Chapters 10
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1 The Empty House 40:11
July, 2006. The Empty House by Algernon Blackwood.
Certain houses, like certain persons, manage somehow to proclaim at once their character for evil. In the case of the latter, no particular feature need betray them. They may boast an open countenance and an ingenuous smile. And yet a little of their company leaves the unalterable conviction that there is something radically amiss with their being—that they are evil. Willy-nilly they seem to communicate an atmosphere of secret and wicked thoughts, which makes those in their immediate neighborhood shrink from them as from a thing diseased. And perhaps with houses the same principle is operative, and it is the aroma of evil deeds committed under a particular roof long after the actual doers have passed away that makes the goose-flesh come and the hair rise.
Something of the original passion of the evil-doer and of the horror felt by his victim, enters the heart of the innocent watcher, and he becomes suddenly conscious of tingling nerves, creeping skin, and a chilling of the blood. He is terror-stricken without apparent cause. There was manifestly nothing in the external appearance of this particular house to bear out the tales of the horror that was said to reign within. It was neither lonely nor unkempt. It stood, crowded into a corner of the square, and looked exactly like the other houses on either side of it. It had the same number of windows as its neighbors, the same balcony overlooking the gardens, the same white steps leading up to the heavy black front door, and in the rear there was the same narrow strip of green, with neat box borders running up to the wall that divided it from the backs of the adjoining houses.
Apparently, too, the number of chimney-pots on the roof was the same, the breadth and angle of the eaves, and even the height of the dirty area railings. And yet this house in the square, that seemed precisely similar to its fifty ugly neighbors, was as a matter of fact entirely different, horribly different.
Wherein lay this marked invisible difference is impossible to say. It cannot be ascribed wholly to the imagination, because persons who had spent some time in the house, knowing nothing of the facts, had declared positively that certain rooms were so disagreeable that they would rather die than enter them again, and that the atmosphere of the whole house produced in them symptoms of a genuine terror, while the series of innocent tenants who had tried to live in it and been forced to decamp at the shortest possible notice was indeed little less than a scandal in the town. When Shorthouse arrived to pay a week-end visit to his Aunt Julia in her little house on the sea-front at the other end of the town, he found her charged to the brim with mystery and excitement.
He had only received her telegram that morning, and he had come anticipating boredom. But the moment he touched her hand and kissed her appleskin-wrinkled cheek, he caught the first wave of her electric condition. The impression deepened when he learned that there were to be no other visitors, and that he had been telegraphed for with a very special object. Something was in the wind, and a something would doubtless bear fruit, for this elderly spinster aunt, with a mania for psychical research, had brains as well as will-power, and by hook or by crook she usually managed to accomplish her ends. The revelation was made soon after tea, when she sidled close up to him as they paced slowly along the sea-front in the dusk.
"'I've got the keys,' she announced in a delighted, yet half-awesome voice. "'Got them till Monday.' "'The keys of the bathing-machine, or?' he asked innocently, looking from the sea to the town. Nothing brought her so quickly to the point as feigning stupidity. "'Neither,' she whispered. I've got the keys of the haunted house in the square, and I'm going there tonight." Shorthouse was conscious of the slightest possible tremor down his back. He dropped his teasing tone. Something in her voice and manner thrilled him. She was in earnest. "'But you can't go alone,' he began. "'That's why I wired for you,' she said with decision. He turned to look at her. The ugly, lined, enigmatical face was alive with excitement.
There was the glow of genuine enthusiasm round it like a halo. The eyes shone. He caught another wave of her excitement, and a second tremor, more marked than the first, accompanied it. "'Thanks, Aunt Julia,' he said politely. "'Thanks awfully.' "'I should not dare to go quite alone,' she went on, raising her voice. "'But with you I should enjoy it immensely.' "'You're afraid of nothing, I know.' "'Thanks so much,' he began again. "'Is anything likely to happen?' "'A great deal has happened,' she whispered, "'though it's been most cleverly hushed up. Three tenants have come and gone in the last few months, and the house is said to be empty for good now.' In spite of himself, Shorthouse became interested.
His aunt was so very much in earnest. The house is very old indeed, she went on, and the story, an unpleasant one, dates a long way back. It has to do with a murder committed by a jealous stableman who had some affair with a servant in the house. One night he managed to secrete himself in the cellar, and when everyone was asleep he crept upstairs to the servants' quarters, chased the girl down to the next landing, and before anyone could come to the rescue threw her bodily over the banisters into the hall below. And the stableman? Was caught, I believe, and hanged for murder, but it all happened a century ago, and I've not been able to get more details of the story. Shorthouse now felt his interest thoroughly aroused, but though he was not particularly nervous for himself, he hesitated a little on his aunt's account.
"'On one condition,' he said at length. "'Nothing will prevent my going,' she said firmly. "'But I may as well hear your condition.' "'That you guarantee your power of self-control if anything really horrible happens. I mean—' "'That you are sure you won't get too frightened.' "'Jim,' she said scornfully, "'I'm not young, I know, nor are my nerves, but with you I should be afraid of nothing in the world.' This, of course, settled it, for Shorthouse had no pretensions to being other than a very ordinary young man, and an appeal to his vanity was irresistible. He agreed to go. Instinctively, by a sort of subconscious preparation, he kept himself and his forces well in hand the whole evening, compelling an accumulative reserve of control by that nameless inward process of gradually putting all the emotions away and turning the key upon them—a process difficult to describe, but wonderfully effective, as all men who have lived through severe trials of the inner man well understand.
Later it stood him in good stead. But it was not until half-past ten, when they stood in the hall, well in the glare of friendly lamps, and still surrounded by comforting human influences, that he had to make the first call upon this store of collected strength. For, once the door was closed, and he saw the deserted, silent street stretching away white in the moonlight before them, It came to him clearly that the real test that night would be in dealing with two fears instead of one. He would have to carry his aunt's fear as well as his own, and as he glanced down at her sphinx-like countenance and realized that it might assume no pleasant aspect in a rush of real terror, he felt satisfied with only one thing in the whole adventure—the That he had confidence in his own will and power to stand against any shock that might come.
Slowly they walked along the empty streets of the town. A bright autumn moon silvered the roofs, casting deep shadows. There was no breath of wind, and the trees in the formal gardens by the sea-front watched them silently as they passed along. To his aunt's occasional remarks, Shorthouse made no reply. realizing that she was simply surrounding herself with mental buffers, saying ordinary things to prevent herself thinking of extraordinary things. Few windows showed lights, and from scarcely a single chimney came smoke or sparks. Shorthouse had already begun to notice everything, even the smallest details. Presently they stopped at the street corner and looked up at the name on the side of the house, full in the moonlight, and with one accord, but without remark, turned into the square and crossed over to the side of it that lay in shadow.
"'The number of the house is thirteen,' whispered a voice at his side, and neither of them made the obvious reference, but passed across the broad sheet of moonlight and began to march up the pavement in silence. It was about halfway up the square that Shorthouse felt an arm slipped quietly but significantly into his own. and knew that their adventure had begun in earnest, and that his companion was already yielding imperceptibly to the influences against them. She needed support.
A few minutes later, they stopped before a tall, narrow house that rose before them into the night, ugly in shape and painted a dingy white. Shutterless windows without blinds stared down upon them, shining here and there in the moonlight. There were weather streaks in the wall and cracks in the paint, and the balcony bulged out from the first floor a little unnaturally. But beyond this generally forlorn appearance of an unoccupied house, there was nothing at first sight to single out this particular mansion for the evil character it had most certainly acquired. Taking a look over their shoulders to make sure they had not been followed, they went boldly up the steps and stood against the huge black door that fronted them forbiddingly.
But the first wave of nervousness was now upon them, and Shorthouse fumbled a long time with the key before he could fit it into the lock at all. For a moment, if truth were told, they both hoped it would not open, for they were a prey to various unpleasant motions as they stood there on the threshold of their ghostly adventure. Shorthouse, shuffling with the key and hampered by the steady weight on his arm, certainly felt the solemnity of the moment. It was as if the whole world For all experience seemed at that instant concentrated in his own consciousness, were listening to the grating noise of that key. A stray puff of wind wandering down the empty street woke a momentary rustling in the trees behind them, but otherwise this rattling of the key was the only sound audible.
And at last it turned in the lock, and the heavy door swung open and revealed a yawning gulf of darkness beyond. With a last glance at the moonlit square, they passed quickly in, and the door slammed behind them with a roar that echoed prodigiously through empty halls and passages. But instantly, with the echoes, another sound made itself heard, and Aunt Julia leaned suddenly so heavily upon him that he had to take a step backwards to save himself from falling. A man had coughed close beside them. so close that it seemed they must have been actually by his side in the darkness.
With the possibility of practical jokes in mind, Shorthouse at once swung his heavy stick in the direction of the sound, but it met nothing more solid than air. He heard his aunt give a little gasp beside him. "'There's someone here,' she whispered. "'I heard him.' "'Be quiet.' He said sternly. It was nothing but the noise of the front door. "'Oh! Get a light! Quick!' she added, as her nephew, fumbling with a box of matches, opened it upside down and let them all fall with a rattle on to the stone floor. The sound, however, was not repeated, and there was no evidence of retreating footsteps. In another minute they had a candle burning, using an empty end of a cigar case as a holder. And when the first flare had died down, he held the impromptu lamp aloft and surveyed the scene.
And it was dreary enough in all conscience, for there is nothing more desolate in all the abodes of men than an unfurnished house dimly lit, silent, and forsaken, and yet tenanted by rumour with the memories of evil and violent histories.
They were standing in a wide hallway. On their left was the open door of a spacious dining-room, and in front the hall ran, ever narrowing into a long, dark passage that led apparently to the top of the kitchen stairs. The broad, uncarpeted staircase rose in a sweep before them, everywhere draped in shadows, except for a single spot about halfway up, where the moonlight came in through the window and fell on a bright patch on the boards. This shaft of light shed a faint radiance above and below it, Lending to the objects within its reach a misty outline that was infinitely more suggestive and ghostly than complete darkness. Filtered moonlight always seemed to paint faces on the surrounding gloom, and as Shorthouse peered up into the well of darkness and thought of the countless empty rooms and passages in the upper part of the old house, he caught himself longing again for the safety of the moonlit square, or the cosy, bright drawing-room they had left an hour before.
Then, realizing that these thoughts were dangerous, he thrust them away again and summoned all his energy for concentration on the present. "'Aunt Julia,' he said aloud severely, "'we must now go through the house from top to bottom and make a thorough search.' The echoes of his voice died away slowly all over the building, and in the intense silence that followed he turned to look at her. In the candlelight he saw that her face was already ghastly pale, but she dropped his arm for a moment and said in a whisper, stepping close in front of him, "'I agree. We must be sure there's no one hiding. That's the first thing.' She spoke with evident effort, and he looked at her with admiration. "'You feel quite sure of yourself?
It's not too late. I think so.' She whispered, her eyes shifting nervously toward the shadows behind. Quite sure. Only one thing. What's that? You must never leave me alone for an instant. As long as you understand that any sound or appearance must be investigated at once, for to hesitate means to admit fear. That is fatal. Agreed, she said a little shakily, after a moment's hesitation. I'll try. Arm in arm, short house holding the dripping candle and the stick, while his aunt carried the cloak over her shoulders, figures of utter comedy to all but themselves, they began a systematic search. Stealthily, walking on tiptoe and shading the candle lest it should betray their presence through the shutterless windows, they went first into the big dining-room.
There was not a stick of furniture to be seen. Bare walls, Ugly mantelpieces and empty grates stared at them. Everything they felt resented their intrusion, watching them, as it were, with veiled eyes. Whispers followed them. Shadows flitted noiselessly to right and left. Something seemed ever at their back, watching, waiting an opportunity to do them injury. There was the inevitable sense that operations which went on when the room was empty had been temporarily suspended till they were well out of the way again. The whole dark interior of the old building seemed to become a malignant presence that rose up, warning them to desist and mind their own business. Every moment the strain on the nerves increased.
Out of the gloomy dining-room they passed through large folding-doors into a sort of library or smoking-room, wrapped equally in silence, darkness, and dust. And from this they regained the hall near the top of the back stairs. Here a pitch-black tunnel opened before them into the lower regions, and, it must be confessed, they hesitated. But only for a minute. With the worst of the night still to come, it was essential to turn from nothing. Aunt Julia stumbled at the top step of the dark descent, ill-lit by the flickering candle, and even Shorthouse felt at least half the decision go out of his legs. "'Come on!' he said peremptorily, and his voice ran on and lost itself in the dark, empty spaces below.
"'I'm coming,' she faltered, catching his arm with unnecessary violence. They went a little unsteadily down the stone steps, a cold, damp air meeting them in the face, close and malodorous. The kitchen into which the stairs led along a narrow passage was large, with a lofty ceiling. Several doors opened out of it, some into cupboards with empty jars still standing on the shelves, and others into horrible little ghostly back offices, each colder and less inviting than the last. Black Beetle scurried over the floor, And once, when they knocked against a deal table standing in a corner, something about the size of a cat jumped down with a rush and fled, scampering across the stone floor into the darkness.
Everywhere there was a sense of recent occupation, an impression of sadness and gloom. Leaving the main kitchen, they next went toward the scullery. The door was standing ajar, and as they pushed it open to its full extent Aunt Julia uttered a piercing scream, which she instantly tried to stifle by placing her hand over her mouth. For a second Shorthouse stood stock still, catching his breath. He felt as if his spine had suddenly become hollow and someone had filled it with particles of ice. Facing them, directly in their way between the door-posts, stood the figure of a woman. She had disheveled hair and wildly staring eyes, and her face was terrified and white as death. She stood there motionless for the space of a single second.
Then the candle flickered, and she was gone—gone utterly. And the door framed nothing but empty darkness.
Only the beastly jumping candlelight, he said quickly, in a voice that sounded like someone else's and was only half under control. Come on, Ant. There's nothing there. He dragged her forward. With a clattering of feet and a great appearance of boldness, they went on. But over his body the skin moved as if crawling ants covered it, and he knew by the weight on his arm that he was supplying the force of locomotion for two. The scullery was cold, bare, and empty. more like a large prison cell than anything else. They went round it, tried the door into the yard and the windows, but found them all fastened securely. His aunt moved beside him like a person in a dream. Her eyes were tightly shut, and she seemed merely to follow the pressure of his arm.
Her courage filled him with amazement. At the same time he noticed that a certain odd change had come over her face, a change which somehow evaded his power of analysis. "'There's nothing here, Auntie,' he replied aloud quickly. "'Let's go upstairs and see the rest of the house. Then we'll choose a room to wait up in.' She followed him obediently, keeping close to his side, and they locked the kitchen door behind them. It was a relief to get up again. In the hall there was more light than before, for the moon had travelled a little further down the stairs. Cautiously they began to go up into the dark vault of the upper house, the boards creaking under their weight. On the first floor they found the large double drawing-rooms, a search of which revealed nothing.
Here also was no sign of furniture or recent occupancy, nothing but dust and neglect and shadows. They opened the big folding-doors between front and back drawing-rooms, and then came out again to the landing and went on upstairs. They had not gone up more than a dozen steps when they both simultaneously stopped to listen, Looking into each other's eyes with a new apprehension across the flickering candle flame. From the room they had left hardly ten seconds before came the sound of doors quietly closing. It was beyond all question they heard the booming noise that accompanies the shutting of heavy doors, followed by the sharp catching of the latch. "'We must go back and see,' said Shorthouse briefly, in a low tone and turning to go downstairs again.
Somehow she managed to drag after him, her feet catching in her dress, her face livid. When they entered the front drawing-room, it was plain that the folding-doors had been closed half a minute before. Without hesitation, Shorthouse opened them. He almost expected to see someone facing him in the back room, but only darkness and cold air met him. They went through both rooms, finding nothing unusual. They tried in every way to make the doors close of themselves, But there was not wind enough even to set the candle flame flickering. The doors would not move without strong pressure. All was silent as the grave. Undeniably the rooms were utterly empty, and the house utterly still. "'It's beginning,' whispered a voice at his elbow, which he hardly recognized as his aunt's.
He nodded acquiescence, taking out his watch to note the time. It was fifteen minutes before midnight. He made the entry of exactly what had occurred in his notebook, setting the candle in its case upon the floor in order to do so. It took a moment or two to balance it safely against the wall. Aunt Julia always declared that at this moment she was not actually watching him, but had turned her head towards the inner room, where she fancied she heard something moving. But at any rate, both positively agreed that there came a sound of rushing feet, Heavy and very swift, and the next instant the candle was out. But to Shorthouse himself had come more than this, and he has always thanked his fortunate stars that it came to him alone, and not to his aunt, too.
For, as he rose from the stooping position of balancing the candle, and before it was actually extinguished, a face thrust itself forward so close to his own that he could almost have touched it with his lips. It was a face working with passion, a man's face, dark, with thick features, and angry, savage eyes. It belonged to a common man, and it was evil in its ordinary normal expression, no doubt, but as he saw it alive with intense, aggressive emotion, it was a malignant and terrible human countenance. There was no movement of the air, nothing but the sound of rushing feet. Stockinged or muffled feet, the apparition of the face, and the almost simultaneous extinguishing of the candle. In spite of himself, Shorthouse uttered a little cry, nearly losing his balance as his aunt clung to him with her whole weight in one moment of real, uncontrollable terror.
She made no sound, but simply seized him bodily. Fortunately, however, she had seen nothing, but had only heard the rushing feet, For her control returned almost at once, and he was able to disentangle himself and strike a match. The shadows ran away on all sides before the glare, and his aunt stooped down and groped for the cigar-case with the precious candle. Then they discovered that the candle had not been blown out at all. It had been crushed out. The wick was pressed down into the wax, which was flattened as if by some smooth, heavy instrument.
How his companion so quickly overcame her terror, Shorthouse never properly understood. But his admiration for her self-control increased tenfold, and at the same time served to feed his own dying flame, for which he was undeniably grateful. Equally inexplicable to him was the evidence of physical force they had just witnessed. He at once suppressed the memory of stories he had heard of physical mediums and their dangerous phenomena, For if these were true, and either his aunt or himself was unwittingly a physical medium, it meant that they were simply aiding to focus the forces of a haunted house already charged to the brim. It was like walking with unprotected lamps among uncovered stores of gunpowder.
