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In Memory of
MRS. FRANK K. WALTER
>
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA LIBRARY
WEIRD
TIT-BITS
cla
ENGLISH

S
NEW YORK AND LONDON
WHITE & ALLEN
808.8
W435
CONTENTS.
•
02
THE PYTHAGOREAN,
THE OLD MAN'S TALE ABOUT THE QUEER
CLIENT,
IN DEFENCE OF HIS RIGHT,
•
SIXTEEN DAYS OF DEATH,
ADVENTURE IN A FOREST,
CADER IDRIS: THE CHAIR OF IDRIS,
A SKELETON IN THE HOUSE,
A NIGHT WITH A MADMAN,
THE POISONED MIND,
A DIRE PREDICTION,
THE POSTPONED WEDDING,
3
•
•
•
HAUNTED HOUSE OF PADDINGTON,
•
•
•
•
PAGE
5
31
50
67
78
88
106
137
152
183
219
247
THE PYTHAGOREAN.
A TALE OF THE FIRST CENTURY.*
BY A. STEWART HARRISON.
"Who shall deliver me from this body of death?"-ST. PAUL.
"I WOULD, Father Claudius, that thou wouldst
come and give the consolation of thy faith to my
daughter she lieth sick of fever, and is ill at ease till
thou come.
""
"Who art thou? I know not thy face as one of
my hearers."
"Thou dost not-yet is my daughter one of thy
flock. She hath heard thee at the house of Servius
the goldsmith, and desireth strongly to see thee now.
Come quickly, I pray you, therefore."
"Is thy daughter fair, with azure eyes-her name
Virginia?"
"Right, holy father, the same. Thou didst but
three Sabbaths since bless her in the name of thy
God, as thou didst leave the goldsmith's house."
'Virginia! fair! her eyes! Is she near to
"(
By
death?"
<<
A few turnings of the glass, and her soul will be
in Hades, and the white roses will crown her.
Haste
thee, good father!"
* Reprinted by kind permission of Messrs. Bradbury, Evans,
& Co.
6
Weird Tales.
"I cannot come, alas! I cannot come !" said the
old grey-bearded man addressed as Father Claudius.
"I cannot come," he added, with increasing vehe-
mence of manner: "No, no! I cannot."
But, father, she is of thine own; she but lately
wished to join thy sect of the Nazarenes, or Christians
-I know not what ye are called."
"She was a good child. I do remember her well:
and yet I cannot come. I will give thee this tablet
for her, let her read it; it will take my place." He
took the stylus, and wrote in a waxed tablet some
few lines indicative of his own faith, and calculated to
restore her confidence in her religion. "Say to her,
I send her the blessing of God, the Three in One.
Still I cannot go with thee! No, no! I cannot !'
And the old man sat down in his seat, exhausted by
some internal struggle, while large tears rolled down
his furrowed cheeks.
">
"Father Claudius," said the man, rendered des-
perate, "I warn thee, that if thou comest not with
me, I will tell to the Church that which thou hast
refused to do, and they shall judge betwixt us. What
will the child judge of thy high-sounding words of
self-denial, seeing it is but eight furlongs hence, and
thou wilt not go?”
"I tell thee-Thy name?"
"Fabulus."
"I tell thee, Fabulus, that I would go with thee
ten times the length, but for--no, no, I cannot see
thy daughter die! Virginia! no, no, not again—I
will not see her die," he added, with fiercer tones.
"Pardon an old man, I meant not anger; still I
The Pythagorean.
7
cannot go. I cannot go. Go in peace with the
tablet; hasten, lest her sight grow dim."
"Father Claudius, fare thee well, thou shalt surely
hear more of this matter before long.
>>
The old man bowed his head, and murmured
regretfully, "No, I cannot see her die !-not again,
not again !"
Some seven days after the departing of Fabulus,
there might been seen moving slowly towards the
house of Claudius three persons: one was Fabulus,
the others the elders or deacons of the Church meet-
ing at the house of Servius, of which Claudius was
the chief minister.
"I tell ye," said Fabulus, "he did refuse."
." How?"
"With seeming regret and reluctance, 'tis true;
but he did refuse.
>>
"He
"That is not all," said one of the others.
doth refuse to partake of our feasts-to eat with us.
>>
'He should give good reason for that which he
does, otherwise we shall have reproach amongst the
Churches, if not reproof."
They came to the house, and found the old man
strangely altered since they had heard him on the
intervening Sabbath. His eyes were more sunken
and bloodshot. The holy calm that had been his
chief characteristic was gone, and in its place a
nervous, excited manner painful to witness.
"Welcome, Fabulus: welcome, Hermas and
Aquila. Peace be with ye!"
He set before them fruits, drinking cups, and a
vase of water.
8
Weird Tales.
..
"We are come," said Hermas, the elder of the
deacons, to inquire of thee why thou differest from
other preachers of Christus of whom we have heard?
Thou eatest not with us, neither dost thou visit our
sick."
"'Tis false! Did not I, when the fierce ungodly
mob stoned Lepidus, the slave of the armourer of the
River Street,did not I visit him? Did not these
arms support his dying head-these garments wipe
from his bleeding mouth the foam of death? Did not
these lips speak to him of Christus and the future
world; these hands, were they not lifted up to Heaven
in prayer for his departing soul?-'tis false-most
false. Did I not eat with one-with all of ye—when
ye gathered your children at the house of Servius, at
the time of fruits? Ye know these things, yet ye say
I visit not your sick-I eat not with ye; even now I
eat with ye, see-
And the old man seized an
apple from the board, and ate eagerly.
"But still, Father Claudius, thou dost not feast
with us. Though thou hast ministered unto us these
three years, thou hast not once feasted at our houses
-our marriages thou dost not come to, our birth
rejoicings know not thy presence; and Fabulus, here,
will witness that, but seven days since, he did, with
tears, entreat thee to visit his dying daughter, and
thou wouldst not. These things are strange, and will
bring us reproach amongst the Churches."
"'Tis true!" said the old man, now excited beyond
endurance, "'tis true! but drive me not away from
among ye, for that I will not eat of your feasts nor see
your daughters die. Brethren, I have suffered much.
""
The Pythagorean.
9
Ye know, that when first I came to ye, I told ye of
my life, how that I could not tell you of my youth,
but showed you letters from the Churches of Jerusalem,
of Macedonia, of Galatia, and others, making known
to ye that for the last thirty years I had taught the
faith in all lands. I told ye then that in my youth I
was as one of the world, and when ye asked how
came I to know and believe in Christus, I could not
tell ye then, but now, lest ye drive me from ye, I
must. I had hoped to have ended my days amongst
ye in peace-to have carried my sorrows to the grave
alone. Ye will share them; the burden is heavy
'tis of your own seeking—complain not of its weight."
The old man paused for breath, drank a deep
draught of the water, and restlessly paced to and fro
in the small room. The sun was within an hour of
setting, and the light streamed in at the narrow
window full on his face, as he passed and repassed
the opening, making the changes of his countenance
awfully sudden as he came to the light, and then dis-
appeared in the partial darkness of the room. A
narrow couch stretched along the opposite wall, and
on it lay the large upper cloak, or toga, which he
habitually wore.
The three sat attentive. Something in the old
preacher's look taught them fear. They came as his
judges; they felt they were unfit for the high office.
"I remember," said Claudius, after a long pause,
during which he seemed to be making a violent effort
to suppress some strong emotion, and speaking more
in the manner of one thinking aloud and seeking to
recall past events than one addressing others,—“ I
IO
Weird Tales.
remember my youth. I was the son of an Athenian.
Both my parents died before I knew them, and left
me to the care of an old man, my father's eldest
brother. He was a disciple of the doctrines of the
Pythagoreans. He taught me well. From him I
learnt how to live; the luscious fruit, the sweet
honey, the wholesome grain,-these were our food.
Exercises of all kinds and study in its season, helped
the flight of time till I became a man, then he died
and left me his small property. I knew a trade—that
of a carpenter-and with the money he left me and
my trade, I travelled much-in Greece, Egypt, and
Italy. Still I felt unsatisfied with my lot. There
was a void here," and the old man placed his
shrivelled hand upon his heart, "that would not fill.
"One day-that day is as yesterday I felt the
void was gone; the place was filled! I was walking
in one of the woods, near to a city in the north of
Italy, when I heard a footstep behind me. The
leaves rustled as though dancing to the music of the
faint breeze that sighed amongst the tops of the young
trees. I turned, and beheld-Virginia! just such a
sun shone on her."
The old man paused in his walk, full in front of the
window. The reddish light cast a glow upon his
features, and he seemed to blush as did the youth
when first he saw his idol.
(6
Virginia! Shall I ever forget thee !"
He had quite lost his hearers now, while they
eagerly drank in his words.
"Her step, her mien, her face! The void was
gone. She bore upon her head a vessel of milk,
The Pythagorean.
Il
which she poised gracefully with one arm uplifted,
and with the other held her tunic from contact with
the damp grass, for the dew was falling. I followed
her-saw her deliver the vessel which was emptied-
and returned to her. She came back by the same
path carelessly swinging the vessel by one of its
handles, and singing some childish lay. I had heard
in my own city the voices of the hired singers of the
great, but never did my ears drink in such melody as
flowed from that swelling throat. She thought she
was alone, and warbled like a bird. I followed her
still, and saw her enter a poor mean cottage near the
borders of the wood. It was not long before I found
an excuse in my thirst to call there. I drank milk from
a cup she handed me. It was the nectar of the gods."
His hearers started. Where was the Nazarene
now? he was gone. It was a young man with the
full tide of passion flowing in his veins to whom they
listened.
"The father was a slave of Sporus, the magis-
trate of the district, but was allowed by his owner to
have all the privileges of freedom on payment of a
certain sum at every month. He was a carpenter,
his wife kept a few cows from which the household
of Sporus was supplied. I soon hired myself to the
father, and being a good workman raised myself in
his esteem. Why need I delay-I wooed Virginia, I
won her.
All the freshness of her girlhood's love was
mine. At evenings she would listen to me as I
detailed for her my travels by sea and land. She,
too, could teach me something, for she had with her
mother joined the Nazarenes, the Christians.
I 2
Weird Tales.
"We were to have been united-all was ready,
two moons only had to run their course and she was
mine. Alas! how we build on sand.
"Sporus had often seen Virginia. He knew she
was his slave. I knew it, too. I must buy her
freedom. I went to his house, saw him ; 'he asked
to see her again. I urged that it could not affect the
price: he would see her. He saw her-he refused--
I could not marry a slave. What could we do?
I offered him thrice her value as a slave-he still
refused; and why? He wanted her for himself!
((
Virginia not my wife, but the slave and mistress
of Sporus! The thought was horrible.
Wealth can
do much. I persuaded her to flee.
"It wanted but a week of the day fixed, when she,
as her custom was, went to the house of Sporus with
her milk. I was at work, and saw her go. She was
longer than usual returning. I watched the openings
in the trees through which she was to come. She
I could not endure the suspense-I
came not.
went to meet her. I reached the wood, I heard
her scream. I should have known that voice any-
where. I ran-I found her with disordered dress
and dishevelled hair struggling in the arms of her
master, Sporus.
"I struck him to the earth, and she twined her
arms around me and clung to me, as though dreading
to lose me.
"Locse me, dearest, I am powerless. See, he rises.'
"She left me free, but took fast hold of my girdle,
as though there was safety in the very act of touching
me.
The Pythagorean.
13
'Glaucus, she is my slave, her father
"He rose.
is my slave, leave her to me.'
(( C
'Sporus, thou wretch accursed, I will not leave
thee. I will with these fingers tear thy vile heart
from its place to feed the dogs, if thou darest but to
touch the hem of her robe.'
"Glaucus, I warn thee. Thou has struck me.
I am a Roman. I never forget an insult. Yet if
thou wilt leave her to me, and leave this place thyself,
thou shalt cheat my revenge.'
"Demon that thou art, I will not leave thee with
her. Thou art more vile than the very beasts whose
cries do nightly echo through this wood. They wed
with no unwilling mates, whilst thou-wolf that thou
art—wouldst have despoiled this poor lamb, but for
me. I will not leave thee with her.'
"Once more, I warn thee, Glaucus, tempt not
the vengeance of Sporus. Virginia, if thou dost love
him, bid him go. I will make thee my queen, thou
shalt have slaves at thy command. Thou who art
thyself a slave shalt have thy freedom; thou shalt wed
Sporus the magistrate. Bid him go.'
<< <
Sporus, I would not be thy bride for all the
riches of earth. Glaucus, leave me not with this.
wretch; I will live with thee, or die with thee, but
leave me not.'
"Once more, Glaucus, I warn thee, go.'
I
"I will not, thou doubly condemned wretch.
defy thee-thy country's laws thou darest not ask to
help thee now.'
"Glaucus-Virginia-I have warned ye thrice.
Beware the vengeance of Sporus!'
14
Weird Tales.
<<
"He left us-she fell into my arms-I carried her
home. The seven days had passed-the night of
flight had come. We stole out together, reached the
wood in safety; not a sound but from the leaves-the
waving of the living, the crushing of the dead under
our feet. Hope lit her lamp. A few hours and we
should be safe. I heard a sound-other feet. Oh,
God! They had us bound, blindfolded, gagged, in a
moment. Hope's lamp went out, never to be rekindled.
They hurried us through the wood, and then I
know not where, till we came to a building. I heard
the gates shut. They fastened my wrists with fetters
softly lined with leather, and light. I was almost
free. They led me further along a stone vaulted
corridor. I heard the echoes, and I heard her foot-
steps-a door opened, my feet rustled on straw. The
gag was taken from my mouth; the bandage from my
O Christus! what a pitiable sight met my
gaze. Virginia was kneeling on the ground, her face
upraised to mine. I could see by the dim light that
came from a large opening above, that she was bound
as I was, but-O Sporus! thou child of Tartarus-
her fetters were so heavy she could scarcely lift them
unaided.
eyes
"There was a window in the place. I rushed
towards it. She screamed, and was dragged with me.
We were linked together-most cruel mockery!
"I sat down on the stone bench against the wall.
She leaned on me. We spoke not. Our hearts
were too full. I noticed that my slightest movement
caused her pain. I could see her eyes close and the
lips compressed even in that shady light.
The Pythagorean.
15
"Morning broke at last: then I found why the lips
compressed in pain. Her fetters, four fingers broad,
had the edges turned in to the wrists and filed to points
like a fine saw. They had cut through the skin, and the
blood flowed on the hands and arms. No wonder, now,
the poor child screamed so piteously at my movement.
"The place we were in was a small square room
with a partial roof, the middle open to the air.
Through the centre, in a channel cut in the stone
floor, ran a stream of water. I dipped my finger and
tasted it. It was salt to bitterness. On one side of
the room was the stone bench on which we had sat
the long night through. On the opposite side ran
two small fountains-the one water, the other wine;
one flowed into a basin till it was full, then ran over
and was lost, it was the wine; the other ran away
at once, there was no basin to collect that. Between
the fountains, at a man's height from the ground, was
a circular metal mirror. Other objects the room had
none, except a trough or ledged shelf under the
mirror. The windows were high-higher than my
head-I could just catch sight of the distant hill-tops
through them. Such was our prison.
"I looked from the windows to her face. It was
the old look, one of love and confidence, which it
spoke better than words :-
"Glaucus, thou hast not kissed me since we came
here.'
(66
My poor child' (she was small and delicate, I
called her child sometimes), 'I have had sad thoughts;
to think that I have brought thee to this suffering,
those fetters, galls me to madness.'
16
Weird Tales.
They do not hurt me much when you are quite
still; it's when you move they hurt me. But, oh, my
Glaucus it is I that brought thee here, not thou me.
Thou mightest have been happy but for me. Ah!
woe is me, that I should thus have harmed thee!'
'Yet, Virginia, I would rather be here with thee
than free with any other. Thou art mine in life or
death.'
666 'Means he to starve us here?'
"Alas! I know not what he means.
.، ،
See, there
is water-drink!'
"I lifted her fetters, and she came to the fountain
and knelt. I filled my joined hands with the water,
and she drank eagerly.
"Wilt not thou drink, Glaucus ?'
I
"And she tried to fill her hands as I had done.
saw the lips firmly set and the tears start to her eyes
with the pain of those horrible fetters' teeth.
CCC
Nay, love, I will thus,' and I let the full stream
fall into my parched mouth.
''
'We went back to the bench. I threw her fetters
on my knee, to take their weight, and so the day
toiled slowly away. The blood coagulated round the
wrists, and the least movement tore open the wounds
afresh. She slumbered at last with fatigue and pain.
How fair she looked as lying on my breast she slept.
Her breath was shorter and faster than I had ever
known it. Evening came, and the sun was just sink-
ing when I saw the mirror move and close again; and
on the shelf there stood bread and flesh-the flesh
was scarcely dressed.
"I dared not move, though hunger was rampant
The Pythagorean.
17
within me. At last she woke, and started with
surprise, then shrieked with pain. Those accursed
fetters! she had forgotten them.
"I am hungry—is there no food?'
"I pointed it out to her, and she eagerly seized the
bread and began to eat ravenously. Then stopped-
put down the bread.
<< <
me.
'Forgive me! I did forget thee, but hunger made
See! there is flesh-it is of swine, I cannot eat
it. I am a Nazarene. Thou shalt have the flesh,
and I the bread, Glaucus.'
"She had forgotten I was a disciple of Pythagoreas.
She ate-I gave her drink-and still I was famished.
"Thou dost not eat thy flesh,' she said, with an
effort to smile. 'Ah! I had forgotten, thou didst
tell me that thou hadst never tasted flesh, and all the
bread-all is gone. Oh, wretch that I am! I have
killed thee. Thou wilt perish of hunger whilst I am
full. Oh, woe is me!'
((( 'Dearest, fear not! I hunger not. Sorrow
hath taken away desire for food.'
"I felt the mad wolves gnawing in my vitals then.
"And then came another night. I had placed her
on my one knee as before, with her hands resting on
the other, on which lay our chains. One arm was
round her form, the other hand gripped the chains
lest they should slip. She slumbered. The stars
grew dim; I was awakened by a wild shriek and a
jerk at my fetters. I had fallen asleep, the hand
relaxed its hold, a movement of hers had thrown the
chains from my knee towards the ground. The whole
weight of the united mass was jerked on her slender
B
18
Weird Tales.
wrists. What wonder that wild scream of anguish !
She had fainted. I carried her to the fountain to
bathe her bleeding arms. The stream was less! She
recovered, and expressed such sorrow for having
awoke me, that my eyes filled with tears. She kissed
them away, and again we sat as before, till morning
once more broke.
"I had noticed the previous day that all round the
room there were openings near the bottom of the wall
reaching to the floor about a span high. There came
through one of these a large rake, which pulled the
straw from under our feet, then a large fleece of wool
on the end of a pole with which the floor was washed;
and soon after a large bundle of straw was flung down
from the opening in the roof. There was system in
all this we should be there some time: God only
knew how long.
"How I longed for evening-for food. She talked
to me of her youth, and then of her change of faith;
never had she been so dear to me as at that moment.
All the longings of my nature after purity and truth
had been chilled by contact with the professors of the
various religons. I was half inclined to think there
was no truth or purity in any worship, in any God.
But then she taught me of the God of the Nazarenes
-of the Man-God Christus; told me of his deeds,
his life of benevolence, his cruel death. I could not
deny that truth was here, here was purity; and as
she talked to me I felt I could believe. I was a
believer in the Prophet of Nazareth from that time.
"At last evening came. We both watched in-
tently the mirror. The light flashed a moment on
The Pythagorean.
19
its surface, it turned, the bread and flesh were there,
the mirror closed again.
"Glaucus, thou shalt have thy share of bread to-
night.' She broke it in halves: there was less bread
than the day before. She saw it, too.
(( We ate our bread in silence. I gave her the
last portion of mine.
it most eagerly, and
raw!
She kissed me, and devoured
looked at the flesh-it was
"Not yet, dearest!' I said, 'not yet.'
"She understood me, and we lay down again for
the night.
((
Days and nights passed. Each day saw the
fresh straw, each night there was less bread. One
night there was no bread, and but little flesh. That
night I saw IT first!
"She lay asleep, breathing quickly, with the fever-
flush upon her cheek; not a sound save her breathing,
the murmuring of the salt stream at our feet, and the
trickling of the wine fountain. I saw IT then-I
could not look at her. I could not endure that she
should be there so still. I woke her with kisses.
"""What dost thou want, Glaucus?' she said
peevishly, thou hast awakened me to pain. I was
dreaming of home, and had forgotten these, and thou
hast put them on again. Thine are soft, thou dost
not feel them; let me sleep.'
“I murmured not at her reproach, and again she
slept, and again IT came. I shut my eyes, IT was
still before them; I looked up at the stars, IT hid
them: I could not see for IT.
"Morning came —
- she awoke fevered and dry.
1
20
Weird Tales.
'Water, Glaucus, or I perish!' I led her to the
fountain. The stream had become drops!
“I held my hand, as drop by drop it fell into the
palm, and then put it to her lips.
666
More, Glaucus, more! Stay, let me come.'
"She put her lips to the aperture while I held her
fetters, and drank; then sank into my arms exhausted
with the effort. The day passed in a sort of torpor.
Evening came-no bread, and less flesh.
66
IT
was nearer.
66 6
Glaucus, I must eat! Christus, forgive me!
but I must eat. Give me the flesh.'
"I gave it her. She tore it from my reluctant
hand like a wild animal, and with her teeth and nails
rent it into shreds, which she bolted whole. Ye
gods! what a sight for these poor eyes it was!
"Eat, my Glaucus,' she said fiercely, 'eat, I say.'
"But thou'lt not have enough, Virginia.'
"True! Thou, Glaucus, shalt eat to-morrow.'
"Eat to-morrow! I kissed her lips, still wet with
the juicy flesh, and tasted-oh, it was life! To-
morrow! to-morrow! would it never come?
"That night I saw IT more clearly than ever. I
could not look at her as she slept, IT was so clearly
there.
(6
Morning again-again the fountain-the water
drop, drop, drop! The wine gurgled in its plenty,
we both heard it, had heard it, it always ran so.
"No love; not yet, not yet.'
Evening again.
watched the mirror.
flesh-less than before.
With what horrible intensity we
It moved-it turned; there was
The Pythagorean.
2 I
"She seized it, and had it to her mouth in a
moment, and threw herself on the floor to take the
weight of her chains off her hands.
66 C
Virginia, I perish: give me to eat!'
She tore off a morsel, and dropped it in the straw.
I seized it and ate it. It was fulness of life: more I
must have.
(((
Virginia, more !-more, for pity's sake! Thine
own Glaucus asks it of thee.'
"She tore off a smaller morsel than before. It
was maddening. More I must have. I held her
hands, and tore the remainder in halves.
<<
The poor wrists bled afresh with her resistance.
She swallowed her portion, and then with eager
tongue licked her fetters.
<
I was a man again. The food was like new life :
but still I saw IT.
'Glaucus, I thirst.
Let me drink.'
"Once more I led her to the fountain: there was
no water! The wine ran gurgling into its full basin,
and flowed away.
"Glaucus, I must drink, my throat is on fire!'
I saw frenzy in her eyes. I could not deny her
longer. But a little, dearest Virginia! but a little.'
She put aside my hands with the wine in them
impatiently, and stooped down to the basin and
drank.
"I thought she would never cease; at last she did
-raised her flushed face to mine.
"Drink, Glaucus ! drink! My fetters pain me
not: I am cool now.'
“In a few minutes she looked at me again, and
22
Weird Tales.
put her arms about me: her fetters were lighter now.
I met her look.
"I have wandered at nightfall through the streets,
and seen eyes that as a boy I wondered at, as a youth
admired, as a man pitied. My God! my God! those
eyes looked at me now! My own Virginia, pure as
an angel, was looking at me, as those eyes only can
look.
Glaucus, dearest Glaucus!' and her arms
tightened round me, and her lips were pressed to
mine. Her breath, odorous of wine, half-suffocated
Would that I had died before I had been
obliged to recognise in this fierce drunken girl my
own Virginia! Yet it was so. I could not return
her fierce caresses.
me.
"Dost thou not love me, dearest Glaucus?'
"The old man paused, choked with his emotions.
"The horrors of that night I shall never forget. I
struggled and I conquered. She slept at last, the
heavy, dead sleep of those given to wine.
"I wiped the dews from her brow again and again
till morning came. She woke not; the midday came,
and still she slept. I saw IT all the time,—all
through the lone night as she lay in my arms, I saw
IT.
،،
As the sun was going down she woke and looked
at me with a new light in her eyes; cried for water.
I had not a drop. Then she sang again some hymn
of childhood, then knelt in front of me.
"Marcus' (she thought she was a child again,
and I her brother), 'I'll make thee a garland,' and
The Pythagorean.
23
she gathered the straw of the place, put the ears
together, and made a garland; then put it on my
head. I helped her by holding the fetters; she
thought I held her.
"Let me go, Marcus,-let me go.'
666
Nay, Virginia, thy Marcus loves thee too well.'
"She looked from my face to her hands. See,
I've found some poppies among the corn and squeezed
them; see, the juice is running down my arm. I'll
paint thee, Marcus, as we saw the man from Britain
painted in the market-place; it's red, not blue; but
never mind;' and she took a few pieces of the straw
and put them to her poor arms, and with her own dear
blood streaked my face.
"Now I'll kiss thee, Marcus, and we'll go home.
I must have milk.'
"I humoured her, and we walked about the room.
I gave her a few drops of wine, and she was contented
and slept.
rr
Evening again. I watched the mirror alone.
The flesh came-less than ever. I feared to wake
her, yet I must eat. I took her softly in my arms,
and moved towards the ledge. I reached it.
reached it. I must
free one hand for a moment. I reached the flesh, but
I felt her heavy chains slipping. They fell, jerked
her arms violently, and with a loud clang reached the
floor. She woke, gave one look at my face, all blood-
stained as it was, and shouted Glaucus, Glaucus!
help! Sporus-thou demon, let me go!' She tore
my face with her nails and bit me, and shrieked again
and again. I've heard the cry of the wild bird-I've
heard the cry of the despairing seamen, as they
24
Weird Tales.
struggled in the waves-I've heard the wildest of all
sounds, the wind amongst the mountain pines, but I
never heard such a sound as that before or since. I
hear it now!"—and the old man put his hands to his
ears, as if to keep out the sound.
"She thought it was Sporus; and struggled for life.
"I am thine own-thy Glaucus.'
"Liar that thou art,' and again the cries for
Glaucus, and the same wild scream. She tore herself
from my grasp, and fled round and round the cell. I
could have held her by the chains but for the poor
wrists; at last I caught her robe and she fell, but it
was on the sharp edge of the wine basin, and the
blood flowed from a great gash in her fair forehead,
and then she swooned, and in the odour of that blood
as I staunched it I saw IT with terrible clearness. I
dare not kiss her forehead whilst it flowed. I held
her and lay by her side while I ate my feast. I felt
strong again, and reproached myself for eating-'twas
but the longer to live, and why live? Yet I could
not but eat.
"The moon was shining brightly on her face, and
again I saw IT as she lay. What would I not have
given to see IT not? It wanted but a little to sun-
rise; the stars were growing fainter in the grey morn-
ing light when she woke. Oh, what happiness! the
old look-the look she had when she sat at my feet
in the wild free woods.
Have I been asleep long, my Glaucus? I have
had such dreams; I have been a child, and then I
dreamed of the woods and Sporus again, and I have
dreamed that I was thy bride, and that thou didst die
The Pythagorean.
25
upon our nuptial couch. In vain I called thee, kissed
thee, pressed thee to me-thou wert dead; and I a
widowed virgin.'
'Dearest, thou hast been sick nigh to death; it
was not all a dream. Art thou in pain now?'
No, no pain now.' It was so near.
when she said that.
. . ،
I knew
،، ،
Glaucus, I shall leave you soon. You will think
of those things I said to thee of my God Christus?
Wilt thou have anything to live for, when I am gone?'
"I shall go soon too, I hope-I know not how to
live without thee, my Virginia.'
"But men die not when they will, save with guilt;
thou yet mayest escape this when I am gone.'
'True, dearest.' I should not have been there an
hour but for her and her chains. Freedom or death
was the work of a moment; the windows I could
reach easily.
666
“Glaucus; wilt thou grant me a last request?'
'Ay, my life; anything that thou wilt ask.'
"She reached up her face to kiss me. She had no
strength. She fell back. I stooped and kissed her.
We could have wept, but nature had no useless
moisture for tears-the eye-balls were strained and dry.
"Promise me that thou wilt become a preacher of
those truths I have taught thee so humbly, yet so
willingly-thou wilt, my Glaucus?'
"Thy God helping me, I will preach Christus
amongst men till death summon me to thee, love.
Soon, soon! O God, soon!'
"I am so happy.' She looked so.
happy.
I felt she was
26
Weird Tales.
"'Christus, bless with thy spirit this thy servant.
Make his labours for thy cause, for thy glory, success-
ful. Bless us both, O Christus!' She paused, put
up her chained arms to my neck, drew my face to
hers, kissed me tenderly. 'Bless my Glaucus, O
gracious Christus!' she murmured, and so died.”
The old preacher sobbed not alone.
"I let her lips chill mine, still I moved them not.
She was dead! Sporus was well avenged: his slave,
my own Virginia, was dead; I thought of the evening.
It came the mirror moved not-there was no flesh.
The wine still gurgled and sparkled in its basin. I
looked towards the windows, they were gone!—there
was no escape. IT must be. It was there with me
all that night, all that long day.
"Evening came again-the mirror moved not—IT
was near, dreadfully near. I took my robe, twisted
it into a rope, and put it round my throat-drew it
tighter and tighter-I could not keep my promise—I
must die now. I could not look upon IT longer.
Tighter and tighter-IT was going, thank God! All
was growing dim and indistinct. Tighter yet-IT was
nearly gone. Tighter yet-the earth opened. I fell
down a fathomless abyss, and all was darkness. I
knew no more.
'Alas! I woke again. It was night. I felt weaker
-I saw I was still there;-the rope had broken and
saved me. To what? There she lay so calm, so
peaceful, so holy, in her sleep of death. I could
hardly think she was dead, yet she was, and I saw IT
there.
“I must drink. I crawled to the wine fountain-I
The Pythagorean.
27
drank―deeply-but hunger was now more furious
than ever, and there was no flesh.
"I carried her carefully back to the bench.
I saw
IT coming now! A giddiness seized me-IT went
away-I saw IT nearer. I stooped to kiss her lips.
It was nearer still again. I stopped-and once again
-and then-my God! Ir had COME! at last. IT
WAS THERE! God forgive me! but I was MAD !
"I was a king! I feasted royally, plenty was mine.
I slept on a bed of softest down. I ate when I
pleased, I drank-how' I drank !-'twas strange, my
hands were bound still.
"I was a runner in the games. I saw the assembled
throng. I heard their murmurs when they saw my
form. I had fleetness-we started. The circus was
small, very small. I found I drew after me a weight.
I knew no such game-it was new, but I would run.
I ran faster and faster; the pace was killing me; my
eyes started from their sockets, the golden apple
rolled before me—I stooped for it—I fell, and all was
dark once more.
"I woke. I was a gladiator. Once more the arena,
and still so small. I saw my foe. He was so like
myself! He must have fought just before, the fresh
blood was on his face. I moved cautiously—he was
gone-I watched-moved again--he came back. I
lifted my hand to strike, I was not free-neither was
he—it was a new game, but I would fight. He raised
his fist-I struck at his face with all my force-I hit
28
Weird Tales.
him-but we both fell-he was under.
He was
bound to me! I struck again and again. I had
killed him now. Again and again I struck he
moved. I seized him by the throat. We rolled over
and over each other-and then he was quite still. I
watched and drank, and slept while I watched.
M
"I woke again; it was dark. I was a prisoner
chained to-what?—a stone-a wet stone! Ha! ha!
they had tied me with ropes, with knotted ropes ! I
felt for a knife-I had none-I could not see.
'They forgot the prisoner's teeth! I gnawed and
twisted the ropes all the long night-they were old
and rotten-they stank in my nostrils; but I gnawed
on, and I was free once more.
"I was free! I ran, I jumped, I leaped. I
danced to wild music that seemed close to me. I
was free! I was in the wild woods once more-the
trees waved, the wind kissed my cheek as of yore. I
lay down beneath a tree and slept. I dreamed of
Virginia-she came to me-sat beside me-she was
soon to be my bride. My heart leapt at the thought.
She was my bride now-I led her from the temple.
The day passed, the night came, I lay beside my
bride. I pressed her to me-she answered not—she
was cold!
"I awoke. I was not mad now; but where was
I? It was the same place-the old square opening to
the sky, the same gurgling of the wine fountain, my
chains on my wrists. But the foul odour! I could
not breathe. And that what was that! No! it
K
The Pythagorean.
29
could not be she. It was she-shall I ever forget
that sight.
<<
'I see it now-my God! I see it now," shrieked
the old man, "that putrid mass, bruised, torn,
mutilated-without a trace of humanity about it—the
bones showing through the torn shreds of skin, the
flesh eaten-yes, eaten away! Those ears in which
I whispered words of love-those eyes in which I saw
my happiness-those lips that pressed so lovingly to
mine-those tender breasts on which I'd hoped to see
my children hang-gone !-gone !-all were gone;
and in their place the eyes from their fleshless sockets
glared on me, while the lipless teeth seemed to gnash
at me from that ghastly skull. Armless too-and the
arms!-I started. The bones were in the fetters still
-her fetters. They still hung to mine. I was free
in all but them.
"I looked round and saw the mirror; the matted
beard, the blood-stained savage face showed me ALL!
One window was open now. I leapt, caught the
sill, and was out, running as if for life, to get that
sight from mine eyes.
IT would not go; never
went-never has gone! Thirty years IT-this raven-
ing horror-has been before me. I have seen every-
thing through that, as through a veil.
growing indistinct. Ye have called IT back again.
I see IT NOW. My God! - my God! I see IT
now!" and the old man would have fallen, but that
his judges caught him and laid him on the couch.
IT was
A few minutes and he revived. His voice was
weak and trembling.
"C
'Fabulus, forgive me that I could not see her die.
30
Weird Tales.
ין
Brethren, forgive me that I could not eat your feasts
of flesh.' He paused, raised himself into a sitting
posture; his eyes strangely bright. Brethren,
before I depart, I would pray with ye once more.
His hands were uplifted in prayer; the voice came
low and faint. "Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; thy
will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us
this day our daily bread, and-forgive us our tres-
passes-as we forgive them that trespass against
A spasm crossed his face, his chest heaved
as with a mighty effort; his voice, low before, burst
out now with a violence that shook the walls. 'Help
me, oh God! I must,- -I will, I do forgive thee.
Sporus, thou, even thou, art now forgiven-Christus
have mercy, have mer-
IT has gone-gone!"
He struggled, knelt, leaned forward as though he saw
something in the air, stretched out the old withered
arms to grasp the phantom, while a smile of happiness
unspeakable lighted up the pallid features.
us
Virginia! I come-I come!"-then fell back
into their arms-dead.
66
>>
>>
It was night; the sun had set. He was with
Virginia now.
It was gone for ever.
THE OLD MAN'S TALE ABOUT
THE QUEER CLIENT.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
"IT matters little," said the old man, "where, or
how, I picked up this brief history. If I were to
relate it in the order in which it reached me, I should
commence in the middle, and when I had arrived
at the conclusion, go back for a beginning. It is
enough for me to say that some of its circumstances
passed before my own eyes. For the remainder I
know them to have happened, and there are some
persons yet living, who will remember them but too
well.
"In the Borough High Street, near St. George's
Church, and on the same side of the way, stands,
as most people know, the smallest of our debtors'
prisons, the Marshalsea. Although in later times it
has been a very different place from the sink of filth
and dirt it once was, even its improved condition
holds out but little temptation to the extravagant,
or consolation to the improvident. The condemned
felon has as good a yard for air and exercise in
Newgate, as the insolvent debtor in the Marshalsea
Prison.*
"It may be my fancy, or it may be that I cannot
* Better. But this is past, in a better age, and the prison
exists no longer.
31
32
Weird Tales.
separate the place from the old recollections asso-
ciated with it, but this part of London I cannot bear.
The street is broad, the shops are spacious, the noise
of passing vehicles, the footsteps of a perpetual
stream of people-all the busy sounds of traffic,
resound in it from morn to midnight; but the streets
around are mean and close; poverty and debauchery
lie festering in the crowded alleys; want and misfor-
tune are pent up in the narrow prison; an air of
gloom and dreariness seems, in my eyes at least, to
hang about the scene, and to impart to it a squalid
and sickly hue.
"Many eyes, that have long since been closed in
the grave, have looked round upon that scene lightly
enough, when entering the gate of the old Marshalsea
Prison for the first time; for despair seldom comes
with the first severe shock of misfortune. A man has
confidence in untried friends, he remembers the many
offers of service so freely made by his boon com-
panions when he wanted them not; he has hope—
the hope of happy inexperience-and however he
may bend beneath the first shock, it springs up in his
bosom, and flourishes there for a brief space, until it
droops beneath the blight of disappointment and
neglect. How soon have those same eyes, deeply
sunken in the head, glared from faces wasted with
famine, and sallow from confinement, in days when
it was no figure of speech to say that debtors rotted
in prison, with no hope of release, and no prospect
of liberty! The atrocity in its full extent no longer
exists, but there is enough of it left to give rise to
occurrences that make the heart bleed.
-
The Old Man's Tale about Queer Client.
33
"Twenty years ago, that pavement was worn with
the footsteps of a mother and child, who, day by
day, so surely as the morning came, presented them-
selves at the prison gate; often, after a night of rest-
less misery and anxious thoughts, were they there, a
full hour too soon, and then the young mother
turning meekly away, would lead the child to the
old bridge, and raising him in her arms to show him
the glistening water, tinted with the light of the
morning's sun, and stirring with all the bustling
preparations for business and pleasure that the river
presented at that early hour, endeavour to interest
his thoughts in the objects before him. But she
would quickly set him down, and, hiding her face in
her shawl, give vent to the tears that blinded her;
for no expression of interest or amusement lighted up
his thin and sickly face. His recollections were few
enough, but they were all of one kind: all connected
with the poverty and misery of his parents. Hour
after hour had he sat on his mother's knee, and with
childish sympathy watched the tears that stole down
her face, and then crept quietly away into some dark
corner, and sobbed himself to sleep. The hard
realities of the world, with many of its worst priva-
tions-hunger and thirst, and cold and want-had
all come home to him, from the first dawnings of
reason; and though the form of childhood was there,
its light heart, its merry laugh, and sparkling eyes,
were wanting.
"The father and mother looked on upon this, and
upon each other, with thoughts of agony they dared
not breathe in words. The healthy, strong-made
C
34
Weird Tales.
man, who could have borne almost any fatigue of
active exertion, was wasting beneath the close con-
finement and unhealthy atmosphere of a crowded
prison. The slight and delicate woman was sinking
beneath the combined effects of bodily and mental
illness. The child's young heart was breaking.
"Winter came, and with it weeks of cold and
heavy rain.
The poor girl had removed to a
wretched apartment close to the spot of her husband's
imprisonment; and though the change had been
rendered necessary by their increasing poverty she
was happier now, for she was nearer him. For two
months, she and her little companion watched the
opening of the gate as usual. One day she failed
to come, for the first time.
Another morning
The child was dead.
arrived, and she came alone.
'
They little know, who coldly talk of the poor
man's bereavements, as a happy release from pain to
the departed, and a merciful relief from expense to
the survivor-they little know, I say, what the agony
of those bereavements is. A silent look of affection
and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly
away-the consciousness that we possess the sym-
pathy and affection of one being when all others
have deserted us-is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the
deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or
power bestow. The child had sat at his parents' feet for
hours together, with his little hands patiently folded
in each other, and his thin wan face raised towards
them. They had seen him pine away, from day to
day; and though his brief existence had been a
joyless one, and he was now removed to that peace
The Old Man's Tale about Queer Client. 35
and rest which, child as he was, he had never known
in this world, they were his parents, and his loss
sunk deep into their souls.
"It was plain to those who looked upon the
mother's altered face, that death must soon close the
scene of her adversity and trial. Her husband's
fellow-prisoners shrunk from obtruding on his grief
and misery, and left to himself alone, the small room
he had previously occupied in common with two
companions. She shared it with him and lingering
on without pain, but without hope, her life ebbed
slowly away.
"She had fainted one evening in her husband's
arms, and he had borne her to the open window, to
revive her with the air, when the light of the moon
falling upon her face, showed him a change upon her
features, which made him stagger beneath her weight,
like a helpless infant.
"Set me down, George,' she said faintly. He
did so, and seating himself beside her, covered his
face with his hands, and burst into tears.
"It is very hard to leave you, George,' she said,
'but it is God's will, and you must bear it for my
sake. Oh how I thank Him for having taken our
boy! He is happy, and in Heaven now. What
would he have done here, without his mother !'
