to me that the captain's attention was directed to a\nbright-coloured muffler which O'Connor wore round his neck, and which\nwould afford his antagonist a distinct and favourable mark. I instantly\nurged him to remove it, and at length, with difficulty, succeeded.\nHe seemed perfectly careless as to any precaution. Everything was now\nready; the pistol was placed in O'Connor's hand, and he only awaited the\nword from the captain.\n\nM'Creagh then said:\n\n'Mr. M'Donough, is your principal ready?'\n\nM'Donough replied in the affirmative; and, after a slight pause, the\ncaptain, as had been arranged, uttered the words:\n\n'Ready--fire.'\n\nO'Connor fired, but so wide of the mark that some one in the crowd\nexclaimed:\n\n'Fired in the air.'\n\n'Who says he fired in the air?' thundered Fitzgerald. 'By ---- he lies,\nwhoever he is.' There was a silence. 'But even if he was fool enough to\nfire in the air, it is not in HIS power to put an end to the quarrel by\nTHAT. D---- my soul, if I am come here to be played with like a child,\nand by the Almighty ---- you shall hear more of this, each and everyone\nof you, before I'm satisfied.'\n\nA kind of low murmur, or rather groan, was now raised, and a slight\nmotion was observable in the crowd, as if to intercept Fitzgerald's\npassage to his horse. M'Creagh, drawing the horse close to the spot\nwhere Fitzgerald stood, threatened, with the most awful imprecations,\n'to blow the brains out of the first man who should dare to press on\nthem.'\n\nO'Connor now interfered, requesting the crowd to forbear, and some\ndegree of order was restored. He then said, 'that in firing as he\ndid, he had no intention whatever of waiving his right of firing upon\nFitzgerald, and of depriving that gentleman of his right of prosecuting\nthe affair to the utmost--that if any person present imagined that he\nintended to fire in the air, he begged to set him right; since, so far\nfrom seeking to exort an unwilling reconciliation, he was determined\nthat no power on earth should induce him to concede one inch of ground\nto Mr. Fitzgerald.'\n\nThis announcement was received with a shout by the crowd, who now\nresumed their places at either side of the plot of ground which had\nbeen measured. The principals took their places once more, and M'Creagh\nproceeded, with the nicest and most anxious care, to load the pistols;\nand this task being accomplished, Fitzgerald whispered something in the\nCaptain's ear, who instantly drew his friend's horse so as to place\nhim within a step of his rider, and then tightened the girths. This\naccomplished, Fitzgerald proceeded deliberately to remove his coat,\nwhich he threw across his horse in front of the saddle; and then,\nwith the assistance of M'Creagh, he rolled the shirt sleeve up to the\nshoulder, so as to leave the whole of his muscular arm perfectly naked.\nA cry of 'Coward, coward! butcher, butcher!' arose from the crowd.\nFitzgerald paused.\n\n'Do you object, Mr. M'Donough? and upon what grounds, if you please?'\nsaid he.\n\n'Certainly he does not,' replied O'Connor; and, turning to M'Donough, he\nadded, 'pray let there be no unnecessary delay.'\n\n'There is no objection, then,' said Fitzgerald.\n\n'_I_ object,' said the younger of the O'Gradys, 'if nobody else will.'\n\n' And who the devil are you, that DARES to object?' shouted Fitzgerald;\n'and what d--d presumption prompts you to DARE to wag your tongue here?'\n\n'I am Mr. O'Grady, of Castle Blake,' replied the young man, now much\nenraged; 'and by ----, you shall answer for your language to me.'\n\n'Shall I, by ----? Shall I?' cried he, with a laugh of brutal scorn;\n'the more the merrier, d--n the doubt of it--so now hold your tongue,\nfor I promise you you shall have business enough of your own to think\nabout, and that before long.'\n\nThere was an appalling ferocity in his tone and manner which no\nwords could convey. He seemed transformed; he was actually like a man\npossessed. Was it possible, I thought, that I beheld the courteous\ngentleman, the gay, good-humoured retailer of amusing anecdote with\nwhom, scarce two days ago, I had laughed and chatted, in the blasphemous\nand murderous ruffian who glared and stormed before me!\n\nO'Connor interposed, and requested that time should not be unnecessarily\nlost.\n\n'You have not got a second coat on?' inquired the Captain. 'I beg\npardon, but my duty to my friend requires that I should ascertain the\npoint.'\n\nO'Connor replied in the negative. The Captain expressed himself as\nsatisfied, adding, in what he meant to be a complimentary strain, 'that\nhe knew Mr. O'Connor would scorn to employ padding or any unfair mode of\nprotection.'\n\nThere was now a breathless silence. O'Connor stood perfectly motionless;\nand, excepting the death-like paleness of his features, he exhibited\nno sign of agitation. His eye was steady--his lip did not tremble--his\nattitude was calm. The Captain, having re-examined the priming of\nthe pistols, placed one of them in the hand of Fitzgerald.--M'Donough\ninquired whether the parties were prepared, and having been answered\nin the affirmative, he proceeded to give the word, 'Ready.' Fitzgerald\nraised his hand, but almost instantly lowered it again. The crowd had\npressed too much forward as it appeared, and his eye had been unsteadied\nby the flapping of the skirt of a frieze riding-coat worn by one of the\nspectators.\n\n'In the name of my principal,' said the Captain, 'I must and do insist\nupon these gentlemen moving back a little. We ask but little; fair play,\nand no favour.'