So, with as little reflection as possible, he simply relit the candle and went up to the next floor. The arm in his trembled, it is true, and his own tread was often uncertain. But they went on with thoroughness, and after a search revealing nothing, they climbed the last flight of stairs to the top floor of all. Here they found a perfect nest of small servants' rooms, with broken pieces of furniture, dirty, cane-bottomed chairs, chests of drawers, cracked mirrors, and decrepit bedsteads. The rooms had low, sloping ceilings already hung here and there with cobwebs, small windows, and badly plastered walls, a depressing and dismal region which they were glad to leave behind. It was on the stroke of midnight when they entered a small room on the third floor, close to the top of the stairs, and arranged to make themselves comfortable for the remainder of their adventure.
It was absolutely bare, and was said to be the room then used as a clothes closet, into which the infuriated groom had chased his victim and finally caught her. Outside, across the narrow landing, began the stairs leading up to the floor above, and the servants' quarters where they had just searched. In spite of the chilliness of the night, there was something in the air of this room that cried for an open window. But there was more than this. Shorthouse could only describe it by saying that he felt less master of himself here than in any other part of the house. There was something that acted directly on the nerves, tiring the resolution, and feebling the will. He was conscious of this result before he had been in the room five minutes, and it was in the short time they stayed there that he suffered the wholesale depletion of his vital forces, which was for himself the chief horror of the whole experience.
They put the candle on the floor of the cupboard, Leaving the door a few inches ajar, so that there was no glare to confuse the eyes, and no shadow to shift about on walls and ceiling. Then they spread the cloak on the floor, and sat down to wait, with their backs against the wall. Short House was within two feet of the door on to the landing. His position commanded a good view of the main staircase leading down into the darkness, and also of the beginning of the servant stairs going to the floor above. The heavy stick lay beside him with an easy reach. The moon was now high above the house. Through the open window they could see the comforting stars like friendly eyes watching in the sky. One by one the clocks of the town struck midnight, and when the sounds died away the deep silence of a windless night fell again over everything.
Only the boom of the sea, far away and lugubrious, filled the air with hollow murmurs. Inside the house the silence became awful. Awful, he thought, because any minute now it might be broken by sounds pretending terror. The strain of waiting told more and more severely on the nerves. They talked in whispers when they talked at all, for their voices aloud sounded queer and unnatural. A chilliness, not altogether due to the night air, invaded the room and made them cold. The influences against them, whatever these might be, were slowly robbing them of self-confidence and the power of decisive action, Their forces were on the wane, and the possibility of real fear took on a new and terrible meaning.
He began to tremble for the elderly woman by his side, whose pluck could hardly save her beyond a certain extent. He heard the blood singing in his veins. It sometimes seemed so loud that he fancied it prevented his hearing properly certain other sounds that were beginning very faintly to make themselves audible in the depths of the house. Every time he fastened his attention on these sounds, they instantly ceased. They certainly came no nearer, yet he could not rid himself of the idea that movement was going on somewhere in the lower regions of the house. The drawing-room floor, where the doors had been so strangely closed, seemed too near. The sounds were further off than that. He thought of the great kitchen, with the scurrying black beetles, and of the dismal little scullery, But somehow or other, they did not seem to come from there either.
Surely they were not outside the house. Then, suddenly, the truth flashed into his mind, and for the space of a minute he felt as if his blood had stopped flowing and turned to ice. The sounds were not downstairs at all. They were upstairs. Upstairs, somewhere among those horrid, gloomy little servants' rooms, with their bits of broken furniture, low ceilings, and cramped windows, upstairs where the victim had first been disturbed and stalked to her death. And the moment he discovered where the sounds were, he began to hear them more clearly. It was the sound of feet moving stealthily along the passage overhead, in and out among the rooms, and past the furniture. He turned quickly to steal a glance at the motionless figure seated beside him, to note whether she had shared his discovery.
The faint candlelight coming through the crack in the cupboard door threw her strongly-marked face into vivid relief against the white of the wall. But it was something else that made him catch his breath and stare again. An extraordinary something had come into her face and seemed to spread over her features like a mask. It smoothed out the deep lines and drew the skin everywhere a little tighter so that the wrinkles disappeared. It brought into the face, with the sole exception of the old eyes, an appearance of youth and almost of childhood. He stared in speechless amazement, amazement that was dangerously near to horror. It was his aunt's face indeed, but it was her face of forty years ago, the vacant, innocent face of a girl.
He had heard stories of that strange effect of terror which could wipe a human countenance clean of other emotions, obliterating all previous expressions. But he had never realized that it could be literally true, or could mean anything so simply horrible as what he now saw. For the dreadful signature of overmastering fear was written plainly in that utter vacancy of the girlish face behind him. And when, feeling his intense gaze, she turned to look at him, he instinctively closed his eyes tightly to shut out the sight. Yet, when he turned a minute later, his feelings well in hand, he saw to his intense relief another expression. His aunt was smiling, and though the face was deathly white, The awful veil had lifted, and the normal look was returning.
Anything wrong? was all he could think of to say at the moment, and the answer was eloquent, coming from such a woman. "'I felt cold—and a little frightened,' she whispered. He offered to close the window, but she seized hold of him and begged him not to leave her side, even for an instant. It's upstairs, I know," she whispered with an odd half-laugh. But I can't possibly go up. But Shorthouse thought otherwise, knowing that in action lay their best hope of self-control. He took the brandy-flask and poured out a glass of neat spirit, stiff enough to help anybody over anything. She swallowed it with a little shiver. His only idea now was to get out of the house before her collapse became inevitable, But this could not safely be done by turning tail and running from the enemy.
Inaction was no longer possible. Every minute he was growing less master of himself, and desperate, aggressive measures were imperative without further delay. Moreover, the action must be taken towards the enemy, not away from it. The climax, if necessary and unavoidable, would have to be faced boldly. He could do it now, But in ten minutes he might not have the force left to act for himself, much less for both. Upstairs the sounds were meanwhile becoming louder and closer, accompanied by occasional creaking of the boards. Some one was moving stealthily about, stumbling now and then awkwardly against the furniture. Waiting a few moments to allow the tremendous dose of spirits to produce its effect, and knowing this would last but a short time under the circumstances, Shorthouse then quietly got on his feet, saying in a determined voice, "'Now, Aunt Julia, we'll go upstairs and find out what all this noise is about.
You must come, too. It's what we agreed.' He picked up his stick and went to the cupboard for the candle. A limp form rose shakily beside him, breathing hard, and he heard a voice say very faintly something about being ready to come. The woman's courage amazed him. It was so much greater than his own, and as they advanced, holding aloft the dripping candle, some subtle force exhaled from this trembling, white-faced old woman at his side that was the true source of his inspiration. It held something really great that shamed him and gave him the support without which he would have proved far less equal to the occasion. They crossed the dark landing, avoiding with their eyes the deep black space over the banisters.
Then they began to mount the narrow staircase to meet the sounds which, minute by minute, grew louder and nearer. About halfway up the stairs, Aunt Julia stumbled, and Shorthouse turned to catch her by the arm, and just at that moment there came a terrific crash in the servants' corridor overhead. It was immediately followed by a shrill, agonized scream that was a cry of terror and a cry for help melted into one. Before they could move aside or go down a single step, someone came rushing along the passage overhead, blundering horribly, racing madly, at full speed, three steps at a time, down the very staircase where they stood. The steps were light and uncertain, but close behind them sounded the heavier tread of another person, and the staircase seemed to shake.
Shorthouse and his companion had just time to flatten themselves against the wall when the jumble of flying steps was upon them, and two persons, with the slightest possible interval between them, dashed past at full speed. It was a perfect whirlwind of sound breaking in upon the midnight silence of the empty building. The two runners, pursuer and pursued, had passed clean through them where they stood, and already with a thud of the boards below had received first one—the Then the other. Yet they had seen absolutely nothing, not a hand or arm or face, or even a shred of flying clothing. There came a second's pause. Then the first one, the lighter of the two, obviously the pursued one, ran with uncertain footsteps into the little room which Shorthouse and his aunt had just left.
The heavier one followed. There was a sound of scuffling, Gasping and smothered screaming, and then out onto the landing came the step of a single person treading weightily. A dead silence followed for the space of half a minute, and then was heard a rushing sound through the air. It was followed by a dull, crashing thud in the depths of the house below, on the stone floor of the hall.
Utter silence reigned after. Nothing moved. The flame of the candle was steady. It had been steady the whole time, and the air had been undisturbed by any movement whatsoever. Palsied with terror, Aunt Julia, without waiting for her companion, began fumbling her way downstairs. She was crying gently to herself, And when Shorthouse put his arm around her and half carried her, he felt that she was trembling like a leaf. He went into the little room and picked up the cloak from the floor, and, arm in arm, walking very slowly, without speaking a word or looking once behind them, they marched down the three flights into the hall. In the hall they saw nothing. But the whole way down the stairs they were conscious that someone was following them, Step by step.
When they went faster, it was left behind, and when they went more slowly, it caught them up. But never once did they look behind to see, and at each turning of the staircase they lowered their eyes for fear of the following horror they might see upon the stairs above. With trembling hands, Short House opened the front door, and they walked out into the moonlight, and drew a deep breath of the cool night air blowing in from the sea.
End of The Empty House by Algernon Blackwood.
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2 The Judge's House 44:04
He feared the attractions of the seaside, and also he feared completely rural isolation, for of old he knew its charms, and so he determined to find some unpretentious little town where there would be nothing to distract him. He refrained from asking suggestions from any of his friends, For he argued that each would recommend some place of which he had knowledge, and where he had already acquaintances. As Malcolmson wished to avoid friends, he had no wish to encumber himself with the attention of friends' friends, and so he determined to look out for a place for himself. He packed a portmanteau with some clothes, and all the books he required, and then took ticket for the first name on the local time-table, which he did not know.
When, at the end of three hours' journey, he alighted at Benchurch, he felt satisfied that he had so far obliterated his tracks as to be sure of having a peaceful opportunity of pursuing his studies. He went straight to the one inn which the sleepy little place contained, and put up for the night. Benchurch was a market-town, and once in three weeks was crowded to excess. But for the remainder of the twenty-one days, it was as attractive as a desert. Malcolmson looked around the day after his arrival to try to find quarters more isolated than even so quiet an inn as the good traveller afforded. There was only one place which took his fancy, and it certainly satisfied his wildest ideas regarding quiet.
In fact, quiet was not the proper word to apply to it. Desolation was the only term conveying any suitable idea of its isolation. It was an old, rambling, heavy-built house, of the Jacobian style, with heavy gables and windows, unusually small and set higher than was customary in such houses, and was surrounded with a high brick wall massively built. Indeed, on examination, it looked more like a fortified house than an ordinary dwelling. But all these things pleased Malcolmson. Here, he thought, is the very spot I have been looking for, and if I can get opportunity of using it, I shall be happy. His joy was increased when he realized beyond doubt that it was not at present inhabited. From the post-office he got the name of the agent, who was rarely surprised at the application to rent a part of the old house.
Mr. Carnford, the local lawyer and agent, was a genial old gentleman, and frankly confessed his delight at any one being willing to live in the house. "'To tell you the truth,' he said, "'I should be only too happy on behalf of the owners.' to let anyone have the house rent free for a term of years, if only to accustom the people here to see it inhabited. It has been so long empty that some kind of absurd prejudice has grown up about it, and this can be best put down by its occupation, if only," he added with a sly glance at Malcolmson, "'by a scholar like yourself, who wants its quiet for a time.'" Malcolmson thought it needless to ask the agent about the absurd prejudice. He knew he would get more information, if he should require it, on that subject from other quarters.
He paid his three months' rent, got a receipt, and the name of an old woman who would probably undertake to do for him, and came away with the keys in his pocket. He then went to the landlady of the inn, who was a cheerful and most kindly person, and asked her advice as to such stores and provisions as he would be likely to require. She threw up her hands in amazement when he told her where he was going to settle himself. "'Not in the Judge's House,' she said, and grew pale as she spoke. He explained the locality of the house, saying that he did not know its name. When he had finished, she answered, "'Ay, sure enough, sure enough, the very place. It is the Judge's House, sure enough.' He asked her to tell him about the place, why so called, and what there was against it.
She told him that it was so called locally, because it had been many years before, How long she could not say, as she herself was from another part of the country. But she thought it must have been a hundred years or more, the abode of a judge who was held in great terror on account of his harsh sentences and his hostility to prisoners at Assizes. As to what there was against the house itself, she could not tell. She had often asked, but no one could inform her. But there was a general feeling that there was something. And for her own part she would not take all the money in Drinkwater's bank and stay in the house an hour by herself. Then she apologized to Malcolmson for her disturbing talk. It is too bad of me, sir, and you, and a young gentleman, too, if you will pardon me saying it, going to live there all alone.
If you were my boy—and you'll excuse me for saying it—you wouldn't sleep there a night, not if I had to go there myself and pull the big alarm bell that's on the roof. The good creature was so manifestly in earnest, and was so kindly in her intentions, that Malcolmson, although amused, was touched. He told her kindly how much he appreciated her interest in him, and added, But, my dear Mrs. Witham, indeed you need not be concerned about me. A man who is reading for the mathematical tripus has too much to think of to be disturbed by any of these mysterious somethings. And his work is of too exact and prosaic a kind to allow of his having any corner in his mind for mysteries of any kind. Harmonical progression, permutations and combinations, and elliptical functions have sufficient mysteries for me.
Mrs. Witham kindly undertook to see after his commissions, and he went himself to look for the old woman who had been recommended to him. When he returned to the judge's house with her after an interval of a couple of hours, he found Mrs. Witham herself waiting with several men and boys carrying parcels, and an upholsterer's man with a bed in a car, for, she said, though tables and chairs might be all very well, a bed that hadn't been aired for mayhap fifty years was not proper for young bones to lie on. She was evidently curious to see the inside of the house, and though manifestly so afraid of the somethings, that at the slightest sound she clutched on to Malcolmson, whom she never left for a moment, went over the whole place.
After his examination of the house, Malcolmson decided to take up his abode in the great dining-room, which was big enough to serve for all his requirements, and Mrs. Witham, with the aid of the charwoman, Mrs. Dempster, proceeded to arrange matters. When the hampers were brought in and unpacked, Malcolmson saw that with much kind forethought she had sent from her own kitchen sufficient provisions to last for a few days. Before going she expressed all sorts of kind wishes, and at the door turned and said, "'And perhaps, sir, as the room is big and drafty, it might be well to have one of those big screens put round your bed at night. Though, to tell the truth, I would die myself if I were to be so shut in with all kinds of—' Of things that put their heads round the sides or over the top and look on me.
The image which she had called up was too much for her nerves, and she fled incontinently. Mrs. Dempster sniffed in a superior manner as the landlady disappeared, and remarked that for her own part she wasn't afraid of all the bogies in the kingdom. "'I'll tell you what it is, sir,' she said. "'Bogies is all kinds and sorts of things, except bogies.' Rats and mice and beetles, and creaky doors and loose slates and broken panes and stiff drawer handles that stay out when you pull them and then fall down in the middle of the night. Look at the wainscot of this room. It is old, hundreds of years old. Do you think there's no rats and beetles there? And do you imagine, sir, that you won't see none of them?
Rats is bogies, I tell you, and bogies is rats. And don't you get to think anything else. Mrs. Dempster, said Malcolmson gravely, making her a polite bow. You know more than a senior wrangler. And let me say that, as a mark of esteem for your indubitable soundness of head and heart, I shall, when I go, give you possession of this house, and let you stay here by yourself for the last two months of my tenancy. For four weeks will serve my purpose. Thank you kindly, sir, she answered. But I couldn't sleep away from home a night. I am in Greenhouse Charity, and if I slept the night away from my rooms, I should lose all I have got to live on. The rules is very strict, and there's too many watching for a vacancy for me to run any risks in the matter.
Only for that, sir, I'd gladly come here and attend on you altogether during your stay. My good woman, said Malcolmson hastily, I have come here on purpose to obtain solitude. And believe me that I am grateful to the late Greenhouse, for having so organized his admirable charity, whatever it is, that I am perforce denied the opportunity of suffering from such a form of temptation. St. Anthony himself could not be more rigid on the point. The old woman laughed harshly. "'Ah, you young gentleman,' she said, "'you don't fear for naught, and belike you'll get all the solitude you want here.' She set to work with her cleaning, and by nightfall, when Malcolmson returned from his walk, He always had one of his books to study as he walked.
He found the room swept and tidied, a fire burning in the old hearth, the lamp lit, and the table spread for supper with Mrs. Witham's excellent fare. This is comfort indeed, he said as he rubbed his hands. When he had finished his supper and lifted the tray to the other end of the great oak dining-table, he got out his books again, put fresh wood on the fire, trimmed his lamp, and set himself down to a spell of real hard work. He went on without pause till about eleven o'clock, when he knocked off for a bit to fix his fire and lamp, and to make himself a cup of tea. He had always been a tea-drinker, and during his college life had sat late at work and taken tea late. The rest was a great luxury to him, and he enjoyed it with a sense of delicious, voluptuous ease.
The renewed fire leaped and sparkled and threw quaint shadows through the great old room, and as he sipped his hot tea he reveled in the sense of isolation from his kind. Then it was that he began to notice for the first time what a noise the rats were making. Surely, he thought, they could not have been at it all the time I was reading. Had they been, I must have noticed it. Presently, when the noise increased, he satisfied himself that it was really new. It was evident that at first the rats had been frightened at the presence of a stranger, and the light of the fire and lamp, but that as the time went on they had grown bolder and were now disporting themselves as was their wont. How busy they were!
And hark to the strange noises! Up and down, behind the old wainscot, over the ceiling and under the floor they raced and gnawed and scratched. Malcolmson smiled to himself as he recalled to mind the saying of Mrs. Dempster, "'Bogies as rats and rats as bogeys.' The tea began to have its effect of intellectual and nervous stimulus, and he saw with joy another long spell of work to be done before the night was passed. And in the sense of security which it gave him, he allowed himself the luxury of a good look around the room. He took his lamp in one hand, and went all around, wondering that so quaint and beautiful an old house had been so long neglected. The carving of the oak on the panels of the wainscot was fine, and on and round the doors and windows it was beautiful and of rare merit.
There were some old pictures on the walls, but they were coated so thick with dust and dirt that he could not distinguish any detail of them, though he held his lamp as high as he could over his head. Here and there, as he went round, he saw some crack or hole blocked for a moment by the face of a rat with its bright eyes glittering in the light, but in an instant it was gone, and a squeak and a scamper followed. The thing that most struck him, however, was the rope of the great alarm-bell on the roof, which hung down in a corner of the room on the right-hand side of the fireplace. He pulled up close to the hearth a great high-backed carved oak chair, and sat down to his last cup of tea. When this was done, he made up the fire and went back to his work, sitting at the corner of the table, having the fire to his left.
