LI B HARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UN IVERSITY 
 
 OF 1LLI NOIS 
 
 L5tSc
 
 Return this book on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 University of Illinois Library 
 
 
 
 
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 MG 1 9 mo 
 
 MAY 2 2 997 
 WH2 2«flB
 
 n a 1 {Jlafs liar 
 
 J. SHERIDAN LE FANU, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "UNCLE SILA S," & C. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 R. BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 
 1872. 
 
 The right of translation is reserved.
 
 >U 
 
 TO 
 
 BRINSLEY HOMAN, ESQ. 
 
 THESE VOLUMES ARE INSCRIBED, 
 
 WITH MUCH AFFECTION, 
 
 BY HIS OLD FRIEND 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 In a (Jlajx Harhlg. 
 
 GREEN TEA.
 
 
 rnmrn 
 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 MARTIN HESSELIUS, THE GERMAN 
 PHYSICIAN. 
 
 THOUGH carefully educated in medi- 
 cine and surgery, I have never practised 
 either. The study of each continues, never- 
 theless, to interest me profoundly. Neither 
 idleness nor caprice caused my secession 
 from the honourable calling which I had 
 just entered. The cause was a very trifling 
 scratch inflicted by a dissecting knife. This 
 trifle cost me the loss of two fingers, ampu- 
 tated promptly, and the more painful loss 
 of my health, for I have never been quite
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 well since, and have seldom been twelve 
 months together in the same place. 
 
 In my wanderings I became acquainted 
 with Dr. Martin Hesselius, a wanderer like 
 myself, like me a physician, and like me an 
 enthusiast in his profession. Unlike me 
 in this, that his wanderings were voluntary, 
 and he a man, if not of fortune, as we esti- 
 mate fortune in England, at least in what 
 our forefathers used to term " easy circum- 
 stances." He was an old man when I first 
 saw him ; nearly five-and-thirty years my 
 senior. 
 
 In Dr. Martin Hesselius, I found my 
 master. His knowledge was immense, his 
 grasp of a case was an intuition. He was 
 the very man to inspire a young enthusiast, 
 like me, with awe and delight. My admi- 
 ration has stood the test of time and sur- 
 vived the separation of death. I am sure 
 it was well-founded.
 
 GREEN TEA. 
 
 For nearly twenty years I acted as his 
 medical secretary. His immense collec- 
 tion of papers he has left in my care, to be 
 arranged, indexed and bound. His treat- 
 ment of some of these cases is curious. He 
 writes in two distinct characters. He des- 
 cribes what he saw and heard as an in- 
 telligent layman might, and when in this 
 style of narrative he had seen the patient 
 either through his own hall-door, to the 
 light of day, or through the gates of dark- 
 ness to the caverns of the dead, he returns 
 upon the narrative, and in the terms of his 
 art, and with all the force and originality of 
 genius, proceeds to the work of analysis, 
 diagnosis and illustration. 
 
 Here and there a case strikes me as of a 
 kind to amuse or horrify a lay reader 
 with an interest quite different from the 
 peculiar one which it may possess for an 
 expert. With slight modifications, chiefly
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 of language, and of course a change of 
 names, I copy the following. The nar- 
 rator is Dr. Martin Hesselius. I find it 
 among the voluminous notes of cases which 
 he made during a tour in England about 
 sixty -four years ago. 
 
 It is related in a series of letters to his 
 friend Professor Van Loo of Ley den. The 
 professor was not a physician, but a 
 chemist, and a man who read history and 
 metaphysics and medicine, and had, in his 
 day, written a play. 
 
 The narrative is therefore, if somewhat 
 less valuable as a medical record, neces- 
 sarily written in a manner more likely to 
 interest an unlearned reader. 
 
 These letters, from a memorandum at- 
 tached, appear to have been returned on 
 the death of the professor, in 1 8 1 9, to Dr. 
 Hesselius. They are written, some in 
 English, some in French, but the greater
 
 GREEN TEA. 
 
 part in German. I am a faithful, though 
 I am conscious, by no means a graceful 
 translator, and although here and there, I 
 omit some passages, and shorten others and 
 disguise names, I have interpolated nothing.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 DR. HESSELIUS RELATES HOW HE MET 
 THE REV. MR. JENNINGS. 
 
 THE Rev. Mr. Jennings is tall and 
 thin. He is middle-aged, and dresses 
 with a natty, old-fashioned, high-church pre- 
 cision. He is naturally a little stately, but 
 ,not at all stiff. His features, without being 
 handsome, are well formed, and their ex- 
 pression extremely kind, but also shy. 
 
 I met him one evening at Lady Mary Hey- 
 duke's. The modesty and benevolence of his 
 countenance are extremely prepossessing. 
 
 We were but a small party, and he
 
 GREEN TEA. 
 
 joined agreeably enough in the conversa- 
 tion. He seems to enjoy listening very 
 much more than contributing to the talk ; 
 but what he says is always to the purpose 
 and well said. He is a great favourite of 
 Lady Mary's, who it seems, consults him 
 upon many things, and thinks him the 
 most happy and blessed person on earth. 
 Little knows she about him. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Jennings is a bachelor, 
 and has, they say, sixty thousand pounds 
 in the funds. He is a charitable man. 
 He is most anxious to be actively employed 
 in his sacred profession, and yet though 
 always tolerably well elsewhere, when he 
 goes down to his vicarage in Warwickshire, 
 to engage in the actual duties of his sacred 
 calling his health soon fails him, and in a 
 very strange way. So says Lady Mary. 
 
 There is no doubt that Mr. Jennings' 
 health does break down in, generally a
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 sudden and mysterious way, sometimes in 
 the very act of officiating in his old and 
 pretty church at Kenlis. It may be his 
 heart, it may be his brain. But so it 
 has happened three or four times, or 
 oftener, that after proceeding a certain 
 way in the service, he has on a sudden 
 stopped short, and after a silence, ap- 
 parently quite unable to resume, he has 
 fallen into solitary, inaudible prayer, his 
 hands and eyes uplifted, and then pale as* 
 death, ar^i in the agitation of a strange 
 shame and horror, descended trembling, and 
 got into the vestry-room, leaving his con- 
 gregation, without explanation, to them- 
 selves. This occurred when his curate was 
 absent. When he goes down to Kenlis, 
 now, he always takes care to provide a 
 clergyman to share his duty, and to supply 
 his place on the instant should he become 
 thus suddenly incapacitated.
 
 GREEN TEA. 
 
 When Mr. Jennings breaks down quite, 
 and beats a retreat from the vicarage, and 
 returns to London, where, in a dark street 
 off Piccadilly, he inhabits a very narrow 
 house, Lady Mary says that he is always 
 perfectly well. I have my own opinion 
 about, that. There are degrees of course. 
 We shall see. 
 
 Mr. Jennings is a perfectly gentleman- 
 like man. People, however, remark some- 
 thing odd. There is an impression a little 
 ambiguous. One thing which certainly con- 
 tributes to it, people I think don't remem- 
 ber ; or, perhaps, distinctly remark. But I 
 did, almost immediately. Mr. Jennings has a 
 way of looking sidelong upon the carpet, 
 as if his eye followed the movements of 
 something there. This, of course, is not 
 always. It occurs only now and then. But 
 often enough to give a certain oddity, as I 
 have said to his manner, and in this glance
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 travelling along the floor there is some- 
 thing both shy and anxious. 
 
 A medical philosopher, as you are good 
 enough to call me, elaborating theories by 
 the aid of cases sought out by himself, and 
 by him watched and scrutinised with more 
 time at command, and consequently in- 
 finitely more minuteness than the ordinary 
 practitioner can afford, falls insensibly into 
 habits of observation, which accompany 
 him everywhere, and are exercised, as some 
 people would say, impertinently, upon every 
 subject that presents itself with the least 
 likelihood of rewarding inquiry. 
 
 There was a promise of this kind in the 
 slight, timid, kindly, but reserved gentle- 
 man, whom 'I met for the first time at this 
 agreeable little evening gathering. I ob- 
 served, of course, more than I here set 
 down ; but I reserve all that borders on 
 the technical for a strictly scientific paper.
 
 GREEN TEA. 13 
 
 I may remark, that when I here speak 
 of medical science, I do so, as I hope some 
 day to see it more generally understood, 
 in a much more comprehensive sense than 
 its generally material treatment would warrant. 
 I believe the entire natural world is but the 
 ultimate expression of that spiritual world 
 from which, and in which alone, it has 
 its life. I believe that the essential man 
 is a spirit, that the spirit is an organised 
 substance, but as different in point of 
 material from what we ordinarily understand 
 by matter, as light or electricity is ; that the 
 material body is, in the most literal sense, 
 a vesture, and death consequently no inter- 
 ruption of the living man's existence, but 
 simply his extrication from the natural body 
 — a process which commences at the moment 
 of what we term death, and the completion 
 of which, at furthest a few days later, is 
 the resurrection " in power."
 
 i 4 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 The person who weighs the consequences 
 of these positions will probably see their 
 practical bearing upon medical science. This 
 is, however, by no means the proper place 
 for displaying the proofs and discussing the 
 consequences of this too generally unrecog- 
 nised state of facts. 
 
 In pursuance of my habit, I was covertly 
 observing Mr. Jennings, with all my cau- 
 tion — I think he perceived it — and I saw 
 plainly that he was as cautiously observing 
 me. Lady Mary happening to address 
 me by my name, as Dr. Hesselius, I saw 
 that he glanced at me more sharply, and 
 then became thoughtful for a few mi- 
 nutes. 
 
 After this, as I conversed with a gentle- 
 man at the other end of the room, I saw 
 him look at me more steadily, and with an 
 interest which I thought I understood. I 
 then saw him take an opportunity of chat-
 
 GREEN TEA. 
 
 ting with Lady Mary, and was, as one 
 always is, perfectly aware of being the 
 subject of a distant inquiry and answer. 
 
 This tall clergyman approached me by- 
 and-by: and in a little time we had got 
 into conversation. When two people, who 
 like reading, and know books and places, 
 having travelled, wish to converse, it is very 
 strange if they can't find topics. It was not 
 accident that brought him near me, and led 
 him into conversation. He knew German, 
 and had read my Essays on Metaphysical 
 Medicine which suggest more than they 
 actually say. 
 
 This courteous man, gentle, shy, plainly 
 a man of thought and reading, who moving 
 and talking among us, was not altogether 
 of us, and whom I already suspected of 
 leading a life whose transactions and alarms 
 were carefully concealed, with an impene- 
 trable reserve from, not only the world,
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 but his best beloved friends — was cautiously 
 weighing in his own mind the idea of taking 
 a certain step with regard to me. 
 
 I penetrated his thoughts without his 
 being aware of it, and was careful to say 
 nothing which could betray to his sensitive 
 vigilance my suspicions respecting his po- 
 sition, or my surmises about his plans 
 respecting myself. 
 
 We chatted upon indifferent subjects for a 
 time ; but at last he said : 
 
 " I was very much interested by some 
 papers of yours, Dr. Hesselius, upon what 
 you term Metaphysical Medicine — I read 
 them in German, ten or twelve years ago — 
 have they been translated ?" 
 
 " No, I'm sure they have not — I should 
 have heard. They would have asked my 
 leave, I think." 
 
 "I asked the publishers here, a few 
 months ago, to get the book for me in the
 
 GREEN TEA. 17 
 
 original German ; but they tell me it is out 
 of print." 
 
 " So it is, and has been for some years ; 
 but it flatters me as an author to find that 
 you have not forgotten my little book, 
 although," I added, laughing, " ten or 
 twelve years is a considerable time to have 
 managed without it ; but I suppose you 
 have been turning the subject over again in 
 your mind, or something has happened lately 
 to revive your interest in it." 
 
 At this remark, accompanied by a glance 
 of inquiry, a sudden embarrassment disturbed 
 Mr. Jennings, analogous to that which makes 
 a young lady blush and look foolish. He 
 dropped his eyes, and folded his hands to- 
 gether uneasily, and looked oddly, and you 
 would have said, guiltily for a moment. 
 
 I helped him out of his awkwardness in 
 the best way, by appearing not to observe 
 it, and going straight on, I said: "Those
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 revivals of interest in a subject happen to me 
 often ; one book suggests another, and often 
 sends me back a wild-goose chase over an 
 interval of twenty years. But if you still 
 care to possess a copy, I shall be only too 
 happy to provide you ; I have still got two 
 or three by me — and if you allow me to pre- 
 sent one I shall be very much honoured.'* 
 
 "You are very good indeed," he said, 
 quite at his ease again, in a moment : " I 
 almost despaired — I don't know how to 
 thank you." 
 
 "Pray don't say a word; the thing is 
 really so little worth that I am only ashamed 
 of having offered it, and if you thank me 
 any more I shall throw it into the fire in a 
 fit of modesty." 
 
 Mr. Jennings laughed. He inquired 
 where I was staying in London, and after 
 a little more conversation on a variety of 
 subjects, he took his departure.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DOCTOR QUESTIONS LADY MARY, 
 AND SHE ANSWERS. 
 
 LIKE your vicar so much, Lady 
 
 -L Mary," said I, so soon as he was 
 
 gone. " He has read, travelled, and thought, 
 
 and having also suffered, he ought to be 
 
 an accomplished companion." 
 
 " So he is, and, better still, he is a really 
 good man," said she. " His advice is in- 
 valuable about my schools, and all my little 
 undertakings at Dawlbridge, and he's so pains- 
 taking, he takes so much trouble — you have 
 no idea — wherever he thinks he can be of 
 
 C 2
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 use: he's so good-natured and so sensible." 
 
 " It is pleasant to hear so good an ac- 
 count of his neighbourly virtues. I can 
 only testify to his being an agreeable and 
 gentle companion, and in addition to 
 what you have told me, I think I can tell 
 you two or three things about him," said I. 
 
 " Really !" 
 
 " Yes, to begin with, he's unmarried." 
 
 "Yes, that's right, — goon." 
 
 "He has been writing, that is he was, 
 but for two or three years perhaps, he has 
 not gone on with his work, and the book 
 was upon some rather abstract subject — per- 
 haps theology." 
 
 " Well, he was writing a book, as you 
 say ; I'm not quite sure what it was about, 
 but only that it was nothing that I cared 
 for, very likely you are right, and he certainly 
 did stop — yes." 
 
 " And although he only drank a little
 
 GREEN TEA. 
 
 coffee here to-night, he likes tea, at least, 
 did like it, extravagantly." 
 
 " Yes, that's quite true." 
 
 " He drank green tea, a good deal, didn't 
 he?" I pursued. 
 
 " Well, that's very odd ! Green tea was a 
 subject on which we used almost to quarrel." 
 
 " But he has quite given that up," said I. 
 
 "So he has." 
 
 "And, now, one more fact. His mother 
 or his father, did you know them ?" 
 
 "Yes, both ; his father is only ten years 
 dead, and their place is near Dawlbridge. 
 We knew them very well," she answered. 
 
 " Well, either his mother or his father — 
 I should rather think his father, saw a 
 ghost," said I. 
 
 " Well, you really are a conjurer, Dr. 
 Hesselius." 
 
 "Conjurer or no, haven't I said right?" 
 I answered merrilv.
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 "You certainly have, and it was his 
 father: he was a silent, whimsical man, 
 and he used to bore my father about his 
 dreams, and at last he told him a story 
 about a ghost he had seen and talked 
 with, and a very odd story it was. I re- 
 member it particularly, because I was so 
 afraid of him. This story was long before 
 he died — when I was quite a child — and his 
 ways were so silent and moping, and he 
 used to drop in, sometimes, in the dusk, 
 when I was alone in the drawing-room, and I 
 used to fancy there were ghosts about him." 
 
 I smiled and nodded. 
 
 "And now having established my cha- 
 racter as a conjurer I think I must say 
 good-night," said I. 
 
 " But how did you find it out?" 
 
 "By the planets of course, as the gipsies do," 
 I answered, and so, gaily, we said good-night. 
 
 Next morning I sent the little book he had
 
 GREEN TEA. 23 
 
 been inquiring after, and a note to Mr. Jen- 
 nings, and on returning late that evening, I 
 found that he had called, at my lodgings, and 
 left his card. He asked whether I was at 
 home, and asked at what hour he would be 
 most likley to find me. 
 
 Does he intend opening his case, and 
 consulting me " professionally," as they say ? 
 I hope so. I have already conceived a 
 theory about him. It is supported by Lady 
 Mary's answers to my parting questions. 
 I should like much to ascertain from his own 
 lips. But what can I do consistently with 
 good breeding to invite, a confession ? No- 
 thing. I rather think he meditates one. At 
 all events, my dear Van L., I shan't make 
 myself difficult of access ; I mean to return 
 his visit to-morrow. It will be only civil in 
 return for his politeness, to ask to see 
 him. Perhaps something may come of it. 
 Whether much, little, or nothing, my dear 
 Van L., you shall hear.
 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DR. HESSELIUS PICKS UP SOMETHING IN 
 LATIN BOOKS. 
 
 WELL, I have called at Blank- 
 street. 
 On inquiring at the door, the servant told 
 me that Mr. Jennings was engaged very 
 particularly with a gentleman, a clergyman 
 from Kenlis, his parish in the country. In- 
 tending to reserve my privilege and to call 
 again, I merely intimated that I should try 
 another time, and had turned to go, when 
 the servant begged my pardon, and asked 
 me, looking at me a little more attentively
 
 GREEN TEA. 25 
 
 than well-bred persons of his order usually 
 do, whether I was Dr. Hesselius ; and, on learn- 
 ing that I was, he said, " Perhaps then, sir, 
 you would allow me to mention it to Mr. 
 Jennings, for I am sure he wishes to see 
 you." 
 
 The servant returned in a moment, with 
 a message from Mr. Jennings, asking me to 
 go into his study, which was in effect his 
 back drawing-room, promising to be with 
 me in a very few minutes. 
 
 This was really a study — almost a library. 
 The room was lofty, with two tall slender 
 windows, and rich dark curtains. It was 
 much larger than I had expected, and stored 
 with books on every side, from the floor to 
 the ceiling. The upper carpet— for to my 
 tread it felt that there were two or three — 
 was a Turkey carpet. My steps fell noise- 
 lessly. The book-cases standing out, placed 
 the windows, particularly narrow ones, in deep
 
 26 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 recesses. The effect of the room was, 
 although extremely comfortable, and even 
 luxurious, decidedly gloomy, and aided by 
 the silence, almost oppressive. Perhaps, 
 however, I ought to have allowed something 
 for association. My mind had connected 
 peculiar ideas with Mr. Jennings. I stepped 
 into this perfectly silent room, of a very 
 silent house, with a peculiar foreboding ; 
 and its darkness, and solemn clothing of 
 books, for except where two narrow looking- 
 glasses were set in the wall, they were every- 
 where, helped this sombre feeling. 
 
 While awaiting Mr. Jennings' arrival, I 
 amused myself by looking into some of the 
 books with which his shelves were laden. 
 Not among these, but immediately under 
 them, with their backs upward, on the floor, 
 I lighted upon a complete set of Sweden- 
 borg's Arcana Caelestia, in the original Latin, 
 a very fine folio set, bound in the natty
 
 GREEN TEA. 27 
 
 livery which theology affects, pure vellum, 
 namely, gold letters, and carmine edges. 
 There were paper markers in several of these 
 volumes, I raised and placed them, one after 
 the other, upon the table, and opening where 
 these papers were placed, I read in the solemn 
 Latin phraseology, a series of sentences in- 
 dicated by a pencilled line at the margin. Of 
 these I copy here a few, translating them 
 into English. 
 
 "When man's interior sight is opened, 
 which is that of his spirit, then there appear 
 the things of another life, which cannot pos- 
 sibly be made visible to the bodily sight." . . . 
 
 " By the internal sight it has been granted 
 me to see the things that are in the other life, 
 more clearly than I see those that are in the 
 world. From these considerations, it is 
 evident that external vision exists from 
 interior vision, and this from a vision still 
 more interior, and so on." ....
 
 28 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 " There are with every man at least two 
 evil spirits." .... 
 
 " With wicked genii there is also a fluent 
 speech, but harsh and grating. There is 
 also among them a speech which is not fluent, 
 wherein the dissent of the thoughts is per- 
 ceived as something secretly creeping along 
 within it." .... 
 
 " The evil spirits associated with man are, 
 indeed, from the hells, but when with man 
 they are not then in hell, but are taken out 
 thence. The place where they then are is 
 in the midst between heaven and hell, and is 
 called the world of spirits — when the evil 
 spirits who are with man, are in that world, 
 they are not in any infernal torment, but in 
 every thought and affection of the man, and 
 so, in all that the man himself enjoys. But 
 when they are remitted into their hell, they 
 return to their former state." .... 
 
 " If evil spirits could perceive that they
 
 GREEN TEA. 29 
 
 were associated with man, and yet that they 
 were spirits separate from him, and if they 
 could flow in into the things of his body, 
 they would attempt by a thousand means to 
 destroy him ; for they hate man with a 
 deadly hatred." .... 
 
 " Knowing, therefore, that I was a man in 
 the body, they were continually striving to 
 destroy me, not as to the body only, but 
 especially as to the soul ; for to destroy any 
 man or spirit is the very delight of the life 
 of all who are in hell ; but I have been con- 
 tinually protected by the Lord. Hence it 
 appears how dangerous it is for man to be in 
 a living consort with spirits, unless he be in 
 the good of faith." .... 
 
 " Nothing is more carefully guarded from 
 the knowledge of associate spirits than their 
 being thus conjoint with a man, for if they 
 knew it they would speak to him, with the 
 intention to destroy him." ....
 
 3© IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 " The delight of hell is to do evil to man, 
 and to hasten his eternal ruin." 
 
 A long note, written with a very sharp 
 and fine pencil, in Mr. Jennings' neat hand, 
 at the foot of the page, caught my eye. 
 Expecting his criticism upon the text, I read 
 a word or two, and stopped, for it was some- 
 thing quite different, and began with these 
 words, Deus mis ere at ur mei — " May God 
 compassionate me." Thus warned of its 
 private nature, I averted my eyes, and shut 
 the book, replacing all the volumes as I had 
 found them, except one which interested me, 
 and in which, as men studious and solitary 
 in their habits will do, I grew so absorbed as 
 to take no cognisance of the outer world, 
 nor to remember where I was. 
 
 I was reading some pages which refer to 
 " representatives " and correspondents," in 
 the technical language of Swedenborg, and 
 had arrived at a passage, the substance of
 
 GREEN TEA. 31 
 
 which is, that evil spirits, when seen by 
 other eyes than those of their infernal as- 
 sociates, present themselves, by" "corres- 
 pondence," in the shape of the beast (/era) 
 which represents their particular lust and 
 life, in aspect direful and atrocious. This is 
 a long passage, and particularises a number 
 of those bestial forms.
 
 WM^^^^^MW 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FOUR EYES WERE READING THE PASSAGE. 
 
 I WAS running the head of my pencil- 
 case along the line as I read it, and 
 something caused me to raise my eyes. 
 
 Directly before me was one of the mirrors 
 I have mentioned, in which I saw reflected the 
 tall shape of my friend Mr. Jennings leaning 
 over my shoulder, and reading the page at 
 which I was busy, and with a face so dark 
 and wild that I should hardly have known 
 him. 
 
 I turned and rose. He stood erect also, 
 and with an effort laughed a little, saying :
 
 GREEN TEA. 33 
 
 " I came in and asked you how you did, 
 but without succeeding in awaking you from 
 your book; so I could not restrain my 
 curiosity, and very impertinently, I'm afraid, 
 peeped over your shoulder. This is not 
 your first time of looking into those pages. 
 You have looked into Swedenborg, no doubt, 
 long ago ?" 
 
 " Oh dear, yes ! I owe Swedenborg a great 
 deal ; you will discover traces of him in the 
 little book on Metaphysical Medicine, which 
 you were so good as to remember." 
 
 Although my friend affected a gaiety of 
 manner, there was a slight flush in his face, 
 and I could perceive that he was inwardly 
 much perturbed. 
 
 "I'm scarcely yet qualified, I know so 
 little of Swedenborg. I've only had them a 
 fortnight," he answered, " and I think they 
 are rather likely to make a solitary man 
 nervous — that is, judging from the very 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34- IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 little I have read — I don't say that they have 
 made me so," he laughed ; "and I'm so very 
 much obliged for the book. I hope you got 
 my note ?" 
 
 I made all proper acknowledgments and 
 modest disclaimers. 
 
 " I never read a book that I go with, so 
 entirely, as that of yours," he continued. " I 
 saw at once there is more in it than is quite 
 unfolded. Do you know Dr. Harley ?" he 
 asked, rather abruptly. 
 
 In passing, the editor remarks that the 
 physician here named was one of the most 
 eminent who had ever practised in England. 
 
 I did, having had letters to him, and had 
 experienced from him great courtesy and 
 considerable assistance during my visit to 
 England. 
 
 " I think that man one of the very great- 
 est fools I ever met in my life," said Mr. 
 Jennings.
 
 GREEN TEA. 35 
 
 This was the first time I had ever heard 
 him say a sharp thing of anybody, and such 
 a term applied to so high a name a little 
 startled me. 
 
 " Really ! and in what way ?" I asked. 
 
 " In his profession,'' he answered. 
 
 I smiled. 
 
 " I mean this," he said : " he seems to me, 
 one half, blind — I mean one half of all he 
 looks at is dark — preternaturally bright and 
 vivid all the rest ; and the worst of it is, 
 it seems wilful. I can't get him — I mean he 
 won't — I've had some experience of him as a 
 physician, but I look on him as, in that 
 sense, no better than a paralytic mind, an 
 intellect half dead, I'll tell you — I know I 
 shall some time — all about it," he said, with 
 a little agitation. " You stay some months 
 longer in England. If I should be out of town 
 during your stay for a little time, would 
 you allow me to trouble you with a letter ?" 
 
 D 2
 
 36 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 " I should be only too happy/' I assured 
 him. 
 
 "Very good of you. I am so utterly 
 dissatisfied with Harley." 
 
 " A little leaning to the materialistic 
 school," I said. 
 
 " A mere materialist/' he corrected me ; 
 " you can't think how that sort of thing 
 worries one who knows better. You won't 
 tell any one — any of my friends you know 
 — that I am hippish ; now, for instance, no 
 one knows — not even Lady Mary — that I 
 have seen Dr. Harley, or any other doctor. 
 So pray don't mention it ; and, if I should 
 have any threatening of an attack, you'll 
 kindly let me write, or, should I be in town, 
 have a little talk with you." 
 
 I was full of conjecture, and uncon- 
 sciously I found I had fixed my eyes gravely 
 on him, for he lowered his for a moment, 
 and he said :
 
 GREEN TEA. 37 
 
 cc I see you think I might as well tell you 
 now, or else you are forming a conjecture ; 
 but you may as well give it up. If you were 
 guessing all the rest of your life, you will 
 never hit on it." 
 
 He shook his head smiling, and over that 
 wintry sunshine a black cloud suddenly came 
 down, and he drew his breath in, through 
 his teeth as men do in pain. 
 
 " Sorry, of course, to learn that you appre- 
 hend occasion to consult any of us ; but, 
 command me when and how you like, and I 
 need not assure you that your confidence is 
 sacred." 
 
 He then talked of quite other things, and 
 in a comparatively cheerful way and after a 
 little time, I took my leave.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DOCTOR HESSELIUS IS SUMMONED TO 
 RICHMOND. 
 
 WE parted cheerfully, but he was not 
 cheerful, nor was I. There are 
 certain expressions of that powerful organ of 
 spirit — the human face — which, although I 
 have seen them often, and possess a doctor's 
 nerve, yet disturb me profoundly. One 
 look of Mr. Jennings haunted me. It had 
 seized my imagination with so dismal a 
 power that I changed my plans for the even- 
 ing, and went to the opera, feeling that I 
 wanted a change of ideas.
 
 GREEN TEA. 39 
 
 I heard nothing of or from him for two or 
 three days, when a note in his hand reached 
 me. It was cheerful, and full of hope. He 
 said that he had been for some little time so 
 much better — quite well, in fact — that he 
 was going to make a little experiment, and 
 run down for a month or so to his parish, to 
 try whether a little work might not quite set 
 him up. There was in it a fervent religious 
 expression of gratitude for his restoration, as 
 he now almost hoped he might call it. 
 
 A day or two later I saw Lady Mary, 
 who repeated what his note had announced, 
 and told me that he was actually in Warwick- 
 shire, having resumed his clerical duties at 
 Kenlis ; and she added, " I begin to think 
 that he is really perfectly well, and that there 
 never was anything the matter, more than 
 nerves and fancy ; we are all nervous, but I 
 fancy there is nothing like a little hard work 
 for that kind of weakness, and he has made
 
 4 o IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 up his mind to try it. I should not be sur- 
 prised if he did not come back for a year." 
 