\n\nThe crowd moved as requested. M'Donough repeated his former question,\nand was answered as before. There was a breathless silence. Fitzgerald\nfixed his eye upon O'Connor. The appointed signal, 'Ready, fire!' was\ngiven. There was a pause while one might slowly reckon three--Fitzgerald\nfired--and O'Connor fell helplessly upon the ground.\n\n'There is no time to be lost,' said M'Creagrh; 'for, by ----, you have\ndone for him.'\n\nSo saying, he threw himself upon his horse, and was instantly followed\nat a hard gallop by Fitzgerald.\n\n'Cold-blooded murder, if ever murder was committed,' said O'Grady. 'He\nshall hang for it; d--n me, but he shall.'\n\nA hopeless attempt was made to overtake the fugitives; but they were\nbetter mounted than any of their pursuers, and escaped with ease.\nCurses and actual yells of execration followed their course; and as,\nin crossing the brow of a neighbouring hill, they turned round in\nthe saddle to observe if they were pursued, every gesture which could\nexpress fury and defiance was exhausted by the enraged and defeated\nmultitude.\n\n'Clear the way, boys,' said young O'Grady, who with me was kneeling\nbeside O'Connor, while we supported him in our arms; 'do not press so\nclose, and be d--d; can't you let the fresh air to him; don't you see\nhe's dying?'\n\nOn opening his waistcoat we easily detected the wound: it was a little\nbelow the chest--a small blue mark, from which oozed a single heavy drop\nof blood.\n\n'He is bleeding but little--that is a comfort at all events,' said one\nof the gentlemen who surrounded the wounded man.\n\nAnother suggested the expediency of his being removed homeward with as\nlittle delay as possible, and recommended, for this purpose, that a\ndoor should be removed from its hinges, and the patient, laid upon this,\nshould be conveyed from the field. Upon this rude bier my poor friend\nwas carried from that fatal ground towards Castle Connor. I walked close\nby his side, and observed every motion of his. He seldom opened his\neyes, and was perfectly still, excepting a nervous WORKING of the\nfingers, and a slight, almost imperceptible twitching of the features,\nwhich took place, however, only at intervals. The first word he uttered\nwas spoken as we approached the entrance of the castle itself, when\nhe said; repeatedly, 'The back way, the back way.' He feared lest his\nmother should meet him abruptly and without preparation; but although\nthis fear was groundless, since she never left her room until late\nin the day, yet it was thought advisable, and, indeed, necessary, to\ncaution all the servants most strongly against breathing a hint to their\nmistress of the events which had befallen.\n\nTwo or three gentlemen had ridden from the field one after another,\npromising that they should overtake our party before it reached the\ncastle, bringing with them medical aid from one quarter or another;\nand we determined that Mrs. O'Connor should not know anything of the\noccurrence until the opinion of some professional man should have\ndetermined the extent of the injury which her son had sustained--a\ncourse of conduct which would at least have the effect of relieving her\nfrom the horrors of suspense. When O'Connor found himself in his own\nroom, and laid upon his own bed, he appeared much revived--so much so,\nthat I could not help admitting a strong hope that all might yet be\nwell.\n\n'After all, Purcell,' said he, with a melancholy smile, and speaking\nwith evident difficulty, 'I believe I have got off with a trifling\nwound. I am sure it cannot be fatal I feel so little pain--almost none.'\n\nI cautioned him against fatiguing himself by endeavouring to speak; and\nhe remained quiet for a little time. At length he said:\n\n'Purcell, I trust this lesson shall not have been given in vain. God has\nbeen very merciful to me; I feel--I have an internal confidence that I\nam not wounded mortally. Had I been fatally wounded--had I been killed\nupon the spot, only think on it'--and he closed his eyes as if the very\nthought made him dizzy--'struck down into the grave, unprepared as I\nam, in the very blossom of my sins, without a moment of repentance or of\nreflection; I must have been lost--lost for ever and ever.'\n\nI prevailed upon him, with some difficulty, to abstain from such\nagitating reflections, and at length induced him to court such repose as\nhis condition admitted of, by remaining perfectly silent, and as much as\npossible without motion.\n\nO'Connor and I only were in the room; he had lain for some time in\ntolerable quiet, when I thought I distinguished the bustle attendant\nupon the arrival of some one at the castle, and went eagerly to the\nwindow, believing, or at least hoping, that the sounds might announce\nthe approach of the medical man, whom we all longed most impatiently to\nsee.\n\nMy conjecture was right; I had the satisfaction of seeing him dismount\nand prepare to enter the castle, when my observations were interrupted,\nand my attention was attracted by a smothered, gurgling sound proceeding\nfrom the bed in which lay the wounded man. I instantly turned round, and\nin doing so the spectacle which met my eyes was sufficiently shocking.\n\nI had left O'Connor lying in the bed, supported by pillows, perfectly\ncalm, and with his eyes closed: he was now lying nearly in the same\nposition, his eyes open and almost starting from their sockets, with\nevery feature pale and distorted as death, and vomiting blood in\nquantities that were frightful. I rushed to the door and called for\nassistance; the paroxysm, though violent, was brief, and O'Connor sank\ninto a swoon so deep and death-like, that I feared he should waken no\nmore.