For a little while the rats disturbed him somewhat with their perpetual scampering, but he got accustomed to the noise as one does to the ticking of a clock or to the roar of moving water, and he became so immersed in his work that everything in the world, except the problem which he was trying to solve, passed away from him. He suddenly looked up, his problem was still unsolved, and there was in the air that sense of the hour before the dawn which is so dread to doubtful life. The noise of the rats had ceased. Indeed, it seemed to him that it must have ceased but lately, and that it was the sudden cessation which had disturbed him. The fire had fallen low, but still it threw out a deep red glow.
As he looked he started, in spite of his sang-froid. There, On the great high-backed carved oak chair by the right side of the fireplace sat an enormous rat, steadily glaring at him with baleful eyes. He made a motion to it as though to hunt it away, but it did not stir. Then he made the motion of throwing something. Still it did not stir, but showed its great white teeth angrily, and its cruel eyes shone in the lamplight with an added vindictiveness. Malcolmson felt amazed, and seizing the poker from the hearth ran at it to kill it. Before, however, he could strike it, the rat, with a squeak that sounded like the concentration of hate, jumped upon the floor, and running up the rope of the alarm bell, disappeared in the darkness beyond the range of the green-shaded lamp.
Instantly, strange to say, the noisy scampering of the rats in the wainscot began again. By this time Malcolmson's mind was quite off the problem, and as a shrill cockcrow outside told him of the approach of morning, he went to bed and to sleep. He slept so sound that he was not even waked by Mrs. Dempster coming in to make up his room. It was only when she had tidied up the place and got his breakfast ready and tapped on the screen which closed in his bed that he woke. He was a little tired still after his night's hard work, but a strong cup of tea soon freshened him up, And taking his book, he went out for his morning walk, bringing with him a few sandwiches, lest he should not care to return till dinner-time.
He found a quiet walk between High Elm some way outside the town, and here he spent the greater part of the day studying his Laplace. On his return he looked in to see Mrs. Witham, and to thank her for her kindness. When she saw him coming through the diamond-paned bay window of her sanctum, she came out to meet him, and asked him in. She looked at him searchingly, and shook her head as she said, "'You must not overdo it, sir. You are paler this morning than you should be. Too late hours and too hard work on the brain isn't good for any man.' "'But tell me, sir, how did you pass the night?' "'Well, I hope.' "'But my heart, sir, I was glad when Mrs. Dempster told me this morning that you were all right in sleeping sound when she went in.' "'Oh, I was all right.' He answered, smiling.
The somethings didn't worry me as yet. Only the rats. And they had a circus, I tell you, all over the place. There was one wicked-looking old devil that sat up on my own chair by the fire and wouldn't go till I took the poker to him. And then he ran up the rope of the alarm bell and got to somewhere up the wall or the ceiling. I couldn't see where it was so dark. "'Mercy on us,' said Mrs. Witham. "'An old devil and sitting on a chair by the fireside.' Take care, sir, take care. There's many a true word spoken in jest. "'How do you mean? Upon my word I don't understand.' "'An old devil, the old devil, perhaps.' "'There, sir, you needn't laugh,' for Malcolmson had broken into a hearty peal. "'You young folks think it's easy to laugh at things that make older ones shudder.
Never mind, sir, never mind. Please, God, you'll laugh all the time. It's what I wish for you myself.' And the good lady beamed all over in sympathy with his enjoyment, her fears gone for a moment. "'Oh, forgive me,' said Malcolmson presently. "'Don't think me rude. But the idea was too much for me, that the old devil himself was on the chair last night.' And at the thought he laughed again. Then he went home to dinner.
This evening the scampering of the rats began earlier. Indeed, it had been going on before his arrival. and only ceased while his presence by its freshness disturbed them. After dinner he sat by the fire for a while and had a smoke, and then, having cleared his table, began to work as before. To-night the rats disturbed him more than they had done on the previous night. How they scampered up and down and over and under. How they squeaked and scratched and gnawed. How they, getting bolder by degrees, came to the mouths of their holes, and to the chinks and cracks and crannies in the wainscotting, till their eyes shone like tiny lamps as the firelight rose and fell. But to him, now doubtless accustomed to them, their eyes were not wicked.
Only their playfulness touched him. Sometimes the boldest of them made sallies out on the floor or along the mouldings of the wainscot. Now and again as they disturbed him, Malcolmson made a sound to frighten them, Smiting the table with his hand, or giving a fierce shh-shh, so that they fled straightway to their holes. And so the early part of the night wore on, and despite the noise Malcolmson got more and more immersed in his work.
All at once he stopped, as on the previous night, being overcome by a sudden sense of silence. There was not the faintest sound of gnaw or scratch or squeak. The silence was as of the grave. He remembered the odd occurrence of the previous night, and instinctively he looked at the chair standing close by the fireside, and then a very odd sensation thrilled through him. There, on the great old high-backed carved oak chair beside the fireplace, sat the same enormous rat, steadily glaring at him with baleful eyes. Instinctively he took the nearest thing to his hand, A book of logarithms, and flung it at it. The book was badly aimed, and the rat did not stir. So again the poker performance of the previous night was repeated, and again the rat, being closely pursued, fled up the rope of the alarm-bell.
Strangely, too, the departure of this rat was instantly followed by the renewal of the noise made by the general rat community. On this occasion, as on the previous one, Malcolmson could not see at what part of the room the rat disappeared. For the green shade of his lamp left the upper part of the room in darkness, and the fire had burned low. On looking at his watch, he found it was close on midnight, and, not sorry for the divertissement, he made up his fire and made himself his nightly pot of tea. He had got through a good spell of work and thought himself entitled to a cigarette, and so he sat on the great oak chair before the fire and enjoyed it. Whilst smoking, he began to think that he would like to know where the rat disappeared to, for he had certain ideas for the morrow not entirely disconnected with a rat-trap.
Accordingly, he lit another lamp and placed it so that it would shine well into the right-hand corner of the wall by the fireplace. Then he got all the books he had with him and placed them handy to throw at the vermin. Finally, he lifted the rope of the alarm-bell and placed the end of it on the table, fixing the extreme end under the lamp. As he handled it, he could not help noticing how pliable it was, especially for so strong a rope, and one not in use. You could hang a man with it, he thought to himself. When his preparations were made, he looked around and said complacently. There, now, my friend. I think we shall learn something of you this time. He began his work again, and though as before somewhat disturbed at first by the noise of the rats, Soon lost himself in his propositions and problems.
Again he was called to his immediate surroundings suddenly. This time it might not have been the sudden silence only which took his attention. There was a slight movement of the rope, and the lamp moved. Without stirring, he looked to see if his pile of books was within range, and then cast his eye along the rope. As he looked, he saw the great rat drop from the rope on the oak armchair and sit there, glaring at him. He raised the book in his right hand, and taking careful aim, flung it at the rat. The latter, with a quick movement, sprang aside and dodged the missile. He then took another book, and a third, and flung them one after another at the rat, but each time unsuccessfully. At last, as he stood with a book poised in his hand to throw, the rat squeaked and seemed afraid.
This made Malcolmson more than ever eager to strike, And the book flew and struck the rat a resounding blow. And it gave a terrified squeak, and turning on his pursuer a look of terrible malevolence, sprang up the chair back and made a great jump to the rope of the alarm bell, and ran up it like lightning. The lamp rocked under the sudden strain, but it was a heavy one and did not topple over. Malcolmson kept his eyes on the rat and saw it by the light of the second lamp, leap to a moulding of the wainscot and disappear through a hole in one of the great pictures which hung on the wall, obscured and invisible through its coating of dirt and dust. "'I shall look up my friend's habitation in the morning,' said the student, as he went over to collect his books.
"'The third picture from the fireplace I shall not forget.' He picked up the books one by one, commenting on them as he lifted them. "'Conic sections, he does not mind.' Nor cycloidal oscillations, nor the Principia, nor quaternions, nor thermodynamics. Now for the book that fetched him. Malcolmson took it up and looked at it. As he did so he started, and a sudden pallor overspread his face. He looked round uneasily and shivered slightly as he murmured to himself, "'The Bible my mother gave me! What an odd coincidence!' He sat down to work again, and the rats and the wainscot renewed their gambols. They did not disturb him, however. Somehow their presence gave him a sense of companionship. But he could not attend to his work, and after striving to master the subject on which he was engaged, gave it up in despair, and went to bed as the first streak of dawn stole in through the eastern window.
He slept heavily, but uneasily, and dreamed much. And when Mrs. Dempster woke him late in the morning, he seemed ill at ease, and for a few minutes did not seem to realize exactly where he was. His first request rather surprised the servant. Mrs. Dempster, when I am out today, I wish you would get the steps and dust or wash those pictures, especially that one third from the fireplace. I want to see what they are. Late in the afternoon, Malcolmson worked at his books in the shaded walk. And the cheerfulness of the previous day came back to him as the day wore on, and he found that his reading was progressing well. He had worked out to a satisfactory conclusion all the problems which had yet baffled him, and it was in a state of jubilation that he paid a visit to Mrs.
Witham at the Good Traveler. He found a stranger in the cosy sitting-room with the landlady, who was introduced to him as Dr. Thornhill. She was not quite at ease, and this Combined with the doctor's plunging at once into a series of questions, made Malcolmson come to the conclusion that his presence was not an accident. So, without preliminary, he said, Dr. Thornhill, I shall with pleasure answer you any question you may choose to ask me, if you will answer me one question first. The doctor seemed surprised, but he smiled and answered at once. Done. What is it? Did Mrs. Witham ask you to come here and see me and advise me? Dr. Thornhill for a moment was taken aback, and Mrs. Witham got fiery red and turned away.
But the doctor was a frank and ready man, and he answered at once and openly. She did, but she didn't intend you to know it. I suppose it was my clumsy haste that made you suspect. She told me that she did not like the idea of your being in that house all by yourself. and that she thought you took too much strong tea. In fact, she wants me to advise you, if possible, to give up the tea in the very late hours. I was a keen student in my time, so I suppose I may take the liberty of a college man and, without offense, advise you not quite as a stranger. Malcolmson, with a bright smile, held out his hand. "'Shake, as they say in America,' he said. I must thank you for your kindness, and Mrs. Witham, too, and your kindness deserves a return on my part.
I promise to take no more strong tea, no tea at all, till you let me, and I shall go to bed tonight at one o'clock at the latest. Will that do?" Capital," said the doctor. Now tell us all that you noticed in the old house." And so Malcolmson then and there told in minute detail all that had happened in the last two nights. He was interrupted every now and then by some exclamation from Mrs. Witham, till finally when he told of the episode of the Bible, the landlady's pent-up emotions found vent in a shriek, and it was not till a stiff glass of brandy and water had been administered that she grew composed again. Dr. Thornhill listened with a face of growing gravity, and when the narrative was complete and Mrs.
Witham had been restored, he asked, "'The rat always went up the rope of the alarm-bell?' "'Always.' I suppose you know," said the doctor, after a pause, what the rope is. No. It is, said the doctor slowly, the very rope which the hangman used for all the victims of the judge's judicial rancor. Here he was interrupted by another scream from Mrs. Witham, and steps had to be taken for her recovery. Malcolmson, having looked at his watch, and found that it was close to his dinner hour, had gone home before her complete recovery. When Mrs. Witham was herself again, she almost assailed the doctor with angry questions as to what he meant by putting such horrible ideas into the poor young man's mind.
"'He has quite enough there already to upset him,' she added. Dr. Thornhill replied, "'My dear madam, I had a distinct purpose in it. I wanted to draw his attention to the bell-rope, and to fix it there. It may be that he is in a highly overwrought state.' and has been studying too much, although I am bound to say that he seems as sound and healthy a young man, mentally and bodily, as ever I saw. But then the rats, and that suggestion of the devil. The doctor shook his head and went on. I would have offered to go and stay the first night with him, but that I felt sure it would have been a cause of offense. He may get in the night some strange fright or hallucination, and if he does I want him to pull that rope.
All alone as he is, it will give us warning, and we may reach him in time to be of service. I shall be sitting up pretty late tonight, and shall keep my ears open. Do not be alarmed if Ben Church gets a surprise before morning. Oh, doctor, what do you mean? What do you mean? I mean this, that possibly, nay, more probably, we shall hear the great alarm bell from the judge's house tonight. And the doctor made about as effective an exit. as could be thought of. When Malcolmson arrived home, he found that it was a little after his usual time, and Mrs. Dempster had gone away. The rules of Greenhouse Charity were not to be neglected. He was glad to see that the place was bright and tidy, with a cheerful fire and a well-trimmed lamp.
The evening was colder than might have been expected in April, and a heavy wind was blowing with such rapidly increasing strength that there was every promise of a storm during the night. For a few minutes after his entrance, the noise of the rats ceased. But so soon as they became accustomed to his presence, they began again. He was glad to hear them, for he felt once more the feeling of companionship in their noise, and his mind ran back to the strange fact that they only ceased to manifest themselves when that other, the great rat with the baleful eyes, came upon the scene. The reading lamp only was lit, and its green shade kept the ceiling and the upper part of the room in darkness, so that the cheerful light from the hearth spreading over the floor and shining on the white cloth laid over the end of the table was warm and cheery.
Malcolmson sat down to his dinner with a good appetite and a buoyant spirit. After his dinner and a cigarette, he sat steadily down to work, determined not to let anything disturb him, for he remembered his promise to the doctor, and made up his mind to make the best of the time at his disposal. For an hour or so he worked all right, and then his thoughts began to wander from his books. The actual circumstances around him, the calls on his physical attention and his nervous susceptibility, were not to be denied. By this time the wind had become a gale, and the gale a storm. The old house, solid though it was, seemed to shake to its foundations, and the storm roared and raged through its many chimneys and its queer old gables, producing strange, unearthly sounds in the empty rooms and corridors.
Even the great alarm-bell on the roof must have felt the force of the wind, for the rope rose and fell slightly, as though the bell were moved a little from time to time, and the limber rope fell on the oak floor with a hard and hollow sound.
As Malcolmson listened to it, he bethought himself of the doctor's words. It is the rope which the hangman used for the victims of the judge's judicial rancor. And he went over to the turner of the fireplace, and took it in his hand to look at it. There seemed a sort of deadly interest in it, and as he stood there he lost himself for a moment in speculation as to who these victims were, and the grim wish of the judge to have such a ghastly relic ever under his eyes. As he stood there, the swaying of the bell on the roof still lifted the rope now and again, but presently there came a new sensation, a sort of tremor in the rope, as though something was moving along it. Looking up instinctively, Malcolmson saw the great rat coming slowly down towards him, glaring at him steadily.
He dropped the rope and started back with a muttered curse, and the rat turning ran up the rope again and disappeared, and at the same instant Malcolmson became conscious that the noise of the rats which had ceased for a while, began again. All this set him thinking, and it occurred to him that he had not investigated the lair of the rat or looked at the pictures as he had intended. He lit the other lamp without the shade, and, holding it up, went and stood opposite the third picture from the fireplace on the right-hand side, where he had seen the rat disappear on the previous night. At the first glance he started back so suddenly that he almost dropped the lamp. and a deadly pallor overspread his face.
His knees shook, and heavy drops of sweat came on his forehead, and he trembled like an aspen. But he was young and plucky, and pulled himself together, and after the pause of a few seconds stepped forward again, raised the lamp, and examined the picture which had been dusted and washed, and now stood out clearly. It was of a judge, dressed in his robes of scarlet and ermine. His face was strong and merciless, evil, crafty, and vindictive, with a sensual mouth, hooked nose of ruddy color, and shaped like the beak of a bird of prey. The rest of the face was of a cadaverous color. The eyes were of peculiar brilliance, and with a terribly malignant expression. As he looked at them, Malcolmson grew cold, for he saw there the very counterpart of the eyes of the great Rat.
The lamp almost fell from his hand. He saw the rat with its baleful eyes peering out through the hole in the corner of the picture, and noted the sudden cessation of the noise of the other rats. However, he pulled himself together, and went on with his examination of the picture. The judge was seated in a great high-backed carved oak chair on the right side of a great stone fireplace where, in the corner, a rope hung down from the ceiling, its end lying coiled on the floor. With a feeling of something like horror, Malcolmson recognized the scene of the room as it stood, and gazed around him in an awe-struck manner as though he expected to find some strange presence behind him. Then he looked over to the corner of the fireplace, and with a very loud cry he let the lamp fall from his hand.
There, in the judge's armchair, with the rope hanging behind, sat the Rat, With the judge's baleful eyes, now intensified and with a fiendish leer. Save for the howling of the storm without, there was silence. The fallen lamp recalled Malcolmson to himself. Fortunately, it was of metal, and so the oil was not spilt. However, the practical need of attending to it settled at once his nervous apprehensions. When he had turned it out, he wiped his brow and thought for a moment. This will not do. He said to himself, if I go on like this, I shall become a crazy fool. This must stop. I promised the doctor I would not take tea. Faith, he was pretty right. My nerves must have been getting into a queer state.
Funny I did not notice it. I never felt better in my life. However, it is all right now, and I shall not be such a fool again. Then he mixed himself a good stiff glass of brandy and water, and resolutely sat down to his work. It was nearly an hour when he looked up from his book, disturbed by the sudden stillness. Without, the wind howled and roared louder than ever, and the rain drove in sheets against the windows, beating like hail on the glass. But within there was no sound whatever save the echo of the wind as it roared in the great chimney, and now and then a hiss as a few raindrops found their way down the chimney in a lull of the storm. The fire had fallen low and had ceased to flame, Though it threw out a red glow.
Malcolmson listened attentively, and presently heard a thin, squeaking noise, very faint. It came from the corner of the room where the rope hung down, and he thought it was the creaking of the rope on the floor as the swaying of the bell raised and lowered it. Looking up, however, he saw in the dim light the great rat clinging to the rope and gnawing it. The rope was already nearly gnawed through. He could see the lighter color where the strands were laid bare. As he looked, the job was completed, and the severed end of the rope fell clattering on the oaken floor, whilst for an instant the great rat remained like a knob or tassel at the end of the rope, which now began to sway to and fro. Malcolmson felt for a moment another pang of terror as he thought that now the possibility of calling the outer world to his assistance was cut off.
But an intense anger took its place, and seizing the book he was reading, he hurled it at the rat. The blow was well aimed, but before the missile could reach him, the rat dropped off and struck the floor with a soft thud. Malcolmson instantly rushed over towards him, but it darted away and disappeared in the darkness of the shadows of the room. Malcolmson felt that his work was over for the night, and determined then and there to vary the monotony of the proceedings by a hunt for the rat, and took off the green shade of the lamp so as to ensure a wider spreading light. As he did so, the gloom of the upper part of the room was relieved, and in the new flood of light, great by comparison with the previous darkness, the pictures on the wall stood out boldly.