"You shall not die, Mary, you shall not die;'
said the husband, starting up. He paced hurriedly
to and fro, striking his head with his clenched fists ;
then reseating himself beside her, and supporting her
in his arms, added more calmly, 'Rouse yourself, my
dear girl. Pray, pray do.
You will revive yet.'
،
36
Weird Tales.
"Never again, George; never again,' said the
dying woman. 'Let them lay me by my poor boy
now, but promise me, that if ever you leave this
dreadful place, and should grow rich, you will have
us removed to some quiet country churchyard, a long,
long way off--very far from here-where we can rest
in peace.
Dear George, promise me you will.'
"I do, I do,' said the man, throwing himself
passionately on his knees before her. Speak to me,
Mary, another word; one look-but one!'
"He ceased to speak: for the arm that clasped
his neck, grew stiff and heavy. A deep sigh escaped
from the wasted form before him; the lips moved
and a smile played upon the face; but the lips were
pallid, and the smile faded into a rigid and ghastly
stare. He was alone in the world.
“That night, in the silence and desolation of his
miserable room, the wretched man knelt down by the
dead body of his wife, and called on God to witness
a terrible oath, that from that hour, he devoted him-
self to revenge her death and that of his child; that
thenceforth to the last moment of his life, his whole
energies should be directed to this one object; that
his revenge should be protracted and terrible; that
his hatred should be undying and inextinguishable ;
and should hunt its object through the world.
"The deepest despair, and passion scarcely human,
had made such fierce ravages on his face and form, in
that one night, that his companions in misfortune
shrunk affrighted from him as he passed by. His
eyes were bloodshot and heavy, his face a deadly
white, and his body bent as if with age. He had
The Old Man's Tale about Queer Client.
37
bitten his under lip nearly through in the violence of
his mental suffering, and the blood which had flowed
from the wound had trickled down his chin, and
stained his shirt and neckerchief. No tear or sound
of complaint escaped him: but the unsettled look,
and disordered haste with which he paced up and
down the yard, denoted the fever which was burning
within.
'It was necessary that his wife's body should be
removed from the prison, without delay. He received
the communication with perfect calmness, and ac-
quiesced in its propriety. Nearly all the inmates of
the prison had assembled to witness its removal;
they fell back on either side when the widower
appeared; he walked hurriedly forward, and stationed
himself, alone, in a little railed area close to the
lodge gate, from whence the crowd, with an instinc-
tive feeling of delicacy, had retired. The rude coffin
was borne slowly forward on men's shoulders. A
dead silence pervaded the throng, broken only by the
audible lamentations of the women, and the shuffling
steps of the bearers on the stone pavement. They
reached the spot where the bereaved husband stood :
and stopped. He laid his hand upon the coffin, and
mechanically adjusting the pall with which it was
covered, motioned them onward. The turnkeys in
the prison lobby took off their hats as it passed
through, and in another moment the heavy gate
closed behind it. He looked vacantly upon the
crowd, and fell heavily to the ground.
(C
Although for many weeks after this, he was
watched, night and day, in the wildest ravings of
38
Weird Tales.
fever, neither the consciousness of his loss, nor the
recollection of the vow he had made, ever left him
for a moment. Scenes changed before his eyes, place
succeeded place, and event followed event, in all the
hurry of delirium; but they were all connected in
some way with the great object of his mind. He
was sailing over a boundless expanse of sea, with a
blood-red sky above, and the angry waters, lashed
into fury beneath, boiling and eddying up, on every
side. There was another vessel before them, toiling
and labouring in the howling storm: her canvas flutter-
ing in ribbons from the mast, and her deck thronged
with figures who were lashed to the sides, over which
huge waves every instant burst, sweeping away some
devoted creatures into the foaming sea. Onward they
bore, amidst the roaring mass of water, with a speed
and force which nothing could resist; and striking
the stern of the foremost vessel, crushed her, beneath
their keel. From the huge whirlpool which the sink-
ing wreck occasioned, arose a shriek so loud and
shrill—the death-cry of a hundred drowning creatures,
blended into one fierce yell-that it rung far above the
war-cry of the elements, and echoed and re-echoed
till it seemed to pierce air, sky, and ocean. But
what was that-that old grey head that rose above
the water's surface, and with looks of agony, and
screams for aid, buffeted with the waves! One
look, and he had sprung from the vessel's side, and
with vigorous strokes was swimming towards it. He
reached it; he was close upon it. They were his
features. The old man saw him coming, and vainly
strove to elude his grasp. But he clasped him tight,
The Old Man's Tale about Queer Client. 39
and dragged him beneath the water. Down, down
with him, fifty fathoms down; his struggles grew
fainter and fainter, until they wholly ceased.
was dead; he had killed him, and had kept his oath.
He
"He was traversing the scorching sands of a mighty
desert, barefooted and alone. The sand choked and
blinded him; its fine thin grains entered the very
pores of his skin, and irritated him almost to madness.
Gigantic masses of the same material, carried forward
by the wind, and shone through, by the burning sun,
stalked in the distance like pillars of living fire. The
bones of men, who had perished in the dreary waste,
lay scattered at his feet; a fearful light fell on every-
thing around; so far as the eye could reach, nothing
but objects of dread and horror presented themselves.
Vainly striving to utter a cry of terror, with his
tongue cleaving to his mouth, he rushed madly
forward. Armed with supernatural strength, he
waded through the sand, until exhausted with fatigue
and thirst, he fell senseless on the earth. What
fragrant coolness revived him; what gushing sound
was that? Water! It was indeed a well; and the
clear fresh stream was running at his feet. He
drank deeply of it, and throwing his aching limbs
upon the bank, sunk into a delicious trance. The
sound of approaching footsteps aroused him. An
old grey-headed man tottered forward to slake his
burning thirst. It was he again! He wound his
arms round the old man's body, and held him back.
He struggled, and shrieked for water, for but one
drop of water to save his life! But he held the old
man firmly, and watched his agonies with greedy
40
Weird Tales.
eyes; and when his lifeless head fell forward on his
bosom, he rolled the corpse from him with his feet.
"When the fever left him, and consciousness
returned, he awoke to find himself rich and free: to
hear that the parent who would have let him die in
gaol-would! who had let those who were far dearer
to him than his own existence, die of want and sick-
ness of heart that medicine cannot cure-had been
found dead on his bed of down. He had had all
the heart to leave his son a beggar, but proud even
of his health and strength, had put off the act till
it was too late, and now might gnash his teeth in the
other world, at the thought of the wealth his remiss-
ness had left him. He awoke to this, and he awoke
to more. To recollect the purpose for which he
lived, and to remember that his enemy was his wife's
own father-the man who cast him into prison, and
who, when his daughter and her child sued at his
feet for mercy, had spurned them from his door. Oh,
how he cursed the weakness that prevented him from
being up, and active, in his scheme of vengeance!
"He caused himself to be carried from the scene
of his loss and misery, and conveyed to a quiet
residence on the sea coast; not in the hope of recover-
ing his peace of mind or happiness, for both were
fled for ever; but to restore his prostrate energies,
and meditate on his darling object. And here, some
evil spirit cast in his way the opportunity for his first
most horrible revenge.
“It was summer-time; and wrapped in his gloomy
thoughts, he would issue from his solitary lodgings
early in the evening, and wandering along a narrow
The Old Man's Tale about Queer Client. 41
path beneath the cliffs, to a wild and lonely spot that
had struck his fancy in his ramblings, seat himself on
some fallen fragment of the rock, and burying his face
in his hands, remain there for hours-sometimes until
night had completely closed in, and the long shadows
of the frowning cliffs above his head, cast a thick black
darkness on every object near him.
"He was seated here one calm evening in his old
position, now and then raising his head to watch the
flight of a sea-gull, or carry his eye along the glorious
crimson path, which, commencing in the middle of the
ocean, seemed to lead to its very verge where the sun
was setting, when the profound stillness of the spot
was broken by a loud cry for help; he listened,
doubtful of his having heard aright, when the cry
was repeated with even greater vehemence than
before, and starting to his feet, he hastened in the
direction whence it proceeded.
"The tale told itself at once: some scattered
garments lay on the beach; a human head was just
visible above the waves at a little distance from the
shore; and an old man, wringing his hands in agony,
was running to and fro, shrieking for assistance. The
invalid, whose strength was now sufficiently restored,
threw off his coat, and rushed towards the sea, with
the intention of plunging in, and dragging the drown-
ing man a-shore.
"Hasten here, sir, in God's name; help, help,
sir, for the love of Heaven. He is my son, sir,
my only son!' said the old man frantically, as he
advanced to meet him. 'My only son, sir, and he is
dying before his father's eyes.'
42
Weird Tales.
"At the first word the old man uttered, the stranger
checked himself in his career, and, folding his arms,
stood perfectly motionless.
"Great God! exclaimed the old man, recoiling,
Heyling!'
"The stranger smiled, and was silent.
Heyling!' said the old man, wildly: 'My boy,
Heyling, my dear boy, look, look!' gasping for
breath, the miserable father pointed to the spot where
the young man was struggling for life.
"Hark!' said the old man, 'He cries once
more. He is alive yet. Heyling, save him, save him!'
"The stranger smiled again, and remained im-
movable as a statue.
<<
"I have wronged you,' shrieked the old man,
falling on his knees, and clasping his hands together.
'Be revenged; take my all, my life; cast me into
the water at your feet, and, if human nature can
repress a struggle, I will die, without stirring hand or
foot. Do it, Heyling, do it, but save my boy, he is
so young, Heyling, so young to die!'
66 C
'Listen,' said the stranger, grasping the old man
fiercely by the wrist: 'I will have life for life, and
here is ONE. My child, died before his father's eyes,
a far more agonising and painful death than that
young slanderer of his sister's worth is meeting while
I speak. You laughed-laughed in your daughter's
face, where death had already set his hand-at our
sufferings, then. What think you of them now?
See there, see there!'
(6
As the stranger spoke he pointed to the sea. A
faint cry died away upon its surface; the last powerful
The Old Man's Tale about Queer Client.
43
struggle of the dying man agitated the rippling waves
for a few seconds; and the spot where he had gone
down into his early grave, was undistinguishable from
the surrounding water.
"Three years had elapsed, when a gentleman
alighted from a private carriage at the door of a
London attorney, then well known as a man of no
great nicety in his professional dealings; and requested
a private interview on business of importance. Al-
though evidently not past the prime of life, his face
was pale, haggard, and dejected; and it did not
require the acute perception of the man of business,
to discern at a glance, that disease or suffering had
done more to work a change in his appearance, than
the mere hand of time could have accomplished in
twice the period of his whole life.
"I wish you to undertake some legal business or
me,' said the stranger.
،،
The attorney bowed obsequiously, and glanced
at a large packet which the gentleman carried in his
hand. His visitor observed the look, and proceeded.
"It is no common business,' said he; nor have
these papers reached my hands without long trouble
and great expense.'
"The attorney cast a still more anxious look at the
packet and his visitor, untying the string that bound
it, disclosed a quantity of promissory notes, with
copies of deeds, and other documents.
CCC
C
'Upon these papers,' said the client, the man
whose name they bear has raised, as you will see,
large sums of money for some years past. There was
44
Weird Tales.
a tacit understanding between him and the men into
whose hands they originally went-and from whom I
have by degrees purchased the whole, for treble and
quadruple their nominal value-that these loans
should be from time to time renewed until a given.
period had elapsed. Such an understanding is
nowhere expressed. He has sustained many losses
of late; and these obligations, accumulating upon
him at once, would crush him to the earth.'
"The whole amount is many thousands of
pounds,' said the attorney, looking over the papers.
"It is,' said the client.
"What are we to do?' inquired the man of
business.
"Do!' replied the client, with sudden vehe-
mence. 'Put every engine of the law in force, every
trick that ingenuity can devise and rascality execute ;
fair means and foul; the open oppression of the law,
aided by all the craft of its most ingenious practi-
tioners. I would have him die a harassing and
lingering death. Ruin him, seize and sell his lands
and goods, drive him from house and home, and drag
him forth a beggar in his old age, to die in a common
gaol.'
"But the costs, my dear sir, the costs of all this,'
reasoned the attorney, when he had recovered from
his momentary surprise. "If the defendant be a man
of straw, who is to pay the costs, sir?'
"Name any sum,' said the stranger, his hand
trembling so violently with excitement that he could
scarcely hold the pen he seized as he spoke; ‘any
sum, and it is yours. Don't be afraid to name it,
The Old Man's Tale about Queer Client. 45
man. I shall not think it dear, if you gain my
object.'
"The attorney named a large sum, at hazard, as
the advance he should require to secure himself
against the possibility of loss; but more with the
view of ascertaining how far his client was really
disposed to go, than with any idea that he would
comply with the demand. The stranger wrote a
cheque upon his banker for the whole amount, and
left him.
"The draft was duly honoured, and the attorney,
finding that his strange client might be safely relied
upon, commenced his work in earnest.
For more
than two years afterwards, Mr. Heyling would sit
whole days together in the office, poring over the
papers as they accumulated, and reading again and
again, his eyes gleaming with joy, the letters of
remonstrance, the prayers for a little delay, the repre-
sentations of the certain ruin in which the opposite
party must be involved, which poured in, as suit after
suit, and process after process, was commenced.
all applications for a brief indulgence there was but
one reply the money must be paid. Land, house,
furniture, each in its turn, was taken under some one
of the numerous executions which were issued; and
the old man himself would have been immured in
prison had he not escaped the vigilance of the officers,
and fled.
To
"The implacable animosity of Heyling, so far
from being satiated by the success of his persecution,
increased a hundredfold with the ruin he inflicted.
On being informed of the old man's flight, his fury
46
Weird Tales.
was unbounded. He gnashed his teeth with rage,
tore the hair from his head, and assailed with horrid
imprecations the men who had been entrusted with
the writ. He was only restored to comparative
calmness by repeated assurances of the certainty of
discovering the fugitive. Agents were sent in quest of
him, in all directions; every stratagem that could be
invented was resorted to, for the purpose of discover-
ing his place of retreat; but it was all in vain. Half
a year had passed over, and he was still undiscovered.
“At length, late one night, Heyling, of whom no-
thing had been seen for many weeks before, appeared
at his attorney's private residence, and sent up word
that a gentleman wished to see him instantly. Before
the attorney, who had recognised his voice from above
stairs, could order the servant to admit him, he had
rushed up the staircase, and entered the drawing-room
pale and breathless. Having closed the door, to
prevent being overheard, he sunk into a chair, and
said, in a low voice:
"Hush! I have found him at last.'
'No' said the attorney.
64
Well done, my dear
sir; well done.'
"He lies concealed in a wretched lodging in
Camden Town,' said Heyling. 'Perhaps it is as
well, we did lose sight of him, for he has been living
alone there, in the most abject misery, all the time,
and he is poor-very poor.'
"Very good,' said the attorney. You will have
the caption made to-morrow, of course?'
"'Yes,' replied Heyling. 'Stay! No! The next
day. You are surprised at my wishing to postpone it,
The Old Man's Tale about Queer Client. 47
he added, with a ghastly smile; 'but I had forgotten.
The next day is an anniversary in his life: let it be
done then.'
"C
Very good,' said the attorney. Will you write
down instructions for the officer ?'
"No; let him meet me here, at eight in the
evening, and I will accompany him, myself.'
..
They met on the appointed night, and, hiring a
hackney coach, directed the driver to stop at that
corner of the old Pancras Road, at which stands the
parish workhouse. By the time they alighted there,
it was quite dark; and, proceeding by the dead wall
in front of the Veterinary Hospital, they entered a
small by-street, which is, or was at that time, called
Little College Street, and which, whatever it may
be now, was in those days a desolate place enough,
surrounded by little else than fields and ditches.
"Having drawn the travelling cap he had on half
over his face, and muffled himself in his cloak, Heyling
stopped before the meanest-looking house in the street,
and knocked gently at the door. It was at once
opened by a woman, who dropped a curtsey of recog-
nition, and Heyling, whispering the officer to remain
below, crept gently up-stairs, and, opening the door of
the front room, entered at once.
"The object of his search and his unrelenting ani-
mosity, now a decrepit old man, was seated at a bare
deal table, on which stood a miserable candle. He
started on the entrance of the stranger, and rose feebly
to his feet.
"What now, what now?' said the old man.
'What fresh misery is this? What do you want here?"
48
Weird Tales.
"A word with you,' replied Heyling. As he
spoke, he seated himself at the other end of the table,
and, throwing off his cloak and cap, disclosed his
features.
"The old man seemed instantly deprived of the
power of speech. He fell backward in his chair, and,
clasping his hands together, gazed on the apparition
with a mingled look of abhorrence and fear.
"This day six years,' said Heyling, 'I claimed
the life you owed me for my child's. Beside the life-
less form of your daughter, old man, I swore to live a
life of revenge.
I have never swerved from my
purpose for a moment's space; but if I had, one
thought of her uncomplaining, suffering look, as she
drooped away, or of the starving face of our innocent
child, would have nerved me to my task. My first
act of requital you well remember: this is my last.'
“The old man shivered, and his hands dropped
powerless by his side.
"I leave England to-morrow,' said Heyling, after
a moment's pause. 'To-night I consign you to the
living death to which you devoted her-a hopeless
prison-'
"He raised his eyes to the old man's countenance,
and paused. He lifted the light to his face, set it
gently down, and left the apartment.
"You had better see to the old man,' he said to
the woman, as he opened the door, and motioned the
officer to follow him into the street. 'I think he is
ill.' The woman closed the door, ran hastily up-
stairs, and found him lifeless.
The Old Man's Tale about Queer Client. 49
"Beneath a plain gravestone, in one of the most
peaceful and secluded churchyards in Kent, where
wild flowers mingle with the grass, and the soft land-
scape around forms the fairest spot in the garden of
England, lie the bones of the young mother and her
gentle child. But the ashes of the father do not
mingle with theirs; nor, from that night forward, did
the attorney ever gain the remotest clue to the subse-
quent history of his queer client."
1

D
IN DEFENCE OF HIS RIGHT.
BY DEFOE.
A GENTLEMAN of a very good estate married a lady
of also a good fortune, and had one son by her, and
one daughter, and no more, and after a few years
his lady died. He soon married a second venter;
and his second wife, though of an inferior quality and
fortune to the former, took upon her to discourage
and discountenance his children by his first lady, and
made the family very uncomfortable, both to the
children and to their father also.
The first thing of consequence which this conduct
of the mother-in-law produced in the family, was
that the son, who began to be a man, asked the
father's leave to go abroad to travel. The mother-
in-law, though willing enough to be rid of the young
man, yet because it would require something con-
siderable to support his expenses abroad, violently
opposed it, and brought his father also to refuse him
after he had freely given him his consent.
This so affected the young gentleman, that after
using all the dutiful applications to his father that
he could possibly do, as well by himself as by some
other relations, but to no purpose; and being a little
encouraged by an uncle, who was brother to his
mother, his father's first lady, he resolved to go
abroad without leave, and accordingly did so.
50
In Defence of his Right.
5I
What part of the world he travelled into I do not
remember; it seems his father had constantly intel-
ligence from him for some time, and was prevailed
with to make him a reasonable allowance for his
subsistence, which the young gentleman always drew
bills for, and they were honourably paid; but after
some time, the mother-in-law prevailing at home,
one of his bills of exchange was refused, and being
protested, was sent back without acceptance; upon
which he drew no more, nor did he write any more
letters, or his father hear anything from him for
upwards of four years, or thereabout.
Upon this long silence, the mother-in-law made
her advantage several ways; she first intimated to
his father that he must needs be dead; and conse-
quently, his estate should be settled upon her eldest
son (for she had several children). His father with-
stood the motion very firmly, but the wife harassed
him with her importunities; and she argued upon
two points against him, I mean the son.
First, If he was dead, then there was no room to
object, her son being heir at law.
Secondly, If he was not dead, his behaviour to his
father in not writing for so long a time was inexcus-
able, and he ought to resent it, and settle the estate
as if he were dead; that nothing could be more
disobliging, and his father ought to depend upon it
that he was dead, and treat him as if he was so; for
he that would use a father so, should be taken for
one dead, as to his filial relation, and be treated
accordingly.
His father, however, stood out a long time, and
52
Weird Tales.
told her that he could not answer it to his conscience;
that there might happen many things in the world,
which might render his son unable to write; that
he might be taken by the Turks, and carried into
slavery; or he might be among the Persians or
Arabians (which it seems was the case), and so could
not get any letters conveyed; and that he could not
be satisfied to disinherit him, till he knew whether
he had reason for it or no, or whether his son had
offended him or no.
These answers, however just, were far from stop-
ping her importunities, which she carried on so far,
that she gave him no rest, and it made an unquiet
family; she carried it very ill to him, and in a word,
made her children do so too; and the gentleman was
so wearied out with it, that once or twice he came to
a kind of consent to do it, but his heart failed him,
and then he fell back again, and refused.
However, her having brought him so near it, was
an encouragement to her to go on with her restless
solicitations, till at last he came thus far to a pro-
visional agreement, that if he did not hear from his
son by such a time, or before it, he would consent to
a re-settling the estate.
She was not well satisfied with the conditional
agreement, but being able to obtain no other, she
was obliged to accept of it as it was; though, as she
often told him, she was far from being satisfied with
it as to the time, for he had fixed it for four years, as
above.
He grew angry at her telling him so, and answered,
that she ought to be very well satisfied with it, for
In Defence of his Right.
53
that it was time little enough, as his son's circum-
stances might be.
Well, she teased him however so continually, that
at last she brought him down to one year but before
she brought him to that, she told him one day in a
heat, that she hoped his ghost would one time or
other appear to him, and tell him that he was dead,
and that he ought to do justice to his other children,
for he should never come to claim the estate.
When he came, so much against his will, to con-
sent to shorten the time to one year, he told her that
he hoped his son's ghost, though he was not dead,
would come to her, and tell her he was alive, before
the time expired. For why, says he, may not
injured souls walk while embodied, as well as
afterwards?
It happened one evening after this, that they had a
most violent family quarrel upon this subject, when on
a sudden a hand appeared at a casement, endeavour-
ing to open it; but as all the iron casements used in
former times opened outward, but hasped or fastened
themselves in the inside, so the hand seemed to try
to open the casement, but could not. The gentleman
did not see it, but his wife did, and she presently
started up, as if she was frighted, and, forgetting the
quarrel they had upon their hands, Lord bless me !
says she, there are thieves in the garden. Her
husband ran immediately to the door of the room
they sat in, and opening it, looked out.
There's nobody in the garden, says he; so he
clapped the door to again, and came back.
I am sure, says she, I saw a man there.
54
Weird Tales.
It must be the devil then, says he; for I'm sure
there's nobody in the garden.
I'll swear, says she, I saw a man put his hand up
to open the casement; but finding it fast, and I
suppose, adds she, seeing us in the room, he walked
off.
It is impossible he could be gone, says he; did not
I run to the door immediately? and you know the
garden walls on both sides hinder him going.
Pry'thee, says she angrily, I ain't drunk nor in a
dream, I know a man when I see him, and 'tis not
dark, the sun is not quite down.
You're only frighted with shadows, says he (very
full of ill-nature): folks generally are so that are
haunted with an evil conscience: it may be 'twas the
devil.
No, no, I'm not soon frighted, says she; if 'twas
the devil, 'twas the ghost of your son: it may be
come to tell you he was gone to the devil, and you
might give your estate to your eldest bastard, since
you won't settle it on the lawful heir.
If it was my son, says he, he's come to tell us he's
alive, I warrant you, and to ask how you can be so
much a devil to desire me to disinherit him; and
with those words, Alexander, says he aloud, repeat-
ing it twice, starting up out of his chair, if you are
alive, show yourself, and don't let me be insulted thus
every day with your being dead.
At those very words, the casement which the hand
had been seen at by the mother, opened of itself,
and his son Alexander looked in with a full face,
and staring directly upon the mother with an angry
In Defence of his Right.
55
countenance, cried Here, and then vanished in a
moment.
The woman that was so stout before, shrieked out
in a most dismal manner, so as alarmed the whole
house; her maid ran into the parlour, to see what
was the matter, but her mistress was fainted away in
her chair.
She was not fallen upon the ground, because it
being a great easy chair, she sunk a little back against
the side of the chair, and help coming immediately
in, they kept her up; but it was not till a great while
after, that she recovered enough to be sensible of
anything.
Her husband ran immediately to the parlour door,
and opening it, went into the garden, but there was
nothing; and after that he ran to another door that
opened from the house into the garden, and then to
two other doors which opened out of his garden, one
into the stable-yard, and another into the field beyond
the garden, but found them all fast shut and barred ;
but on one side was his gardener, and a boy, drawing
the rolling-stone: he asked them if anybody else had
been in the garden, but they both constantly affirmed
nobody had been there; and they were both rolling
a gravel-walk near the house.
Upon this he comes back into the room, sits him
down again, and said not one word for a good while;
the women and servants being busy all the while,
and in a hurry, endeavouring to recover his wife.
After some time she recovered so far as to speak,
and the first words she said, were
L-d bless me ! what was it?
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Weird Tales.
Nay, says her husband, it was Alexander, to be
sure.
With that she fell into a fit, and screamed and
shrieked out again most terribly.
Her husband not thinking that would have affected
her, did what he could to persuade her out of it
again; but that would not do, and they were obliged
to carry her to bed, and get some help to her; but
she continued very ill for several days after.
However, this put an end for some considerable
time to her solicitations about his disinheriting her
son-in-law.
But time, that hardens the mind in cases of a worse
nature, wore this off also by degrees, and she began
to revive the old cause again, though not at first so
eagerly as before.
Nay, he used her a little hardly upon it too, and if
ever they had any words about it he would bid her
hold her tongue, or that if she talked any more upon
that subject, he would call Alexander again to open
the casement.
This aggravated things much; and though it ter-
rified her a great while, yet at length she was so
exasperated, that she told him she believed he dealt
with the devil, and that he had sold himself to the
devil only to be able to fright his wife.
He jested with her, and told her any man would
be beholden to the devil to hush a noisy woman, and
that he was very glad he had found the way to do it,
whatever it cost him.
She was so exasperated at this, that she threatened
him if he played any more of his hellish arts with her
In Defence of his Right.
57
she would have him indicted for a wizard, and having
a familiar; and she could prove it, she said, plain
enough, for that he had raised the devil on purpose
to fright his wife.
The fray parted that night with ill words and ill
nature enough, but he little thought she intended as
she said, and the next day he had forgot it all, and
was as good-humoured as if nothing had happened.
But he found his wife chagrined and disturbed very
much, full of resentment, and threatening him with
what she resolved to do.
However, he little thought she intended him the
mischief she had in her head, offering to talk friendly
to her; but she rejected it with scorn, and told him
she would be as good as her word, for she would not
live with a man that should bring the devil into the
room as often as he thought fit, to murder his wife.
He strove to pacify her by fair words, but she told
him she was in earnest with him: and, in a word,
she was in earnest; for she goes away to a justice,
and making an affidavit that her husband had a
familiar spirit, and that she went in danger of her life,
she obtained a warrant for him to be apprehended.
In short, she brought home the warrant, showed
it him, and told him she had not given it into the
hands of an officer, because he should have the liberty
to go voluntarily before the justice of the peace, and
if he thought fit to let her know when he would be
ready, she would be so too, and would get some of
her own friends to go along with her.
He was surprised at this, for he little thought she
had been in earnest with him, and endeavoured to
58
Weird Tales.
pacify her by all the ways possible; but she found
she had frighted him heartily, and so indeed she had,
for though the thing had nothing in it of guilt, yet
he found it might expose him very much, and being
loath to have such a thing brought upon the stage
against him, he used all the entreaties with her that
he was able, and begged her not to do it.
But the more he humbled himself the more she
triumphed over him; and carrying things to an un-
sufferable height of insolence, she told him at last,
she would make him do justice, as she called it; that
she was sure she could have him punished if he con-
tinued obstinate, and she would not be exposed to
witchcraft and sorcery; for she did not know to what
length he might carry it.
To bring the story to a conclusion; she got the
better of him to such a degree, that he offered to refer
the thing to indifferent persons, friends on both sides;
and they met several times, but could bring it to no
conclusion. His friends said there was nothing in
it, and they would not have him comply with any-
thing upon the pretence of it; that he called for his
son, and somebody opened the casement and cried,
Here; that there was not the least evidence of witch-
craft in that, and insisted that she could make nothing
of it.
Her friends carried it high, instructed by her: she
offered to swear that he had threatened her before
with his son's ghost; that now he visibly raised a
spectre; for that calling upon his son, who was dead
to be sure, the ghost immediately appeared; that he
could not have called up the devil thus to personate
In Defence of his Right.
59
his son, if he had not dealt with the devil himself,
and had a familiar spirit, and that this was of
dangerous consequence to her.
Upon the whole, the man wanted courage to stand
it, and was afraid of being exposed; so that he was
grievously perplexed, and knew not what to do.
When she found him humbled as much as she
could desire, she told him, if he would do her justice,
as she called it (that is to say, settle his estate upon
her son), she would put it up, on condition that he
should promise to fright her no more with raising the
devil.
That part of the proposal exasperated him again,
and he upbraided her with the slander of it, and told
her he defied her, and she might do her worst.
+
Thus it broke off all treaty, and she began to
threaten him again; however, at length she brought
him to comply, and he gives a writing under his hand
to her, some of her friends being by, promising that
he would comply if his son did not arrive, or send an
account of himself, within four months.
She was satisfied with this, and they were all made
friends again, and accordingly he gave the writing;
but when he delivered it to her in presence of her
two arbitrators, he took the liberty to say to her,
with a grave and solemn kind of speech :
Look you, says he, you have worried me into this
agreement by your fiery temper, and I have signed it
against justice, conscience, and reason; but depend
upon it, I shall never perform it.
One of the arbitrators said, Why, sir, this is doing
nothing; for if you resolve not to perform it, what
60
1
Weird Tales.
signifies the writing? why do you promise what you
do not intend shall be done? This will but kindle
a new flame to begin with, when the time fixed
expires.
Why, says he, I am satisfied in my mind that my
son is alive.
Come, come, says his wife, speaking to the gentle-
man that had argued with her husband, let him sign
the agreement, and let me alone to make him perform
the conditions.
Well, says her husband, you shall have the writing,
and you shall be let alone; but I am satisfied you
will never ask me to perform it; and yet I am no
wizard, adds he, as you have wickedly suggested.
She replied, that she would prove that he dealt
with the devil, for that he raised an evil spirit by
only calling his son by his name; and so began to
tell the story of the hand and the casement.
Come, says the man to the gentleman that was her
friend, give me the pen; I never dealt with but one
devil in my life, and there it sits, turning to his wife;
and now I have made an agreement with her that
none but the devil would desire any man to sign, and
I will sign it; I say, give me the pen, but she nor all
the devils in hell will ever be able to get it executed;
remember I say so.
She began to open at him, and so a new flame
would have been kindled, but the gentlemen moder-
ated between them, and her husband setting his
hand to the writing put an end to the fray at that
time.
At the end of four months she challenged the
In Defence of his Right.
61
•
performance, and a day was appointed, and her two
friends that had been the arbitrators were invited to
dinner upon this occasion, believing that her husband
would have executed the deeds; and accordingly the
writings were brought all forth, engrossed, and read
over; and some old writings, which at her marriage
were signed by her. trustees, in order to her quitting
some part of the estate to her son, were also brought
to be cancelled: the husband being brought over, by
fair means or foul, I know not whether, to be in a
humour, for peace' sake, to execute the deeds, and
disinherit his son; alleging that, indeed, if he was
dead it was no wrong to him, and if he was alive, he
was very unkind and undutiful to his father, in not
letting him hear from him in all that time.
Besides, it was urged that if he should at any time
afterwards appear to be alive, his father (who had
very much increased, it seems, in his wealth) was
able to give him another fortune, and to make him a
just satisfaction for the loss he should sustain by the
paternal estate.
Upon these considerations, I say, they had brought
over the poor low-spirited husband to be almost
willing to comply; or, at least, willing or unwill-
ing, it was to be done, and, as above, they met
accordingly.
When they had discoursed upon all the particulars,
and, as above, the new deeds were read over, she
or her husband took the old writings up to cancel
them; I think the story says it was the wife, not her
husband, that was just going to tear off the seal,
when on a sudden they heard a rushing noise in the
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parlour where they sat, as if somebody had come in
at the door of the room which opened from the hall,
and went through the room towards the garden door,
which was shut.
They were all surprised at it, for it was very dis-
tinct, but they saw nothing. The woman turned
pale, and was in a terrible fright; however, as nothing
was seen, she recovered a little, but began to ruffle
her husband again.
What, says she, have you laid your plot to bring
up more devils again?
The man sat composed, though he was under no
little surprise too.
One of her gentlemen said to him, What is the
meaning of all this?
I protest, sir, says he, I know no more of it than
you do.
What can it be then? said the other gentle-
man.
I cannot conceive, says he, for I am utterly un-
acquainted with such things.
Have you heard nothing from your son? says the
gentleman.
Not one word, says the father, no, not the least
word these five years.
Have you wrote nothing to him, says the gentle-
man, about this transaction?
Not a word, says he; for I know not where to
direct a letter to him.
Sir, says the gentleman, I have heard much of
apparitions, but I never saw any in my life, nor did I
ever believe there was anything of reality in them;
In Defence of his Right.
63
and, indeed, I saw nothing now; but the passing
of somebody, or spirit, or something, across the room
just now, is plain; I heard it distinctly. I believe
there is some unseen thing in the room, as much as if
I saw it.
Nay, says the other arbitrator, I felt the wind of
it as it passed by me. Pray, adds he, turning to the
husband, do you see nothing yourself?
No, upon my word, says he, not the least appear-
ance in the world.
I have been told, says the first arbitrator, and have
read, that an apparition may be seen by some people
and be invisible to others, though all in the same
room together.
However, the husband solemnly protested to them
all that he saw nothing.
Pray, sir, says the first arbitrator, have you seen
anything at any other time, or heard any voices or
noises, or had any dreams about this matter?
Indeed, says he, I have several times dreamed my
son is alive, and that I had spoken with him; and
once that I asked him why he was so undutiful, and
slighted me so, as not to let me hear of him in so
many years, seeing he knew it was in my power to
disinherit him.
Well, sir, and what answer did he give?
I never dreamed so far on as to have him answer;
it always waked me.
And what do you think of it yourself, says the
arbitrator; do you think he's dead?
No, indeed, says the father, I do believe in my
conscience he's alive, as much as I believe I am alive
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myself; and I am going to do as wicked a thing of
its kind as ever any man did.
Truly, says the second arbitrator, it begins to
shock me, I don't know what to say to it; I don't
care to meddle any more with it, I don't like driving
men to act against their consciences.
With this the wife, who, as I said, having a little
recovered her spirits, and especially encouraged
because she saw nothing, started up, What's all this
discourse to the purpose, says she; is it not all agreed
already? what do we come here for?
Nay, says the first arbitrator, I think we meet now
not to inquire into why it is done, but to execute
things according to agreement, and what are we
frighted at?
I'm not frighted, says the wife, not I; come, says
she to her husband, haughtily, sign the deed; I'll
cancel the old writings if forty devils were in the
room; and with that she takes up one of the deeds,
and went to tear off the seal.
That moment the same casement flew open again,
though it was fast in the inside, just as it was before;
and the shadow of a body was seen, as standing in
the garden without, and the head reaching up to the
casement, the face looking into the room, and staring
directly at the woman with a stern and an angry
countenance: Hold, said the spectre, as if speaking
to the woman, and immediately clapped the casement
to again, and vanished.
It is impossible to describe here the consternation
this second apparition put the whole company into ;
the wife, who was so bold just before, that she would
In Defence of his Right.
65
do it though forty devils were in the room, screamed
out like a woman in fits, and let the writing fall out
of her hands the two arbitrators were exceedingly
terrified, but not so much as the rest; but one of
them took up the award which they had signed, in
which they awarded the husband to execute the deed
to dispose of the estate from the son.
I dare say, said he, be the spirit a good spirit or a
bad, it will not be against cancelling this; so he tore
his name out of the award, and so did the other,
by his example, and both of them got up from their
seats, and said they would have no more to do in
it.
But that which was most unexpected of all was
that the man himself was so frighted, that he fainted
away; notwithstanding it was, as it might be said,
in his favour.
This put an end to the whole affair at that time;
and, as I understand by the sequel, it did so for
ever.
The story has many particulars more in it, too long
to trouble you with: but two particulars, which are
to the purpose, I must not omit, viz.,
1. That in about four or five months more after
this second apparition, the man's son arrived from the
East Indies, whither he had gone four years before
in a Portuguese ship from Lisbon.
2. That upon being particularly inquired of about
these things, and especially whether he had any
knowledge of them, or any apparition to him, or
voices, or other intimation as to what was doing in
England, relating to him; he affirmed constantly
E
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that he had not, except that once he dreamed his
father had written him an angry letter, threatening
him that if he did not come home he would disinherit
him, and leave him not one shilling. But he added,
that he never did receive any such letter from his
father in his life, or from any one else.

SIXTEEN DAYS OF DEATH.
"Messmates, hear a brother sailor
Sing the dangers of the seas."
Old Song- The Bay of Biscay."
THE following adventure was related to a party of
travellers seated round the fire at a comfortable inn,
by a veteran tar-a tall, lean man, with a weather-
beaten visage, strongly marked, and that expression
in the eye which marks one who has looked death
closely in the face-a scared, wan, staring, stern look.
"You have had rough weather, sir, certainly, and
been in some danger; but I think I have gone
through more than you, for I have been sitting out at
sea in an open boat, face to face with Death, for days
and nights, while you had to look at him only for an
hour. My name is Williams-Henry Williams-of
Shields. It was on the 24th of November 1835,
when I sailed out from St. John's, Newfoundland, in
the Francis Spoight, 345 tons burden as fine a
brig as ever walked the waters. She was laden with
timber, and we mustered a crew of sixteen men in all,
besides the captain and mate-not all of them good
hands, as often happens in such ships-most of them
only boatmen trained on the Shannon; some from
Kilrush, a few from Tarbert, and two, myself included,
from Shields. For the first eight or nine days we had
glorious weather, but afterwards it came on to blow
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M
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so hard that we were obliged to drive before the wind
under a mizzen-topsail. If ever you were on board a
timber-laden ship with a bad crew, you would know
what sort of a time this was. I had, all along, a
notion that something would go wrong, for we had
sailed on a Friday; and at last, sure enough, it did
come. On December 3rd, at three o'clock in the
morning, just after I had turned in, an alarm was
raised by a cry and confusion on deck. Up I jumped,
all standing, and found that the vessel, either steering
wild, through the carelessness of the helmsman, or
perhaps from her bad trim, had suddenly hove to,
and there she was, lying like a log on the trough of
the sea. The day had not yet dawned; it was still
very dark, and so frightfully did the waves break over
her, that neither the skipper nor the mate could get
the lubberly part of the crew then on watch to obey
his directions, nor even when it was plain she was
filling rapidly, could they be prevailed upon to work
the pumps. I did all I could, but it was of no use—
the men were thinking of saving themselves, instead
of saving the ship; so they climbed up the sides and
clung to the rigging, while the ship was going down
under them. In less than an hour she lay on her
beam ends. Two poor fellows, Pat Cusack and Pat
Behone, were drowned in the forecastle, and William
Griffiths, the mate, in the after-cabin, into which he
had gone a few minutes before to get out his clothes
and money. The captain, myself, and a man named
Murville, a resolute fellow, and an able seaman of
the right sort, got to the fore-sheets of the main-mast,
and cut them away; the mizzen-topmast went with
Sixteen Days of Death.
69
them over the side, and the ship righted at once; but
as soon as she did this, being so full of water, she
settled down in the sea, and there was scarcely any
portion of her to be seen above the wash of the
waves, except the poop and bulwarks. Hopeless
and miserable were we all, in the depth of a winter's
night, standing ankle deep on the wreck, and cling-
ing in the darkness to whatever was nearest, sea after
sea all the while rolling successively over us. This
was bad enough, but we knew not the full horror of
our condition until the dawn of the morning, for the
coming of which we all looked eastward with intense
anxiety. We then discovered that our provisions
had been washed overboard, and that, as the holds
were filled by the sea, we had no means of coming at
any fresh water. The gale, too, continued through
the whole of the morning, and the dreadful swell
swept every now and then over the decks; so that
for safety, as well as shelter, we had to huddle
together into the cabin under the poop. Even here,
so deep was she with water, we could not find a dry
place to lie upon; and our only rest was standing
close together, all in a heap, leaning against one
another. At about ten o'clock in the forenoon our
hearts were brightened with hope; for Harrington,
one of the crew, a Tarbert man, suddenly descried a
vessel to the westward, and for some time we had
reason to think her course might be near; but she
stood far away, beyond the reach of signal, and was
soon out of sight. O the despair of that last half-
hour! Next day and the next passed away without
the slightest change in the weather-still the gale
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blew on. On the third day the weather began to
moderate, but the sea still ran high. During the
whole of this day we remained standing close to-
gether, side by side, in the cabin, leaning against one
another, or against the ship's sides, unable to take
rest or sleep but by fitful, broken moments.