\n\nThe surgeon, a little, fussy man, but I believe with some skill to\njustify his pretensions, now entered the room, carrying his case of\ninstruments, and followed by servants bearing basins and water and\nbandages of linen. He relieved our doubts by instantly assuring us\nthat 'the patient' was still living; and at the same time professed his\ndetermination to take advantage of the muscular relaxation which the\nfaint had induced to examine the wound--adding that a patient was more\neasily 'handled' when in a swoon than under other circumstances.\n\nAfter examining the wound in front where the ball had entered, he passed\nhis hand round beneath the shoulder, and after a little pause he shook\nhis head, observing that he feared very much that one of the vertebrae\nwas fatally injured, but that he could not say decidedly until his\npatient should revive a little. 'Though his language was very technical,\nand consequently to me nearly unintelligible, I could perceive plainly\nby his manner that he considered the case as almost hopeless.\n\nO'Connor gradually gave some signs of returning animation, and at length\nwas so far restored as to be enabled to speak. After some few general\nquestions as to how he felt affected, etc., etc., the surgeon, placing\nhis hand upon his leg and pressing it slightly, asked him if he felt any\npressure upon the limb? O'Connor answered in the negative--he pressed\nharder, and repeated the question; still the answer was the same, till\nat length, by repeated experiments, he ascertained that all that part\nof the body which lay behind the wound was paralysed, proving that the\nspine must have received some fatal injury.\n\n'Well, doctor,' said O'Connor, after the examination of the wound was\nover; 'well, I shall do, shan't I?'\n\nThe physician was silent for a moment, and then, as if with an effort,\nhe replied:\n\n'Indeed, my dear sir, it would not be honest to flatter you with much\nhope.'\n\n'Eh?' said O'Connor with more alacrity than I had seen him exhibit\nsince the morning; 'surely I did not hear you aright; I spoke of my\nrecovery--surely there is no doubt; there can be none--speak frankly,\ndoctor, for God's sake--am I dying?'\n\nThe surgeon was evidently no stoic, and his manner had extinguished in\nme every hope, even before he had uttered a word in reply.\n\n'You are--you are indeed dying. There is no hope; I should but deceive\nyou if I held out any.'\n\nAs the surgeon uttered these terrible words, the hands which O'Connor\nhad stretched towards him while awaiting his reply fell powerless by\nhis side; his head sank forward; it seemed as if horror and despair\nhad unstrung every nerve and sinew; he appeared to collapse and shrink\ntogether as a plant might under the influence of a withering spell.\n\nIt has often been my fate, since then, to visit the chambers of death\nand of suffering; I have witnessed fearful agonies of body and of\nsoul; the mysterious shudderings of the departing spirit, and the\nheart-rending desolation of the survivors; the severing of the tenderest\nties, the piteous yearnings of unavailing love--of all these things\nthe sad duties of my profession have made me a witness. But, generally\nspeaking, I have observed in such scenes some thing to mitigate, if not\nthe sorrows, at least the terrors, of death; the dying man seldom\nseems to feel the reality of his situation; a dull consciousness of\napproaching dissolution, a dim anticipation of unconsciousness and\ninsensibility, are the feelings which most nearly border upon an\nappreciation of his state; the film of death seems to have overspread\nthe mind's eye, objects lose their distinctness, and float cloudily\nbefore it, and the apathy and apparent indifference with which men\nrecognise the sure advances of immediate death, rob that awful hour\nof much of its terrors, and the death-bed of its otherwise inevitable\nagonies.\n\nThis is a merciful dispensation; but the rule has its exceptions--its\nterrible exceptions. When a man is brought in an instant, by some sudden\naccident, to the very verge of the fathomless pit of death, with all\nhis recollections awake, and his perceptions keenly and vividly alive,\nwithout previous illness to subdue the tone of the mind as to dull its\napprehensions--then, and then only, the death-bed is truly terrible.\n\nOh, what a contrast did O'Connor afford as he lay in all the abject\nhelplessness of undisguised terror upon his death-bed, to the proud\ncomposure with which he had taken the field that morning. I had always\nbefore thought of death as of a quiet sleep stealing gradually upon\nexhausted nature, made welcome by suffering, or, at least, softened by\nresignation; I had never before stood by the side of one upon whom the\nhand of death had been thus suddenly laid; I had never seen the tyrant\narrayed in his terror till then. Never before or since have I seen\nhorror so intensely depicted. It seemed actually as if O'Connor's mind\nhad been unsettled by the shock; the few words he uttered were marked\nwith all the incoherence of distraction; but it was not words that\nmarked his despair most strongly, the appalling and heart-sickening\ngroans that came from the terror-stricken and dying man must haunt me\nwhile I live; the expression, too, of hopeless, imploring agony with\nwhich he turned his eyes from object to object, I can never forget. At\nlength, appearing suddenly to recollect himself, he said, with startling\nalertness, but in a voice so altered that I scarce could recognise the\ntones:\n\n'Purcell, Purcell, go and tell my poor mother; she must know all, and\nthen, quick, quick, quick, call your uncle, bring him here; I must have\na chance.' He made a violent but fruitless effort to rise, and after\na slight pause continued, with deep and urgent solemnity: 'Doctor, how\nlong shall I live? Don't flatter me. Compliments at a death-bed are out\nof place; doctor, for God's sake, as you would not have my soul perish\nwith my body, do not mock a dying man; have I an hour to live?'