From where he stood, Malcolmson saw right opposite to him the third picture on the wall from the right of the fireplace. He rubbed his eyes in surprise, and then a great fear began to come upon him. In the center of the picture was a great irregular patch of brown canvas as fresh as when it was stretched on the frame. The background was as before, with chair and chimney-corner and rope, but the figure of the judge had disappeared. Malcolmson, almost in a chill of horror, turned slowly round, and then he began to shake and tremble like a man in a palsy. His strength seemed to have left him, and he was incapable of action or movement, hardly even of thought. He could only see and hear. There, on the great high-backed, carved oak chair, sat the judge in his robes of scarlet and ermine, with his baleful eyes glaring vindictively, and a smile of triumph on the resolute, cruel mouth, as he lifted with his hands a black Cap.
Malcolmson felt as if the blood was running from his heart, as one does in moments of prolonged suspense. There was a singing in his ears. Without, he could hear the roar and howl of the tempest, and through it, swept on the storm, came the striking of midnight by the great chimes in the marketplace. He stood for a space of time that seemed to him endless, still as a statue, and with wide-open, horror-struck eyes. Breathless. As the clock struck, so the smile of triumph on the judge's face intensified, and at the last stroke of midnight he placed the black cap on his head. Slowly and deliberately the judge rose from his chair and picked up the piece of the rope of the alarm-bell which lay on the floor, drew it through his hands as if he enjoyed its touch, and then deliberately began to knot one end of it, fashioning it into a noose.
This he tightened and tested with his foot, pulling hard at it till he was satisfied, and then making a running noose of it, which he held in his hand. Then he began to move along the table on the opposite side to Malcolmson, keeping his eyes on him until he had passed him, when with a quick movement he stood in front of the door. Malcolmson then began to feel that he was trapped, and tried to think of what he should do. There was some fascination in the judge's eyes which he never took off him, and he had, perforce, to look. He saw the judge approach, still keeping between him and the door, and raise the noose and throw it towards him as if to entangle him. With a great effort he made a quick movement to one side and saw the rope fall beside him, and heard it strike the oaken floor.
Again the judge raised the noose and tried to ensnare him, ever keeping his baleful eyes fixed on him, And each time, by a mighty effort, the student just managed to evade it. So this went on for many times, the judge seeming never discouraged nor discomposed at failure, but playing as a cat does with a mouse. At last, in despair, which had reached its climax, Malcolmson cast a quick glance round him. The lamp seemed to have blazed up, and there was a fairly good light in the room. At the many rat-holes and in the chinks and crannies of the wainscot he saw the rat's eyes, and this aspect, that was purely physical, gave him a gleam of comfort. He looked around and saw that the rope of the great alarm-bell was laden with rats.
Every inch of it was covered with them, and more and more were pouring through the small circular hole in the ceiling whence it emerged, so that with their weight the bell was beginning to sway. Hark! It had swayed till the clapper had touched the bell. The sound was but a tiny one, but the bell was only beginning to sway, and it would increase. At the sound, the judge, who had been keeping his eyes fixed on Malcolmson, looked up, and a scowl of diabolical anger overspread his face. His eyes fairly glowed like hot coals, and he stamped his foot with a sound that seemed to make the house shake. A dreadful peal of thunder broke overhead as he raised the rope again, whilst the rats kept running up and down the rope as though working against time.
This time, instead of throwing it, he drew close to his victim and held open the noose as he approached. As he came closer, there seemed something paralyzing in his very presence, and Malcolmson stood rigid as a corpse. He felt the judge's icy fingers touch his throat, as he adjusted the rope. The noose tightened. Tightened. Then the judge, taking the rigid form of the student in his arms, carried him over and placed him standing in the oak chair, and stepped up beside him, put his hand up, and caught the end of the swaying rope of the alarm bell. As he raised his hand, the rats fled, squeaking, and disappeared through the hole in the ceiling. Taking the end of the noose, which was round Malcolmson's neck, he tied it to the hanging bell-rope, and then descending, pulled away the chair.
When the alarm-bell of the judge's house began to sound, a crowd soon assembled. Lights and torches of various kinds appeared, and soon a silent crowd was hurrying to the spot. They knocked loudly at the door, but there was no reply. Then they burst in the door and poured into the great dining-room, the doctor at the head. There, at the end of the rope of the great alarm-bell, hung the body of the student, and on the face of the judge in the picture was a malignant smile.
End of The Judge's House by Bram Stoker
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3 Laura 12:22
Laura by Saki.
You are not really dying, are you? asked Amanda. I have the doctor's permission to live till Tuesday, said Laura. But today is Saturday. This is serious, gasped Amanda. I don't know about it being serious. It is certainly Saturday, said Laura. Death is always serious, said Amanda. I never said I was going to die. I am presumably going to leave off being Laura, but I shall go on being something. An animal of some kind, I suppose. You see, when one hasn't been very good in the life one has just lived, one reincarnates in some lower organism, and I haven't been very good when one comes to think of it. I've been petty and mean and vindictive and all that sort of thing when circumstances have seemed to warrant it.
Circumstances never warrant that sort of thing," said Amanda hastily. If you don't mind by saying so," observed Laura, Egbert is a circumstance that would warrant any amount of that sort of thing. You're married to him. That's different. You've sworn to love, honour, and endure him. I haven't. I don't see what's wrong with Egbert, protested Amanda. Oh, I dare say the wrongness has been on my part, admitted Laura dispassionately. He has merely been the extenuating circumstance. He made a thin, peevish kind of fuss, for instance, when I took the collie puppies from the farm out for a run the other day. They chased his young broods of speckled Sussex, and drove two sitting hens off their nests, besides running all over the flower-beds, You know how devoted he is to his poultry and garden.
Anyhow, he needn't have gone on about it for the entire evening, and then have said, let's say no more about it, just when I was beginning to enjoy the discussion. That's where one of my petty vindictive revenges came in, added Laura, with an unrepentant chuckle. I turned the entire family of speckled Sussex into his seedling shed the day after the puppy episode. How could you? exclaimed Amanda. It came quite easy, said Laura. Two of the hens pretended to be laying at the time, but I was firm. And we thought it was an accident. You see, resumed Laura, I really have some grounds for supposing that my next incarnation will be in a lower organism. I shall be an animal of some kind. On the other hand, I haven't been a bad sort in my way, so I think I may count on being a nice animal, something elegant and lively, with a love of fun.
An otter, perhaps. "'I can't imagine you as an otter,' said Amanda. "'Well, I don't suppose you can imagine me as an angel if it comes to that,' said Laura. Amanda was silent. She couldn't. Personally, I think an otter life would be rather enjoyable," continued Laura, salmon to eat all the year round, and the satisfaction of being able to fetch the trout in their own homes without having to wait for hours till they condescend to rise to the fly you've been dangling before them, and an elegant, svelte figure. Think of the otter hounds," interposed Amanda, How dreadful to be hunted and harried and finally worried to death! Rather fun, with half the neighborhood looking on, and anyhow not worse than this Saturday to Tuesday business of dying by inches, and then I should go on into something else.
If I had been a moderately good otter, I suppose I should get back into human shape of some sort. Probably something rather primitive, a little brown, unclothed Nubian boy, I should think. "'I wish you would be serious,' sighed Amanda. "'You really ought to be, if you're only going to live till Tuesday.' As a matter of fact, Laura died on Monday. "'So dreadfully upsetting,' Amanda complained to her uncle-in-law, Sir Loworth-Quain. "'I've asked quite a lot of people down for golf and fishing, and the rhododendrons are just looking their best.' "'Laura always was inconsiderate,' said Sir Lulworth. "'She was born during Goodwood Week, with an ambassador staying in the house who hated babies.' "'She had the maddest kind of ideas,' said Amanda.
"'Do you know if there was any insanity in her family?' Insanity? No, I never heard of any. Her father lives in West Kensington, but I believe he's sane on all other subjects. She had an idea that she was going to be reincarnated as an otter, said Amanda.
One meets with those ideas of reincarnation so frequently, even in the West, said Sir Loworth, that one can hardly set them down as being mad. And Laura was such an unaccountable person in this life that I should not like to lay down definite rules as to what she might be doing in an after-state. "'You think she really might have passed into some animal form?' asked Amanda. She was one of those who shaped their opinions rather readily from the standpoint of those around them.
Just then Egbert entered the breakfast-room. wearing an air of bereavement, that Laura's demise would have been insufficient in itself to account for. "'Four of my speckled Sussex have been killed,' he exclaimed. "'The very four that were to go to the show on Friday. One of them was dragged away and eaten right in the middle of that new carnation-bed that I've been to such trouble and expense over.' My best flower-bed, and my best fowl singled out for destruction. It almost seems as if the brute that did the deed had special knowledge how to be as devastating as possible in a short space of time. "'Was it a fox, do you think?' asked Amanda. "'Sounds more like a polecat,' said Sir Loworth. "'No,' said Egbert.
There were marks of webbed feet all over the place, and we followed the tracks down to the stream at the bottom of the garden. Evidently an otter. Amanda looked quickly and furtively across at Sir Loworth.
Egbert was too agitated to eat any breakfast, and went out to superintend the strengthening of the poultry-yard defences. "'I think she might at least have waited till the funeral was over,' said Amanda in a scandalized voice. "'It's her own funeral, you know,' said Sir Lulworth. "'It's a nice point in etiquette how far one ought to show respect to one's own mortal remains.'" Disregard for mortuary convention was carried to further lengths next day. During the absence of the family at the funeral ceremony, The remaining survivors of the speckled Sussex were massacred. The marauder's line of retreat seemed to have embraced most of the flower-beds on the lawn, but the strawberry-beds in the lower garden had also suffered.
"'I shall get the otter-hounds to come here at the earliest possible moment,' said Egbert savagely. "'On no account! You can't dream of such a thing!' exclaimed Amanda. I mean, it wouldn't do so soon after a funeral in the house. It's a case of necessity, said Egbert. Once an otter takes to that sort of thing, it won't stop. Perhaps it will go elsewhere now there are no more fowls left, suggested Amanda. One would think he wanted to shield the beast, said Egbert. There's been so little water in the stream lately. objected Amanda. It seems hardly sporting to hunt an animal when it has so little chance of taking refuge anywhere. Good gracious, fumed Egbert. I'm not thinking about sport. I want to have the animal killed as soon as possible.
Even Amanda's opposition weakened when during church time on the following Sunday the otter made its way into the house, raided half a salmon from the larder, and worried it into scaly fragments on the Persian rug in Egbert's studio. "'We shall have it hiding under our beds and biting pieces out of our feet before long,' said Egbert. And from what Amanda knew of this particular otter, she felt that the possibility was not a remote one.
On the evening preceding the day fixed for the hunt, Amanda spent a solitary hour walking by the banks of the stream, making what she imagined to be hound noises. It was charitably supposed by those who overheard her performance that she was practising for farm-yard imitations at the forthcoming village entertainment.
It was her friend and neighbour Aurora Burrett who brought her news of the day's sport. "'Pity you weren't out. We had quite a good day. We found it at once, in the pool just below your garden.' "'Did you—kill?' asked Amanda. "'Rather, a fine she-otter. Your husband got rather badly bitten in trying to tail it. Poor beast, I felt quite sorry for it. It's had such a human look in its eyes when it was killed. You'll call me silly, but do you know who the look reminded me of?' "'My dear woman, what is the matter?' When Amanda had recovered to a certain extent from her attack of nervous prostration, Egbert took her to the Nile Valley to recuperate. Change of scene speedily brought about the desired recovery of health and mental balance.
The escapades of an adventurous otter in search of a variation of diet were viewed in their proper light. Amanda's normally placid temperament reasserted itself. Even a hurricane of shouted curses coming from her husband's dressing-room, in her husband's voice, but hardly in his usual vocabulary failed to disturb her serenity as she made a leisurely toilet one evening in a Cairo hotel. "'What's the matter? What has happened?' she asked in amused curiosity. "'The little beast has thrown all my clean shirts into the bath. Wait till I catch you, you little—' "'What little beast?' asked Amanda, suppressing a desire to laugh. Egbert's language was so hopelessly inadequate to express his outraged feelings.
"'A little beast of a naked brown Nubian boy!' spluttered Egbert. And now Amanda is seriously ill.
End of Laura by Saki
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4 Man-size in Marble 31:39
Man's Eyes in Marble by E. Nesbit Although every word of this story is as true as despair, I do not expect people to believe it. Nowadays, a rational explanation is required before belief is possible. Let me then at once offer the rational explanation which finds most favour among those who have heard the tale of my life's tragedy. It is held that we were under a delusion, Laura and I, on that thirty-first of October. and that this supposition places the whole matter on a satisfactory and believable basis. The reader can judge, when he too has heard my story, how far this is an explanation, and in what sense it is rational. There were three who took part in this—Laura, and I, and another man.
The other man still lives, and can speak to the truth of the least credible part of my story. I never in my life knew what it was to have as much money as I required to supply the most ordinary needs—good colours, books, and cab-fares. And when we were married, we knew quite well that we should only be able to live at all by strict punctuality and attention to business. I used to paint in those days, and Laura used to write, and we felt sure we could keep the pot at least simmering. Living in town was out of the question. So we went to look for a cottage in the country, which should be at once sanitary and picturesque. So rarely do these two qualities meet in one cottage that our search was, for some time, quite fruitless.
We tried advertisements, but most of the desirable rural residences which we did look at proved to be lacking in both essentials, and when a cottage chanced to have drains, it always had stucco as well, and was shaped like a tea-caddy. And if we found a vine or rose-covered porch, corruption invariably lurked within. Our minds got so befogged by the eloquence of house-agents, and the rival disadvantages of the fever-traps and outrages to beauty which we had seen and scorned, that I very much doubt whether either of us on our wedding morning knew the difference between a house and a haystack. But when we got away from friends and house-agents on our honeymoon, our wits grew clear again. And we knew a pretty cottage when at last we saw one.
It was at Brenzett, a little village set on a hill over against the southern marshes. We had gone there from the seaside village where we were staying to see the church, and two fields from the church we found this cottage. It stood quite by itself about two miles from the village. It was a long, low building, with rooms sticking out in unexpected places. There was a bit of stonework, ivy-covered and moss-grown, just two old rooms, all that was left of a big house that had once stood there. And round this stonework the house had grown up. Stripped of its roses and jasmine, it would have been hideous. As it stood, it was charming, and after a brief examination we took it. It was absurdly cheap.
The rest of our honeymoon we spent in grubbing about in second-hand shops in the county town. Picking up bits of old oak and Chippendale chairs for our furnishing, we wound up with a run-up to town and a visit to Liberty's, and soon the low oak-beamed lattice-windowed rooms began to be home. There was a jolly old-fashioned garden with grass paths, and no end of hollyhocks and sunflowers and big lilies. From the window you could see the marsh pastures, and beyond them the blue thin line of the sea. We were as happy as the summer was glorious. and settled down into work sooner than we ourselves expected. I was never tired of sketching the view and the wonderful cloud effects from the open lattice, and Laura would sit at the table and write verses about them, in which I mostly played the part of foreground.
We got a tall old peasant woman to do for us. Her face and figure were good, though her cooking was of the homeliest, but she understood all about gardening. and told us all the old names of the coppices and cornfields, and the stories of the smugglers and highwaymen, and, better still, of the things that walked, and of the sights which met one in lonely glens on a starlit night. She was a great comfort to us, because Laura hated housekeeping as much as I loved folklore, and we soon came to leave all the domestic business to Mrs. Dorman, and to use her legends in little magazine stories, which brought in the jingling guinea. We had three months of married happiness, and did not have a single quarrel.
One October evening I had been down to smoke a pipe with the doctor, our only neighbour, a pleasant young Irishman. Laura had stayed at home to finish a comic sketch of a village episode for the monthly Marplot. I left her laughing over her own jokes, and came in to find her a crumpled heap of pale muslin, weeping on the window-seat. "'Good heavens, my darling, what's the matter?' I cried, taking her in my arms. She leant her little dark head against my shoulder, and went on crying. I had never seen her cry before. We had always been so happy, you see, and I felt sure some frightful misfortune had happened. "'What is the matter? Do speak.' "'It's Mrs. Dorman,' she sobbed. "'What has she done?' I inquired, immensely relieved.
She says she must go before the end of the month, and she says her niece is ill. She's gone down to see her now. But I don't believe that's the reason, because her niece is always ill. I believe someone's been setting her against us. Her manner was so queer—' Never mind, pussy,' I said. "'Whatever you do, don't cry, or I shall have to cry too, to keep you in countenance, and then you'll never respect your man again.' She dried her eyes obediently on my handkerchief, and even smiled faintly. "'But you see,' she went on, "'it really is serious, because these village people are so sheepy, and if one won't do a thing you may be quite sure none of the others will, and I shall have to cook the dinners and wash up the hateful greasy plates, and you will have to carry cans of water about and clean the boots and knives, and we shall never have time for work or earn any money or anything.
We shall have to work all day and only be able to rest when we are waiting for the kettle to boil.' I represented to her that even if we had to perform these duties, the day would still present some margin for other toils and recreations, but she refused to see the matter in any but the greyest light. She was very unreasonable, my Laura, but I could not have loved her any more if she had been as reasonable as Waitley. "'I'll speak to Mrs. Dorman when she comes back, and see if I can't come to terms with her,' I said. "'Perhaps she wants a rise in her screw. It'll be all right.' Let us walk up to the church. The church was a large and lonely one, and we loved to go there, especially upon bright nights.
The path skirted a wood, cut through it once, and ran along the crest of the hill through two meadows, and round the churchyard wall, over which the old yews loomed in black masses of shadow. This path, which was partly paved, was called the Beer-Balk, for it had long been the way by which the corpses had been carried to burial. The churchyard was richly treed, and was shaded by great elms which stood outside and stretched their majestic arms in benediction over the happy dead. A large low porch let one into the building by a Norman doorway and the heavy oak door studded with iron. Inside, the arches rose into darkness, and between them the reticulated windows, which stood out white in the moonlight.
In the chancel the windows were of rich glass, which showed in faint light their noble colouring, and made the black oak of the choir-pews hardly more solid than the shadows. But on each side of the altar lay a grey marble figure of a knight in full plate armour, lying upon a low slab, with hands held up in everlasting prayer. And these figures, oddly enough, were always to be seen if there were any glimmer of light in the church. Their names were lost, but the peasants told of them that they had been fierce and wicked men, marauders by land and sea, who had been the scourge of their time, and had been guilty of deeds so foul that the house that they had lived in—the big house, by the way, that had stood on the site of our cottage—had been stricken by lightning and the vengeance of heaven.