 Notwithstanding all this confidence, only 
 two days later I had this note, dated from 
 his house off Piccadilly : 
 
 " Dear Sir. — I have returned disappointed. 
 If I should feel at all able to see you, I shall 
 write to ask you kindly to call. At present 
 I am too low, and, in fact, simply unable to 
 say all I wish to say. Pray don't mention 
 my name to my friends. I can see no one. 
 By-and-by, please God, you shall hear from 
 me. I mean to take a run into Shropshire, 
 where some of my people are. God bless 
 you ! May we, on my return, meet more 
 happily than I can now write." 
 
 About a week after this I saw Lady Mary 
 at her own house, the last person, she said, 
 left in town, and just on the wing for Brigh- 
 ton, for the London season was quite over. 
 She told me that she had heard from Mr.
 
 GREEN TEA. 41 
 
 Jennings' niece, Martha, in Shropshire. 
 There was nothing to be gathered from her 
 letter, more than that he was low and ner- 
 vous. In those words, of which healthy 
 people think so lightly, what a world of 
 suffering is sometimes hidden ! 
 
 Nearly five weeks passed without any 
 further news of Mr. Jennings. At the end 
 of that time I received a note from him. He 
 wrote : 
 
 " I have been in the country, and have 
 had change of air, change of scene, change 
 of faces, change of everything and in every- 
 thing — but myself. I have made up my 
 mind, so far as the most irresolute creature 
 on earth can do it, to tell my case fully to 
 you. If your engagements will permit, pray 
 come to me to-day, to-morrow, or the 
 next day ; but, pray defer as little as 
 possible. You know not how much I need 
 help. I have a quiet house at Richmond,
 
 4-2 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 where I now am. Perhaps you can manage 
 to come to dinner, or to luncheon, or 
 even to tea. You shall have no trouble in 
 finding me out. The servant at Blank street, 
 who takes this note, will have a carriage 
 at your door at any hour you please ; and 
 I am always to be found. You will say 
 that I ought not to be alone. I have tried 
 everything. Come and see." 
 
 I called up the servant, and decided on 
 going out the same evening, which accord- 
 ingly I did. 
 
 He would have been much better in a 
 lodging-house, or hotel, I thought, as I drove 
 up through a short double row of sombre 
 elms to a very old-fashioned brick house, 
 darkened by the foliage of these trees, which 
 over-topped, and nearly surrounded it. It 
 was a perverse choice, for nothing could be 
 imagined more triste and silent. The house, 
 I found, belonged to him. He had stayed
 
 GREEN TEA. 4-3 
 
 for a day or two in town, and, finding it 
 for some cause insupportable, had come out 
 here, probably because being furnished and his 
 own, he was relieved of the thought and delay 
 of selection, by coming here. 
 
 The sun had already set, and the red re- 
 flected light of the western sky illuminated 
 the scene with the peculiar efTect with which 
 we are all familiar. The hall seemed very 
 dark, but, getting to the back drawing-room, 
 whose windows command the west, I was 
 again in the same dusky light. 
 
 I sat down, looking out upon the richly- 
 wooded landscape that glowed in the grand 
 and melancholy light which was every moment 
 fading. The corners of the room were already 
 dark ; all was growing dim, and the gloom was 
 insensibly toning my mind, already prepared 
 for what was sinister. I was waiting alone 
 for his arrival, which soon took place. The 
 door communicating with the front room
 
 44 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 opened, and the tall figure of Mr. Jennings, 
 faintly seen in the ruddy twilight, came, 
 with quiet stealthy steps, into the room. 
 
 We shook hands, and, taking a chair to 
 the window, where there was still light 
 enough to enable us to see each other's faces, 
 he sat down beside me, and, placing his hand 
 upon my arm, with scarcely a word of pre- 
 face began his narrative.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOW MR. JENNINGS MET HIS COMPANION. 
 
 THE faint glow of the west, the pomp 
 of the then lonely woods of Richmond, 
 were before us, behind and about us the 
 darkening room, and on the stony face or 
 the sufferer — for the character of his face, 
 though still gentle and sweet, was changed — 
 rested that dim, odd glow which seems to 
 descend and produce, where it touches, lights, 
 sudden though faint, which are lost, almost 
 without gradation, in darkness. The silence, 
 too, was utter ; not a distant wheel, or bark, 
 or whistle from without ; and within the de-
 
 46 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 pressing stillness of an invalid bachelor's house. 
 I guessed well the nature, though not even 
 vaguely the particulars of the revelations I 
 was about to receive, from that fixed face of 
 suffering that so oddly flushed stood out, like 
 a portrait of Schalken's, before its background 
 of darkness. 
 
 "It began," he said, "on the 15th of 
 October, three years and eleven weeks ago, 
 and two days — I keep very accurate count, 
 for every day is torment. If I leave any- 
 where a chasm in my narrative tell me. 
 
 "About four years ago I began a work, 
 which had cost me very much thought and 
 reading. It was upon the religious meta- 
 physics of the ancients/' 
 
 " I know," said I ; " the actual religion 
 of educated and thinking paganism, quite 
 apart from symbolic worship ? A wide and 
 very interesting field." 
 
 " Yes ; but not good for the mind — the
 
 GREEN TEA. 47 
 
 Christian mind, I mean. Paganism is all 
 bound together in essential unity, and, with 
 evil sympathy, their religion involves their 
 art, and both their manners, and the subject 
 is a degrading fascination and the nemesis 
 sure. God forgive me ! 
 
 " I wrote a great deal ; I wrote late at 
 night. I was always thinking on the sub- 
 ject, walking about, wherever I was, every- 
 where. It thoroughly infected me. You are 
 to remember that all the material ideas con- 
 nected with it were more or less of the 
 beautiful, the subject itself delightfully in- 
 teresting, and I, then, without a care." 
 
 He sighed heavily. 
 
 " I believe that every one who sets about 
 writing in earnest does his work, as a friend 
 of mine phrased it, on something — tea, or 
 coffee, or tobacco. I suppose there is a 
 material waste that must be hourly supplied 
 in such occupations, or that we should grow
 
 4-8 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 too abstracted, and the mind, as it were, pass 
 out of the body, unless it were reminded often 
 of the connection by actual sensation. At all 
 events, I felt the want, and I supplied it. 
 Tea was my companion — at first the ordinary 
 black tea, made in the usual way, not too 
 strong : but I drank a good deal, and in- 
 creased its strength as I went on. I never 
 experienced an uncomfortable symptom from 
 it. I began to take a little green tea. I 
 found the effect pleasanter, it cleared and in- 
 tensified the power of thought so. I had 
 come to take it frequently, but not stronger 
 than one might take it for pleasure. I wrote 
 a great deal out here, it was so quiet, and in 
 this room. I used to sit up very late, and it 
 became a habit with me to sip my tea — green 
 tea — every now and then as my work pro- 
 ceeded. I had a little kettle on my table, 
 that swung over a lamp, and made tea two 
 or three times between eleven o'clock and
 
 GREEN TEA. 49 
 
 two or three in the morning, my hours of 
 going to bed. I used to go into town every 
 day. I was not a monk, and, although I 
 spent an hour or two in a library, hunting up 
 authorities and looking out lights upon my 
 theme, I was in no morbid state as far as I 
 can judge. I met my friends pretty much as 
 usual, and enjoyed their society, and, on the 
 whole, existence had never been, I think, so 
 pleasant before. 
 
 " I had met with a man who had some 
 odd old books, German editions in mediaeval 
 Latin, and I was only too happy to be per- 
 mitted access to them. This obliging person's 
 books were in the City, a very out-of-the- 
 way part of it. I had rather out-stayed my 
 intended hour, and, on coming out, seeing no 
 cab near, I was tempted to get into the 
 omnibus which used to drive past this house. 
 It was darker than this by the time the 'bus 
 had reached an old house, you may have re-
 
 So IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 marked, with four poplars at each side of the 
 door, and there the last passenger but myself 
 got out. We drove along rather faster. It 
 was twilight now. I leaned back in my 
 corner next the door ruminating pleasantly. 
 
 <f The interior of the omnibus was nearly 
 dark. I had observed in the corner opposite 
 to me at the other side, and at the end next 
 the horses, two small circular reflections, as 
 it seemed to me of a reddish light. They 
 were about two inches apart, and about the 
 size of those small brass buttons that yachting 
 men used to put upon their jackets. I began 
 to speculate, as listless men will, upon this 
 trifle, as it seemed. From what centre did 
 that faint but deep red light come, and from 
 what — glass beads, buttons, toy decorations 
 — was it reflected ? We were lumbering 
 along gently, having nearly a mile still to go. 
 I had not solved the puzzle, and it became in 
 another minute more odd, for these two
 
 GREEN TEA. 51 
 
 luminous points, with a sudden jerk, de- 
 scended nearer the floor, keeping still their 
 relative distance and horizontal position, and 
 then, as suddenly, they rose to the level of 
 the seat on which I was sitting, and I saw 
 them no more. 
 
 " My curiosity was now really excited, 
 and, % before I had time to think, I saw 
 again these two dull lamps, again together 
 near the floor ; again they disappeared, and 
 again in their old corner I saw them. 
 
 " So, keeping my eyes upon them, I 
 edged quietly up my own side, towards 
 the end at which I still saw these tiny 
 discs of red. 
 
 " There was very little light in the 'bus. 
 It was nearly dark. I leaned forward to 
 aid my endeavour to discover what these 
 little circles really were. They shifted their 
 position a little as I did so. I began now 
 to perceive an outline of something black,
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 and I soon saw with tolerable distinctness 
 the outline of a small black monkey, push- 
 ing its face forward in mimicry to meet 
 mine ; those were its eyes, and I now dimly 
 saw its teeth grinning at me. 
 
 " I drew back, not knowing whether it 
 might not meditate a spring. I fancied that 
 one of the passengers had forgot this ugly 
 pet, and wishing to ascertain something of 
 its temper, though not caring to trust my 
 fingers to it, I poked my umbrella softly 
 towards it. It remained immovable — up to 
 it — through it! For through it, and back 
 and forward, it passed, without the slightest 
 resistance. 
 
 "I can't, in the least, convey to you the 
 kind of horror that I felt. When I had 
 ascertained that the thing was an illusion, 
 as I then supposed, there came a misgiving 
 about myself and a terror that fascinated 
 me in impotence to remove my gaze from
 
 GREEN TEA. 53 
 
 the eyes of the brute for some moments. 
 As I looked, it made a little skip back, quite 
 into the corner, and I, in a panic, found 
 myself at the door, having put my head out, 
 drawing deep breaths of the outer air, and 
 staring at the lights and trees we were pass- 
 ing, too glad to reassure myself of reality. 
 
 fc I stopped the 'bus and got out. I per- 
 ceived the man look oddly at me as I paid 
 him. I daresay there was something unusual 
 in my looks and manner, for I had never 
 felt so strangely before."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 the journey: first stage. 
 
 (< T "T THEN the omnibus drove on, and 
 V V I was alone upon the road, I 
 looked carefully round to ascertain whether 
 the monkey had followed me. To my in- 
 describable relief I saw it nowhere. I can't 
 describe easily what a shock I had received, 
 and my sense of genuine gratitude on finding 
 myself, as I supposed, quite rid of it. 
 
 " I had got out a little before we reached 
 this house, two or three hundred steps. A 
 brick wall runs along the footpath, and
 
 GREEN TEA. 55 
 
 inside the wall is a hedge of yew or some 
 dark evergreen of that kind, and within 
 that again the row of fine trees which you 
 may have remarked as you came. 
 
 " This brick wall is about as high as my 
 shoulder, and happening to raise my eyes 
 I saw the monkey, with that stooping gait, 
 on all fours, walking or creeping, close beside 
 me on top of the wall. I stopped looking 
 at it with a feeling of loathing and horror. 
 As I stopped so did it. It sat up on the 
 wall with its long hands on its knees look- 
 ing at me. There was not light enough to 
 see it much more than in outline, nor was 
 it dark enough to bring the peculiar light of 
 its eyes into strong relief. I still saw, how- 
 ever, that red foggy light plainly enough. 
 It did not show its teeth, nor exhibit any 
 sign of irritation, but seemed jaded and 
 sulky, and was observing me steadily. 
 
 " I drew back into the middle of the road.
 
 56 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 It was an unconscious recoil, and there I 
 stood, still looking at it, it did not move. 
 
 " With an instinctive determination to try 
 something — anything, I turned about and 
 walked briskly towards town with a skance 
 look, all the time, watching the movements 
 of the beast. It crept swiftly along the wall, 
 at exactly my pace. 
 
 " Where the wall ends, near the turn ot 
 the road, it came down and with a wiry 
 spring or two brought itself close to my 
 feet, and continued to keep up with me, as I 
 quickened my pace. It was at my left side, 
 so close to my leg that I felt every moment 
 as if I should tread upon it. 
 
 "The road was quite deserted and silent, 
 and it was darker every moment. I stopped 
 dismayed and bewildered, turning as I did 
 so, the other way — I mean, towards this 
 house, away from which I had been walking. 
 When I stood still, the monkey drew back
 
 GREEN TEA. 57 
 
 to a distance of, I suppose, about five or six 
 yards, and remained stationary, watching me. 
 
 "I had been more agitated than I have 
 said. I had read, of course, as every one 
 has, something about 'spectral illusions/ as 
 you physicians term the phenomena of such 
 cases. I considered my situation, and looked 
 my misfortune in the face. 
 
 " These affections, I had read, are some- 
 times transitory and sometimes obstinate. I 
 had read of cases in which the appearance, 
 at first harmless, had, step by step, dege- 
 nerated into something direful and insup- 
 portable, and ended by wearing its victim 
 out. Still as I stood there, but for my bestial 
 companion, quite alone, I tried to comfort 
 myself by repeating again and again the 
 assurance, c the thing is purely disease, a 
 well-known physical affection, as distinctly 
 as small-pox or neuralgia. Doctors are all 
 agreed on that, philosophy demonstrates it.
 
 58 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 I must not be a fool. I've been sitting up 
 too late, and I daresay my digestion is quite 
 wrong, and with God's help, I shall be all 
 right, and this is but a symptom of nervous 
 dyspepsia.' Did I believe all this ? Not one 
 word of it, no more than any other miserable 
 being ever did who is once seized and riveted 
 in this satanic captivity. Against my convic- 
 tions, I might say my knowledge, I was 
 simply bullying myself into a false courage. 
 
 " I now walked homeward. I had only 
 a few hundred yards to go. I had forced 
 myself into a sort of resignation, but I had 
 not got over the sickening shock and the 
 flurry of the first certainty of my misfortune. 
 
 "I made up my mind to pass the 
 night at home. The brute moved close be- 
 side me, and I fancied there was the sort of 
 anxious drawing toward the house, which 
 one sees in tired horses or dogs, sometimes 
 as they come toward home.
 
 GREEN TEA. 59 
 
 " I was afraid to go into town, I was 
 afraid of any one's seeing and recognising 
 me. I was conscious of an irrepressible agi- 
 tation in my manner. Also, I was afraid of 
 any violent change in my habits, such as 
 going to a place of amusement, or walking 
 from home in order to fatigue myself. At 
 the hall door it waited till I mounted the 
 steps, and when the door was opened entered 
 with me. 
 
 " I drank no tea that night. I got cigars 
 and some brandy-and-water. My idea was 
 that I should act upon my material system, 
 and by living for a while in sensation apart 
 from thought, send myself forcibly, as it 
 it were, into a new groove. I came up here 
 to this drawing-room. I sat just here. The 
 monkey then got upon a small table that 
 then stood there. It looked dazed and 
 languid. An irrepressible uneasiness as to 
 ; ts movements kept my eyes always upon it.
 
 6o IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 Its eyes were half closed, but I could see 
 them glow. It was looking steadily at me. 
 In all situations, at all hours, it is awake and 
 looking at me. That never changes. 
 
 " I shall not continue in detail my narra- 
 tive of this particular night. I shall describe, 
 rather, the phenomena of the first year, 
 which never varied, essentially. I shall 
 describe the monkey as it appeared in 
 daylight. In the dark, as you shall pre- 
 sently hear, there are peculiarities. It is 
 a small monkey, perfectly black. It had 
 only one peculiarity — a character of malignity 
 — unfathomable malignity. During the first 
 year it looked sullen and sick. But this 
 character of intense malice and vigilance was 
 always underlying that surly languor. During 
 all that time it acted as if on a plan of giving 
 me as little trouble as was consistent with 
 watching me. Its eyes were never off me, 
 I have never lost sight of it, except in my
 
 GREEN TEA. 61 
 
 sleep, light or dark, day or night, since it 
 came here, excepting when it withdraws for 
 some weeks at a time, unaccountably. 
 
 " In total dark it is visible as in daylight. 
 I do not mean merely its eyes. It is all 
 visible distinctly in a halo that resembles a 
 glow of red embers, and which accompanies 
 it in all its movements. 
 
 " When it leaves me for a time, it is 
 always at night, in the dark, and in the same 
 way. It grows at first uneasy, and then 
 furious, and then advances towards me, 
 grinning and shaking its paws clenched, and, 
 at the same time, there comes the appearance 
 of fire in the grate. I never have any fire. 
 I can't sleep in the room where there is any, 
 and it draws nearer and nearer to the chim- 
 ney, quivering, it seems, with rage, and 
 when its fury rises to the highest pitch, it 
 springs into the grate, and up the chimney, 
 and I see it no more.
 
 62 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 "When first this happened I thought I 
 was released. I was a new man. A day 
 passed — a night — and no return, and a 
 blessed week — a week — another week. I 
 was always on my knees, Dr. Hesselius, 
 always, thanking God and praying. A 
 whole month passed of liberty, but on a 
 sudden, it was with me again."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE SECOND STAGE. 
 
 I 
 
 T was with me, and the malice which 
 before was torpid under a sullen ex- 
 terior, was now active. It was perfectly 
 unchanged in every other respect. This new 
 energy was apparent in its activity and its 
 looks, and soon in other ways. 
 
 cc For a- time, you will understand, the 
 change was shown only in an increased 
 vivacity, and an air of menace, as if it was 
 always brooding over some atrocious plan. 
 Its eyes, as before, were never off me."
 
 64 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 "Is it here now?" I asked. 
 
 " No," he replied, " it has been absent 
 exactly a fortnight and a day — fifteen days. 
 It has sometimes been away so long as nearly 
 two months, once for three. Its absence 
 always exceeds a fortnight, although it may 
 be but by a single day. Fifteen days having 
 past since I saw it last, it may return now at 
 any moment." 
 
 " Is its return," I asked, " accompanied by 
 any peculiar manifestation ?" 
 
 " Nothing — no," he said. " It is simply 
 with me again. On lifting my eyes from a 
 book, or turning my head, I see it, as usual, 
 looking at me, and then it remains, as before, 
 for its appointed time. I have never told 
 so much and so minutely before to any one." 
 
 I perceived that he was agitated, and look- 
 ing like death, and he repeatedly applied his 
 handkerchief to his forehead ; I suggested 
 that he might be tired, and told him that ■ I
 
 GREEN TEA. 65 
 
 would call, with pleasure, in the morning, 
 but he said : 
 
 " No, if you don't mind hearing it all now. 
 I have got so far, and I should prefer making 
 one effort of it. When I spoke to Dr. 
 Harley, I had nothing like so much to tell. 
 You are a philosophic physician. You give 
 spirit its proper rank. If this thing is real — " 
 
 He paused, looking at me with agitated 
 inquiry. 
 
 " We can discuss it by-and-by, and very 
 fully. I will give you all I think," I answered, 
 after an interval. 
 
 " Well — very well. If it is anything real, 
 I say, it is prevailing, little by little, and 
 drawing me more interiorly into hell. Optic 
 nerves, he talked of. Ah ! well — there are 
 other nerves of communication. May God 
 Almighty help me ! You shall hear. 
 
 " Its power of action, I tell you, had in- 
 creased. Its malice became, in a way aggres- 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 sive. About two years ago, some questions 
 that were pending between me and the bishop 
 having been settled, I went down to my 
 parish in Warwickshire, anxious to find occu- 
 pation in my profession. I was not prepared 
 for what happened, although I have since 
 thought I might have apprehended something 
 like it. The reason of my saying so, is 
 this " 
 
 He was beginning to speak with a great 
 deal more effort and reluctance, and sighed 
 often, and seemed at times nearly overcome. 
 But at this time his manner was not agitated. 
 It was more like that of a sinking patient, 
 who has given himself up. 
 
 " Yes, but I will first tell you about Kenlis, 
 my parish. 
 
 " It was with me when I left this place for 
 Dawlbridge. It was my silent travelling 
 companion, and it remained with me at the 
 vicarage. When I entered on the discharge
 
 GREEN TEA. 67 
 
 of my duties, another change took place. 
 The thing exhibited an atrocious determina- 
 tion to thwart me. It was with me in the 
 church—in the reading-desk — in the pulpit — 
 within the communion rails. At last, it reached 
 this extremity, that while I was reading to the 
 congregation, it would spring upon the open 
 book and squat there, so that I was unable to 
 see the page. This happened more than 
 once. 
 
 "I left Daw] bridge for a time. I placed 
 myself in Dr. Harley's hands. I did every- 
 thing he told me. He gave my case a great 
 deal of thought. It interested him, I think. 
 He seemed successful. For nearly three 
 months I was perfectly free from a return. 
 I began to think I was safe. With his full 
 assent I returned to Dawlbridge. 
 
 "I travelled in a chaise. I was in good 
 spirits. I was more — I was happy and 
 grateful. I was returning, as I thought de-
 
 68 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 livered from a dreadful hallucination, to the 
 scene of duties which I longed to enter upon. 
 It was a beautiful sunny evening, everything 
 looked serene and cheerful, and I was de- 
 lighted. I remember looking outof the window 
 to see the spire of my church at Kenlis among 
 the trees, at the point where one has the 
 earliest view of it. It is exactly where the 
 little stream that bounds the parish passes 
 under the road by a culvert, and where it 
 emerges at the road-side, a stone with an old 
 inscription is placed. As we passed this 
 point, I drew my head in and sat down, and 
 in the corner of the chaise was the monkey. 
 
 " For a moment I felt faint, and then quite 
 wild with despair and horror. I called to the 
 driver, and got out, and sat down at the 
 road-side, and prayed to God silently for 
 mercy. A despairing resignation supervened. 
 My companion was with me as I re-entered 
 the vicarage. The same persecution fol-
 
 GREEN TEA. 69 
 
 lowed. After a short struggle I submitted, 
 and soon I left the place. 
 
 " I told you," he said, " that the beast has 
 before this become in certain ways aggressive. 
 I will explain a little. It seemed to be actuated 
 by intense and increasing fury, whenever I 
 said my prayers, or even meditated prayer. 
 It amounted at last to a dreadful interruption. 
 You will ask, how could a silent immaterial 
 phantom effect that? It was thus, whenever 
 I meditated praying ; it was always before 
 me, and nearer and nearer. 
 
 " It used to spring on a table, on the back 
 of a chair, on the chimney-piece, and slowly 
 to swing itself from side to side, looking at 
 me all the time. There is in its motion an 
 indefinable power to dissipate thought, and 
 to contract one's attention to that monotony, 
 till the ideas shrink, as it were, to a point, 
 and at last to nothing — and unless I had 
 started up, and shook off the catalepsy I have
 
 7 o IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 felt as if my mind were on the point of losing 
 itself. There are other ways," he sighed 
 heavily ; " thus, for instance, while I pray with 
 my eyes closed, it comes closer and closer, and 
 I see it. I know it is not to be accounted 
 for physically, but I do actually see it, though 
 my lids are closed, and so it rocks my mind, 
 as it were, and overpowers me, and I am 
 obliged to rise from my knees. If you had 
 ever yourself known this, you would be 
 acquainted with desperation."
 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE THIRD STAGE. 
 
 " T SEE, Dr. Hesselius, that you don't 
 i lose one word of my statement. I 
 need not ask you to listen specially to what I 
 am now going to tell you. They talk of the 
 optic nerves, and of spectral illusions, as if 
 the organ of sight was the only point assail- 
 able by the influences that have fastened 
 upon me — I know better. For two years in 
 my direful case that limitation prevailed. 
 But as food is taken in softly at the lips, and 
 then brought under the teeth, as the tip of
 
 72 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 the little finger caught in a mill crank 
 will draw in the hand, and the arm, 
 and the whole body, so the miserable 
 mortal who has been once caught firmly by 
 the end of the finest fibre of his nerve, is 
 drawn in and in, by the enormous machinery 
 of hell, until he is as I am. Yes, Doc- 
 tor, as / am, for while I talk to you, 
 and implore relief, I feel that my prayer is 
 for the impossible, and my pleading with 
 the inexorable." 
 
 I endeavoured to calm his visibly increas- 
 ing agitation, and told him that he must not 
 despair. 
 
 While we talked the night had overtaken 
 us. The filmy moonlight was wide over the 
 scene which the window commanded, and. I 
 said : 
 
 "Perhaps you would prefer having 
 candles. This light, you know, is odd. I 
 should wish you, as much as possible, under
 
 GREEN TEA. 73 
 
 your usual conditions while I make my diag- 
 nosis, shall I call it — otherwise I don't care." 
 
 " All lights are the same to me," he said : 
 " except when I read or write, I care not if 
 night were perpetual. I am going to tell you 
 what happened about a year ago. The thing 
 began to speak to me." 
 
 " Speak ! How do you mean — speak as a 
 man does, do you mean ?" 
 
 " Yes ; speak in words and consecutive 
 sentences, with perfect coherence and articu- 
 lation ; but there is a peculiarity. It is not 
 like the tone of a human voice. It is not by 
 my ears it reaches me — it comes like a singing 
 through my head. 
 
 " This faculty, the power of speaking to 
 me, will be my undoing. It won't let me 
 pray, it interrupts me with dreadful blasphe- 
 mies. I dare not go on, I could not. Oh ! 
 Doctor, can the skill, and thought, and 
 prayers of man avail me nothing !"
 
 74 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 " You must promise me, my dear sir, not 
 to trouble yourself with unnecessarily exciting 
 thoughts ; confine yourself strictly to the 
 narrative of facts ; and recollect, above all, 
 that even if the thing that infests you be (g) 
 you seem to suppose, a reality with an actual 
 independent life and will, yet it can have no 
 power to hurt you, unless it be given from 
 above: its access to your senses depends 
 mainly upon your physical condition — this is, 
 under God, your comfort and reliance : we are 
 all alike environed. It is only that in your 
 case, the c paries, 1 the veil of the flesh, the 
 screen, is a little out of repair, and sights and 
 sounds are transmitted. We must enter on 
 a new course, sir — be encouraged. I'll give 
 to-night to the careful consideration of the 
 whole case." 
 
 "You are very good, sir; you think it 
 worth trying, you don't give me quite up ; 
 but, sir, you don't know, it is gaining such
 
 GREEN TEA. 75 
 
 an influence over me : it orders me about, 
 it is such a tyrant, and I'm growing so help- 
 less. May God deliver me !" 
 
 "It orders you about — of course you mean 
 by speech ?" 
 
 4C Yes, yes ; it is always urging me to 
 crimes, to injure others, or myself. You 
 see, Doctor, the situation is urgent, it is in- 
 deed. When I was in Shropshire, a few 
 weeks ago " (Mr. Jennings was speaking 
 rapidly and trembling now, holding my arm 
 with one hand, and looking in my face), 
 "I went out one day with a party of friends 
 for a walk : my persecutor, I tell you, was 
 with me at the time. I lagged behind the 
 rest : the country near the Dee, you know, is 
 beautiful. Our path happened to lie near a 
 coal mine, and at the verge of the wood is a 
 perpendicular shaft, they say, a hundred and 
 fifty feet deep. My niece had remained be- 
 hind with me — she knows, of course, nothing
 
 76 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 of the nature of my sufferings. She knew, 
 however, that I had been ill, and was low, 
 and she remained to prevent my being quite 
 alone. As we loitered slowly on together the 
 brute that accompanied me was urging me 
 to throw myself down the shaft. I tell you 
 now — oh, sir, think of it ! — the one con- 
 sideration that saved me from that hideous 
 death was the fear lest the shock of witness- 
 ing the occurrence should be too much for 
 the poor girl. I asked her to go on and 
 take her walk with her friends, saying that I 
 could go no further. She made excuses, and 
 the more I urged her the firmer she became. 
 She looked doubtful and frightened. I sup- 
 pose there was something in my looks or 
 manner that alarmed her ; but she would 
 not go, and that literally saved me. You had 
 no idea, sir, that a living man could be made 
 so abject a slave of Satan," he said, with a 
 ghastly groan and a shudder.
 