\n\n'Certainly,' replied the surgeon; 'if you will but endeavour to keep\nyourself tranquil; otherwise I cannot answer for a moment.'\n\n'Well, doctor,' said the patient, 'I will obey you; now, Purcell, my\nfirst and dearest friend, will you inform my poor mother of--of what you\nsee, and return with your uncle; I know you will.'\n\nI took the dear fellow's hand and kissed it, it was the only answer\nI could give, and left the room. I asked the first female servant I\nchanced to meet, if her mistress were yet up, and was answered in the\naffirmative. Without giving myself time to hesitate, I requested her\nto lead me to her lady's room, which she accordingly did; she entered\nfirst, I supposed to announce my name, and I followed closely; the poor\nmother said something, and held out her hands to welcome me; I strove\nfor words; I could not speak, but nature found expression; I threw\nmyself at her feet and covered her hands with kisses and tears. My\nmanner was enough; with a quickness almost preternatural she understood\nit all; she simply said the words: 'O'Connor is killed;' she uttered no\nmore.\n\nHow I left the room I know not; I rode madly to my uncle's residence,\nand brought him back with me--all the rest is a blank. I remember\nstanding by O'Connor's bedside, and kissing the cold pallid forehead\nagain and again; I remember the pale serenity of the beautiful features;\nI remember that I looked upon the dead face of my friend, and I remember\nno more.\n\nFor many months I lay writhing and raving in the frenzy of brain fever;\na hundred times I stood tottering at the brink of death, and long\nafter my restoration to bodily health was assured, it appeared doubtful\nwhether I should ever be restored to reason. But God dealt very\nmercifully with me; His mighty hand rescued me from death and from\nmadness when one or other appeared inevitable. As soon as I was\npermitted pen and ink, I wrote to the bereaved mother in a tone\nbordering upon frenzy. I accused myself of having made her childless; I\ncalled myself a murderer; I believed myself accursed; I could not find\nterms strong enough to express my abhorrence of my own conduct. But,\noh! what an answer I received, so mild, so sweet, from the\ndesolate, childless mother! its words spoke all that is beautiful in\nChristianity--it was forgiveness--it was resignation. I am convinced\nthat to that letter, operating as it did upon a mind already\npredisposed, is owing my final determination to devote myself to that\nprofession in which, for more than half a century, I have been a humble\nminister.\n\nYears roll away, and we count them not as they pass, but their influence\nis not the less certain that it is silent; the deepest wounds are\ngradually healed, the keenest griefs are mitigated, and we, in\ncharacter, feelings, tastes, and pursuits, become such altered beings,\nthat but for some few indelible marks which past events must leave\nbehind them, which time may soften, but can never efface; our very\nidentity would be dubious. Who has not felt all this at one time or\nother? Who has not mournfully felt it? This trite, but natural train of\nreflection filled my mind as I approached the domain of Castle Connor\nsome ten years after the occurrence of the events above narrated.\nEverything looked the same as when I had left it; the old trees stood\nas graceful and as grand as ever; no plough had violated the soft green\nsward; no utilitarian hand had constrained the wanderings of the clear\nand sportive stream, or disturbed the lichen-covered rocks through\nwhich it gushed, or the wild coppice that over-shadowed its sequestered\nnooks--but the eye that looked upon these things was altered, and memory\nwas busy with other days, shrouding in sadness every beauty that met my\nsight.\n\nAs I approached the castle my emotions became so acutely painful that\nI had almost returned the way I came, without accomplishing the purpose\nfor which I had gone thus far; and nothing but the conviction that my\nhaving been in the neighbourhood of Castle Connor without visiting its\ndesolate mistress would render me justly liable to the severest censure,\ncould overcome my reluctance to encountering the heavy task which was\nbefore me. I recognised the old servant who opened the door, but he did\nnot know me. I was completely changed; suffering of body and mind had\naltered me in feature and in bearing, as much as in character. I asked\nthe man whether his mistress ever saw visitors. He answered:\n\n'But seldom; perhaps, however, if she knew that an old friend wished to\nsee her for a few minutes, she would gratify him so far.'\n\nAt the same time I placed my card in his hand, and requested him to\ndeliver it to his mistress. He returned in a few moments, saying that\nhis lady would be happy to see me in the parlour, and I accordingly\nfollowed him to the door, which he opened. I entered the room, and was\nin a moment at the side of my early friend and benefactress. I was too\nmuch agitated to speak; I could only hold the hands which she gave me,\nwhile, spite of every effort, the tears flowed fast and bitterly.