But for all that the gold of their heirs had bought them a place in the church. Looking at the bad, hard faces reproduced in the marble, this story was easily believed. The church looked at its best and weirdest on that night, for the shadows of the yew-trees fell through the windows upon the floor of the nave, and touched the pillars with tattered shade. We sat down together without speaking, and watched the solemn beauty of the old church, with some of the awe which inspired its early builders. We walked to the chancel. and looked at the sleeping warriors. Then we rested some time on the stone seat in the porch, looking out over the stretch of quiet, moonlit meadows, feeling in every fibre of our being a piece of the night and of our happy love, and came away at last with the sense that even scrubbing and black-leadding were but small troubles at their worst.
Mrs. Dorman had come back from the village, and I at once invited her to a tete-a-tete. Now, Mrs. Dorman, I said, when I had got her into my painting-room, what's all this about your not staying with us? "'I should be glad to get away, sir, for the end of the month,' she answered with her usual placid dignity. "'Have you any fault to find, Mrs. Dorman?' "'None at all, sir. You and your lady will always been most kind, I'm sure.' "'Well, what is it? Are your wages not high enough?' "'No, sir, I guess quite enough.' "'Then why not stay?' "'I'd rather not,' with some hesitation. "'My niece is ill.' "'But your niece has been ill ever since we came.' No answer. There was a long and awkward silence.
I broke it. "'Can't you stay for another month?' I asked. "'No, sir. I'm bound to go by Thursday.' "'And this was Monday. Well, I must say, I think you might have let us know before.' "'There's no time now to get any one else, and your mistress is not fit to do heavy housework. Can't you stay till next week?' "'I might be able to come back next week.' I was now convinced that all she wanted was a brief holiday, which we should have been willing enough to let her have as soon as we could get a substitute. "'But why must you go this week?' I persisted. "'Come, out with it.' Mrs. Dorman drew the little shawl, which she always wore tightly across her bosom, as though she were cold. Then she said, with a sort of effort, "'They say, sir, as this was a big house in Catholic times, and there was many deeds done yer.' The nature of the deeds might be vaguely inferred from the inflection of Mrs.
Dorman's voice, which was enough to make one's blood run cold. I was glad that Laura was not in the room. She was always nervous, as highly-strung natures are. And I felt that these tales about our house, told by this old peasant woman with her impressive manner and contagious credulity, might have made our home less dear to my wife. "'Tell me all about it, Mrs. Dorman,' I said. "'You needn't mind about telling me. I'm not like the young people who make fun of such things.' Which was partly true. "'Well, sir,' she sank her voice, "'you may have seen in the church beside the altar two shapes.' "'You mean the effigies of the knights in armour?' I said, cheerfully. "'I mean them two bodies, drawed out man's eyes in marble.' She returned, and I had to admit that her description was a thousand times more graphic than mine, to say nothing of a certain weird force and uncanniness about the phrase, "'Drawed out man's eyes in marble.' "'They do say.
As on all St. Eve, them two bodies sits up on their slabs and gets off them, and then walks down the aisle in their marble.' Another good phrase, Mrs. Dorman. "'And as the church clock strikes eleven, they walks out the church door, and over the graves, and along the beer-book, and if tis a wet night, there's the marks to their feet in the morning.' "'And where do they go?' I asked, rather fascinated. "'They comes back here to their home, sir, and if anyone meets them.' "'Well, what then?' I asked. "'But no, not another word could I get from her, save that her niece was ill, and she must go.' After what I had heard, I scorned to discuss the niece, and tried to get from Mrs. Dorman more details of the legend.
I could get nothing but warnings. "'Whatever you do, sir, lock the door early on all St. Eve, and make the cross sign over the doorstep and on the windows.' "'But has any one ever seen these things?' I persisted. "'That's not for me to say. I know what I know, sir.' "'Well, who was here last year?' "'No one, sir.' Lady as owned the house only stopped during summer, and she always went to London a full month afore the night. And I am sorry to inconvenience you and your lady, but my niece is ill, and I must go on Thursday. I could have shaken her for her absurd reiteration of that obvious fiction after she had told me her real reasons. She was determined to go, nor could our united entreators move her in the least.
I did not tell Laura the legend of the shapes that walked in their marble. Partly because a legend concerning our house might perhaps trouble my wife, and partly, I think, for some more occult reason. This was not quite the same to me as any other story, and I did not want to talk about it until the day was over. I had very soon ceased to think of the legend, however. I was painting a portrait of Laura against the lattice window, and I could not think of much else. I had got a splendid background of yellow and grey sunset, and was working away with enthusiasm at her lace. On Thursday Mrs. Dorman went. She relented at parting, so far as to say, "'Don't you put yourself about too much, ma'am. Then if there's any little thing I can do next week, I'm sure I shan't mind,' from which I inferred that she wished to come back to us after Halloween.
Up to the last she adhered to the fiction of the niece with touching fidelity. Thursday passed off pretty well. Laura showed marked ability in the matter of steak and potatoes, and I confessed that my knives and the plates which I insisted upon washing were better done than I dared to expect. Friday came. It is about what happened on that Friday that this is written. I wonder if I should have believed it, if anyone had told it to me. I will write the story of it as quickly and plainly as I can. Everything that happened on that day is burnt into my brain. I shall not forget anything, nor leave anything out. I got up early, I remember, and lighted the kitchen fire, and had just achieved a smoky success when my little wife came running down, as sunny and sweet as the clear October morning itself.
We prepared breakfast together, and found it very good fun. The housework was soon done, And when brushes and brooms and pails were quiet again, the house was still indeed. It is wonderful what a difference one makes in a house. We really missed Mrs. Dorman, quite apart from considerations concerning pots and pans. We spent the day in dusting our books, and putting them straight, and dined gaily on cold steak and coffee. Laura was, if possible, brighter and gayer and sweeter than usual. And I began to think that a little domestic toil was really good for her. We had never been so merry since we were married, and the walk we had that afternoon was, I think, the happiest time of all my life. When we had watched the deep scarlet clouds slowly pale into leaden grey against a pale green sky, and saw the white mists curl up along the hedgerows in the distant marsh, we came back to the house, silently, hand in hand.
"'You're sad, my darling,' I said, half jestingly, as we sat down together in our little parlour. I expected a disclaimer, for my own silence had been the silence of complete happiness. To my surprise she said, "'Yes, I think I am sad, or rather I'm uneasy. I don't think I'm very well. I've shivered three or four times since we came in, and it's not cold, is it?' "'No,' I said. and hoped it was not a chill caught from the treacherous mists that roll up from the marshes in the dying light. No, she said she did not think so. Then, after a silence, she spoke suddenly. "'Do you ever have presentiments of evil?' "'No,' I said, smiling, and I shouldn't believe in them if I had." "'I do,' she went on.
"'The night my father died I knew it, though he was right away in the north of Scotland.' I did not answer in words. She sat looking at the fire for some time in silence, gently stroking my hand. At last she sprang up, came behind me, and, drawing my head back, kissed me. "'There! It's over now,' she said. "'What a baby I am! Come, light the candles, and we'll have some of these new Rubenstein duets.' And we spent a happy hour or two at the piano. At about half-past ten I began to long for the good-night pipe. But Laura looked so white that I felt it would be brutal of me to fill our sitting-room with the fumes of strong Cavendish. "'I'll take my pipe outside,' I said. "'Let me come, too.' "'No, sweetheart, not to-night.
You're much too tired. I shan't be long. Get to bed, or I shall have an invalid to nurse to-morrow, as well as the boots to clean.' I kissed her, and was turning to go, when she flung her arms round my neck, and held me as if she would never let me go again. I stroked her hair. "'Come, pussy. You're over-tired. The housework has been too much for you.' She loosened her clasp a little, and drew a deep breath. "'No, we've been very happy to-day, Jack, haven't we? Don't stay out too long.' "'I won't, my dearie.' I strolled out of the front door, leaving it unlatched. What a night it was! The jagged masses of heavy, dark cloud were rolling at intervals from horizon to horizon, and thin white wreaths covered the stars.
Through all the rush of the Cloud River, the moon swam, resting the waves and disappearing again in the darkness. When now and again her light reached the woodlands, they seemed to be slowly and noiselessly moving in time to the swing of the clouds above them. There was a strange grey light over all the earth. The fields had that shadowy bloom over them, which only comes from the marriage of dew and moonshine, or frost and starlight. I walked up and down, drinking in the beauty of the quiet earth and the changing sky. The night was absolutely silent. Nothing seemed to be abroad. There was no scurrying of rabbits or twitter of the half-asleep birds. And though the clouds went sailing across the sky— The wind that drove them never came low enough to rustle the dead leaves in the woodland paths.
Across the meadows I could see the church tower, standing out black and grey against the sky. I walked there thinking over our three months of happiness, and of my wife, her dear eyes, her loving ways. Oh, my little girl, my own little girl! What a vision came then of a long, glad life for you and me together! I heard a bell beat from the church. Eleven already. I turned to go in, but the night held me. I could not go back to our little warm rooms yet. I would go up to the church. I felt vaguely that it would be good to carry my love and thankfulness to the sanctuary, whither so many loads of sorrow and gladness had been borne by the men and women of the dead years. I looked in at the low window as I went by.
Laura was half lying on her chair in front of the fire. I could not see her face. Only her little head showed dark against the pale blue wall. She was quite still, asleep, no doubt. My heart reached out to her as I went on. There must be a God, I thought, and a God who was good. How otherwise could anything so sweet and dear as she have ever been imagined? I walked slowly along the edge of the wood. A sound broke the stillness of the night. It was a rustling in the wood. I stopped and listened. The sound stopped, too. I went on, and now distinctly heard another step than mine answer mine like an echo. It was a poacher or wood-stealer, most likely, for these were not unknown in our Arcadian neighbourhood.
But whoever it was, he was a fool not to step more lightly. I turned into the wood, and now the footsteps seemed to come from the path I had just left. It must be an echo, I thought. The wood looked perfect in the moonlight. The large dying ferns and the brushwood showed where, through thinning foliage, the pale light came down. The tree-trunks stood up like Gothic columns all around me. They reminded me of the church, and I turned into the beer-baulk. and passed through the corpse gate between the graves to the low porch. I paused for a moment on the stone seat where Laura and I had watched the fading landscape. Then I noticed that the door of the church was open, and I blamed myself for having left it unlatched the other night.
We were the only people who ever cared to come to the church except on Sundays, and I was vexed to think that through our carelessness the damp autumn airs had had a chance of getting in and injuring the old fabric. I went in. It will seem strange, perhaps, that I should have gone halfway up the aisle before I remembered, with a sudden chill, followed by a sudden rush of self-contempt, that this was the very day and hour when, according to tradition, the shapes drawed out man's size in marble, began to walk. Having thus remembered the legend, and remembered it with a shiver, of which I was ashamed, I could not do otherwise than walk up towards the altar, just to look at the figures, as I said to myself.
Really, what I wanted was to assure myself, first, that I did not believe the legend, and secondly, that it was not true. I was rather glad that I had come. I thought now I could tell Mrs. Dorman how vain her fancies were, and how peacefully the marble figures slept on through the ghastly hour. With my hands in my pockets, I passed up the aisle. In the grey dim light, the eastern end of the church looked larger than usual, and the arches above the two tombs looked larger too. The moon came out and showed me the reason. I stopped short. My heart gave a leap that nearly choked me, and then sank sickeningly. The bodies drawn out man-sized were gone, and their marble slabs lay wide and bare in the vague moonlight that slanted through the east window.
Were they really gone, or was I mad? Clenching my nerves, I stopped and passed my hand over the smooth slabs, and felt their flat, unbroken surface. Had someone taken the things away? Was it some vile practical joke? I would make sure, anyway. In an instant I had made a torch of a newspaper which happened to be in my pocket, and, lighting it, held it high above my head. Its yellow glare illumined the dark arches and those slabs. The figures were gone, and I was alone in the church. Or was I alone? And then a horror seized me, a horror indefinable and indescribable, an overwhelming certainty of supreme and accomplished calamity. I flung down the torch and tore along the aisle and out through the porch, biting my lips as I ran to keep myself from shrieking aloud.
Oh, was I mad, or what was this thing that had possessed me? I leapt the churchyard wall, and took the straight cut across the fields, led by the light from our windows. Just as I got over the first stile, a dark figure seemed to spring out of the ground. Mad still, with that certainty of misfortune, I made for the thing that stood in my path, shouting, "'Get out of the way, can't you?' But my push was met with a more vigorous resistance than I had expected. My arms were caught just above the elbow and held as in a vice, and the raw-boned Irish doctor actually shook me. "'Would ye?' he cried in his own unmistakable accents. "'Would ye, then? Let me go, you fool!' I gasped. "'The marble figures have gone from the church.
I tell you, they've gone!' He broke into a ringing laugh. "'I'll have to give you a draught tomorrow, I see. You've been smoking too much and listening to old wives' tales.' "'I tell you, I've seen the bare slabs.' "'Well, come back with me. I'm going up to Tom Palmer's daughter's cell while looking at the church, and let me see the bare slabs.' "'You go if you like,' I said, a little less frantic for his laughter. "'I'm going home to my wife.' "'Rubbish, man,' said he. "'Do you think I'll permit that? I'm to go saying all your night that you've seen solid marble endowed with vitality, and me to go all my night saying that you're a coward. No, sir, you shan't do it.' "'The night air.' A human voice, and I think also the physical contact with this six feet of solid common sense brought me back a little to my ordinary self, and the word coward was a mental shower-bath.
"'Come on, then,' I said sullenly. "'Perhaps you're right.' He still held my arm tightly. We got over the stile and walked back to the church. All was still as death. The place smelt very damp and earthy. We walked up the aisle. I am not ashamed to confess that I shut my eyes. I knew the figures would not be there. I heard Kelly strike a match. "'Here they are, you see, right enough. You've been dreaming or drinking. Asking your pardon for the invitation.' I opened my eyes. By Kelly's expiring vesture, I saw two shapes lying, in their marble, on their slabs. I drew a deep breath, and caught his hand. "'I am awfully indebted to you,' I said. It must have been some trick of the light, or I've been working rather hard.
Perhaps that's it. Do you know I was quite convinced they were gone?" "'I'm aware of that,' he answered, rather grimly. "'You'll have to be careful of that brain of yours, my friend, I assure you.' He was leaning over, and looking at the right-hand figure, whose stony face was the most villainous and deadly in expression. "'By Jove!' he said. "'Something's been afoot here. This hand is broken.' And so it was. I was certain that it had been perfect the last time Laura and I had been there. "'Perhaps someone's tried to remove them,' said the young doctor. "'That won't account for my impression,' I objected. "'Too much painting and tobacco will account for that well enough.' "'Come along,' I said, "'or my wife will be getting anxious.
You'll come in and have a drop of whisky, and drink confusion to ghosts, and better sense to me.' "'I ought to go to Palmer's, but it's so late now I'd best live it till morning,' he replied. "'I was kept late at the Union, and I've had to see a lot of people since—'All right, I'll come back with ye.' I think he fancied I needed him more than did Palmer's girl. So, discussing how such an illusion could have been possible, and deducing from this experience large generalities concerning ghostly apparitions, we walked up to our cottage. We saw, as we walked up the garden path, that the bright light streamed out of the front door, and presently saw that the parlour door was open, too. Had she gone out?
Come in, I said, and Dr. Kelly followed me into the parlour. It was all ablaze with candles—not only the wax ones, but at least a dozen guttering, glaring tallow dips stuck in vases and ornaments in unlikely places. Light, I knew, was Laura's remedy for nervousness. Poor child! Why had I left her? Brute that I was! We glanced round the room, and at first we did not see her. The window was open, and the draught set all the candles flaring one way. Her chair was empty, and her handkerchief and book lay on the floor. I turned to the window. There, in the recess of the window, I saw her. Oh, my child, my love! Had she gone to that window to watch for me? And what had come into the room behind her?
To what had she turned with that look of frantic fear and horror? Oh, my little one! Had she thought that it was I whose steps she heard and turned to meet—what? She had fallen back across a table in the window, and her body lay half on it and half on the window-seat, and her head hung down over the table, the brown hair loosened and fallen to the carpet. Her lips were drawn back, and her eyes wide, wide open. They saw nothing now. What had they seen last? The doctor moved towards her, but I pushed him aside and sprang to her, caught her in my arms, and cried, "'It's all right, Laura. I've got you safe, wifey.' She fell into my arms in a heap. I clasped her, and kissed her, I called her by all her pet names, but I think I knew all the time that she was dead.
Her hands were tightly clenched. In one of them she held something fast. When I was quite sure that she was dead, and that nothing mattered at all any more, I let him open her hand to see what she held.
It was a grey marble finger.
End of Mansize in Marble
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5 Phantasmagoria 28:56
Phantasmagoria by Lewis Carroll. Canto I.
One winter night at half-past nine, cold, tired, and cross, and muddy, I had come home too late to dine, and supper with cigars and wine was waiting in the study. There was a strangeness in the room, and something, white and wavy, was standing near me in the gloom. I took it for the carpet broom left by that careless slavey. But presently the thing began to shiver and to sneeze. On which I said, "'Come, come, my man, that a most inconsiderate plan. Less noise there, if you please.' "'I've caught a cold,' the thing replies, "'out there upon the landing.' I turned to look in some surprise, and there before my very eyes a little ghost was standing. He trembled when he caught my eye and got behind a chair.
"'How came you here?' I said. And why? I never saw a thing so shy. Come out, don't shiver there. He said, I'll gladly tell you how, and also tell you why. But here he gave a little bow. You're in so bad a temper now, you think it all a lie. And as to being in a fright, allow me to remark that ghosts have just as good a right in every way to fear the light as men fear the dark. No plea, said I, can well excuse such cowardice in you, for ghosts can visit when they choose, whereas we humans can't refuse to grant the interview. He said, A flutter of alarm is not unnatural, is it? I only feared you really meant some harm, but now I see that you are calm. Let me explain my visit. Houses are classed, I beg to state, according to the number of ghosts that they accommodate.
The tenant merely counts as weight with coals and other lumber. This is a one-ghost house, and you, when you arrived last summer, may have remarked a spectra who was doing all that ghosts can do to welcome the newcomer. In villas this is always done, however cheaply rented, for though of course there's less fun when there is only room for one, ghosts have to be contented. That spectra left you on the third. Since then you've not been haunted, for as you never sent us word, "'Twas quite by accident we heard that anyone was wanted." Aspectra has first choice by right in filling up a vacancy, then phantom, goblin, elf, and sprite, if all of these fail them they invite, the nicest ghoul that they can see.