 GREEN TEA. 77 
 
 There was a pause here, and I said, " You 
 were preserved nevertheless. It was the act 
 of God. You are in his hands and in the 
 power of no other being : be therefore confi- 
 dent for the future.' '
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 I MADE him have candles lighted, and 
 saw the room looking cheery and inha-. 
 bited before I left him. I told him that he 
 must regard his illness strictly as one depen- 
 dent on physical, though subtle physical, 
 causes. I told him that he had evidence of 
 God's care and love in the deliverance which 
 he had just described, and that I had perceived 
 with pain that he seemed to regard its pecu- 
 liar features as indicating that he had been 
 delivered over to spiritual reprobation. Than
 
 GREEN TEA. 79 
 
 such a conclusion nothing could be, I insisted, 
 less warranted ; and not only so, but more 
 contrary to facts, as disclosed in his myster- 
 ious deliverance from that murderous influence 
 during his Shropshire excursion. First, his 
 niece had been retained by his side without 
 his intending to keep her near him ; and, 
 secondly, there had been infused into his 
 mind an irresistible repugnance to execute 
 the dreadful suggestion in her presence. 
 
 As I reasoned this point with him, Mr. 
 Jennings wept. He seemed comforted. One 
 promise I exacted, which was that should the 
 monkey at any time return, I should be sent 
 for immediately ; and, repeating my assur- 
 ance that I would give neither time nor 
 thought to any other subject until I had 
 thoroughly investigated his case, and that to- 
 morrow he should hear the result, I took my 
 leave. 
 
 Before getting into the carriage I told the
 
 80 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 servant that his master was far from well, 
 and that he should make a point of frequently 
 looking into his room. 
 
 My own arrangements I made with a view 
 to being quite secure from interruption. 
 
 I merely called at my lodgings, and with a 
 travelling-desk and carpet-bag, set off in a 
 hackney-carriage for an inn about two miles 
 out of town, called The Horns, a very quiet 
 and comfortable house, with good thick walls. 
 And there I resolved, without the possibility 
 of intrusion or distraction, to devote some 
 hours of the night, in my comfortable sitting- 
 room, to Mr. Jennings' case, and so much 
 of the morning as it might require. 
 
 (There occurs here a careful note of Dr. 
 Hesselius' opinion upon the case and of the 
 habits, dietary, and medicines which he pre- 
 scribed. It is curious — some persons would 
 say mystical. But on the whole I doubt 
 whether it would sufficiently interest a reader
 
 GREEN TEA. 
 
 of the kind I am likely to meet with, to 
 warrant its being here reprinted. The whole 
 letter was plainly written at the inn where he 
 had hid himself for the occasion. The next 
 letter is dated from his town lodgings.) 
 
 I left town for the inn where I slept last 
 night at half-past nine, and did not arrive at 
 my room in town until one o'clock this after- 
 noon. I found a letter in Mr. Jennings' 
 hand upon my table. It had not come by 
 post, and, on inquiry, I learned that Mr. 
 Jennings' servant had brought it, and on 
 learning that I was not to return until to-day, 
 and that no one could tell him my address, 
 he seemed very uncomfortable, and said that 
 his orders from his master were that he was 
 not to return without an answer. 
 
 I opened the letter, and read : 
 
 " Dear Dr. Hesselius. It is . here. You 
 had not been an hour gone when it returned.
 
 82 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 It is speaking. It knows all that has hap- 
 pened. It knows everything — it knows you, 
 and is frantic and atrocious. It reviles. I 
 send you this. It knows every word I have 
 written — I write. This I promised, and I 
 therefore write, but I fear very confused, 
 very incoherently. I am so interrupted, dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 " Ever yours, sincerely yours, 
 
 "Robert Lynder Jennings. " 
 
 " When did this come ?" I asked. 
 
 <c About eleven last night: the man was 
 here again, and has been here three times 
 to-day. The last time is about an hour 
 since." 
 
 Thus answered, and with the notes I had 
 made upon his case in my pocket, I was in a 
 few minutes driving towards Richmond, to 
 see Mr. Jennings. 
 
 I by no means, as you perceive, despaired
 
 GREEN TEA. 83 
 
 of Mr. Jennings' case. He had himself 
 remembered and applied, though quite in a 
 mistaken way, the principle which I lay down 
 in my Metaphysical Medicine, and which 
 governs all such cases. I was about to apply 
 it in earnest. I was profoundly interested, 
 and very anxious to see and examine him 
 while the " enemy " was actually present. 
 
 I drove up to the sombre house, and ran up 
 the steps, and knocked. The door, in a 
 little time, was opened by a tall woman in 
 black silk. She looked ill, and as if she had 
 been crying. She curtseyed, and heard my 
 question, but she did not answer. She turned 
 her face away, extending her hand towards two 
 men who were coming down-stairs ; and thus 
 having, as it were, tacitly made me over to 
 them, she passed through a side-door hastily 
 and shut it. 
 
 The man who was nearest the hall, I 
 at once accosted, but being now close to 
 
 G 2
 
 84 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 him, I was shocked to see that both his hands 
 were covered with blood. 
 
 I drew back a little, and the man passing 
 down-stairs merely said in a low tone, " Here's 
 the servant, sir." 
 
 The servant had stopped on the stairs, 
 confounded and dumb at seeing me. He was 
 rubbing his hands in a handkerchief, and it 
 was steeped in blood. 
 
 "Jones, what is it, what has happened?" 
 I asked, while a sickening suspicion over- 
 powered me. 
 
 The man asked me to come up to the lobby. 
 I was beside him in a moment, and frowning 
 and pallid, with contracted eyes, he told me 
 the horror which I already half guessed. 
 
 His master had made away with himself. 
 
 I went upstairs with him to the room : — 
 what I saw there I won't tell you. He had 
 cut his throat with his razor. It was a fright- 
 ful gash. The two men had laid him on the
 
 GREEN TEA. 85 
 
 bed and composed his limbs. It had hap- 
 pened as the immense pool of blood on the 
 floor declared, at some distance between the 
 bed and the window. There was carpet 
 round his bed, and a carpet under his dressing- 
 table, but none on the rest of the floor, for 
 the man said he did not like a carpet on his 
 bedroom. In this sombre, and now terrible 
 room, one of the great elms that darkened the 
 house was slowly moving the shadow of one 
 of its great boughs upon this dreadful floor. 
 
 I beckoned to the servant and we went 
 down-stairs together. I turned of? the hall 
 into an old-fashioned pannelled room, and 
 there standing, I heard all the servant had to 
 tell. It was not a great deal. 
 
 "I concluded, sir, from your words, and 
 looks, sir, as you left last night, that you 
 thought my master seriously ill. I thought it 
 might be that you were afraid of a fit, or some- 
 thing. So I attended very close to your direc-
 
 86 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 tions. He sat up late, till past three o'clock. He 
 was not writing or reading. He was talking 
 a great deal to himself, but that was nothing 
 unusual. At about that hour I assisted him 
 to undress, and left him in his slippers and 
 dressing-gown. I went back softly in about 
 half an hour. He was in his bed, quite un- 
 dressed, and a pair of candles lighted on the 
 table beside his bed. He was leaning on his 
 elbow and looking out at the other side of the 
 bed when I came in. I asked him if he 
 wanted anything, and he said no. 
 
 " I don't know whether it was what you 
 said to me, sir, or something a little unusual 
 about him, but I was uneasy, uncommon un- 
 easy about him last night. 
 
 " In another half hour, or it might be a 
 little more, I went up again. I did not hear 
 him talking as before. I opened the door a 
 little. The candles were both out, which 
 was not usual. I had a bedroom candle, and
 
 GREEN TEA. 87 
 
 I let the light in, a little bit, looking softly 
 round. I saw him sitting in that chair be- 
 side the dressing-table with his clothes on 
 again. He turned round and looked at me. I 
 thought it strange he should get up and dress, 
 and put out the candles to sit in the dark, 
 that way. But I only asked him again if I 
 could do anything for him. He said, no, 
 rather sharp, I thought. I asked if I might 
 light the candles, and he said, c Do as you 
 like, Jones/ So I lighted them, and I 
 lingered about the room, and he said, c Tell 
 me truth, Jones, why did you come again — 
 you did not hear any one cursing?' c No, 
 sir,' I said, wondering what he could mean. 
 
 " { No,' said he, after me, c of course, no ;' 
 and I said to him, c Wouldn't it be well, sir, 
 you went to bed ? It's just five o'clock ;' 
 and he said nothing but, c Very likely ; good- 
 night, Jones.' So I went, sir, but in less 
 than hour I came again. The door was fast,
 
 88 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 and he heard me, and called as I thought from 
 the bed to know what I wanted, and he 
 desired me not to disturb him again. I lay- 
 down and slept for a little. It must have 
 been between six and seven when I went up 
 again. The door was still fast, and he made 
 no answer, so I did not like to disturb him, 
 and thinking he was asleep, I left him 
 till nine. It was his custom to ring when he 
 wished me to come, and I had no particular 
 hour for calling him. I tapped very gently, 
 and getting no answer, I stayed away a good 
 while, supposing he was getting some rest 
 then. It was not till eleven o'clock I grew 
 really uncomfortable about him — for at the 
 latest he was never, that I could remember, 
 later than half-past ten. I got no answer. I 
 knocked and called, and still no answer. So not 
 being able to force the door, I called Thomas 
 from the stables, and together we forced it, 
 and found him in the shocking way you saw."
 
 GREEN TEA. 
 
 Jones had no more to tell. Poor Mr. 
 Jennings was very gentle, and very kind. 
 All his people were fond of him. I could 
 see that the servant was very much moved. 
 
 So, dejected and agitated, I passed from 
 that terrible house, and its dark canopy of 
 elms, and I hope I shall never see it more. 
 While I write to you I feel like a man who 
 has but half waked from a frightful and 
 monotonous dream. My memory rejects 
 the picture with incredulity and horror. Yet 
 I know it is true. It is the story of the pro- 
 cess of a poison, a poison which excites the 
 reciprocal action of spirit and nerve, and 
 paralyses the tissue that separates those 
 cognate functions of the senses, the external 
 and the interior. Thus we find strange bed- 
 fellows, and the mortal and immortal pre- 
 maturely make acquaintance.
 
 mmmmmGi* 
 
 ^^^A^pMdm 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 A WORD FOR THOSE WHO SUFFER. 
 
 MY dear Van L , you have suffered 
 from an affection similar to that 
 which I have just described. You twice 
 complained of a return of it. 
 
 Who, under God, cured you? Your 
 humble servant, Martin Hesselius. Let me 
 rather adopt the more emphasised piety of 
 a certain good old French surgeon of three 
 hundred years ago : " I treated, and God 
 cured you."
 
 GREEN TEA. 9 1 
 
 Come, my friend, you are not to be 
 hippish. Let me tell you a fact. 
 
 I have met with, and treated, as my book 
 shows, fifty-seven cases of this kind of vision, 
 which I term indifferently " sublimated," 
 " precocious," and " interior." 
 
 There is another class of affections which 
 are truly termed — though commonly con- 
 founded with those which I describe — 
 spectral illusions. These latter I look 
 upon as being no less simply curable than a 
 cold in the head or a trifling dyspepsia. 
 
 It is those which rank in the first category 
 that test our promptitude of thought. Fifty- 
 seven such cases have I encountered, neither 
 more nor less. And in how many of these 
 have I failed ? In no one single instance. 
 
 There is no one affliction of mortality 
 more easily and certainly reducible, with a 
 little patience, and a rational confidence in 
 the physician. With these simple conditions,
 
 92 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 I look upon the cure as absolutely certain. 
 
 You are to remember that I had not even 
 commenced to treat Mr. Jennings' case. I 
 have not any doubt that I should have cured 
 him perfectly in eighteen months, or possi- 
 bly it might have extended to two years. 
 Some cases are very rapidly curable, others 
 extremely tedious. Every intelligent physi- 
 cian who will give thought and diligence to 
 the task, will effect a cure. 
 
 You know my tract on The Cardinal 
 Functions of the Brain. I there, by the evi- 
 dence of innumerable facts, prove, as I think, 
 the high probability of a circulation arterial 
 and venous in its mechanism, through the 
 nerves. Of this system, thus considered, the 
 brain is the heart. The fluid, which is pro- 
 pagated hence through one class of nerves, 
 returns in an altered state through another, 
 and the nature of that fluid is spiritual, 
 though not immaterial, any more than, as I
 
 GREEN TEA. 93 
 
 before remarked, light or electricity are so. 
 By various abuses, among which the habi- 
 tual use of such agents as green tea is one, 
 this fluid may be affected as to its quality, 
 but it is more frequently disturbed as to 
 equilibrium. This fluid being that which we 
 have in common with spirits, a congestion 
 found upon the masses of brain or nerve, 
 connected with the interior sense, forms a 
 surface unduly exposed, on which disem- 
 bodied spirits may operate : communication 
 is thus more or less effectually established. 
 Between this brain circulation and the heart 
 circulation there is an intimate sympathy. 
 The seat, or rather the instrument of exterior 
 vision, is the eye. The seat of interior vision 
 is the nervous tissue and brain, immediately 
 about and above the eyebrow. You remem- 
 ber how effectually I dissipated your pictures 
 by the simple application of iced eau-de- 
 cologne. Few cases, however, can be treated
 
 94 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 exactly alike with anything like rapid success. 
 Cold acts powerfully as a repellant of the 
 nervous fluid. Long enough continued it 
 will even produce that permanent insensibility 
 which we call numbness, and a little longer, 
 muscular as well as sensational paralysis. 
 
 I have not, I repeat, the slightest doubt 
 that I should have first dimmed and ulti- 
 mately sealed that inner eye which Mr. Jen- 
 nings had inadvertently opened. The same 
 senses are opened in delirium tremens, and 
 entirely shut up again when the over- action of 
 the cerebral heart, and the prodigious ner- 
 vous congestions that attend it, are terminated 
 by a decided change in the state of the body. 
 It is by acting steadily upon the body, by a 
 simple process, that this result is produced — 
 and inevitably produced — I have never yet 
 failed. 
 
 Poor Mr. Jennings made away with him- 
 self. But that catastrophe was the result of
 
 GREEN TEA. 95 
 
 a totally different malady, which, as it were, 
 projected itself upon that disease which was 
 established. His case was in the distinctive 
 manner a complication, and the complaint 
 under which he really succumbed, was here- 
 ditary suicidal mania. Poor Mr. Jennings I 
 cannot call a patient of mine, for I had not 
 even begun to treat his case, and he had not 
 yet given me, I am convinced, his full and 
 unreserved confidence. If the patient do not 
 array himself on the side of the disease, his 
 cure is certain.
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 
 
 VOL. J.
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 OUT of about two hundred and thirty 
 cases, more or less nearly akin to that 
 I have entitled fC Green Tea," I select the 
 following, which I call " The Familiar/' 
 
 To this MS. Doctor Hesselius, has, after 
 his wont, attached some sheets of letter-paper, 
 on which are written, in his hand nearly as 
 compact as print, his own remarks upon the 
 case. He says — 
 
 " In point of conscience, no more unex- 
 ceptionable narrator, than the venerable Irish 
 Clergyman who has given me this paper, on 
 
 H 2
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 Mr. Barton's case, could have been chosen. 
 The statement is, however, medically imper- 
 fect, The report of an intelligent physician, 
 who had marked its progress, and attended 
 the patient, from its earlier stages to its close, 
 would have supplied what is wanting to en- 
 able me to pronounce with confidence. I 
 should have been acquainted with Mr. Bar- 
 ton's probable hereditary pre-dispositions ; 
 I should have known, possibly, by very early 
 indications, something of a remoter origin of 
 the disease than can now be ascertained. 
 
 " In a rough way, we may reduce all simi- 
 lar cases to three distinct classes. They are 
 founded on the primary distinction between 
 the subjective and the objective. Of those 
 whose senses are alleged to be subject to 
 supernatural impressions — some are simply 
 visionaries, and propagate the illusions of 
 which they complain, from diseased brain or 
 nerves. Others are, unquestionably, infested
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 
 
 by, as we term them, spiritual agencies, ex- 
 terior to themselves. Others, again, owe their 
 sufferings to a mixed condition. The interior 
 sense, it is true, is opened ; but it has been /^ 
 and continues open by the action of disease. 
 This form of disease may, in one sense, be 
 compared to the loss of the scarf-skin, and a 
 consequent exposure of surfaces for whose 
 excessive sensitiveness, nature has provided 
 a muffling. The loss of this covering is 
 attended by an habitual impassability, by in- 
 fluences against which we were intended to 
 be guarded. But in the case of the brain, 
 and the nerves immediately connected with 
 its functions and its sensuous impressions, 
 the cerebral circulation undergoes periodi- 
 cally that vibratory disturbance, which, I 
 believe, I have satisfactorily examined and 
 demonstrated, in my MS. Essay, A. 17. 
 This vibratory disturbance differs, as I there 
 prove, essentially from the congestive distur-
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 bance, the phenomena of which are examined 
 in A. 19. It is, when excessive, invariably 
 accompanied by illusions. 
 
 " Had I seen Mr. Barton, and examined 
 him upon the points, in his case, which need 
 elucidation, I should have without difficulty 
 referred those phenomena to their proper 
 disease. My diagnosis is now, necessarily, 
 conjectural." 
 
 Thus writes Doctor Hesselius ; and adds 
 a great deal which is of interest only to a 
 scientific physician. 
 
 The Narrative of the Rev. Thomas Her- 
 bert, which furnishes all that is known of 
 the case, will be found in the chapters that 
 follow.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FOOT-STEPS. 
 
 I WAS a young man at the time, and 
 intimately acquainted with some of the 
 actors in this strange tale ; the impression 
 which its incidents made on me, therefore, 
 were deep, and lasting. I shall now en- 
 deavour, with precision, to relate them 
 all, combining, of course, in the narra- 
 tive, whatever I have learned from various 
 sources, tending, however imperfectly, to illu- 
 minate the darkness which involves its progress 
 and termination.
 
 104- IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 Somewhere about the year 1794, the 
 younger brother of a certain baronet, whom 
 I shall call Sir James Barton, returned to 
 Dublin. He had served in the navy with 
 some distinction, having commanded one of 
 His Majesty's frigates during the greater part 
 of the American war. Captain Barton was 
 apparently some two or three-and-forty years 
 of age. He was an intelligent and agreeable 
 companion when he pleased it, though gener- 
 ally reserved, and occasionally even moody. 
 
 In society, however, he deported himself 
 as a man of the world, and a gentleman. 
 He had not contracted any of the noisy 
 brusqueness sometimes acquired at sea ; on 
 the contrary, his manners were remarkably 
 easy, quiet, and even polished. He was in 
 person about the middle size, and somewhat 
 strongly formed — his countenance was marked 
 with the lines of thought, and on the whole 
 wore an expression of gravity and melancholy ;
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 105 
 
 being, however, as I have said, a man of 
 perfect breeding, as well as of good family, 
 and in affluent circumstances, he had, of 
 course, ready access to the best society of 
 Dublin, without the necessity of any other 
 credentials. 
 
 In his personal habits Mr. Barton was un- 
 expensive. He occupied lodgings in one of 
 the then fashionable streets in the south side 
 of the town — kept but one horse and one 
 servant — and though a reputed free-thinker, 
 yet lived an orderly and moral life — in- 
 dulging neither in gaming, drinking, nor any 
 other vicious pursuit — living very much 
 to himself, without forming intimacies, or 
 choosing any companions, and appearing to 
 mix in gay society rather for the sake of its 
 bustle and distraction, than for any oppor- 
 tunities it offered of interchanging thought 
 or feeling with its votaries. 
 
 Barton was therefore pronounced a saving,
 
 io6 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 prudent, unsocial sort of fellow, who bid 
 fair to maintain his celibacy alike against 
 stratagem and assault, and was likely to live 
 to a good old age, die rich, and leave his 
 money to an hospital. 
 
 It was now apparent, however, that the 
 nature of Mr. Barton's plans had been totally 
 misconceived. A young lady, whom I shall 
 call Miss Montague, was at this time in- 
 troduced into the gay world, by her aunt, the 
 
 Dowager Lady L . Miss Montague was 
 
 decidedly pretty and accomplished, and hav- 
 ing some natural cleverness, and a great deal 
 of gaiety, became for a while a reigning toast. 
 
 Her popularity, however, gained her, for a 
 time, nothing more than that unsubstantial 
 admiration which, however, pleasant as an 
 incense to vanity, is by no means necessarily 
 antecedent to matrimony — for, unhappily for 
 the young lady in question, it was an under- 
 stood thing, that beyond her personal attrac-
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 107 
 
 tions, she had no kind of earthly provision. 
 Such being the state of affairs, it will readily 
 be believed that no little surprise was conse- 
 quent upon the appearance of Captain Barton 
 as the avowed lover of the penniless Miss 
 Montague. 
 
 His suit prospered, as might have been 
 expected, and in a short time it was com- 
 municated by old Lady L to each of 
 
 her hundred- and-fifty particular friends in 
 succession, that Captain Barton had actually 
 tendered proposals of marriage, with her 
 approbration, to her niece, Miss Montague, 
 who had, moreover, accepted the offer of 
 his hand, conditionally upon the consent of 
 her father, who was then upon his homeward 
 voyage from India, and expected in two or 
 three weeks at the furthest. 
 
 About this consent there could be no doubt 
 — the delay, therefore, was one merely of 
 form — they were looked upon as absolutely
 
 108 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 engaged, and Lady L , with a rigour of 
 
 old-fashioned decorum with which her niece 
 would, no doubt, gladly have dispensed, with- 
 drew her thenceforward from all further 
 participation in the gaieties of the town. 
 
 Captain Barton was a constant visitor, as 
 well as a frequent guest at the house, and 
 was permitted all the privileges of intimacy 
 which a betrothed suitor is usually accorded. 
 Such was the relation of parties, when the 
 mysterious circumstances which darken this 
 narrative first begun to unfold them- 
 selves. 
 
 Lady L resided in a handsome mansion 
 
 at the north side of Dublin, and Captain 
 Barton's lodgings, as we have already said, 
 were situated at the south. The distance inter- 
 vening was considerable, and it was Captain 
 Barton's habit generally to walk home without 
 an attendant, as often as he passed the even- 
 ing with the old lady and her fair charge.
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 109 
 
 His shortest way in such nocturnal walks, 
 lay, for a considerable space, through a line 
 of street which had as yet merely been laid 
 out, and little more than the foundations of 
 the houses constructed. 
 
 One night, shortly after his engagement 
 with Miss Montague had commenced, he 
 happened to remain unusually late, in com- 
 pany with her and Lady L . The con - 
 
 versation had turned upon the evidences of 
 revelation, which he had disputed with the 
 callous scepticism of a confirmed infidel. 
 What were called " French principles," had in 
 those days found their way a good deal into 
 fashionable society, especially that portion of 
 it which professed allegiance to Whiggism, 
 and neither the old lady nor her charge were 
 so perfectly free from the taint, as to look 
 upon Mr. Barton's views as any serious ob- 
 jection to the proposed union. 
 
 The discussion had degenerated into one
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 upon the supernatural and the marvellous, in 
 which he had pursued precisely the same line 
 of argument and ridicule. In all this, it is but 
 truth to state, Captain Barton was guilty of 
 no affectation — the doctrines upon which he 
 insisted, were, in reality, but, too truly the 
 basis of his own fixed belief, if so it might 
 be called ; and perhaps not the least strange 
 of the many strange circumstances connected 
 with my narrative, was the fact, that the sub- 
 ject of the fearful influences I am about to 
 describe, was himself, from the deliberate 
 conviction of years, an utter disbeliever in what 
 are usually termed preternatural agencies. 
 
 It was considerably past midnight when 
 Mr. Barton took his leave, and set out upon 
 his solitary walk homeward. He had now 
 reached the lonely road, with its unfinished 
 dwarf walls tracing the foundations of the 
 projected row of houses on either side — the 
 moon was shining mistily, and its imperfect
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 
 
 light made the road he trod but additionally- 
 dreary — that utter silence which has in it 
 something indefinably exciting, reigned there, 
 and made the sound of his steps, which alone 
 broke it, unnaturally loud and distinct. 
 
 He had proceeded thus some way, when 
 he, on a sudden, heard other footfalls, pat- 
 tering at a measured pace, and, as it seemed, 
 about two score steps behind him. 
 
 The suspicion of being dogged is at all 
 times unpleasant; it is, however, especially 
 so in a spot so lonely ; and this suspi- 
 cion became so strong in the mind of 
 Captain Barton, that he abruptly turned 
 about to confront his pursuer, but, though 
 there was quite sufficient moonlight to dis- 
 close any object upon the road he had 
 traversed, no form of any kind was visible 
 there. 
 
 The steps he had heard could not have 
 been the reverberation of his own, for he
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 stamped his foot upon the ground, and 
 walked briskly up and down, in the vain 
 attempt to awake an echo ; though by no 
 means a fanciful person, therefore he was at 
 last fain to charge the sounds upon his 
 imagination, and treat them as an illusion. 
 Thus satisfying himself, he resumed his walk, 
 and before he had proceeded a dozen paces, 
 the mysterious footfall was again audible 
 from behind, and this time, as if with the 
 special design of showing that the sounds were 
 not the responses of an echo — the steps some- 
 times slackened nearly to a halt, and some- 
 times hurried for six or eight strides to a run, 
 and again abated to a walk. 
 
 Captain Barton, as before, turned suddenly 
 round, and with the same result — no object 
 was visible above the deserted level of the 
 road. He walked back over the same ground, 
 determined that, whatever might have been 
 the cause of the sounds which had so dis-
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 113 
 
 concerted him, it should not escape his search 
 — the endeavour, however, was unrewarded. 
 
 In spite of all his scepticism, he felt some- 
 thing like a superstitious fear stealing fast 
 upon him, and with these unwonted and un- 
 comfortable sensations, he once more turned 
 and pursued his way. There was no repeti- 
 tion of these haunting sounds, until he had 
 reached the point where he had last stopped 
 to retrace his steps — here they were resumed 
 — and with sudden starts of running, which 
 threatened to bring the unseen pursuer up to 
 the alarmed pedestrian. 
 
 Captain Barton arrested his course as 
 formerly — the unaccountable nature of the 
 occurrence filled him with vague and disagree- 
 able sensations — and yielding to the excite- 
 ment that was gaining upon him, he shouted 
 sternly, " Who goes there ?" The sound of 
 one's own voice, thus exerted, in utter solitude, 
 and followed by total silence, has in it some-
 
 ii 4 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 thing unpleasantly dismaying, and he felt a 
 degree of nervousness which, perhaps, from 
 no cause had he ever known before. 
 
 To the very end of this solitary street the 
 steps pursued him — and it required a strong 
 effort of stubborn pride on his part, to resist 
 the impulse that prompted him every mo- 
 ment to run for safety at the top of his speed. 
 It was not until he had reached his lodging, 
 and sate by his own fire-side, that he felt 
 sufficiently reassured to rearrange and recon- 
 sider in his own mind the occurrences which 
 had so discomposed him. So little a matter, 
 after all, is sufficient to upset the pride of 
 scepticism and vindicate the old simple laws 
 of nature within us.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE WATCHER. 
 
 MR. BARTON was next morning 
 sitting at a late breakfast, reflecting 
 upon the incidents of the previous night, 
 with more of inquisitiveness than awe, so 
 speedily do gloomy impressions upon the 
 fancy disappear under the cheerful influence 
 of day, when a letter just delivered by the 
 postman was placed upon the table before 
 him. 
 
 There was nothing remarkable in the ad-
 
 u6 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 dress of this missive, except that it was written 
 in a hand which he did not know — perhaps 
 it was disguised — for the tall narrow cha- 
 racters were sloped backward ; and with the 
 self-inflicted suspense which we often see 
 practised in such cases, he puzzled over the 
 inscription for a full minute before he broke 
 the seal. When he did so, he read the 
 following words, written in the same hand : — 
 
 " Mr. Barton, late captain of the c Dolphin,' 
 is warned of danger. He will do wisely to 
 
 avoid street — [here the locality of his 
 
 last night's adventure was named] — if he 
 walks there as usual he will meet with some- 
 thing unlucky — let him take warning, once 
 for all, for he has reason to dread 
 
 "The Watcher." 
 
 Captain Barton read and re-read this strange 
 effusion ; in every light and in every direction
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 117 
 
 he turned it over and over ; he examined the 
 paper on which it was written, and scrutinized 
 the hand- writing once more. Defeated here, 
 he turned to the seal ; it was nothing but a 
 patch of wax, upon which the accidental im- 
 pression of a thumb was imperfectly visible. 
 