"Hunger was our greatest suffering-not hunger
so much as a kind of sinking-like in the stomach.
Our thirst, too, was dreadful; and neither of these
could we see or think of any means for allaying.
There were fifteen hands then alive, and of these, not
one had tasted a morsel of food since the wreck; and
for drink, we had only three bottles of wine, which
were found in the cabin. This was served out in
little glasses at long intervals. There was rain every
now and then; but this, at first, we were not in
readiness to save, and got but a scant supply by
holding the cover of a soup-tureen under the saddle of
the mizzen-mast.
"So we passed six days after the appearance of the
first vessel, when on the seventh another ship was
seen on the weather-quarter, outward bound, and
only four miles north of us. Oh, my lads, just fancy
how our hopes revived, and how intense and awful
was the anxiety of all our crew for a short time! We
managed to crawl out and hoist an ensign on the
mizzen-mast, and part of a sail. The day was very
clear, and she could not but see it-at least, we poor
wretched men thought so; but she bore away like the
other ship had done, and was soon lost to our cheer-
less and despairing view. Despair was now in every
face. How we lived through the next five days is
Sixteen Days of Death.
7 I
more than I am able to tell you; but no one of us
tasted food. Some few endeavoured to eat the hard
horn buttons off their jackets, the only substitute for
food that occurred to their minds. There were no
means of catching fish, and though we sometimes saw
birds fly past us, we had no guns to bring them down
with. Horrible as was our situation, it was made yet
worse by the wicked conduct of our men towards one
another. As their sufferings increased, they all lost all
command of their temper, became morose, and sullen,
and cross, and selfish in the extreme-such as were
still strong securing a lying-place on the floor, and
pushing aside those who were weak to shift for them-
selves in the wet and cold, and even kicking up those
who were so ill and feeble that all they wanted was
to lie down and die quietly.
"Sixteen days yes, sixteen weary, dreadful
days-we thus lived through since the wreck, and
since we had tasted food. It was now the 19th of
December. I never shall forget it. Many of the
men were gathering together in groups, and some-
thing, that nobody seemed to like to speak out about,
seemed to be in agitation among them.
The mystery
—was it a mystery?—the fearful, awful, sinful mystery,
was cleared up in the course of the day. Somehow,
at last, they all happened to be collected together in
the cabin, and the captain came off deck, where he
had been vainly trying to espy a ship, and spoke to
us about our desperate condition. He said we were
now such a long time without anything to eat, that it
was beyond human nature to bear it any longer; that
we were already on the verge of the grave, and that
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the only question left for us now to consider was,
whether one or all of us should die. At present, he
said, it seemed certain that all must die unless food
could be procured, but that if one died, the rest
might live until some ship came in view.
"Never shall I forget the horrible, wolfish look of
the men at each other when these words were uttered.
It had been the thought of all-the cruel, tearing
thought—that no one had dared to express.
Each
man looked upon his fellow-man as food for him-
self! His life depended on his messmate's death! I
thought, for the moment, they would have fallen to
and murdered one another. There was blood and
raging hunger at once in every man's eye-a savage,
beast-like look. I cannot bear to think of it even
now. But the captain kept on speaking, and we
listened still. He told us his opinion was that one
ought to suffer for the rest, and that lots should be
drawn between the four boys (O how they screamed,
poor creatures !), as they had no families, and could
not be considered so great a loss to their friends as
those who had wives and children depending on them.
Of course
yes, of course the men unanimously
supported this decision. I alone kept silent. I had
boys at home of their age.
"The lot was cast. I can't bear to tell you the
particulars of the awful ceremony. It fell upon a
poor boy named O'Brien. To my horror, the poor
child heard the announcement without uttering a
word. His face was very pale, but not a feature of it
was changed not a muscle seemed to move or
quiver. The men now pressed round him, and they
B
—
Sixteen Days of Death.
73
told him he must prepare for death. They plainly
hungered for his flesh. The captain said it would be
better it should be done by bleeding him in the arm,
to which O'Brien made no objection. But who was
to do it? Who would be his murderer? Who
would have the blood of that poor lad upon his soul?
The captain spoke to the cook, John Gorman, and
directed him to do it.
"John Gorman, who before had been eager as were
the others, shook his head and turned away. The
captain told him it was his business-his duty. His
duty! John Gorman strenuously refused. But the
men threatened him with death himself if he con-
tinued obstinate, and they began to crowd upon him;
and he, at last, gave way, and consented. Then did
that boy, O'Brien, take off his jacket without waiting
to be ordered; and-only pausing to beg the men,
should any of them ever reach home, to tell his poor
mother what had happened to him-bared his right
arm, and stood, prepared for death, with a face as
calm as a blessed martyr. The cook took out his
knife, and cut the child's veins across twice, but the
blood would not flow. All drew a long breath as
the knife went over, and, when no blood came, there
seemed to be much hesitation among the men as to
what could be done. I hoped the boy was spared.
But O'Brien himself came to their relief, for he
immediately desired John Gorman to give him the
knife, as he could not be looking at him without
putting him to pain. When he had got the knife in
his hand, the captain recommended him to try his left
arm, which he accordingly did. He tried to open the
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vein at the bend of the elbow with the point of the
knife, as a surgeon would; but, like the cook, he
failed in bringing blood. A dead consternation now
fell upon all; but in a minute or two the captain
said,
"This is all of no use; 'tis better to put him out
of pain by at once bleeding him in the throat.'
"And some of them said it was true, and that the
captain was right; and that if it was to be done-it
must be done.
"At this, O'Brien for the first time looked terrified,
and begged hard that they would not do so, but give
him a little time. He said he was cold and weak, but
that if they would let him lie down and sleep, for a
little time, he should get warm, and then he should
bleed freely. To this wish there was some expression
of dissent from the men; they began to murmur
amongst themselves, and presently the captain said to
them that it was useless leaving the boy in this way,
in pain; 'twas best at once to lay hold of him, and let
the cook cut his throat.'
'O'Brien, now roused, and driven to desperation,
seemed working himself up, in his extremity, for
resistance. He declared he would not let them
murder him. He was ready to die, if it was his
chance; but he would not be slaughtered like a pig.
The first man, he said, who laid hands on him, 'twould
be worse for that man; that he'd appear to him at
another time; that he'd haunt him after death, and
speak against him on the Judgment Day. But they
came on close together, and the poor youth was soon
got down; and John Gorman, as cook, was again
(C
Sixteen Days of Death.
75
called upon to put him to death. John Gorman,
however, again refused, more strongly than before.
Then arose another altercation, and loud and angry
words, and threatening gestures. Then John Gorman,
weak and irresolute, and seeing that his own life
would be taken, instead of O'Brien's, if he persisted
(for the men plainly wanted only a slight excuse, and
were working themselves up to the deed, as he could
see), at length yielded to their menaces. Some one
at this time brought him down a large case-knife
instead of the clasp-knife that he had at first prepared;
and with this in his hand, pale and trembling, he
stood over O'Brien, who was still struggling, and
shrieking, and moaning, as he vainly endeavoured to
free himself from three men who were holding him
down to be slaughtered. One of them now placed
the cover of the tureen (which we had before used to
collect the rain) under the boy's neck, to collect the
blood, and several wretches called out to the cook to
do his duty. The horror-stricken John Gorman
several times vainly tried to summon up hardihood for
the shocking deed; but when he caught the boy's eye
his heart always failed him, and then he looked piteously
towards the men. Their cries and threats were, how-
ever, loud for death. They raged for blood and food,
and had no thought of mercy. He made a desperate
effort. There was a short struggle, a cry, a gurgle, a
sob, a groan, and O'Brien was no more!
"O horror! The wicked, cruel cannibals! We
know what men are we know not what they may be.
Preserve us from temptation? As soon as the horrid
act was perpetrated, the blood was served to the men,
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and they greedily, greedily drank it-I and three
others alone refraining. They afterwards laid open
the body, and separated the limbs-a fearful butchery!
The latter were hung over the stem of the now
accursed ship, while a portion of the former was
allotted for immediate use. Horrified as many of
them-I hope most of them, though I can hardly
venture, in truth, to say so-were at the shocking
scene they had just witnessed, yet it seemed as if a
growing hunger came upon them all when they saw
even this disgusting meal put out for them; and
almost every one of them, even the unwilling boys,
partook more or less of it. For myself, I confess it, I
hungered, though I sickened at the sight, and prayed
fervently, and kept myself away. Preserve us from
temptation !
"This was the evening of the sixteenth day. They
ate again late at night, and some greedily; but the
thirst, which before was at least endurable, now
became craving, and, as there was no more blood,
they slaked it with salt water. Then they laid down
to rest; but the cannibal feast bore its fruits. Several
were raving and talking wildly through the dismal
night, and in the morning, John Gorman, the cook,
was observed to be quite insane, his eyes inflamed and
glaring, his speech rambling and incoherent, his walk
unsteady he threw his clothes about restlessly, and
was often violent. His raving continued during the
succeeding night; he was a raging madman in the
morning, and then-and then-the veins of his neck
were cut, and the blood drawn from him. This was
the second death. I lay silent in the cabin, stowed
Sixteen Days of Death.
77
away in a corner, into which I had crawled to hide
myself, unable to move or speak, yet quite conscious.
Another of the wretched crew, Michael Behane, died
unexpectedly, or he would have suffered the same
fate as John Gorman. Next morning the captain
came off deck, and feeling too weak and exhausted to
keep a look-out, desired some one to take his place
above. I roused myself, and went up with Harrington
soon after. I leant expiring over the bulwark, when
an exclamation from Harrington roused me. He said
he thought he could distinguish a sail. 'Sail ho!' he
feebly called; and those below immediately crawled
up. Yes, it was a sail! A ship was clearly to be
seen. She seemed to be bearing towards us. We
hoisted signals, weak as we were, and with no small
effort. She approached; yet they still feared she
would pass us, and, in their extreme terror, they held
up-yes, they actually held up-those miserable men
-the hands and feet of the boy, O'Brien-to inflame
compassion, and denote our miserable extremity !
The vessel neared us: she proved to be the Agenoria,
an American. She put out a boat to our assistance
without any hesitation, though the weather was so
rough at the time that there was danger of its being
swamped in the humane effort, and the crew actually
came in their shirts. We were saved! I was lifted
on board.
We were all treated with the utmost kind-
ness, and taken into Cork. And there's an end of my
story, messmates."
ADVENTURE IN A FOREST.
BY SMOLLETT.
He departed from the village that same afternoon,
under the auspices of his conductor, and found him-
self benighted in the midst of a forest, far from the
habitations of men. The darkness of the night, the
silence and solitude of the place, the indistinct images
of the trees that appeared on every side, "stretching
their extravagant arms athwart the gloom," conspired,
with the dejection of spirits occasioned by his loss, to
disturb his fancy, and raise strange phantoms in his
imagination. Although he was not naturally super-
stitious, his mind began to be invaded with an awful
horror, that gradually prevailed over all the consola-
tions of reason and philosophy; nor was his heart
free from the terrors of assassination. In order to
dissipate these disagreeable reveries, he had recourse
to the conversation of his guide, by whom he was
entertained with the history of divers travellers who
had been robbed and murdered by ruffians, whose
retreat was in the recesses of that very wood.
In the midst of this communication, which did not
at all tend to the elevation of our hero's spirits, the
conductor made an excuse for dropping behind, while
our traveller jogged on in expectation of being joined
again by him in a few minutes. He was, however,
disappointed in that hope; the sound of the other
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Adventure in a Forest.
79
1
horse's feet by degrees grew more and more faint,
and at last altogether died away. Alarmed at this
circumstance, Fathom halted in the middle of the
road, and listened with the most fearful attention;
but his sense of hearing was saluted with nought but
the dismal sighings of the trees, that seemed to foretell
an approaching storm. Accordingly, the heavens
contracted a more dreary aspect, the lightning began
to gleam, the thunder to roll, and the tempest, raising
its voice to a tremendous roar, descended in a torrent
of rain.
In this emergency, the fortitude of our hero was
almost quite overcome. So many concurring circum-
stances of danger and distress might have appalled
the most undaunted breast; what impression, then,
must they have made upon the mind of Ferdinand,
who was by no means a man to set fear at defiance!
Indeed, he had well-nigh lost the use of his reflection,
and was actually invaded to the skin, before he could
recollect himself so far as to quit the road, and seek
for shelter among the thickets that surrounded him.
Having rode some furlongs into the forest, he took
his station under a tuft of tall trees that screened him
from the storm, and in that situation called a council
within himself, to deliberate upon his next excursion.
He persuaded himself that his guide had deserted
him for the present, in order to give intelligence of a
traveller to some gang of robbers with whom he was
connected; and that he must of necessity fall a prey
to those banditti unless he should have the good
fortune to elude their search, and disentangle himself
from the mazes of the wood.
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Weird Tales.
Harrowed with these apprehensions, he resolved to
commit himself to the mercy of the hurricane, as of
two evils the least, and penetrate straight forward
through some devious opening, until he should be
delivered from the forest. For this purpose he turned
his horse's head in a line quite contrary to the
direction of the high road which he had left, on the
supposition that the robbers would pursue that track
in quest of him, and that they would never dream of
his deserting the highway to traverse an unknown
forest, amidst the darkness of such a boisterous night.
After he had continued in this progress through a
succession of groves, and bogs, and thorns, and brakes,
by which not only his clothes, but also his skin,
suffered in a grievous manner, while every nerve
quivered with eagerness and dismay, he at length
reached an open plain, and pursuing his course, in
full hope of arriving at some village where his life
would be safe, he descried a rush-light at a distance,
which he looked upon as the star of his good fortune,
and, riding towards it at full speed, arrived at the
door of a lone cottage, into which he was admitted
by an old woman, who, understanding he was a
bewildered traveller, received him with great hos-
pitality.
When he learned from his hostess that there was
not another house within three leagues, that she
could accommodate him with a tolerable bed, and his
horse with lodging and oats, he thanked Heaven for
his good fortune, in stumbling upon this homely
habitation, and determined to pass the night under
the protection of the old cottager, who gave him to
Adventure in a Forest.
81
understand that her husband, who was a faggot-maker,
had gone to the next town to dispose of his mer-
chandise; and that, in all probability, he would not
return till next morning, on account of the tempestuous
night. Ferdinand sounded the beldame with a
thousand artful interrogations, and she answered with
such appearance of truth and simplicity, that he con-
cluded his person was quite secure, and, after having
been regaled with a dish of eggs and bacon, desired
she would conduct him into the chamber where she
proposed he should take his repose. He was accord-
ingly ushered up by a sort of ladder into an apartment
furnished with a standing bed, and almost half filled
with trusses of straw. He seemed extremely well
pleased with his lodging, which in reality exceeded
his expectation; and his kind landlady, cautioning
him against letting the candle approach the com-
bustibles, took her leave, and locked the door on the
outside.
Fathom, whose own principles taught him to be
suspicious, and ever upon his guard against the
treachery of his fellow-creatures, could have dispensed
with this instance of her care, in confining her guest
to her chamber, and began to be seized with strange
fancies, when he observed that there was no bolt on
the inside of the door, by which he might secure
himself from intrusion. In consequence of these
suggestions, he proposed to take an accurate survey
of every object in the apartment, and, in the course
of his inquiry, had the mortification to find the dead
body of a man, still warm, who had been lately
stabbed, and concealed beneath several bundles of straw.
F
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Weird Tales.
Such a discovery could not fail to fill the breast of
our hero with unspeakable horror; for he concluded
that he himself would undergo the same fate before
morning, without the interposition of a miracle in his
favour. In the first transports of his dread he ran to
the window, with a view to escape by that outlet, and
found his flight effectually obstructed by divers strong
bars of iron. Then his heart began to palpitate, his
hair to bristle up, and his knees to totter; his thoughts
teemed with passages of death and destruction; his
conscience rose up in judgment against him, and he
underwent a severe paroxysm of dismay and distrac-
tion. His spirits were agitated into a state of
fermentation that produced a species of resolution
akin to that which is inspired by brandy or other
strong liquors, and, by an impulse that seemed super-
natural, he was immediately hurried into measures for
his own preservation.
What upon a less interesting occasion his imagina-
tion durst not propose, he now executed without
scruple or remorse. He undressed the corpse that
lay bleeding among the straw, and, conveying it to
the bed in his arms, deposited it in the attitude of a
person who sleeps at his ease; then he extinguished
the light, took possession of the place from whence
the body had been removed, and, holding a pistol
ready cocked in each hand, waited for the sequel with
that determined purpose which is often the immediate
production of despair. About midnight he heard the
sound of feet ascending the ladder; the door was
softly opened; he saw the shadow of two men stalking
towards the bed, a dark lanthorn, being unshrouded,
Adventure in a Forest.
83
directed their aim to the supposed sleeper, and he
that held it thrust a poniard to his heart; the force
of the blow made a compression on the chest, and a
sort of groan issued from the windpipe of the defunct;
the stroke was repeated without producing a repetition
of the note, so that the assassins concluded the work
was effectually done, and retired for the present with
a design to return and rifle the deceased at their
leisure.
Never had our hero spent a moment in such agony
as he felt during this operation; the whole surface of
his body was covered with a cold sweat, and his
nerves were relaxed with an universal palsy. In short,
he remained in a trance that, in all probability, con-
tributed to his safety; for, had he retained the use of
his senses, he might have been discovered by the
transports of his fear. The first use he made of his
retrieved recollection was to perceive that the assassins
had left the door open in their retreat, and he would
have instantly availed himself of this their neglect by
sallying out upon them at the hazard of his life, had
he not been restrained by a conversation he overheard
in the room below, importing that the ruffians were
going to set out upon another expedition, in hopes of
finding more prey. They accordingly departed, after
having laid strong injunctions upon the old woman to
keep the door fast locked during their absence; and
Ferdinand took his resolution without further delay.
So soon as, by his conjecture, the robbers were at a
sufficient distance from the house, he rose from his
lurking-place, moved softly towards the bed, and
rummaging the pockets of the deceased, found a purse
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Weird Tales.
well stored with ducats, of which, together with a
silver watch and a diamond ring, he immediately
possessed himself without scruple; then, descending
with great care and circumspection into the lower
apartment, stood before the old beldame, before she
had the least intimation of his approach.
Accustomed as she was to the trade of blood, the
hoary hag did not behold this apparition without
giving signs of infinite terror and astonishment, be-
lieving it was no other than the spirit of her second
guest, who had been murdered; she fell upon her
knees and began to recommend herself to the pro-
tection of the saints, crossing herself with as much
devotion as if she had been entitled to the particular
care and attention of Heaven. Nor did her anxiety
abate when she was undeceived in this her supposition,
and understood it was no phantom, but the real
substance of the stranger, who, without staying to
upbraid her with the enormity of her crimes, com-
manded her, on pain of immediate death, to produce
his horse, to which being conducted, he set her upon
the saddle without delay, and, mounting behind,
invested her with the management of the reins,
swearing, in a most peremptory tone, that the only
chance she had for her life was in directing him
safely to the next town; and that, so soon as she
should give him the least cause to doubt her fidelity
in the performance of that task, he would on the
instant act the part of her executioner.
This declaration had its effects upon the withered
Hecate, who, with many supplications for mercy and
forgiveness, promised to guide him in safety to a
Adventure in a Forest.
85
certain village at a distance of two leagues, where he
might lodge in security, and be provided with a fresh
horse, or other convenience, for pursuing his intended
route. On these conditions he told her she might
deserve his clemency; and they accordingly took
their departure together, she being placed astride with
the saddle, holding the bridle in one hand, and a
switch in the other; and our adventurer sitting on the
crupper, superintending her conduct, and keeping the
muzzle of a pistol close at her ear. In this equipage
they travelled across part of the same wood in which
his guide had forsaken him; and it is not to be
supposed that he passed his time in the most agreeable
reverie, while he found himself involved in the
labyrinth of those shades, which he considered as the
haunts of robbery and assassination.
Common fear was a comfortable sensation to what
he felt in this excursion. The first steps he had taken
for his preservation were the effects of mere instinct,
while his faculties were extinguished or suppressed by
despair; but now, as his reflection began to recur,
he was haunted by the most intolerable apprehensions.
Every whisper of the wind through the thickets was
swelled into the hoarse menaces of murder; the
shaking of the boughs was construed into the brand-
ishing of poniards; and every shadow of a tree became
the apparition of a ruffian eager for blood. In short,
at each of these occurrences he felt what was infinitely
more tormenting than the stab of a real dagger; and,
at every fresh fillip of his fear, he acted as a
remembrancer
to his conductress, in a new
volley of imprecations, importing that her life was
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absolutely connected with his opinion of his own
safety.
Human nature could not longer subsist under such
complicated terror. At last he found himself clear of
the forest, and was blessed with the distant view of
an inhabited place. He then began to exercise his
thoughts upon a new subject. He debated with him-
self whether he should make a parade of his intrepidity
and public spirit, by disclosing his achievement, and
surrendering his guide to the penalty of the law, or
leave the old hag and her accomplices to the remorse
of their own consciences, and proceed quietly on his
journey to P— in undisturbed possession of the prize
he had already obtained. This last step he determined
to take, upon recollecting that, in the course of his
information, the story of the murdered stranger would
infallibly attract the attention of justice, and, in that
case, the effects he had borrowed from the defunct.
must be refunded for the benefit of those who had a
right to the succession. This was an argument which
our adventurer could not resist; he foresaw that he
should be stripped of his acquisition, which he looked
upon as the fair fruits of his valour and sagacity; and,
moreover, be detained as an evidence against the
robbers, to the manifest detriment of his affairs.
Perhaps, too, he had motives of conscience that
dissuaded him from bearing witness against a set of
people whose principles did not much differ from his
own.
Influenced by such considerations, he yielded to the
first importunity of the beldame, whom he dismissed
at a very small distance from the village, after he had
Adventure in a Forest.
87
earnestly exhorted her to quit such an atrocious course
of life, and atone for her past crimes, by sacrificing
her associates to the demands of justice. She did not
fail to vow a perfect reformation, and to prostrate
herself before him for the favour she had found; then
she betook herself to her habitation, with full purpose
of advising her fellow-murderers to repair with all
despatch to the village, and impeach our hero, who,
wisely distrusting her professions, stayed no longer in
the place than to hire a guide for the next stage.

CADER IDRIS: THE CHAIR OF
IDRIS. *
BY JOHN HARWOOD.
I AM an old bachelor now, the object of an interest,-
not, perhaps, wholly unselfish,-to my nephews and
nieces. Be it so.
Be it so. They will not have long to wait.
The one bright thread in the darksome web of my
life was snapped, rudely snapped, many a weary year
ago, and I am only sorry when a new spring-time
comes round and finds me still among the living.
In the autumn of 1829 I was staying in one of the
wildest and most secluded districts of Wales, not,
as now, a grey-haired, broken man, but young,
happy, and rich in friends, in prospects, and, above
all, in that elastic spirit of hopefulness that forms the
best heritage of those who begin the world. Talglyn
Hall, one of those moss-grown stone mansions whose
weather-beaten masonry look old enough to be coeval
with the eternal hills that overshadow them, was the
place of my temporary abode. The Hall-the name
of which I have slightly altered-was the ancestral
residence of a Welsh gentleman whom I shall call
Griffith. I was his friend and guest; indeed, we
were distantly related, and I was to have been the
husband of his youngest daughter. Dear, lost Ellen!
* Reprinted by kind permission of Messrs. Bradbury, Evans,
& Co.
S$
Cader Idris: the Chair of Idris.
89
with what painfnl distinctness, after all these years,
does her gentle image rise before me, in all the bloom
of that youthful beauty on which the hand of Time
was never to be laid. I often fancy that she stands
beside me as I sit in my elbow-chair, brooding over
the past, over the golden sands that ran out so early;
and in a strain of faintly audible music, or in the sigh
of the summer wind, I fondly dream that I hear the
voice of Ellen. Forgive me, reader! I will wander
from the point no more, but briefly tell how I won
and lost her.
Rambling through Wales during the summer of
the preceding year, sketching and fishing, and seek-
ing all the benefit which the pure air and exercise
could confer on a constitution somewhat impaired by
study and hard work at the bar, a singular whim
possessed me. This was no other than to seek out
some remote connections of my mother's, who were
known to dwell peaceably on their hereditary acres
somewhere in the Principality, but between whom
and my immediate relatives no intercourse had taken
place for at least a generation. I was shut up by
stress of rain in a wretched little inn at Tryssidloes,
unable to climb mountains, fish, or take sketches,
when a letter arrived from the sister, to whom I had
written for information. At the point where the four
closely-written pages,-for postage was, in those
times, a costly item, were traversed by what
feminine correspondents called "crossings," I found
the following sentence :-" The name of the family
you ask about is Griffith, people with a long pedigree,
of course, being Welsh, and I believe with a grand
9༠
1
Weird Tales.
old house and a good property. They live at Talglyn
Hall, at the foot of Cader Idris, so if you go that
way you can look them up. It was the father of the
present squire who quarrelled with grandpapa, fifty
years ago, and mamma says he behaved most shame-
fully, but she has forgotten in what manner. They
are, you know, our second-cousins," etc.
On such slight events, to all appearance, do our
fortunes depend, that this trivial letter may be truly
said to have coloured my whole future life. I have
often tried to speculate on what that life might have
been had my sister delayed writing but a single day
more, in which case I should have been gone from
the neighbourhood before the arrival of her letter.
However, the letter came; the information it gave
reached me at a critical moment, just as I was about
to start with post-horses for a more civilised place.
It so happened, too, that I was within a few miles of
Cader Idris. I could see the blue peak of the steep
mountain, looming gigantic through the rain, even
from the little window of the inn parlour in which I
had been for three days a prisoner. Talglyn Hall
must, therefore, be of easy access. I countermanded
the post-chaise: I wrote a note, couched in that
diplomatic style on which young men plume them-
selves, and I sent it by a messenger to "Squire
Griffith's." Before the long summer day was spent,
Mr. Griffith answered the note in person. I found
him a capital specimen of the Welsh gentleman-
spirited, hospitable, and rather choleric, and im-
perious. But the brighter side of his character was
the one most prominent, and that it was which was
Cader Idris: the Chair of Idris.
91
1
presented to me. He greeted me with a frank manli-
ness that put my diplomacy to the rout, and insisted
on bearing me off straightway to the Hall. I was
his cousin, he said, and quite a near relation in a
Cambrian point of view, and I must be his guest, in
spite of the silly misunderstanding of half a century
back. No, no; blood was thicker than water, and
he should feel himself insulted if any kinsman came
within ten miles of his roof-tree without harbouring
there. Thus it occurred that I became a visitor at
Talglyn Hall.
Mr. Griffith, a widower, had five children to cheer
his hearth, and of these three were daughters. The
two eldest were handsome enough, but Ellen, their
younger sister, then scarcely seventeen, was as beau-
tiful and winning as a fairy. No wonder that I
admired her. Admired is a cold, pale phrase. She
was born to be loved, and I loved her with a deep,
strong love over which time has never gained the
mastery. I do not wish to linger on that happy
period of alternate hope and fear, of broken words
eked out by glances, and all the petulant changes of
passion. Suffice it that my love was returned at last,
and that before my long visit was at an end Ellen
had plighted me her simple troth. I went honestly
to Mr. Griffith, and told him all. He was not dis-
pleased. He appeared, in fact, hardly to be sur-
prised. Lovers, indeed, are generally very transparent
in their wily stratagems for hoodwinking the world,
and even the most guileless household is speedily
aware of the progress of an attachment. But Mr.
Griffith, though not averse to receiving me as a son-
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Weird Tales.
in-law, was not willing that his daughter should marry
at seventeen, and was, besides, desirous that time
should test whether we, the principal parties in the
case, really knew our own minds. We both thought
this decision very tyrannical and absurd. I am sure
that it was right, and kind, and wise. For a year
Ellen and I separated. I was to work heartily at
the bar, as before; the Griffiths were to travel, to
visit watering-places and cities, and to vary their
usual retired mode of life, in order that Ellen might
see something of the world before she irrevocably
fixed her fate in it. And, if all went well, and we
young people continued of the same opinion, after the
lapse of a twelvemonth, why then-
Then! How cruel seemed the suspense and the
banishment! how certain that our sentiments would
be unchanged a year hence, fifty years hence, my
younger readers may ask their own hearts. We
obeyed. I not only obtained some credit as a rising
junior at the bar, where I already possessed a certain
footing,—more due, I dare say, to circumstance than
merit,--but I won the consent and approbation of all
my relatives to the match. I was not dependent on
them or on my profession for support, but Squire
Griffith was a great stickler for such matters, and he
was not easy until I had induced my mother to write
him a letter solemnly abjuring the feud between their
parents, the reason of which had been, I believe, a
dispute at long whist,-and consenting formally to the
marriage. And now the weary waiting was over, the
year was out, and I was at Talglyn Hall again to
claim my bride. All went smilingly with us. Ellen'
Cader Idris: the Chair of Idris.
93
had the old loving look in her dear blue eyes; she
had been courted and flattered, but no one had been
able to win away her heart from me, and the Squire
admitted that never had a probation turned out more
satisfactory than ours. All the family were kind,
warm-hearted people; they welcomed me cordially
among them; they were willing to hail me as a
brother, though they did grudge a little at times
that I should rob them of the light of their home,
the darling of them all, for Ellen was both. She
had been very pretty a year before, but had now
expanded like a flower, and was as sweet a type of
the more fragile order of womanhood as ever existed.
I was surprised to see how much she had developed
in so short a time, but she loved me none the less for
the greater experience of life which she had gained
in the past year.
Our wedding-day was fixed; the
preparations were nearly completed, and my sisters,
who were to be bridesmaids jointly with Ellen's
sisters, were shortly expected at Talglyn.
And now
but a few days intervened between me and the crown-
ing happiness of my life-that happiness which was
never to be.
I have painted nothing as yet but a picture of hope
and happiness, a sunny sea and white-sailed pleasure-
barks gaily gliding over the soft summer waves.
Now comes the blacker sketch of wreck and storm.
Ellen had one fault, if fault be not too harsh a word,
one flaw in her nature. She had a pretty wayward-
ness, an impatience of contradiction that never
degenerated into peevishness, never became im-
perious, but which in one endowed with a less
1
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Weird Tales.
sweet temper would infallibly have done so. As it
was, it rather took the form of a half- playful
defiance, so winning, so full of grace, that you could
scarcely have the heart to wish it away. But there
were times when Ellen's petulant caprice became a
source of terror to those who loved her best. I have
known her persist in maintaining her seat on a
plunging, kicking horse, full of vice and mettle, and
which exerted every sinew and every artifice to hurl
from the saddle its slender but unconquerable rider.
Equally, I have seen her run, mocking our cowardice,
along the trunk of a fallen tree that bridged a cataract,
slippery though that tree was with the washing of
ceaseless spray, and perched at a fearful height above
the ragged rocks and the dark pool below. And in
a mountain excursion, no one, not even her dare-devil
young brothers, ventured so close to the most danger-
ous precipices as Ellen did, laughing the while. Yet
she was no Amazon, but when the whim was over,
showed all a girl's timidity in face of peril; it was
contradiction that nettled her to rashness. One
evening, after a happy day spent partly on the hills
and partly in boating on the little lake, the conversa-
tion turned, somehow, on the superstitions of Wales.
One legend called forth another, and none of her
relatives had such a store of these weird tales as
Ellen, or told them so charmingly and simply. At
last she related a particular story which I have but
too much reason to remember, which has burnt into
my brain like a fiery brand, the story of the Lady of
Cader Idris. The legend has reference to the Welsh
proverb, so old, that it is by some considered anterior
Cader Idris: the Chair of Idris.
95
to even Merlin, that "he who spends a night in the
chair of Cader Idris will be found mad, dead, or a
poet." Tradition relates that Merlin sat there, and
that Taliesin also went through the dread ordeal that
touched his lips with the fire of prophecy.
"You know," broke in young Herbert Griffith,
"the gap cut in the live rock, on the high peak where
the cairn is, just above the cliff? It looks like the
throne of some queer old king. I showed it to you
when we went shooting dotterils. Beg your pardon,
Ellen!"
I
Ellen went on to relate how, long ago, in the
thirteenth century, the lady of the manor, a beautiful
and wilful heiress, called by her vassals the Lady of
Cader Idris, had resolved to undergo this terrible
trial in the hopes of becoming imbued with the spirit
of poetry. How, being a lady of rare courage and
headstrong will, she had persisted in her resolve, in
spite of the entreaties of her kindred, the prayers of
her tenants, and the authority of her confessor. How
she had gone up alone to the haunted hill-top,-where,
as legends tell, spectres keep a world-long watch
over buried treasure,-and had faced storm, and dark-
ness, and all the terrors of the visible and the view-
less. Finally, how she had been found in the
morning, stark and dead, seated in the rocky throne
on blue Idris, with her long dark hair floating over
the stones as she sate in an attitude that mocked life,
and with an expression of awful fear stamped on her
open eyes and fair pale face. The tradition added
that, on account of her rebellion against the priest's
commands, the pitiless church had denied her poor
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Weird Tales.
body Christian burial, and that she had been laid,
in silence and stealth, by the hands of sorrowing
kinsmen, under a cairn of loose pebbles on the hill-
top.
Then Ellen went to her harp, and sang us first the
wild Welsh ditty that some bard had composed in
elder days, and then the polished verses which Mrs.
Hemans had penned on the same theme. Nor was
it till the last notes of the harp and the sweet voice
had long died away that we recovered from the im-
pression of the weird and mournful tale, and began to
question its authenticity and to challenge its proba-
bility. I remember we all took part, in a sportive
way, against Ellen and the legend. Our wish was,
no doubt, to tease, harmlessly, the darling and
spoiled child of the household, and also, perhaps, to
atone to ourselves for having been for a time more
completely under the spell of romance than we cared
to acknowledge. But to start a discussion is like
rolling a stone downhill. It starts gently, sliding
down grassy banks, and springing daintily from
mound to mound, then leaps with huge bounds,
gaining force every instant, till it thunders from crag
to crag, and crashes into the valley below. Our
controversy grew warm and lively, almost bitter.
Ellen was piqued and ruffled. She had told us one
of her favourite tales, one which she had loved and
dwelt upon, and which was grown to be almost a
part of herself; and we had listened-and laughed.
She had not the experience that riper years impart,
and which would have made her suspect that our
derision was in a measure defensive and overstrained,
Cader Idris: the Chair of Idris.
97
and she was vexed, and showed it. She was quite
angry with her jeering brothers, but I came in for the
full weight of her indignation.
<<
Why was I incredulous? Did I think woman's
nature so frivolous and cowardly that nothing brave
or self-devoted could be looked for from a woman?"
To this I replied, with provoking gravity, "That
I thought the story a pretty one, but that it was as
improbable as the adventures of King Arthur and his
knights, and that I never saw or heard of any female
capable of confronting so much risk and discomfort.
Finally, I declared the " Lady of Cader Idris" a
pure invention of some crack-brained harper. Ellen's
scornful eyes flashed, and she tossed her golden
ringlets as she turned away. All might have gone
well had not some mischievous fiend whispered to
me to improve my victory. So I did. I waxed very
witty and satirical, and the company applauded, all
but the squire, who was asleep, and Ellen, who
stamped her little foot angrily on the floor, exclaim-
ing:
B
>
"I will show you that a woman dares do more
than you fancy. I will go through this ordeal, that
you believe impossible. We shall see who is right,
you or I?"
:
And she left the room at once. When she came
back, half an hour later, she was quite calm and
unruffled she joined in the conversation as usual,
and spoke pleasantly of the projects for pike fishing
in the Llyn, for a late picnic to some celebrated
point of view, and a ride to the county town. But
there was a feverish restlessness in her air, and she
G
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broke off rapidly from talking on one subject to
diverge to another. She sat down, when asked, to
harp or piano, but she played but a few bars, and
then rose again, saying she could not remember a
tune. This change of manner caused me some
concern, and I went up to her, and said in a low
tone,-
،،
Ellen, are you ill?”
"Ill? No," she answered, in an abstracted manner,
and moved away.
"You are not offended with me?" I began.
""
did not mean-
"No, I am not offended," she answered, with
some constraint, and then began to take the keenest
interest in the artificial flies Herbert was tying.
"I
، ،
We exchanged no other word until every one had
retired to rest, and it came to my turn to wish her
Good night," as usual. She took my hand between
her own little white fingers, and for a moment gazed
in my face with a strange look that has haunted me
ever since that will haunt me to my dying hour.
Sorrow, reproach, affection, and an under-current of
firm but hidden determination, were blended in that
glance, the last that I ever received from those fond
blue eyes that I had hoped would be a sunshine in
my home from youth till age. And her lips mur-
mured the old trivial phrase, "Good night," as if it
had a new meaning. She turned away.
<<
"Ellen!"
said I, springing after her, one
moment, Ellen!"
She did not seem to hear. She glided from me,
and was gone.
One moment I stood irresolute.
M
Cader Idris: the Chair of Idris.
99
False pride made me ashamed of my anxiety. Even
then, after the loss of one precious moment, I should
have followed, but the Squire called to me, candle in
hand, from his study door, to say something about to-
morrow's pike-fishing, and the opportunity was lost-—
for ever! What might not then have been the magic
power of one word of real kindness and contrition?
-it might have altered the whole current of an
existence.
That has been one long and unavailing regret.
But the word remained unspoken. I went to my
chamber, a quaint room in one of the wings, close
to the gray turret where, beneath its conical roof of
slate, the alarm bell hung. I slowly undressed,
often drawing aside the curtains, often peering forth
through the Elizabethan casement of diamond panes,
many of which were darkened by the heavy growth
of the rank ivy without. All was ghostly still in the
garden below, where the stiff hedges of clipped holly,
the terraces fringed with box-trees and hornbeam,
and the broad, old-fashioned walks were white with
moonshine. An owl was hooting in the wood, and
the mastiff in the courtyard bayed mournfully from
time to time, and rattled his chain. The moon was
high and bright, but black clouds were sailing across
the sky; and as I looked, a sudden glow lit up the
horizon, as if a trap-door had been opened above
some fiery gulf, then vanished as quickly. "There
will be a storm to-night," I muttered, as I turned
from the window for the last time. I was very ill.
satisfied with myself, and, as often happens, I per-
versely chose to justify my own conduct by blaming
100
Weird Tales.
7.
poor Ellen.
"She had no right to be so positive
and so petulant," I said to myself. It augured ill for
our future happiness that she should resent idle words
so deeply. But in the morning I would speak to her,
reason with her in the morning? We are blind,
blind!
My prediction that there would be a storm that
night was fulfilled to the letter. A storm there was.
I was awakened by a peal of thunder that sounded in
my sleeping ears as if the trumpet of the archangel
were calling sinners to judgment. Crash upon crash,
roar upon roar, till the vault of heaven was full of the
giant sound, and the strong stone mansion rocked
like a living creature in fear. The blaze of the
lightning, broad and bright, flooded the whole sky
with an incessant lurid red, and between the stunning
bursts of the thunder might be heard the howl of the
wind and the hurtling of the hail and rain. An awful
night. A night for shipwreck and ruin, and death of
travellers on lonely moorland roads, and toppling
down of gray steeples that had mocked at the gales
of centuries. A grim, wild night. Presently the
thunder died away, all but a sullen growl afar off,
and the flashes ceased, and rain and wind went on
lashing and tearing at the casement.
I fell asleep, and a strange dream I had. I dreamt
of the high peak of Idris, with its storm-lashed terrace
of mossy stone, the cairn of loose pebbles, and the
rocky chair, deep cut in the very brow of the horrid
cliff, with a yawning precipice below. And the
chair was not empty. No. It had a tenant, and
that tenant bore a female shape. I could see the
Cader Idris: the Chair of Idris. ΙΟΙ
white robe fluttering through the blackness of night,
and the loosened hair, and the hand that was pressed
to the eyes, as if to shut out some ghastly sight of
things unspeakable, while its fellow grasped the rocky
rim of the throne. Then the thunder bellowed over
head, and the lightning flashed in fiery forks and
hissing zigzags, ringing the hill-top with a flaming
diadem, blazing, red and menacing, through the
abyss below, and illuminating with a dreadful light
that solitary form, alone amid the wrath of the
elements. The tempest broke in its might upon the
peak of Idris; hail, rain, wind, swept the mountain
as with a besom, and the pale form in the fantastic
chair endured them all. Strange, unearthly shrieks
were blended with the howl of the wind; wild and
dismal pageants trooped by amid the driving mists
and sheets of blinding rain; and by one last glare of
the lightning I saw the figure remove the hand that
hid its face. The face of a young girl—of Ellen !—
but so ghastly with terror, so full of agony and name-
less horror, that I awoke, trembling and unnerved,
with great heat-drops on my forehead, such as exces-
sive bodily pain might have called forth. The storm
still raged, but more feebly. Yes, it was subsiding
I sank back again, but this time into a heavy,
dreamless slumber. I woke in the golden, brilliant
morning the sky was blue, the birds were singing
gaily, and the verdure of the country seemed fresher
and fairer than before the storm. My spirits rose as I
dressed; I was in the best of tempers, and I made a
resolution that I would not chide Ellen for her wilful
conduct of the preceding evening, but would be very
now.