\n\n'It was kind, very, very kind of you to come to see me,' she said,\nwith far more composure than I could have commanded; 'I see it is very\npainful to you.'\n\nI endeavoured to compose myself, and for a little time we remained\nsilent; she was the first to speak:\n\n'You will be surprised, Mr. Purcell, when you observe the calmness with\nwhich I can speak of him who was dearest to me, who is gone; but my\nthoughts are always with him, and the recollections of his love'--her\nvoice faltered a little--'and the hope of meeting him hereafter enables\nme to bear existence.'\n\nI said I know not what; something about resignation, I believe.\n\n'I hope I am resigned; God made me more: so,' she said. 'Oh, Mr.\nPurcell, I have often thought I loved my lost child TOO well. It was\nnatural--he was my only child--he was----' She could not proceed for a\nfew moments: 'It was very natural that I should love him as I did; but\nit may have been sinful; I have often thought so. I doated upon him--I\nidolised him--I thought too little of other holier affections; and God\nmay have taken him from me, only to teach me, by this severe lesson,\nthat I owed to heaven a larger share of my heart than to anything\nearthly. I cannot think of him now without more solemn feelings than if\nhe were with me. There is something holy in our thoughts of the dead; I\nfeel it so.' After a pause, she continued--'Mr. Purcell, do you remember\nhis features well? they were very beautiful.' I assured her that I did.\n'Then you can tell me if you think this a faithful likeness.' She took\nfrom a drawer a case in which lay a miniature. I took it reverently from\nher hands; it was indeed very like--touchingly like. I told her so; and\nshe seemed gratified.\n\nAs the evening was wearing fast, and I had far to go, I hastened to\nterminate my visit, as I had intended, by placing in her hand a letter\nfrom her son to me, written during his sojourn upon the Continent. I\nrequested her to keep it; it was one in which he spoke much of her, and\nin terms of the tenderest affection. As she read its contents the heavy\ntears gathered in her eyes, and fell, one by one, upon the page; she\nwiped them away, but they still flowed fast and silently. It was in\nvain that she tried to read it; her eyes were filled with tears: so she\nfolded the letter, and placed it in her bosom. I rose to depart, and she\nalso rose.\n\n'I will not ask you to delay your departure,' said she; 'your visit here\nmust have been a painful one to you. I cannot find words to thank you\nfor the letter as I would wish, or for all your kindness. It has given\nme a pleasure greater than I thought could have fallen to the lot of a\ncreature so very desolate as I am; may God bless you for it!' And thus\nwe parted; I never saw Castle Connor or its solitary inmate more.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DRUNKARD'S DREAM.\n\nBeing 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\n     Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams\n     Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand\n     To expound their vain and visionary gleams,\n     I've known some odd ones which seemed really planned\n     Prophetically, as that which one deems\n     \"A strange coincidence,\" to use a phrase\n     By which such things are settled nowadays.'\n                                            BYRON.\n\n\nDreams! What age, or what country of the world, has not and acknowledged\nthe mystery of their origin and end? I have thought not a little upon\nthe subject, seeing it is one which has been often forced upon my\nattention, and sometimes strangely enough; and yet I have never arrived\nat anything which at all appeared a satisfactory conclusion. It does\nappear 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\nby a mere chimera of the slumbering fancy, something more than could\narise from the capricious images of a terrified imagination; but once\npresented, we behold in all these things, and in their 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, recognise, even in\nthe wildest and most incongruous of the wanderings of a slumbering\nintellect, the evidences and the fragments of a language which may be\nspoken, which HAS been spoken, to terrify, to warn, and to command. We\nhave reason to believe too, by the promptness of action which in the\nage of the prophets followed all intimations of this kind, and by the\nstrength of conviction and strange permanence of the effects resulting\nfrom certain dreams in latter times, which effects we ourselves may have\nwitnessed, that when this medium of communication has been employed\nby the Deity, the evidences of His presence have been unequivocal. My\nthoughts were directed to this subject, in a manner to leave a lasting\nimpression upon my mind, by the events which I shall now relate, the\nstatement of which, however extraordinary, is nevertheless ACCURATELY\nCORRECT.\n\nAbout the year 17--, 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\nsick call. 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:\n\n'If you will not tell me the name of the person to whom you would lead\nme, your silence can arise from no good motive, and I might be justified\nin refusing to go with you at all.'\n\n'Oh, don't say that--don't say that!' cried she. 'Oh, sir, it was that\nI was afeard of when I would not tell you--I was afeard, when you\nheard his name, you would not come with me; but it is no use hidin' it\nnow--it's Pat Connell, 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\nat once. 