 There was not the slightest mark, or 
 clue of any kind, to lead him to even 
 a guess as to its possible origin. The 
 writer's object seemed a friendly one, and 
 yet he subscribed himself as one whom he 
 had "reason to dread." Altogether the 
 letter, its author, and its real purpose 
 were to him an inexplicable puzzle, and one, 
 moreover, unpleasantly suggestive, in his 
 mind, of other associations connected with 
 his last night's adventure. 
 
 In obedience to some feeling — perhaps of 
 pride — Mr. Barton did not communicate, 
 even to his intended bride, the occurrences 
 which I have just detailed. Trifling as they
 
 n8 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 might appear, they had in reality most dis- 
 agreeably affected his imagination, and he 
 cared not to disclose, even to the young lady 
 in question, what she might possibly look upon 
 as evidences of weakness. The letter might 
 very well be but a hoax, and the mysterious 
 footfall but a delusion or a trick. But 
 although he affected to treat the whole affair 
 as unworthy of a thought, it yet haunted him 
 pertinaciously, tormenting him with perplex- 
 ing doubts, and depressing him with undefined 
 apprehensions. Certain it is, that for a con- 
 siderable time afterwards he carefully avoided 
 the street indicated in the letter as the scene 
 of danger. 
 
 It was not until about a week after the 
 receipt of the letter which I have transcribed, 
 that anything further occurred to remind 
 Captain Barton of its contents, or to counter- 
 act the gradual disappearance from his mind 
 of the disagreeable impressions then received.
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 119 
 
 He was returning one night, after the 
 interval I have stated, from the theatre, 
 which was then situated in Crow-street, and 
 having there seen Miss Montague and 
 
 Lady L into their carriage, he loitered 
 
 for some time with two or three acquaint- 
 ances. 
 
 With these, however, he parted close to 
 the college, and pursued his way alone. It 
 was now fully one o'clock, and the streets 
 were quite deserted. During the whole of 
 his walk with the companions from whom 
 he had just parted, he had been at times 
 painfully aware of the sound of steps, as 
 it seemed, dogging them on their way. 
 
 Once or twice he had looked back, in the 
 uneasy anticipation that he was again about 
 to experience the same mysterious annoy- 
 ances which had so disconcerted him a 
 week before, and earnestly hoping that he 
 might see some form to account naturally for
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 the sounds. But the street was deserted — no 
 one was visible. 
 
 Proceeding now quite alone upon his 
 homeward way, he grew really nervous and 
 uncomfortable, as he became sensible, with 
 increased distinctness, of the well-known and 
 now absolutely dreaded sounds. 
 
 By the side of the dead wall which bounded 
 the college park, the sounds followed, re- 
 commencing almost simultaneously with his 
 own steps. The same unequal pace — some- 
 times slow, sometimes for a score yards or 
 so, quickened almost to a run — was audible 
 from behind him. Again and again he 
 turned ; quickly and stealthily he glanced 
 over his shoulder — almost at every half-dozen 
 steps ; but no one was visible. 
 
 The irritation of this intangible and unseen 
 pursuit became gradually all but intolera- 
 ble ; and when at last he reached his home, 
 his nerves were strung to such a pitch of ex-
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 
 
 citement that he could not rest, and did not 
 attempt even to lie down until after the day- 
 light had broken. 
 
 He was awakened by a knock at his 
 chamber-door, and his servant entering, 
 handed him several letters which had just 
 been received by the penny post. One 
 among them instantly arrested his attention 
 — a single glance at the direction aroused 
 him thoroughly He at once recognized its 
 character, and read as follows : — 
 
 <c You may as well think, Captain Barton, 
 to escape from your own shadow as from 
 me ; do what you may, I will see you as 
 often as I please, and you shall see me, for I 
 do not want to hide myself, as you fancy. 
 Do not let it trouble your rest, Captain Bar- 
 ton ; for, with a good conscience^ what need 
 you fear from the eye of 
 
 " The Watcher."
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to dwell upon the 
 feelings that accompanied a perusal of this 
 strange communication. Captain Barton was 
 observed to be unusually absent and out of 
 spirits for several days afterwards? but no 
 one divined the cause. 
 
 Whatever he might think as to the phan- 
 tom steps which followed him, there could 
 be no possible illusion about the letters he 
 had received ; and, to say the least, their 
 immediate sequence upon the mysterious 
 sounds which had haunted him, was an odd 
 coincidence. 
 
 The whole circumstance was, in his own 
 mind, vaguely and instinctively connected 
 with certain passages in his past life, which, 
 of all others, he hated to remember. 
 
 It happened, however, that in addition to 
 his own approaching nuptials, Captain Barton 
 had just then — fortunately, perhaps, for 
 himself — some business of an engrossing kind
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 123 
 
 connected with the adjustment of a large and 
 long-litigated claim upon certain properties. 
 
 The hurry and excitement of business had 
 its natural effect in gradually dispelling the 
 gloom which had for a time occasionally 
 oppressed him, and in a little while his spirits 
 had entirely recovered their accustomed 
 tone. 
 
 During all this time, however, he was, 
 now and then, dismayed by indistinct and 
 half-heard repetitions of the same annoyance, 
 and that in lonely places, in the day-time as 
 well as after nightfall. These renewals of 
 the strange impressions from which he had 
 suffered so much, were, however, desultory 
 and faint, insomuch that often he really could 
 not, to his own satisfaction, distinguish be- 
 tween them and the mere suggestions of an 
 excited imagination. 
 
 One evening he walked down to the House 
 of Commons with a Member, an acquaintance
 
 i2 4 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 of his and mine. This was one of the few 
 occasions upon which I have been in company 
 with Captain Barton. As we walked down 
 together, I observed that he became absent 
 and silent, and to a degree that seemed to 
 argue the pressure of some urgent and 
 absorbing anxiety. 
 
 I afterwards learned that during the whole 
 of our walk, he had heard the well-known 
 footsteps tracking him as we proceeded. 
 
 This, however, was the last time he suf- 
 fered from this phase of the persecution, of 
 which he was already the anxious victim. A 
 new and a very different one was about to be 
 presented.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 AN ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 OF the new series of impressions which 
 were afterwards gradually to work out 
 his destiny, I that evening witnessed the 
 first ; and but for its relation to the train of 
 events which followed, the incident would 
 scarcely have been now remembered by me. 
 As we were walking in at the passage 
 from College- Green, a man, of whom I re- 
 member only that he was short in stature, 
 looked like a foreigner, and wore a kind of fur 
 travelling-cap, walked very rapidly, and as if
 
 126 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 under fierce excitement, directly towards 
 us, muttering to himself, fast and vehemently 
 the while. 
 
 This odd-looking person walked straight 
 toward Barton, who was foremost of the 
 three, and halted, regarding him for a mo- 
 ment or two with a look of maniacal menace 
 and fury ; and then turning about as abruptly, 
 he walked before us at the same agitated pace, 
 and disappeared at a side passage. I do dis- 
 tinctly remember being a good deal shocked 
 at the countenance and bearing of this man, 
 which indeed irresistibly impressed me with 
 an undefined sense of danger, such as I have 
 never felt before or since from the presence 
 of anything human ; but these sensations 
 were, on my part, far from amounting to 
 anything so disconcerting as to flurry or 
 excite me — I had seen only a singularly evil 
 countenance, agitated, as it seemed, with the 
 excitement of madness.
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 127 
 
 I was absolutely astonished, however, at 
 the effect of this apparition upon Captain 
 Barton. I knew him to be a man of proud 
 courage and coolness in real danger — a cir- 
 cumstance which made his conduct upon this 
 occasion the more conspicuously odd. He 
 recoiled a step or two as the stranger ad- 
 vanced, and clutched my arm in silence, with 
 what seemed to be a spasm of agony or 
 terror ! and then, as the figure disappeared, 
 shoving me roughly back, he followed it for 
 a few paces, stopped in great disorder, and 
 sat down upon a form. I never beheld a 
 countenance more ghastly and haggard. 
 
 " For God's sake, Barton, what is the 
 
 matter ?" said , our companion, really 
 
 alarmed at his appearance. " You're not 
 hurt, are you ? — or unwell ? What is it ?" 
 
 " What did he say ? — I did not hear it — 
 what was it ?" asked Barton, wholly disre- 
 garding the question.
 
 iz8 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 " Nonsense," said , greatly surprised ; 
 
 cc who cares what the fellow said. You are 
 unwell, Barton — decidedly unwell ; let me 
 call a coach." 
 
 "Unwell! No — not unwell," he said, 
 evidently making an effort to recover 
 his self-possession ; " but, to say the truth, 
 I am fatigued — a little over- worked — and 
 perhaps over anxious. You know I have 
 been in chancery, and the winding up of a 
 suit is always a nervous affair. I have felt 
 uncomfortable all this evening ; but I am 
 better now. Come, come — shall we go on ?" 
 
 cc No, no. Take my advice, Barton, and 
 go home ; you really do need rest ! you are 
 looking quite ill. I really do insist on your 
 allowing me to see you home," replied his 
 friend. 
 
 I seconded 's advice, the more readily 
 
 as it was obvious that Barton was not himself 
 disinclined to be persuaded. He left us,
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 129 
 
 declining our offered escort. I was not 
 
 sufficiently intimate with to discuss 
 
 the scene we had both just witnessed. 
 I was, however, convinced from his 
 manner in the few common-place com- 
 ments and regrets we exchanged, that he 
 was just as little satisfied as I with the extem- 
 pore plea of illness with which he had ac- 
 counted for the strange exhibition, and that 
 we were both agreed in suspecting some 
 lurking mystery in the matter. 
 
 I called next day at Barton's lodgings, to 
 enquire for him, and learned from the servant 
 that he had not left his room since his return 
 the night before ; but that he was not 
 seriously indisposed, and hoped to be out in 
 a few days. That evening he sent for Dr. 
 
 R , then in large and fashionable praetice 
 
 in Dublin, and their interview was, it is 
 said, an odd one. 
 
 He entered into a detail of his own 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 i 3 o IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 symptoms in an abstracted and desultory way? 
 which seemed to argue a strange want of 
 interest in his own cure, and, at all events, 
 made it manifest that there was some topic 
 engaging his mind of more engrossing im- 
 portance than his present ailment. He com- 
 plained of occasional palpitations and head- 
 ache. 
 
 Doctor R , asked him among other 
 
 questions, whether there was any irritating 
 circumstance or anxiety then occupying his 
 thoughts. This he denied quickly and almost 
 peevishly ; and the physician thereupon de- 
 clared his opinion, that there was nothing 
 amiss except some slight derangement of the 
 digestion, for which he accordingly wrote ^a 
 prescription, and was about to withdraw, 
 when Mr. Barton, with the air of a man who 
 recollects a topic which had nearly escaped 
 him, recalled him. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Doctor, but I really
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 131 
 
 almost forgot ; will you permit me to ask 
 you two or three medical questions — rather 
 odd ones, perhaps, but a wager depends upon 
 their solution, you will, I hope, excuse my un- 
 reasonableness." 
 
 The physician readily undertook to satisfy 
 the inquirer. 
 
 Barton seemed to have some difficulty 
 about opening the proposed interrogatories, 
 for he was silent for a minute, then walked 
 to his book-case, and returned as he had 
 gone ; at last he sat down, and said — 
 
 " You'll think them very childish questions, 
 but I can't recover my wager without a 
 decision ; so I must put them. I want to 
 know first about lock-jaw. If a man actually 
 has had that complaint, and appears to 
 have died of it — so much so, that a 
 physician of average skill pronounces him 
 actually dead — may he, after all, recover ?" 
 
 The physician smiled, and shook his head.
 
 1 32. IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 " But — but a blunder may be made," re- 
 sumed Barton. "Suppose an ignorant pre- 
 tender to medical skill ; may he be so deceived 
 by any stage of the complaint, as to mistake 
 what is only a part of the progress of the 
 disease, for death itself?" 
 
 "No one who had ever seen death," 
 answered he, " could mistake it in a case of 
 lock-jaw." 
 
 Barton mused for a few minutes. " I am 
 going to ask you a question, perhaps, still 
 more childish ; but first, tell me, are the re- 
 gulations of foreign hospitals, such as that of, 
 let us say, Naples, very lax and bungling. 
 May not all kinds of blunders and slips occur 
 in their entries of names, and soforth ?" 
 
 Doctor R professed his incompetence 
 
 to answer that query. 
 
 "Well, then, Doctor, here is the last of 
 my questions. You will, probably, laugh at 
 it ; but it must out, nevertheless. Is there any
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 133 
 
 disease, in all the range of human maladies, 
 which would have the effect of perceptibly- 
 contracting the stature, and the whole frame 
 — causing the man to shrink in all his pro- 
 portions, and yet to preserve his exact re- 
 semblance to himself in every particular — 
 with the one exception, his height and bulk ; 
 any disease, mark — no matter how rare — how 
 little believed in, generally — which could 
 possibly result in producing such an effect ?" 
 
 The physician replied with a smile, and a 
 very decided negative. 
 
 u Tell me, then," said Barton, abruptly, 
 " if a man be in reasonable fear of assault 
 from a lunatic who is at large, can he not pro- 
 cure a warrant for his arrest and detention ?" 
 
 " Really that is more a lawyer's question 
 
 than one in my way," replied Dr. R : 
 
 " but I believe, on applying to a magistrate, 
 such a course would be directed." 
 
 The physician then took his leave ; but,
 
 134- IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 just as he reached the hall-door, remembered 
 that he had left his cane up stairs, and re- 
 turned. His reappearance was awkward, for 
 a piece of paper, which he recognised as his 
 own prescription, was slowly burning upon 
 the fire, and Barton sitting close by with an 
 expression of settled gloom and dismay. 
 
 Doctor R had too much tact to ob- 
 serve what presented itself; but he had seen 
 quite enough to assure him that the mind, 
 and not the body, of Captain Barton was in 
 reality the seat of suffering. 
 
 A few days afterwards, the following adver- 
 tisement appeared in the Dublin newspapers. 
 
 " If Sylvester Yelland, formerly a foremast- 
 man on board his Majesty's frigate Dolphin, 
 or his nearest of kin, will apply to Mr. 
 Hubert Smith, attorney, at his office, Dame 
 Street, he or they may hear of something 
 greatly to his or their advantage. Admission 
 may be had at any hour up to twelve o'clock at
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 135 
 
 night, should parties desire to avoid observa- 
 tion ; and the strictest secrecy, as to all com- 
 munications intended to be confidential, shall 
 be honourably observed." 
 
 The Dolphin, as I have mentioned, was 
 the vessel which Captain Barton had com- 
 manded ; and this circumstance, connected 
 with the extraordinary exertions made by 
 the circulation of hand-bills, &c, as well as by 
 repeated advertisements, to secure for this 
 strange notice the utmost possible publicity, 
 
 suggested to Dr. R the idea that Captain 
 
 Barton's extreme uneasiness was somehow 
 connected with the individual to whom the 
 advertisement was addressed, and he himself 
 the author of it. 
 
 This, however, it is needless to add, was 
 was no more than a conjecture. No informa- 
 tion whatsoever, as to the real purpose 
 of the advertisement was divulged by the 
 agent, nor yet any hint as to who his 
 employer might be.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HE TALKS WITH A CLERGYMAN. 
 
 MR. BARTON, although he had lat- 
 terly begun to earn for himself the 
 character of an hypochondriac, was yet very 
 far from deserving it. Though by no means 
 lively, he had yet, naturally, what are termed 
 "even spirits," and was not subject to undue 
 depressions. 
 
 He soon, therefore, began to return to his 
 former habits ; and one of the earliest symp- 
 toms of this healthier tone of spirits was, his
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 
 
 137 
 
 appearing at a grand dinner of the Free- 
 masons, of which worthy fraternity he was 
 himself a brother. Barton, who had been at 
 first gloomy and abstracted, drank much more 
 freely than was his wont — possibly with the 
 purpose of dispelling his own secret anxieties 
 — and under the influence of good wine, and 
 pleasant company, became gradually (unlike 
 himself) talkative, and even noisy. 
 
 It was under this unwonted excitement that 
 he left his company at about half-past ten 
 o'clock ; and, as conviviality is a strong incen- 
 tive to gallantry, it occurred to him to proceed 
 forthwith to Lady L 's and pass the re- 
 mainder of the evening with her and his 
 destined bride. 
 
 Accordingly, he. was soon at street, 
 
 and chatting gaily with the ladies. It is not 
 to be supposed that Captain Barton had ex- 
 ceeded the limits which propriety prescribes 
 to good fellowship — he had merely taken
 
 138 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 enough wine to raise his spirits, without, how- 
 ever, in the least degree unsteadying his mind, 
 or affecting his manners. 
 
 With this undue elevation of spirits had 
 supervened an entire oblivion or contempt of 
 those undefined apprehensions which had for 
 so long weighed upon his mind, and to a 
 certain extent estranged him from society ; but 
 as the night wore away, and his artificial gaiety 
 began to flag, these painful feelings gradually 
 intruded themselves again, and he grew ab- 
 stracted and anxious as heretofore. 
 
 He took his leave at length, with an un- 
 pleasant foreboding of some coming mischief, 
 and with a mind haunted with a thousand 
 mysterious apprehensions, such as, even while 
 he acutely felt their pressure, he, nevertheless, 
 inwardly strove, or affected to contemn. 
 
 It was this proud defiance of what he 
 regarded as his own weakness, which prompted 
 him upon the present occasion to that course
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 139 
 
 which brought about the adventure I am 
 now about to relate. 
 
 Mr. Barton might have easily called a 
 coach, but he was conscious that his strong 
 inclination to do so proceeded from no cause 
 other than what he desperately persisted in 
 representing to himself to be his own super- 
 stitious tremors. 
 
 He might also have returned home by aroute 
 different from that against which he had been 
 warned by his mysterious correspondent ; but 
 for the same reason he dismissed this idea 
 also, and with a dogged and half desperate 
 resolution to force matters to a crisis of some 
 kind, if there were any reality in the causes 
 of his former suffering, and if not, satisfactorily 
 to bring their delusiveness to the proof, he 
 determined to follow precisely the course 
 which he had trodden upon the night so pain- 
 fully memorable in his own mind as that on 
 which his strange persecution commenced.
 
 140 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 Though, sooth to say, the pilot who for the 
 first time steers his vessel under the muzzles 
 of a hostile battery, never felt his resolution 
 more severely tasked than did Captain Barton 
 as he breathlessly pursued this solitary path 
 — a path which, spite of every effort of 
 scepticism and reason, he felt to be infested 
 by some (as respected him) malignant 
 being. 
 
 He pursued his way steadily and rapidly, 
 scarcely breathing from intensity of suspense ; 
 he, however, was troubled by no renewal of 
 the dreaded footsteps, and was beginning to 
 feel a return of confidence, as more than 
 three-fourths of the way being accomplished 
 with impunity, he approached the long line of 
 twinkling oil lamps which indicated the fre- 
 quented streets. 
 
 This feeling of self-congratulation was, 
 however, but momentary. The report of a 
 musket at some hundred yards behind
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 
 
 [41 
 
 him, and the whistle of a bullet close 
 to his head, disagreeably and startlingly dis- 
 pelled it. His first impulse was to retrace 
 his steps in pursuit of the assassin ; but the 
 road on either side was, as we have said, em- 
 barrassed by the foundations of a street, 
 beyond which extended waste fields, full of 
 rubbish and neglected lime and brick-kilns, 
 and all now as utterly silent as though no 
 sound had ever disturbed their dark and un- 
 sightly solitude. The futility of, single- 
 handed, attempting, under such circumstances, 
 a search for the murderer, was apparent, 
 especially as no sound, either of retreating 
 steps or any other kind, was audible to direct 
 his pursuit. 
 
 With the tumultuous sensations of one 
 whose life has" just been exposed to a mur- 
 derous attempt, and whose escape has 
 been the narrowest possible, Captain Barton 
 turned again ; and without, however, quick-
 
 j 4 a IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 ening his pace actually to a run, hurriedly 
 pursued his way. 
 
 He had turned, as I have said, after a 
 pause of a few seconds, and had just com- 
 menced his rapid retreat, when on a sudden 
 he met the well-remembered little man in the 
 fur cap. The encounter was but momentary. 
 The figure was walking at the same exag- 
 gerated pace, and with the same strange air 
 of menace as before ; and as it passed him, 
 he thought he heard it say, in a furious whis- 
 per, " Still alive— still alive !" 
 
 The state of Mr. Barton's spirits began 
 now to work a corresponding alteration in his 
 health and looks, and to such a degree that it 
 was impossible that the change should escape 
 general remark. 
 
 For some reasons, known but to himself, 
 he took no step whatsoever to bring the at- 
 tempt upon his life, which he had so narrowly 
 escaped, under the notice of the authorities ;
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 143 
 
 on the contrary, he kept it jealously to him- 
 self ; and it was not for many weeks after the 
 occurrence that he mentioned it, and then in 
 strict confidence, to a gentleman, whom the 
 torments of his mind at last compelled him to 
 consult. 
 
 Spite of his blue devils, however, poor 
 Barton, having no satisfactory reason to ren- 
 der to the public for any undue remissness in 
 the attentions exacted by the relation subsist- 
 ing between him and Miss Montague was 
 obliged to exert himself, and present to 
 the world a confident and cheerful bearing. 
 
 The true source of his sufferings, and 
 every circumstance connected with them, he 
 guarded with a reserve so jealous, that it 
 seemed dictated by at least a suspicion that 
 the origin of his strange persecution was 
 known to himself, and that it was of a nature 
 which, upon his own account, he could not 
 or dared not disclose.
 
 144 IN A GLASS- DARKLY. 
 
 The mind thus turned in upon itself, and 
 constantly occupied with a haunting anxiety 
 which it dared not reveal or confide to any 
 human breast, became dally more excited, 
 and, of course, more vividly impressible, by 
 a system of attack which operated through 
 the nervous system ; and in this state he was 
 destined to sustain, with increasing frequency, 
 the stealthy visitations of that apparition 
 which from the first had seemed to possess 
 so terrible a hold upon his imagination. 
 
 vf? $f yfr <fc 'F* ^> 
 
 It was about this time that Captain Barton 
 called upon the then celebrated preacher, 
 Dr. , with whom he had a slight ac- 
 quaintance, and an extraordinary conversation 
 ensued. 
 
 The divine was seated in his chambers in 
 college, surrounded with works upon his 
 favourite pursuit, and deep in theology, 
 when Barton was announced.
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 145 
 
 There was something at once embar- 
 rassed and excited in his manner, which, 
 along with his wan and haggard countenance, 
 impressed the student with the unpleasant 
 consciousness that his visitor must have re- 
 cently suffered terribly indeed, to account for 
 an alteration so striking — almost shocking.. 
 
 After the usual interchange of polite greet- 
 ing, and a few common-place remarks, Cap- 
 tain Barton, who obviously perceived the 
 surprise which his visit had excited, and which 
 
 Doctor was unable wholly to conceal, 
 
 interrupred a brief pause by remarking — 
 
 " This is a strange call, Doctor , per- 
 haps scarcely warranted by an acquaintance 
 so slight as mine with you. I should not 
 under ordinary circumstances have ven- 
 tured to disturb you ; but my visit is 
 neither an idle nor impertinent intrusion. I 
 am sure you will not so account it, when I tell 
 you how afflicted I am." 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 Doctor interrupted him with assur- 
 ances such as good breeding suggested, and 
 Barton resumed — 
 
 cc I am come to task your patience by ask- 
 ing your advice. When I say your patience, 
 I might, indeed, say more ; I might have 
 said your humanity — your compassion ; for 
 I have been and am a great sufferer." 
 
 " My dear sir," replied the churchman, " it 
 will, indeed, afford me infinite gratification 
 if I can give you comfort in any distress of 
 mind ; but — you know -" 
 
 "I know what you would say," resumed 
 Barton, quickly ; cc I am an unbeliever, 
 and, therefore, incapable of deriving help 
 from religion ; but don't take that for 
 granted. At least you must not assume that, 
 however unsettled my convictions may be, I 
 do not feel a deep — a very deep — interest in 
 the subject. Circumstances have lately forced 
 it upon my attention, in such a way as to
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 147 
 
 compel me to review the whole question in a 
 more candid and teachable spirit, I believe, 
 than I ever studied it in before." 
 
 "Your difficulties, I take it for granted, 
 refer to the evidences of revelation," suggested 
 the clergyman. 
 
 " Why — no — not altogether ; in fact I am 
 ashamed to say I have not considered even 
 my objections sufficiently to state them con- 
 nectedly ; but — but there is one subject on 
 which I feel a peculiar interest." 
 
 He paused again, and Doctor pressed 
 
 him to proceed. 
 
 " The fact is," said Barton, " whatever 
 may be my uncertainty as to the authenticity 
 of what we are taught to call revelation, of 
 one fact I am deeply and horribly convinced, 
 that there does exist beyond this a spiritual 
 world — a system whose workings are gene- 
 rally in mercy hidden from us — a system 
 which may be, and which is sometimes, par-
 
 148 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 tially and terribly revealed. I am sure — I 
 know" continued Barton, with increasing ex- 
 citement, " that there is a God — a dreadful 
 God — and that retribution follows guilt, in 
 ways the most mysterious and stupendous — 
 by agencies the most inexplicable and terrific ; 
 — there is a spiritual system — great God, 
 how I have been convinced ! — a system ma- 
 lignant, and implacable, and omnipotent, un- 
 der whose persecutions I am, and have been, 
 suffering the torments of the damned ! — yes, 
 sir — yes — the fires and frenzy of hell I" 
 
 As Barton spoke, his agitation became so 
 vehement that the Divine was shocked, and 
 even alarmed. The wild and excited rapidity 
 with which he spoke, and, above all, the in- 
 definable horror, that stamped his features, 
 afforded a contrast to his ordinary cool and 
 unimpassioned self-possession striking and 
 painful in the last degree.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MR. BARTON STATES HIS CASE. 
 
 " TV IT Y dear sir," said Doctor , after 
 
 XV JL a brief pause, <c I fear you have 
 been very unhappy, indeed ; but I venture 
 to predict that the depression under which 
 you labour will be found to originate in 
 purely physical causes, and that with a 
 change of air, and the aid of a few tonics, 
 your spirits will return, and the tone of your 
 mind be once more cheerful and tranquil as 
 heretofore. There was, after all, more truth 
 <-han we are quite willing to admit in the
 
 150 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 classic theories which assigned the undue pre- 
 dominance of any one affection of the mind, 
 to the undue action or torpidity of one or 
 other of our bodily organs. Believe me, 
 that a little attention to diet, exercise, and the 
 other essentials of health, under competent 
 direction, will make you as much yourself as 
 you can wish." 
 
 " Doctor ," said Barton, with some- 
 thing like a shudder, " I cannot delude myself 
 with such a hope. I have no hope to cling 
 to but one, and that is, that by some other 
 spiritual agency more potent than that which 
 tortures me, it may be combated, and I de- 
 livered. If this may not be, I am lost — now 
 and for ever lost." 
 
 " But, Mr. Barton, you must remember," 
 urged his companion, " that others have 
 suffered as you have done, and " 
 
 " No, no, no," interrupted he, with irrita- 
 bility — " no, sir, I am not a credulous — far
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 151 
 
 from a superstitious man. I have been, per- 
 haps, too much the reverse — too sceptical, too 
 slow of belief ; but unless I were one whom 
 no amount of evidence could convince, unless 
 I were to contemn the repeated, the perpetual 
 evidence of my own senses, I am now — now 
 at last constrained to believe — I have no 
 escape from the conviction — the overwhelm- 
 ing certainty — that I am haunted and dogged, 
 go where I may, by — by a demon !" 
 
 There was a preternatural energy of horror 
 in Barton's face, as, with its damp and death- 
 like lineaments turned towards his companion, 
 he thus delivered himself. 
 
 " God help you, my poor friend," said Dr. 
 
 , much shocked, " God help you ; for, 
 
 indeed, you are a sufferer, however your suf- 
 ferings may have been caused" 
 
 " Ay, ay, God help me," echoed Barton, 
 sternly ; cc but will he help me — will he help 
 me ?"
 
 152 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 cc Pray to him — pray in an humble and 
 trusting spirit/' said he. 
 
 " Pray, pray," echoed he again ; " I can't 
 pray — I could as easily move a mountain by 
 an effort of my will. I have not belief enough 
 to pray; there is something within me that 
 will not pray. You prescribe impossibilities 
 — literal impossibilities." 
 
 " You will not find it so, if you will but 
 try," said Doctor . 
 