The spectre said the place was low, and that you kept bad wine, so as a phantom had to go, and I was first, of course, you know, I couldn't well decline. No doubt, said I, they settled on who was fittest to be sent, yet still to choose a brat like you to haunt a man of forty-two was no great compliment. I'm not so young, sir, he replied. As you might think, the fact is, in caverns by the water side, In other places that I've tried, I've had a lot of practice. But I have never taken yet a strict domestic part, and in my flurry I forget the five good rules of etiquette we have to know by heart. My sympathies were warming fast towards the little fellow. He was so utterly aghast at having found a man at last, and looked so scared and yellow.
At least, I said, I'm glad to find a ghost is not a dumb thing. But pray sit down, you'll feel inclined, if, like myself, you have not dined, to take a snack of something. Though certainly you don't appear a thing to offer food to, and then I shall be glad to hear, if you will say them loud and clear, the rules that you allude to. Thanks. You shall hear them by and by. This is a piece of luck. What may I offer you? said I. Well, since you are so kind, I'll try a little bit of duck. One slice, and may I ask you for another drop of gravy? I sat and looked at him in awe, for certainly I never saw a thing so white and wavy. And still he seemed to grow more white, more vapoury, and wavier, seen in the dim and flickering light, as he proceeded to recite his maxims of behaviour.
Canto II. His Five Rules. My first, but don't suppose, he said, I'm setting you a riddle, is, if your victim is in bed, don't touch the curtains at his head, but take them in the middle, and wave them slowly in and out, while drawing them asunder, and in a minute's time, no doubt, he'll raise his head and look about with eyes of wrath and wonder. And here you must, on no pretence, make the first observation. Wait for the victim to commence. No ghost of any common sense begins a conversation. If he should say, How came you here? The way you began, sir. In such case your course is clear. On the bat's back, my little dear, is the appropriate answer. If after this he says no more, you'd best perhaps curtail your exertions, go and shake the door, and then if he begins to snore, you'll know the thing's a failure.
By day, if he should walk alone, at home or on a walk, you merely give a hollow groan to indicate the kind of tone in which you mean to talk. But if you find him with his friends, the thing is rather harder. In such a case, success depends on picking up some candle-ends or butter in the larder. With this you make a kind of slide, it answers best with sweet, on which you must contrive to glide and swing yourself from side to side. One learns how to do it. The second tells us what is right in ceremonious calls. First burn a candle or crimson light, a thing I quite forgot tonight. Then scratch the door or walls. I said, "'You'll visit here no more if you attempt the guy. I'll have no bonfires on my floor, and as for scratching at the door, I'd like to see you try.' The third was written to protect the interest of the victim, and tells us, as I recollect, to treat him with grave respect and not to contradict him.
"'That's plain,' said I. "'As tear and tret to any comprehension, I only wish some ghost I've met would not so constantly forget the maxim that you mention.' "'Perhaps,' he said, "'you first transgressed the laws of hospitality, all ghosts instinctively detest the man that fails to treat his guest with proper cordiality.' "'If you addressed a ghost as a thing, or strike him with a hatchet. He is permitted by the king to drop all formal parlaying, and then you're sure to catch it. The fourth prohibits trespassing where other ghosts are quartered, and those convicted of the thing, unless they're pardoned by the king, must instantly be slaughtered. That simply means be cut up small. Ghosts soon unite anew.
The process scarcely hurts at all, no more than when you're what you call. Cut up by a review. The fifth is one you may prefer, that I should quote entire. The king must be addressed as sir. This from a simple courtier is all the laws require. But should you wish to do the thing with out-and-out politeness, accost him as my goblin king, and always use in answering the phrase your royal whiteness. I'm getting rather hoarse, I fear, after so much reciting. So if you don't object, my dear, we'll try a glass of bitter beer. I think it looks inviting.
Canto III. SCARMANGES.
And did you really walk, said I, on such a wretched night? I've always fancied ghosts could fly, if not exactly in the sky, yet at a fairish height. It's very well, said he. For kings to soar above the earth, but phantoms often find that wings, like many other pleasant things, cost more than they are worth. Spectres, of course, are rich, and so can buy them from the elves. But we prefer to keep below. They're stupid company, you know, for any but themselves. For though they claim to be exempt from pride, they treat a phantom as if something quite beneath contempt, just as no turkey ever dreamt of noticing a bantam. They seem too proud, said I, to go to houses such as mine. Pray, how did they contrive to know so quickly that the place was low, and that I kept bad wine?
Inspector Cobbold came to you. The little ghost began. Here I broke in. Inspector who? Inspecting ghost is something new. Explain yourself, my man. His name is Kowald, said my guest, one of the spectra order. You'll very often see him dressed in a yellow gown, a crimson vest, and a nightcap with a border. He tried the brocken business first. He caught a sort of chill. So it came to England to be nursed, and here it took the A form of thirst, which he complains of still. Port wine, he says, when rich in sound, warms his bones like nectar, and as the inns, where it is found, are his especial hunting ground. We call him the inn spectra. I bore it, bore it like a man, this agonizing witticism, and nothing could be sweeter than my temper till the ghost began some most provoking criticism.
Cooks need not be indulged in waste, yet still you'd better teach them. Dishes have some sort of taste. Pray, why are all the cruets placed where nobody can reach them? That man of yours will never earn his living as a waiter. Is that queer thing supposed to burn? It's far too dismal a concern to call a moderator. The duck was tender, but the peas were very much too old. And just remember, if you please, the next time you have toasted cheese, don't let them scent it cold. You'll find the bread improved, I think, by getting better flour and have you anything to drink that looks a little less like ink and isn't quite so sour. Then, peering round with curious eyes, he muttered, Goodness gracious.
And so went on to criticize. Your room's an inconvenient size. It's neither snug nor spacious. That narrow window, I expect, serves but to let the dusk in. But please, said I, to recollect, twas fashioned by an architect who's pinned his faith on Ruskin. I don't care who he was, sir, or on whom he pinned his faith, constructed by whatever law so poor a job I never saw as I'm a living wraith. What a remarkable cigar! How much are they a dozen? I growled. No matter what they are, you're getting as familiar as if you were my cousin. Now that's a thing I will not stand, and so I tell you flat. Aha! said he. We're getting grand. Taking a bottle in his hand, I'll soon arrange for that. And here he took careful aim, and gaily cried, Here goes!
I tried to dodge it as it came, but somehow caught it all the same, exactly on my nose, and I remembered nothing more than I can clearly fix, till I was sitting on the floor repeating, Two and five are four, but five and two are six. What really passed I never learned nor guessed, I only know, that when at last my sense returned, lamp neglected, dimly burned, the fire was getting low. Through driving mist I seemed to see a thing that smirked and smiled, and found that he was giving me a lesson in biography, as if I were a child. Canto IV. His Nurture. Oh, when I was a little ghost! A merry time had we each seated on his favorite post. We chomped and chawed the butter toast they gave us for our tea.
"'That story is in print,' I cried. "'Don't say it's not, because it's known as well as Bradshaw's Guide,' the ghost uneasily replied. He hardly thought it was. "'It's not a nursery rhymes, and yet I almost think it is. Three little ghostesses were set on a postesses, you know, and ate their buttered toastesses. "'I have the book, so if you doubt it,' I turned to search the shelf, "'don't stir.' He cried, will do without it. I now remember all about it. I wrote the thing myself. It came out in a monthly, or at least my agent said it did, some literary swell who saw. It seemed to think it adapted for the magazine he edited. My father was a brownie, sir. My mother was a fairy. The notion had occurred to her that children would be happier if they were taught to fairy.
The notion soon became a craze, and when it once begun she brought us all out in different ways. One was a pixie, two were fays, another was a banshee. The fetch and Kelpie went to school and gave a lot of trouble. Next came a poltergeist and ghoul, and then two trolls, which broke the rule, a goblin and a double. If that's a snuff-box on the shelf, He added with a yawn, I'll take a pinch. Next came an elf, and then a phantom, that's myself, and last a leprechaun. One day some spectrus chanced the call, dressed in the usual white. I stood and watched them in the hall, and couldn't make them out at all. They seemed so strange a sight. I wondered what on earth they were. They looked all head and sack, but Mother told me not to stare, and then she twitched me by the hair and punched me in the back.
Since then I've often wished that I had been a spectre born. But what's the use? He heaved a sigh. They are a ghost nobility, and on us they look with scorn. My phantom life was soon begun when I was barely six. I went out with an older one, and just at first I thought it was fun and learned a lot of tricks. I've haunted dungeons, castles, towers, wherever I was sent. I've often sat and howled for hours, drenched to the skin with driving showers, upon a battlement. It's quite old-fashioned now to groan when you speak. This is the newest thing in tone, and here—it chilled me to the bone—he gave an awful squeak. Perhaps," he added, To your ear, that sounds an easy thing. Try it yourself, my little dear.
It took me something like a year with constant practicing. And when you've learned to squeak, my man, and caught the double sob, you're pretty much where you began. Just try and gibber if you can. That's something like a job. I've tried it and can only say I'm sure you couldn't do it, even if you practiced. Night and day, unless you have a turn that way and natural ingenuity. Shakespeare, I think it is, who treats of ghosts in days of old, who gibbered in the Roman streets, dressed a few I recollect in sheets, they must have found it cold. I've often spent ten pounds on stuff in dressing as a double, but though it answers as a puff, it never has effect enough to make it worth the trouble. Long bills soon quench the little thirst I had for being funny.
The setting up is always worse. Such heaps of things you wanted first. One must be made of money. For instance, take a haunted tower with skull, crossbones, and sheet. Blue lights to burn, say, to an hour. Condensing lens of extra power and set of chains complete. What with the things you have to hire, the fitting on the robe, and testing all the colored fire, the outfit of itself would tire the patience of a job. And then they're so fastidious, the haunted house committee, I've often known them to make a fuss, because a ghost was French or Russ, or even from the city. Some dialects are objected to, for one the Irish brogue is, and then for all you have to do, one pound a week they offer you.
and find yourself in bogies.
Don't they consult the victims, though? I said. They should, by rights, give them a chance, because you know the taste of people differs so, especially in sprites. The phantom shook his head and smiled. Consult them, not a bit. "'T'would be a job to drive one wild, to satisfy one single child. There'd be no end to it." Of course you can't leave children free, said I, to pick and choose, but in the case of men like me, I think mine host might be fairly allowed to state his views. He said, It really wouldn't pay. Folk are so full of fancies. We visit for a single day, and whether then we go or stay depends on the circumstances. And though we don't consult mine host before the things arranged, still if he often quits his post or is not a well-mannered ghost, then you can have him changed.
But if the host's a man like you, I mean a man of sense, and if the house is not too new, why? What has that, said I, to do with a ghost's convenience? A new house does not suit, you know. It's such a job to trim it. But after twenty years or so, the wainscoting began to go, so twenty is the limit. To trim was not a phrase I could remember having heard. Perhaps, I said, you'll be so good as to tell me what is understood exactly by that word. It means the loosening all the doors. The ghost replied, and laughed. It means the drilling by scores in all the skirting boards and floors to make a thorough draught. You'll sometimes find that one or two are all you really need to let the wind come listening through, but here there'll be a lot to do.
I faintly gasped. Indeed! If I had been rather later, I'll be bound. I added, trying most unsuccessfully to smile. You'd been busy all this while, trimming and beautifying? Why, no, said he. Perhaps I should have stayed another minute, but still no ghost that's any good without any introduction would have ventured to begin it. The proper thing, as you were late, was certainly to go, but with the roads in such a state I got the night-mare's leave to wait for half an hour or so. Who's the night-mare? I cried. Instead of answering my question, well, if you don't know that, he said, either you never go to bed, or you've a grand digestion. He goes about and sits on folk that eat too much at night.
His duties are to pinch and poke and squeeze them till they nearly choke. I said, it serves them right. And folk who sup on things like these, he muttered, eggs and bacon, lobster and duck and toasted cheese. If they don't get an awful squeeze, I'm very much mistaken. He is immensely fat, and so well suits the occupation. In point of fact, if you must know, we used to call him, years ago, the Mayor and Corporation. The day he was elected Mayor, I know that every sprite meant to vote for me, but did not dare. He was so frantic with despair and furious with excitement. When it was over, for a whim, he ran to tell the king, And being the reverse of slim, a two-mile trot was not for him a very easy thing.
So to reward him for his run, as it was baking hot and he was over twenty stone, the king proceeded half in fun to knight him on the spot. "'Twas a great liberty to take," I fired up like a rocket. "'He did it just for punning's sake. The man,' says Johnson, "'that would make a pun would pick a pocket.' A man, said he, is not a king. I argued for a while, and did my best to prove the thing, the phantom merely listening with a contemptuous smile. At last, when breath and patience spent, I had recourse to smoking. Your aim, he said, is excellent. But when you call it an argument, of course you're only joking. Stung by his cold and snaky eye, I roused myself at length to say, At least I do defy the very sceptic to deny that union is strength.
That's true enough, said he, yet stay. I listened in all meekness. Union is strength, I'm bound to say. In fact, things as clear as day, but onions are a weakness.
Canto VI. Discomfiture. As one who strives a hill to climb, who never climbed before, who finds it in a little time. Grow every moment less sublime, and votes the thing abhor. Yet, having once begun to try, dares not desert his quest. But climbing ever keeps his eye on one small hut against the sky, wherein he hopes to rest. Who climbs till nerve and force are spent, with many a puff and pant. Who still as rises the ascent, in language grows more violent, although in breath more scant. Who, climbing gains at length the place that crowns the upward track, and entering with unsteady pace, receives a buffet in the face that lands him on his back, and feels himself like one in sleep, glide swiftly down again, a helpless weight from steep to steep, till with a headlong giddy sweep he drops upon the plain.
So I, that had resolved to bring conviction to a ghost, and found it quite a different thing from any human arguing, yet dared not quit my post. But keeping still the end in view to which I hoped to come, I strove to prove the matter true by putting everything I knew into an axiom. Commencing every single phrase with therefore or because, I blindly reeled. A hundred ways about the syllogistic maze, unconscious where I was. Quoth he, That's a regular clap-trap, don't bluster any more. Now do be cool and take a nap. Such a ridiculous old chap was never seen before. You're like a man I used to meet who got one day so furious, and arguing the simple heat, scorched both his slippers off his feet. I said, That's very curious.
"'Well, it is curious,' I agree, and sounds perhaps like Phibbs. But still it's true as true can be. Assure your name is Tibbs,' said he. I said, "'My name's not Tibbs.' "'Not Tibbs,' he cried. His tone became a shade or two less hearty. "'Why, no,' said I. "'My proper name is Tibbets.' "'Tibbets?' "'I the same.' "'Why, then, you're not the party.' With that he struck the board a blow that shivered half the glasses. Why couldn't you have told me so three-quarters of an hour ago, you prince of all the asses? To walk four miles through mud and rain, to spend the night in smoking, and then to find that it's in vain, and I've to do it all again. It's really too provoking. "'Don't talk,' he cried, as I began to mutter some excuse, "'who can have patience with a man that's got no more discretion than an idiotic goose?
To keep me waiting here instead of telling me at once that this was not the house,' he said, "'There, that'll do, be off to bed. Don't gape like that, you dunce.' "'It's very fine to throw the blame on me in such a fashion. Why didn't you inquire my name the very minute that you came?' I answered in a passion. Of course it worries you a bit to come so far on foot, but how was I to blame for it? Well, well, said he, I must admit that isn't badly put, and certainly you've given me the best of wine and victual. Excuse my violence, said he, but accidents like this, you see, they put one out a little. "'Twas my fault, after all, I find. Shake hands, old Turnip Top." The name was hardly to my mind, but as no doubt he meant it kind, I let the matter drop.
Good night, old Turnip Top, good night. When I am gone, perhaps, they'll send you some inferior sprite who'll keep you in some constant fright and spoil your soundest naps. Tell him you'll stand no sort of trick, than if he leers and chuckles, you'll just be handy with a stick. Mine that's pretty hard and thick. And wrap him on the knuckles. Then carelessly remark, Old Coon, perhaps you're not aware that if you don't behave you'll soon be chuckling to another tune, so you'd best take care. That's the right way to cure a sprite of such-like goings-on, but gracious me it's getting light. Good night, old Turniptop, good night. And nod, and he was gone. Canto VII. Sad Sov'nance. What's this? I pondered.
Have I slept, or can I have been drinking? But soon a gentler feeling crept upon me, and I sat and wept an hour or so like winking. No need for Bones to hurry so, I sobbed. In fact, I doubt if it was worth his while to go, and who is Tibbs, I'd like to know to make such work about. If Tibbs is anything like me, it's possible. I said. He won't be over-pleased to be dropped in upon at half-past three after he's snug in bed, and if bones plagues him anyhow, squeaking and all the rest of it, and he was doing here just now, I prophesy there'll be a row, and Tibbs will have the best of it. Then, as my tears could never bring the friendly phantom back, it seemed to me the proper thing to mix another glass and sing the following look.
Coronet. And art thou gone, beloved ghost, best of familiars? Nay, then, farewell, my duckling roast. Farewell, farewell, my tea and toast, my merschaum and cigars. The hues of life are dull and gray, the sweets of life insipid, when thou, my charmer, art away. Old brick, or rather, let me say, old parallelepite. Instead of singing, verse, the third, I ceased abruptly rather. But After such a splendid word, I felt that if it would be absurd to try it any farther. So with a yawn I went my way to seek the welcome downy, and slept and dreamed till break of day of poltergeist and fetch and fae and leprechaun and browny. For a year I have not been visited by any kind of sprite, yet still they echo in my head those parting words so kindly said, Old Turnip Top, good night.
End of Phantasmagora by Lewis Carroll.
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6 Schalken the Painter 50:27
For he is not a man as I am, that we should come together, neither is there any that might lay his hand upon us both. Let him, therefore, take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me.
There exists, at this moment, in good preservation, a remarkable work of Schalken's. The curious management of its lights constitutes, as usual in his pieces, the chief apparent merit of the picture. I say apparent, for in its subject, and not in its handling, However exquisite, consists its real value. The picture represents the interior of what might be a chamber in some antique religious building, and its foreground is occupied by a female figure in a species of white robe, part of which is arranged so as to form a veil. The dress, however, is not that of any religious order. In her hand the figure bears a lamp, by which alone her figure and face are illuminated. and her features wear such an arch smile as well becomes a pretty woman when practising some prankish roguery.