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 or my reluctance to re-attempting what appeared a hopeless task\nto weigh even against the lightest chance that a consciousness of\nhis imminent 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\ntoo probably 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,\nwho with quick steps traversed the uneven pavement of the main street.\nAfter a walk of about five minutes she turned off into a narrow lane,\nof that obscure and comfortless class which is to be found in almost all\nsmall oldfashioned towns, chill, without ventilation, reeking with all\nmanner of offensive effluviae, and lined by dingy, smoky, sickly and\npent-up buildings, frequently not only in a wretched but in a dangerous\ncondition.\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\nand language of this child were alike above her years and station;\nand, indeed, in all cases in which the cares and sorrows of life have\nanticipated their usual date, and have fallen, as they sometimes do,\nwith melancholy 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\nthe manners, even to the voice, of the child. We paused before a narrow,\ncrazy door, which she opened by means of a latch, and we forthwith began\nto ascend the steep and broken stairs which led upwards to the sick\nman's room.\n\nAs we mounted flight after flight towards the garret-floor, I heard more\nand 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 honour,' 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\nthe fingers of a scared and haggard-looking child, was burning in the\nroom, and that so dim that all was twilight or darkness except within\nits immediate influence. The general obscurity, however, served to throw\ninto prominent and startling relief the death-bed and its occupant. The\nlight was nearly approximated to, and fell with horrible clearness\nupon, the blue and swollen features of the drunkard. I did not think it\npossible that a human countenance could look so terrific. The lips were\nblack and drawn apart; the teeth were firmly set; the eyes a little\nunclosed, and nothing but the whites appearing. Every feature was fixed\nand livid, and the whole face wore a ghastly and rigid expression of\ndespairing terror such as I never saw equalled. His hands were crossed\nupon his breast, and firmly clenched; while, as if to add to the\ncorpse-like effect of the whole, some white cloths, dipped in water,\nwere wound about the forehead and temples.\n\nAs soon as I could remove my eyes from this horrible spectacle, I\nobserved my friend Dr. D----, one of the most humane of a humane\nprofession, 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 moment\nfor reflection; dead I without the rites which even the best should\nhave. Is there a hope for him? The glaring eyeball, the grinning mouth,\nthe distorted brow--that unutterable look in which a painter would have\nsought to embody the fixed despair of the nethermost hell. These were my\nanswer.\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.\n\nWhen the first tumult of uncontrollable sorrow had passed away, availing\nmyself of the 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.\n\nI looked upon the poor, sobbing, helpless creatures who knelt so humbly\naround me, and my heart bled for them. With a natural transition I\nturned my eyes from them to the bed in which the body lay; and, great\nGod! what was the revulsion, the horror which I experienced on seeing\nthe corpse-like terrific thing seated half upright before me; the white\ncloths which had been wound about the head had now partly slipped from\ntheir position, and were hanging in grotesque festoons about the face\nand shoulders, while the distorted eyes leered from amid them--\n\n          'A sight to dream of, not to tell.'\n\nI stood actually riveted 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\nthat the body of a presumptuous sinner, who, during life, had been the\nwilling creature of every satanic impulse, after the human tenant had\ndeserted it, had been known to become the horrible sport of demoniac\npossession.\n\nI was roused from the stupefaction of terror in which I stood, by the\npiercing scream of the mother, who now, for the first time, perceived\nthe change which had taken place. She rushed towards the bed, but\nstunned by the shock, and overcome by the conflict of violent emotions,\nbefore she reached it she fell prostrate upon the floor.\n\nI am perfectly convinced that had I not been startled from the torpidity\nof horror in which I was bound by some powerful and arousing stimulant,\nI should have gazed upon this unearthly apparition until I had fairly\nlost my senses. As it was, however, the spell was broken--superstition\ngave way to reason: the man whom all believed to have been actually dead\nwas living!\n\nDr. D---- was instantly standing by the bedside, and upon examination he\nfound that a sudden and copious flow of blood had taken place from the\nwound which the lancet had left; and this, no doubt, had effected his\nsudden and almost preternatural restoration to an existence from which\nall thought he had been for ever removed. The man was still speechless,\nbut he seemed to understand the physician when he forbid his repeating\nthe painful and fruitless attempts which he made to articulate, and he\nat once resigned himself quietly into his hands.