 " Try ! I have tried/ and the attempt only 
 fills me with confusion ; and, sometimes, 
 terror ; I have tried irfl vain, and more than 
 in vain. The awful, ^unutterable idea of 
 eternity and infinity oppresses and maddens 
 my brain whenever my mind approaches 
 the contemplation of the Creator; I recoil 
 
 from the effort scared. I tell you, Doctor -, 
 
 if I am to be saved, it must be by other 
 means. The idea of an eternal Creator is to 
 me intolerable — my mind cannot support it."
 
 THE FAMILIAR, 153 
 
 " Say, then, my dear sir," urged he, cc say 
 how you would have me serve you — what 
 you would learn of me — what I can do or 
 say to relieve you?" 
 
 " Listen to me first," replied Captain Bar- 
 ton, with a subdued air, and an effort 
 to suppress his excitement, " listen to me 
 while I detail the circumstances of the perse- 
 cution under which my life has become all 
 but intolerable — a persecution which has 
 made me fear death and the world beyond 
 the grave as much as I have grown to hate 
 existence." 
 
 Barton then proceeded to relate the cir- 
 cumstances which I have already detailed, 
 and then continued : 
 
 cc This has now become habitual — an accus- 
 tomed thing. I do not mean the actual seeing 
 him in the flesh — thank God, that at least is 
 not permitted daily. Thank God, from the 
 ineffable horrors of that visitation I have
 
 i 5 4 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 been mercifully allowed intervals of repose, 
 though none of security ; but from the con- 
 sciousness that a malignant spirit is following 
 and watching me wherever I go, I have never, 
 for a single instant, a temporary respite. I 
 am pursued with blasphemies, cries of des- 
 pair and appalling hatred. I hear those 
 dreadful sounds called after me as I turn the 
 corners of the streets; they come in the night- 
 time, while I sit in my chamber alone ; they 
 haunt me everywhere, charging me with 
 hideous crimes, and — great God ! — threaten- 
 ing me with coming vengeance and eternal 
 misery. Hush ! do you hear that ?" he cried 
 with a horrible smile of triumph ; " there — 
 there, will that convince you ?" 
 
 The clergyman felt a chill of horror 
 steal over him, while, during the wail 
 of a sudden gust of wind, he heard, or 
 fancied he heard, the half articulate sounds of 
 rage and derision mingling in the sough.
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 155 
 
 " Well, what do you think of that ?" at 
 length Barton cried, drawing a long breath 
 through his teeth. 
 
 cc I heard the wind," said Doctor . 
 
 " What should I think of it — what is there 
 remarkable about it?" 
 
 " The prince of the powers of the air," 
 muttered Barton, with a shudder. 
 
 " Tut, tut ! my dear sir," said the student, 
 with an effort to reassure himself; for though 
 it was broad day-light, there was nevertheless 
 something disagreeably contagious in the -ner- 
 vous excitement under which his visitor so 
 miserably suffered. " You must not give way 
 to those wild fancies ; you must resist these 
 impulses of the imagination." 
 
 " Ay, ay ; c resist the devil and he will flee 
 from thee,' " said Barton, in the same tone ; 
 " but how resist him ? ay, there it is — there 
 is the rub. What — what am I to do ? what 
 can I do ?"
 
 1 56 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 " My dear sir, this is fancy," said the man 
 of folios ; " you are your own tormentor." 
 
 " No, no, sir — fancy has no part in it," 
 answered Barton, somewhat sternly. "Fancy! 
 was it that made you, as well as me, hear, 
 but this moment, those accents of hell ? 
 Fancy, indeed ! No, no." 
 
 "But you have seen this person frequently," 
 said the ecclesiastic ; " why have you not ac- 
 costed or secured him? Is it not a little 
 precipitate, to say no more, to assume, as 
 you have done, the existence of preternatural 
 agency, when, after all, everything may be 
 easily accountable, if only proper means were 
 taken to sift the matter." 
 
 "There are circumstances connected with 
 this — this appearance" said Barton, " which it 
 is needless to disclose, but which to me are 
 proof of its horrible nature. I know that the 
 being that follows me is not human — I say I 
 know this ; 1 could prove it to your own
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 157 
 
 conviction." He paused for a minute, and 
 then added, " And as to accosting it, I dare 
 not, I could not ; when I see it I am power- 
 less ; I stand in the gaze of death, in 
 the triumphant presence of infernal power 
 and malignity. My strength, and faculties, 
 and memory, all forsake me. O God, I fear, 
 sir, you know not what you speak of. Mercy, 
 mercy ; heaven have pity on me !" 
 
 He leaned his elbow on the table, and 
 passed his hand across his eyes, as if to ex- 
 clude some image of horror, muttering the 
 last words of the sentence he had just con- 
 cluded, again and again. 
 
 "Doctor ," he said, abruptly raising 
 
 himself, and looking full upon the clergyman 
 with an imploring eye, " I know you will do 
 for me whatever may be done. You know 
 now fully the circumstances and the nature of 
 my affliction. I tell you I cannot help myself ; I 
 cannot hope to escape ; I am utterly passive.
 
 158 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 I conjure you, then, to weigh my case well, 
 and if anything may be done for me by vi- 
 carious supplication — by the intercession of 
 the good — or by any aid or influence what- 
 soever, I implore of you, I adjure you in the 
 name of the Most High, give me the benefit 
 of that influence — deliver me from the body 
 of this death. Strive for me, pity me ; I 
 know you will ; you cannot refuse this ; it is 
 the purpose and object of my visit. Send me 
 away with some hope, however little, some 
 faint hope of ultimate deliverance, and I will 
 nerve myself to endure, from hour to hour, 
 the hideous dream into which my existence 
 has been transformed." 
 
 Doctor assured him that all he could 
 
 do was to pray earnestly for him, and that so 
 much he would not fail to do. They parted 
 with a hurried and melancholy valediction. 
 Barton hastened to the carriage that awaited 
 him at the door, drew down the blinds, and
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 159 
 
 drove away, while Doctor returned to 
 
 his chamber, to ruminate at leisure upon the 
 strange interview which had just interrupted 
 his studies.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SEEN AGAIN. 
 
 IT was not to be expected that Captain 
 Barton's changed and eccentric habits 
 should long escape remark and discus- 
 sion. Various were the theories suggested 
 to account for it. Some attributed the altera- 
 tion to the pressure of secret pecuniary- 
 embarrassments ; others to a repugnance to 
 fulfil an engagement into which he was pre- 
 sumed to have too precipitately entered ; and 
 others, again, to the supposed incipiency of 
 mental disease, which latter, indeed, was the
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 
 
 most plausible as well as the most generally, 
 received, of the hypotheses circulated in the 
 gossip of the day. 
 
 From the very commencement of this 
 change, at first so gradual in its advances, 
 Miss Montague had of course been aware of 
 it. The intimacy involved in their peculiar 
 relation, as well as the near interest which it 
 inspired afforded, in her case, a like oppor- 
 tunity and motive for the successful exercise 
 of that keen and penetrating observation 
 peculiar to her sex. 
 
 His visits became, at length, so interrupted, 
 and his manner, while they lasted, so abstracted, 
 
 strange, and agitated, that Lady L , after 
 
 hinting her anxiety and her suspicions more 
 than once, at length distinctly stated her 
 anxiety, and pressed for an explanation. 
 
 The explanation was given, and although 
 its nature at first relieved the worst solicitudes 
 of the old lady and her niece, yet the circum-
 
 i6z IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 stances which attended it, and the really 
 dreadful consequences which it obviously in- 
 dicated, as regarded the spirits, and indeed 
 the reason of the now wretched man, who 
 made the strange declaration, were enough, 
 upon little reflection, to fill their minds with 
 perturbation and alarm. 
 
 General Montague, the young lady's father? 
 at length arrived. He had himself slightly 
 known Barton, some ten or twelve years 
 previously, and being aware of his fortune 
 and connexions, was disposed to regard him 
 as an unexceptionable and indeed a most desir- 
 able match for his daughter. He laughed at 
 the story of Barton's supernatural visitations, 
 and lost no time in calling upon his intended 
 son-in-law. 
 
 " My dear Barton," he continued, gaily, 
 after a little conversation, cc my sister tells me 
 that you are a victim to blue devils, in quite a 
 new and original shape."
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 163 
 
 Barton changed countenance, and sighed 
 profoundly. 
 
 " Come, come ; I protest this will never 
 do," continued the General ; " you are more 
 like a man on his way to the gallows than to 
 the altar. These devils have made quite a 
 saint of you." 
 
 Barton made an effort to change the con- 
 versation. 
 
 " No, no, it won't do," said his visitor 
 laughing ; " I am resolved to say what I 
 have to say upon this magnificent mock 
 mystery of yours. You must not be angry, 
 but really it is too bad to see you at 
 your time of life, absolutely frightened into 
 good behaviour, like a naughty child by a 
 bugaboo, and as far as I can learn, a 
 very contemptible one. Seriously, I have 
 been a good deal annoyed at what they 
 tell me ; but at the same time thoroughly 
 convinced that there is nothing in the
 
 1 64 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 matter that may not cleared up, with a 
 little attention and management, within a 
 week at furthest." 
 
 "Ah, General, you do not know — " he 
 began. 
 
 " Yes, but I do know quite enough to 
 warrant my confidence," interrupted the 
 soldier, " don't I know that all your annoyance 
 proceeds from the occasional appearance of a 
 certain little man in a cap and great-coat, 
 with a red vest and a bad face, who follows 
 you about, and pops upon you at corners of 
 lanes, and throws you into ague fits. Now, 
 my dear fellow, I'll make it my business to 
 catch this mischievous little mountebank, and 
 either beat him to a jelly with my own hands, 
 or have him whipped through the town, at 
 the cart's-tail, before a month passes." 
 
 cc If you knew what / knew," said Barton, 
 with gloomy agitation, "you would speak 
 very differently. Don't imagine that I am
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 165 
 
 so weak as to assume, without proof the 
 most overwhelming, the conclusion to which 
 I have been forced — the proofs are here, 
 locked up here." As he spoke he tapped 
 upon his breast, and with an anxious sigh 
 continued to walk up and down the room. 
 
 " Well, well, Barton," said his visitor, " I'll 
 wager a rump and a dozen I collar the ghost, 
 and convince even you before many days are 
 over." 
 
 He was running on in the same strain 
 when he was suddenly arrested, and not a 
 little shocked, by observing Barton, who had 
 approached the window, stagger slowly back, 
 like one who had received a stunning blow ; 
 his arm extended toward the street — his face 
 and his very lips white as ashes — while he 
 muttered, <c There — by heaven ! — there — ■ 
 there !" 
 
 General Montague started mechanically to 
 his feet, and from the window of the drawing-
 
 1 66 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 room, saw a figure corresponding as well as 
 his hurry would permit him to discern, with the 
 description of the person, whose appearance 
 so persistently disturbed the repose of his 
 friend. 
 
 The figure was just turning ,'rom the rails 
 of the area upon which it had been leaning, 
 and, without waiting to see more, the old 
 gentleman snatched his cane and hat, and 
 rushed down the stairs and into the street, 
 in the furious hope of securing the person, 
 and punishing the audacity of the mysterious 
 stranger. 
 
 Fie looked round him, but in vain, for any 
 trace of the person he had himself distinctly 
 seen. He ran breathlessly to the nearest 
 corner, expecting to see from thence the retir- 
 ing figure, but no such form was visible. Back 
 and forward, from crossing to crossing, he ran, 
 at fault, and it was not until the curious gaze 
 and laughing countenances of the passers-by re- 
 minded him of the absurdity of his pursuit, that
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 167 
 
 he checked his hurried pace, lowered his walk- 
 ing cane from the menacing altitude which he 
 had mechanically given it, adjusted his hat, 
 and walked composedly back again, inwardly 
 vexed and flurried. He found Barton pale 
 and trembling in every joint ; they both re- 
 mained silent, though under emotions very 
 different. At last Barton whispered, " You 
 saw it ?" 
 
 " h ! — him — some one — you mean — to re 
 sure I did," replied Montague, testily. <f . ,ut 
 where is the good or the harm of seeing 
 him ? The fellow runs like a lamp-lighter. 
 I wanted to catch him, but he had stole 
 away before I could reach the hall-do 
 However, it is no great matter ; next time, I 
 dare say, I'll do better ; and egad, if I once 
 come within reach of him, I'll introduce his 
 shoulders to the weight of my cane." 
 
 Notwithstanding General Montague's un- 
 dertakings and exhortations, however, Bar- 
 ton continued to suffer from the self-same
 
 1 68 r IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 unexplained cause ; go how, when, or where 
 he would, he was still constantly dogged or 
 confronted by the being who had established 
 over him so horrible an influence. 
 
 Nowhere and at no time was he secure 
 against the odious appearance which haunted 
 him with such diabolic perseverance. 
 
 His depression, misery, and excitement 
 became more settled and alarming every day, 
 and the mental agonies that ceaselessly preyed 
 upon him, began at last so sensibly to affect 
 
 his health, that Lady L and General 
 
 Montague succeeded, without, indeed, much 
 difficulty, in persuading him to try a short 
 tour on the Continent, in the hope that an 
 entire change of scene would, at all events, 
 have the effect of breaking through the in- 
 fluences of local association, which the more 
 sceptical of his friends assumed to be by no 
 means inoperative in suggesting and perpetu- 
 ating what they conceived to be a mere form 
 of nervous illusion.
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 169 
 
 General Mqntague indeed was persuaded 
 that the figure which haunted his intended 
 son-in-law was by no means the creation of 
 his imagination, but, on the contrary, a sub- 
 stantial form of flesh and blood, animated by 
 a resolution, perhaps with some murderous 
 object in perspective, to watch and follow the 
 unfortunate gentleman. 
 
 Even this hypothesis was not a very plea- 
 sant one ; yet it was plain that if Barton 
 could ever be convinced that there was nothing 
 preternatural in the phenomenon which he 
 had hitherto regarded in that light, the affair 
 would lose all its terrors in his eyes, and 
 wholly cease to exercise upon his health and 
 spirits the baleful influence which it had 
 hitherto done. He therefore reasoned, that 
 if the annoyance were actually escaped by 
 mere locomotion and change of scene, it ob- 
 viously could not have originated in any 
 supernatural agency.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FLIGHT. 
 
 YIELDING to their persuasions, Barton 
 left Dublin for England, accompanied 
 by General Montague. They posted rapidly 
 to London, and thence to Dover, whence they 
 took the packet with a fair wind for Calais. 
 The General's confidence in the result of the 
 expedition on Barton's spirits had risen day by 
 day, since their departure from the shores of 
 Ireland ; for to the inexpressible relief and 
 delight of the latter, he had not since then, 
 so much as even once fancied a repetition of
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 171 
 
 those impressions which had, when at home, 
 drawn him gradually down to the very depths 
 of despair. 
 
 This exemption from what he- had begun 
 to regard as the inevitable condition of his 
 existence, and the sense of security which 
 began to pervade his mind, were inexpressibly 
 delightful ; and in the exultation of what he 
 considered his deliverance, he indulged in a 
 thousand happy anticipations for a future 
 into which so lately he had hardly dared to 
 look ; and in short, both he and his compa- 
 nion secretly congratulated themselves upon 
 the termination of that persecution which 
 had been to its immediate victim a source o* 
 such unspeakable agony. 
 
 It was a beautiful day, and a crowd of 
 idlers stood upon the jetty to receive the 
 packet, and enjoy the bustle of the new 
 arrivals. Montague walked a few paces in 
 advance of his friend, and as he made his
 
 i 7 2 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 way through the crowd, a little man touched 
 his arm, and said to him, in a broad provincial 
 patois — 
 
 " Monsieur is walking too fast ; he will 
 lose his sick comrade in the throng, for, by 
 my faith, the poor gentleman seems to be 
 fainting." 
 
 Montague turned quickly, and observed 
 that Barton did indeed look deadly pale. He 
 hastened to his side. 
 
 " My dear fellow, are you ill ?" he asked 
 anxiously. 
 
 The question was unheeded and twice, re- 
 peated, ere Barton stammered — 
 
 " I saw him — by , I saw him !" 
 
 " Him ! — the wretch — who — where now ? 
 — where is he ?" cried Montague, looking 
 around him. 
 
 " I saw him — but he is gone," repeated 
 Barton, faintly. 
 
 " But where — where ? For God's sake 
 speak," urged Montague, vehemently.
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 173 
 
 " It is but this moment — here" said he. 
 
 " But what did he look like — what had he 
 on — what did he wear — quick, quick/' urged 
 his excited companion, ready to dart among 
 the crowd and collar the delinquent on the 
 spot. 
 
 " He touched your arm — he spoke to you 
 — he pointed to me. God be merciful to me, 
 there is no escape," said Barton, in the low, 
 subdued tones of despair. 
 
 Montague had already bustled away in all 
 the flurry of mingled hope and rage ; but 
 though the singular personnel of the stranger 
 who had accosted him was vividly impressed 
 upon his recollection, he failed to discover 
 among the crowd even the slightest resem- 
 blance to him. 
 
 After a fruitless search, in which he en- 
 listed the services of several of the by- 
 standers, who aided all the more zealously, 
 as they believed he had been robbed, he at
 
 i74 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 length, out of breath and baffled, gave over 
 the attempt. 
 
 cc Ah, my friend, it won't do," said Barton, 
 with the faint voice and bewildered, ghastly 
 look of one who had been stunned by some 
 mortal shock ; " there is no use in contending ; 
 whatever it is, the dreadful association be- 
 tween me and it, is now established — I shall 
 never escape — never !" 
 
 " Nonsense, nonsense, my dear Barton ; 
 don't talk so," said Montague with something 
 at once of irritation and dismay ; " you must 
 not, I say ; we'll jockey the scoundrel yet ; 
 never mind, I say — never mind." 
 
 It was, however, but labour lost to endeavour 
 henceforward to inspire Barton with one ray 
 of hope ; he became desponding. 
 
 This intangible, and, as it seemed, utterly 
 inadequate influence was fast destroying his 
 energies of intellect, character, and health. 
 His first object was now to return to Ireland,
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 175 
 
 there, as he believed, and now almost hoped, 
 speedily to die. 
 
 To Ireland accordingly he came and one of 
 the first faces he saw upon the shore, was again 
 that of his implacable and dreaded attendant. 
 Barton seemed at last to have lost not only all 
 enjoyment and every hope in existence, bu ,11 
 independence of will besides. He now sub- 
 mitter' limself passively to the management of 
 the friends most nearly interested in his wel- 
 fare. 
 
 With the apathy of entire despair, he im- 
 plicitly assented to whatever measures they 
 suggested and advised ; and as a last resource, 
 it was determined to remove him to a house 
 
 of Lady L 's, in the neighbourhood of 
 
 Clontarf, where, with the advice of his medical 
 attendant, who persisted in his opinion that 
 the whole train of consequences resulted merely 
 from some nervous derangement, it was re- 
 solved {hat he was to confine himself, strictly
 
 i 7 6 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 to the house, and to make use only of those 
 apartments which commanded a view of an 
 enclosed yard, the gates of which were to be 
 kept jealously locked. 
 
 Those precautions would certainly secure 
 him against the casual appearance of any living 
 form, that his excited imagination might 
 possibly confound with the spectre which, as 
 it was contended, his fancy recognised in 
 every figure that bore even a distant or 
 general resemblance to the peculiarities with 
 which his fancy had at first invested it. 
 
 A month or six weeks' absolute seclusion 
 under these conditions, it was hoped might, 
 by interrupting the series of these terrible im- 
 pressions, gradually dispel the predisposing 
 apprehensions, and the associations which had 
 confirmed the supposed disease, and rendered 
 recovery hopeless. 
 
 Cheerful society and that of his friends was 
 to be constantly supplied, and on the whole,
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 177 
 
 very sanguine expectations were indulged in, 
 that under the treatment thus detailed, the 
 obstinate hypochondria of the patient might 
 at length give way. 
 
 Accompanied, therefore, by Lady L , 
 
 General Montague and his daughter — his 
 own affianced bride — poor Barton — himself 
 never daring to cherish a hope of his ultimate 
 emancipation from the horrors under which 
 his life was literally wasting away — took 
 possession of the apartments, whose situation 
 protected him against the intrusions, from 
 which he shrank with such unutterable terror. 
 
 After a little time, a steady persistence in 
 this system began to manifest its results, in a 
 very marked though gradual improvement, 
 alike in the health and spirits of the invalid. 
 Not, indeed, that anything at all approach- 
 ing complete recovery was yet discernible. 
 On the contrary, to those who had not seen 
 him since the commencement of his strange
 
 i 7 8 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 sufferings, such an alteration would have 
 been apparent as might well have shocked 
 them. 
 
 The improvement, however, such as it 
 was, was welcomed with gratitude and 
 delight, especially by the young lady, 
 whom her attachment to him, as well as her 
 now singularly painful position, consequent 
 on his protracted illness, rendered an object 
 scarcely one degree less to be commiserated 
 than himself. 
 
 A week passed — a fortnight — a month — 
 and yet there had been no recurrence of the 
 hated visitation. The treatment had, so far 
 forth, been followed by complete success. 
 The chain of associations was broken. The 
 constant pressure upon the overtasked spirits 
 had been removed, and, under these compa- 
 ratively favourable circumstances, the sense 
 of social community with the world about 
 him, and something of human interest, if
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 179 
 
 not of enjoyment, began to reanimate him. 
 
 It was about this time that Lady L 
 
 who, like most old ladies of the day, was 
 deep in family receipts, and a great pretender 
 to medical science, dispatched her own maid 
 to the kitchen garden, with a list of herbs, 
 which were there to be carefully culled, and 
 brought back to her housekeeper for the 
 purpose stated. The handmaiden, however, 
 returned with her task scarce half completed, 
 and a good deal flurried and alarmed. Her 
 mode of accounting for her precipitate retreat 
 and evident agitation was odd, and, to the 
 old lady, startling.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SOFTENED. 
 
 IT appeared that she had repaired to the 
 kitchen garden, pursuant to her mis- 
 tress's directions, and had there begun to 
 make the specified election among the rank 
 and neglected herbs which crowded one cor- 
 ner of the enclosure, and while engaged in 
 this pleasant labour, she carelessly sang a 
 fragment of an old song, as she said, "to 
 keep herself company." She was, however, 
 interrupted by an ill-natured laugh ; and, 
 looking up, she saw through the old thorn
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 181 
 
 hedge, which surrounded the garden, a 
 singularly ill-looking little man, whose coun- 
 tenance wore the stamp of menace and 
 malignity, standing close to her, at the other 
 side of the hawthorn screen. 
 
 She described herself as utterly unable to 
 move or speak, while he charged her with a 
 message for Captain Barton ; the substance 
 of which she distinctly remembered to have 
 been to the effect, that he, Captain Barton, 
 must come abroad as usual, and show him- 
 self to his friends, out of doors, or else pre- 
 pare for a visit in his own chamber. 
 
 On concluding this brief message, the 
 stranger had, with a threatening air, got 
 down into the outer ditch, and, seizing the 
 hawthorn stems in his hands, seemed on the 
 point of climbing through the fence — a feat 
 which might have been accomplished without 
 much difficulty. 
 
 Without, of course, awaiting this result,
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 the girl — throwing down her treasures of 
 thyme and rosemary — had turned and run, 
 with the swiftness of terror, to the house. 
 
 Lady L commanded her, on pain of 
 
 instant dismissal, to observe an absolute 
 silence respecting all that passed of the inci- 
 dent which related to Captain Barton ; and, 
 at the same time, directed instant search to 
 be made by her men, in the garden and the 
 fields adjacent. This measure, however, was 
 as usual, unsuccessful, and, filled with un- 
 definable misgivings, Lady L commu- 
 nicated the incident to her brother. The 
 story, however, until long afterwards, went 
 no further, and, of course, it was jealously 
 guarded from Barton, who continued to 
 amend, though slowly. 
 
 Barton now began to walk occasionally in 
 the court-yard which I have mentioned, and 
 which being enclosed by a high wall, com- 
 manded no view beyond its own extent.
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 183 
 
 Here he, therefore, considered himself per- 
 fectly secure : and, but for a careless viola- 
 tion of orders by one of the grooms, he might 
 have enjoyed, at least for some time longer, 
 his much-prized immunity. Opening upon 
 the public road, this yard was entered by a 
 wooden gate, with a wicket in it, and was 
 further defended by an iron gate upon the 
 outside. Strict orders had been given to 
 keep both carefully locked ; but, spite of 
 these, it had happened that one day, as Bar- 
 ton was slowly pacing this narrow enclosure, 
 in his accustomed walk, and reaching the 
 further extremity, was turning to retrace his 
 steps, he saw the boarded wicket ajar, and 
 the face of his tormentor immovably looking 
 at him through the iron bars. For a few 
 seconds he stood rivetted to the earth — breath- 
 less and bloodless — in the fascination of that 
 dreaded gaze, and then fell helplessly insen- 
 sible, upon the pavement.
 
 1 84 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 There he was found a few minutes after- 
 wards, and conveyed to his room — the apart- 
 ment which he was never afterwards to leave 
 alive. Henceforward a marked and unac- 
 countable change was observable in the tone 
 of his mind. Captain Barton was now no 
 longer the excited and despairing man he had 
 been before ; a strange alteration had passed 
 upon him — an unearthly tranquillity reigned 
 in his mind — it was the anticipated stillness 
 of the grave. 
 
 "Montague, my friend, this struggle is 
 nearly ended now," he said, tranquilly, but 
 with a look of fixed and fearful awe. " I 
 have, at last, some comfort from that world 
 of spirits, from which my punishment has 
 come. I now know that my sufferings will 
 soon be over." 
 
 Montague pressed him to speak on. 
 
 " Yes," said he, in a softened voice, cf my 
 punishment is nearly ended. From sorrow,
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 185 
 
 perhaps I shall never, in time or eternity, es- 
 cape ; but my agony is almost over. Comfort 
 has been revealed to me, and what remains of 
 my allotted struggle I will bear with submis- 
 sion — even with hope." 
 
 cc I am glad to hear you speak so tranquilly, 
 my dear Barton," said Montague ; " peace 
 and cheer of mind are all you need to make 
 you what you were." 
 
 " No, no — I never can be that," said he 
 mournfully. " I am no longer fit for life. I 
 am soon to die. I am to see him but once 
 again, and then all is ended." 
 
 " He said so, then ?" suggested Montague. 
 
 " He ? — No, no : good tidings could scarcely 
 come through him ; and these were good and 
 welcome ; and they came so solemnly and 
 sweetly — with unutterable love and melan- 
 choly, such as I could not — without saying 
 more than is needful, or fitting, of other long- 
 past scenes and persons — fully explain to you." 
 As Barton said this he shed tears.
 
 x86 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 " Come, come," said Montague, mistaking 
 the source of his emotions, " you must not 
 give way. What is it, after all, but a pack 
 of dreams and nonsense ; or, at worst, the 
 practices of a scheming rascal that enjoys his 
 power of playing upon your nerves, and loves 
 to exert it — a sneaking vagabond that owes 
 you a grudge, and pays it off this way, not 
 daring to try a more manly one." 
 
 " A grudge, indeed, he owes me — you say 
 rightly," said Barton, with a sudden shud- 
 der ; cf a grudge as you call it. Oh, my 
 God ! when the justice of Heaven permits 
 the Evil one to carry out a scheme of ven- 
 geance — when its execution is committed to 
 the lost and terrible victim of sin, who owes 
 his own ruin to the man, the very man, whom 
 he is commissioned to pursue — then, indeed, 
 the torments and terrors of hell are anticipated 
 on earth. But heaven has dealt mercifully 
 with me — hope has opened to me at last ; and
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 187 
 
 if death could come without the dreadful sight 
 I am doomed to see, I would gladly close 
 my eyes this moment upon the world. 
 But though death is welcome, I shrink 
 with an agony you cannot understand — an 
 actual frenzy of terror — from the last en- 
 counter with that — that demon, who has 
 drawn me thus to the verge of the chasm, and 
 who is himself to plunge me down. I am to 
 see him again — once more — but under cir- 
 cumstances unutterably more terrific than 
 ever." 
 
 As Barton thus spoke, he trembled so vio- 
 lently that Montague was really alarmed at 
 the extremity of his sudden agitation, and 
 hastened to lead him back to the topic which 
 had before seemed to exert so tranquillizing 
 an effect upon his mind. 
 
 cc It was not a dream," he said, after a 
 time ; " I was in a different state — I felt dif- 
 ferently and strangely ; and yet it was all as
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 real, as clear, and vivid, as what I now see 
 and hear — it was a reality." 
 