In the background, and, excepting where the dim red light of an expiring fire serves to define the form, in total shadow stands the figure of a man dressed in the old Flemish fashion in an attitude of alarm, his hand being placed upon the hilt of his sword, which he appears to be in the act of drawing. There are some pictures. which impress one, I know not how, with a conviction that they represent not the mere ideal shapes and combinations which have floated through the imagination of the artist, but scenes, faces, and situations which have actually existed. There is in that strange picture something that stamps it as the representation of a reality. And such in truth it is, for it faithfully records a remarkable and mysterious occurrence And perpetuates, in the face of the female figure, which occupies the most prominent place in the design, an accurate portrait of Rose Velderkaust, the niece of Gerard Dau, the first, and I believe, the only love of Godfrey Schalken.
My great-grandfather knew the painter well, and from Schalken himself he learned the fearful story of the painting, and from him, too, he ultimately received the picture itself as a bequest. The story and the picture have become heirlooms in my family. And having described the latter, I shall, if you please, attempt to relate the tradition which has descended with the canvas.
There are few forms on which the mantle of romance hangs more ungracefully than upon that of the uncouth Shalkin. The boorish but most cunning worker in oils, whose pieces delight the critics of our day almost as much as his manners disgusted the refined of his own, And yet this man, so rude, so dogged, so slovenly, in the midst of his celebrity, had in his obscure but happier days played the hero in a wild romance of mystery and passion. When Schalken studied under the immortal Gerard Dow, he was a very young man, and in spite of his phlegmatic temperament, he at once fell over head and ears in love with the beautiful niece of his wealthy master. Rose Velderkhaus was still younger than he, having not yet attained her seventeenth year, and, if tradition speaks truth, possessed all the soft and dimpling charms of the fair, light-haired Flemish maidens.
The young painter loved honestly and fervently. His frank adoration was rewarded. He declared his love, and extracted a faltering confession in return. He was the happiest and proudest painter in all Christendom. But there was somewhat to dash his elation. He was poor and undistinguished. He dared not ask old Gerard for the hand of his sweet ward. He must first win a reputation and a competence. There were, therefore, many dread uncertainties and cold days before him. He had to fight his way against sore odds. But he had won the heart of dear Rose Felderkhaust, and that was half the battle. It is needless to say his exertions were redoubled, and his lasting celebrity proves that his industry was not unrewarded by success.
These ardent labors, and worse still, the hopes that elevated and beguiled them, were, however, destined to experience a sudden interruption of a character so strange and mysterious as to baffle all inquiry, and to throw over the events themselves a shadow of preternatural horror.
Schalkin had one evening outstayed all his fellow-pupils, and still pursued his work in the deserted room. As the daylight was fast falling, he laid aside his colors, and applied himself to the completion of a sketch on which he had expressed extraordinary pains. It was a religious composition, and represented the temptations of a pot-bellied St. Anthony. The young artist, however destitute of elevation, Had, nevertheless, discernment enough to be dissatisfied with his own work, and many were the patient erasures and improvements which Saint and Devil underwent, yet all in vain. The large, old-fashioned room was silent, and, with the exception of himself, quite emptied of its usual inmates. An hour had thus passed away, nearly two, without any improved result.
Daylight had already declined. And twilight was deepening into the darkness of night. The patience of the young painter was exhausted, and he stood before his unfinished production, angry and mortified, one hand buried in the folds of his long hair, and the other holding the piece of charcoal which had so ill-performed its office, and which he now rubbed, without much regard to the sable streaks it produced, with irritable pressure upon his ample Flemish inexpressibles. Curse the subject, said the young man aloud. Curse the picture, the devils, the saint.
At this moment a short, sudden sniff uttered close behind him made the artist turn sharply round, and he now, for the first time, became aware that his labors had been overlooked by a stranger. Within about a yard and a half, and rather behind him, there stood the figure of an elderly man in a cloak and broad-brimmed conical hat. In his hand, which was protected with a heavy, gauntlet-shaped glove, he carried a long ebony walking-stick, surmounted with what appeared, as it glittered dimly in the twilight, to be a massive head of gold, and upon his breast, through the folds of the cloak, there shone the links of a rich chain of the same metal. The room was so obscure that nothing further of the appearance of the figure could be ascertained, and his hat threw his features into profound shadow.
It would not have been easy to conjecture the age of the intruder, but a quantity of dark hair escaping from beneath his sombre hat, as well as his firm and upright carriage, served to indicate that his years could not yet exceed threescore or thereabouts. There was an air of gravity and importance about the garb of the person, and something inescribably odd, I might say awful, in the perfect, stone-like stillness of the figure, that effectually checked the testy comment which had at once risen to the lips of the irritated artist. He therefore, as soon as he had sufficiently recovered his surprise, asked the stranger civilly to be seated, and desired to know if he had any message to leave for his master.
Tell Gerardau, said the unknown, without altering his attitude in the smallest degree, That Meinheer Vanderhausen of Rotterdam desires to speak with him on tomorrow evening at this hour, and if he please, in this room, upon matters of wait, that is all. The stranger, having finished this message, turned abruptly, and, with a quick but silent step, quitted the room, before Schalken had time to say a word in reply. The young man felt a curiosity to see in what direction the burgher of Rotterdam would turn on quitting the studio, and for that purpose he went directly to the window which commanded the door. A lobby of considerable extent intervened between the inner door of the painter's room and the street entrance, so that Schalken occupied the post of observation before the old man could possibly have reached the street.
He watched in vain, however. There was no other mode of exit. Had the queer old man vanished, or was he lurking about the recesses of the lobby for some sinister purpose? This last suggestion filled the mind of Schalken with a vague uneasiness, which was so unaccountably intense as to make him alike afraid to remain in the room alone and reluctant to pass through the lobby. However, with an effort which appeared very disproportionate to the occasion, he summoned resolution to leave the room. And, having locked the door and thrust the key in his pocket, without looking to the right or left, he traversed the passage which had so recently, perhaps still, contained the person of his mysterious visitant, scarcely venturing to breathe till he had arrived in the open street.
"'Meinheer Vanderhausen,' said Durardau within himself, as the appointed hour approached, Mynheer Vanderhausen of Rotterdam, I never heard of the man till yesterday. What can he want of me? A portrait, perhaps, to be painted? Or a poor relation to be apprenticed? Or a collection to be valued? Or, pshaw, there's no one in Rotterdam to leave me a legacy. Well, whatever the business may be, we shall soon know it all. It was now the close of day, and again every easel except that of Schalken was deserted. Gerard Dow was pacing the apartment with the restless step of impatient expectation, sometimes pausing to glance over the work of one of his absent pupils, but more frequently placing himself at the window from whence he might observe the passengers who threaded the obscure by-street in which his studio was placed.
"'Said you not, Godfrey?' exclaimed Dow, after a long and fruitful gaze from his post of observation and turning to Schalken, that the hour he appointed was about seven by the clock of the stadthouse. It had just told seven when I first saw him, sir, answered the student. The hour is close at hand, then, said the master, consulting a horloge as large and as round as an orange. Meinheer Vanderhausen from Rotterdam. Is it not so? Such was the name. And an elderly man, richly clad, pursued Dow musingly. As well as I might see, replied his pupil, he could not be young, nor yet very old, neither, and his dress was rich and grave, as might become a citizen of wealth and consideration. At this moment the sonorous boom of the Stad House clock tolled, stroke after stroke, the hour of seven.
The eyes of both master and student were directed to the door, and it was not until the last peal of the bell had ceased to vibrate that Dow exclaimed, So, so, we shall have his worship presently, that is, if he means to keep his hour. If not, you may wait for him, Godfrey, if you court his acquaintance. But what, after all, if it should prove but a mummery got up by Van Karp, or some such wag? I wish you had run all risks. And cudgelled the old burgomaster soundly. I'd wager a dozen Rhenish his worship would have unmasked and pleaded old acquaintance in a trice. Here he comes, sir, said Shalkin, in a low, monitory tone. And instantly, upon turning towards the door, Gerard Dow observed the same figure which had, on the day before, so unexpectedly greeted his pupil Shalkin.
There was something in the air of the figure which at once satisfied the painter that there was no masquerading in the case, and that he really stood in the presence of a man of worship, and so, without hesitation, he doffed his cap, and courteously saluting the stranger, requested him to be seated. The visitor waved his hand slightly, as if in acknowledgment of the courtesy, but remained standing. "'I have the honor to see Meinheer Vanderhausen of Rotterdam,' said Gerard Dow. "'The same,' was the laconic reply of his visitor. "'I understand your worship desires to speak with me,' continued Dow, "'and I am here by appointment to wait your commands.' "'Is that a man of trust?' said Vanderhausen, turning toward Schalken, who stood at a little distance behind his master.
"'Certainly,' replied Gerard. Then let him take this box, and get the nearest jeweller or goldsmith to value its contents, and let him return hither with a certificate of the valuation. At the same time he placed a small case about nine inches square in the hands of Gerard Dau, who was as much amazed at its weight as at the strange abruptness with which it was handed to him. In accordance with the wishes of the stranger, he delivered it into the hands of Shalkin, and, repeating his direction, dispatched him upon the mission. Schalken disposed his precious charge securely beneath the folds of his cloak, and, rapidly traversing two or three narrow streets, he stopped at a corner house, the lower part of which was then occupied by the shop of a Jewish goldsmith.
He entered the shop, and, calling the little Hebrew into the obscurity of its back recesses, he proceeded to lay before him Vanderhausen's casket. On being examined by the light of a lamp, it appeared entirely cased with lead, the outer surface of which was much scraped and soiled, and nearly white with age. This having been partially removed, they appeared beneath a box of some hard wood, which also they forced open, and after the removal of two or three folds of linen, they discovered its contents to be a mass of golden ingots, closely packed, and, as the Jew declared, of the most perfect quality, Every ingot underwent the scrutiny of the little Jew, who seemed to feel an epicurean delight in touching and testing these morsels of the glorious metal, and each one of them was replaced in its birth with the exclamation, Mein Gott!
How very perfect! Not one grain of alloy! Beautiful! Beautiful! The task was at length finished. And the Jew certified under his hand the value of the ingots submitted to his examination to amount to many thousand rix-dollars. With the desired document in his pocket, and the rich box of gold carefully pressed under his arm, and concealed by his cloak, he retraced his way, and entering the studio found his master and the stranger in close conference.
Schalken had no sooner left the room In order to execute the commission he had taken in charge, Van Banderhausen addressed Gerardau in the following terms. I cannot tarry with you to-night more than a few minutes, and so I shall shortly tell you the matter upon which I come. You visited the town of Rotterdam some four months ago, and then I saw in the church of St. Lawrence your niece, Rose Velderkhaus. I desired to marry her, And if I satisfy you that I am wealthier than any husband you can dream of for her, I expect that you will forward my suit with your authority. If you approve my proposal, you must close with it here and now, for I cannot wait for calculations and delays. Gerardau was hugely astonished by the nature of Meinheer van der Housen's communication, but he did not venture to express surprise.
For, besides the motives supplied by prudence and politeness, the painter experienced a kind of chill and oppression like that which is said to intervene when one is placed in unconscious proximity with the object of a natural antipathy, an undefined but overpowering sensation, while standing in the presence of the eccentric stranger, which made him very unwilling to say anything which might reasonably offend him. I have no doubt, said Gerard, after two or three prefatory hems, that the alliance which you propose would prove like advantageous and honorable to my niece. But you must be aware that she has a will of her own, and may not acquiesce in what we may design for her advantage. Do not seek to deceive me, Sir Painter, said Vanderhausen.
You are her guardian. She is your ward. She is mine if you like to make her so. The man of Rotterdam moved forward a little as he spoke, and Gerard Dow, he scarcely knew why, inwardly prayed for the speedy return of Schalken. "'I desire,' said the mysterious gentleman, "'to place in your hands at once an evidence of my wealth, and a security for my liberal dealing with your niece.' The lad will return in a minute or two with a sum in value five times the fortune which she has a right to expect from her husband. This shall lie in your hands, together with her dowry, and you may apply the united sum as suits her interests best. It shall be all exclusively hers while she lives. Is that liberal? Dow assented, and inwardly acknowledged that fortune had been extraordinarily kind to his niece.
The stranger, he thought, must be both wealthy and generous, and such an offer was not to be despised, though made by a humorist, and one of no very prepossessing presence. Rose had not very high pretensions, for she had but a modest dowry, which she owed entirely to the generosity of her uncle. Neither had she had any right to raise exceptions on the score of birth, for her own origin was far from splendid. And as the other objections, Gerard resolved, and indeed, by the usages of the time, was warranted in resolving not to listen to them for a moment. Sir, said he, addressing the stranger, your offer is liberal, and whatever hesitation I may feel in closing with it immediately arises solely from my not having the honor of knowing anything of your family or station.
Upon these points you can, of course, satisfy me without difficulty.
As to my respectability," said the stranger dryly, "'you must take that for granted at present. Pester me with no inquiries. You can discover nothing more about me than I choose to make known. You shall have sufficient security for my respectability. My word, if you are honorable, if you are sordid, my gold."
A testy old gentleman thought Dow, He must have his own way, but, all things considered, I am not justified to declining his offer. I will not pledge myself unnecessarily, however.
You will not pledge yourself unnecessarily, said Vanderhausen, strangely uttering the very words which had just floated through the mind of his companion. But you will do so if it is necessary, I presume, and I will show you that I consider it indispensable. If the gold I mean to leave in your hands satisfy you, and if you don't wish my proposal to be at once withdrawn, you must, before I leave this room, write your name to this engagement. Having thus spoken, he placed a paper in the hands of the master, the contents of which expressed an engagement entered into by Gerard Dahl, to give to Wilkin Vanderhausen of Rotterdam in marriage, Rosevelder Kauz, and so forth, within one week of the date thereof.
While the painter was employed in reading this covenant by the light of a twinkling oil lamp in the far wall of the room, Schalken, as we have stated, entered the studio, and having delivered the box and the valuation of the Jew into the hands of the stranger, he was about to retire, when Vanderhausen called to him to wait, and, presenting the case and the certificate to Gerard Dow, he paused in silence until he had satisfied himself by an inspection of both. Respecting the value of the pledge left in his hands, I length, he said, Are you content? The painter said he would fain have another day to consider. Not an hour, said the suitor apathetically. Well then, said Dow, with a sore effort, I am content.
It is a bargain. Then sign it once, said Vanderhausen, for I am weary. At the same time he produced a small case of writing materials, and Gerard signed the important document. "'Let this youth witness the covenant,' said the old man. And Godfrey Schalkin unconsciously attested the instrument which forever bereft him of his dear Rose Velderkhaus. The compact being thus completed, the strange visitor folded up the paper and stowed it safely in an inner pocket. I will visit you tomorrow night at nine o'clock at your own house, Gerard Dow, and will see the object of our contract. And so saying, Wilkin Vanderhausen moved stiffly but rapidly out of the room.
Jolkin, eager to resolve his doubts, had placed himself by the window in order to watch the street entrance, but the experiment served only to support his suspicions, for the old man did not issue from the door. This was very strange, odd, nay, fearful. He and his master returned together, and talked but little on the way, for each had his own subjects of reflection, of anxiety, and of hope. Schalken, however, did not know the ruin which menaced his dearest projects. Gerard Dow knew nothing of the attachment which had sprung up between his pupil and his niece, and even if he had, It is doubtful whether he would have regarded its existence as any serious obstruction to the wishes of Meinheer Vanderhausen.
Marriages were then and there matters of traffic and calculation. And it would have appeared as absurd in the eyes of the guardian to make a mutual attachment an essential element in a contract of the sort as it would have been to drop his bonds and receipts in the language of romance. The painter, however, did not communicate to his niece the important step which she had taken in her behalf, a forbearance caused not by any anticipated opposition on her part, but solely by a ludicrous consciousness that if she were to ask him for a description of her destined bridegroom, he would be forced to confess that he had not once seen his face, and if called upon, would find it absolutely impossible to identify him.
On the next day, Girard Dau, after dinner, called his niece to him, and having scanned her person with an air of satisfaction, he took her hand, and looking upon her pretty innocent face with a smile of kindness, he said, Rose, my girl, that face of yours will make your fortune. Rose blushed and smiled. Such faces and such tempers seldom go together, and when they do, the compound is a love charm. Few heads or hearts can resist. Trust me, you will soon be a bride, girl. But this is trifling, and I am pressed for time, so make ready the large room by eight o'clock tonight, and give directions for supper at nine. I expect a friend, and observe me, child, do you trick yourself out handsomely. I will not have him think us poor or sluttish.
With these words he left her, and took his way to the room in which his pupils worked.
When the evening closed in, Gerard called Schalken, who was about to take his departure to his own obscure and comfortless lodgings, and asked him to come home and sup with Rose and Vanderhausen. The invitation was, of course, accepted, and Gerard Dow and his pupils soon found themselves in the handsome and, even then, antique chamber which had been prepared for the reception of the stranger. A cheerful wood fire blazed in the hearth, A little at one side of which an old-fashioned table, which shone in the firelight like burnished gold, was awaiting the supper, for which preparations were going forward. And ranged with exact regularity stood the tall-backed chairs, whose ungracefulness was more than compensated by their comfort.
The little party, consisting of Rose, her uncle, and the artist, awaited the arrival of the expected visitor with considerable impatience. Nine o'clock at length came, and with it a summons at the street door, which being speedily answered, was followed by a slow and emphatic tread upon the staircase. The steps moved heavily across the lobby. The door of the room in which the party we have described were assembled slowly opened, and there entered a figure which startled, almost appalled, the phlegmatic Dutchman, and nearly made Rose scream with terror. It was the form, and arrayed in the garb of Meinheer Vanderhausen. The air, the gait, the height were the same, but the features had never been seen by any of the party before.
The stranger stopped at the door of the room, and displayed his form and face completely. He wore a dark-colored cloth cloak, which was short and full, not falling quite to his knees. His legs were cased in dark-purple silk stockings, and his shoes were adorned with roses of the same color. The opening of the cloak in front showed the undersuit to consist of some very dark, perhaps sable material, and his hands were enclosed in a pair of heavy leather gloves, which ran up considerably above the wrist, in the manner of a gauntlet. In one hand he carried his walking-stick and his hat, which he had removed, and the other hung heavily by his side. A quantity of grizzled hair descended in long tresses from his head, and rested upon the plates of a stiff ruff, which effectually concealed his neck.
So far all was well, but the face, all the flesh of the face was colored with the bluish-ledden hue, which is sometimes produced by metallic medicines administered in excessive quantities. The eyes showed an undue proportion of muddy white, and had a certain indefinable character of insanity. The hue of the lips bearing the usual relation to that of the face was, consequently, nearly black, and the entire character of the face was sensual, malignant, and even satanic. It was remarkable that the worshipful stranger suffered as little as possible of his flesh to appear, and that during his visit he did not once remove his gloves. Having stood for some moments at the door, Drardau at length found breath and collectedness to bid him welcome, And with a mute inclination of the head, the stranger stepped forward into the room.