:
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Weird Tales.
considerate and kind, and would even say I was sorry
to have hurt her feelings by a careless word. I went
down to the breakfast-room. The Squire was there,
with his two elder daughters and his eldest son, while
young Herbert came in with his fishing-rod a moment
later. But no Ellen. The old butler brought in the
urn, after we had exchanged a few remarks, and
then, for the first time, Ellen's absence was com-
mented upon.
"She is not usually the lazy one," said her father.
Owen, send up Miss Ellen's maid to let her know
we are waiting breakfast.”
The man went. We chatted on. But Owen
came back with a blank look to say that the maid
had found the door locked, and that she had knocked
repeatedly, but without getting an answer.
This astonished us all.
"C
"She must be ill!" cried Charlotte, the eldest
sister, hastily leaving the room.
Soon she, too, came back, to say that she had
called aloud at the door, but that Ellen would not
reply a word.
"Perhaps she has gone out," said Herbert. "The
window in the oratory that opens out of her room
leads right on to the terrace by the greenhouse, and
then there are steps to the garden.
""
'Nonsense," said the Squire, knitting his brows,
"that door has been locked these fifty years, and
the key lost too. I'll go myself. I'm afraid she
is ill."
We all went up in a body. Two or three of the
servants were on the landing-place.
Cader Idris: the Chair of Idris.
103
"I am afraid, sir," said the lady's maid, half cry-
ing, "something's amiss. We can't hear a sound.
It's all as still as death.
"
Something painful shot across all our minds as we
heard this speech.
We neared the door, the Squire tapped.
66
Ellen! Ellen, love! answer, my darling; are
you ill?"
No reply.
Mr. Griffith set his strong shoulder against the door,
and by a violent effort, dashed it in. We entered.
The room was tenantless,-empty.
"She has gone out, after all!" cried Herbert,
running to the old oratory, and pointing to the long
disused door, now wide open.
"Miss Ellen must have gone out last night,
stammered one of the women, "for the bed has not
been touched."
Last night! In the storm! Impossible. Yet on
tracking farther we found on the terrace a bow of
riband, drenched and heavy with moisture. It had
evidently been dropped by its owner, and all recog-
nised it as Ellen's-on the previous night, before the
rain began.
:
>>
"She must be mad, my poor, poor child," groaned
the Squire, "or is she playing us a trick? No, she
never could have the heart to trifle with us in such a
way."
Suddenly a horrid thought flashed across my mind.
My dream the dispute of the previous night—the
strange resolve latent in Ellen's face as she took leave
of me—all these came crowding back.
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Weird Tales.
""
"I know where she is," I cried aloud. I know
it but too well. She is on the mountain, on Cader
Idris, dead or mad by this, and I am the accursed
cause.
""
"My poor fellow, your anxiety makes you talk
wildly," said the Squire. "Cader Idris, how can
she be there? Impossible!"
"She is there," cried I, in an accent of agonized
conviction that none could resist, "she spoke of
going through the ordeal of the rock - chair last
evening; and I, fool that I was, have slept while
she was perishing in the tempest. Follow me, and
waste no time. For Heaven's dear love be quick,
and bring restoratives, if in mercy it be not too
late!
"
My vehemence bore down all opposition. In less
than five minutes we were hurrying to the foot of the
mountain. But I outstripped them all. My heart
was on fire, and my feet were gifted with unusual
speed. Up, among the slippery shale and loose
stones, up by bush and crag, by rock and watercourse,
and by tracks only trodden by the goat, and I stand
panting on the terrace, a few feet of peak above, a
yawning precipice below. My dream was too terribly
realized. There, in the rock-hewn chair, in her
muslin dress and mantle of gray plaid, both of them
drenched and stained with rain and earth, lay Ellen,
cold and dead. Her long fair hair half-hid her pale
face, and her little hands were tightly clasped
together. I clasped her to my breast; I called wildly
on her name; I parted the dank hair that hid her
face, and on it I saw imprinted the same agony of
Cader Idris: the Chair of Idris.
105
fear, the same dark horror, as in my fatal dream.
But she was dead, my dear, dear Ellen. And I
think my heart must have broken then, as I saw her,
for ever.
Since that day the world has been a prison
to me.

I
A SKELETON IN THE HOUSE.*
BY EDMUND YATES.
WORK, work, work! Constantly-recurring, never-
ceasing work! A grind from morning till night, and
often until nearly morning again! And none but
those who have undergone the labour, and are
acquainted with its details, can comprehend it! I
have numerous friends, otherwise sensible men, who
know that I am literary reviewer and theatrical critic
to a daily newspaper, and who frequently state their
belief that I must have "a very jolly time of it."
Jolly time of it—oh, of course! It's very jolly when
you are sitting at breakfast in your Gray's Inn
chambers, thinking how green the grass looks in the
inn gardens, how much greener it will look at Rich-
mond, and what good it would do you, after last
night's bake in the theatre and at the printing-office,
to run down and have a long lazy day in Bushy Park,
winding up with a quiet dinner at the "Star and
Garter "--it's very jolly then to hear a single tap at
your oak, and to find outside a grimy-faced boy, with
a carpet-bag full of books, and a letter from your
editor, stating that he sends you Dr. Rollingstone's
Travels in Seringapatam,-that by the greatest exer-
* One of the earliest productions of this popular author's pen,
it having been written about 1858, while he was still in his
twenties. Reprinted by his kind permission.
106
A Skeleton in the House.
107
tion he has secured an early copy, and that he must
have, at all events, a column and a half for to-
morrow, in order to head the other papers! It's
very jolly on returning from your morning's study at
the British Museum to find two notes in your letter-
box-one pink, small, and delicate; the other blue,
big, and brutal. The pink one is written in the
thinnest strokes, and says:-"Dear Charley,-We
have the Morrels' box at the Opera to-night. You
will be in the house and come to us, will you not?
Oui, monsieur, you will, if you please. I have
something special to say to you. Yours always,
Margaret." The blue one contains only a card of
admittance to the stalls of the Parthenon Theatre,
with the name of your newspaper written in the
corner, and on the flap of the envelope-" Production
of Mr. Peystun Sizzars's new comedy. With the
manager's compts." You understand these two mis-
sives at a glance. Margaret Randall, to whom you
believe yourself devoted, will be at the Opera in
the Morrels' box, a large roomy box on the grand
tier, possessing, when you and she are in it, all the
requisites for an agreeable flirtation. You have the
entrée of the house, and would be delighted to go;
but no! duty before pleasure, sir. You're a theatrical
critic; you must sit for three mortal hours, listening
to the mosaic of platitudes and cribs from other
authors, which Mr. Peystun Sizzars calls a new and
original comedy of the day; and when the curtain
falls, and the rest of the audience, glorying in their
release, rush away to oysters and beer, you must
trudge down to your office and write your criticism,
108
Weird Tales.
detailing the whole plot of the play; and if you
venture to offer the slightest suggestion or objection
to either author or actors, raising up for yourself a
host of enemies, who are utterly careless what scandal
they spread, or what harm they do. Once more.
It's very jolly to hate books-isn't it? and I do! I
loathe them all! I have a natural affection for
them, a love of reading, a thirst for information; but
as the pastry-cook turns away from the patties he
has made, and the cook has no stomach for the
dinner she has prepared, so is my feeling for the
volumes so constantly before me. I know them all
at a glance, recognise, and hate them, even before I
have plunged my paper-knife into their pleasant-
smelling, hot-pressed leaves. Thick, fat quartos of
travels, or scientific research; thin, green cloth-
covered, thick-papered octavos of poems — feeble
echoes of Tennyson and Browning; old conventional,
wide-margined, large-typed, three - volumes, where
the young lord wooes the peasant-girl in a humble
disguise, and where we meet with such wonderful
descriptions of fashionable society; new High Church
novel, printed in thin, clear, almost black-letter type,
with quaint little semi-ecclesiastical vignettes at the
ends of the chapters, where the consumptive curate
who always dates his letters "Eve of St. Boanerges,"
or some other martyr-converts the lovely Lady Alice
from the worldliness of balls and crinoline, makes
her attend early service, and take an interest in
country children devoid of pocket-handkerchiefs, and
is on the point of being married to her, despite of his
scruples as to priests' celibacy, when he is unfortun-
A Skeleton in the House.
109
ately choked by inadvertently swallowing a piece of his
horse-hair shirt; serials, too-green serial of English
domestic life, yellow serial of bile and cynicism, pink
military serial—all dash, and steeplechase, and Irish
dragoon, and mess dinner and practical joke; comic
books with gaudy covers, reprints from magazines
under catching titles, politics, economical pamphlets,
tracts on the coinage and the currency, heavy parlia-
mentary blue-books-I know and hate you all; for to
you I owe many heavy days and weary sleepless nights!
Once a year, though, I am allowed a vacation, a
real bona fide holiday. From the 1st of September
until the 30th I am my own master, at liberty to
go where I like, and never liable to be called upon
for one stroke of pen. During the previous month
I work double tides at my reviews, and leave a batch
of notices in type, to be used as occasion may require;
and there is so very little doing at that season in the
theatrical world, that the criticisms are intrusted to
one of the ordinary reporters of the paper, who
enunciates some strikingly original opinions on acting
and actors. Then, knapsack - girt, or carpet - bag
carrying, I make a rush far away, sometimes to the
Continent, hiding myself for days in a little Rhein-
ish village, nestling amid vine-covered hills; some-
times, by my garb and general appearance, creating
the most vivid astonishment among simple Breton
peasants, utterly unused to the presence of strangers;
sometimes freezing on the Swiss mountains, or broil-
ing on Italian plains-but always avoiding huge
cities, never leaving any address, and eschewing
even the omnipresent Galignani's Messenger, in my
IIO
Weird Tales.
anxiety to live, for one month at least, ignorant of
the movements of the world. Sometimes my in-
clination lay another way, and I would spend the
entire month on board a friend's yacht-none of your
Ryde-pier-haunting, Cowes- regatta - running floating
palaces, with her name entered on the books of the
royal squadron, and carrying a piano, a French cook,
and preserved meats in tin canisters; but a tight
little craft of fifty tons, that had originally been in
the smuggling line, and that had only accommoda-
tion for her owner, myself, and the crew. Ah me!
what pleasant days I've passed aboard the old Sea-
gull! what glorious idlesse, lying supine on her deck,
drifting lazily from Dawlish to Babbicombe, pipe in
mouth and book in hand, with occasional glances at
the ever-verdant Devonshire hills filling in the horizon
on one side, and the wide expanse of silver sea on
the other! What dipping and tossing, what strain-
ing of timbers and crackling of cordage, what cheery
yo-ho's and honest exertion, firm reliance and thor-
oughly British pluck shown by our little crew in
stormy nights in the Irish Channel, and what pleasant
grogs, and note-comparing, and interchange of re-
flection when the tempest was lulled and the danger
over! Blessed with a stomach that defies sea-sick-
ness, my sojourn in the Seagull was one round of
happiness; and as the heaviest spray dashed over
me, or the wildest wind whistled in my ears, I only
thought that I was getting rid of the gas-vapour
with which I had been immersed, and gaining health
for the next eleven months' labour.
But the September of last year found me in a fix.
A Skeleton in the House.
III
I was sick of the Continent. My holiday was not
long enough to enable me to go comfortably to
America and back, and Frank Ferrars and the old
Seagull were in Norway. I needed rest and quiet
more than ever, for there were more books published
that year than had ever been known, I believe,
and my theatrical duties had been unusually heavy.
Living in chambers through all the excessive heat of
June and July, too, had unnerved me, and I was
looking forward to my holiday with extra longing,
marred only by the feeling that I had not the leasi
idea where to spend it. Every spare minute I could
find I devoted to the consideration of this subject.
I read guide-books galore, I haunted Mr. Stanford's
shop, and studied maps of every county in the
kingdom; day after day I perused the advertisements
of excursion-tickets, so temptingly proposed by the
different railway companies; but all to no purpose,
and I had almost decided on trusting blindly to
chance, bidding a cabman drive me to any railway-
station he liked, and asking the booking-clerk to
give me a ticket for any place he might happen to
fancy, when a brilliant thought flashed across my
brain, and I audibly exclaimed, "Jack Allen!"
Of
course, what an idiot I was !-there had I been
wasting a week in speculations as to where I could
go, and utterly forgetting that Jack Allen had been
perpetually writing to me to come and visit him.
Upon further reflection, I thought Jack Allen would
suit me admirably; he was the curate of a little
fishing village down in South Devon, which he
described as the quietest and most primitive of
-
II 2
Weird Tales.
places, whither no strangers had ever penetrated,
and whence no native ever emerged, and he himself
was an old college-chum of mine, a kind-hearted,
free-spirited, sensible, jolly fellow. I wrote to Jack
by that night's post, volunteering a visit, and two
days after received a most cordial reply. He said he
should be delighted to see me, but that I had only
made up my mind just in time, as he was about to
leave his present curacy in the course of six weeks,
his friends having purchased a living for him in
Kent; he, however, wished me particularly to see
the queer little hole where he had been living for the
last six years, and he would drive over on a stated
day and meet me at the railway station, which was
twenty miles away from the scene of his clerical
labours.
Delivering myself up to the mercies of the Great
Western express at half-past nine, by three I found
myself at the Bridport station, and in the hearty
grasp of honest Jack, whose natty, dark-coloured
dog-cart and long-necked, thoroughbred mare showed
that he had not quite given up the sporting taste,
which had procured for him the name of "Horseflesh
Allen" at Oxford. Our route lay through an appar-
ently interminable series of hilly Devonshire lanes,
bordered on either side by high hedges, luxuriant
with wild flowers and blackberries, verdant banks,
whence from time to time issued weasels, stoats, and
other animals, to my unaccustomed London eyes
most fearfully and wonderfully made, and scuttled
across our path: occasionally we caught glimpses of
the sea, green and sparkling in the afternoon sun,
A Skeleton in the House.
113
and as the fresh air fanned my face, and I thought of
the coming rest and quiet, and the past worry and
labour, my spirits rose to such a pitch, that I felt
inclined to shout aloud for very happiness, and not
all Jack Allen's dismal croaking could depress me.
For undoubtedly he who sat by my side was a very
different man from Horseflesh Allen, the crack bat
of the University eleven, and the stroke-oar of the
Brasenose boat; it was not that the cut-away blue
coat with the snaffle links had subsided into an
Oxford-mixture gaberdine, it was not that the long
stock with the death's-head pin had been replaced by
an ill-washed, unstarched, white choker, that the
gray trousers were ill-cut, and the boots double-soled
and square-toed; all this one might have expected,
and an honest country parson so clad is, in my
opinion, infinitely preferable to a dandy London
curate. But Jack's once full, jolly face was wan and
sunken, there were hollow rings round his eys, and
his big white teeth stood out preternaturally promi-
nent. Thoughout our journey I never once heard his
former cheery laugh, and he kept up one long-
continued grumble at fate, which had placed him in
his present position. And, in sooth, by his own
showing he had good cause; there was no society, he
said, in his parish, and but one educated person, a
commander of the coastguard station, within ten
miles of him. The squire of the place, a baronet of
old family, had further crippled an already reduced
estate by too much Epsom and Doncaster, and was
living in retirement at Lyons; the neighbouring
farmers were decent sort of fellows, hospitable in
Η
114
Weird Tales.
their way, but men without education, and with
whom he had no thought in common; and with the
fishermen of the village, though he believed they all
worshipped him, and would shed their blood in his
defence, he could exchange nothing beyond the mere
amenities and courtesies of social life. When he first
came to the parish, he had tried to establish a cricket
club, and so far succeeded as to carry it on for three
years, when he found the members not only looked
to him to perform all the secretarial and business
duties connected with it, but thought they were doing
him a favour by playing, so he gave it up in despair;
he had tried to found a news-room, and only retired
in disgust when he found pipes and gin-and-water
introduced, and angry discussions carried on in it.
He had entered upon his calling with lively hope and
strong determination, but the want of the slightest
sympathy, the lack of any one to whom he could
confide his doubts and fears, had completely rusted
his spirit; and when he said that he looked upon the
prospect of his removal to civilised parts as the ship-
wrecked Selkirk regarded the vessel which was to
bear him from his desolate island, I scarcely thought
that his metaphor was hyperbolical.
An hour and a half's drive, and the descent of a
hill little less steep than the side of a house, brought
us suddenly into a little cluster of thatched cottages
scarcely discernible in the gathering darkness; the
roar of the neighbouring sea broke upon my ear, and
I recognised that bracing salt smell which in my
young days used to belong to Brighton, but which
appears to have "gone out" like the hackney
A Skeleton in the House.
·
115
CC
coaches and beaver hats. As near as I could judge,
Jack's house, a long low-roofed, single-storeyed
cottage, at the door of which a nondescript animal,
half-groom, half-fisherman, was waiting to take the
horse, stood in the middle of the village. We jumped
down, the street door opened with a latch, and
admitted us into a small whitewashed hall, with
rooms opening on either hand. I followed Jack, and
found myself in a large low room, with two huge
beams running across the ceiling; there were two
windows standing in deep recesses, the lower halves
of which were fitted up as lockers, and a large and
ghostly-looking closet with arched folding doors,
looking like the entrance to a theatrical chapel, and
opening inwards, like what is known to stage car-
penters as a vampire" trap. The paper on the
walls was ugly enough a bluish green, with an
unmeaning scroll-work pattern-but it was hidden in
several places by excellent prints; a well-executed
water-colour portrait of a very pretty girl hung over
the old high mantelpiece; while from floor to ceiling,
on either side the door, stretched large bookcases,
filled, as far as I on a hasty glance could judge, with
a very good selection of books, among which my eye
detected several of Jack's old college prizes, bearing
the Brazenose arms. A small but brilliant fire blazed
in the grate, on either side of which stood a large
and roomy easy-chair; a white Scotch terrier, with
pink eyes, lay dozing on the rug; the little table in
the centre of the room was laid for dinner; and when
an old woman bore in a hissing beef-steak, and Jack
simultaneously emerged from the ghostly closet with
116
Weird Tales.
a foaming jug of beer in one hand and a decanter of
brown sherry in the other, I rather felt as if I had
fallen on my feet, and established myself in pretty
comfortable quarters.
Why, Jack!" said I, when the old lady had
retired, and we were seated opposite to each other at
dinner; "Jack, you old humbug! here have you
been, during the whole time of our drive, grumbling
in the most abominable manner about your den, as
you called it, and your manner of living; and yet I
find you in an apparently very snug little house,
drinking capital sherry, and with everything jolly and
comfortable about you! You're an old humbug, Jack!"
"What did you call me?" asked Jack, a grin
beginning to spread over his face, "an old humbug?
Ho! ho! ho!" and he burst into a roar of laughter.
(C
There, I haven't had such a laugh as that for five
years! Well, I confess I did grumble, and do, a
great deal too much; but my solitary life has made
me selfish, and I've had heaps of worry besides. The
sherry is good-it's some of the governor's particular,
which he sent me at Christmas; and as to the house,
to tell truth, there's not a more comfortable one, for
its size, for ten miles round. I pay scarcely anything
for it either; for when I came here first it was
untenanted; strange noises had been heard in it, and
a rumour got abroad that it was haunted. Of course
this was all stuff; the noises were made by rats. I
wrote up to Jemmy Shaw, who sent me down our
white friend there," here he pointed to the terrier,
who was lazily blinking in the firelight,-"and I've
heard no more of them !”
((
I
A Skeleton in the House.
117
"He looks a worthy descendant of dog 'Billy,'" I
said; but, Jack, you told me all about your want of
society, but nothing about the worry. What was
that?"
"Oh!" replied Jack, with a slight blush, "that
was-well, that was-the fact is, there was a very
charming girl staying down with some people about
six miles from here—yes, that's she!" said he, seeing
me glance at the portrait over the mantelpiece,
"that's a sketch from memory, done by an artist
friend of mine who happened to be staying down
here when I first met her at an archery meeting. I
was awfully smitten, and that's the truth, and she
reciprocated, but her father, who is a frightfully rich
Manchester merchant, wouldn't hear of it; and
though we manage to correspond occasionally by
stealth, it's a wearing time for both of us. However,
I'm in great hopes that this rectory which my people
have bought for me, and which is anything but a
bad income, may soften the old gentleman's heart;
and the thought of this, with the sight of your old
face, has put me into such spirits that I won't be dull
again while I stay here!
>>
"Of course not. By the way, Jack," said I, with
a long sniff, "I don't think, by the perfume hanging
round this room, that you've-eh ?-quite given up
tobacco!"
No, old boy, the modest herb that cheers but
not inebriates is still to be found in this humble
domicile," and we loaded our pipes with Cavendish,
and stretched ourselves in the easy-chairs.
"Have you-not that I wish to press it—but have
(6
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you entirely forgotten the secret of brewing that gin-
punch for which you were once famous, Jack?”
"You shall see for yourself, Ned!" replied Jack,
ringing for the material; and thereupon, each with
a screeching hot tumbler by our elbow, we launched
into a long and rambling conversation, discussing old
reminiscences and the present position of our con-
temporaries—how Jones, of Maudlin, rode the kicking
mare over the hurdles of Bullendon; how Jack himself
was nearly drowned in rescuing little Bopps when he fell
into Iffley Lock; how Slogger, who broke the barge-
man's jaw in the Town and Gown row at the corner
of the Tarl, had become the most rigid of Puseyite
curates; and how Spooner Yolkham, whom we all
regarded as a cowardly muff, had distinguished him-
self greatly in the Crimea, and won the Victoria
Cross for subsequent services in India. This chat,
with the comments evoked by it, carried us on until
deep into the night, and I felt that I was beginning
my country life with London hours, as the clock of
the village church struck two, when I was shaking
hands with Jack at the door of my cozy little bed-
room.
The description which I had received of Maltcombe
-such was the name of the village-was anything
but an exaggerated one; indeed, it seemed impossible
to do justice to its quaint primitiveness. The houses
were all built of rough-cast lime, in which huge flint-
stones were seemingly carelessly inserted, the roofs
were all thatched, the windows all diamond-paned
and very small, and the doors all low. A brawling
little stream ran down the village, and huge stepping-
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119
stones laid across it at intervals gave access to the
cottages. Close by the coast - guard station, this
stream discharged itself over a pretty little waterfall
into the sea. Aground in the harbour lay, when
they were not employed, the taut little smacks of the
fishermen ; and the neighbouring beach, littered with
masts, oars, square-cut tanned sails, nets, lobster-
pots, etc., looked like a studio provided by nature
for Messrs. Stanfield and E. W. Cook to disport
themselves in. The coast-guard station, a white
barracky-looking building, perched on the top of the
cliff overlooking the harbour, was of comparatively
recent date, having been erected about twenty years
since, when the village passed into the control of a
new lord of the manor, and when several improve-
ments, including an addition to the cottage occupied
by Jack Allen, had been made. And in this secluded
little place, far away from the faintest rumours of
London life, undisturbed by letters or newspapers,
being talked to, and gradually finding myself talking
in a totally strange dialect, breathing pure air and
keeping early hours, did I find the calm I had longed
for. In a few days I knew every fisherman in the
place, and would occasionally go out with them on
their excursions; at other times I would idle the
whole day, lazily lolling on the beach, listening to the
roar of the surf as it dashed upon the strand, and
endeavouring, as far as lay in my power, to realize
to myself the blissful state of Tennyson's "Lotus-
eaters"; or else I would stroll over the cliffs with
the old lieutenant of the coast-guard, and listen to
his budget of stories of smuggling expeditions, ven-
I 20
Weird Tales.
;
turesome runs, and frequent hand-to-hand conflicts
for when he first came there, thirty years ago, Malt-
combe was one of the most notorious smuggling
places in the kingdom, and its name was of the very
worst odour in the nostrils of the Commissioners of
Inland Revenue.
So calmly, happily, lazily passed three weeks of
my holiday, and I was beginning to look forward
with dread to my return, and had fixed the black
Monday for my leaving Maltcombe, when an acci-
dent occurred which considerably expedited my
departure. The morning had been moist and heavy,
with dark scudding clouds to windward, the fisher-
men predicted bad weather, and their smacks lay
undisturbed on the beach; and, in verification of
their warning, about two o'clock a terrific storm, a
very hurricane, swept round the little bay, and burst
upon the town. I never heard such wind-it howled
through the village, driving the cattle in the farm-
yards to huddle together under the lea of the barns
and outhouses for shelter from its fury, it blew the
fading embers of the blacksmith's forge into a fiery
furnace seventy times heated, it lashed the sea into a
boiling cauldron, and, after rocking a huge old chim-
ney of Jack Allen's cottage, finally toppled it with
a tremendous crash upon the thatch, through which
it penetrated, and bestrewed my bedroom floor with
bricks and rubbish. Jack and I, who had been
standing at the parlour window gazing into the
deserted street, rushed up stairs at the crash, and, as
soon as we could see through the clouds of dust,
discovered a complete wreck of the bed and furniture,
A Skeleton in the House.
121
half a load of bricks spread over the floor, as though
just shot from the cart's tail, and a hole of about
three feet square in the roof. This was pleasant, for
the shades of evening were closing in, and there was
no chance of repairing the mischief that night. Jack
wanted to give up his own bedroom to me, but this I
would not hear of; so eventually we cleared away a
space in the lumber-room, which stood in the most
recently built wing of the cottage, spread a carpet on
the floor, made up a "shake-down," with a mattress
and pillows in the corner, and adjourned to dinner.
During the progress of the meal the wind subsided,
and the moon struggled out from between the clouds;
the pipes and grog had become matters of nightly
recurrence, and we were sitting over them discussing
the storm, Jack painting in vivid colours the horror
of his landlord, the stingy old lord of the manor, not
only at losing his tenant, but at having to repair the
cottage, when a hurried knock at the door roused us
from our chat, and a stalwart fisher-boy summoned
Jack to attend the bedside of his dying father, who
had been ill for some time, and who lived in one of
the little cottages on the beach. With all Jack's
joviality, I firmly believe a more conscientious
minister of religion never breathed; certainly there
never was one who shirked his duty less, and three
minutes after he received the summons, he had slipped
on his pea-jacket and oilskin hat, and thus seasonably
though unclerically clad, he sallied forth, bidding me,
if he had not returned by ten, to lock the door and
go to bed. I looked after him as he went, and found
the whole surface of the sky was changed; there was
I22
Weird Tales.
still an upper flood of moonlight, though the moon
herself was just hidden beneath a ridge of clouds
which were fast banking up from the windward ;
even while I looked, a broad blue flash of summer
lightning flickered over the face of the heavens,
issuing apparently from the heavy clouds, while
the rest of the sky was perfectly azure and star-
sprent. I gazed for a moment on the curious
phenomenon, and then returned to the parlour, where
I lit a fresh pipe, refilled my glass, took down old
Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy from the shelves,
and sat down to wait patiently for Jack's return. I
read, and smoked, and drank until after the clock had
struck eleven, then, being very tired, and feeling sure
my host would be detained all night, I put up the
door-chain and sought my new bed-room.
As I opened the door a peal of thunder crashing
over the house, and a torrent of rain dashing against
the windows, convinced me that the storm so long
hanging over us had begun in earnest. I shivered
involuntarily, and looked round the room.
It was
wretched enough. Immediately before me lay my
bed; on a broken chair stood my wash-hand basin,
which had been saved from the smash, and a jug of a
different pattern; on another chair were deposited a
looking-glass, my brushes, combs, and razors; at the
foot of the bed stood a small oyster barrel, the con-
tents of which had been evidently once a Christmas
present to Jack, from friends in town; and away in
the background was a miscellaneous collection of old
portmanteaus, large wooden boxes, hampers, fishing-
baskets, an old fire-guard, a broken towel-horse, an
A Skeleton in the House.
123
empty dog-kennel, and all these odds and ends which
go to make up the furniture of a lumber-room. A
cursory glance showed me all these things; then I
peeled off my clothes, snuffed out my candle, jumped
into bed, and in three minutes was asleep.
I cannot say how long I had slept, when I was
awoke by a peal of thunder of extra loudness, that
seemed to burst immediately over the house. It was
followed by a vivid flash of lightning, and by another
thunder-clap almost as loud as the first. Thoroughly
aroused, I raised myself in bed, and leaning on my
elbow, endeavoured to peer into the darkness. I
had been dreaming of being at the theatre; the play
was the well-known sketch of "King Charles the
Second," where the king, disguised as a sailor, is
mixed up in a mad frolic at a river-side tavern, and is
nearly given in charge by honest Captain Copp, the
landlord, because the watch which he offers in dis-·
charge of his reckoning bears the royal cypher. An
excellent engraving of the scene, after a picture by
Clint, or some other well-known theatrical artist,
with handsome, elegant Charles Kemble as the king,
and Faucit as the sturdy captain, hangs in my cham-
bers; but in my dream Jack Allen played the merry
monarch, while in Captain Copp I recognised the
face of an old school-fellow, who had died in my
arms years ago. So dazed was I by this muddle of
of real personages and fictitious events, that it was
some few minutes before I could exactly recollect
where I was; then stretching forward, I just managed
to discern the outlines of some of the large boxes
looming dimly in the dark, and was about to stretch
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myself out again to sleep, when I thought I heard a
low long whine. I held my breath and listened
intently the sound was repeated again and again;
the third repetition relieved my mind, which was
beginning to wander unpleasantly towards banshees,
Irish keenings for the dead, and other disagreeable
subjects, as I reflected that in all probability Jack's
rat-hunting terrier had followed me upstairs, and
slipped unseen into the room. I again peered into
the darkness, but could distinguish nothing; then I
whistled softly, and called him by his name, and
presently I heard a pattering noise, and the dog
bounded upon the bed. I stretched out my hand to
pat him, and, to my great astonishment, I found him
quivering in every limb, his tail and ears were erect,
and all the hair on his body bristling with terror. I
spoke to him and caressed him, but without the
slightest effect. The shivering continued at broken
intervals, and, after curling himself for an instant, he
would suddenly jump to his feet, and turning towards
the lumber at the other end of the room, utter a long
drawn-out frightened howl. At first I thought his
terror had been occasioned by the thunder, but the
storm had died away, and nothing but distant rumb-
lings were now faintly audible. Whatever might
have been the cause of his fright, the dog had effectu-
ally succeeded in breaking my rest, and driving
away every chance of sleep. Perhaps I had smoked
too much, or taken too much punch-I was hot and
restless, turned wearily from side to side on my
pillow, and found myself staring blankly at the wall,
destined apparently to lie broad awake until the
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125
morning. The hollow moaning of the sea as it broke
upon the beach, and the monotonous ticking of the
staircase clock, were the only sounds that fell upon
my ear; and of these I vainly tried to form a lullaby.
I closed my eyes tightly, and endeavoured to distract
my thoughts, but the clock-ticking soon formed itself
into a tune to which I fitted ridiculous words, and the
combination haunted my brain, and kept hammering
itself through my head without a moment's cessation.
I exhausted every possible recourse which the ex-
perience of ages has handed down as the means of
sleep-inducement, but without success. Talk about
counting—I made a very calculating-boy of myself in
numerical addition? I endeavoured to realize to
myself the supposed infallible soporific of sheep jump-
ing over a gate, and pictured countless flocks engaged
in saltatory gymnastics, without the slightest effect.
Still the clock rung out its unmeaning chorus-still
the moaning of the sea formed a kind of running bass
accompaniment-still the large boxes, piled one upon
the other, loomed like sarcophagi in the darkness---
and still was I broad awake! At last, after a lapse,
I suppose, of rather more than an hour, I fell into a
dreamy train of thought—a train which bore me to
the land of Nod-and I was just settling down into a
state of happy unconsciousness, when I was awoke
by a sound from the dog; this time not a howl, but
a short, sharp bark of defiance. I opened my eyes,
and by the moonlight then streaming into the room,
I saw him standing on the bed and barking furiously.
I raised myself on my arm, and glancing towards the
other end of the room, my eyes fell upon a sight, the
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Weird Tales.
mere recollection of which causes me to shrink with
horror at this moment. Seated on the oyster barrel,
which I had previously noticed, and directly opposite
to me, was a human figure: the dress-the large
heavy sailor's jacket with the hanging sleeves, the
blue shirt with the open collar, the broad leather belt
fastened with a buckle round the waist, the wide
baggy breeches, the red stockings, and the buckle-
bearing shoes-was that of the Captain Copp of the
theatrical painting, but how different the expression
of his face! Black, deep-set, sunken eyes, hollow
cheeks of a deadly pallor, with protruding bones, set
lips, clinched teeth, long black hair, and short, bristly
beard, both matted and dank with the death-sweat on
him one hand, thrown across his breast, was hidden
in his shirt, the other hung listlessly by his side.
Rigid, erect, with eyes starting from my head, I sat
gazing for a minute in mute horror at the apparition,
then I shook myself, and hastily passed my hands
across my face, to assure myself that I was no longer
dreaming. No! there sat the figure as before, mute
and motionless, its black eyes, made doubly brilliant
by the marble whiteness of the face, fixed with a
calm, grave, melancholy glance upon me.
The dog
had ceased barking, and lay couched in abject fear
upon the bed, the only sounds audible were the beat-
ing of my own heart, the roaring of the sea, and the
ticking of the clock, but from that the tune had
gone. A cold, damp sweat came over my limbs, my
mouth grew parched, my hands were knitted in the
bedclothes, but still my eyes never moved from the
terrible figure. It was no dream, no trickery of the
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127
eyesight, no phantom of a diseased imagination;
reality was in its fixed stare-in its hollow cheeks-in
its quaintly-cut clothes; no spectral halo such as one
reads of in stories of apparitions surrounded it; it
looked as though it had stepped from some old
picture, so real, so tangible did it appear! After a
time, so fascinated were my eyes by the object, that I
did not attempt to remove them. I gradually grew
more familiar with the sight, and found myself
examining it in detail-noticing the horny roughness
of the hand, the square-turned joints and general
stalwart build of the figure. A cloud floating across
the moon threw the room into shadow for a moment,
and when I again looked for the apparition, to my
horror I found it had risen, and was standing erect.
Gradually the hand that had been buried in its bosom
was withdrawn, then the shirt was slowly thrust back,
and, while the eyes again turned mournfully towards
me, the hand pointed to the left breast, in the region
just above the heart. Glancing in the direction indi-
cated, I saw upon the flesh a broad, circular, livid
mark, as of an angry burn or scald, but far more deep
and intense in hue-such a spot as, one reads in old
Defoe, first proclaimed those striken in our Great
Plague. Such a spot as now, once seen, interposes a
barrier between nation and nation, and sends the
dreaded yellow flag flying from the roof of the
lazaretto.
As I gazed in horror, the figure motioned with its
hand towards the wall behind it, and uttered a melan-
choly cry; again and again motion and sound were
repeated; then, almost involuntarily, I found myself
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Weird Tales.
rising in obedience to its beckon. As I gained my
feet, the apparition became dimmer and retreated,
though the invitation to follow it was more energetic-
ally repeated. My limbs trembled so beneath me
that I could scarcely move; nevertheless I made two
tottering steps forward, then, catching my feet in the
end of a coil of rope which hung from an old hook in
the wall, and projected on to the floor, I stumbled,
striking my head against the corner of the chair as I
fell, and lay prostrate and senseless.
When I came to myself, I found it was broad day-
light, and, looking up, perceived Jack Allen and his
old housekeeper standing over me. I felt numbed
and chill, my head throbbed, and the hair close round
my right temple felt stiff and thick; on touching it with
my hand, I found it clotted with blood. On seeing
me open my eyes, Jack knelt down and took me by
the hand. "He'll do now, Mrs. Parker," said he to
the old woman, "go down and make breakfast; a
cup of strong tea will complete his cure. Why, Ned,
my boy," he added to me, when the old woman had
left the room- "why, Ned, what's been the matter
with you? I trust that, as your friend Cruikshank
would say, the Demon of Intemperance has not
flapped his wings over this clerical abode; but cer-
tainly I found the spirit-bottle empty down-stairs, and
you extended on the floor in a state of unconscious-
ness! What was it, old fellow?"
—
"Not quite what you suppose, Jack," I replied,
with a feeble smile; "but you must help me to get
up, and give me some stimulant in my tea, for I'm
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129
still dizzy and weak from the effects of the blow on
my temple, and then I'll tell you all about it.
>>
Though much refreshed by my breakfast, and
restored to something like my usual good condition,
it was some little time before I could muster sufficient
courage to comply with Jack's oft-repeated request
that I would tell him of my adventure, but at last I
began. He sat with a smile of incredulity upon his
face, which gradually increased as I proceeded, until
I mentioned the plague-spot upon the figure's breast,
when, with a look of horror, he sprung to his feet,
and exclaimed, "Great Powers! Holmyard's story!
and this, then, is the house!
""
I had been considerably nettled at his grinning,
and now, like an inconsiderate ass, thought I would
have my share of the joke.
"Hallo, Jack, my boy!" I said; "what's the
matter with you? Were you drinking all night in
the fisherman's cottage; or-"
،، Hush, hush! for Heaven's sake, hush! It was
thoughtless of me to laugh at you, but the whole
thing seemed so absurd; and yet—yet what a marvel-
lous combination of circumstances! Last night, as
you know, I was fetched away to the bedside of a sick
person. This man Holmyard has always been re-
garded as the worst character in the village; in the
old days he was, I believe, a desperate smuggler, and
throughout his life he has been what the Scotch call
a 'ne'er-do-weel.' He never attended the church,
never even saluted me when he met me; and con-
sequently I was greatly astonished when I received
his summons. I found him stretched on his bed,
I
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very much pulled down by a severe attack of
rheumatic fever, and apparently rapidly sinking. His
wife-a thin, starved, miserable-looking woman—
was in attendance on him when I arrived; but when
he saw me he sent her away, and desired that we
might be left quite alone together. When she had
gone, and I had at his request locked the door, he told
me that he believed his death to be close at hand,
and that he wished, while he yet possessed sufficient
strength, to relieve his mind of a secret which had
burdened it for many years. At this moment the
storm, which had been gathering, broke in full force
over the cottage. The room was barely lighted by a
miserable dip candle, whose feeble rays fell upon the
gaunt, attenuated form of the dying man, as he raised
himself on his elbow to bring his mouth on a level
with my ear; and the solemnity of the scene was
enhanced by the crash of the thunder and the hoarse
murmur of the sea. After the lapse of a few moments,
Holmyard told me that about twenty years ago great
distress was experienced by the Maltcombe fishermen.
A constant succession of storms of the most violent
character prevented them going to sea for more than
a fortnight; they were consequently unable to earn
any money, and matters were getting desperate, when
the new lord of the manor commenced building those
few new cottages, and employed some of the fisher-
men in excavating the foundations. Among these
men was Holmyard, whose great strength and power
of endurance rendered him a valuable acquisition in
such kind of labour. His confession I will give in
his own words :-'Late one winter evening,' said he,
A Skeleton in the House.
131
B
'I and two others, Tom Wright and Daniel Hughes,
was thinking about finishing work for the day (indeed,
the others were putting on their jackets, and I was
giving a few finishing blows) when my pick struck
upon something hard, white, and shining. At first
I thought it was a round stone, but, on stooping down
and clearing away the clay with my hand, I found a
large bone. I called to the two others, and they
jumped down into the hole, and we began to dig
away all round the place. After a little time we
turned up more bones fastened together, until at last
there was a complete skeleton-skull, arms, legs, and
all lying uncovered at our feet. Well, we thought
nothing of this, for though in our time such things
don't often occur, I've heard my father tell that when
he was a boy they was constantly digging up bones and
skeletons of people who had died in the great plague
hundreds of years ago, which was dreadful down here,
so much that the dead bodies wasn't regularly buried,
but just thrown into the ditch and the earth pulled
down upon 'em-we thought nothing of this, and we
was going to heap the clay over the skeleton again,
when Daniel Hughes looks down and says,
"What's
that shinin' round his neck?" I stooped and found
a thin gold chain, with the two ends hanging down
and the last links broken away. The others saw it
too, and Hughes says, "There's been something tied
on here," he says, "and we've knocked it off in
diggin' him up! Let's look for it!" So down we
went on our hands and knees, all three of us, and
in about a quarter of an hour Tom Wright sings out
that he'd found something. It was a cross, about as
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(6
long as your hand, made of gold, with a large green
stone stuck in the front of it, and figures and writing
on the back. We each took it in our hands and
looked at it: it was very heavy, and must have been
worth a deal of money. Daniel Hughes and I looked
at each other. I've often thought since, that the
same thing must have flashed into our heads at that
moment. "What's to be done with this?" says I.
Better take it to Mr. Benson's, the parson," says
Tom Wright, "he'll tell us what to do."
"Parson
be hanged!" screams Hughes, in a rage; we don't
want a parson to tell us what to do with something
we've found! We haven't robbed nobody, have we?
We'll go snacks in this lot. We'll take it over to old
Lazarus at Bridport to-morrow, and whatever he gives
we'll share between us. Do you agree, both of you?"