 Cf And what did you see and hear?" urged 
 his companion. 
 
 cc When I wakened from the swoon I fell 
 into on seeing him" said Barton, continuing 
 as if he had not heard the question, " it was 
 slowly, very slowly — I was lying by the 
 margin of a broad lake, with misty hills all 
 round, and a soft, melancholy, rose-coloured 
 light illuminated it all. It was unusually 
 sad and lonely, and yet more beautiful 
 than any earthly scene. My head was 
 leaning on the lap of a girl, and she was 
 singing a song, that told, I know not 
 how — whether by words or harmonies — of 
 all my life — all that is past, and all that is 
 still to come ; and with the song the old feel- 
 ings that I thought had perished within me 
 came back, and tears flowed from my eyes — 
 partly for the song and its mysterious beauty,
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 189 
 
 and partly for the unearthly sweetness of her 
 voice ; and yet I knew the voice — oh ! how 
 well; and I was spell-bound as I listened and 
 looked at the solitary scene, without stirring, 
 almost without breathing — and, alas ! alas ! 
 without turning my eyes toward the face that 
 I knew was near me, so sweetly powerful was 
 the enchantment that held me. And so, slow- 
 ly, the song and scene grew fainter, and 
 fainter, to my senses, till all was dark and 
 still again. And then I awoke to this world, 
 as you saw, comforted, for I knew that I was 
 forgiven much." Barton wept again long 
 and bitterly. 
 
 From this time, as we have said, the pre- 
 vailing tone of his mind was one of profound 
 and tranquil melancholy. This, however, was 
 not without its interruptions. He was tho- 
 roughly impressed with the conviction that 
 he was to experience another and a final 
 visitation, transcending in horror all he
 
 i 9 o IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 had before experienced. From this anti- 
 cipated and unknown agony, he often shrank 
 in such paroxysms of abject terror and dis- 
 traction, as filled the whole household with 
 dismay and superstitious panic. Even those 
 among them who affected to discredit the 
 theory of preternatural agency, were often in 
 their secret souls visited during the silence of 
 night with qualms and apprehensions, which 
 they would not have readily confessed ; and 
 none of them attempted to dissuade Barton 
 from the resolution on which he now syste- 
 matically acted, of shutting himself up in his 
 own apartment. The window-blinds of this 
 room were kept jealously down ; and his 
 own man was seldom out of his presence, 
 day or night, his bed being placed in the 
 same chamber. 
 
 This man was an attached and respectable 
 servant ; and his duties, in addition to those 
 ordinarily imposed upon valets, but which
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 191 
 
 Barton's independent habits generally dis- 
 pensed with, were to attend carefully to the 
 simple precautions by means of which his 
 master hoped to exclude the dreaded intru- 
 sion of the " Watcher." And, in addition 
 to attending to those arrangements, which 
 amounted merely to guarding against the pos- 
 sibility of his master's being, through any 
 unscreened window or open door, exposed to 
 the dreaded influence, the valet was never to 
 suffer him to be alone — total solitude, even 
 for a minute, had become to him now almost 
 as intolerable as the idea of going abroad 
 into the public ways — it was an instinctive 
 anticipation of what was coming.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 REQUIESCAT. 
 
 IT is needless to say, that under these 
 circumstances, no steps were taken to- 
 ward the fulfilment of that engagement into 
 which he had entered. There was quite dis- 
 parity enough in point of years, and indeed 
 of habits, between the young lady and Cap- 
 tain Barton, to have precluded anything like 
 very vehememt or romantic attachment on 
 her part. Though grieved and anxious, 
 therefore, she was very far from being heart- 
 broken.
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 
 
 93 
 
 Miss Montague, however, devoted much 
 of her time to the patient but fruitless attempt 
 to cheer the unhappy invalid. She read for 
 him, and conversed with him ; but it was 
 apparent that whatever exertions he made, the 
 endeavour to escape from the one ever waking 
 fear that preyed upon him, was utterly and 
 miserably unavailing. 
 
 Young ladies are much given to the cultiva- 
 tion of pets ; and among those who shared 
 the favour of Miss Montague was a fine old 
 owl, which the gardener, who caught him 
 napping among the ivy of a ruined stable, 
 had dutifully presented to that young 
 lady. 
 
 The caprice which regulates such pre- 
 ferences was manifested in the extravagant 
 favour with which this grim and ill-favoured 
 bird was at once distinguished by his mistress ; 
 and, trifling as this whimsical circumstance 
 may seem, I am forced to mention it, inas- 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 i 9 4 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 much as it is connected, oddly enough, with 
 the concluding scene of the story. 
 
 Barton, so far sharing in this liking for the 
 new favourite, regarded it from the first 
 with an antipathy as violent as it was utterly 
 unaccountable. Its very vicinity was un- 
 supportable to him. He seemed to hate and 
 dread it with a vehemence absolutely laugh- 
 able, and which, to those who have never 
 witnessed the exhibition of antipathies of this 
 kind, would seem all but incredible. 
 
 With these few words of preliminary ex- 
 planation, I shall proceed to state the par- 
 ticulars of the last scene in this strange series 
 of incidents. It was almost two o'clock one 
 winter's night, and Barton was, as usual at 
 that hour, in his bed ; the servant we have 
 mentioned occupied a smaller bed in the 
 same room, and a light was burning. The 
 man was on a sudden aroused by his master, 
 who said —
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 195 
 
 "I can't get it out of my head that that 
 accursed bird has got out somehow, and is 
 lurking in some corner of the room. I have 
 been dreaming about him. Get up, Smith, and 
 look about ; search for him. Such hateful 
 dreams !" 
 
 The servant rose, and examined the chamber, 
 and while engaged in so doing, he heard the 
 well-known sound, more like a long-drawn 
 gasp than a hiss, with which these birds 
 from their secret haunts affright the quiet of 
 the night. 
 
 This ghostly indication of its proximity — 
 for the sound proceeded from the passage upon 
 which Barton's chamber-door opened — deter- 
 mined the search of the servant, who, opening 
 the door, proceeded a step or two forward for 
 the purpose of driving the bird away. He had 
 however, hardly entered the lobby, when the 
 door behind him slowly swung to under the 
 impulse, as it seemed, of some gentle current 
 
 o 2
 
 i 9 6 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 of air ; but as immediately over the door 
 there was a kind of window, intended in the 
 day time to aid in lighting the passage, and 
 through which at present the rays of the 
 candle were issuing, the valet could see quite 
 enough for his purpose. 
 
 As he advanced he heard his master — who, 
 lying in a well-curtained bed, had not, as it 
 seemed, perceived his exit from the room — 
 call him by name, and direct him to place 
 the candle on the table by his bed. The 
 servant, who was now some way in the long 
 passage, and not liking to raise his voice for 
 the purpose of replying, lest he should startle 
 the sleeping inmates of the house, began to 
 walk hurriedly and softly back again, when, 
 to his amazement, he heard a voice in the 
 interior of the chamber answering calmly, 
 and actually saw, through the window which 
 overtopped the door, that the light was slowly 
 shifting, as if carried across the room in an-
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 197 
 
 swer to his master's call. Palsied by a feel- 
 ing akin to terror, yet not unmingled with 
 curiosity, he stood breathless and listening 
 at the threshold, unable to summon resolu- 
 tion to push open the door and enter. Then 
 came a rustling of the curtains, and a sound 
 like that of one who in a low voice hushes a 
 child to rest, in the midst of which he heard 
 Barton say, in a tone of stifled horror — <l Oh, 
 God — oh, my God !" and repeat the same 
 exclamation several times. Then ensued a 
 silence, which again was broken by the same 
 strange soothing sound ; and at last there 
 burst forth, in one swelling peal, a yell of 
 agony so appalling and hideous, that, under 
 some impulse of ungovernable horror, the 
 man rushed to the door, and with his whole 
 strength strove to force it open. Whether 
 it was that, in his agitation, he had himself 
 but imperfectly turned the handle, or that 
 the door was really secured upon the inside,
 
 198 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 he failed to effect an entrance ; and as he 
 tugged and pushed, yell after yell rang 
 louder and wilder through the chamber, ac- 
 companied all the while by the same hushed 
 sounds. Actually freezing with terror, and 
 scarce knowing what he did, the man turned 
 and ran down the passage, wringing his 
 hands in the extremity of horror and irreso- 
 lution. At the stair-head he was encountered 
 by General Montague, scared and eager, and 
 just as they met the fearful sounds had ceased. 
 
 " What is it ? Who — where is your mas- 
 ter?" said Montague with the incoherence of 
 extreme agitation. " Has anything — for 
 God's sake is anything wrong?" 
 
 " Lord have mercy on us, it's all over," said 
 the man staring wildly towards his master's 
 chamber. " He's dead, sir, I'm sure he's dead." 
 
 Without waiting for inquiry or explana- 
 tion, Montague, closely followed by the ser- 
 vant, hurried to the chamber-door, turned
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 199 
 
 the handle, and pushed it open. As the door 
 yielded to his pressure, the ill-omened bird 
 of which the servant had been in search, 
 uttering its spectral warning, started suddenly 
 from the far side of the bed, and flying 
 through the door-way close over their heads, 
 and extinguishing, in his passage, the candle 
 which Montague carried, crashed through the 
 skylight that overlooked the lobby, and sailed 
 away into the darkness of the outer space. 
 
 "There it is, God bless us," whispered 
 the man, after a breathless pause. 
 
 " Curse that bird," muttered the General, 
 startled by the suddenness of the apparition, 
 and unable to conceal his discomposure. 
 
 " The candle is moved," said the man, 
 after another breathless pause, pointing to the 
 candle that still burned in the room ; " see, 
 they put it by the bed." 
 
 "Draw the curtains, fellow, and don't stand 
 gaping there," whispered Montague, sternly.
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 The man hesitated. 
 
 cc Hold this, then/' said Montague, impa- 
 tiently thrusting the candlestick into the ser- 
 vant's hand, and himself advancing to the 
 bed-side, he drew the curtains apart. The 
 light of the candle, which was still burning 
 at the bedside, fell upon a figure huddled 
 together, and half upright, at the head of 
 the bed. It seemed as though it had slunk 
 back as far as the solid panelling would 
 allow, and the hands were still clutched in 
 the bed-clothes. 
 
 "Barton, Barton, Barton!" cried the Gene- 
 ral, with a strange mixture of awe and vehe- 
 mence. He took the candle, and held it so 
 that it shone full upon the face. The features 
 were fixed, stern, and white ; the jaw was 
 fallen ; and the sightless eyes, still open, 
 gazed vacantly forward toward the front of 
 the bed. "God Almighty! he's dead," 
 muttered the General, as he looked upon this
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 
 
 fearful spectacle. They both continued to 
 gaze upon it in silence for a minute or more. 
 " And cold, too," whispered Montague, with- 
 drawing his hand from that of the dead 
 man. 
 
 " And see, see — may I never have life, 
 sir," added the man, after a another pause, 
 with a shudder, "but there was something 
 else on the bed with him. Look there — look 
 there — see that, sir." 
 
 As the man thus spoke, he pointed to a 
 deep indenture, as if caused by a heavy pres- 
 sure, near the foot of the bed. 
 
 Montague was silent. 
 
 " Come, sir, come away, for God's sake," 
 whispered the man, drawing close up to him, 
 and holding fast by his arm, while he glanced 
 fearfully round ; " what good can be done 
 here now — come away, for God's sake !" 
 
 At^this moment they heard the steps of 
 more than one approaching, and Montague,
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 hastily desiring the servant to arrest their 
 progress, endeavoured to loose the rigid gripe 
 with which the fingers of the dead man were 
 clutched in the bed-clothes, and drew, as 
 well as he was able, the awful figure into a 
 reclining posture ; then closing the curtains 
 carefully upon it, he hastened himself to meet 
 
 those persons that were approaching. 
 
 * # # * * * 
 
 It is needless to follow the personages so 
 slightly connected with this narrative, into 
 the events of their after life ; it is enough to 
 say, that no clue to the solution of these 
 mysterious occurrences was ever after dis- 
 covered ; and so long an interval having now 
 passed since the event which I have just des- 
 cribed concluded this strange history, it is 
 scarcely to be expected that time can throw 
 any new lights upon its dark and inexplicable 
 outline. Until the secrets of the earth shall 
 be no longer hidden, therefore, these trans-
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 203 
 
 actions must remain shrouded in their original 
 obscurity. 
 
 The only occurrence in Captain Barton's 
 former life to which reference was ever made, 
 as having any possible connexion with the 
 sufferings with which his existence closed, 
 and which he himself seemed to regard as 
 working out a retribution for some grievous 
 sin of his past life, was a circumstance which 
 not for several years after his death was 
 brought to light. The nature of this disclo- 
 sure was painful to his relatives, and discredit- 
 able to his memory. 
 
 It appeared that some six years before 
 Captain Barton's final return to Dublin, he 
 had formed, in the town of Plymouth, a 
 guilty attachment, the object of which was 
 the daughter of one of the ship's crew under 
 his command. The father had visited the 
 frailty of his unhappy child with extreme 
 harshness, and even brutality, and it was said
 
 204 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 that she had died heart-broken. Presuming 
 upon Barton's implication in her guilt, this 
 man had conducted himself toward him with 
 marked insolence, and Barton retaliated this, 
 and what he resented with still more exas- 
 perated bitterness — his treatment of the un- 
 fortunate girl — by a systematic exercise of 
 those terrible and arbitrary severities which 
 the regulations of the navy placed at the com- 
 mand of those who are responsible for its 
 discipline. The man had at length made his 
 escape, while the vessel was in port at Naples, 
 but died, as it was said, in an hospital in that 
 town, of the wounds inflicted in one of his 
 recent and sanguinary punishments. 
 
 Whether these circumstances in reality bear, 
 or not, upon the occurrences of Barton's after- 
 life, it is, of course, impossible to say. It 
 seems, however more than probable that they 
 were at least, in his own mind, closely asso- 
 ciated with them. But however the truth
 
 THE FAMILIAR. 205 
 
 may be, as to the origin and motives of this 
 mysterious persecution, there can be no doubt 
 that, with respect to the agencies by which it 
 was accomplished, absolute and impenetrable 
 mystery is like to prevail until the day of doom. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 The preceding narrative is given in the ipsissima 
 verba of the good old clergyman, under whose 
 hand it was delivered to Doctor Hesselius. Not- 
 withstanding the occasional stiffness and redundancy 
 of his sentences, I thought it better to reserve to 
 myself the power of assuring the reader, that in 
 handing to the printer, the M.S. of a statement so 
 marvellous, the Editor has not altered one letter 
 of the original text. — [Ed. Papers of Dr. Hesselius.]
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE.
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 ON this case, Doctor Hesselius has in- 
 scribed nothing more than the words, 
 " Harman's Report," and a simple reference 
 to his own extraordinary Essay on "the 
 Interior Sense, and the Conditions of the 
 opening thereof." 
 
 The reference is to Vol. I. Section 317, 
 Note Z a . The note to which reference is 
 thus made, simply says : " There are two 
 accounts of the remarkable case of the Ho- 
 nourable Mr. Justice Harbottle, one furnished 
 to me by Mrs. Trimmer of Tunbridge Wells 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 (June, 1805); the other at a much later 
 date, by Anthony Harman, Esq. I much 
 prefer the former ; in the first place, because 
 it is minute and detailed, and written, it 
 seems to me, with more caution and know- 
 ledge ; and in the next, because the letters 
 from Doctor Hedstone, which are embodied 
 in it, furnish matter of the highest value to 
 a right apprehension of the nature of the case. 
 It was one of the best declared cases of an 
 opening of the interior sense, which I have 
 met with. It was affected, too, by the phe- 
 nomenon, which occurs so frequently as to 
 indicate a law of these eccentric conditions ; 
 that is to say, it exhibited, what I may term, 
 the contagious character of this sort of intru- 
 sion of the spirit-world upon the proper 
 domain of matter. So soon as the spirit- 
 action has established itself in the case of one 
 patient, its developed energy begins to radiate, 
 more or less effectually, upon others. The
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 
 
 interior vision of the child was opened ; as 
 was, also, that of its mother, Mrs. Pyne- 
 weck ; and both the interior vision and hear- 
 ing of the scullery-maid, were opened on the 
 same occasion. After-appearances are the 
 result of the law explained in Vol. II. Section 
 17 to 49. The common centre of associa- 
 tion, simultaneously recalled, unites, or re- 
 unites, as the case may be, for a period 
 measured, as we see, in Section 37. The 
 maximum will extend to days, the minimum is 
 little more than a second. We see the opera- 
 tion of this principle perfectly displayed, in 
 certain cases of lunacy, of epilepsy, of cata- 
 lepsy, and of mania, of a peculiar and 
 painful character, though unattended by in- 
 capacity of business." 
 
 The memorandum of the case of Judge 
 Harbottle, which was written by Mrs. 
 Trimmer of Tunbridge Wells, which Doctor 
 Hesselius thought the better of the two, I 
 
 p 2
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 have been unable to discover among his 
 papers. I found in his escritoire a note to 
 the effect that he had lent the Report of 
 Judge Harbottle's case, written by Mrs. 
 Trimmer to Doctor F. Heyne. To that 
 learned and able gentleman accordingly I 
 wrote, and received from him, in his reply, 
 which was full of alarms and regrets on 
 account of the uncertain safety of that " va- 
 luable MS.," a line written long since by 
 Doctor Hesselius, which completely exone- 
 rated him, inasmuch as it acknowledged the 
 safe return of the papers. The Narrative of 
 Mr. Harman, is, therefore, the only one 
 available for this collection. The late Dr. 
 Hesselius, in another passage of the note 
 that I have cited, says, " As to the facts 
 (non-medical) of the case, the narrative of 
 Mr, Harman exactly tallies with that fur- 
 nished by Mrs. Trimmer." The strictly 
 scientific view of the case would scarcely
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 213 
 
 interest the popular reader; and, possibly, for 
 the purposes of this selection, I should, even 
 had I both papers to choose between, have 
 preferred that of Mr. Harman, which is 
 given, in full, in the following pages.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE JUDGE S HOUSE. 
 
 THIRTY years ago, an elderly man, to 
 whom I paid quarterly a small annuity 
 charged on some property of mine, came on 
 the quarter-day to receive it. He was a dry, 
 sad, quiet man, who had known better days, 
 and had always maintained an unexceptionable 
 character. No better authority could be 
 imagined for a ghost story. 
 
 He told me one, though with a manifest 
 reluctance ; he was drawn into the narration 
 by his choosing to explain what I should not
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 215 
 
 have remarked, that he had called two days 
 earlier than that week after the strict day of 
 payment, which he had usually allowed to 
 elapse. His reason was a sudden determina- 
 tion to change his lodgings, and the conse- 
 quent necessity of paying his rent a little 
 before it was due. 
 
 He lodged in a dark street in Westminster, 
 in a spacious old house, very warm, being 
 wainscoted from top to bottom, and furnished 
 with no undue abundance of windows, and 
 those fitted with thick sashes and small panes. 
 
 This house was, as the bills upon the 
 windows testified, offered to be sold or let. 
 But no one seemed to care to look at it. 
 
 A thin matron, in rusty black silk, very 
 taciturn, with large, steady, alarmed eyes, 
 that seemed to look in your face, to read 
 what you might have seen in the dark rooms 
 and passages through which you had passed, 
 was in charge of it, with a solitary c maid-of-
 
 2 i6 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 all-work ' under her command. My poor 
 friend had taken lodgings in this house, on 
 account of their extraordinary cheapness. He 
 had occupied them for nearly a year without 
 the slightest disturbance, and was the only 
 tenant, under rent, in the house. Ff e had two 
 rooms ; a sitting-room, and a bedroom with a 
 closet opening from it, in which he kept his 
 books and papers locked up. He had gone 
 to his bed, having also locked the outer door. 
 Unable to sleep, he had lighted a candle, and 
 after having read for a time, had laid the 
 book beside him. He heard the old clock 
 at the stair -head strike one ; and very shortly 
 after, to his alarm, he saw the closet-door, 
 which he thought he had locked, open 
 stealthily, and a slight dark man, particularly 
 sinister, and somewhere about fifty, dressed 
 in mourning of a very antique fashion, such 
 a suit as we see in Hogarth, entered the room 
 on tip-toe. He was followed by an elder
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 217 
 
 man. stout, and blotched with scurvy, and 
 whose features, faxed as a corpse's, were 
 stamped with dreadful force with a character 
 of sensuality and villany. 
 
 This old man wore a flowered-silk dressing- 
 gown and -uffles, and he remarked a gold 
 ring on his finger, and on his head a cap of 
 velvet, such as, in the days of perukes, 
 gentlemen wore in undress. 
 
 This direful old man carried in his ringed 
 and ruffled hand a coil of rope ; and these 
 two figures crossed the floor diagonally, 
 passing :he ."oot of his bed, from the closet- 
 door a; chz farther end of the room, at the 
 left, near the window, to the door open- 
 ing upon :he lobby, close to the beds head, 
 at his right 
 
 Be did not attempt to describe his sen- 
 sations as these figure^ passed so near him. 
 He merely said, that so far from sleeping in 
 that room again, no consideration the world
 
 218 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 could offer would induce him so much as to 
 enter it again alone, even in the daylight. 
 He found both doors, that of the closet, and 
 that of the room opening upon the lobby, in 
 the morning fast locked, as he had left them 
 before going to bed. 
 
 In answer to a question of mine, he said 
 that neither appeared the least conscious of 
 his presence. They did not seem to glide, 
 but walked as living men do, but without 
 any sound, and he felt a vibration on the floor 
 as they crossed it. He so obviously suffered 
 from speaking about the apparitions, that 
 I asked him no more questions. 
 
 There were in his description, however, 
 certain coincidences so very singular, as to 
 induce me, by that very post, to write to a 
 friend much my senior, then living in a 
 remote part of England, for the information 
 which I knew he could give me. He had 
 himself more than once pointed out that old
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 219 
 
 house to my attention, and told me, though 
 very briefly, the strange story which I now 
 asked him to give me in greater detail. 
 
 His answer satisfied me : and the following 
 pages convey its substance. 
 
 Your letter (he wrote) tells me you desire 
 some particulars about the closing years of 
 the life of Mr. Justice Harbottle, one of the 
 judges of the Court of Common Pleas. You 
 refer, of course, to the extraordinary oc- 
 currences that made that period of his life 
 long after a theme for c winter tales ' and 
 metaphysical speculation. I happen to know 
 perhaps more than any other man living of 
 those mysterious particulars. 
 
 The old family mansion, when I revisited 
 London, more than thirty years ago, I 
 examined for the last time. During the years 
 that have passed since then, I hear that im- 
 provement, with its preliminary demolitions, 
 has been doing wonders for the quarter of
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 Westminster in which it stood. If I were 
 quite certain that the house had been taken 
 down, T should have no difficulty about 
 naming the street in which it stood. As 
 what I have to tell, however, is not •'kely to 
 improve its letting value, and as I should not 
 care to get into :rouble, I prefer being silent 
 on chat particular oouit. 
 
 How old the house was, I can't tell. 
 People said it was built by Roger Harbottle, 
 a Turkey merchant, .1 the reign of King 
 James I. I am not a gooc opinion upon such 
 questiors ; but having been in it, though in 
 its forlorn and deserted state. F can ^ell you 
 in a general way what it was like. It was 
 built of dark-red brick, and the door and 
 windows were faced with stone that had 
 turned yellow by time. It receded some feet 
 from the line of the other houses in the street ; 
 and it had a florid and fanciful rail of iron 
 about the broad steps that invited your ascent
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 
 
 to the hall-door, in which were fixed, under 
 a file of lamps, among scrolls and twisted 
 leaves, two immense c extinguishers,' like the 
 conical caps of fairies, into which, in old 
 times, the footmen used to thrust their flam- 
 beaux when their chairs or coaches had set 
 down their great people, in the hall or at the 
 steps, as the case might be. That hall is 
 panelled up to the ceiling, and has c 'arge 
 fire-place. Two or three stately old rooms 
 open from it at each side. The windowo of 
 these are tall, with many small panes. Pass- 
 ing through the arch at the back of the hall, 
 you come upon the wide and heavy well- 
 staircase. There is a back staircase also. 
 The mansion is large, and has not as much 
 light, by any means, in proportion to its ex- 
 tent, as modern houses enjoy. When I saw 
 it, it had loag been untenanted, and had the 
 gloomy reputation beside of a haunted 
 -ijiouse. Cobwebs floated from the ceilings
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 or spanned the corners of the cornices, and 
 dust lay thick over everything. The win- 
 dows were stained with the dust and rain of 
 fifty years, and darkness had thus grown 
 darker. 
 
 When I made it my first visit, it was in 
 company with my father, when I was still a 
 boy, in the year 1808. I was about twelve 
 years old, and my imagination impressible, 
 as it always is at that age. I looked about 
 me with great awe. I was here in the very 
 centre and scene of those occurrences which 
 I had heard recounted at the fireside at home, 
 with so delightful a horror. 
 
 My father was an old bachelor of nearly 
 sixty when he married. He had, when a 
 child, seen Judge Harbottle on the bench in 
 his robes and wig a dozen times at least 
 before his death, which took place in 1748, 
 and his appearance made a powerful and un- 
 pleasant impression, not only on his imagi- 
 nation, but upon his nerves.
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 223 
 
 The Judge was at that time a man of some 
 sixty-seven years. He had a great mulberry- 
 coloured face, a big, carbuncled nose, fierce 
 eyes, and a grim and brutal mouth. My 
 father, who was young at the time, thought 
 it the most formidable face he had ever seen ; 
 for there were evidences of intellectual power 
 in the formation and lines of the forehead. 
 His voice was loud and harsh, and gave 
 effect to the sarcasm which was his habitual 
 weapon on the bench. 
 
 This old gentleman had the reputation of 
 being about the wickedest man in England. 
 Even on the bench he now and then showed 
 his scorn of opinion. He had carried cases 
 his own way, it was said, in spite of counsel, 
 authorities, and even of juries, by a sort of 
 cajolery, violence, and bamboozling, that 
 somehow confused and overpowered resistance. 
 He had never actually committed himself; 
 he was too cunning to do that. He had the
 
 224 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 character of being, however, a dangerous and 
 unscrupulous judge ; but his charactei did 
 not trouble him. The associates he chose 
 for his hours of relaxation cared as little as 
 he did about it.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MR. PETERS. 
 
 ONE night during the session of 1746 
 this old Judge went down in his 
 chair to wait in one of the rooms of the 
 House of Lords for the result of a division 
 in which he and his order were interested. 
 
 This over, he was about to return to his 
 house close by, in his chair ; but the night 
 had become so soft and fine that he changed 
 his mind, sent it home empty, and with two 
 footmen, each with a flambeau, set out on 
 foot in preference. Gout had made him 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 rather a slow pedestrian. It took him some 
 time to get through the two or three streets 
 he had to pass before reaching his house. 
 
 In one of those narrow streets of tall houses, 
 perfectly silent at that hour, he overtook, 
 slowly as he was walking, a very singular- 
 looking old gentleman. 
 
 He had a bottle-green coat on, with a cape 
 to it, and large stone buttons, a broad-leafed 
 low-crowned hat, from under which a big 
 powdered wig escaped ; he stooped very much, 
 and supported his bending knees with the aid 
 of a crutch-handled cane, and so shuffled and 
 tottered along painfully. 
 
 cc I ask your pardon, sir," said this old man 
 in a very quavering voice, as the burly Judge 
 came up with him, and he extended his hand 
 feebly towards his arm. 
 
 Mr. Justice Harbottle saw that the man 
 was by no means poorly dressed, and his 
 manner that of a gentleman.
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 227 
 
 The Judge stopped short, and said, in his 
 harsh peremptory tones, " Well, sir, how can 
 I serve you ?" 
 
 " Can you direct me to Judge Harbottle's 
 house ? I have some intelligence of the very 
 last importance to communicate to him." 
 
 " Can you tell it before witnesses ?" asked 
 the Judge. 
 
 " By no means ; it must reach his ear only," 
 quavered the old man earnestly. 
 
 " If that be so, sir, you have only to ac- 
 company me a few steps farther to reach my 
 house, and obtain a private audience ; for I 
 am Judge Harbottle." 
 
 With this invitation the infirm gentleman 
 in the white wig complied very readily ; and 
 in another minute the stranger stood in what 
 was then termed the front parlour of the 
 Judge's house, tete-a-tete with that shrewd 
 and dangerous functionary. 
 
 He had to sit down, being very much ex- 
 's ^
 
 228 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 hausted, and unable for a little time to speak ; 
 and then he had a fit of coughing, and after 
 that a fit of gasping ; and thus two or three 
 minutes passed, during which the Judge 
 dropped his roquelaure on an arm-chair, and 
 threw his cocked-hat over that. 
 
 The venerable pedestrian in the white wig 
 quickly recovered his voice. With closed 
 doors they remained together for some time. 
 
 There were guests waiting in the drawing- 
 rooms, and the sound of men's voices laugh- 
 ing, and then of a female voice singing to a 
 harpsichord, were heard distinctly in the hall 
 over the stairs ; for old Judge Harbottle had 
 arranged one of his dubious jollifications, such 
 as might well make the hair of godly men's 
 heads stand upright, for that night. 
 