\n\nI left the patient with leeches upon his temples, and bleeding freely,\napparently with little of the drowsiness which accompanies apoplexy;\nindeed, Dr. D---- told me that he had never before witnessed a seizure\nwhich seemed to combine the symptoms of so many kinds, and yet which\nbelonged to none of the recognised classes; it certainly was not\napoplexy, catalepsy, nor delirium tremens, and yet it seemed, in\nsome degree, to partake of the properties of all. It was strange, but\nstranger things 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 anyone;\nhe suffered 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\nextreme importunity and impatience to meet me were likely to retard\nhis recovery more than the mere exhaustion attendant upon a short\nconversation could possibly do; perhaps, too, my friend entertained some\nhope that if by holy confession his patient's bosom were eased of the\nperilous stuff which no doubt oppressed it, his recovery would be more\nassured and rapid. It was then, as I have said, upon the fourth day\nafter my first professional call, that I found myself once more in the\ndreary chamber of want and sickness.\n\nThe man was in bed, and appeared low and restless. On my entering the\nroom he raised himself in the bed, and muttered, twice or thrice:\n\n'Thank God! thank God!'\n\nI signed to those of his family who stood by to leave the room, and\ntook a chair beside the bed. So soon as we were alone, he said, rather\ndoggedly:\n\n'There's no use in telling me of the sinfulness of bad ways--I know it\nall. I know where they lead to--I seen everything about it with my own\neyesight, as plain as I see you.' He rolled himself in the bed, as if\nto hide his face in the clothes; and then suddenly raising himself,\nhe exclaimed with startling vehemence: 'Look, sir! there is no use in\nmincing the matter: I'm blasted with the fires of hell; I have been in\nhell. What do you think of that? In hell--I'm lost for ever--I have not\na chance. I am damned already--damned--damned!'\n\nThe end of this sentence he actually shouted. His vehemence was\nperfectly terrific; he threw himself back, and laughed, and sobbed\nhysterically. I poured some water into a tea-cup, and gave it to him.\nAfter he had swallowed it, I told him if he had anything to communicate,\nto do so as briefly as he could, and in a manner as little agitating\nto himself as possible; threatening at the same time, though I had no\nintention of doing so, to leave him at once, in case he again gave way\nto such passionate excitement.\n\n'It's only foolishness,' he continued, 'for me to try to thank you for\ncoming to such a villain as myself at all. It's no use for me to wish\ngood to you, or to bless you; for such as me has no blessings to give.'\n\nI told him that I had but done my duty, and urged him to proceed to the\nmatter which weighed upon his mind. He then spoke nearly as follows:\n\n'I came in drunk on Friday night last, and got to my bed here; I don't\nremember how. Sometime in the night it seemed to me I wakened, and\nfeeling unasy in myself, I got up out of the bed. I wanted the fresh\nair; but I would not make a noise to open the window, for fear I'd waken\nthe crathurs. It was very dark and throublesome to find the door; but\nat last I did get it, and I groped my way out, and went down as asy as I\ncould. I felt quite sober, and I counted the steps one after another, as\nI was going down, that I might not stumble at the bottom.\n\n'When I came to the first landing-place--God be about us always!--the\nfloor of it sunk under me, and I went down--down--down, till the senses\nalmost left me. I do not know how long I was falling, but it seemed to\nme a great while. When I came rightly to myself at last, I was sitting\nnear the top of a great table; and I could not see the end of it, if it\nhad any, it was so far off. And there was men beyond reckoning, sitting\ndown all along by it, at each side, as far as I could see at all. I\ndid not know at first was it in the open air; but there was a close\nsmothering feel in it that was not natural. And there was a kind of\nlight that my eyesight never saw before, red and unsteady; and I did not\nsee for a long time where it was coming from, until I looked straight\nup, and then I seen that it came from great balls of blood-coloured\nfire that were rolling high over head with a sort of rushing, trembling\nsound, and I perceived that they shone on the ribs of a great roof of\nrock that was arched overhead instead of the sky. When I seen this,\nscarce knowing what I did, I got up, and I said, \"I have no right to\nbe here; I must go.\" And the man that was sitting at my left hand only\nsmiled, and said, \"Sit down again; you can NEVER leave this place.\" And\nhis voice was weaker than any child's voice I ever heerd; and when he\nwas done speaking he smiled again.\n\n'Then I spoke out very loud and bold, and I said, \"In the name of God,\nlet me out of this bad place.\" And there was a great man that I did not\nsee before, sitting at the end of the table that I was near; and he was\ntaller than twelve men, and his face was very proud and terrible to look\nat. And he stood up and stretched out his hand before him; and when he\nstood up, all that was there, great and small, bowed down with a sighing\nsound, and a dread came on my heart, and he looked at me, and I could\nnot speak. I felt I was his own, to do what he liked with, for I knew at\nonce who he was; and he said, \"If you promise to return, you may depart\nfor a season;\" and the voice he spoke with was terrible and mournful,\nand the echoes of it went rolling and swelling down the endless cave,\nand mixing with the trembling of the fire overhead; so that when he\nsat down there was a sound after him, all through the place, like\nthe roaring of a furnace, and I said, with all the strength I had, \"I\npromise to come back--in God's name let me go!