I assented at once, and so did Tom Wright, after a
short struggle with his conscience (he were a faint-
hearted chicken, and always did wrong in the end),
and then came the question what to do with the
skeleton. I said, "Cover him up where he lays";
but Hughes wouldn't have this; he might be un-
earthed again, he said; the bit of chain which we
couldn't get off his neck might lead to questions being
asked, and we must put him somewhere else. Wright
wanted to throw it over the cliff into the sea, but then
the tide would have left it bare on the beach at the
next ebb, and that wouldn't do. At last, just as we
were stuck blank, not knowing which way to turn,
Daniel Hughes bursts into a laugh, and he says,
I
know what we'll do with old bones," he says; "he's
served us a good turn, and we'll do the same by him!
A Skeleton in the House.
133
We'll put him in a place where he shall have a chance
of company, and hear the talk, and have the glow of
the fire pass over him now and then. We'll build
him up in the new wall they're putting to old Parkes's
house!" At first we thought he was joking, and
laughed at the plan; but Hughes stuck to it, and
would hear of nothing else. 'It was a safe place,"
he said; 66
we could slip the skeleton in between the
lath casings of the wall, and fill it round with lime
and rough-cast. No one would ever think of looking
for it there, and perhaps," Hughes added with a
laugh, "perhaps he'll walk some day, and frighten
old Parkes into giving money to the poor, or doing
some good action, which he'll never do without!'
So, half as much for the fun as anything else, we
agreed. We laid the skeleton down in the trench,
and threw some earth lightly over it, then at ten
o'clock that night we came, the three of us.
As we
picked it up, Hughes took the skull, I the ribs, and
Tom Wright laid hold of the feet; but at the first
move the skeleton came in pieces, and it so startled
Tom Wright, that he said: "I don't half like
the job," he says; "better leave him where he
is, and have done with it." But Hughes says:
“Nonsense, you cur! you're unkind to the gentle-
man, when I've proposed such a nice place for
him! He's stiff in the joints," he says, “and
wants iling; but as we've got no ile, we must do
something else to keep him together and make him
comfortable!" Then he brings some string out of
his pocket, such as was used for mending nets, and
we ties the bones together, as near as we could in the
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right place, and carried the skeleton, the bones
rattling as we went along, up to Parkes's house.
""You know how they build the walls in this part
of the country, sir; first, two kinds of ribs of deal-
laths, between which they fill up with lime and
rough-cast, and cover the outside with mortar, and
flint stones stuck in here and there. We found that
the builder had got on much faster than Hughes
thought. The walls were finished, and they'd have
put the roof on next day; but the lime between the
woodwork was wet and soft, and Tom Wright had
brought his spade, so we soon cleared space enough
to push the skeleton in, and then we stood him, bolt
upright, and covered him over with the lime which
we'd taken out. I dunnow; I felt qualmish when I
see 'un theer, with its great round eye-sockets without
any eyes, staring, as it were, on us; but Daniel
Hughes he laughed at me, and hitting the skull with
the spade, "Stop there," he says; stop there, old
feller, until you see old miser Parkes, and then come
out and frighten him into giving some poor man a
guinea!"
CC
"The next day we three took the gold cross over
to old Lazarus, at Bridport (he'd often employed us
in the smuggling times, and never asked any ques-
tions when he could see his way to a bargain), and he
looked at it, and said it was near a couple of hundred
years old, and gave us I forget what for it, but most
likely not half its worth. In a few days after the new
building at Parkes's was roofed in; and when I'd
spent my share of Lazarus's money, I'd almost forgot
the business. But within a month of that time the
A Skeleton in the House.
135
skeleton began to haunt me, and he does now to this
very hour.
Wherever I be, on land or at sea, in
bright moonlight nights, or as we're scudding before
the storm, I see him standing pointing reproachfully
at me! I'm an ignorant man, parson.
I've been a
wicked one, I know, and my time's come; but I
can't go out of the world peacefully while I think
that that dead body, which should be quietly lying in
the churchyard, is built up in the wall of that house;
and I've sent for you to make you promise you'll
have inquiry made, and see right done.'
Here Jack paused, and looked round at me.
"And you actually think that this is the house that
Holmyard spoke of?" I asked.
"The
"I have not a doubt of it!" Jack replied.
house belongs to the lord of the manor, and the pre-
decessor and uncle of my present landlord was named
Parkes. Of course your ghost must have been simply
a dream, but the combination of circumstances is
curious; and, as I solemnly promised that wretched
man, we'll have the wall broken down this morning,
and see whether the skeleton really is there."
"Speak for yourself, Jack!" said I; “dream or
no dream, the event of last night has had such an
effect on me, that I run from this place to-day, and if
you won't take me over in your dog-cart to the station,
I must-❞
Going!" interrupted Jack; why, you're not
due in town for three days, and—”
"Due or not," I said, "I go this day! It may
appear ungrateful, inconsistent, cowardly, if you like,
but I am utterly unhinged, and I would not remain
(C
((
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another night in this house for any sum that could be
offered me."
Seeing I was determined, Jack, though evidently
annoyed, attempted no further resistance, and in the
afternoon drove me over to Bridport, where I slept,
returning to town the next morning. I thought
Jack's farewell was of the coolest; and as morning
after morning passed by, and brought no letter from
him, I began to fear that he was seriously offended
with me. Two days ago I received a letter, dated
from his new rectory in Kent, written in the highest
spirits; his father's negotiations with the "stern
parent" of the pretty young lady having succeeded,
and his marriage day being fixed. His joy and hap-
piness occupied all the letter. In his postscript he
said
"By the way, old fellow, do you recollect that
ridiculous sleep-walking dream of yours, which so
excited you, and sent you away from Maltcombe
before your time? The most curious part of the story
you have yet to learn. I had the wall broken down,
as I promised that poor Holmyard, and there we
found the skeleton placed in ribs of laths, exactly as
he had described! Wasn't it odd? You must have
a faculty for dreaming! Why don't you dream that
you're rich, and going to be married to as pretty a
girl as my Nelly?"
Every man is entitled to his own opinion, and I've
no doubt that most people will agree with Jack Allen
that I was dreaming: nothing in the world, however,
will convince me that I have not seen a real ghost!
A NIGHT WITH A MADMAN.*
It was just such a night as a sailor loves-a night
of comparative peace, a soft breeze, an easy sea,
and the land an indefinite number of miles on the
weather-bow. Our vessel was as tidy a little craft
as any in the royal navy, and that is no small boast
either. Her name was the May Bee, and may be
she wasn't a saucy one when we fought, we always
won; and I think, too, had we run away, we should
have won the race also; at any rate, in the chase, the
slaver never had the ghost of a chance that we drew
a bee-line upon. Our cruising ground was the Indian
Ocean, its length and breadth, from the cold waves
of the far south, to Aden in the sunny north.
Well, on the present occasion, we were rather
short of hands, and of heads too, if officers may be
regarded as such; for three of our boats were away
on particular service; and, as our engineer was on
the sick-list, the fires were out, sail set, and an
unusual quiet reigned throughout the ship. It was
past eleven o'clock, and our commander had turned
in. I could hear him snoring though the bulk-head,
for his cabin was right abaft our little ward-room,
although in no way connected therewith. My cabin
was the only one of those off the ward-room at
present occupied, the only other officer on board-
* Reprinted by kind permission of the proprietors of
Chambers's Journal.
1
137
138
Weird Tales.
saving the engineer-being the assistant-paymaster,
whose cabin was outside in the steerage. Into the
further end of the steerage led the companion-ladder,
so that, in our passage to and from the ward-room to
the deck, we had to cross it. I was standing in my
little box-like sanctum, preparing to go to bed, when
the noise of approaching footsteps in the steerage
attracted my attention. Imagining that some one
was sick, I hastily throw on my coat, and emerged
again into the ward-room, just as Mr. Travers, our
assistant-paymaster, entered by the other door. He
held right in front of him, so as to be hidden from any
one behind, a drawn cutlass, which, from signs and
motions he made, I understood he meant me to take
charge of and conceal. I quickly did so behind
my cabin curtain, and had scarcely accomplished the
task, when Mr. Wheeler, the engineer, stood in
the doorway; and the assistant-paymaster, after pre-
tending to borrow a candle, bade me good night, and
retired.
Now, as I said before, Mr. Wheeler was on the
sick-list, and had been so for weeks. His disease
was one of the worst forms of alcoholic mania; in
other words, a bad case of delirium tremens. From
one attack he had only recently recovered, being
snatched from the very jaws of death. His delusions
had been many; but principally he had the idea that
a conspiracy was afoot on board, having for its
object the harassing of him, Mr. Wheeler, in every
way, and the final abduction of his body, the binding
of the same, hands and feet, and the delivering of it
to the deep, to afford food to the sharks. He used to
A Night with a Madman.
139
sit for hours in his little mess-room, armed with a
knife, yet trembling like a new-born fawn at the
slightest noise. Every one, saving myself, he had
deemed a foe. The drops of water leaking in through
the scupper-holes were water dashed upon him by the
maliciousness of the boys; the curtain waving gently
to and fro with the ship's motion, was stirred by the
hand of a hidden assassin. The captain himself, he
had averred, was preparing the hammock in which
his living body was to be sewed before he was thrown
overboard. Then rows of pale beings had arranged
themselves on the opposite side of his room, pointing
and gibbering at him, and spouting blood on him;
the port opened, and slimy serpents glided in and hid
themselves in the apartment or about his dress; his
legs would suddenly be clasped as in a vice, and
looking down, behold, an alligator, with a strange,
strange face, crouched beneath the table, embracing
him in its horrid arms, blowing its fetid breath in his
face, and using fearful threats of death and judgment !
Repeated blows with the knife at length dispelled this
demon; and then myriads of horrible insects came
trooping up over the table, and covered the bulk-
heads all round; and "See !" he had cried to me,
"didn't I see them on deck, springing up like jets of
water, and flowing away in streams, those white thick
worms!" and now they were on him, gnawing his
flesh, eating his vitals.
"Corruption! corruption ! moribund! mori-
bund!" he shouted, and fell down in one of the worst
sort of fits I ever had the pain to witness. From this
fit he had glided imperceptibly into a state of leth-
Coded dat
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Weird Tales.
argy, from which, after many weary days and nights
of watching, I had seen him awake, with pale face
and glittering eye, just as he now stood in the ward-
room before me.
"What!" said I—" not in bed yet, old fellow!”
"Hush!" he whispered; and by the very look
and gesture, I saw plainly that the madness was on
him again. "Hush!" and as he spoke he pointed
to the steerage: "they are there, and—ugh !--its
all so dark dark and dreary. I could not lie
in my berth forward- they would kill me; and
Travers stole my cutlass, that I might not defend
myself."
Come," said I, "my good fellow, never mind
them. I'll protect you, and fight for you, if need be,
to the last. Come forward with me, and turn in to
your cot."
""
Nay, nay," he whispered impetuously, at the
same time holding me back; "not now-not now,
doctor; wait till the blessed sun rises. In the dark
I could not wrestle with them, and it will be so very
long till morning. Will it burn ?" he added, pointing
to the lamp in my cabin.
I nodded assurance; and then he pleaded with
such eloquence to be allowed to remain near the light,
and to sleep before my cabin door, that I at last con-
sented, and spreading a mat and pillow for him, bade
him lie down. He did so, and before morning I
had every reason to repent of my kindness. He then
requested me to place beside him a loaded revolver,
or at least a bayonet or cutlass, which, having no
ambition for a madman to mount guard on me,
A Night with a Madman.
141
I peremptorily refused. An hour slipped away,
during which time he lay quite peacefully on the mat,
sometimes closing his eyes, but only to immediately
reopen them, and gaze furtively and fearfully away
out into the darkness of the steerage, as if moment-
arily expecting the attack of an unseen foe.
All was by this time quiet, both fore and aft, in
the ship, for it must have been long past midnight.
The tramp, tramp of the quarter-master overhead
had stopped; even the cockroaches, after a supper
of corks, biscuit, port wine, and blacking, had gone
to roost, and the commander had ceased to snore,
from which I augured he had fallen into his second
and deepest sleep. So there wasn't a sound to be
heard, except the creaking of the rudder hinges, or
the splash of the wavelets as they rippled past my
cabin a sound that had so often wooed me to
sweetest, dreamless slumber, and seemed even now
inviting me to rest. Thinking it my duty to remain
on watch, however, I had not turned in, but sat on a
chair beside my little cot, writing letters home. Pre-
sently, "Doctor," said my patient.
"I thought you had been asleep," I answered.
"What can I do for you?"
-
"Give me a Prayer-book, there's a good fellow,"
he said, "and I won't disturb you again."
"I would, Wheeler, if I had one,” replied I, "but
you know I've the misfortune to have been born
Scotch and Presbyterian; but here is a Bible"; and
I handed him the book of books.
He took it, and thanked me, and I went on with
my writing. I was not so much preoccupied, how-
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ever, as not to perceive that he thrice opened the
book, read very attentively, and between each time
he prayed-silently, indeed, but so earnestly that the
drops of perspiration stood in beads on his pale brow.
This brow of his, too, was a very noble one; indeed,
he was, when well, not only a manly, good-hearted
fellow, but a wise and well-educated gentleman.
Thinking that his present frame of mind augured
nothing but good, and that there could not possibly
be any danger to himself or me-moreover, feeling
tired, I closed my portfolio, and without undressing,
threw myself on my bed, with the intention of snatch-
ing a few hours' repose, if not sleep. I should here
mention that I had, only the day previous, purchased
from the ship's stores a large clasp-knife, such as
sailors usually carry. This knife I had left lying on
my little table among the books and other articles.
I could not have been long in bed till I fell asleep,
the last thing I remember being groans proceeding
from the mat in front of my door. I am a very light
sleeper, and used to have continual rows with my
servant for shaking me in the mornings, telling him
that all he had to do in order to waken me was to
enter my cabin, and wink once or twice.
How long
I slept I cannot say; I believe it must have been
fully an hour; but when I did at last open my eyes,
I never felt more wide-awake in all my life. I had
not, so far as I knew, been dreaming, yet I awoke
with a strange and indescribable sensation of impend-
ing danger. It was as though a cold, cold shadow
had fallen upon or passed over my brain and senses.
By the side of my pillow stood Mr. Wheeler, and my
A Night with a Madman.
143
eyes opened directly on his. I shall never forget the
expression on his face; it was not so much that it
was dark and terrible-it was the furtive listening
expression on it that seemed so strange, almost like a
cat about to seize its prey. In his hand, half-raised,
he held my own clasp-knife-open !
Our eyes met, and for two seconds, not more, I
looked at him, and yet in those two seconds the devil
in him was conquered. I have often had reason to
be thankful that my wits did not desert me in time
of danger, and this time my presence of mind saved
me from an ugly death. Had I ventured to spring
up with the intention of saving myself, he was a
strong man, and undoubtedly would soon have over-
powered me. But instead of this, I merely said, in
as cool and peevish a voice as I could command:
"Pshaw! Wheeler, man, don't waken a fellow.
You'll get the volume in the little book-case.-Good-
night; I've to rise early"; and I closed my eyes,
not, however, before I had observed the deadly
weapon quickly concealed behind his back, and the
foolish simpering smile of the dipsomaniac succeed
the stern determined glance of the would-be assassin.
"He! he!" laughed the madman; "I thought—
he! he! Oh, here is the book.-Good-night; sound
sleep."
"Yes," thought I,
thought I, "my boy,
my boy, and a nice sound
sleep you were preparing for me." A feeling of anger
at that moment took possession of me, and I felt I
almost hated my unfortunate patient.
I had now very little inclination for sleep; and
after remaining quiet for a few moments, I began to
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simulate restlessness; then rubbing my eyes, I sat up,
yawned, and said: "Hang it, old Wheels, couldn't
you have got the book yourself, without rousing me?
I can't sleep again now; however, I may as well
finish those letters." With these remarks, I swung
myself to the deck, and reseated myself to write.
For some time I looked everywhere, but in vain, for
the large clasp-knife with which I was to have been
made so intimately acquainted. At last I perceived
a little bit of its polished blade peeping out from
beneath the mat on which Mr. Wheeler had once
more thrown himself. "So, then," thought I, “I
am a prisoner, and my jailer a madman. Pleasant
consideration!" There was little chance of any one
coming to my aid. My only hope was, that one of
the men might be taken ill-apoplexy, colic, or
cholera-morbus, I did not mind what, provided I
should be sent for. I was very much in the position.
of the doctor in the old caricature, praying Heaven
to send a pestilence among the people, "that thy
servant may not die of want." I knew, too, that if
I roused his anger or suspicion, by calling for assist-
ance or trying to escape, I should be but as a child
in his hands, and he would assuredly kill me. "If,"
I thought, "I could only gain possession of that
awful knife"; which I now firmly believed I had
been fated to buy for my own execution. How soon,
too, might he not, with the sudden impulse common
to such cases, spring up, and attack me! It was
quite evident now that his Bible-reading and earnest
prayers had been meant only as preparation for death.
There was thus "a method in his madness."
A Night with a Madman.
145
All the strategy I could summon was now directed
to the gaining possession of the knife. First, I
asked him to accompany me to the steerage, where
the dispensary was, for some medicine I told him I
wanted.
He simply sneered, as much as to say: "Do you
think me so excessively green?"
"You would be all the better of an opiate, any-
how," I said. For a moment he seemed to approve
of the plan.
"Will you let me help myself to the morphia,
then ?" he asked; adding, to prevent my suspicions,
'you give so large a dose, you know."
(C
"Certainly," I said, my hopes rising rapidly; “you
shall help yourself."
He seemed to consider a moment, then concluded
he would not budge; and my hopes fell again to
zero, all the more quickly that for a few minutes
after this he was very restless, and his hand frequently
disappeared below the mat, where I knew he was
fumbling with the knife. At length, a happy thought
crossed me, and acting thereon, I got up, laid by my
papers, and pretended to begin to undress.
"Oh, botheration,” said I, winding up my watch;
"it has stopped at one o'clock: just give a peep
there, Wheeler, and see what time it is.
Now, in order to do this, he had to get up and
stand on a locker, close by, as the clock was fastened
to a beam overhead, and on a level with the upper
deck. The bait took. With one frightened look at
the darkened ward-room around him, he mounted;
and, as quickly as I could, I bent down and clutched
K
1
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Weird Tales.
the knife. Not a moment too soon, however, for he
was down from his perch in a twinkling, and at me
like a catamountain. With a fearful imprecation, he
sprang upon and seized me by the two arms; he
then dashed me backwards into my cabin, and down
against the chest of drawers. All the nervous excita-
bility of madness aided his powerful arms, and I felt
as if in a vice.
"Tuts!" cried I, forcing a laugh, though a deadly
terror was at my heart-" tuts! old Wheels; you
hurt me, man; and I want the whittle just half a
minute." And I looked him straight in the face as
I spoke.
And once again the devilish look left his eyes, the
ferocity died away, and his face resumed the old
idiotic grin. Then he laughingly released me, saying,
as he retired to his mat: "You were too much for
old Wheels, that time, Scottie."
"And what," asked I boldly, "did you want with
the knife?"
Doctor," he replied seriously, "I must retire.”
"Retire! What do you mean?” I inquired.
"Long hath the night of sorrow reigned," said the
poor man; "the dawn shall bring me rest; and
poor Wheeler will die, or the captain will kill him,
roll him up in a hammock, and send him down, down
among slimy, crawling things and terrible reptiles;
and they're all in the plot, and all hate me-all--
all!"
<<
Just then four bells rang out sharp and clearly in
the night-air; and for a short time I almost hoped
some one might enter the ward-room, and relieve me
A Night with a Madman.
147
from my trying situation. Some footsteps on the
quarter-deck I did hear-it was but the relief of the
man at the wheel; they soon ceased, and all was
silent as before. A short time afterwards, the lamp
in my cabin began to burn more dimly, and give
other indications of an early exit. I hardly knew
whether to be pleased or otherwise at this; a struggle
with my maniac patient I felt sure I must have, and
darkness I knew would hasten that event, and bring
on the dénouement.
"Wheeler," I said, "do you not intend to sleep
to-night?"
“Ay," said he solemnly, and starting at my voice
like an old lady at a pistol-shot, "I will sleep; and
-and you too shall sleep."
This was certainly not very soothing to my nerves.
'Well," I continued, "the light is going out, so
you must go to the dispensary and fetch a candle."
"What!" cried he in a fierce whisper; "out into
the dark steerage, to be torn limb from limb, and
my body scattered about the ship by devils. No,
no, no!"
The lamp began to flicker.
"See!" said I, directing his attention to it, "it is
waning away fast, and you know well enough how
glad they will be to catch you in the dark."
"Where does the light go to when it goes out?"
he asked as if at himself.
"You'll soon know,” replied I.
He started, looked at the lamp, then in my face,
and then fearfully around him at the gathering gloom.
"Do not let it out," he cried. "For God's sake,
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Weird Tales.
Doctor, keep it in.
a candle."
I was only too glad to obey. We had not pro-
ceeded three steps from my cabin-door, when I
attempted to get in advance, in order to make a rush
for the companion-ladder. It was a most untimely
move. No sooner did he espy my intentions, than
all the madman was stirred within him.
Come with me quick, and get
"Ha!" he exclaimed, “wretch ! would you leave
me to face my fate alone?"
Then seizing me by the breast, he hurled me back-
wards, and next moment a crashing blow felled me
to the deck. He had caught up a double-flint
tumbler that stood on the table, and--not thrown it
at—but smashed it on my brow. Although blinded
and almost choked with blood, still, from this very
bleeding, perhaps, I was not rendered insensible;
indeed, I was fully conscious. Knowing now for
certain that he intended to make an end of me, and
most likely afterwards of himself, instead of trying to
get up, I did as I had seen the cockroaches do-
feigned death, and lay all of a heap just as I had
fallen. My grateful patient paused for a moment,
and looked down at his work; then stooping towards
me, he passed both hands over my face, so as to
bathe them in blood, and then held them up to the
light.
#
"Good," he muttered. "Red blood-not blue;
but I'll mak siccar, and then, Doctor, I'll follow
you."
He then stepped over me, with a light laugh, and
re-entered my cabin-for the knife, I knew.
A Night with a Madman.
149
Now was my chance, if ever. His back was
scarcely turned, when I bounded to my feet, and
made for the steerage. It was a short but exciting
race for life. Two seconds took me to the steerage-
door, two more to the foot of the companion-ladder.
I sprang up, but had succeeded in placing only a few
steps behind me, when I slipped, and fell to the
bottom, while at the same time I heard an oath, and
the cutlass flew past, and stuck in the bulk-head,
not a yard above me. The madman, seeing I was
escaping, had thrown it; and the fall had saved me.
I drew out the cutlass, and hurried on deck. Seeing
that the maniac had now given up the pursuit, I
paused for a minute to take breath, and bind a
handkerchief around my head. It was a very lovely
night; not a cloud in all the dark sky, in which the
stars-so differently arranged from those in the far
north-were shining more brightly, I think, than I
ever yet had seen them.
1..
But I had little inclination to gaze long at the
gorgeous scene; my thoughts were all on the fearful
danger I had just escaped; and, whether from excite-
ment or loss of blood, I could not tell, but I felt as
if about to faint. After leaning against the bulwark
for a short time, the cool night-air revived me, and
I made haste to go to the captain's cabin, to make
my report, and get assistance. This report was never
made, for just as I was about to descend, a dark
figure glided stealthily past, loomed for one moment
on the bulwark between me and the starlight, then
disappeared, and the plash alongside told me that
the unhappy engineer had thrown himself into the sea.
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Weird Tales.
'Man overboard!" I shouted, and the cry was
re-echoed, fore and aft, from every part of the vessel.
I rushed past the man at the wheel to where, in the
stern of the ship, two little brass knobs, like door-
bell handles, told the position of the life-buoy. One
was pulled, and a gleam of light sprang up; then the
other, and the blazing beacon dropped sullenly into
the sea.
The captain was almost immediately on
deck, and the ship was quickly being put about.
"Man the quarter-boats, and lower away with a
will. It is earnest, my lads," he added: "it is poor
Wheeler;" for the men were used to be sent away
after the life-buoy on many a dark night, as a
species of drill. "A bottle of rum to each boat,
with an additional one to the boat that picks up the
officer."
They hardly needed such encouragement, for the
boats were manned and lowered as if by magic, and
were soon swiftly leaving the ship, heard, though
hardly seen, and dashing on towards the blazing
beacon, that floated nearly a quarter of a mile off.
The buoy seemed to be playing a little game of
bo-peep with us, at one moment flickering and shin-
ing gaily on the summit of a wave, and the next
dipping down and hiding from sight behind it. Ten
long minutes passed away, and then the light on the
life-buoy disappeared-it had burned out, or been
put out and we continued to gaze at the place
where the boats had last been seen. A quarter of an
hour, then five minutes, and now we could hear the
measured thud-thud of the returning oars.
As soon
as they were within hail, "Boat ahoy!" shouted our
A Night with a Madman.
151
commander, and down the wind came the answer :
"Ay, ay, sir. All's well."
It was curious to mark the revulsion of feeling in
the minds of the men on deck, now that they were
assured of the engineer's safety. Before this, it was:
"Poor fellow!" "God help him!" "He was a
jolly nice gentleman "Mind when he gave us
the grog, Bill?" "That I do, Jack;" etc. Now it
was: "Confound the fellow !" "He's a fool!"
"He's mad! "Serves him right!
'It'll teach
him manners;" ete.
""
י!
Poor Wheeler was now handed on board, more
dead than alive, properly brought round, then placed
in his hammock, with a couple of sentries to watch
him.
CC
'Where did you find him?" I asked of the
cockswain.
"Astride of the life-buoy, sir, grinning like a
baboon."
He never properly recovered till sent to hospital.
He told me afterwards that the reason he tried to
kill me was, that, being about to take his own life,
and considering me his only friend, he wished to have
my company through the dark valley of death.
As for myself, my head soon healed, although
to my grave I shall carry the scar-the effects of
spending a night with a madman.
THE POISONED MIND.*
IN TWO PARTS.
PART I.-LAPIS PHILOSOPHORUM.
IT is with a forced calmness that I write the history
of that time in my life which has now passed away: a
time combining so much happiness and agony, that I
almost wonder now that I am alive and with a whole
mind to tell it. The study that I then pursued was
so fascinating, so wholly absorbing, that it seemed as
if every other thought had been engulfed in it. It
was not covetousness, nor the love of gold, that led
me on in my researches. Wealth and position were
both mine; but a particular course of study and
reading had led me to pursue that part of science
which relates to the mutability of metals-the possi-
bility of resolving those bodies which we at present
call elements. I was no visionary. It did not
appear to me that I was following an unhallowed or
unlawful employment: on the contrary, every sup-
position on which I acted was confirmed and
supported by the leading men of science of our
own day.
I do not wish to justify or palliate what I am about
to relate in these pages. My old delight in the study
* Reprinted by kind permission of Messrs. Bradbury, Evans,
& Co.
152
The Poisoned Mind.
153
of chemistry is long since vanished, and not a vestige
of my laboratory nor its contents now remains. All I
wish to impress is that I commenced my researches in
a true spirit of love for science. It appeared to me
that the study of chemistry began with a cloudy,
poetical dream of a menstruum universale, that was
to give endless youth and ceaseless health. Wild
hope! Vain dream! Civilisation pulled down the
airy edifice, and left only the little foundation-work
of utility. Yet to me, looking around in this un-
fanciful and iron age, it appeared inconsistently
strange that we were once more tending back to that
cloudy, poetical dream of the alchemists. Faraday
and Murchison in England, and Dumas in France,
seemed to point out clearly to my mind that the so-
called elementary bodies are reciprocally resolvable.
By degrees I became more and more absorbed in the
subject my laboratory and my study became my
home. Gradually I separated myself from all my
friends, and gave up every energy and faculty to the
pursuit of my investigations.
My library contained a strange and valuable collec-
tion of books obtained at great expense and trouble.
There were dingy papyrus leaves covered with mys-
terious characters, and bearing the name of Hermes
Trismegistus; parchment rolls and palimpsests of
Greece and Rome; rare manuscripts from the time
of Caligula, and others that had been saved from the
fire of Diocletian. Arabian and Egyptian works
filled one part of the shelves, and in another those of
Raymond Lully, Paracelsus, and Basilius Valentinus.
I was not, however, content, and still added to
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the collection whenever an opportunity offered
itself.
I had heard that some very scarce books and
manuscripts were to be sold in Paris. I immedi-
ately set out for the Continent, as I believed that
several of the works for sale would assist me in
the discoveries which I had now determined to
make.
It was at the sale of these literary treasures that I
first met with Antonio Maffi, who had been, I
believe, an Italian monk, but whose previous history
I never learned. My attention was called to him by
observing that he seemed anxious to buy the very
books and documents in which I took an interest. My
purse was longer than his, and the consequence was
that they nearly all fell to my lot.
As I was glancing over one of the purchases that I
had just made, I suddenly became conscions that this
man was looking at me intently. From the place
where I stood I could see his reflection in a mirror
which was placed against the wall. He perceived
this, and turning, round, looked into the mirror also,
and thus our eyes met. He smiled-a thin, faint,
forbidding smile-bowed slightly, and then came up
to me. He apologized for his intrusion, as he called
it, on the ground that he fancied that our tastes and
studies led us both in the same direction.
He spoke in English, and remarkably well and
fluently; I had observed that before this he had
spoken both in Italian and French. I must confess
that, although his face and expression were not pleas-
ing, still there was something about his address and
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155
manners that prevented me from refusing his proffered
acquaintance.
Let me describe him as he then appeared. He
was tall and slender, with a slight stoop, and he
appeared to have numbered about forty years. He
was dressed entirely in black, with a loose black
cloak over his shoulders. A dark sombrero or wide-
awake threw his face into the shade; but it was so
striking in its character, that I remarked it well, and
remember it well. Ay! and I shall remember it as
long as memory lasts. It was long and pale-deadly
pale. His eyebrows, which were small and very
dark, almost met at the top of his straight, delicate
nose, the nostrils of which seemed always dilated.
A very black moustache entirely hid the expression of
his mouth, except when smiling. His face, other-
wise, was cleanly shaved, and his hair was cropped
closely over his head. His brow was low but
square, and projected slightly over his bright, black,
bead-like eyes.
After conversing with him for a short while, I was
extremely struck with the intelligence of his remarks
and the acuteness of his observation. Even in the
short period during which I was with him in the sale-
room, I perceived that he was a man who had read
profoundly, and in whose memory was stored up all
that he had read. The charm of manner to which I
have before alluded almost took away the sinister
effect which his countenance had at first produced. I
longed to see and know more of him, and we inter-
changed cards. From the card he handed to me I
observed that he lived in furnished apartments, in a
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part of Paris that led me to suppose that his means
were limited. At any rate, it furnished me with a
plea for asking him to dine with me at my hotel
that evening. After some slight hesitation, he con-
sented.
We parted, and met again at dinner. I spent an
evening in entire accordance with my own tastes,
chemistry and speculative philosophy being the
standard themes of our discourse.
During the course of the evening I could not help
asking Signor Maffi of his intentions and prospects in
life. At first he seemed reserved; but observing that
I was not asking through idle curiosity, but more for
the purpose of assisting him, if it lay in my power, he
told me in a very few words his position. He had
heard of the probable sale of these books and manu-·
scripts in Palermo, his native town. Poor as he was,
he had intended to offer everything in his power for
them. Fortunately he had found an occasion for
going to England, he might call it a business object,
since he was paid for it. Availing himself of the
opportunity, he had determined to make Paris a
station in his route, and thus try to secure the trea-
sures in which I had forestalled him. He then
pointed out and proved to me that several of the
manuscripts which I had purchased were of much
greater value than I had supposed.
More than ever fascinated by his manner, I asked
him if he had made any definite engagement as to what
he would do after his arrangements in England were
completed. He told me that he had no fixed purpose,
and no particular tie that bound him to Palermo.
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157
He was a man of few words, and in a short time we
made an agreement that as soon as possible he was to
join me as assistant and partner in my studies and
researches. I explained to him that my laboratory
was not conducted for any personal profit, but for the
love of science alone; however, in case any advan-
tageous discoveries were made, he was to receive his
full share of the prize.
We parted, to all appearances mutually satisfied,
Antonio promising to meet me, in three days' time,
at Boulogne.
My affairs all being settled in Paris, on the third
day I set out by rail for Boulogne, and arriving there
in the evening, I at once went on board the steamer.
It was a beautiful summer evening, and as I walked
backwards and forwards on the deck, I waited
impatiently for the arrival of my new colleague. I
had made several cigars vanish in smoke in the still
air; passengers and luggage had come bundling on
board with their usual noise and confusion; but still
there was no appearance of my Italian friend. Dark-
ness came on, for the moon had not yet risen, and my
eyes ranged ceaselessly along the dusky quay line, but
I waited and looked in vain. The bell rang, the
official with the cocked hat and cutlass growled his
last ill-natured growl about the visés, strangers left,
ladders were removed, and with much screeching and
splashing we steamed out between the piers.
I was disappointed at not having met my new
acquaintance; but having given him my address in
London, I still hoped to see him shortly, as I felt
convinced that he would be a valuable auxiliary.
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It was a lovely night. There was very little wind,
the sky was cloudless, and as the moon rose she cast
a long glancing white pathway on the crests of the
waves. I stood, leaning over the side-rail, watching
the beautiful change and glancing of the reflection,
and forgetting everything else around me. There
was, however, a considerable swell on the sea, not-
withstanding the calmness of the weather, and in a
short time most of the passengers were either below
or hors de combat.
I looked round at the remainder, and was immedi-
ately struck with a young lady who was sitting in the
covered seats a short distance from me. I never gazed
on so lovely a face. She seemed to be dressed in
deep mourning, and had thrown back her thick crape
veil in order to look at the reflection of the moonlight
on the waters, which I had just been watching. Her
complexion appeared almost paler than was natural
in the moonbeams, while her large brown eyes had a
tenderly mournful expression in them that thrilled
through my heart, and I fancied I saw tears in them
a suspicion almost confirmed by the nervous movement
of her exquisitely formed mouth.
Seeing that she had no wrappers, I hastened to
offer her some that I had, for it was now very cold.
She accepted them with a startled flush and a pleased
and grateful smile-such a smile, it appeared to me,
as we only meet with in those who are not much
accustomed to meet with even little acts of kindness.
I sat down opposite to her, and we soon entered into
conversation. I was charmed with her freshness, her
frankness, and her simplicity. As she spoke on any
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159
subject that interested her, her face lighted up with
such intelligence and enthusiasm, that in my eyes she
looked more and more beautiful every instant.
With an almost childish cry of delight, she pointed
out a falling star, and I, instead of looking at the star,
was looking at her with feelings of admiration and
affection that had long been strangers to my breast,
when I was suddenly conscious that I was watched by
one who stood between me and the light.
With a start of astonishment, I discovered in the
dark figure before me the Italian chemist Antonio Maffi.
I rose up instantly, saying,—
((
Signor Maffi, I am glad to see you.
I had given
you up, as I did not observe you on board before we
left the harbour."
<<
'I have to request your pardon, Signor," said he,
"for not having seen you before. My passage is
taken in the fore part of the vessel, and as I felt tired
when I came on board, I have been asleep ever since.
Pray accept my apologies.”
He bowed, and, passing me, went up to my young
companion, who had drawn down her veil on hearing
his voice. He addressed her respectfully, but in
rather stern tones.
"Miss Hawthorne, I am rather surprised to find
you on deck.
Would it not be better for you to go
below to the cabin."
She excused herself in a collected manner, saying
that the cabin was very close, and that she was warmly
wrapped up. Antonio sat down by her side, and, as
I walked away, I heard them speaking earnestly in
low tones.
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As I could see that my company was not then
desired, I kept away; but, on returning about half an
hour afterwards, I found my young friend once more
alone, and again had the pleasure of hearing her speak
and of gazing on her beautiful face.
The brief account which she then gave me of her-
self, rather reluctantly, I may as well now state :—
Louisa Hawthorne was the only daughter of a
clergyman who died a few years after her birth. Her
widowed mother strove to give her daughter a lady's
education, but, in consequence of poverty and ill-
health, Louisa, shortly after leaving school, was ob-
liged to take the post of governess in an English
family about to travel on the Continent. She obtained
this situation through the exertions of the lady prin-
cipal in the school where she had been educated.
The family in which Miss Hawthorne was engaged
at length determined to settle in Palermo, and whilst
in that town she received the news of her mother's
death. Her health and spirits both sank, and she
was advised by the medical men of the town to return
to England. Through the exertions of the gentleman
in whose house she was residing, she was now return-
ing to her old instructress, under the guidance of
Signor Maffi.
The simplicity and artlessness with which she told
her history endeared her to me more than ever; but I
could not help thinking that Antonio had spoken to
her in a more dictatorial manner than his position
warranted. I stated this to her as delicately as I
possibly could. I thought she blushed as I spoke;
but she answered rather hurriedly,--
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161
I am
Signor Maffi has several times spoken to me in a
manner that is painful to me. I am, however, in his
charge and under his protection at present.
afraid that I have spoken to him rather too plainly
this evening, as he is very hot-tempered and unfor-
giving. Still, he has been very kind—but, hush!
Let us change the conversation, if you please, for I see
that he is again coming this way.'
>>
Antonio came up a few seconds afterwards; but
I could not see the expression of his face, since his
hat was drawn over his brow. He spoke, however,
calmly, and to me alone. He led the conversation
dexterously to my favourite topics, and for the rest of
the night, close to the time of our arrival at Dover,
we walked the deck speculating and philosophizing.
I forgot everybody and everything, except our one
grand subject, until we were almost in port, and then
I suddenly recollected my beautiful young friend. She
was asleep, but woke as I came up. I apologized for
my rudeness, and begged to know if I might call upon
her in town. She smiled pleasantly, and gave me her
address; but seeing her draw down her veil again
rapidly, I turned, and once more saw the ill-omened
figure of the Italian.
I took him rather roughly by the sleeve, and led
him away.
،،
When we had arrived at a quiet part of the deck,
I spoke,-
"Antonio Maffi, I have only known you a short
time, but I consider that I am justified, knowing what
I do, in warning you that your conduct is exciting both
fear and distrust in the mind of that young lady."
L
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Weird Tales.
Signor," he replied coldly, "I regret to hear
you say that which I have feared myself, but-and
remember that my pulse at this moment is beating
more evenly than yours-I love Louisa Hawthorne-
I love her, I tell you-and it will be an evil day
for the man that steps in between my love and her."
His manner and his voice were cold, but I could
see that his eyes flashed as he spoke.
CC
Antonio," said I reluctantly, laying my hand
upon his shoulder, "believe me that you will never
gain that young girl's heart by harsh language and
cruelty of manner.”
He moved from under my hand with a muttered
laugh, saying,-
((
"Thanks, Signor, for your advice; but, I pray you,
do not forget the words that I have said.
""
He left me, and went forward into the shadow of
the boat, and I neither saw him nor Louisa till we
landed, when they both bade me farewell, Maffi pro-
mising to call upon me in a day or two.
I travelled alone and undisturbed in the railway
carriage to London, at times falling into uneasy
slumber, haunted by the white face and dry, sardonic
laugh of the Italian; but as the daylight filled the air,
pleasanter recollections of Louisa's beautiful eyes and
beaming smile drove my more gloomy thoughts away.
I longed to see her again.
After a few days, during which I never saw Antonio,
I determined to call at the address which Louisa had
given me. I found her at home, and could not mis-
take her smile of welcome, and I left her, more than
ever charmed with her society. She had not seen
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163
Maffi since the day of their arrival in London. As I
was leaving the house, I fancied I saw a tall figure in
a black cloak which reminded me of him, but I lost
sight of it a moment afterwards. However, I had a
note from him, the next day, informing me that he
had met with some old friends from Italy, and was
about to go with them into Scotland for a short time,
at the expiration of which he would be ready to com-
mence his engagement. Notwithstanding this infor-
mation, I frequently thought that I perceived his
figure at a distance, especially when I had been calling
upon Louisa. This, however, might have been fancy
only.
It would be needless to dwell on the next few
months. Suffice it to say that my visits to Miss
Hawthorne became very frequent and regular; my
love was proffered and accepted, and very soon after-
wards we were married. All thought of the future,
and dread of the past, vanished from our minds, and
we lived on, happy in the present and each other's
society.
But this was not the last.
A few days after we had returned from our short
wedding-tour, I thought of my laboratory. Alas! all
my old aspirations and ambitions had evaporated. I
gave orders for my rooms to be opened and ready for
my inspection on the morrow.
My library and working-room were situated at the
end of the garden behind the house, and opened into
the street beyond. The next morning, leaving my
wife under the porch, I went down through the
garden once more to my well-remembered toil. As I
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opened the dark door I glanced round, and saw my
wife standing in the sunlight-a smiling sunbeam her-
self-and then I passed into the gloomy shade of the
laboratory.
A tall black figure was standing over the furnace,
peering into a crucible, and the red light of the glow-
ing charcoal glanced upon a face that I remembered
only too well.