 This old gentleman in the powdered white 
 wig, that rested on his stooped shoulders, 
 must have had something to say that inter- 
 ested the Judge very much ; for he would
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 229 
 
 not have parted on easy terms with the ten 
 minutes and upwards which that conference 
 filched from the sort of revelry in which he 
 most delighted, and in which he was the 
 roaring king, and in some sort the tyrant 
 also, of his company. 
 
 The footman who showed the aged gentle- 
 man out observed that the Judge's mulberry- 
 coloured face, pimples and all, were bleached 
 to a dingy yellow, and there was the abstrac- 
 tion of agitated thought in his manner, as he 
 bid the stranger good-night. The servant 
 saw that the conversation had been of serious 
 import, and that the Judge was frightened. 
 
 Instead of stumping upstairs forthwith to 
 his scandalous hilarities, his profane company, 
 and his great china bowl of punch — the iden- 
 tical bowl from which a bygone Bishop of 
 London, good easy man, had baptised this 
 Judge's grandfather, now clinking round the 
 rim with silver ladles, and hung with scrolls
 
 2 3 o IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 of lemon-peel — instead, I say, of stumping 
 and clambering up the great staircase to the 
 cavern of his Circean enchantment, he stood 
 with his big nose flattened against the window- 
 pane, watching the progress of the feeble old 
 man, who clung stiffly to the iron rail as he 
 got down, step by step, to the pavement. 
 
 The hall-door had hardly closed, when the 
 old Judge was in the hall bawling hasty orders, 
 with such stimulating expletives as old colonels 
 under excitement sometimes indulge in now-a- 
 days, with a stamp or two of his big foot, 
 and a waving of his clenched fist in the air. 
 He commanded the footman to overtake the 
 old gentleman in the white wig, to offer him 
 his protection on his way home, and in no 
 case to show his face again without having 
 ascertained where he lodged, and who he was, 
 and all about him. 
 
 "By — , sirrah! if you fail me in this, you 
 doff my livery to-night I"
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 231 
 
 Forth bounced the stalwart footman, with 
 his heavy cane under his arm, and skipped 
 down the steps, and looked up and down the 
 street after the singular figure, so easy to 
 recognise. 
 
 What were his adventures I shall not tell 
 you just now. 
 
 The old man, in the conference to which 
 he had been admitted in that stately panelled 
 room, had just told the Judge a very strange 
 story. He might be himself a conspirator ; 
 he might possibly be crazed ; or possibly his 
 whole story was straight and true. 
 
 The aged gentleman in the bottle-green 
 coat, on finding himself alone with Mr. Jus- 
 tice Harbottle, had become agitated. He said, 
 
 " There is, perhaps you are not aware, my 
 lord, a prisoner in Shrewsbury jail, charged 
 with having forged a bill of exchange for a 
 hundred and twenty pounds, and his name is 
 Lewis Pyneweck, a grocer of that town."
 
 232 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 "Is there?" says the Judge, who knew 
 well that there was. 
 
 " Yes, my lord," says the old man. 
 
 " Then you had better say nothing to affect 
 this case. If you do, by — I'll commit you ; 
 for I'm to try it," says the Judge, with his 
 terrible look and tone. 
 
 " I am not going to do anything of the kind, 
 my lord ; of him or his case I know nothing, 
 and care nothing. But a fact has come to 
 my knowledge which it behoves you to well 
 consider." 
 
 "And what may that fact be?" inquired 
 the Judge ; " I'm in haste, sir, and beg you 
 will use dispatch." 
 
 " It has come to my knowledge, my lord, 
 that a secret tribunal is in process of formation, 
 the object of which is to take cognisance of 
 the conduct of the judges; and first, of your 
 conduct, my lord : it is a wicked conspiracy." 
 
 " Who are of it ?" demands the Judge.
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 233 
 
 " I know not a single name as yet. I know 
 but the fact, my lord; it is most certainly 
 true." 
 
 "I'll have you before the Privy Council, 
 sir," says the Judge. 
 
 " That is what I most desire ; but not for 
 a day or two, my lord." 
 
 "And why so?" 
 
 "I have not as yet a single name, as I 
 told your lordship ; but I expect to have a 
 list of the most forward men in it, and some 
 other papers connected with the plot, in two 
 or three days." 
 
 "You said one or two just now." 
 
 " About that time, my lord." 
 
 " Is this a Jacobite plot ?" 
 
 " In the main I think it is, my lord." 
 
 " Why, then, it is political. I have tried 
 no State prisoners, nor am like to try any 
 such. How, then, doth it concern me?" 
 
 " From what I can gather, my lord, there
 
 234 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 are those in it who desire private revenges 
 upon certain judges." 
 
 "What do they call their cabal?" 
 "The High Court of Appeal, my lord." 
 " Who are you sir ? What is your name ?" 
 " Hugh Peters, my lord." 
 " That should be a Whig name ?" 
 " It is, my lord." 
 
 " Where do you lodge, Mr. Peters ?" 
 " In Thames-street, my lord, over against 
 the sign of the Three Kings." 
 
 " Three Kings ? Take care one be not too 
 many for you, Mr. Peters ! How come you, 
 an honest Whig, as you say, to be privy to a 
 Jacobite plot? Answer me that." 
 
 "My lord, a person in whom I take an 
 interest has been seduced to take a part in it ; 
 and being frightened at the unexpected wicked- 
 ness of their plans, he is resolved to become 
 an informer for the Crown." 
 
 " He resolves like a wise man, sir. What
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 235 
 
 does he say of the persons ? Who are in the 
 plot ? Doth he know them ?" 
 
 " Only two, my lord ; but he will be in- 
 troduced to the club in a few days, and he 
 will then have a list, and more exact informa- 
 tion of their plans, and above all of their oaths, 
 and their hours and places of meeting, with 
 which he wishes to be acquainted before they 
 can have any suspicions of his intentions. 
 And being so informed, to whom, think you, 
 my lord, had he best go then ?" 
 
 "To the king's attorney-general straight. 
 But you say this concerns me, sir, in particular ? 
 How about this prisoner, Lewis Pyneweck? 
 Is he one of them ?" 
 
 " I can't tell, my lord ; but for some reason, 
 it is thought your lordship will be well advised 
 if you try him not. For if you do, it is 
 feared 'twill shorten your days." 
 
 "So far as I can learn, Mr. Peters, this 
 business smells pretty strong of blood and
 
 236 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 treason. The king's attorney-general will 
 know how to deal with it. When shall I see 
 you again, sir?" 
 
 "If you give me leave, my lord, either 
 before your lordship's court sits, or after it 
 rises, to-morrow. I should like to come and 
 tell your lordship what has passed." 
 
 " Do so, Mr. Peters, at nine o'clock to- 
 morrow morning. And see you play me no- 
 trick, sir, in this matter ; if you do, by , 
 
 sir, I'll lay you by the heels !" 
 
 "You need fear no trick from me, my 
 lord ; had I not wished to serve you, and acquit 
 my own conscience, I never would have come 
 all this way to talk with your lordship." 
 
 " I'm willing to believe you, Mr. Peters ; 
 I'm willing to believe you, sir." 
 
 And upon this they parted. 
 
 " He has either painted his face, or he is 
 consumedly sick," thought the old Judge. 
 
 The light had shone more effectually upon
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 237 
 
 his features as he turned to leave the room 
 with a low bow, and they looked, he fancied, 
 unnaturally chalky. 
 
 " D — him !" said the judge ungraciously, 
 as he began to scale the stairs : " he has half- 
 spoiled my supper/' 
 
 But if he had, no one but the Judge himself 
 perceived it, and the evidence was all, as any 
 one might perceive, the other way.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 LEWIS PYNEWECK, 
 
 IN the meantime, the footman dispatched 
 in pursuit of Mr. Peters speedily over- 
 took that feeble gentleman. The old man 
 stopped when he heard the sound of pursuing 
 steps, but any alarms that may have crossed 
 his mind seemed to disappear on his recog- 
 nising the livery. He very gratefully ac- 
 cepted the proferred assistance, and placed his 
 tremulous arm within the servant's for sup- 
 port. They had not gone far, however, when 
 the old man stopped suddenly, saying,
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 239 
 
 " Dear me ! as I live, I have dropped it. 
 You heard it fall. My eyes, I fear, won't 
 serve me, and I'm unable to stoop low enough ; 
 but if you will look, you shall have half the find. 
 It is a guinea ; I carried it in my glove." 
 
 The street was silent and deserted. The 
 footman had hardly descended to what he 
 termed his " hunkers," and begun to search 
 the pavement about the spot which the old 
 man indicated, when Mr. Peters, who seemed 
 very much exhausted, and breathed with 
 difficulty, struck him a violent blow, from 
 above, over the back of the head with a heavy 
 instrument, and then another; and leaving 
 him bleeding and senseless in the gutter, ran 
 like a lamplighter down a lane to the right, 
 and was gone. 
 
 When, an hour later, the watchman 
 brought the man in livery home, still stupid 
 and covered with blood, Judge Harbottle 
 cursed his servant roundly, swore he was
 
 2 4 o IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 drunk, threatened him with an indictment for 
 taking bribes to betray his master, and cheered 
 him with a perspective of the broad street 
 leading from the Old Bailey to Tyburn, the 
 cart's tail, and the hangman's lash. 
 
 Notwithstanding this demonstration, the 
 Judge was pleased. It was a disguised 
 " affidavit man," or footpad, no doubt, who 
 had been employed to frighten him. The 
 trick had fallen through. 
 
 A "court of appeal," such as the false 
 Hugh Peters had indicated, with assassina- 
 tion for its sanction, would be an uncomfort- 
 able institution for a " hanging judge " like the 
 Honourable Justice Harbottle. That sarcastic 
 and ferocious administrator of the criminal 
 code of England, at that time a rather 
 pharisaical, bloody, and heinous system of 
 justice, had reasons of his own for choosing 
 to try that very Lewis Pyneweck, on whose 
 behalf this audacious trick was devised. Try
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 
 
 him he would. No man living should take 
 that morsel out of his mouth. 
 
 Of Lewis Pyneweck of course, so far as 
 the outer world could see, he knew nothing. 
 He would try him after his fashion, with- 
 out fear, favour, or affection. 
 
 But did he not remember a certain thin 
 man, dressed in mourning, in whose house, 
 in Shrewsbury, the Judge's lodgings used to 
 be, until a scandal of his ill-treating his wife 
 came suddenly to light? A grocer with a 
 demure look, a soft step, and a lean face as 
 dark as mahogany, with a nose sharp and 
 long, standing ever so little awry, and a pair 
 of dark steady brown eyes under thinly-traced 
 black brows — a man whose thin lips wore 
 always a faint unpleasant smile. 
 
 Had not that scoundrel an account to 
 settle with the Judge ? had he not been 
 troublesome lately ? and was not his name 
 Lewis Pyneweck, some time grocer in Shrew s- 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 bury, and now prisoner in the jail of that 
 town ? 
 
 The reader may take it, if he pleases, as a 
 sign that Judge Harbottle was a good Chris- 
 tian, that he suffered nothing ever from re- 
 morse. That was undoubtedly true. He had 
 nevertheless done this grocer, forger, what 
 you will, some five or six years before, a 
 grievous wrong ; but it was not that, but a 
 possible scandal, and possible complications, 
 that troubled the learned Judge now. 
 
 Did he not, as a lawyer, know, that to 
 bring a man from his shop to the dock, the 
 chances must be at least ninety-nine out of a 
 hundred that he is guilty. 
 
 A weak man like his learned brother 
 Withershins was not a judge to keep the 
 high-roads safe, and make crime tremble. 
 Old Judge Harbottle was the man to make 
 the evil-disposed quiver, and to refresh the 
 world with showers of wicked blood, and
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 243 
 
 thus save the innocent, to the refrain of the 
 ancient saw he loved to quote : 
 
 Foolish pity- 
 Ruins a city. 
 
 In hanging that fellow he could not be 
 wrong. The eye of a man accustomed to 
 look upon the dock could not fail to read 
 " villain " written sharp and clear in his plot- 
 ting face. Of course he would try him, and 
 no one else should. 
 
 A saucy- looking woman, still handsome, 
 in a mob-cap gay with blue ribbons, in a 
 saque of flowered silk, with lace and rings on, 
 much too fine for the Judge's housekeeper, 
 which nevertheless she was, peeped into 
 his study next morning, and, seeing the 
 Judge alone, stepped in. 
 
 " Here's another letter from him, come by 
 the post this morning. Can't you do nothing 
 for him?" she said wheedlingly, with her
 
 244 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 arm over his neck, and her delicate finger and 
 thumb fiddling with the lobe of his purple ear. 
 
 " I'll try," said Judge Harbottle, not raising 
 his eyes from the paper he was reading. 
 
 " I knew you'd do what I asked you/' she 
 said. 
 
 The Judge clapt his gouty claw over his 
 heart, and made her an ironical bow. 
 
 "What," she asked, "will you do?" 
 
 " Hang him," said the Judge with a 
 chuckle. 
 
 " You don't mean to ; no, you don't, my 
 little man," said she, surveying herself in a 
 mirror on the wall. 
 
 " I'm d — d but I think you're falling in 
 love with your husband at last !" said Judge 
 Harbottle. 
 
 " I'm blest but I think you're growing 
 jealous of him," replied the lady with a laugh. 
 " But no ; he was always a bad one to me ; 
 I've done with him long ago."
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 245 
 
 " And he with you, by George ! When 
 he took your fortune and your spoons and 
 your ear-rings, he had all he wanted of you. 
 He drove you from his house ; and when he 
 discovered you had made yourself comfortable, 
 and found a good situation, he'd have taken 
 your guineas and your silver and your ear- 
 rings over again, and then allowed you half- 
 a-dozen years more to make a new harvest 
 for his mill. You don't wish him good ; if 
 you say you do, you lie." 
 
 She laughed a wicked saucy laugh, and 
 gave the terrible Rhadamanthus a playful tap 
 on the chops. 
 
 "He wants me to send him money to fee 
 a counsellor," she said, while her eyes 
 wandered over the pictures on the wall, and 
 back again to the looking-glass ; and certainly 
 she did not look as if his jeopardy troubled 
 her very much. 
 
 " Confound his impudence, the scoundrel !"
 
 a 4 6 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 thundered the old Judge, throwing himself 
 back in his chair, as he used to do in furore on 
 the bench, and the lines of his mouth looked 
 brutal, and his eyes ready to leap from their 
 sockets. " If you answer his letter from my 
 house to please yourself, you'll write your 
 next from somebody else's to please me. You 
 understand, my pretty witch, I'll not be 
 pestered. Come, no pouting; whimpering 
 won't do. You don't care a brass farthing 
 for the villain, body or soul. You came 
 here but to make a row. You are one of 
 Mother Carey's chickens; and where you 
 come, the storm is up. Get you gone, bag- 
 gage ! get you gone !" he repeated with a 
 stamp ; for a knock at the hall-door made her 
 instantaneous disappearance indispensable. 
 
 I need hardly say that the venerable Hugh 
 Peters did not appear again. The Judge 
 never mentioned him. But oddly enough, 
 considering how he laughed to scorn the weak
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 247 
 
 invention which he had blown into dust at the 
 very first puff, his white-wigged visitor and 
 the conference in the dark front parlour was 
 often in his memory. 
 
 His shrewd eye told him that allowing for 
 change of tints and such disguises as the 
 playhouse affords every night, the features of 
 this false old man, who had turned out too 
 hard for his tall footman, were identical with 
 those of Lewis Pyneweck. 
 
 Judge Harbottle made his registrar call 
 upon the crown solicitor, and tell him that 
 there was a man in town who bore a wonder- 
 ful resemblance to a prisoner in Shrewsbury 
 jail named Lewis Pyneweck, and to make 
 ■ inquiry through the post forthwith whether 
 any one was personating Pyneweck in prison, 
 and whether he had thus or otherwise made 
 his escape. 
 
 The prisoner was safe, however, and no 
 question as to his identity.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 INTERRUPTION IN COURT. 
 
 IN due time Judge Harbottle went circuit ; 
 and in due time the judges were in 
 Shrewsbury. News travelled slowly in those 
 days, and newspapers, like the wagons and 
 stage-coaches, took matters easily. Mrs. Pyne- 
 weck, in the Judge's house, with a diminished 
 household — the greater part of the Judge's ser- 
 vants having gone with him, for he had given 
 up riding circuit, and travelled in his coach in 
 state — kept house rather solitarily at home. 
 In spite of quarrels, in spite of mutual in-
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 249 
 
 juries — some of them, inflicted by herself, 
 enormous — in spite of a married life of spited 
 bickerings — a life in which there seemed no 
 love or liking or forbearance, for years — now 
 that Pyneweck stood in near danger of death, 
 something like remorse came suddenly upon 
 her. She knew that in Shrewsbury were 
 transacting the scenes which were to deter- 
 mine his fate. She knew she did not love 
 him ; but she could not have supposed, even 
 a fortnight before, that the hour of suspense 
 could have affected her so powerfully. 
 
 She knew the day on which the trial was 
 expected to take place. She could not get it 
 out of her head for a minute ; she felt faint 
 as it drew towards evening. 
 
 Two or three days passed ; and then she 
 knew that the trial must be over by this time. 
 There were floods between London and 
 Shrewsbury, and news was long delayed. 
 She wished the floods would last for ever. It
 
 2 5 o IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 was dreadful waiting to hear ; dreadful to know 
 that the event was over, and that she could 
 not hear till self-willed rivers subsided ; dread- 
 ful to know that they must subside and the 
 news come at last. 
 
 She had some vague trust in the Judge's 
 good-nature, and much in the resources of 
 chance and accident. She had contrived to 
 send the money he wanted. He would not 
 be without legal advice and energetic and 
 skilled support. 
 
 At last the news did come — a long arrear 
 all in a gush : a letter from a female friend in 
 Shrewsbury ; a return of the sentences, sent 
 up for the Judge ; and most important, be- 
 cause most easily got at, being told with great 
 aplomb and brevity, the long-deferred intelli- 
 gence of the Shrewsbury Assizes in the Morn- 
 ing Advertiser. Like an impatient reader of 
 a novel, who reads the last page first, she 
 read with dizzy eyes the list of the executions.
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 251 
 
 Two were respited, seven were hanged ; 
 and in that capital catalogue was this line : 
 
 "Lewis Pyneweck — forgery." 
 
 She had to read it half-a-dozen times over 
 before she was sure she understood it. Here 
 was the paragraph : 
 
 "Sentence, Death — 7. 
 
 " Executed accordingly, on Friday the 13 th 
 instant, to wit : 
 
 " Thomas Primer, alias Duck — highway 
 robbery. 
 
 " Flora Guy — stealing to the value of 
 1 1 s. 6d. 
 
 " Arthur Pounden — burglary. 
 
 " Matilda Mummery — riot. 
 
 " Lewis Pyneweck — forgery, bill of ex- 
 change.'' 
 
 And when she reached this, she read it 
 over and over, feeling very cold and sick. 
 This buxom housekeeper was known in the
 
 252 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 house as Mrs. Carwell — Carwell being her 
 maiden name, which she had resumed. 
 
 No one in the house except its master knew 
 her history. Her introduction had been man- 
 aged craftily. No one suspected that it had 
 been concerted between her and the old repro- 
 bate in scarlet and ermine. 
 
 Flora Carwell ran up the stairs how, and 
 snatched her little girl, hardly seven years of 
 age, whom she met on the lobby, hurriedly up 
 in her arms, and carried her into her bedroom, 
 without well knowing what she was doing, 
 and sat down, placing the child before her. 
 She was not able to speak. She held the 
 child before her, and looked in the little girl's 
 wondering face, and burst into tears of horror. 
 
 She thought the Judge could have saved 
 him. I daresay he could. For a time she 
 was furious with him ; and hugged and kissed 
 her bewildered little girl, who returned her 
 gaze with large round eyes.
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 253 
 
 That little girl had lost her father, and 
 knew nothing of the matter. She had been 
 always told that her father was dead long ago. 
 
 A woman, coarse, uneducated, vain, and 
 violent, does not reason, or even feel, very 
 distinctly ; but in these tears of consternation 
 were mingling a self-upbraiding. She felt 
 afraid of that little child. 
 
 But Mrs. Carwell was a person who lived 
 not upon sentiment, but upon beef and pud- 
 ding ; she consoled herself with punch ; she did 
 not trouble herself long even with resent- 
 ments ; she was a gross and material person, 
 and could not mourn over the irrevocable 
 for more than a limited number of hours, 
 even if she would. 
 
 Judge Harbottle was soon in London again. 
 Except the gout, this savage old epicurean 
 never knew a day's sickness. He laughed 
 and coaxed and bullied away the young 
 woman's faint upbraidings, and in a little
 
 254 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 time Lewis Pyneweck troubled her no more ; 
 and the Judge secretly chuckled over the 
 perfectly fair removal of a bore, who might 
 have grown little by little into something very 
 like a tyrant. 
 
 It was the lot of the Judge whose adven- 
 tures I am now recounting to try criminal 
 cases at the Old Bailey shortly after his return. 
 He had commenced his charge to the jury 
 in a case of forgery, and was, after his wont, 
 thundering dead against the prisoner, with 
 many a hard aggravation and cynical gibe, 
 when suddenly all died away in silence, and, 
 instead of looking at the jury, the eloquent 
 Judge was gaping at some person in the body 
 of the court. 
 
 Among the persons of small importance 
 who stand and listen at the sides was one tall 
 enough to show with a little prominence ; a 
 slight mean figure, dressed in seedy black, 
 lean and dark of visage. He had just handed
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 255 
 
 a letter to the crier, before he caught the 
 Judge's eye. 
 
 That Judge descried, to his amazement, the 
 features of Lewis Pyneweck. He has the 
 usual faint thin-lipped smile ; and with his blue 
 chin raised in air, and as it seemed quite un- 
 conscious of the distinguished notice he has 
 attracted, he was stretching his low cravat 
 with his crooked ringers, while he slowly 
 turned his head from side to side — a process 
 which enabled the Judge to see distinctly a 
 stripe of swollen blue round his neck, which 
 indicated, he thought, the grip of the rope. 
 
 This man, with a few others, had got a 
 footing on a step, from which he could better 
 see the court. He now stepped down, and 
 the Judge lost sight of him. 
 
 His lordship signed energetically with his 
 hand in the direction in which this man had 
 vanished. He turned to the tipstaff. His 
 first effort to speak ended in a gasp. He
 
 256 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 cleared his throat, and told the astounded 
 official to arrest that man who had interrupted 
 the court. 
 
 " He's but this moment gone down there. 
 Bring him in custody before me, within ten 
 minutes' time, or I'll strip your gown from 
 your shoulders and fine the sheriff!" he 
 thundered, while his eyes flashed round the 
 court in search of the functionary. 
 
 Attorneys, counsellors, idle spectators, 
 gazed in the direction in which Mr. Justice 
 Harbottle had shaken his gnarled old hand. 
 They compared notes. Not one had seen 
 any one making a disturbance. They asked 
 one another if the Judge was losing his head. 
 
 Nothing came of the search. His lordship 
 concluded his charge a great deal more tamely ; 
 and when the jury retired, he stared round 
 the court with a wandering mind, and looked 
 as if he would not have given sixpence to 
 see the prisoner hanged.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CALEB SEARCHER. 
 
 THE Judge had received the letter ; had 
 he known from whom it came, he 
 would no doubt have read it instantaneously. 
 As it was he simply read the direction : 
 
 To the Honourable 
 
 The Lord Justice 
 
 Elijah Harbottle, 
 One of his Majesty's Justices of 
 the Honourable Court of Common Pleas. 
 
 It remained forgotten in his pocket till he 
 reached home. 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 2 5 3 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 When he pulled out that and others from the 
 capacious pocket of his coat, it had its turn, 
 as he sat in his library in his thick silk dressing- 
 gown ; and then he found its contents to be 
 a closely-written letter, in a clerk's hand, and 
 an enclosure in c secretary hand/ as I believe 
 the angular scrivinary of law-writings in 
 those days was termed, engrossed on a bit of 
 parchment about the size of this page. The 
 letter said : 
 
 " Mr. Justice Harbottle, — My Lord, 
 "I am ordered by the. High Court of 
 Appeal to acquaint your lordship, in order 
 to your better preparing yourself for your 
 trial, that a true bill hath been sent down, 
 and the indictment lieth against your lordship 
 for the murder of one Lewis Pyneweck of 
 Shrewsbury, citizen, wrongfully executed for 
 the forgery of a bill of exchange, on the — th 
 Jay of last, by reason of the wilful
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 259 
 
 perversion of the evidence, and the undue 
 pressure put upon the jury, together with the 
 illegal admission of evidence by your lordship, 
 well knowing the same to be illegal, by all 
 which the promoter of the prosecution of the 
 said indictment, before the High Court of 
 Appeal, hath lost his life. 
 
 "And the trial of the said indictment, I 
 am farther ordered to acquaint your lordship 
 
 is fixed for the 10th day of next ensuing, 
 
 by the right honourable the Lord Chief- 
 Justice Twofold, of the court aforesaid, to 
 wit, the High Court of Appeal, on which day 
 it will most certainly take place. And I am 
 farther to acquaint your lordship, to prevent 
 any surprise or miscarriage, that your case 
 stands first for the said day, and that the said 
 High Court of Appeal sits day and night, and 
 never rises ; and herewith, by order of the said 
 court, I furnish your lordship with a copy 
 (extract) of the record in this case, except of
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 the indictment, whereof, notwithstanding, the 
 substance and effect is supplied to your lord- 
 ship in this Notice. And farther I am to 
 inform you, that in case the jury then to try 
 your lordship should find you guilty, the 
 right honourable the Lord Chief- Justice will, 
 in passing sentence of death upon you, fix 
 the day of execution for the ioth day of 
 
 , being one calendar month from the 
 
 day of your trial." 
 
 It was signed by "Caleb Searcher, 
 
 " Officer of the Crown Solicitor in the 
 " Kingdom of Life and Death." 
 
 The Judge glanced through the parchment. 
 
 " 'Sblood ! Do they think a man like me 
 is to be bamboozled by their buffoonery ?" 
 
 The Judge's coarse features were wrung 
 into one of his sneers ; but he was pale. 
 Possibly, after all, there was a conspiracy on 
 foot. It was queer. Did they mean to
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 261 
 
 pistol him in his carnage ? or did they only 
 aim at frightening him ? 
 
 Judge Harbottle had more than enough 
 of animal courage. He was not afraid of 
 highwaymen, and he had fought more than 
 his share of duels, being a foul-mouthed 
 advocate while he held briefs at the bar. No 
 one questioned his fighting qualities. But 
 with respect to this particular case of Pyne- 
 weck, he lived in a house of glass. Was 
 there not his pretty, dark-eyed, over-dressed 
 housekeeper, Mrs. Flora Carwell ? Very 
 easy for people who knew Shrewsbury to 
 identify Mrs. Pyneweck, if once put upon 
 the scent ; and had he not stormed and 
 worked hard in that case? Had he not 
 made it hard sailing for the prisoner ? Did 
 he not know very well what the bar thought 
 of it ? It would be the worst scandal that 
 ever blasted judge. 
 
 So much there was intimidating in the
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 matter, but nothing more. The Judge was 
 a little bit gloomy for a day or two after, 
 and more testy with every one than usual. 
 
 He locked up the papers ; and about a 
 week after he asked his housekeeper, one day, 
 in the library : 
 
 " Had your husband never a brother ?" 
 
 Mrs. Carwell squalled on this sudden intro- 
 duction of the funereal topic, and cried 
 exemplary " piggins full," as the Judge used 
 pleasantly to say. But he was in no mood 
 for trifling now, and he said sternly : 
 
 " Come, madam ! this wearies me. Do it 
 another time ; and give me an answer to my 
 question." So she did. 
 
 Pyneweck had no brother living. He 
 once had one ; but he died in Jamaica. 
 
 " How do you know he is dead?" asked 
 the Judge. 
 
 <c Because he told me so." 
 
 " Not the dead man ?"
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 263 
 
 "Pyneweck told me so." 
 
 " Is that all ?" sneered the Judge. 
 
 He pondered this matter ; and time went 
 on. The Judge was growing a little morose, 
 and less enjoying. The subject struck nearer 
 to his thoughts than he fancied it could 
 have done. But so it is with most undivulged 
 vexations, and there was no one to whom 
 he could tell this one. 
 
 It was now the ninth ; and Mr. Justice 
 Harbottle was glad. He knew nothing 
 would come of it. Still it bothered him ; and 
 to-morrow would see it well over. 
 