\"\n\n'And with that I lost the sight and the hearing of all that was there,\nand when my senses came to me again, I was sitting in the bed with the\nblood all over me, and you and the rest praying around the room.'\n\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\nbefore Vathek and the 'Hall of Eblis' 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\nwith which 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\nthere any hope; is there any chance at all? or, is my soul pledged and\npromised away for ever? is it gone out of my power? must I go back to\nthe place?'\n\nIn answering him, I had no easy task to perform; for however clear\nmight be my internal conviction of the groundlessness of his tears,\nand however strong my scepticism respecting the reality of what he had\ndescribed, I nevertheless felt that his impression to the contrary, and\nhis humility and terror resulting from it, might be made available as\nno mean engines in the work of his conversion from prodigacy, and of his\nrestoration to decent habits, and to religious feeling.\n\nI therefore told him that he was to regard his dream rather in the light\nof a warning than in that of a prophecy; that our salvation depended not\nupon the word or deed of a moment, but upon the habits of a life; that,\nin fine, if he at once discarded his idle companions and evil habits,\nand firmly adhered to a sober, industrious, and religious course of\nlife, the powers of darkness might claim his soul in vain, for that\nthere were higher and firmer pledges than human tongue could utter,\nwhich promised salvation to him who 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.\n\nOne day, sometime after his perfect restoration to health, I was\nsurprised 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 honour, 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 perused 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.\nEverything seemed to promise comfort and respectability. I have little\nmore to add, and that shall be told quickly. I had one evening met Pat\nConnell, as he returned from his work, and as usual, after a mutual, and\non his side respectful salutation, I spoke a few words of encouragement\nand approval. I left him industrious, active, healthy--when next I saw\nhim, not three days after, he was a corpse.\n\nThe circumstances which marked the event of his death were somewhat\nstrange--I might say fearful. The unfortunate man had accidentally met\nan early friend just returned, after a long absence, and in a moment of\nexcitement, forgetting everything in the warmth of his joy, he yielded\nto his urgent invitation to accompany him into a public-house, which lay\nclose by the spot where the encounter had taken place. Connell, however,\npreviously to entering the room, had announced his determination to take\nnothing more than the strictest temperance would warrant.\n\nBut oh! who can describe the inveterate tenacity with which a drunkard's\nhabits cling to him through life? He may repent--he may reform--he may\nlook with actual abhorrence upon his past profligacy; but amid all this\nreformation and compunction, who can tell the moment in which the\nbase and ruinous propensity may not recur, triumphing over resolution,\nremorse, shame, everything, and prostrating its victim once more in all\nthat is destructive and revolting in 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 occurrence\nof what she had so little expected, to settle to rest; fatigue, however,\nat length overcame her, and she sank gradually into an uneasy slumber.\nShe could not tell how long she had remained in this state, when she\nawakened, and immediately on opening her eyes, she perceived by the\nfaint red light of the smouldering turf embers, two persons, one of whom\nshe recognised 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\nby a loud and heavy crash, as if some ponderous body had been hurled\ndown the stair. Much alarmed, she started up, and going to the head of\nthe staircase, she called repeatedly upon her husband, but in vain. She\nreturned to the room, and with the assistance of her daughter, whom I\nhad occasion to mention before, she succeeded in finding and lighting a\ncandle, with which she hurried again to the head of the staircase.\n\nAt the bottom lay what seemed to be a bundle of clothes, heaped\ntogether, motionless, lifeless--it was her husband. In going down the\nstair, for what purpose can never now be known, he had fallen helplessly\nand violently to the bottom, and coming head foremost, the spine at\nthe neck had been dislocated by the shock, and instant death must have\nensued. The body lay upon that landing-place to which his dream had\nreferred. It is scarcely worth endeavouring to clear up a single point\nin a narrative where all is mystery; yet I could not help suspecting\nthat the second figure which had been seen in the room by Connell's wife\non the night of his death, might have been no other than his own shadow.\nI suggested this solution of the difficulty; but she told me that the\nunknown person had been considerably in advance of the other, and on\nreaching the door, had turned back as if to communicate something to his\ncompanion. It was then a mystery.\n\nWas the dream verified?--whither had the disembodied spirit sped?--who\ncan say? We know not. But I left the house of death that day in a state\nof horror which I could not describe. It seemed to me that I was scarce\nawake. I heard and saw everything as if under the spell of a night-mare.\nThe coincidence was terrible.","title":"The Purcell Papers \u2014 Volume 1","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":36422}