"Ah! did you think that I had forgotten you,
Signor? No, no; Antonio Maffi never forgets.'
The words of the Italian sank deep into my heart,
and I shuddered with an inexplicable dread of coming
evil.
>>
PART II.-THE FATAL SECRET.
THUNDERSTRUCK as I was by the sudden appearance
of Antonio, he accounted so readily and naturally for
his presence, that the feeling of terror which rose at
first in my mind quickly disappeared. His old manner
had its old fascination for me, and in a short time I
found myself talking with him exactly as I had talked
in Paris only a few months before.
He told me he had called at my house some days
previously, and had found I was away from home,
but that I was expected to return shortly. He had
been awaiting my arrival ever since. My laboratory
he had easily discovered, and on passing along the
street that morning had seen that it was open. He
immediately entered, requesting the servants not to
disturb me. Although, through deference to my
wife's feeling, I had never told her of my alliance
with Maffi, still I had told my domestics I expected a
The Poisoned Mind.
165
foreign gentleman to assist me in my researches, and
his request was consequently acceded to.
The disagreeable impression produced by his first
appearance wore off rapidly, and I soon felt quite at
case. I perceived he had already laid the foundation
work for a new course of research, and as he pro-
ceeded with his work noiselessly and carefully, I was
struck with the extreme adroitness of his manipula-
tion. When he had completed the preliminary stage
of his experiments, we both adjourned to my study,
which opened into the laboratory, and there we
endeavoured to decipher and unriddle the mystical
contents of my Parisian purchases. I was again
astonished at the clearness of mind and calmness of
judgment with which he discriminated facts of value
among the vast amount of cumbersome uselessness
with which they were surrounded. As he pointed
them out, I made notes from time to time, and was
delighted to find how important a fund of materials
he soon extracted.
Time passed away unheeded, until the evening
shades began to warn me it was late in the day. I
was about to propose we should abstain from our
labours, when I became aware that some one was
moving about in the outer laboratory.
Antonio had risen, and was standing at the window,
in order to see more distinctly the volume which he
had taken up. Glancing from him to the doorway
behind me, I saw the curtain gently lifted up, and my
wife standing in the opening. As her eyes wandered
through the gloom, they at last fell upon the form of
Maffi. She started, and seemed spell-bound for an
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instant, and then dropping the curtain, moved silently
away. I heard her passing quietly through the outer
room, and the sound of the further door as it opened
and shut.
All this time I remained silent,-a feeling of sorrow
and remorse taking possession of me. I felt that I
ought to have spoken to Louisa of my arrangements
with the Italian, and it seemed now as if I had been
deceiving her, if not with a suggestio falsi, at least
with a suppressio veri. It had been often in my heart
to tell her all, during the calm and happy time that
had just passed away. But I feared to give her pain,
for I knew she disliked if she did not fear the man.
Latterly, however, I had become so wrapped up in
my own happiness and in her society, that I had
almost forgotten his existence, or if I did remember
him, I almost fancied I should never see him again.
When, therefore, my wife appeared thus silently, with
that strange look of mingled sadness and terror in her
face, I felt guilty,-guilty of treason to her young
confiding love.
Full of these thoughts, I glanced up at Antonio,
who was still reading intently, in the fading daylight,
at the window, and I could not prevent a feeling of
distrust and suspicion from rising in my breast. It
might be the increasing uncertainty of the light, but
certainly at that moment his countenance seemed
absolutely fiendish,—and I fancied I saw that deadly
smile hovering about his mouth.
At last he shut the book, and replaced it, saying,—
"Well, Signor, I think we have done enough
preliminary work to-day. We had better lose no
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167
time, but begin our practical investigations to-
""
morrow.
I cannot tell how it was, but whenever that man
spoke to me on the subject of my studies, whenever
he said a word that moyed up my infatuated hopes
and ambition, I forgot his repulsiveness immediately.
He seemed to have a mysterious influence over my
intellect and will.
I at once acquiesced in his proposal for avoiding
delay, and promised to have everything arranged for
commencing with our work in the morning.
As he drew on his hat and folded his cloak round
him before leaving, he said,-
"Remember we will be long together. The under-
taking which we are about to commence is no trivial
one, and will absorb much of your time,—that is, if
you enter upon it in the same spirit in which you
spoke to me in Paris. In order that we may work
together effectually, it is necessary that you inform
the Signora, your wife, of the whole of our engage-
ment. I could see plainly," he continued, lighting a
cigar with deliberation, "by her look of astonishment
this evening, that I was an unexpected guest.”
I had fancied he did not observe Louisa's entrance.
He noticed my start, and said, with that laugh which
I had begun to hate,—
"Aha, Signor! We, who have looked so long into
the dark secrets of nature, are not quite blind. Good
night."
He was gone, with the evil smile upon his face;
and again that gloomy expectant feeling of evil fell
around me with the shadows of the place.
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Weird Tales.
I found my wife pale and frightened, but I endea-
voured in every way that lay in my power to re-assure
her. I explained to her my reasons for not having
told her before of my agreement with Antonio, and
expatiated so fully on his knowledge and ability, and
of the great assistance that he was able to afford me,
that she soon coincided, or appeared to coincide with
me, fully. She confessed to a feeling of distrust
towards the Italian, and so did I; but we both deter-
mined we would endeavour to conquer a feeling which
could only be a prejudice. Louisa herself remembered
that in Palermo he was esteemed as a very learned
man, against whom nothing could be said except that
he was reserved and cold.
I myself had not forgotten the words which he had
uttered to me on board the steamboat.
But now,
these words seemed to mean very little, although at
the time they were spoken they appeared to me to be
uttered with all the depth and feeling of his heart.
I can only account for this change and deadening of
perception on my part, by the strange effect of the
man's conversation and manners upon me, when in
his company. He seemed so utterly bound up in, and
carried away by, our grand pursuit, that I could not
disunite him from it. He appeared to be almost part
of my own mind,-so congenial was he to my tastes,
desires, and hopes. Singular as it may appear,
although I feared and distrusted him, I felt I could
not separate myself from him.
On the next day Antonio and I were deep in our
chemical researches. Every fresh experiment and
every result called forth my wonder and delight,
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169
and the time passed over rapidly. Days succeeded
days, and we became more and more devoted to our
tasks.
Engaged as we were thus constantly, it would have
appeared strange if I had not asked my companion to
spend a few of his leisure hours in my house. I often
did so, but he as often declined. He remained in the
laboratory all day, usually arriving before me in the
morning, and often remaining till late in the day.
During this time, although I felt I was absenting
myself too much from my young wife's company,-
and although I struggled hard to overcome it,—I felt
I was drawn towards my colleague by a sympathy and
attraction too powerful to resist.
At length we had our arrangements so far com-
pleted that we determined to make a decisive trial of
the reality of our projects. We failed signally.
Antonio laid the entire blame on our not having
devoted sufficient time and attention to the work.
This was disheartening to me, for I had bestowed
every available moment on it, and had had many a
heartache in consequence; for I knew that all day
long Louisa was alone, and pining at my absence.
He noticed my look of discomfiture, and with his
diabolical laugh he taunted me with growing tired of
my hobby,-of being palled with my own enthusiasm.
I could not bear his sneers, I writhed under them. I
insisted upon recommencing our labours at once, and
declared that not one moment should be wasted by
me, and that if necessary I would watch and work
night and day in order to secure my long-dreamed-of
desire.
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Weird Tales.
I think I see him now, as I spoke in my enthusiasm,
with his cold cruel smile and his glittering black eyes
fixed upon me. Why did I not fell him to the earth
then and there? Why did I listen for a moment to
his smooth-tongued words, that now, molten hot, are
searing into my inmost soul?
We commenced our work afresh with more assiduity
and application than ever: My thoughts and imagina-
tion were so carried away by our plans that--I amı
almost ashamed to write it-I seldom, if ever, thought
of my young wife.
My colleague, as the time passed on, very rarely
left the laboratory,-encasing himself in his ample
cloak he would take his rest hurriedly, either in
the study, or on the floor outside of the furnace
doors.
Louisa, who had begun to look pale and ill, at
length spoke to me about my apparent neglect. I
tried to excuse my conduct, but failed; and she
entreated me so earnestly that she might at all events
be allowed to come into the laboratory with me during
my work, that I at last consented.
I spoke to Maffi on the subject, but he scarcely
made any remark,-only observing, in an undertone,
that he did not think a laboratory a suitable place for
a lady.
However, during the day, as he saw me trying to
make the room a little more orderly,-arranging a
work-table with flowers, and placing a couch by the
window overlooking the garden,-I thought I saw
him, once or twice, look up from his work stealthily,
with his deadly smile.
The Poisoned Mind.
171
The next day Louisa came down with me, and
remained for the most part of the day. It was a
pleasant relief to me, at times, to turn my eyes
from
the smoke and gloom of the furnaces to the bright
little form of my wife, as she sat reading or working
at the window. Whenever I looked towards her,
she met me with a pleasant smile. All the while
Antonio Maffi worked on, scarcely ever raising his
head.
At length we made our arrangements so complete
that we once more determined to make the great
attempt. Assiduous as we had been before, we now
doubled our assiduity. I only snatched a few hours'
rest now and then. One of us was always awake.
The boiling over of a crucible, or the fracture of a
retort, was liable to throw us back in the ground we
had gained; therefore we were always on the alert.
My wife hovered ever in or near the room, like a
ray of sunlight through the storm - clouds of my
anxiety.
The decisive night at last arrived. Louisa, seeing
my troubled expression, begged she might be allowed
to stay with me. I wished her to retire to the house,
but she entreated me to grant her this favour. She
made her request so touchingly, -I could not bear to
see the tears in her deep, brown eyes,-that I con-
sented. As I did so, I glanced at the Italian.
Although he was busily engaged, to all appearances,
I found he was regarding us with a deep scowl of —
what appeared to me-malignant satisfaction. He
cast down his eyes, however, as he met mine, warning
me coldly that there was no time to lose.
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He had never yet spoken to my wife since she had
commenced her visits to us. He merely bowed
politely when she entered or left the room. This
line of conduct was on the whole, I think, satisfactory
both to Louisa and myself.
Cautiously and resolutely, then, Maffi and I began
our final experiments, my wife sitting at the table, by
the lamp, reading.
There was a small chafing-dish, containing spirits
of wine, which stood on a raised tripod, in the middle
of the apartment, and which we used occasionally,
when we wanted a very subdued light.
We had been working for some time in silence,
when it was found necessary to use this chafing-dish.
I lighted the spirits of wine, and walking forward to
the table where my wife was, I turned down the flame
of the lamp. The burning spirit in the chafing-dish
cast a flickering and ghastly light through the room.
Strange, black shadows like phantoms leapt and
danced about the walls and ceiling, while the uncouth
retorts, stills, phials, and electric apparatus loomed
duskily and mysteriously in the uncertain light.
As I looked about me, I could with difficulty dis-
tinguish the black form of the Italian, as he glided
noiselessly through the gloom. I lost sight of him,
but was conscious that he was behind me-at my
elbow. A strange feeling of faintness suddenly came
over me, from which I was roused in an instant by a
few low words, spoken by my wife at my side.
"Fools that you are!" she said, "you would seek
for the Great Secret, and yet you still stumble blindly
on, from error to error, from lie to lie."
The Poisoned Mind.
173
I shuddered from head to foot, and gazed on her
with unspeakable feelings of terror. Yet she spoke
calmly and distinctly,-repeating slowly what she had
just said, seeing that I was at first too agitated to
understand her.
I could hardly believe my senses, as she continued
to speak; she seemed to understand the whole of our
operations, and pointed out, with a strange tone of
contemptuous authority, several mistakes we had
made, and cleared up also several points on which we
had been in doubt.
It was the wonderful knowledge which she exhibited
that struck me with terror. Up to that moment I
had fancied she was entirely ignorant of the true
nature of our researches ; nay, from many conversa-
tions I had had with her, I felt convinced she knew
nothing more than the bare rudiments of chemistry.
As she continued to speak, I felt the strange
faintness that had come over me before, again steal-
ing about me; but I was conscious throughout
that Maffi was close behind me, though I did not
see him.
Indistinctly, I perceived my wife rise from her seat;
she laid her hand upon my arm, and led me to one
of the furnaces; then, still in the same low, clear
voice, she pointed out an error that would have been
fatal to our undertaking, if persisted in. I heard her
drowsily, as if in a dream; but, nevertheless, I felt in
my mind her remarks were correct. A peculiar
humming noise now sounded painfully in my ears,
and the light in the room seemed changed to a deep
rose colour.
I saw my wife suddenly raise her arms
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Weird Tales.
and press her hands violently against her temples,
and a piercing shriek rang through the air. Casting
off my faintness with a desperate effort, I caught her
as she was falling to the ground. At this instant I
became aware that Antonio had opened the door
leading to the garden, and rushing past him I stumbled
forward, bearing the fainting form of my wife into the
cool night air.
Some days elapsed before Louisa entirely recov-
ered. The physician who attended her said she
seemed to be suffering from the effects of some
narcotic poison. I told him she had been seized
with fainting while sitting with me in my laboratory.
He said, and I agreed with him, that the heat and
closeness of the air in the room, together with the
escape, perhaps, of some volatile essence, had brought
on the attack. He advised that she should not again
venture into its precincts.
While my wife was unwell, I seldom entered my
work-rooms, except for a short time now and then,
to see how Antonio was progressing.
He spoke
little, but continued his work laboriously. I refrained
from alluding to the events which had occurred, but
I noticed, with a strange feeling at my heart, that he
seemed to be acting entirely on the advice which had
fallen from my wife on that memorable night. I said
nothing, but watched him going on quietly and
deliberately, step by step, correcting the errors she
had pointed out, and proceeding in the manner she
had indicated.
Up to this period I had never spoken to Louisa of
the night in the laboratory. However, as she was
The Poisoned Mind.
175
now well enough to be down-stairs, and nothing ailing
her more than a little weakness and langour, I thought
I would ask her for some explanation. To my sur-
prise, she denied all knowledge of what had taken
place; she asserted she never did and never could
understand chemistry; that she was perfectly ignorant
of our experiments and ultimate intentions, and again
repeated she had no recollection whatever of the
events of that strange night.
I would have felt angry and indignant at these
strange assertions,-indeed, words of reproach were
on my tongue,—but when I looked at her ingenuous
face, I could not help feeling she spoke the truth.
Many times I tried afterwards to lead her to talk
about the object of our experiments, but I could only
get one reply from her, that she was entirely ignorant
of the whole subject.
All she could tell me of the night in the laboratory
was this. She remembered my igniting the spirits of
wine in the chafing-dish, and then coming forward to
dim the light in the lamp. She recollected also that
as I lowered the flame she saw Antonio step up noise-
lessly behind me; he had a mask or respirator on the
lower part of his face. She then saw him distinctly
pour a few drops from a phial into the chafing-dish,
and she remembered that the flame changed from
violet to a deep rose colour. All this occupied only a
few seconds, after which the Italian stepped back-
wards into the shadow, holding out his arms towards
her, as if making mesmeric passes. She remembered
nothing more.
Her story never varied; but I could not help
176
Weird Tales.
thinking it was the result of an overheated imagina-
tion. Yet the fact that she had shown herself per-
fectly acquainted with the science of chemistry, and
with our intricate experiments, remained deeply rooted
in my mind. I could not think of it without a feeling
of mysterious awe.
I went out of town for a few days with Louisa, and
on my return I visited the laboratory. I found Maffi
in the study, leisurely engaged in perusing a manu-
script copy of one of Geber's mystic works on
alchymy. On my asking him how matters were pro-
gressing, he told me that at present they were stationary.
He was and had been waiting for me for some time.
"And now," he continued, looking at me intently,
"let me impress upon you once more that if we are
to gain our ends, we must work with heart and soul
in our work. Are you tired of it? Shall we give it
up, and throw all our labours to the winds?”
"I will never give up the search," I replied;
latterly I have not been with you as much as I
desired, but somehow it appears to me as if our
investigations were all fraught with evil results to-
to-to one whom I love-"
66
A coward easily peoples the dark with difficulties,"
he sneered.
..
""
"I am no coward," answered I, warmly, nor
will I permit you to taunt me with such a name.
I saw his eyes flashing as I spoke. "I care nothing
for your sneers," I continued, "and I should never
have experienced them if it had not been that ever
since the last night I spent with you in yonder
laboratory, I have feared for the happiness-nay,
(C
The Poisoned Mind.
177
for the life of one whose life and happiness are
dearer to me than-"
Peace, idiot!" he exclaimed, in a tone and with
a gesture that made me start back. "Peace! Do
you think I am blind, and that I have not noted.
everything that has occurred? Do you think I was
not listening to every word SHE uttered on that
night? Who, think you, was it that made her speak ?
Who drew from her the secret knowledge of her
inner spirit?"
As he spoke, he rose up to his full height, his eyes.
sparkling and flashing, while I almost crouched into a
seat under his impetuous bearing.
((
'Listen," he continued, scarcely less calmly; "it
was not long after I met HER-you know whom I
mean that I discovered I had encountered no
ordinary being. I read it in the deep glow of her
brown eyes.
I read there that in her inmost soul
lay the secret which I was striving for, and which
you were longing for. I loved her-I told you I
loved her-but I loved science more. If I had
gained her, the Great Secret would even now have
been mine; but she is yours, and all is left with you
-all to lose, or all to gain."
Since the time when my wife declared that she was
in a trance, and utterly ignorant of all she had uttered
in the laboratory, an unacknowledged dread had
possessed me that the Italian had a strong influence
over her mental powers, and the words he now spoke
confirmed my suspicion.
I know now also he must have exerted a power
over me that subdued me almost to servility when in
M
178
Weird Tales.
his presence.
Whence otherwise could have come
that strange mixture of abhorrence and attachment
which I always felt in his company?
I listened to his harangue in amazement, and then
asked him, in a faltering voice, how he could possibly
suppose that Louisa was able to comprehend the
secret of our search.
He smiled, his death-like smile, and drew from
his bosom a small phial of cut crystal, silver-clasped,
and containing a bright amber-coloured liquid. It
was about three parts full.
"(
Bright, translucent, and harmless though it looks,
there is nothing more powerful, more deadly than the
poison this phial contains. I tell you this in order
that there may be no secrets between us.
Five years
ago it was given to me in Rome, by one who had
chosen for his study the direct action of poisons on the
physical and mental powers. He is dead now, but
this secret of his is alive with me.
M
"If a few drops of this potent poison volatilized
are inhaled by any one, a dull faintness immediately
ensues. Ha! I saw you start. You are right, though,
you have breathed it. Listen! Under that faintness,
if the organization is of the character I desire, I can
draw out the inner secrets of the soul, by the influence
of a powerful exertion of will."
How I sat there and listened to his fiendish words
I cannot tell. I seemed under a spell, but I
listened to him attentively and in silence. He
went on,
<
I found in the Signora, your wife, a mind of the
most sensitive and impressible kind. What I had
The Poisoned Mind.
179
long suspected I proved the other night, and you
yourself must have seen that, under the influence of
only a few drops of this elixir, I was able to make her
disclose, in an instant, truths that might have taken
us months to discover. Notwithstanding its seem-
ingly baneful effects, you perceive you feel no ill
effects after inhaling it, and the Signora, your wife,
though slightly overcome at the time, is now as well
and as lovely as ever. See, there she is under the
trees in the garden."
I looked from the window and saw Louisa walking
slowly along one of the paths. She looked exquisitely
beautiful, but as I gazed, I felt surrounded by an
atmosphere of mystery and terror. The Italian con-
tinued speaking earnestly, and I listened to him
moodily, while the serpent of ambition quietly coiled
itself round my heart.
He pointed out to me, with great force, that the
object of our pursuit was now in my grasp. He
made light of my hesitation, and laughed at my
fears. Never venture, never win, was the theme of
his discourse, to which he constantly returned. As
I have observed, an atmosphere of mystery seemed
round me—I was bewildered. I longed, with all the
desire in my being, to possess the great secret now
within my reach, but I dreaded hurting a hair of my
young wife's head. I was silent.
The demon Maffi saw my weakness and indecision
in a moment. His words seemed absolutely to creep
insidiously into my brain. He pointed out that the
present time, that very instant,-was the proper time
for exerting the new power we possessed.
Sp
180
Weird Tales.
Oh, Heaven! How can I live to think of it now?
That I,-I who loved her so dearly,-should have
gone out to her there,—in that still summer afternoon,
among the flowers, and have led her into the dark,
hateful shadow of that cursed room. Everything
appears to me now more like a dream than a reality.
But it was done. Again, she was sitting on the
couch by the window and talking with me, while the
subtle Italian again glided noiselessly about the room.
Without seeing him, I was conscious he had
ignited the spirits of wine, and had poured the deadly
drops into the flame. I knew it by the faint rosy
glow and a delicate perfume like that of jasmine
pervading the apartment.
I hastily placed a small respirator containing an
antidote, which Maffi had forced upon me, over my
face, and, with a mind torn by conflicting emotions,
I watched the result.
My wife's face turned to an ashy paleness, and she
darted one look at me full of pity, anger, and sur-
prise. I shall never forget that look.
It rises up
before me in the solemn dead of night, and will haunt
me to my death. But it lasted only for an instant.
She rose quickly, and again, with that unnatural air
of contemptuous authority, passed across the room.
She examined all the apparatus and every particular
of our process, as far as Antonio had completed them.
She expressed her approval of what we had done
haughtily,—in such a manner as an empress might
speak to her slaves. For a few moments she appeared
lost in thought, and then retired slowly towards the
table. She sat down again, leaning her head upon
The Poisoned Mind.
181
her hand, and gazing straight forward with a listless
expression.
Although diffused daylight, mingled with the red
glow from the tripod, spread through the room, yet I
had never distinguished the form of Maffi. He either
kept behind me, or else in the darker parts of the
laboratory. Without seeing him, I now felt his hot
breath on my cheek, as I leaned over Louisa, and I
heard his hateful whisper in my ear.
"Speak to her now-ask her for the secret that
we long to know-time is passing."
I did speak to her, but she gently put my hand
from her, and motioned me to be silent. She still
gazed forward fixedly into vacancy.
A minute or two elapsed in profound silence, until
the Italian again muttered his request angrily in my
ear. Trembling with anxiety and fear, I spoke to
her once more, but she did not seem to heed me.
Urged on by Maffi's whispered solicitations, I begged,
I entreated, I threw myself at her feet, and prayed
that she would speak to me. I spoke wildly, but she
sat pale and unheeding, until at last she turned her
white face languidly towards me, and essayed to speak
once or twice. Her face had in it the look of death,
but my heart was callous. I saw one bright flash in
her eyes, and then she fell forward and down on the
floor lifeless at my side.
I was stunned and paralyzed, but was roused by
the maddening sound of the Italian's laugh. In an
instant I sprung from the earth and seized him by the
throat, but his hand was upon me like a vice. We
struggled long and violently. Ah! how I longed to
182
Weird Tales.
kill him; but his strength overcame me, and he dashed
me with tremendous force to the ground.
Long afterwards I awoke, in the darkness, from a
deep swoon-awoke to find myself alone among the
ruins of my wild hopes and ambitious dreams; alone
in my bitterness and despair; alone-and yet not
alone, for stretching out my arms I felt the dead, cold
hand of my young wife who lay by my side, a corpse,
in the gloom and stillness of that awful night.
1

A DIRE PREDICTION.
On the south-west coast of Wales stands a romantic
little village, inhabited chiefly by the poorer class
of people, consisting of small farmers and oyster-
dredgers, whose estates are the wide ocean, and
whose ploughs are the small craft in which they
glide over its interminable fields in search of the
treasures which they wring from its bosom. It is
built on the very top of a hill, commanding on the
one side a view of an immense bay, and on the other
of the peaceful green fields and valleys, cultivated by
the greater number of its quiet inhabitants. The
approach to it from the nearest town was by a road
which branched away into lanes and wooded walks,
and from the sea by a beautiful little bay, running up
far into the land, both sides of which, and indeed all
the rest of the coast, were guarded by craggy and
gigantic rocks, some of them hollowed into caverns,
into which none of the inhabitants, from motives of
superstition, reverence, and fear, had ever dared to
penetrate. There were, at the period of which we
are about to treat, no better sort of inhabitants in the
little village just described, none of those emphatically
distinguished as "quality" by the country people;
they had neither parson, lawyer, nor doctor among
them, and, of course, there was a tolerable equality
among the residents. The farmer who followed his
183
184
Weird Tales.
own plough in the spring, singing the sweet wild
national chant of the season, and bound up with his
own hands his sheaves in the autumn, was
was not
richer, greater, nor finer than he who, bare-legged on
the strand, gathered in the hoar weed for the farmer
in the spring, or dared the wild winds of autumn and
the wrath of the winter in his little boat, to earn with
his dredging-net a yet harder subsistence for his
family. Distinctions were unknown in the village ;
every man was the equal of his neighbour.
But though rank and its polished distinctions were
strange in the village of N-, the superiority of
talent was felt and acknowledged almost without a
pause or a murmur. There was one who was as a
king amongst them, by the mere force of a mightier
spirit than those with whom he sojourned had been
accustomed to feel among them. He was a dark and
moody man, a stranger, evidently of a higher order
than those around him, who had but a few months
before, without any apparent object, settled among
them. He was poor, but had no occupation; he
lived frugally, but quite alone; and his sole employ-
ments were to read during the day and wander out
unaccompanied into the fields or by the beach during
the night. Sometimes, indeed, he would relieve a
suffering child or rheumatic old man by medicinal
herbs, reprove idleness and drunkenness in the youth,
and predict to all, the good and the evil consequences
of their conduct; and his success in some cases, his
foresight in others, and his wisdom in all, won for
him a high reputation among the cottagers, to which
his taciturn habits contributed not a little; for with
A Dire Prediction.
185
the vulgar, as with the educated, no talker was ever
seriously taken for a conjurer, though a silent man is
often decided to be a wise one.
There was but one person in N- at all disposed
to rebel against the despotic sovereignty which Rhys
Meredith was silently establishing over the quiet
village, and that was precisely the person most likely
to effect a revolution. She was a beautiful girl, the
glory and boast of the village, who had been the
favourite of, and to a certain degree educated by, the
late lady of the lord of the manor; but she had died,
and her pupil, with a full consciousness of her intel-
lectual superiority, had returned to her native village,
where she determined to have an empire of her own,
which no rival should dispute. She laughed at the
girls who listened to the predictions of Rhys, and she
refused her smiles to the youths who consulted him
upon their affairs and their prospects; and as the
beautiful Ruth was generally beloved, the silent Rhys
was soon in danger of being abandoned by all, save
doting men and paralytic women.
But to be such was not the object of Meredith; he
was an idle man, and the gifts of the villagers con-
tributed to spare him from exertion. He knew, too,
that in another point of view this ascendancy was
necessary to his purposes; and as he had failed to
establish it by wisdom and benevolence, he deter-
mined to try the effect of fear. The character of the
people with whom he sojourned was admirably
calculated to assist his projects. His predictions
now uttered more clearly, and his threats
denounced in sterner tones and stronger and plainer
were
186.
Weird Tales.
words; and when he predicted that old Morgan
Williams, who had been stricken with the palsy,
would die at the turn of tide, three days from that
on which he spoke, and that the light little boat of
gay Griffy Morris, which sailed from the bay in a
bright winter's morning, should never again make the
shore, and the man died, and the storm arose, even
as he had said,—men's hearts died within them, and
they bowed down before his words, as if he had
been their general fate and the individual destiny of
each.
Ruth's rosy lip grew pale for a moment as she
heard of these things; in the next her spirit returned,
and "I will make him tell my fortune," she said, as
she went with a party of laughers to search out and
deride the conjurer. He was alone when they broke
in upon him, and their mockeries goaded his spirit;
but his anger was deep, not loud, and while burning
with wrath, he yet could calmly consider the means
of vengeance. He knew the master spirit with which
he had to contend; it was no ordinary mind, and
would have smiled at ordinary terrors. To have
threatened her with sickness, misfortune, or death,
would have been to call forth the energies of that
lofty spirit and prepare it to endure, and it would
have gloried in manifesting its powers of endurance.
He must humble it therefore by debasement; he must
ruin its confidence in itself, and to this end he
resolved to threaten her with crime. His resolution
was taken and effected; his credit was at stake; he
must daunt his enemy, or surrender to her power.
He foretold sorrows and joys to the listening throng,
A Dire Prediction.
187
not according to his passion, but his judgment, and
he drew a blush upon the cheek of one, by revealing
a secret which Ruth herself and another alone knew,
and which prepared the former to doubt of her own
judgment, as it related to this extraordinary man.
Ruth was the last who approached to hear the
secret of her destiny. The wizard paused as he
looked upon her, opened his book, shut it, paused,
and again looked sadly and fearfully upon her. She
tried to smile, but felt startled, she knew not why;
the bright inquiring glance of her dark eye could not
change the purpose of her enemy. Her smile could
not melt nor even temper the hardness of his deep-
seated malice. He again looked sternly upon her
brow, and then coldly wrung out the slow soul-
withering words, Maiden, thou art doomed to be a
murderer!"
(C
From that hour Rhys Meredith became the destiny
of Ruth Tudor. At first she spurned at his prediction,
and alternately cursed and laughed at him for the
malice of his falsehood; but when she found that
none laughed with her, that men looked upon her
with suspicious eyes, women shrunk from her society,
and children shrieked at her presence, she felt that
these were signs of truth, and her high spirit no
longer struggled against the conviction; a change
came over her mind when she had known how horrid
it was to be alone. Abhorring the prophet, she yet
clung to his footsteps, and while she sat by his side,
felt as if he alone could avert that evil destiny which
he alone had foreseen. With him only was she seen
to smile; elsewhere sad, silent, stern; it seemed as
188
Weird Tales.
if she were ever occupied in nerving her mind for that
which she had to do; and her beauty, already of the
majestic cast, grew absolutely awful, as her perfect
features assumed an expression which might have
belonged to the angel of vengeance or death.
But there were moments when her naturally strong
spirit, not yet wholly subdued, struggled against her
conviction, and endeavoured to find modes of avert-
ing her fate. It was in one of these, perhaps, that
she gave her hand to a wooer, from a distant part of
the country, a sailor, who either had not heard, or
did not regard the prediction of Rhys, upon condition
that he should remove her far from her native village
to the home of his family and friends, for she some-
times felt as if the decree which had gone forth
against her could not be fulfilled, except upon the
spot where she had heard it, and that her heart would
be lighter if men's eyes would again look upon her in
kindliness, and she no longer sat beneath the glare of
those that knew so well the secret of her soul. Thus
thinking, she quitted N- with her husband; and
the tormentor who had poisoned her repose, soon
after her departure left the village as secretly and as
suddenly as he had entered it.
But though Ruth could depart from his corporeal
presence, and look upon his cruel visage no more,
yet the eye of her soul was fixed upon his shadow,
and his airy form, the creation of her sorrow, still sat
by her side; the blight that he had breathed upon
her peace had withered her heart, and it was in vain
that she sought to forget or banish the recollection
from her brain. Men and women smiled upon her as
A Dire Prediction.
189
before in the days of her joy, the friends of her
husband welcomed her to their bosoms, but they
could give no peace to her heart. She shrunk from
their friendship, she shivered equally at their neglect,
she dreaded any cause that might lead to that which,
it had been said, she must do. Nightly she sat alone
and thought; she dwelt upon the characters of those
around her, and shuddered that in some she saw
violence and selfishness enough to cause injury, which
she might be supposed to resent to blood. Then she
wept bitter tears and thought of her native village,
whose inhabitants were so mild, and whose previous
knowledge of her hapless destiny might induce them
to avoid all that might hasten its completion; and
sighed to think she had ever left it in the mistaken
hope of finding peace elsewhere. Again, her sick
fancy would ponder upon the modes of murder, and
wonder how her victim would fall. Against the use
of actual violence she had disabled herself; she had
never struck a blow, her small hand would have
suffered injury in the attempt; she understood not
the usage of firearms, she was ignorant of what were
poisons, and a knife she never allowed herself, even
for the most necessary purposes. How then could
she slay? At times she took comfort from thoughts
like these, and at others, in the blackness of her
despair, she would cry, If it must be, oh, let it
come, and these miserable anticipations cease; then I
shall, at least, destroy but one; now in my uncerti-
tude, I am the murderer of many!"
CC
Her husband went forth and returned upon the
voyages which made up the avocation and felicity of
190
Weird Tales.
his life, without noticing the deep-rooted sorrow of
his wife. He was a common man, and of a common
mind; his eye had not seen the awful beauty of her
whom he had chosen; his spirit had not felt her
power; and, if he had marked, he would not have
understood her grief; so she ministered to him as a
duty. She was a silent and obedient wife, but she
saw him come home without joy, and witnessed his
departure without regret; he neither added to nor
diminished her sorrow. But destiny had one solitary
blessing in store for the victim of its decrees—a child
was born to the hapless Ruth; a lovely little girl soon
slept upon her bosom, and, coming as it did, the one
lone and lovely rose-bud in her desolate garden, she
welcomed it with a warmer joy, and cherished it with
a kindlier hope.
A few years went by unsoiled by the wretchedness
which had marked the preceding; the joy of the
mother softened the anguish of the condemned, and
sometimes when she looked upon her daughter she
ceased to despair. But destiny had not forgotten her
claim, and soon her hand pressed heavily upon her
victim; the giant ocean rolled over the body of her
husband, poverty visited the cottage of the widow,
and famine's gaunt figure was visible in the distance.
Oppression came with these, for arrears of rent were
demanded, and he who asked was brutal in his anger
and harsh in his language to the sufferers. Ruth
shuddered as she heard him speak, and trembled for
him and for herself. The unforgotten prophecy
arose in her mind, and she preferred even wit
nesses to his brutality and her degradation, rather
A Dire Prediction.
191
than encounter his anger and her own dark thoughts
alone.
Thus goaded, she saw but one thing that could save
her; she fled from her persecutors to the home of her
youth, and leading her little Rachel by the hand,
threw herself into the arms of her kin. They received
her with distant kindness, and assured her that she
should not want. In this they kept their promise,
but it was all they did for Ruth and her daughter. A
miserable subsistence was given to them, and that
was embittered by distrust, and the knowledge that
it was yielded unwillingly.
Among the villagers, although she was no longer
shunned as formerly, her story was not forgotten; if
it had been, her terrific beauty, the awful flashing of
her eyes, her large black curls hanging like thunder-
clouds over her stern and stately brow and marble
throat, her majestic stature and solemn movements,
would have recalled it to their recollections. She
was a marked being, and all believed (though each
would have pitied her had they not been afraid) that
her evil destiny was not to be averted; she looked
like one fated to some wonderful deed. They saw
she was not of them, and though they did not directly
avoid her, yet they never threw themselves in her
way, and thus the hapless Ruth had ample leisure to
contemplate and grieve over her fate. One night she
sat alone in her wretched hovel, and, with many
bitter ruminations, was watching the happy sleep of
her child, who slumbered tranquilly on their only
bed. Midnight had long passed, yet Ruth was not
disposed to rest; she trimmed her dull light, and said
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Weird Tales.
mentally, "Were I not poor, such a temptation
might not assail me, riches would procure me defer-
ence; but poverty, or the wrongs it brings, may drive
me to this evil; were I above want, it would be less
likely to be. Oh, my child, for thy sake would I
avoid this doom more than for mine own; for if it
should bring death to me, what will it not hurl on
thee?—infamy, agony, scorn.
She wept aloud as she spoke, and scarcely seemed
to notice the singularity (at that late hour) of some
one without attempting to open the door; she heard,
but the circumstance made little impression; she
knew that as yet her doom was unfulfilled, and that,
therefore, no danger could reach her; she was no
coward at any time, but now despair had made her
brave; the door opened, and a stranger entered,
without either alarming or disturbing her, and it was
not till he had stood face to face with Ruth, and
discovered his features to be those of Rhys Meredith,
that she sprung up from her seat and gazed wildly and
earnestly upon him.
Meredith gave her no time to question.
"Ruth
Tudor," said he, "behold the cruellest of thy foes
comes suing to thy pity and mercy. I have embittered
thy existence, and doomed thee to a terrible lot;
what first was dictated by vengeance and malice
became truth as I uttered it, for what I spoke I
believed. Yet, take comfort, some of my predictions
have failed, and why may not this be false? In my
own fate I have ever been deceived, perhaps I may
be equally so in thine; in the meantime have pity
upon him who was thine enemy, but who, when his
A Dire Prediction.
193
vengeance was uttered, instantly became thy friend.
I was poor, and thy scorn might have robbed me of
subsistence in danger, and thy contempt might have
given me up. Beggared by many disastrous events,
hunted by creditors, I fled from my wife and son
because I could no longer bear to contemplate their
suffering; I sought fortune all ways since we parted,
and always has she eluded my grasp till last night,
when she rather tempted than smiled upon me. At
an idle fair I met the steward of this estate drunk and
stupid, but loaded with gold; he travelled towards
home alone; I could not, did not wrestle with the
fiend that possessed me, but hastened to overtake him
in his lonely ride. Start not! no hair of his head
was harmed by me; of his gold I robbed him, but
not of his life, though, had I had been the greater
villain, I should now be in less danger, since he
marked my person. Three hundred pounds is the
meed of my daring, and I must keep it now or die.
Ruth, thou too art poor and forsaken, but thou art
faithful and kind, and wilt not betray me to justice;
save me, and I will not enjoy my riches alone. Thou
knowest all the caves in the rocks, those hideous
hiding-places, where no foot, save thine, has dared to
tread; conceal me in these till the pursuit be past,
and I will give thee one-half of my wealth, and return
with the other to gladden my wife and son.
""
The hand of Ruth was already opened, and in
imagination she grasped the wealth he promised ;
oppression and poverty had somewhat clouded the
nobleness, but not the fierceness of her spirit. She
saw that riches would save her from wrath, perhaps
N
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from blood, and as the means to escape so mighty an
evil, she was not scrupulous respecting a lesser.
Independently of this, she felt a great interest in the
safety of Rhys; her own fate seemed to hang upon
his; she hid the ruffian in the caves, and supplied
him with light and food.
There was a happiness now in the heart of Ruth-
a joy in her thoughts as she sat all the long day upon
the deserted settle of her wretched fireside, to which
they had for many years been strangers. Many times
during the past years of her sorrow she had thought
of Rhys, and longed to look upon his face and sit
beneath his shadow, as one whose presence could
preserve her from the evil fate which he himself had
predicted. She had long since forgiven him his
prophecy; she believed he had spoken truth, and
this gave her a wild confidence in his power-a con-
fidence that sometimes thought, "If he can foreknow,
can he not also avert?" She said mentally, without
any reference to the temporal good he had promised
her, I have a treasure in those caves; he is there—
he who hath foreseen and may oppose my destiny.
He hath shadowed my days with sorrow, and forbidden
me, like ordinary beings, to hope; yet he is now in
my power, his life is in my hands; he says so, yet I
believe him not, for I cannot betray him if I would;
were I to lead the officers of justice to the spot where
he lies crouching, he would be invisible to their sight
or to mine, or I should become speechless ere I
could say, 'Behold him.' No, he cannot die
by me!"
And she thought she would deserve his confidence,
Mİ
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195
and support him in his suffering. She had concealed
him in a deep dark cave, hewn far in the rock, to which
she alone knew the entrance from the beach; there
was another (if a huge aperture in the top of the rock
might be so called), which, far from attempting to
descend, the peasants and seekers of the culprit had
scarcely dared to look into, so perpendicular, dark,
and uncertain was the hideous descent into what
justly appeared to them a bottomless abyss. They
passed over his head in their search through the fields
above, and before the mouth of his den upon the
beach below, yet they left him in safety, though in
incertitude and fear.
It was less wonderful the suspicionless conduct of
the villagers towards Ruth, than the calm prudence
with which she conducted all the details relating to
her secret. Her poverty was well known, yet she daily
procured a double portion of food, which was pro-
cured by double labour; she toiled in the fields for
the meed of oaten cake and potatoes, or she dashed
out in a crazy boat upon the wide ocean, to win with
the dredgers the spoils of the oyster-beds that lie on
its bosom-the daintier fare was for the unhappy
guest. And daily did she wander among the rocks,
when the tides were retiring, for the shell-fish which
they had flung among the fissures in their retreat,
which she bore, exhausted with fatigue, to her home,
and which her lovely child, now rising into woman-
hood, prepared for the luxurious meal. It was wonder-
ful, too, the settled prudence of the little maiden, who
spoke nothing of the food which was borne from their
frugal board; if she suspected the secret of her mother,
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she respected it too much to allow others to discover
that she did so.
Many sad hours did Ruth pass in the robber's cave,
and many times, by conversing with him on the
subject of her destiny, did she seek to alleviate the
pangs its recollection gave her; but the result of such
discussions were by no means favourable to her hopes.
Rhys had acknowledged that his threat had origin-
ated in malice, and that he intended to alarm and
subdue, but not to the extent that he had effected.