 [What of the paper, I have cited? No 
 one saw it during his life ; no one, after his 
 death. He spoke of it to Dr. Hedstone; 
 and what purported to be " a copy," in the 
 old Judge's hand-writing, was found. The 
 original was nowhere. Was it a copy of an 
 illusion, incident to brain disease? Such is 
 my belief.]
 
 CHAPTER VI, 
 
 ARRESTED. 
 
 JUDGE HARBOTTLE went this night 
 to the play at Drury Lane. He was 
 one of those old fellows who care nothing 
 for late hours, and occasional knocking about 
 in pursuit of pleasure. He had appointed 
 with two cronies of Lincoln's Inn to come 
 home in his coach with him to sup after the 
 play. 
 
 They were not in his box, but were to 
 meet him near the entrance, and to get into
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 265 
 
 his carriage there ; and Mr. Justice Harbottle, 
 who hated waiting, was looking a little im- 
 patiently from the window. 
 
 The Judge yawned. 
 
 He told the footman to watch for Coun- 
 sellor Thavies and Counsellor Beller, who 
 were coming ; and, with another yawn, he 
 laid his cocked-hat on his knees, closed his 
 eyes, leaned back in his corner, wrapped his 
 mantle closer about him, and began to think 
 of pretty Mrs. Abington. 
 
 And being a man who could sleep like a 
 sailor, at a moment's notice, he was thinking 
 of taking a nap. Those fellows had no 
 business to keep a judge waiting. 
 
 He heard their voices now. Those rake- 
 hell counsellors were laughing, and bantering, 
 and sparring after their wont. The carriage 
 swayed and jerked, as one got in, and then 
 again as the other followed. The door 
 clapped, and the coach was now jogging and
 
 266 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 rumbling over the pavement. The Judge 
 was a little bit sulky. He did not care to 
 sit up and open his eyes. Let them suppose 
 he was asleep. He heard them laugh with 
 more malice than good-humour, he thought, 
 as they observed it. He would give them a 
 d — d hard knock or two when they got to 
 his door, and till then he would counterfeit 
 his nap. 
 
 The clocks were chiming twelve. Beller 
 and Thavies were silent as tombstones. 
 They were generally loquacious and merry 
 rascals. 
 
 The Judge suddenly felt himself roughly 
 seized and thrust from his corner into the 
 middle of the seat, and opening his eyes, in- 
 stantly he found himself between his two 
 companions. 
 
 Before he could blurt out the oath that 
 was at his lips, he saw that they were two 
 strangers — evil-looking fellows, each with a
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. *6 7 
 
 pistol in his hand, and dressed like Bow- 
 Street officers. 
 
 The Judge clutched at the check -string. 
 The coach pulled up. He stared about him. 
 They were not among houses ; but through 
 the windows, under a broad moonlight, he 
 saw a black moor stretching lifelessly from 
 right to left, with rotting trees, pointing 
 fantastic branches in the air, standing here 
 and there in groups, as if they held up their 
 arms and twigs like fingers, in horrible glee 
 at the Judge's coming. 
 
 A footman came to the window. He 
 knew his long face and sunken eyes. He 
 knew it was Dingly Chuff, fifteen years ago 
 a footman in his service, whom he had turned 
 off at a moment's notice, in a burst of 
 jealousy, and indicted for a missing spoon. 
 The man had died in prison of the jail- 
 fever. 
 
 The Judge drew back in utter amaze-
 
 268 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 ment. His armed companions signed mutely ; 
 and they were again gliding over this un- 
 known moor. 
 
 The bloated and gouty old man, in his 
 horror, considered the question of resistance. 
 But his athletic days were long over. This 
 moor was a desert. There was no help to 
 be had. He was in the hands of strange 
 servants, even if his recognition turned out 
 to be a delusion, and they were under the 
 command of his captors. There was nothing 
 for it but submission, for the present. 
 
 Suddenly the coach was brought nearly to 
 a standstill, so that the prisoner saw an 
 ominous sight from the window. 
 
 It was a gigantic gallows beside the road ; 
 it stood three-sided, and from each of its three 
 broad beams at top depended in chains some 
 eight or ten bodies, from several of which the 
 cere-clothes had dropped away, leaving the 
 skeletons swinging lightly by their chains.
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 269 
 
 A tall ladder reached to the summit of the 
 structure, and on the peat beneath lay bones. 
 On top of the dark transverse beam facing 
 the road, from which, as from the other two 
 completing the triangle of death, dangled a 
 row of these unfortunates in chains, a hang- 
 man, with a pipe in his mouth, much as we 
 see him in the famous print of the c Idle Ap- 
 prentice/ though here his perch was ever so 
 much higher, was reclining at his ease and list- 
 lessly shying bones, from a little heap at his 
 elbow, at the skeletons that hung round, bring- 
 ing down now a rib or two, now a hand, now 
 half a leg. A long-sighted man could have 
 discerned that he was a dark fellow, lean ; 
 and from continually looking down on the 
 earth from the elevation over which, in an- 
 other sense, he always hung, his nose, his 
 lips, his chin were pendulous and loose, and 
 drawn down into a monstrous grotesque. 
 This fellow took his pipe from his mouth
 
 2 7 o IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 on seeing the coach, stood up, and cut some 
 solemn capers high on his beam, and shook 
 a new rope in the air, crying with a voice 
 high and distant as the caw of a raven hover- 
 ing over a gibbet, " A rope for Judge 
 Harbottle !" 
 
 The coach was now driving on at its old 
 swift pace. 
 
 So high a gallows as that, the Judge had 
 never, even in his most hilarious moments, 
 dreamed of. He thought he must be raving. 
 And the dead footman ! He shook his ears 
 and strained his eyelids ; but if he was dream- 
 ing, he was unable to awake himself. 
 
 There was no good in threatening these 
 scoundrels. A brutum fulmen might bring a 
 real one on his head. 
 
 Any submission to get out of their hands ; 
 and then heaven and earth he would move 
 to unearth and hunt them down. 
 
 Suddenly they drove round a corner of a 
 vast white building, and under a porte-cochere.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CHIEF JUSTICE TWOFOLD. 
 
 THE Judge found himself in a corridor 
 lighted with dingy oil-lamps, the walls 
 of bare stone ; it looked like a passage in a 
 prison. His guards placed him in the hands of 
 other people. Here and there he saw bony 
 and gigantic soldiers passing to and fro, with 
 muskets over their shoulders. They looked 
 straight before them, grinding their teeth, in 
 bleak fury, with no noise but the clank of 
 their shoes. He saw these by glimpses,
 
 272 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 round corners, and at the ends of passages, 
 but he did not actually pass them by. 
 
 And now, passing under a narrow doorway, 
 he found himself in the dock, confronting a 
 judge in his scarlet robes, in a large court- 
 house. There was nothing to elevate this 
 temple of Themis above its vulgar kind else- 
 where. Dingy enough it looked, in spite of 
 candles lighted in decent abundance. A case 
 had just closed, and the last juror's back was 
 seen escaping through the door in the wall 
 of the jury-box. There were some dozen 
 barristers, some fiddling with pen and ink, 
 others buried in briefs, some beckoning, with 
 the plumes of their pens, to their attorneys, 
 of whom there were no lack ; there were clerks 
 to-ing and fro-ing, and the officers of the 
 court, and the registrar, who was handing up 
 a paper to the judge ; and the tipstaff, who 
 was presenting a note at the end of his wand 
 to a king's counsel over the heads of the
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 273 
 
 crowd between. If this was the High Court 
 of Appeal, which never rose day or night, it 
 might account for the pale and jaded aspect 
 of everybody in it. An air of indescribable 
 gloom hung upon the pallid features of all the 
 people here ; no one ever smiled ; all looked 
 more or less secretly suffering. 
 
 "The King against Elijah Harbottle !" 
 shouted the officer. 
 
 "Is the appellant Lewis Pyneweck in 
 court ?" asked Chief- Justice Twofold, in a 
 voice of thunder, that shook the woodwork 
 of the Court, and boomed down the cor- 
 ridors. 
 
 Up stood Pyneweck from his place at the 
 table. 
 
 " Arraign the prisoner !" roared the Chief; 
 and Judge Harbottle felt the pannels of the 
 dock round him, and the floor, and the rails 
 quiver in the vibrations of that tremendous 
 voice. 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 The prisoner, in limine , objected to this 
 pretended court, as being a sham, and non- 
 existent in point of law ; and then, that, even 
 if it were a court constituted by law, (the 
 Judge was growing dazed), it had not and 
 could not have any jurisdiction to try him for 
 his conduct on the bench. 
 
 Whereupon the chief-justice laughed sud- 
 denly, and every one in court, turning round 
 upon the prisoner, laughed also, till the laugh 
 grew and roared all round like a deafening 
 acclamation ; he saw nothing but glittering 
 eyes and teeth, a universal stare and grin ; 
 but though all the voices laughed, not a single 
 face of all those that concentrated their gaze 
 upon him looked like a laughing face. The 
 mirth subsided as suddenly as it began. 
 
 The indictment was read. Judge Har- . 
 bottle actually pleaded ! He pleaded " Not 
 guilty." A jury were sworn. The trial pro- 
 ceeded. Judge Harbottle was bewildered.
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 275 
 
 This could not be real. He must be either 
 mad, or going mad, he thought. 
 
 One thing could not fail to strike even 
 him. This Chief-Justice Twofold, who was 
 knocking him about at every turn with sneer 
 and gibe, and roaring him down with his 
 tremendous voice, was a dilated effigy of 
 himself; an image of Mr. Justice Harbottle, 
 at least double his size, and with all his fierce 
 colouring, and his ferocity of eye and visage, 
 enhanced awfully. 
 
 Nothing the prisoner could argue, cite, or 
 state was permitted to retard for a moment 
 the march of the case towards its catastrophe. 
 
 The chief-justice seemed to feel his power 
 over the jury, and to exult and riot in the 
 display of it. He glared at them, he nodded 
 to them ; he seemed to have established an 
 understanding with them. The lights were 
 faint in that part of the court. The jurors 
 were mere shadows, sitting in rows ; the
 
 a 7 6 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 prisoner could see a dozen pair of white 
 eyes shining, coldly, out of the darkness ; and 
 whenever the judge in his charge, which was 
 contemptuously brief, nodded and grinned 
 and gibed, the prisoner could see, in the ob- 
 scurity, by the dip of all these rows of eyes to- 
 gether, that the jury nodded in acquiescence. 
 
 And now the charge was over, the huge 
 chief-justice leaned back panting and gloating 
 on the prisoner. Every one in the court 
 turned about, and gazed with steadfast hatred 
 on the man in the dock. From the jury-box 
 where the twelve sworn brethren were whis- 
 pering together, a sound in the general still- 
 ness like a prolonged " hiss-s-s !" was heard ; 
 and then, in answer to the challenge of 
 the officer, " How say you, gentlemen of the 
 jury, guilty or not guilty ?" came in a melan- 
 choly voice the finding, " Guilty." 
 
 The place seemed to the eyes of the prisoner 
 to grow gradually darker and darker, till he
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 277 
 
 could discern nothing distinctly but the lumen 
 of the eyes that were turned upon him 
 from every bench and side and corner and 
 gallery of the building. The prisoner doubtless 
 thought that he had quite enough to say, 
 and conclusive, why sentence of death should 
 not be pronounced upon him ; but the lord 
 chief-justice puffed it contemptuously away, 
 like so much smoke, and proceeded to pass 
 sentence of death upon the prisoner, having 
 named the 1 oth of the ensuing month for his 
 execution. 
 
 Before he had recovered the stun of this 
 ominous farce, in obedience to the mandate, 
 c Remove the prisoner/ he was led from the 
 dock. The lamps seemed all to have gone 
 out, and there were stoves and charcoal-fires 
 here and there, that threw a faint crimson light 
 on the walls of the corridors through which 
 he passed. The stones that composed them 
 looked now enormous, cracked and unhewn.
 
 278 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 He came into a vaulted smithy, where two 
 men, naked to the waist, with heads like 
 bulls, round shoulders, and the arms of giants, 
 were welding red-hot chains together with 
 hammers that pelted like thunderbolts. 
 
 They looked on the prisoner with fierce 
 red eyes, and rested on their hammers for a 
 minute ; and said the elder to his companion, 
 "Takeout Elijah Harbottle's gyves;" and 
 with a pincers he plucked the end which lay 
 dazzling in the fire from the furnace. 
 
 " One end locks," said he, taking the cool 
 end of the iron in one hand, while with the 
 grip of a vice he seized the leg of the Judge, 
 and locked the ring round his ankle. " The 
 other," he said with a grin, " is welded." 
 
 The iron band that was to form the ring 
 for the other leg lay still red-hot upon the 
 stone floor, with brilliant sparks sporting up 
 and down its surface. 
 
 His companion in his gigantic hands seized
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 279 
 
 the old Judge's other leg, and pressed his foot 
 immovably to the stone floor ; while his 
 senior in a twinkling, with a masterly appli- 
 cation of pincers and hammer, sped the glow- 
 ing bar round his ankle so tight that the skin 
 and sinews smoked and bubbled again, and 
 old Judge Harbottle uttered a yell that seemed 
 to chill the very stones, and make the iron 
 chains quiver on the wall. 
 
 Chains, vaults, smiths, and smithy all van- 
 ished in a moment ; but the pain continued. 
 Mr. Justice Harbottle was suffering torture all 
 round the ankle on which the infernal smiths 
 had just been operating. 
 
 His friends Thavies and Beller were startled 
 by the Judge's roar in the midst of their ele- 
 gant trifling about a marriage a-la-mode case 
 which was going on. The Judge was in 
 panic as well as pain. The street-lamps and 
 the light of his own hall-door restored him. 
 
 " I'm very bad," growled he between his
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 set teeth ; " my foot's blazing. Who was he 
 that hurt my foot? 'Tis the gout — 'tis the 
 gout !" he said, awaking completely. " How 
 many hours have we been coming from the 
 playhouse ? 'Sblood, what has happened on 
 the way ? I've slept half the night ?" 
 
 There had been no hitch or delay, and they 
 had driven home at a good pace. 
 
 The Judge, however, was in gout ; he was 
 feverish too ; and the attack, though very 
 short, was sharp ; and when, in about a fort- 
 night, it subsided, his ferocious joviality did 
 not return. He could not get this dream, as 
 he chose to call it, out of his head.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SOMEBODY HAS GOT INTO THE HOUSE, 
 
 PEOPLE remarked that the Judge was 
 in the vapours. His doctor said he 
 should go for a fortnight to Buxton. 
 • Whenever the Judge fell into a brown 
 study, he was always conning over the terms 
 of the sentence pronounced upon him in his 
 vision — " in one calendar month from the 
 date of this day ;" and then the usual form, 
 " and you shall be hanged by the neck till you 
 are dead," &c. " That will be the ioth—
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 I'm not much in the way of being hanged. 
 I know what stuff dreams are, and I laugh at 
 them ; but this is continually in my thoughts, 
 as if it forecast misfortune of some sort. I 
 wish the day my dream gave me were passed 
 and over. I wish I were well purged of my 
 gout. I wish I were as I used to be. 'Tis 
 nothing but vapours, nothing but a maggot." 
 The copy of the parchment and letter which 
 had announced his trial with many a snort and 
 sneer he would read over and over again, and 
 the scenery and people of his dream would rise 
 about him in places the most unlikely, and 
 steal him in a moment from all that surrounded 
 him into a world of shadows. 
 
 The Judge had lost his iron energy and 
 banter. He was growing taciturn and morose. 
 The Bar remarked the change, as well they 
 might. His friends thought him ill. The 
 doctor said he was troubled with hypochondria, 
 and that his gout was still lurking in his
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 283 
 
 system, and ordered him to that ancient haunt 
 of crutches and chalk-stones, Buxton. 
 
 The Judge's spirits were very low ; he was 
 frightened about himself; and he described 
 to his housekeeper, having sent for her to 
 his study to drink a dish of tea, his strange 
 dream in his drive home from Drury Lane 
 playhouse. He was sinking into the state of 
 nervous dejection in which men lose their 
 faith in orthodox advice, and in despair con- 
 sult quacks, astrologers, and nursery story- 
 tellers. Could such a dream mean that he 
 was to have a fit, and so die on the 10th? 
 She did not think so. On the contrary, it 
 was certain some good luck must happen on 
 that day. 
 
 The Judge kindled ; and for the first time 
 for many days, he looked for a minute or 
 two like himself, and he tapped her on the 
 cheek with the hand that was not in flannel. 
 
 " Odsbud ! odsheart ! you dear rogue ! I
 
 284 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 had forgot. There is young Tom — yellow 
 Tom, my nephew, you know, lies sick at 
 Harrogate ; why shouldn't he go that day 
 as well as another, and if he does, I get an 
 estate by it? Why, lookee, I asked Doctor 
 Hedstone yesterday if I was like to take a 
 fit any time, and he laughed, and swore I 
 was the last man in town to go off that way." 
 
 The Judge sent most of his servants down 
 to Buxton to make his lodgings and all things 
 comfortable for him. He was to follow in 
 a day or two. 
 
 It was now the 9th ; and the next day 
 well over, he might laugh at his visions and 
 auguries. 
 
 On the evening of the 9th, Doctor Hed- 
 stone's footman knocked at the Judge's door. 
 The doctor ran up the dusky stairs to the 
 drawing-room. It was a March evening, 
 near the hour of sunset, with an east wind 
 whistling sharply through the chimney-stacks.
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 285 
 
 A wood fire blazed cheerily on the hearth. 
 And Judge Harbottle, in what was then 
 called a brigadier-wig, with his red roquelaure 
 on, helped the glowing effect of the darkened 
 chamber, which looked^ red all over like a 
 room on fire. 
 
 The Judge had his feet on a stool, and 
 his huge grim purple face confronted the fire, 
 and seemed to pant and swell, as the blaze 
 alternately spread upward and collapsed. He 
 had fallen again among his blue devils, and 
 was thinking of retiring from the Bench, and 
 of fifty other gloomy things. 
 
 But the doctor, who was an energetic son 
 of iEsculapius, would listen to no croaking, 
 told the Judge he was full of gout, and in 
 his present condition no judge even of his 
 own case, but promised him leave to pro- 
 nounce on all those melancholy questions, a 
 fortnight later. 
 
 In the meantime the Judge must be very
 
 286 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 careful. He was over-charged with gout, 
 and he must not provoke an attack, till the 
 waters of Buxton should do that office for 
 him, in their own salutary way. 
 
 The doctor did not think him perhaps 
 quite so well as he pretended, for he told him 
 he wanted rest, and would be better if he 
 went forthwith to his bed. 
 
 Mr. Gerningham, his valet, assisted him, 
 and gave him his drops ; and the Judge 
 told him to wait in his bedroom till he should 
 go to sleep. 
 
 Three persons that night had specially odd 
 stories to tell. 
 
 The housekeeper had got rid of the trouble 
 of amusing her little girl at this anxious time 
 by giving her leave to run about the sitting- 
 rooms and look at the pictures and china, on 
 the usual condition of touching nothing. It was 
 not until the last gleam of sunset had for some 
 time faded, and the twilight had so deepened
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 287 
 
 that she could no longer discern the colours 
 on the china figures on the chimneypiece or 
 in the cabinets, that the child returned to the 
 housekeeper's room to find her mother. 
 
 To her she related, after some prattle 
 about the china, and the pictures, and the 
 Judge's two grand wigs in the dressing-room 
 ofF the library, an adventure of an extra- 
 ordinary kind. 
 
 In the hall was placed, as was customary 
 in those times, the sedan-chair which the 
 master of the house occasionally used, covered 
 with stamped leather, and studded with gilt 
 nails, and with its red silk blinds down. In 
 this case, the doors of this old-fashioned con- 
 veyance were locked, the windows up, and, 
 as I said, the blinds down, but not so closely 
 that the curious child could not peep under- 
 neath one of them, and see into the interior. 
 
 A parting beam from the setting sun, 
 admitted through the window of a back room,
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 shot obliquely through the open door, and 
 lighting on the chair, shone with a dull 
 transparency through the crimson blind. 
 
 To her surprise, the child saw in the 
 shadow a thin man dressed in black seated in 
 it ; he had sharp dark features; his nose, 
 she fancied, a little awry, and his brown 
 eyes were looking straight before him ; his 
 hand was on his thigh, and he stirred no 
 more than the waxen figure she had seen at 
 South war k fair. 
 
 A child is so often lectured for asking 
 questions and on the propriety of silence, 
 and the superior wisdom of its elders, that 
 it accepts most things at last in good faith ; 
 and the little girl acquiesced respectfully in 
 the occupation of the chair by this ma- 
 hogany-faced person as being all right and 
 proper. 
 
 It was not until she asked her mother who 
 this man was, and observed her scared face
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 289 
 
 as she questioned her more minutely upon the 
 appearance of the stranger, that she began to 
 understand that she had seen something un- 
 accountable. 
 
 Mrs. Carwell took the key of the chair 
 from its nail over the footman's shelf, and 
 led the child by the hand up to the hall, 
 having a lighted candle in her other hand. 
 She stopped at a distance from the chair, 
 and placed the candlestick in the child's hand. 
 " Peep in, Margery, again, and try if there's 
 anything there," she whispered ; " hold the 
 candle near the blind so as to throw its light 
 through the curtain." 
 
 The child peeped, this time with a very 
 solemn face, and intimated at once that he 
 was gone. 
 
 " Look again, and be sure," urged her 
 mother. 
 
 The little girl was quite certain ; and Mrs. 
 Carwell, with her mob-cap of lace and cherry- 
 
 VOL. I. u
 
 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 coloured ribbons, and her dark brown hair, 
 not yet powdered, over a very pale face, 
 unlocked the door, looked in, and beheld 
 emptiness. 
 
 " All a mistake, child, you see." 
 
 " There, ma'am ! see there ! He's gone 
 round the corner," said the child. 
 
 " Where ?" said Mrs. Carwell, stepping 
 backward a step. 
 
 " Into that room." 
 
 " Tut, child ! 'twas the shadow," cried Mrs. 
 Carwell angrily, because she was frightened. 
 "I moved the candle." But she clutched one 
 of the poles of the chair, which leant against 
 the wall in the corner, and pounded the floor 
 furiously with one end of it, being afraid to 
 pass the open door the child had pointed to. 
 
 The cook and two kitchen-maids came 
 running upstairs, not knowing what to make 
 of this unwonted alarm. 
 
 They all searched the room ; but it was
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 291 
 
 still and empty, and no sign of any one's 
 having been there. 
 
 Some people may suppose that the direction 
 given to her thoughts by this odd little in- 
 cident will account for a very strange illusion 
 which Mrs. Carwell herself experienced about 
 two hours later.
 
 
 CHAPTER IX, 
 
 THE JUDGE LEAVES HIS HOUSE. 
 
 MRS. Flora Carwell was going up the 
 great staircase with a posset for the 
 Judge in a china bowl, on a little silver tray. 
 Across the top of the well-staircase there 
 runs a massive oak rail ; and, raising her eyes 
 accidentally, she saw an extremely odd-looking 
 stranger, slim and long, leaning carelessly 
 over with a pipe between his ringer and 
 thumb. Nose, lips, and chin seemed all to 
 droop downward into extraordinary length, 
 as he leant his odd peering face over the
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 293 
 
 banister. In his other hand he held a coil of 
 rope, one end of which escaped from under 
 his elbow and hung over the rail. 
 
 Mrs. Carwell, who had no suspicion at the 
 moment, that he was not a real person, and. 
 fancied that he was some one employed in 
 cording the Judge's luggage, called to know 
 what he was doing there. 
 
 Instead of answering, he turned about, and 
 walked across the lobby, at about the same 
 leisurely pace at which she was ascending, and 
 entered a room, into which she followed him. 
 It was an uncarpeted and unfurnished cham- 
 ber. An open trunk lay upon the floor empty, 
 and beside it the coil of rope ; but except her- 
 self there was no one in the room. 
 
 Mrs. Carwell was very much frightened, 
 and now concluded that the child must have 
 seen the same ghost that had just appeared to 
 her. Perhaps, when she was able to think it 
 over, it was a relief to believe so ; for the face,
 
 294 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 figure, and dress described by the child were 
 awfully like Pyneweck ; and this certainly 
 was not he. 
 
 Very much scared and very hysterical, Mrs. 
 Carwell ran down to her room, afraid to look 
 over her shoulder, and got some companions 
 about her, and wept, and talked, and drank 
 more than one cordial, and talked and wept 
 again, and so on, until, in those early days, 
 it was ten o'clock, and time to go to bed. 
 
 A scullery-maid remained up finishing some 
 of her scouring and " scalding " for some time 
 after the other servants — who, as I said, 
 were few in number — that night had got to 
 their beds. This was a low-browed, broad- 
 faced, intrepid wench with black hair, who 
 did not " vally a ghost not a button," 
 and treated the housekeeper's hysterics with 
 measureless scorn. 
 
 The old house was quiet, now. It was 
 near twelve o'clock, no sounds were audible
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 295 
 
 except the muffled wailing of the wintry winds, 
 piping high among the roofs and chimneys, 
 or rumbling at intervals, in under gusts, 
 through the narrow channels of the street. 
 
 The spacious solitudes of the kitchen level 
 were awfully dark, and this sceptical kitchen- 
 wench was the only person now up and about, 
 in the house. She hummed tunes to herself, 
 for a time ; and then stopped and listened ; 
 and then resumed her work again. At last, 
 she was destined to be more terrified than 
 even was the housekeeper. 
 
 There was a back-kitchen in this house, and 
 from this she heard, as if coming from 
 below its foundations, a sound like heavy 
 strokes, that seemed to shake the earth 
 beneath her feet. Sometimes a dozen in se- 
 quence, at regular intervals ; sometimes fewer. 
 She walked out softly into the passage, and 
 was surprised to see a dusky glow issuing 
 from this room, as if from a charcoal fire.
 
 296 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 The room seemed thick with smoke. 
 
 Looking in, she very dimly beheld a 
 monstrous figure, over a furnace, beating 
 with a mighty hammer the rings and rivets 
 of a chain. 
 
 The strokes, swift and heavy as they looked, 
 sounded hollow and distant. The man 
 stopped, and pointed to something on the 
 floor, that, through the smoky haze, looked, 
 she thought, like a dead body. She re- 
 marked no more ; but the servants in the 
 room close by, startled from their sleep by a 
 hideous scream, found her in a swoon on 
 the flags, close to the door, where she had 
 just witnessed this ghastly vision. 
 
 Startled by the girl's incoherent assevera- 
 tions that she had seen the Judge's corpse on 
 the floor, two servants having first searched the 
 lower part of the house, went rather frightened 
 up-stairs to inquire whether their master was 
 well. They found him, not in his bed, but
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 297 
 
 in his room. He had a table with candles 
 burning at his bedside, and was getting on 
 his clothes again ; and he swore and cursed 
 at them roundly in his old style, telling 
 them that he had business, and that he 
 would discharge on the spot any scoundrel 
 who should dare to disturb him again. 
 
 So the invalid was left to his quietude. 
 
 In the morning it was rumoured here and 
 there in the street that the Judge was dead. 
 A servant was sent from the house three 
 doors away, by Counsellor Traverse, to 
 iuquire at Judge Harbottle's hall-door. 
 
 The servant who opened it was pale and 
 reserved, and would only say that the Judge 
 was ill. He had had a dangerous accident ; 
 Doctor Hedstone had been with him at seven 
 o'clock in the morning. 
 
 There were averted looks, short answers, 
 pale and frowning faces, and all the usual 
 signs that there was a secret that sat heavily
 
 298 IN A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 upon their minds, and the time for disclosing 
 which had not yet come. That time would 
 arrive when the coroner had arrived, and the 
 mortal scandal that had befallen the house 
 could be no longer hidden. For that morn- 
 ing Mr. Justice Harbottle had been found 
 hanging by the neck from the banister at 
 the top of the great staircase, and quite 
 dead. 
 
 There was not the smallest sign of any 
 struggle or resistance. There had not been 
 heard a cry or any other noise in the slightest 
 degree indicative of violence. There was 
 medical evidence to show that, in his atra- 
 bilious state, it was quite on the cards that 
 he might have made away with himself. The 
 jury found accordingly that it was a case of 
 suicide. But to those who were acquainted 
 with the strange story which Judge Har- 
 bottle had related to at least two persons, the 
 fact that the catastrophe occurred on the
 
 MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 299 
 
 morning of the 10th March seemed a start- 
 ling coincidence. 
 
 A few days after, the pomp of a great 
 funeral attended him to the grave ; and so, 
 in the language of Scripture, " the rich man 
 died, and was buried." 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON : 
 Printed by A Schulze, 13, Poland Street.