"I knew well," said he, "that disgrace alone would
operate upon you as I wished, for I foresaw you would
glory in the thought of nobly sustained misfortune; I
meant to degrade you with the lowest; I meant to
attribute to you what I now painfully experience to
be the vilest of vices; I intended to tell you you were
destined to be a thief. But I could not utter the words
I had arranged, and I was struck with horror at those
I heard involuntarily proceeding from my lips. I
would have recalled them, but I could not; I would
have said, 'Maiden, I did but jest,' but there was
something that seemed to withhold my speech and
press upon my soul, so as thou hast said shall this
thing be.' Yet take comfort, my own fortunes have
ever deceived me, and doubtlessly ever will, for I feel
as if I should one day return to this cave and make it
my final home,”
He spoke solemnly and wept; but the awful eye of
his companion was unmoved as she looked on in
wonder and contempt at his grief. "Thou knowest
not how to endure," said she to him, "and as soon
as night shall again fall upon our mountains, I will
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197
lead thee forth on thy escape; the danger of pursuit
is now past. At midnight be ready for thy journey ;
leave the cave and ascend the rocks by the path I
showed thee, to the field in which its mouth is situated;
wait me there a few moments, and I will bring thee a
fleet horse, ready saddled for the journey, for which
thy gold must pay, since I must declare to the owner
that I have sold it at a distance, and for more than its
rated value."
That midnight came, and Meredith waited with
trembling anxiety for the haughty step of Ruth. At
length he saw-she had ascended the rock, and,
standing on its verge, was looking around for her
guest. As she was thus alone in the clear moonlight,
standing between rock and sky, and scarcely seeming
to touch the earth, her dark locks and loose garments
scattered by the wind, she looked like some giant
spirit of the older time, preparing to ascend into the
mighty black cloud which singly hung from the
empyreum, and upon which she already appeared to
recline. Meredith beheld her and shuddered; but
she approached, and he recovered his recollection.
"You must be speedy in your movements," said
she, "when you leave me. Your horse waits on the
other side of this field, and I would have you hasten
lest his neighings should betray your purpose.
But
before you depart, Rhys Meredith, there is an account
to be settled between us. I have dared dangers and
privations for you; that the temptations of the poor
may not assail me, give me my reward, and go."
Rhys pressed his leathern bag to his bosom, but
answered nothing to the speech of Ruth; he seemed
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to be studying some evasion, for he looked upon the
ground, and there was trouble in the working of his
lip. At length he said cautiously, "I have it not
with me; I buried it, lest it should betray me, in a
field some miles distant; thither will I go, dig it up,
and send it to thee from B-, which is, as thou
knowest, my first destination.'
""
Ruth gave him one glance of her awful eye when
he had spoken; she had detected his meanness, and
smiled at his incapacity to deceive.
"What dost
thou press to thy bosom so earnestly?" she de-
manded. "Surely thou art not the wise man I
deemed thee, thus to defraud my claim. Thy friend
alone thou mightest cheat, and safely; but I have
been made wretched by thee-guilty by thee—and
thy life is in my power.
I could, as thou knowest,
easily raise the village, and win half thy wealth by
giving thee up to justice; but I prefer reward from
thy wisdom and gratitude; give, therefore, and be
gone."
But Rhys knew too well the value of the metal of
sin to yield one-half of it to Ruth; he tried many
miserable shifts and lies, and at last, baffled by the
calm penetration of his antagonist, boldly avowed his
intention of keeping all the spoil he had won with so
much hazard. Ruth looked at him with scorn.
Keep thy gold," she said. "If it thus can harden
hearts, I covet not its possession; but there is one
thing thou must do, and that ere thou stir one foot.
I have supported thee with hard-earned industry; that
I give thee-more proud, it should seem, in bestowing
than I could be, from such as thee, in receiving;
(C
A Dire Prediction.
199
but the horse that is to bear thee hence to-night I
borrowed for a distant journey; I must return with
it, or with its value; open thy bag, pay me for that,
and go."
But Rhys seemed afraid to open his bag in the
presence of her he had wronged. Ruth understood
his fears; but, scorning vindication of her principles,
contented herself with entreating him to be honest.
"Be more just to thyself and me," she persisted.
"The debt of gratitude I pardon thee; but, I beseech
thee, leave me not to encounter the consequences of
having stolen from my friend the animal which is his
only means of subsistence. I pray thee, Rhys, not to
condemn me to scorn."
It was to no avail that Ruth humbled herself to
entreaties. Meredith answered not, and while she
was yet speaking, cast sidelong looks towards the
gate where the horse was waiting for his service, and
seemed meditating whether he should not dart from
Ruth, and escape her entreaties and demands by dint
of speed. Her stern eye detected his purpose; and,
indignant at his baseness, and ashamed of her own
degradation, she sprung suddenly towards him, made
a desperate clutch at the leathern bag, and tore it
from the grasp of the deceiver. Meredith made an
attempt to recover it, and a fierce struggle ensued,
which drove them both back towards the yawning
mouth of the cave from which he had just ascended
to the world. On its very verge, on its very extreme
edge, the demon who had so long ruled his spirit now
instigated him to mischief, and abandoned him to
his natural brutality: he struck the unhappy Ruth a
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revengeful and tremendous blow. At that moment
a horrible thought glanced like lightning through her
soul. He was to her no longer what he had been; he
was a robber, ruffian, liar; one whom to destroy was
justice, and perhaps it was he―. "Villain!" she
cried, “thou—thou didst predict that I was doomed
to be a murderer! Art thou-art thou destined to
be the victim?" She flung him from her with terrific
force as he stood close to the abyss, and the next
instant heard him dash against its sides, as he was
whirled headlong into the darkness.
It was an awful feeling the next that passed over
the soul of Ruth Tudor, as she stood alone in the
pale sorrowful-looking moonlight, endeavouring to
remember what had chanced. She gazed on the
purse, on the chasm, wiped the drops of agony from
her heated brow, and then, with a sudden pang of
recollection, rushed down to the cavern. The light was
still burning as Rhys had left it, and served to show
her the wretch extended helplessly beneath the chasm.
Though his body was crushed, his bones splintered,
and his blood was on the cavern's sides, he was yet
living, and raised his head to look upon her, as she
darkened the narrow entrance in her passage. He
glared upon her with the visage of a demon, and spoke
like a fiend in pain. "Me hast thou murdered!" he
said, "but I shall be avenged in all thy life to come.
Deem not that thy doom is fulfilled, that the deed to
which thou art fated is done. In my dying hour I
know I feel what is to come upon thee; thou art yet
again to do a deed of blood!"
"Liar!" shrieked the infuriated victim.
A Dire Prediction.
201
"Thou art yet doomed to be a murderer!"
"Liar!"
"Thou art-and of-thine only child!"
She rushed to him, but he was dead.
Ruth Tudor stood for a moment by the corpse,
blind, stupified, deaf, and dumb; in the next she
laughed aloud, till the cavern rung with her ghastly
mirth, and many voices mingled with and answered
it.
But the noises scared and displeased her, and in
an instant she became stupidly grave; she threw back
her dark locks with an air of offended dignity, and
walked forth majestically from the cave. She took
the horse by his rein and led him back to his stable;
with the same unvarying calmness she entered her
cottage, and listened to the quiet breathings of her
sleeping child. She longed to approach her nearer,
but some new and horrid fear restrained her, and held
back her anxious step; suddenly, remembrance and
reason returned, and she uttered a shriek so full of
agony, so loud and shrill, that her daughter sprung
from her bed, and threw herself into her arms.
It was in vain that the gentle Rachel supplicated
her mother to find rest in sleep. "Not here," she
muttered, "it must not be here; the deep cave and
the hard rock, these shall be my resting-place; and
the bed-fellow, lo! he now waits my coming." Then
she would cry aloud, clasp her Rachel to her beating
heart, and as suddenly, in horror, thrust her from it.
The next midnight beheld Ruth Tudor in the cave,
seated upon a point of rock at the head of the corpse,
her chin resting upon her hands, gazing earnestly
upon the distorted face. Decay had already begun
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its work; and Ruth sat there watching the progress
of mortality, as if she intended that her stern eye
should quicken and facilitate its operation. The next
night also beheld her there; but the current of her
thoughts had changed, and the dismal interval which
had passed appeared to be forgotten. She stood with
her basket of food. "Wilt thou not eat?" she de-
manded; "arise, strengthen thee for thy journey;
eat, eat, thou sleeper; wilt thou never awaken?
Look, here is the meat thou lovest"; and as she
raised his head, and put the food to his lips, the frail
remnant of mortality shattered at her touch, and again
she knew that he was dead.
It was evident to all that a shadow and a change
was over the senses of Ruth; till this period she had
been only wretched, but now madness was mingled
with her grief. It was in no instance more apparent
that in her conduct towards her beloved child; in-
dulgent to all her wishes, ministering to all her wants
with a liberal hand, till men wondered from whence
she derived the means of indulgence, she yet seized
every opportunity to send her from her presence.
The gentle-hearted Rachel wept at her conduct, yet
did not complain, for she believed it the effect of the
disease that had for so many years been preying upon
her soul. Her nights were passed in roaming abroad,
her days in the solitude of her hut; and even this
became painful, when the step of her child broke upon
it. At length she signified that a relative of her
husband had died and left her wealth, and that it
should enable her to dispose of herself as she had
long wished; so leaving Rachel with her relatives in
}
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203
N-, she retired to a hut upon a lonely heath,
where she was less wretched because abandoned to
her wretchedness.
In many of her ravings she had frequently spoken
darkly of her crime, and her nightly visits to the
cave; and more frequently still she addressed some
unseen thing, which she asserted was for ever at her
side. But few heard these horrors, and those who
did, called to mind the early prophecy, and deemed
them the workings of insanity in a fierce and imagin-
ative mind. So thought also the beloved Rachel,
who hastened daily to embrace her mother, but not
now alone as formerly. A youth of the village was her
companion and protector, one who had offered her
worth and love, and whose gentle offers were not
rejected. Ruth, with a hurried gladness, gave her
consent, and a blessing to her child; and it was
remarked that she received her daughter more kindly,
and detained her longer at the cottage when Evan
was by her side, than when she went to the gloomy
heath alone. Rachel herself soon made this observa-
tion; and as she could depend upon the honesty and
prudence of him she loved, she felt less fear at his
being a frequent witness of her mother's terrific
ravings. Thus all that human consolation was
capable to afford was offered to the sufferer by her
sympathizing children.
But the delirium of Ruth Tudor appeared to
increase with every nightly visit to the cave of secret
blood; some hideous shadow seemed to follow her
steps in the darkness, and sit by her side in the light.
Sometimes she held strange parley with this creation
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of her frenzy, and at others smiled upon it in scornful
silence; now her language was in the tones of entreaty,
pity, and forgiveness; anon, it was the burst of execra-
tion, curses, and scorn. To the gentle listeners her
words were blasphemy; and, shuddering at her bold-
ness, they deemed, in the simple holiness of their own
hearts, that the evil one was besetting her, and that
religion alone could banish him. Possessed by this
idea, Evan one day suddenly interrupted her tre-
mendous denunciations upon her fate, and him who,
she said, stood over her to fulfil it, with imploring
her to open the book which he held in his hand, and
seek consolation from its words and its promises.
She listened and grew calm in a moment; with an
awful smile she bade him open and read at the first
place which should meet his eye. "From that, the
word of truth, as thou sayest, I shall know my fate;
what is there written I will believe."
book and read—
He opened the
"Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither
shall I flee from thy presence? If I go up into
heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell,
thou art there; if I take the wings of the morning,
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even
there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand
shall hold me.
>>
Ruth laid her hand upon the book. "It is enough ;
its words are truth; it hath said there is no hope,
and I find comfort in my despair. I have already
spoken thus in the secrecy of my heart, and I know
that he will be obeyed. The unnamed sin must be
Evan knew not how to comfort, so he shut up his
""
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205
book and retired; and Rachel kissed the cheek of
her mother, as she bade her a tender good-night.
Another month and she was to be the bride of Evan,
and she passed over the heath with a light step, for
the thought of her bridal seemed to give joy to her
mother. "We shall all be happy then," said the
smiling girl, as the youth of her heart parted from
her hand for the night; "and Heaven kindly grant
that happiness may last.'
The time appointed for the marriage of Rachel
Tudor and Evan Edwards had long passed away,
and winter had set in with unusual sternness, even on
that stormy coast, when, during a land tempest,
on a dark November afternoon, a stranger to the
country, journeying on foot, lost his way in endeavour-
ing to find a short route to his destination, over
stubble fields and meadow lands, by following the
footmarks of those who had preceded him. The
stranger was a young man, of a bright eye and a
hardy look, and he went on buffeting the elements,
and being buffeted by them, without a thought of
weariness, or a single expression of impatience.
Night descended upon him as he walked, and the
snowstorm came down with unusual violence, as if
to try the temper of his mind, a mind cultivated and
enlightened, though cased in a frame accustomed to
hardships, and veiled by a plain, nay, almost rustic
exterior. The thunder roared loudly above him, and
the wind blowing tremendously, raised the new-fallen
snow from the earth, which, mingling with the
showers as they fell, raised a clatter about his head
which bewildered and blinded the traveller, who,
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finding himself near some leafless brambles and a
few clustered bushes of the mountain broom, took
shelter under them to recover his senses and recon-
noitre his position. "Of all these ingredients for a
storm," said he smilingly to himself, "the lightning
is the most endurable after all; for if it does not kill,
it may at least cure, by lightning the way out of a
labyrinth, and by its bright flashes I hope to discover
where I am." In this hope he was not mistaken.
The brilliant and beautiful gleam showed him, when
the snow-shower had somewhat abated, every stunted
bush and blade of grass for some distance, and some-
thing, about the distance of one mile, that looked
like a whitewashed cottage of some poor encloser of
the miserable heath upon which he was now standing.
Full of hope of a shelter from the storm, and lit on-
wards by the brilliant flashes of lightning, the stranger
trod cheerily forwards, and in less than half an hour,
making full allowance for his retrograding between
the flashes, arrived at his beacon, the white cottage,
which from the low wall of loose limestone by which
it was surrounded, he judged to be, as he had already
imagined, the humble residence of some poor tenant
of the manor. He opened the little gate, and was
proceeding to knock at the door, when his steps were
arrested by a singular and unexpected sound; it was
a choral burst of many voices, singing slowly and
solemnly that magnificent dirge of the Church of
England, the 104th Psalm. The stranger loved
music, and the sombrous melody of that fine air
had an instant effect upon his feelings; he lingered
in solemn and silent admiration till the majestic strain
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207
had ceased; he then knocked gently at the door,
which was instantly and courteously opened to his
inquiry.
On entering, he found himself in a cottage of a
more respectable interior than from its outward
appearance he had been led to expect; but he had
little leisure or inclination for the survey of its
effects, for his senses and imagination were imme-
diately and entirely occupied by the scene which pre-
sented itself on his entrance. In the centre of the
room into which he had been so readily admitted,
stood, on its trestles, an open coffin; lights were at
its head and foot, and on each side sat many persons
of both sexes, who appeared to be engaged in the
customary ceremony of watching the corpse previous
to its interment in the morning. There were many
who appeared to the stranger to be watchers, but
there were but two who, in his eye, bore the appear-
ance of mourners, and they had faces of grief which
spoke too plainly of the anguish that was mining
within. One, at the foot of the coffin, was a pale
youth, just blooming into manhood, who covered his
dewy eyes with trembling fingers, that ill concealed
the tears which trickled down his wan cheeks beneath;
the other; but why should we again describe that
still unbowed and lofty form? The awful marble
brow upon which the stranger gazed was that of
Ruth Tudor.
There was much whispering and quiet talk among
the people while refreshments were handed amongst
them ; and so little curiosity was excited by the
appearance of the traveller, that he naturally con-
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cluded that it must be no common loss that could
dleaden a feeling usually so intense in the bosoms of
Welsh peasants! he was even checked for an attempt
to question. But one man-he who had given him
admittance, and seemed to possess authority in the
circle-told him he would answer his questions when
the guests should depart, but till then he must keep
silence. The traveller endeavoured to obey, and sat
down in quiet contemplation of the figure who most
interested his attention, and who sat at the coffin's
head. Ruth Tudor spoke nothing, nor did she
appear to heed aught of the business that was pass-
ing around her. Absorbed by reflection, her eyes
were generally cast to the ground; but when they
were raised, the traveller looked in vain for that
expression of grief which had struck him so forcibly
on his entrance. There was something wonderfully
strange in the character of her perfect features; could
he have found words for his thought, and might have
been permitted the expression, he would have called
it triumphant despair, so deeply agonized, so proudly
stern looked the mourner who sat by the dead.
The interest which the traveller took in the scene
became more intense the longer he gazed upon its
action. Unable to resist the anxiety which had begun
to prey upon his spirits, he arose and walked towards
the coffin, with the purpose of contemplating its in-
habitant; a sad explanation was given by its appear-
ance of the grief and the anguish he had witnessed; a
beautiful girl was reposing in the narrow house, with
a face as calm and lovely as if she but slept a deep
and refreshing sleep, and the morning sun would
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209
again smile upon her awakening. Salt, the emblem
of the immortal soul, was placed upon her breast,
and in her pale and perishing fingers a branch of
living flowers was struggling for life in the grasp of
death, and diffusing their sweet and gracious fragrance
over the cold odour of mortality. These images, so
opposite, yet so alike, affected the spirit of the gazer,
and he almost wept as he continued to look upon
them, till he was aroused from his trance by the
strange conduct of Ruth Tudor, who had caught a
glimpse of his face as he bent in sorrow over the
coffin. She sprang up from her seat, and darting at
him a terrible glance of recognition, pointed down to
the corpse, and then with a hollow burst of frantic
laughter, shouted, "Behold, thou liar!"
The startled stranger was relieved from the necessity
of speaking by some one taking his arm and gently
leading him to the farther end of the cottage; the
eyes of Ruth followed him, and it was not till he had
done violence to himself in turning from her to his
conductor, that he could escape their singular fascina-
tion. When he did so, he beheld a venerable man,
the pastor of a distant village, who had come that
night to speak comfort to the mourners, and perform
the last sad duty to the dead on the morrow.
"Be
not alarmed at what you have witnessed, my young
friend,” said he; "these ravings are not uncommon.
This unhappy woman, at an early period of her life,
gave ear to the miserable superstitions of her country,
and a wretched pretender to wisdom predicted that
she should become a shedder of blood; madness has
been the inevitable consequence in an ardent spirit,
O
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and in its ravings she dreams she has committed one
sin and is still tempted to add to it another."
"You may say what you please, parson, said the
old man who had given admittance to the stranger,
and who now, after dismissing all the guests save the
youth, joined the talkers and seated himself on the
settle by their side,-"you may say what you please
about madness and superstition, but I know Ruth
Tudor was a fated woman, and the deed that was
to be I believe she has done; ay, ay, her madness is
conscience, and if the deep sea and the jagged rocks
could speak, they might tell us a tale of other things
than that. But she is judged now; her only child is
gone-her pretty Rachel. Poor Evan! he was her
suitor. Ah, he little thought two months ago, when
he was preparing for a gay bridal, that her slight
sickness would end thus; he did not deserve it. But
for her-God forgive me if I do her wrong—but I
think it is the hand of God, and it lies heavy, as it
should." And the gray - haired old man hobbled
away, satisfied that in thus thinking he was showing
his zeal for virtue.
▸
"Alas, that so white a head should acknowledge
so hard a heart!" said the pastor. "Ruth is con-
demned, according to his system, for committing that
which a mightier hand compelled her to do. How
harsh and misjudging is age! But we must not
speak so loud," continued he, "for see, the youth
Evan is retiring for the night, and the miserable
mother has thrown herself on the floor to sleep; the
sole domestic is rocking on her stool, and therefore
I will do the honours of this poor cottage to you.
A Dire Prediction.
211
There is a chamber above this, containing the only
bed in the hut; thither you may go and rest, for
otherwise it will certainly be vacant to-night. I
shall find a bed in the village; and Evan sleeps near
you with some of the guests in the barn. But before
I go, if my question be not unwelcome and intrusive,
tell me who you are, and whither your are bound."
"I was ever somewhat of a subscriber to the old
man's creed of fatalism," said the stranger smiling,
"and I believe I am more confirmed in it by the
singular events of this day. My father was a man of
a certain rank in society, but of selfish and disorderly
habits. A course of extravagance and idleness was
succeeded by difficulties and distress. Harassed by
creditors, he was pained by their demands, and his
selfishness was unable to endure the sufferings of his
wife and children. Instead of exertion, he had
recourse to flight, and left us to face the difficulties
from which he shrunk. He was absent for years,
while his family toiled and struggled with success.
Suddenly we heard that he was concealed in this
part of the coast; the cause which made that con-
cealment necessary I forbear to mention; but he as
suddenly disappeared from the eyes of men, though
we never could trace him beyond this part of the
country. I have always believed that I should one
day find my father, and have lately, though with
difficulty, prevailed upon my mother to allow me to
make my inquiries in this neighbourhood; but my
search is at an end to-day. I believe that I have
found my father.
father. Roaming along the beach, I pene-
trated into several of those dark caverns of the rocks,
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Weird Tales.
which might well, by their rugged aspects, deter the
idle and timid from entering. Through the fissures
of one I discovered in the interior a light. Surprised,
I penetrated to its concealment, and discovered a
man sleeping on the ground. I advanced to awake
him, and found but a fleshless skeleton, cased in
tattered and decaying garments.
He had probably
met his death by accident; for exactly over the
corpse I observed, at a terrific distance, the daylight,
as if streaming down from an aperture above. Thus
the wretched man must have fallen, but how long
since, or who had discovered his body and left the
light which I beheld, I knew not, though I cannot
help cherishing a strong conviction that they were
the remains of Rhys Meredith that I saw.”
"Who talks of Rhys Meredith," said a stern voice
near the coffin, "and of the cave where the outcast
rots?" They turned quickly at the sound, and beheld
Ruth Tudor standing up, as if she had been intently
listening to the story. "It was I who spoke, dame,"
said the stranger gently, "and my speech was of my
father, of Rhys Meredith; I am Owen his son.
""
((
Son!-Owen Rhys !" said the bewildered Ruth,
passing her hand over her forehead, as if to enable her
to recover the combinations of these names; "and
who art thou, that thus givest human ties to him who
is no more of humanity ?—why speakest thou of living
things as pertaining to the dead? Father! He is father
to nought save sin, and murder is his only begotten!"
She advanced to the traveller as she spoke, and
again caught a view of his face; again he saw the
wild look of recognition, and an unearthly shriek
A Dire Prediction.
213
followed the convulsive horror of her face.
"There!
there!" she said, "I knew it must be thyself; once
before to-night have I beheld thee, yet what can thy
coming bode? Back with thee, ruffian! for is not
thy dark work done?"
"Let us leave her," said the good pastor, "to the
care of her attendant; do not continue to meet her
gaze; your presence may increase but cannot allay
her malady; go up to your bed and rest."
He retired as he spoke; and Owen, in compliance
with his wish, ascended the ruinous stair which led
to his chamber, after he had beheld Ruth Tudor
quietly place herself in her seat at the open coffin's
head. The room to which he mounted was not of
the most cheering aspect, yet he felt that he had often
slept soundly in a worse. It was a gloomy, unfinished
chamber, and the wind was whistling coldly and
drearily through the uncovered rafters above his head.
Like many of the cottages in that part of the country,
it appeared to have grown old and ruinous before it
had been finished, for the flooring was so crazy as
scarcely to support the huge wooden bedstead, and in
many instances the boards were entirely separate
from each other; and, in the centre, time or the rot
had so completely devoured the half of one, that
through the gaping aperture Owen had an entire
command of the room and the party below, looking
down immediately above the coffin. Ruth was in
the same attitute as when he left her, and the servant
girl was dozing by her side. Everything being per-
fectly tranquil, Owen threw himself upon his hard
couch, and endeavoured to compose himself to rest
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Weird Tales.
for the night. But this had become a task, and one
of no easy nature to surmount; his thoughts still
wandered to the events of the day, and he felt there
was some strange connection between the scene he
had just witnessed and the darker one of the secret
cave. He was an imaginative man, and of a quick
and feverish temperament; and he thought of Ruth
Tudor's ravings and the wretched skeleton of the
rock, till he had worked out in his brain the chain of
events that linked one consequence with the other.
He grew restless and wretched, and amidst the toss-
ings of impatient anxiety fatigue overpowered him,
and he sank into a perturbed and heated sleep. His
slumber was broken by dreams that might well be
the shadows of his waking reveries. He was alone
(as in reality) upon his humble bed, when imagina-
tion brought to his ear the sound of many voices
again singing the slow and monotonous psalm. It
was interrupted by the outcries of some unseen things
who attempted to enter his chamber, and, amid yells
of fear and execrations of anger, bade him "Arise,
and come forth, and aid"; then the coffined form,
which slept so quietly below, stood by his side, and in
beseeching accents bade him "Arise, save her." In
his sleep he attempted to spring up, but a horrid fear
restrained him, a fear that he should be too late; then
he crouched like a coward beneath his coverings, to
hide from the reproaches of the spectre, while shouts of
laughter and shrieks of agony were poured like a tem-
pest around him. He sprung from his bed and awoke.
It was some moments ere he could recover recollec-
tion, or shake off the horror which had seized upon
A Dire Prediction.
215
his soul. He listened, and with infinite satisfaction
observed an unbroken silence throughout the house.
He smiled at his own terrors, attributed them to the
events of the day or the presence of a corpse, and
determined not to look into the lower room till he
should be summoned thither in the morning. He
walked to the casement and looked abroad to the
night. The clouds were heavy, black, and lowering,
and the face of the sky looked angrily at the wind,
and glared portentously upon the earth; the sleet was
still falling, distant thunder announced the approach
or departure of a storm, and Owen marked the clouds
coming from afar towards him, laden with the rapid
and destructive lightning. He shut the casement
and returned towards his bed; but the light from
below attracted his eye, and he could not pass the
aperture without taking one glance at the party.
They were in the same attitude in which he had
left them; the servant was sleeping, but Ruth was
earnestly gazing on the lower end of the room upon
something without the sight of Owen. His atten-
tion was next fixed upon the corpse, and he thought
he had never seen any living thing look so lovely;
and so calm was the aspect of her last repose, that
Meredith thought it more resembled a temporary sus-
pension of the faculties than the eternal stupor of
death. Her features were pale, but not distorted, and
there was none of the livid hue of death in her beau-
tiful mouth and lips; but the flowers in her hand gave
stronger demonstration of the presence of the power
before whose potency their little strength was fading-
drooping with a mortal sickness, they bowed down
216
Weird Tales.
their heads in submission, as one by one they dropped
from her pale and perishing fingers. Owen gazed
till he thought he saw the grasp of her hand relax
and a convulsive smile pass over her cold and rigid
features; he looked again, the eyelids shook and
vibrated like the string of some fine-strung instru-
ment, the hair rose, and the head-cloth moved. He
started up ashamed. "Does the madness of this
woman affect all who would sleep beneath her roof?"
said he; "what is this that disturbs me, or am I yet in
a dream? Hark! what is that?" It was the voice of
Ruth; she had risen from her seat, and was standing
near the coffin, apparently addressing some one who
stood at the lower end of the room. "To what
purpose is thy coming now?" said she in a low and
melancholy voice,—" and at what dost thou laugh and
gibe?—lo! you; she is here, and the sin you know of
cannot be; how can I take the life which another
hath already withdrawn? Go, go hence to thy cave
of night, for this is no place of safety for thee." Her
thoughts now took another turn; she seemed to hide.
one from the pursuit of others. "Lie still lie still!"
she whispered; "put out thy light! so, so, they pass
by and mark thee not-thou art safe; good-night,
good-night !-now will I home to sleep"; and she
seated herself in her chair, as if composing her senses
to rest.
Owen was again bewildered in the chaos of thought,
but for this time he determined to subdue his imagina-
tion, and, throwing himself upon his bed, again gave
himself up to sleep. But the images of his former
dreams still haunted him, and their hideous phantoms
A Dire Prediction.
217
were more powerfully renewed; again he heard the
solemn psalm of death, but unsung by mortals—it
was pealed through earth up to the high heaven by
myriads of the viewless and the mighty; again he
heard the execrations of millions for some remem-
bered sin, and the wrath and the hatred of a world
was rushing upon him. "Come forth! come forth!"
was the cry; and amid yells and howls they were
darting upon him, when the pale form of the beau-
tiful dead arose between them, and shielded him from
their malice; but he heard her say aloud, "It is for
this that thou wilt not save me; arise, arise and help!"
He sprung up as he was commanded-sleeping or
waking he never knew; but he started from his bed
to look down into the chamber, as he heard the voice
of Ruth loud in terrific denunciation. He looked;
she was standing uttering yells of madness and rage,
and close to her was a well-known form of appalling
recollection — his father, as he had seen him last.
He arose and darted to the door. "I am mad," said
he; "I am surely mad, or this is still a continuation
of my dream."
He looked again; Ruth was still
there, but alone.
But though no visible form stood by the maniac,
some fiend had entered her soul, and mastered her
mighty spirit; she had armed herself with an axe,
and shouting, "Liar, liar, hence!" was pursuing
some imaginary foe to the darker side of the cottage.
Owen strove hard to trace her emotions; but as she
had retreated under the space occupied by his bed,
he could no longer see her, and his eyes involuntarily
fastened themselves upon the coffin. There a new
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Weird Tales.
horror met them; the dead corpse had risen, and
with wild and glaring eyes was watching the scene
before her. Owen distrusted his senses till he heard
the terrific voice of Ruth, as she marked the miracle
he had witnessed. "The fiend, the robber!" she
yelled, "it is he who hath entered the pure body of
my child. Back to thy cave of blood, thou lost one!
back to thine own dark hell!" Owen flew to the
door-it was too late-he heard the shriek, the blow;
he fell into the room, but only in time to hear the
second blow, and see the cleft head of the hapless
Rachel fall back upon its bloody pillow; his terrible
cries brought in the sleepers from the barn, headed
by the wretched Evan, and for a time the thunders of
heaven were drowned in the clamorous grief of man.
No one dared to approach the miserable Ruth, who
now, in utter frenzy, strode around the room, brand-
ishing with diabolical grandeur the bloody axe, and
singing a wild song of triumph and joy. All fell
back as she approached, and shrunk from the infernal
majesty of her terrific form; and the thunders of
heaven rolling above their heads, and the flashings of
the fires of eternity in their eyes, were less terrible
than the savage glare and desperate wrath of the
maniac. Suddenly the house rocked to its founda-
tion; its inmates were blinded for a moment, and
sunk felled by a stunning blow to the earth; slowly
each man recovered and arose, wondering he was yet
alive. All were unhurt save one; Ruth Tudor was on
the earth, her blackened limbs prostrate beneath the
coffin of her child, and her dead cheek resting on the
rent and bloody axe-it had been the destroyer of both.
THE POSTPONED WEDDING.
ON the northern side of that narrow part of Carnar-
vonshire jutting into the Irish Channel, which is
called the promontory of Llyn, is a grand green
mountain dingle, known by the name of Nant
Gwrtheyrn, Vortigern's hollow or valley (nant signi-
fying a brook, also a hollow), from a tradition that
the British king of that name there retired to die. In
a mound of sod, called Bedd Gwrtheyrn, the grave of
Vortigern (the site of some now fallen edifice), a stone
coffin, enclosing a gigantic skeleton, was discovered
in the last century; and its "solitary state" (no other
tumuli being found near) sanctioned the belief that
those bones were not vulgar bones, but of royal
dignity.
This glen, containing but two or three houses, is
open to the ocean, and green to its margin, while on
every other side the descent is so frightfully pre-
cipitous that it secludes the valley from approach
almost as effectually as that sea which rolls across its
front. The country above is very wild and solitary,
the poor fishers' town of Nevin being the only place
to which the winding road conducts the traveller on
that narrow projection of North Wales; down the
midst of this pastoral hollow runs foaming a strong
torrent, dividing it into two banks, only united by
that sort of natural bridge the poverty of such
219
220
Weird Tales.
districts allows to their dwellers, huge stepping-
stones of rock, with a mountain ash or two to assist
the timid in their leap or swing over the roaring
water. On each side of this ravine stood opposite
to, but at some distance from, each other, two
cottages so old and gray, and so much the colour of
the russet sod and rock, that each appeared more like
a bare projecting part of the rock itself than a good,
warm, human dwelling, such as it really was within.
In one of these lived Evan Williams, and in the
other his cousin, Margaret Williams, with her infirm
father. Except two sisters of Evan, these were the
only survivors of two families who had long possessed
that little glen, with its patches of green corn, small
meadows, and stacks of black peat round about, as a
patriarchal domain from generation to generation.
Their situation rendered this young pair a sort of
hermits by necessity; and as he was handsome and
sensible, though shy as a child, and she a soft, sensi-
tive, fair girl, on whom the effect of total seclusion
had been a pensive thoughtfulness allied to the
sublime, rather than a dull stupor, such as it produces
in minds less sensitive, it was not to be wondered at
that an attachment almost romantic had grown up
between them, humble as was their station. In truth,
they were shut up with the sublime and each other;
and Nature in her grandeur, while she elevates the
mind, elévates in equal degree the passion that
engrosses it.
The sea solitude of Nant Gwrtheyrn, the eternal
measured dash of the waves on the beach, the vast
shadow of the stupendous Craig y Llam stretching
The Postponed Wedding.
221
quite across the valley, her only companions her two
female cousins, who were suffering from ill health,
all these produced on the gentle spirit of the girl
almost the effect of a convent among the mountains,
with its solemn music and its pale sisterhood. A
deeper solitude could hardly be imagined than
brooded, even at noonday, over Nant Gwrtheyrn,
with its few sheep bleating, its many waterfalls moan-
ing, and the expanse of desert ocean in its front,
where the only living motion was that silent, solemn,
beautiful one of some white-sailed vessel gliding
across the mountain opening, too distant for any voice
or token of life to reach the land from the many
human beings it was bearing by on their silent and
unknown course.
But now an unwonted stir, and voices calling, and
figures whose various-coloured woollen dresses shone
in the sun as they straggled down the declivities,
winding between clumps of flowering furze and points
of ivied rock, all tending toward the cottages, pro-
claimed some highly festive occasion at hand. Evan
and his cousin are to be married to-morrow, Saturday,
the favourite wedding day of the Welsh; and these
were the friends of the parties, who having been
bidden (of which bidding more hereafter), were now
congregating to present the gifts usual on these
occasions, which custom is called "Pwrs a Gwregys,"
that is, pulse and girdle. Every person invited,
brings, according to his or her ability, some gift for
the young beginners in housekeeping—an important
benefit to them in the aggregate, though a light tax
on individual generosity. The present of every
222
Weird Tales.
person is recorded in a book by a person who takes
on him this office, and the same in commodity or
value is expected to be returned at the future wedding
of the giver-it is even recoverable by law.
It was a pleasant sight on so fine a day to see these
kind visitants thus wending their way, the young
helping the old wherever the path was too steep for
their stiffened limbs, all traversing the slopes in little
groups one above another down the zigzag paths, and
old and young, and richer and poorer, all in their
best! Pinners and coifs newly plaited, and burying
the good women's chins and half (frequently) of a very
pretty mouth, to the no small disfigurement of youth;
small hats, glossy as jet, with large silver buckles,
whose brightness shone in the broad sunshine from a
distance, all these, with now and then a stumble
and outcry of the old, and the loud laugh of the
thoughtless young, joined to the wild beauty of the
scene, the blossoming furze gold, the purple heath
and white spars all about, and the little fairy pastoral
view round the farms below, almost overhung by
mountains, and all basking in the full blaze of
noonday summer blue, presented a sort of moving
panorama not undelightful to eyes contented with
rustic and grotesque beauty. Here an old body, who
could just carry her own weight by the help of a
crutch-stick, contrived, nevertheless, to grapple a
cheese under her spare arm, or a basket of chickens
suspended over the wrist of the same, to her imminent
peril of a fall. Little ones carried bags of various
seeds, others larger ones full of oatmeal; oatmeal
cakes were even brought ready baked; eggs, poultry,
The Postponed Wedding.
223
stores of every kind necessary in so isolated a re-
sidence, and abundance of all products of the sheep
and the loom conducive to warm sleeping and warm
walking in the snow season.
A still busier spectacle appeared down at the two
cottages; the Ystavell, that is, "the woman's goods,"
were being removed across the ravine from one house
to the other by such friends of the bridegroom as
had already arrived; for it is a point of courtesy to
perform this labour without troubling him, and in this
instance the labour was not light to transport heavy
utensils over the tumbling waters of the ravine by the
bridge of rocks. A huge coffer of antique oak, black
as ebony; the chrochon, or iron pot with three feet,
inseparable from Welsh chimneys; pewter dishes of
large size, wooden platters and trenchers, bowls and
spoons, made of beech or birch, formed a few of the
articles of housewifery comprised under the general
name of Ystavell, signifying a chamber, thence the
furniture of it.
Meanwhile, the bride of to-morrow, unseduced by
all these novel doings to desert her daily duties, was
quietly kneeling to buckle the shoe of a fine ruddy-
cheeked old man, with silver hair, seated in his chair
at the antique low porch of his house, and whom she
had just finished dressing, he being rheumatic. She
had brought out his chair, and set it facing the wide
sea-sky and dazzling ocean for him to enjoy the fine-
ness of the day and the sweetness of his own new-
mown fields, where the grasshoppers chirped among
the clover flowers not yet dead in the fresh swath,
though the scythe was unheard to-day, all being busied
224
Weird Tales.
in the one absorbing occasion. Pretty Margaret
looked up in his face, and thought he seemed
sorrowful, for this was the last day of her living on
this side the great gulley, and she had dressed and
undressed him now for three or four years past, but
her tender offices she was now to resign to a sister of
her future husband, who had always lived with the
old man, her uncle, but whom the affectionate
daughter had never permitted to tend his helpless-
ness before.
"I shall don* your clothes, and dofft
them too o'nights, daddy bach, ‡ all one for my being
married and going from you," said the tender girl,
stroking his cheek with the fond simplicity of child-
hood: "it be just none across from th'other house,
only a run down the Rhaiadr du (black cataract), and
some steps on the rock stones, or a swing by the great
ash boughs if it be a flood, and so up the gully bank,
and round the big mawn bog (peat morass), and a
jump or two across the rushy swamp hard by, and
I'm with you directly, daddy; it's just none, you
know. And you know when the sea's not a-roaring,
and Rhaiadr du not thundering very furious, one may
hear a body call right well all across,-no danger.
Not but Cousin Gwynny will touch you right tender,
every bit as tender as I could do,—no danger.”
But here, though to the manifest derangement of
this dignified chronicle of the doings of Nant
Gwrtheyrn in point of order, can we not refrain from
* Put on.
+ Put off.
The diminutive "bach" is a Welsh epithet of endearment
to males, as is "vach"
'vach" to females, in constant use among
country people.
The Postponed Wedding.
225
stepping back a day to review the quaint ceremonies
of the Bidding, a process not at all familiar to
Saesonig brides and bridegrooms.
Early in the morning, then, of the preceding day, a
man with an arch importance in his sun-bronzed face,
was seen marching from house to house, in deep
dingle or on windy hill-brow, and followed by half
the idle and the young in the parish of Clynnog
Vawr; in his hand he bore a wand of peeled willow,
tied with ribands and wild flowers, whose colours
vied in gaiety; and his whole person was fantastically
decorated with a profusion of June flowers. Thus
accoutred he entered each house where lived any
friend or acquaintance of the parties, and striking his
wand on the ground, after the fashion of some bold
navigator planting the standard of his king on some
new-found land, either read, spoke, or sung his
bidding or invitation to the wedding and "Pwrs a
Gwregys."
This merry fellow, a friend of the bridegroom, is
called the "Gwahoddwr,' or bidder: his powers of
extempore composition are sometimes rallied on this
occasion, or rather a preconcerted poem is delivered
at the inspiration of the moment; and what with the
blunders, what with the real humour of the address,
the end is sure to be attained, that of boundless fun
and goodwill in the roused hamlet or mountain village
of three or four sod-roofed dwellings, which pour
forth their whole population in a swarm round the
orator, down to the baby that can but just toddle, and
the curs that join in the clamour, and the little ones in
arms, crowing and throwing about arms and legs in
P
226
Weird Tales.
ecstasy at the novelty of some noise besides trees and
waterfalls, and incessantly reaching at the ribands of
the Gwahoddwr's staff of office.
The bustle with which our tale opened, of numbers
descending the slopes of Nant Gwrtheyrn, was the
result of this invitation. These offerings have the
name of Rhoddion; and this resort of friends for the
purpose is called paying the Rhoddion.
Early in the afternoon, the business of the Pwyddion
being over, the rural economy of the hermits of that
wild nook resumed its quiet course. But when Evan
had made hay and set it in cocks in his own and
uncle's two little fields, and Peggy (who had hid
herself during all the turmoil) had helped her lover
and cousins with the hay, and milked the ewes, and
fetched home two lambs from the hill, the lovers
snatched half an hour before the time her father
wanted to be undressed, to watch the sun go down,
round, red, and cloudless, on the verge of the wide
and glittering sea, lighting up gloriously all the bays,
promontories, and noble headlands along the shore of
the bay of Carnarvon, while their own barrier moun-
tains, the Eryri or Rivals, seemed to lift their two
towering heads as ramparts equally against the world
and the waves beyond.
On one lofty bank above the sea, where sheep had
nibbled the sod into the smoothness of a grass plot,
there stood an ancient chestnut-tree, quite out of the
usual track of the few shepherds in that district, and
the favourite haunt of our lovers for its deep seclusion.
Here as they stood, and the sun shot full on the
interlaced fretwork of the old tree's bark, she saw a
The Postponed Wedding.
227
part which her lover had planed smooth and inscribed
with her name, under which he had carved, "Married
June 5," in anticipation of that day on which all his
thoughts were fixed. But Margaret had imbibed,
from the loneliness and wildness of her birthplace, a
strong taint of superstition, and far from smiling at
the handiwork of Evan, she regarded it as a "tempt-
ing of Providence," according to the phraseology of
the rural "religious world"; that is, presuming on
the future for blessings that may not be within its
dispensation. "Oh, but if we never should be
married, Evan bach! I do not like that writing on
the tree, indeed, indeed!"
"Not married! and it's only to-morrow we are to
be, my girl!" said Evan laughing.
"Ah! there are so many things do happen when
we do promise ourselves so much. Did na my father
promise we would all go to Nevin wake the next
Sunday, when he was struck o' the rheumatism the
very Saturday, and could na turn in bed?"
(C
'But we live so safe here, my sweet; not like folk
in great cities, among fires and murders, that we've
less to fear from accidents.
""
"Not like folks in those great flying houses either,
where you wanted to go riding once, and leave me
to cry myself blind, and die before you got back
again," said Margaret reproachfully; "but you'll
never, never think to go to sea now, will you now?
will you, Evan, my dear?"
"Oh! poor wench," said he laughing, "didst
believe I was in earnest? Shall I tell thee why I
thought of it? Sailors and all travelled men do find
228
Weird Tales.
such favour with you womankind. I did dread the
days indeed when that bold, wild man, Will the
smuggler, did come to sell his tea down here, and
would tell you such stories, lies, or what not, about
parts and people abroad: I did fear my Peggy would
despise poor Cousin Evan, who had seen nothing but
Nant Gwrtheyrn all his life."
"And were you so cruel to keep me in a long,
long fright, that I could na eat nor sleep, though I
never told a soul for that? I hated that lying fool,
with his hat all aside. Oh! you did not know how
I did use to cry, in a wild, roaring, frightful morning,
after a storm all night; the wind bellowing down the
chimney, the sea thundering, the high oaks creaking,
the very rocks quaking, and I saw bits of wreck lie
all about our beach, and I was feared to walk along
it on the seaweed for expecting to see a blue corpse
thrown up, all bloated and horrid! For why? I
thought soon you would be out all night o' such a
nights, and how shall I bear it then?"
Then followed the tender look, the sweet assurance
of each other's health and safety, and the embrace,
to render that assurance, if possible, more sure; the
mutual grasp of hands, warm with life, temperate
with the coolness of health,-all those ensurings (fal-
lacious often, alas!) against the perils of life, which
renders the mere presence of a beloved object a soul-
soothing happiness, the mere absence a real misery—
absence, with all its doubts and dark conjecturings.
It is reported that before they left their tree, with
that innocent coquetry which loves to dally with the
fond fears of a lover, she erased the presumptuous
The Postponed Wedding.
229
word "married," and substituted "buried June 5";
lingering behind her lover for that purpose, intending
it as a sort of mournful surprise for his next visit to
their haunt.
66
The day of days is come, in beauty and in
glory! Thus a poet might have said; but a story-
teller only, that the wedding of Evan and his cousin
was a very fine morning.
There she stands in health and safety and redoubled
beauty, and again by her father's chair! The party
of the bridegroom's friends which is to fetch or
force her from that father's to a husband's arms, is
momentarily expected, as may be seen in her smiling,
blushing, yet anxious and palish face, ever turning to
the heights of that valley's barrier hills, where they
will be espied descending far off, as well as in her
restless person, evidently stirred by an exciting mind,
and seeming to hold by the old man's hand and chair
by turns, like one already being torn away. They
come! the late blush yielded her whole features to
an extreme paleness the moment that party became
visible, though the timid girl had concerted with Evan
how to evade her pursuers. The sham flight and
pursuit, as is well known, are usually enacted on
horseback; but besides that the nature of the declivi-
ties rendered this almost a perilous feat, equestrian
doings were as repugnant to her habits as her retiring
nature, and it was only in obedience to her old-
fashioned parent, who could not brook a wedding
without some shadow at least of its concomitant
revelry, that she submitted to the boisterousness of
the rites of a rustic Welsh wedding. These young
""
230
Weird Tales.
men (whose party is called " Gwyr o wisgi oca "), the
men of the age of vivacity, soon reached the little
cultivated bottom, but the bird was flown. The
small barn, with its outside of many-coloured mosses;
the black peat-stack, the last year's barley-rick, the
corners of an upright rock (on a ledge of which stood
three beehives, overhung by a tree growing out of a
crevice, and grassy lodgment above), all these, and a
green brambled pit full of foxgloves behind that rock,
—all had been.searched in vain, when the peeping of
a very pretty ankle and foot, and a bit of a long pink
sash, worn by our bride, adorning a white frock
(never worn by a Welsh maiden but on such occa-
sions), betraying her hiding-place under one of the
huge haycocks into which the small field of hay had
been piled, despite a tempting day for haymaking, in
anticipation of that morrow when no man should
work, at least in the valley of Nant Gwrtheyrn. A
shout from her pursuers told her she was betrayed.
Up sprung grasses and buttercups and clover flowers,
and the fair apparition of some wood nymph, or such
Arcadian fantasy, stood dropping flowers-stood a
moment, half-fearful, half-wishful to be caught, darted
back a smile like a sun-flash at her pursuers, then
bounded away towards an obscure path along the
breasts of two mountains, by which she had promised
to join her cousin-lover, who now expected her at
the church, instead of encountering the gaze of all the
village in the procession of the Gwyr o wisgi oed.
A wedding at Clynnog Vawr! What a festival is
a wedding at one of these little lazy happy mountain
villages, without factory, without trade, without any
The Postponed Wedding.
231
earthly visible employment but to stand in the sun,
each man at his door, and look out for something to
be seen. A simply elegant Gothic church tower,
peeping among trees and mountains, houses half hid
by foliage, and marked by a low-browed and green-
roofed antiquity every one, and a glimpse of the
sunshiny sea beyond, form the picturesque village of
Clynnog Vawr.
A very ancient chapel survives the
wreck of many a loftier pile in the churchyard. A
vaulted passage leading to it has the name of "Yr
heinous," from having been the way by which male-
factors of some kind were led to it as a place of
confinement, and gives a touch of darker solemnity
to that milder moral kind which attaches to such
scenes. This chapel boasts for its founder St. Beuno
(an uncle to the famous Winifred of Holywell); and
seldom had the spirit of his saintship, sitting invisible
on his own ponderous chest in the church on a
Trinity Sunday, witnessed with grim smile to himself
more splendid doings than now heralded in the day
of our lovers' union; no, not even when his goggle
ghost eye caught sight of the favourite fourpenny
piece, his especially beloved tribute. The church
*
* In this church is a huge antique chest, called "Cyf Beuno,'
Beuno's chest, hollowed out of one trunk of oak and secured
with three locks. In this were deposited the monies arising
from the sale of lambs and calves offered to the saint, all born
with a certain mark on the ear, being his rightful perquisite.
This slit or mark (not very uncommon) received from the holy
fathers of that church the name of Beuno's mark, "Nod Beuno.'
On Trinity Sunday bread and cheese were offered to the saint;
and a groat-piece, if procurable, was almost a certain cure for
the worst case, bodily or spiritual.
"1
"
232
Weird Tales.
•
aisle was strewed with fresh rushes, a huge May-bush
dangled at the porch, and shed a tiny silver shower
of spangles on every passing head. Dick Lame, the
harper (that is, "lame Dick," the words transposed
according to the Welsh whimsicality), is come to
play a bridal awdl on the couple leaving church; he
has seated himself on the tree that is built into the
gable end of an old house, his harp hung glittering
against the trunk; while all the fry of the place beset
the musician and his harp to steal a strike of the
strings, which the bolder ever and anon will venture,
while he aims down blows at them with his crutch-
stick. All is expectation, as the old lean over the
tombstones, the young try to read them, and the
youngest play upon them, or peep through the chinks
of the massy nail-studded oaken door of Eglws
Beuno, where he is said to have been buried, till, the
hour having arrived, some impatience began to be
visible, young and old moving a little way on the
road by which the expected bride was to be brought,
the priest himself pulling forth his watch and looking
up that way. The little children, too, with faces
rosy and shining as the morning, with hats stuck with
flowers, and flowers in every hand, ready to strew
the way before the young couple, even they began
to sigh and grow pensive with the delay, and eyed
sorrowfully those wild flowers almost dead with carry-
ing in their hot hands. Then those below called to
them in the trees, "Are they coming?" They could
see a mile of road, but still they were not coming.
But what excited a sort of alarm among those simple
villagers was the action of a poor paralytic idiot
The Postponed Wedding.
233
amongst those children, who, when the rest began
to strew their flowers, tired of carrying them longer in
vain, was seen to strew his gatherings also, which
were rhue and bitter herbs, such as are sometimes
found scattered before the way of a pair new married,
by some rival, as tokens of future retributive misery
and bitterness overtaking the faithless lover the
dumb symbolical cursings of love in despair; and all
the time the poor wretch's thin hand kept scattering
them, unconscious of their import (he being of
cadaverous look, and but half alive), his hollow eye,
of frightful vacancy, rolled towards the path the bride
was to tread, with a sad smile that might have been
deemed almost sarcastic in a rational youth.
During this suspense Evan had been long at his
secret appointed stand behind the church, watching
the bowered mouth of a mountain forest's path, where
he expected every instant the beautiful breathless
fugitive to appear and sink upon his bosom, and be
secretly led by him at once up to the communion
table, while the baffled pursuers were retracing their
steps up the valley precipices. But when he saw
how high the sun had mounted, and that the hour
drew near, he quitted his stand with some slight
alarm, concluding that she had been caught, and he
hurried toward the expected party. What was his
surprise to meet them not far from the church, yet
Margaret not in the midst !
"Name of Heaven! is she not with you?". "Is
she not with you, Evan?" was the mutual excla-
mation.
<<
Back, lads, back," he cried, "she meant to play
234
Weird Tales.
you all a trick, and she has played me one too, I
think; she's sure to be at home. Good God! how
high the sun is! The parson will be there just now.
Run! run!"
"What run for, man alive?" they exclaimed ;
"we've been already there, and her father's never
seen her since she leaped up from the haycock-
there's not a soul but the old man in the dingle."
Evan stood pondering a minute, his eyes rolled,
and drops of sweat stood upon his brow.
his brow. Then
laughing (a hollow sort of self-cheating laughter),
"She's at the church-back by this time, my life
upon't," said he; "run! run! run!"
'Where, Evan, where?"
"To ask pardon of the parson, sure! you'll find
her about this end of the blind path, through the
wood of the steep pitch, not in front of the church;
there she's waiting me-my wife is expecting me;
but I'll run home the while, and be back-tell her
you!-instantly. Lord! Lord! the parson will be
sure gone away !-silly wench."
They hurried towards the church, he to the valley;
there he found the almost bedridden father hobbled
forth, and seated on a haycock (he who had not
walked for years)—such the effect of sudden excite-
ment under the alarm of his child's disappearance.
Poor Evan, who in his distraction had equally assured
himself of two things, impossible to be both facts, that
she was already at their meeting place, and that he
should find her at home, stood unable to speak a word
before the father, so shocked was he at thus finding
him alone, and thus one of his only hopes annihilated.
The Postponed Wedding.
235
"Then she must be at the church," he said at last,
yet sat down by his uncle on the hay. Yet what
possible danger awaited her on such a little journey?
It was brilliant daylight, neither pit nor precipice in
her way; that way was not open to the sea, none
could have seized her thence,-nor was such an
occurrence ever thought of, much less known, in a
country where not a highway robbery had been
known in man's memory. He had already nearly
trod in his impatience the whole path she was to
tread, that which her father had seen her make for.
Had she fallen ill he must have found her. If offered
violence to, he must have heard her; in short, peace,
security, and open day seemed to ensure his heart
against every fatality, and he composed himself by
such reflections into a sort of calm. Presently he
started up,
"Merciful God! what do I sit here
for?" he said, as the mystery rushed back upon his
thoughts, and he remembered that the hour was past,
the parson doubtless gone; he who should have been
a husband this hour past, sitting there exchanging
strange looks with her parent; and she, who could
tell where?
"
'My heart flutters and my limbs fail me, so that I
can hardly walk more thou canst, father!" said he.
66
Father, indeed, poor boy! God knows
whether "
The young bridegroom struck his forehead and
stared in the old man's face like a madman.
Ha!" said he, "I know what you would say
-God knows if you will ever be my father, if I shall
ever be your son-if I shall ever ever be that
<<
236
Weird Tales.
""
blessed husband I fancied myself already! I shall
go mad this day! And away he scoured once more
to mount the declivities, regain the church, and test
the truth of that almost only possibility left of an
issue out of this most astonishing kind of disappoint-
ment. He had not advanced far when he saw
descending the heights the party which had already
ascertained the facts before him. His voice failed
him for utter terror of the reply when he would have
shouted his inquiry to them. Peace and sunshine,
and all beauty and all quietness were around him,
forming a dreadful contrast to the inward state of the
tormented young man. He did cry to them at last
with all his might; but when over all that calm
deliciousness of nature, over golden furze flowers,
snowy spars, and lambs, bees, and thymy turf, and
borne on the softest southern wind, smelling of early
summer-when over all those came (like a death-bell
for some beloved friend heard booming across a moon-
light summer lake) the repeated tremendous agitating
"No," he stopped, looked wildly about, as one
looking round for some escape from death who can
nowhere find a crevice or covert by which to hide or
fly; then he seemed to himself waking into a night
of storm-he sunk to the ground and lay in a profound
fainting fit as they approached, in which state they
conveyed him to his (bridal) home.
66
All that night lights were seen moving in every
direction, and voices heard calling her name, re-echoed
by the hills, and only answered by the owls, or some
fishers lying off the land's edge, who thought them-
selves called to from the shore; all possible and
The Postponed Wedding.
237
impossible places were explored in vain; every
brambled hollow below, and every natural quarry in
the fractured rocks above-all in vain! Margaret
never came again to tend her father's wants, or bless
her wretched lover's arms, being no more seen or
heard of from that day, than if she had died a
natural death and been buried; buried according to
the strangely mournful tenor of her own sportiveness
the previous day, which now seemed indeed to have
been impelled by a dark spirit of prophecy.
While the day search proceeded poor Evan still
lay insensible under the effects of an over-excited
mind and violent agitation under a burning sun,
which threatened a fever of the brain. When he
revived and came to his senses, his eyes rolled, search-
ing for her long before he spoke; he saw round him
all the bridal preparations of their little decorated
apartment, and all rushed back to memory. But what
shocked him most was the sight of the sun, visible
through the leaf-curtained casement, now sinking in
the sea, and yellowing the pretty rustic chamber with
a rich placidity of effect-how delightfully in unison
with the peace-breathing, peace-loving mode of a
modest country bridegroom !-how discordant to his
own! It told him that the sun had travelled his
complete course, evening had fallen, the blessed hour
of shade and deep silence was at hand; and there he
lay, feverish, wild-brained on his bed, the bridal bed!
--alone-no bride had crossed his threshold.
Supernatural assistance to their search was of
course to be procured. While one sister watched
the bed of the sufferer, the other hurried away to the
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Weird Tales.
gwraig hysbys (cunning woman). There lived, high
up the breast of one of the loftiest mountains, in a
hut among the black mawn - pits, -the world of
human haunts in soundless depth below, above her
only the cloud, the crag, the kite,—a melancholy
woman, whose strange lonely life and partial insanity
made her the sibyl of the county; her answer, like
all oracles, was a riddle, yet a consolatory one.
"Will she be found?"
"Yes."
"Who shall find her? and how and where shall
we search ?"
She shook her head.
"Will the bridegroom find his bride again?
(3 "Yes."
"On earth or in heaven?"
"On earth."
"1
"Thank God!" sobbed the fond credulous sister,
bursting into tears of joy and gratitude to God.
"But when? oh, when?”
"When a light from heaven shall show her to
him. Search no more. Heaven itself shall find her
out, and face to face they shall stand by its light."
How long shall she be away from him
from us?"
(C
"She is not away!" This was the last word the
hideous-featured hermitess would vouchsafe.
Evan, meanwhile, as he lay sullen or torpid,
checked every offer to speak comfort to him with a
dumb frown, and almost threatening motion of his
clenched hand, scarcely ever relaxed; nor did he ask
now the result of their search, as if he would not kill
The Postponed Wedding.
239
At
the little hope he cherished from their silence.
length he sprang from bed, dressed still as he was in
his wedding clothes, seized his sister by the arms, as
if he would have forced her to give him that comfort
he was dying for, to ease that long-borne torment he
could bear no more, and vociferated at last with
frightful energy the long-suspended question,—
"Found yet?"
But the poor girl, who could not bear to tear his
heart again by the dreadful "No," yet could not give
him comfort, only looked pity inexpressible at her
beloved brother, and turned her head to weep.
"Dead? found dead?-Is she found?"
"No! no!"
The wretched youth re-echoed the horrid mono-
syllable in a sort of shriek so very doleful, wild,
almost superhuman in its force, that it was heard
round all mountains. Then standing for a last look
at the door of their little decorated bridal chamber,
the new ballads on the new washed wall, the new
pictures, the new brittle plaster busts, brought many
miles with such care, and the new patchwork quilt
of the lost young woman's own handiwork, gay with
all kinds of colours, he murmured, "Night-night!
and no home above her head! none over mine then
-none, none evermore!" and he burst away from
his affrighted sister's hold to the woods and caves of
the mountains, where he wandered wild from that
hour, only returning when urged by want to human
habitation, like some savage creatures that stress of
winter and want compel to forego their savageness,
and prowl round the haunts of man. That house he
240
Weird Tales.
never entered more, nor would allow an article to be
removed or repair to be done, it being his maternal
property: so it stood, death-silent, in all its ghostli-
ness of decaying finery, till the strong winds from the
sea stripped off the thatch, and damps made the
whitened walls green as the sod without; till at last
the owl and the bat made it their haunt as a ruin, and
the fox and the wild cat by turns littered and howled
in the marriage-bed.
Though leading the life of the homeless mad, his
mind was sane; to his sorrow that remained alive to
all its misery-though wounded, not fatally. Yet to
the undistinguishing rustic he appeared mad, and
might well such appear, for he let his beard grow and
his nails, wholly neglecting his person; and his face,
under the effects of a wild life and long fastings,
withered to the very hue and shrivel of the autumn
leaves under the hanging woods of the mountain,
whose heaps were his seat by day and often his bed
by night. Then he had wilder moments, when he
would hurry to and fro by the margin of the wild
December sea, when its black waves, white-topped,
towered mountain-high, threatening to bury the lonely
wild-haired being, with stretched hands, standing just
within its last line of sea-wrack. There he would
stand, drenched with spray, roaring forth rage even
to blasphemy, as if he would outroar that ocean,
against that inscrutable decree of fate which had
hidden her doom from him; and scowling up dumb
curses to that scowling sky, as if he would dare in his
reckless misery to frown back the very frown of God,
which had withered him, heart and hope, love and life.
The Postponed Wedding.
241
Smugglers occasionally would run their cargoes on
that coast, in a hollow cove near the valley. Three
days did Evan try the oblivion of deep intoxication,
from draughts of spirits supplied to him by desperate
men in the cruelty of their sport; but to him it
brought no oblivion, only a sadder sense of life-
weariness, and more courage to die, his mind remain
ing clear as ever, as he lay seemingly senseless under
a rock, and though all was dizzy dimness round him,
as if the hour of death had indeed come. It was on
the fourth day that he informed his sisters of his
design to turn smuggler-with a laugh, attired him-
self in his long-unused wedding-clothes, and took
leave of all. Nor was this new resolve, which would
have afflicted and terrified them before, now in his sad
change alarming or distressing to them. He was at
least going amongst men, and turning to their pur-
suits, though on the great waters; and this seemed
less horrible, more like a return to the world, though
not to them, than his sad, silent, short visit-his
voracious eating in his dumb starving—and return to
the wood's wildness, and the solitude of savage exist-
ence. On the third day, however, when they believed
him far at sea, he stood among them again at night-
fall; his heart had failed him again before he could
embark; the novelty of a new life on a new element
had become old even before he could realize the
idea, for there was no hope to buoy it into action.
Suffering intense and long- continued will exalt
even a meaner mind than that of Evan into power of
sentiment; his almost breathed a spirit of wild and
dark poetry, when the long wound he bore was
Q
242
Weird Tales.
<<
thus probed by even the kindness of affection.
"Never! never!" said he, as they drew him within
the door, and he kneeled out on the bare rock,
stretching up his thin arms to the lurid sky, never
more but that for this head, nor pillow but this stone,
nor grave but that sea! Toss my wretched body
there, when angry God has done tormenting me;
why a grave for me more, when she has none? Fool!
her very bones are dust by this time! yet how do I
know that? what a terrible life may she be suffering
even yet! what a cruel death have I suffered! O
God! hear me, hear a tormented soul that knows not
for what crime it suffers this torment-this suspense
that is so terrible-this uncertainty that will not let
him live or die! When I compose myself to die, I
seem leaving my love behind me on this dark earth;
and when I resolve to live, I seem alone in the empty
world, then I believe she's in heaven. If there be a
God up there, for I do begin to doubt it, seeing there
is no mercy for the innocent, hear! O hear me! I
do not pray for happiness, the time for that's gone by
-I do not ask my wife at Thy hands, which Thou
didst give me beautiful, but only her sad relics, her
grave, her hiding-place,-but to reveal her fate, to
tell me how she died before I died. Oh! hard, too
hard, thou frowning heaven! I ask but certainty,
miserable certainty, and it is refused me: I only ask
despair; and, by cruel hell! even despair is refused
me." Springing to his feet scowling, he broke away
back to the mountains shady with night; it seemed
that terrible burst of agony, long pent, was the last of
that lingering doubt which agonized him, the death-
The Postponed Wedding.
243
struggle of hope-for from that night he became
totally silent. He found despair at last (as the three
revellers of Chaucer did death) "under the green
tree." Beneath that ancient chestnut-tree, which had
been their favourite retreat, and which still stood
inscribed by her playful hand with her own death
and burial, her dreadful green monument on the bank
of the sea, he now sat in the sun and in the storm for
ever silent, like some melancholy idiot; there he was
to be found, his head hung down; his chin, with long
beard untimely gray, resting on his breast; his
clasped hands and arms stretched in listless length
before him in his lap; his clothes-his wedding-
dress, long worn to tatters-pinned about him with
thorns, leaving his tanned skin visible through its rags
moving in the wind.
Standing high and lonely as it did on a green pro-
montory, that tree was a mark for thunder, and had
been twice struck by lightning within the memory of
man. After intense heat in the summer of 1728, a
murky gloom gathering over sea and shore announced
a coming thunderstorm, soon deepening to a sort of
night at noonday. As former storms, shivering that
tree's top, had taught her the danger of standing
beneath it, the tender Gwynneth, who loved her
brother in all his dumb strangeness as well as ever,
hastened towards him, to try to bring him away, just
as the thunder was beginning hollowly in the black-
sea distance. As the first flash quivered blue around
him, she saw a smile-the first for years-play on
his sunken features; and when she took his hand,
though he would not quit his place, he surprised
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Weird Tales.
her with a smile of gratitude, proving him fully
conscious of her fond fears for him. "Ever my good
sister, and my fond!" said he, and kissed her; but
when she urged him to seek other shelter from the
storm, "Nay, Gywnneth, back," he said with a com-
posure as astonishing and delightful to her as his
newly returned speech and returning humanity. "You
think this is a storm to me, as it is to you," he con-
tinued (the rain and wind and thunder already raging
round them); "hurry home, home, dear wench, and
leave me to my hurricane, for it's a peace to me, a
very calm! There has been such an eternal storm
here-such a thunder here-beat, beat, roaring, roll-
ing!" pointing to his heart and to his head.
"Save
me, hide me from the bright flowery earth and the
summer sky, that shut up charnel-house door I've
been knocking at for her so long, and not a ghost
answered!--that vault up yonder that I've cried to
for her, and it smiled me mad with its dumb blue!
That was the dumb storm I could not bear. There
was a flash! run, wench, run-it's dangerous."
The shock of a lightning stroke (if not that of his
own heart's mad emotion within) that moment pro-
strated him at the foot of the tree; a dreadful rushing
noise, as of splitting ice, astounded his sister; and
opening her eyes again, after the flash, to see the
cause, a sight struck her soul that made them close
again in faintness. The trunk was rent from top to
bottom, laying open the tree's inward hollowness,
unknown before; and through the fissure appeared
an upright skeleton, the grim skull-face greened by
damps to the appearance of a lichened stone; the
The Postponed Wedding.
245
ribbed cage of what had been a snowy bosom, hung
still with black shreds, the remains of dress, and
flesh, and sinews, now undistinguishable from each
other! the arm-bones even still inextricably wedged
in the cavity, told the tale of a frightful death. The
unfortunate bride, as soon as she had surmounted
that brow where her father had seen her for the last
time, had climbed into that tree to hide herself while
her pursuers passed; and finding it hollow at top,
had hastily slid down, through the opening among
the boughs, and became fixed in her efforts to re-
ascend (though the height was not great), in the
manner boys have frequently lost their lives in
chimneys.
Poor Gwynneth had the presence of mind to come
between her brother, now struggling up on his feet,
and that ghastly object. In vain as if he had
already caught a glimpse of it, he pushed her hastily
aside, and the lost bridegroom and bride faced each
other close again-the change and the ruin of the
living face scarcely less great and horrible than that
of the dead! With body shivering, teeth chattering,
eye dilating with horror, the thunder-stricken man
only pointed ghost-like, and smiled on his sister such
an indescribable ghastly smile as conveyed to her,
more than words or shrieks, the strangely mixed
horror and pleasure of their meeting again — and
meeting thus ! The secret was revealed at last;
what were his feelings? More of them than that
shocking smile betrayed was never known, for, bend-
ing his face towards her, who had been so long near
to him yet so long parted, before his lips and the lip-
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Weird Tales.
less half-circle of snowy teeth met, he sunk down,
and never spoke again. The distortion of that
hideous smile remained on his corpse face, frozen
there by death, and there stayed, even when one
coffin received him and her whose loss had made his
youth age, and his very life a death.
The fatal tree as long as its shattered trunk
remained standing, was known as the "Ceubren
yr Ellyll," "the spirit's hollow tree"; for there was
often seen by fishermen in a moonlight midnight, as
they awaited morning in their boats on a calm sea,
an apparition of dry bones frightfully mimicking the
actions of life; the white skull rounded with the
mockery of wild flowers which had garlanded the
hair of the lost bride that morning; and the bony
arms raised often to the teeth rapidly, as if in the
rage of hunger. Such a figure (they said), magnified
by mists, that passing enveloped it as in a shroud,
would stand for hours on the round brink of the
promontory.
Others had seen in the last of twilight two figures,
hand in hand, the skeleton bride and wild-man bride-
groom, as they called the spectres: he with his
beard, long hair, and nails like talons, fixing his
stony eyes, and she her eyeless sockets, on the calm
sky and silvered clouds, as if still scowling dumb
complaint against the heavens, which had been to
them so merciless. Nor would ever bird, except the
owl and foul cormorant, as it was believed, alight on
the boughs, nor any animal rest under the shade of
that black thunder-stricken ruin of a tree-the grave
of love-the ghastly Ceubren yr Ellyll.
HAUNTED HOUSE OF PADDINGTON.
BY CHARLES Ollier.
It
THE old manor-house was now a gloomy ruin.
was surrounded by an old-fashioned, spacious garden,
overgrown with weeds, but, in the drowsy and half-
veiled light of an April dawn, looking almost as
beautiful as if it had been kept in trim order. The
gravel-walks were green with moss and grass, and
the fruit-trees, trained against the wall, shot out a
plenteous overgrowth of wild branches which hung
unprofitably over the borders. A rank crop of
thistles, bind-weed, and groundsel, choked the beds,
over which the slimy trace of slugs and snails shone
in the horizontal gleam of the uprising sun. The
noble elms, which stood about the lawn in groups,
were the only objects that did not bear the melan-
choly evidence of neglect. All was silent, deserted,
desolate.
Two men stood, in the silence of an April morning,
contemplating the deserted scene. One of them
appeared to know something of its history, and, yield-
ing to the entreaty of his companion, related the
following story :-
"Ten years ago," said he, "there dwelt in this
house a man of high repute for virtue and piety. He
had no wife nor children, but he lived with much
liberality, and kept many servants. He was constant
247
248
Weird Tales.
in his attendance at church, and gladdened the hearts
of the neighbouring poor by the frequency of his
almsgiving.
"His fame among his neighbours was increased by
his great hospitality. Scarcely a day passed without
his entertaining some of them with feasts at his house,
when his conversation was admired, his judgment
appealed to as something more than ordinarily wise,
his decisions considered final, and his jokes received
with hearty laughter, according to the time-hallowed
and dutiful practice of guests at the tables of rich
men.
"Nothing could exceed the costliness and rarity of
this man's wines, the lavish profusion of his plate,
nor the splendour of his rooms-these very rooms!—
which were decorated with the richest furniture, the
most costly specimens of the Italian and Flemish
schools of painting, and resounded nightly with the
harmony of dainty madrigals.
"One summer evening, after a sumptuous dinner
had been enjoyed by himself and a numerous party,
the weather being very sultry, a proposal was made
by the host that the wine and dessert should be taken
to the lawn, and that the revelry should be prolonged
under the shade of the leafy elms which stood about
the garden in groups, as now you see them. The
company accordingly adjourned thither, and great
was the merriment beneath the green boughs which
hung over the table in heavy masses, and loud the
songs in the sweet air of evening.
CC
Twilight came on; but still the happy revellers
were loath to leave the spot, which seemed sacred to
Haunted House of Paddington.
249
wine and music, and indolent enjoyment. The leaves
which canopied them were motionless; even those
which hung on the extreme point of the tenderest
sprays, quivered not. One shining star, poised in the
clear ether, seemed to look down with curious gaze
on the jocund scene; and the soft west wind had
breathed its last drowsy evening hymn. The calm,
indeed, was so perfect that the master of the house
ordered lights to be brought there where they sat,
that the out-of-door carouse might be still enjoyed.
"Hang care!' exclaimed he. 'This is a delicious
evening; the wine has a finer relish here than in the
house, and the song is more exciting and melodious
under the tranquil sky than in the close room, where
sound is stifled. Come, let us have a bacchanalian
chant-let us, with old Sir Toby, make the welkin
dance, and rouse the night-owl with a catch. I am
right merry. Pass the bottle, and tune your voices—
a catch, a catch! The lights will be here anon.'
"Thus he spoke ; but his merriment seemed forced
and unnatural. A grievous change awaited him.
"As one of the servants was proceeding from the
house with a flambeau in his hand, to light the tapers
already placed on the table, he saw, in the walk lead-
ing from the outer gate, a matron of lofty bearing, in
widow's weeds, whose skin, as the rays of the torch
fell on it, looked white as a monumental effigy, and
made a ghastly contrast with her black robe. Her
face was like that of the grisly phantom, Death-in-
Life; it was rigid and sunken; but her eyes glanced
about from their hollow sockets with a restless motion,
and her brow was knit as if in anger. A corpse-like
250
Weird Tales.
infant was in her arms; and she paced with proud
and stately tread towards the spot where the master
of the house, apparently
'Merry in heart, and filled with swelling wine,'
was sitting amongst his jovial friends.
"The servant shuddered as he beheld the strange
intruder; but he, too, had partaken of the good cheer,
and felt bolder than usual. Mustering up his courage,
he faced the awful woman, and demanded her errand.
"I seek your master,' said she.
"He is engaged, and cannot be interrupted,'
replied the man. Ugh! turn your face from me—I
like not your looks. You are enough to freeze one's
very blood.'
"Fool!' returned the woman. 'Your master
must see me.' And she pushed the servant aside.
"The menial shivered at the touch of her hand,
which was heavy and cold, like marble. He felt as
if rooted to the spot; he could not move to follow
her as she walked on to the scene of the banquet.
"On arriving at the spot, she drew herself up
beside the host, and stood there without uttering a
word! He saw, and shook in every joint. The song
ceased; the guests were speechless with amazement,
and sat like petrifactions, bending their gaze one way
towards the strange and solemn figure which con-
fronted them.
CC C
'Why comest thou here?' at length demanded
the rich man in low and gasping accents.
'Vanish!
Who opened the vault to let thee forth? Thou
shouldst be a hundred miles away. Sink again into
Haunted House of Paddington.
251
the earth! Hence, horrible thing! delusion of
hell! - dead creature! ghost! hence! What
seekest thou? What can I do to keep thee in the
grave? I will resign thy lands; to whom shall they
be given? Thy child is dead. Who is now thy heir?
Speak! and be invisible !'
—
"The pale woman stooped with unseemly effort, as
if an image of stone were to bend, and whispered
something in the ear of her questioner, which made
him tremble still more violently. Then beckoning
him, she passed through the deepening twilight
towards the house, while he, with bristling hair and
faltering gait, followed her. The terror-stricken
man, the gaunt woman, and white child, looked like
three corpses moving in the heavy and uncertain
shades of evening, against the order of nature.
"After waiting an hour for their friend's return,
the guests, who had now recovered from their first
panic, became impatient to solve the mystery, and
determined to seek the owner of the house, and offer
such comfort as his evident trepidation required.
They accordingly directed their steps towards the
room into which they were informed the woman and
child, and their host had entered.
On approaching the door, piteous groans, and
incoherent exclamations were heard; above which
these words were plainly audible in a female voice:
Remember what I have said! Think of my
slaughtered husband! A more terrible intruder will
some night come to thy house! Thou shalt perish
here and hereafter !'
"Hearing these groans and these menaces, the
C
252
Weird Tales.
party instantly burst into the room, followed by a
servant with a light. The man, whose face was
buried in his hands, was standing alone. But, as his
friends gazed around in amazement, a shadow of the
woman with the infant in her arms was seen to flicker
on the wall, as if moved about uncouthly by a faint
wind. By degrees it faded entirely away. No one
knew how the stately widow herself had disappeared,
nor by what means she had obtained admittance
through the outer gate.
"To the earnest inquiries of his friends the host
would give no answer; and the party left the place
perplexed with fearful thoughts. From that time no
feasts were given in the manor house. The apartment
where the secret interview took place, and which is
to this day called 'THE ROOM OF THE SHADOW,'
was closed, and, it is said, has never since been
opened. It is the chamber immediately above this,
and is now the haunt of bats, and other night birds.
"After having lived here several years in com-
parative solitude, a mortal sickness came upon the
owner of the house. But, if his bodily sufferings
were grievous to behold, the agony of his mind
seemed tenfold greater, so that the friends who called
to cheer him in his malady were amazed to see one of
so pure a life (as they thought) given over to the
torture of remorse. He felt that he must shortly
appear before the Supreme Judge; and the antici-
pated terrors of the judgment were already upon his
spirit. His countenance underwent many ghastly
changes, and the sweat of dismal suffering poured in
heavy beads from his face and breast.
Haunted House of Paddington.
253
"The throes of his conscience were too strong to
be any longer endured and hidden; and, summoning
one or two of his neighbours to his bedside, he con-
fessed many sins of which he had been guilty in
another part of England; he had, he said, enriched
himself by the ruin of widows and orphans; and, he
added, that the accursed lust for gold had made him
a murderer.
"It was in vain that the pastor of the parish, who
saw his bitter agony, strove to absolve him of his
manifold crimes. He could not be comforted. 'His
works, and alms, and all the good endeavour' of the
latter years of his life were of no avail. They were
as chaff, and flew off from the weight of his trans-
gressions. The vengeance of eternal fire haunted
him while living, and he did not dare even to pray.
'Alas! my friends,' said he, to those who besought
him to lift up his voice in supplication to the Most
High, 'I have no heart to pray, for I am already
condemned! Hell is even now in my soul, there to
burn for ever. Resign me, I pray you, to my lost con-
dition, and to the fiends hovering around to seize me.'
"The menace of the strange woman was now about
to be fulfilled.
"On the last night of this person's miserable life,
one of his neighbours, a benevolent and pious man,
sat up with the expiring wretch by his bedside. He
had for some time fallen into a state of stupor, being
afraid to look any human being in the face, or even
to open his eyes. He slept or seemed to sleep for a
while; then suddenly arousing himself, he appeared to
be in intolerable agitation of body and mind, and with
254
Weird Tales.
an indescribable expression of countenance, shrieked
out, 'Oh the intolerable horrors of damnation !'
،،
Midnight had now arrived. The servants were
in bed, and no one was stirring in the house but the
old nurse,
and the friend who watched the last
moments of the sufferer. All was in quiet profound
as that of the sepulchre, when suddenly the sound of
loud and impatient footsteps was heard in the room
adjoining the forlorn man's bed-chamber.
"What can that be?' said the nurse under her
breath, and with an expression of ghastly alarm.
'Hark! the noise continues !'
"Is any one up in the house?' inquired the
friend.
"No; besides, would a servant dare to tramp with
such violence about the next room to that of his dying
master?'
"The gentleman snatched up a lamp, and went
forth into the next chamber. It was empty! but still
the footsteps sounded loudly as those of a person
waiting in angry impatience.
"Bewildered and aghast, the friend returned to the
bedside of the wretch, and could not find utterance to
tell the nurse what had been the result of his examina-
tion of the adjoining room.
For the love of Heaven!' exclaimed the woman,
'speak!-tell me what you have seen in the next
chamber. Who is there? Why do you look so pale?
What has made you dumb? Hark! The noise of
the footsteps grows louder and louder. Oh! how I
wish I had never entered this accursed house-this
house abhorred of God and man !'
Haunted House of Paddington.
255
"Meanwhile the sound of the horrid footsteps grew
not only louder, but quicker and more impatient.
"The scene of their tramping was, after a time,
changed. They approached the sick man's room, and
were heard-plainly heard-close by the bedside of
the dying wretch, whose nurse and friend stared with
speechless terror upon the floor, which sounded and
shook as the invisible foot-falls passed over it.
Something is here-something terrible-in this
very room, and close to us, though we cannot see it!'
whispered the gentleman in panting accents to his
companion. 'Go up stairs-and call the servants—
and let all in the house assemble here.'
606
I dare not move,' exclaimed the trembling
woman. 'My brain--my brain! I am faint-I shall
go mad! Let us fly from this place-the fiend is
here. Help! help! in the name of the Almighty.'
"Be composed, I beseech you,' said the gentle-
man in a voice scarcely audible.
• Recall your
scattered senses. I too should be scared to death,
did I not with a strong effort keep down the mad
throbbings that torment me. Recollect our duty.
We are Christians, and must not abandon the expiring
man. God will protect us. Merciful Heaven!' he
continued, with a frenzied glance into the shadowy
recesses of the chamber,-listen! the noise is stronger
than ever-those iron footsteps !—and still we cannot
discern the cause! Go and bring some companions
--some human faces-our own are transformed!'
(
"The nurse, thus adjured, left the demon-haunted
apartment with a visage white as snow; and the
benevolent friend, whose spirits had been subdued by
256
Weird Tales.
long watching in the chamber of death, and by witness-
ing the sick man's agony and remorse, became, now
that he was left alone, wild and frantic. Assuming a
courage from the very intensity of fear, he shrieked
out in a voice which scarcely sounded like his own,
'What art thou, execrable thing! that comest at this
dead hour? Speak, if thou canst; show thyself, if
thou darest !
"These cries roused the dying man from the
miserable slumber into which he had fallen. He
opened his glassy eyes-gasped for utterance, and
seemed as though he would now have prayed-
prayed in mortal anguish; but the words died in his
throat. His lips quivered and seemed parched, as if
by fire; they stood apart, and his clenched teeth
grinned horribly. It was evident that he heard the
footsteps; for an agony, fearful to behold, came
over him. He arose in his bed-held out his arms,
as if to keep off the approach of some hateful thing ;
and, having sat thus for a few moments, fell back,
and with a dismal groan expired!
"From that very instant the sound of the footsteps
was heard no more! Silence fell upon the room.
When the nurse re-entered, followed by the servants,
they found the sick man dead, with a face of horrible
contortion, and his friend stretched on the floor in a
Swoon.
"The mortal part of the wretch was soon buried;
and after that time (the dismal story becoming
generally known) no one would dare to inhabit the
house, which gradually fell into decay, and got the
fatal reputation of being haunted."
3

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