There was something indescribably odd, even horrible, about all his motions, something undefinable, that was unnatural, unhuman. It was as if the limbs were guided and directed by a spirit unused to the management of bodily machinery. The stranger spoke hardly at all during his visit, which did not exceed half an hour. And the host himself could scarcely muster courage enough to utter the few necessary salutations and courtesies. And, indeed, such was the nervous terror which the presence of Vanderhausen inspired, that very little would have made all his entertainers fly in downright panic from the room. They had not so far lost all self-possession, however, as to fail to observe two strange peculiarities of their visitor.
During his stay his eyelids did not once close, or, indeed, Move in the slightest degree, and farther there was a deathlike stillness in his whole person, owing to the absence of the heaving motion of the chest caused by the process of respiration. These two peculiarities, though when told they may appear trifling, produced a very striking and unpleasant effect when seen and observed. Vanderhausen at length relieved the painter of Leiden of his inauspicious presence. And with no trifling sense of relief the little party heard the street door close after him. Dear uncle, said Rose, what a frightful man! I would not see him again for the wealth of the states. Tush, foolish girl, said Dow, whose sensations were anything but comfortable.
A man may be as ugly as the devil, and yet, if his heart and actions are good, he is worth all the pretty-faced perfumed puppies that walk them all. Rose, my girl, It is very true he has not thy pretty face, but I know him to be wealthy and liberal, and were he ten times more ugly, these two virtues would be enough to counterbalance all his deformity, and if not sufficient actually to alter the shape and hue of his features at least enough to prevent one thinking them so much amiss. Do you know, uncle, said Rose, when I saw him standing at the door, I could not get it out of my head that I saw the old painted wooden figure that used to frighten me so much in the church of St. Lawrence at Rotterdam.
Girard laughed, though he could not help inwardly acknowledging the justness of the comparison. He was resolved, however, as far as he could, to check his niece's disposition to dilate upon the ugliness of her intended bridegroom. Although he was not a little pleased as well as puzzled, To observe that she appeared totally exempt from that mysterious threat of the stranger, which, he could not disguise it from himself, considerably affected him as also his pupil, Godfrey Shulkin. Early on the next day there arrived, from various quarters of the town, rich presents of silks, velvets, jewelry, and so forth, for rows. And also a packet directed to Gerard Dau, which on being opened was found to contain a contract of marriage, formally drawn up, between Wilken van der Housen of the Boome Quay in Rotterdam, and Rose Velderkoust of Leiden, niece to Gerard Dau, master in the art of painting, also of this same city, and containing engagements on the part of van der Housen to make settlements upon his bride, far more splendid than he had before led her guardian to believe likely.
and which were to be secured to her use in the most unexceptionable manner possible, the money being placed in the hand of Gerard Dow himself. I have no sentimental scenes to describe, no cruelty of guardians, no magnanimity of wards, no agonies or transport of lovers. The record I have to make is one of sordidness, levity, and heartlessness. In less than a week after the first interview, which we have just described, The contract of marriage was fulfilled, and Schalken saw the prize which he would have risked existence to secure carried off in solemn pomp by his repulsive rival. For two or three days he absented himself from the school. He then returned and worked, if with less cheerfulness, with far more dogged resolution than before.
The stimulus of love had given place to that of ambition. Months passed away, and— Contrary to his expectation, and, indeed, to the direct promise of the parties, Gerard Dow heard nothing of his niece or her worshipful spouse. The interest of the money, which was to have been demanded in quarterly sums, lay unclaimed in his hands. He began to grow extremely uneasy. Mynheer Vanderhausen's direction in Rotterdam he was fully possessed of. After some irresolution he finally determined to journey thither, A trifling undertaking, and easily accomplished, and thus to satisfy himself of the safety and comfort of his ward, for whom he entertained an honest and strong affection. His search was in vain, however.
No one in Rotterdam had ever heard of Meinheer Vanderhausen. Gerard Dow left not a house in the Boomquay untried, but all in vain. No one could give him any information whatever regarding the object of his inquiry. And he was obliged to return to Leiden nothing wiser and far more anxious than when he had left it. On his arrival, he hastened to the establishment from which Vanderhausen had hired the lumbering, though considering the times, most luxurious vehicle which the bridal party had employed to convey them to Rotterdam. From the driver of this machine he learned that, having proceeded by slow stages, they had late in the evening approached Rotterdam, But that before they entered the city, and while yet nearly a mile from it, a small party of men, soberly clad, and after the old fashion, with peaked beards and moustaches, standing in the center of the road, obstructed the further progress of the carriage.
The driver reined in his horses, much fearing, from the obscurity of the hour and the loneliness of the road, that some mischief was intended. His fears were, however, somewhat allayed by his observing that these strange men carried a large litter of an antique shape, and which they immediately set down upon the pavement, whereupon the bridegroom, having opened the coach-door from within, descended, and having assisted his bride to do likewise, led her, weeping bitterly, and wringing her hands, to the litter which they both entered. It was then raised by the men who surrounded it, and speedily carried towards the city, And before it had proceeded very far, the darkness concealed it from the view of the Dutch coachman.
In the inside of the vehicle he found a purse, whose contents more than thrice paid the hire of the carriage and man. He saw and could tell nothing more of mynheer Vanderhausen and his beautiful lady. This mystery was a source of profound anxiety and even grief to Gerard Dow. There was evidently fraud in the dealing of Vanderhausen with him. Though for what purpose committed he could not imagine. He greatly doubted how far it was possible for a man possessing such a countenance to be anything but a villain. And every day that passed without his hearing from or of his niece, instead of inducing him to forget his fears, on the contrary, tended more and more to aggravate them. The loss of her cheerful society tended also to depress his spirits, and in order to dispel the gloom which often crept upon his mind after his daily occupations were over, he was wont frequently to ask Schalken to accompany him home and share his otherwise solitary supper.
One evening, the painter and his pupil were sitting by the fire, having accomplished a comfortable meal, and had yielded to the silent and delicious melancholy of digestion, When their ruminations were disturbed by a loud sound at the street door, as if occasioned by some person rushing and scrambling vehemently against it, a domestic had run without delay to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, and they heard him twice or thrice interrogate the applicant for admission, but without eliciting any other answer but a sustained reiteration of sounds. They heard him then open the hall door, and immediately there followed a light and rapid tread on the staircase. Schalken advanced towards the door.
It opened before he reached it, and Rose rushed into the room. She looked wild, fierce and haggard with terror and exhaustion. But her dress surprised them as much as even her unexpected appearance. It consisted of a kind of white woolen wrapper made close about the neck, and descending to the very ground. It was much deranged and travel-soiled. The poor creature had hardly entered the chamber when she fell senseless on the floor. With some difficulty, they succeeded in reviving her, and on recovering her senses, she instantly exclaimed in a tone of terror rather than mere impatience, "'Wine! Wine! Quickly, or I'm lost!' Astonished and almost scared at the strange agitation in which the call was made, they at once administered to her wishes, and she drank some wine with the haste and eagerness which surprised them.
She had hardly swallowed it when she exclaimed with the same urgency, Food, for God's sake, food, at once, or I perish. A considerable fragment of a roast joint was upon the table, and Shalkin immediately began to cut some. But he was anticipated, for no sooner did she see it than she caught it, a more than mortal image of famine, and with her hands and even with her teeth she tore off the flesh and swallowed it. When the paroxysm of hunger had been a little appeased, she appeared on a sudden overcome with shame, or it may have been that other more agitating thoughts overpowered and scared her, for she began to weep bitterly and to wring her hands. Oh, send for a minister of God, said she. I am not safe till he comes.
Send for him speedily. Gerard Dow dispatched a messenger instantly, and prevailed on his lease to allow him to surrender his bedchamber to her use. He also persuaded her to retire to at once to rest. Her consent was extorted upon the condition that they would not leave her for a moment. Oh, that the holy man were here, she said. He can deliver me. The dead and the living can never be won. God has forbidden it. With these mysterious words, she surrendered herself to their guidance, and they proceeded to the chamber which Gerardau had assigned to her use. "'Do not, do not leave me for a moment,' said she. "'I am lost forever if you do.' Gerardau's chamber was approached through a spacious apartment, which they were now about to enter.
He and Shalkin each carried a candle, so that a sufficiency of light was cast upon all surrounding objects. They were now entering the large chamber, which, as I have said, communicated with Dow's apartment, when Rose suddenly stopped, and, in a whisper which thrilled them both with horror, she said, "'Oh, God! He is here! He is here! See! See! There he goes!' She pointed towards the door of the inner room, and Shulkin thought he saw a shadowy and ill-defined form gliding into that apartment. He drew his sword, and— Raising the candle so as to throw its light with increased distinctness upon the objects in the room, he entered the chamber into which the shadow had glided. No figure was there, nothing but the furniture which belonged to the room, and yet he could not be deceived as to the fact that something had moved before them into the chamber.
A sickening dread came upon him, and the cold perspiration broke out in the heavy drops upon his forehead. Nor was he more composed. When he heard the increased urgency and agony of entreaty, with which Rose implored them not to leave her for a moment. "'I saw him,' said she. "'He's here. I cannot be deceived. I know him. He's by me. He is with me. He's in the room. Then, for God's sake, as you would save me, do not stir from beside me.' Leia at length prevailed upon her to lie down upon the bed, where she continued to urge them to stay by her. She frequently uttered incoherent sentences, repeating again and again, The dead and the living cannot be won, God has forbidden it, and then again, Rest to the wakeful, Sleep to the sleepwalkers.
These and such mysterious and broken sentences she continued to utter until the clergyman arrived. Gerard Dau began to fear, naturally enough, that terror or ill-treatment had unsettled the poor girl's intellect, and he half suspected By the suddenness of her appearance, the unseasonableness of the hour, and, above all, from the wildness and terror of her manner, that she had made her escape from some place of confinement for lunatics, and was an imminent fear of pursuit. He resolved to summon medical advice as soon as the mind of his niece had been in some measure set at rest by the offices of the clergyman, whose attendance she had so earnestly desired. And until this object had been attained, he did not venture to put any questions to her, which might possibly, by reviving painful or horrible recollections, increase her agitation.
The clergyman soon arrived, a man of ascetic countenance and venerable age, one whom Gerard Dow respected very much, forasmuch as he was a veteran polemic, though one perhaps more dreaded as a combatant than beloved as a Christian, of pure morality, subtle brain, and frozen heart. He entered the chamber which communicated with that in which Rose reclined, and immediately on his arrival she requested him to pray for her, as for one who lay in the hands of Satan, and who could hope for deliverance only from heaven. That you may distinctly understand all the circumstances of the event which I am going to describe, it is necessary to state the relative position of the parties who were engaged in it.
The old clergyman and Shalkin, were in the ante-room of which I have already spoken. Rose lay in the inner chamber, the door of which was open, and by the side of the bed, at her urgent desire, stood her guardian. A candle burned in the bed-chamber, and three were lighted in the outer apartment. The old man cleared his voice as if about to commence, but before he had time to begin, a sudden gust of air blew out the candle which served to illuminate the room in which the poor girl lay, and she, with hurried alarm, exclaimed, Godfrey, bring in another candle. The darkness is unsafe. Gerard Dow, forgetting for the moment her repeated injunctions, in the immediate impulse, stepped from the bedchamber into the other in order to supply what she desired.
Oh, God, do not go, dear uncle, shrieked the unhappy girl, and at the same time she sprung from the bed and darted after him in order by her grasp to detain him. But the warning came too late. For scarcely had he passed the threshold, and hardly had his niece had time to utter the startling exclamation when the door which divided the two rooms closed violently after him, as if swung by a strong blast of wind. Shalkin and he both rushed to the door, but their united and desperate efforts could not avail so much as to shake it. Shriek after shriek burst from the inner chamber with all the piercing loudness of despairing terror. Shulchan and Dao applied every nerve to force upon the door, but all in vain.
There was no sound of struggling from within, but the screams seemed to increase in loudness, and at the same time they heard the bolts of the lattice window withdrawn, and the window itself grated upon the sill as if thrown open. One last shriek, so long and piercing and agonized as to be scarcely human, swelled from the room, and suddenly there followed a deathlike silence. A light step was heard crossing the floor, as if from the bed to the window, and almost at the same instant the door gave way, and, yielding to the pressure of the external applicants, nearly precipitated them into the room. It was empty. The window was open, and Shulkin sprung to a chair and gazed out upon the street and canal below.
He saw no form, but he saw, or thought he saw, The waters of the broad canal beneath settling ring after ring in heavy circles, as if a moment before disturbed by the submission of some ponderous body.
No trace of Rose was ever after found, nor was anything certain respecting her mysterious wooer discovered or even suspected. No clue, whereby to trace the intricacies of the labyrinth and to arrive at its solution presented itself. But an incident occurred which, Though it will not be received by our rational readers, in lieu of evidence, produced nevertheless a strong and a lasting impression upon the mind of Schalken. Many years after the events which we have detailed, Schalken, then residing far away, received an intimation of his father's death, and of his intended burial upon a fixed day in the church of Rotterdam. It was necessary that a very considerable journey should be performed by the funeral procession.
which, as it will be readily believed, was not very numerously attended. Schalkin with difficulty arrived in Rotterdam late in the day upon which the funeral was appointed to take place. It had not then arrived. Evening closed in, and still it did not appear. Schalkin strolled down to the church. He found it open. Notice of the arrival of the funeral had been given, and the vault in which the body was to be laid had been opened. The sexton, on seeing a well-dressed gentleman whose object was to attend the expected obsequies, pacing the aisle of the church, hospitably invited him to share with him the comforts of a blazing fire, which, as was his custom in winter-time upon such occasions, he had kindled in the hearth of a chamber, in which he was accustomed to await the arrival of such grisly guests, and which communicated, by a flight of steps, with the vault below.
In this chamber, Schalkin and his entertainer seated themselves, and the sexton, after some fruitless attempts to engage his guest in conversation, was obliged to apply himself to his tobacco-pipe and can to solace his solitude. In spite of his grief and cares, the fatigues of a rapid journey of nearly forty hours gradually overcame the mind and body of Godfrey Schalkin, and he sank into a deep sleep. From which he awakened by some winds shaking him gently by the shoulder. He first thought that the old sexton had called him, but he was no longer in the room. He roused himself, and as soon as he could clearly see what was around him, he perceived a female form, clothed in a kind of light robe of white, part of which was so disposed as to form a veil, and in her hand she carried a lamp.
She was moving rather away from him, in the direction of the flight of steps which conducted towards the vaults. Schalken felt a vague alarm at the sight of this figure, and at the same time an irresistible impulse to follow its guidance. He followed it towards the vaults, but when it reached the head of the stairs he paused. The figure paused also, and, turning gently round, displayed, by the light of the lamp it carried, the face and features of his first love, Rose Velderkhaust. There was nothing horrible. Or even sad in the countenance. On the contrary, it were the same arch smile which used to enchant the artist long before in his happy days. A feeling of awe and interest, too intense to be resisted, prompted him to follow the spectre, if spectre it were.
She descended the stairs. He followed. And turning to the left, through a narrow passage, she led him, to his infinite surprise, into what appeared to be an old-fashioned Dutch apartment. Such as the pictures of Gerardau have served to immortalize. Abundance of costly antique furniture was disposed about the room, and in one corner stood a four-post bed with heavy black cloth curtains around it. The figure frequently turned towards him with the same arched smile, and when she came to the side of the bed she drew the curtains, and, by the light of the lamp, which she held towards its contents, She disclosed to the horror-stricken painter, sitting bold upright in the bed, the livid and demoniac form of Vanderhausen.
Schalken had hardly seen him when he fell senseless upon the floor, where he lay until discovered on the next morning, by persons employed in closing the passages into the vaults. He was lying in a cell of considerable size, which had not been disturbed for a long time, and he had fallen beside a large coffin, which was supported upon small pillars. A security against the tax of vermin. To his dying day Schalken was satisfied of the reality of the vision which he had witnessed, and he has left behind him a curious evidence of the impression which it wrought upon his fancy, in a painting executed shortly after the event I have narrated, and which is valuable as exhibiting not only the peculiarities which have made Schalken's picture sought after, but even more so as presenting a portrait of his early love.
Rose Velderkoust, whose mysterious fate must always remain matter of speculation.
End of Schalk and the Painter by J. Sheridan Lefanu
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7 Shadows on the Wall 26:12
Marquette, Michigan. July, 2006. The Shadows on the Wall by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman "'Henry had words with Edward in the study the night before Edward died,' said Caroline Glynn. She spoke not with acrimony, but with grave severity. Rebekah Ann Glynn gasped by way of assent. She sat in a wide flounce of black silk in the corner of the sofa, and rolled terrified eyes from her sister Caroline to her sister Mrs. Stephen Brigham, who had been Emma Glynn, the one beauty of the family. The latter was beautiful still, with a large, splendid, full-blown beauty. She filled a great rocking-chair with her superb bulk of femininity, and swayed gently back and forth, her black silks whispering, and her black frills fluttering.
Even the shock of death, for her brother Edward lay dead in the house, could not disturb her outward serenity of demeanor. But even her expression of masterly placidity changed before her sister Caroline's announcement, and her sister Rebecca Ann's gasp of terror and distress in response. "'I think Henry might have controlled his temper when poor Edward was so near his end,' she said with an asperity which disturbed slightly the rosate curves of her beautiful mouth. "'Of course he did not know,' murmured Rebecca Ann in a faint tone. Of course he did not know it," said Caroline quickly. She turned on her sister with a strange, sharp look of suspicion. Then she shrank, as if from the other's possible answer.
Rebecca gasped again. The married sister, Mrs. Emma Brigham, was now sitting up straight in her chair. She had ceased rocking and was eyeing them both intently, with a sudden accentuation of family likeness in her face. "'What do you mean?' she said impartially to them both. Then she, too, seemed to shrink before a possible answer. She even laughed an evasive sort of laugh. "'Nobody means anything,' said Caroline firmly. She rose and crossed the room toward the door, with grim decisiveness. "'Where are you going?' asked Mrs. Brigham. "'I have something to see to,' replied Caroline, and the others at once knew by her tone that she had some solemn and sad duty to perform in the chamber of death.
"'Oh,' said Mrs. Brigham, After the door had closed behind Caroline, she turned to Rebecca. "'Did Henry have many words with him?' she asked. "'They were talking very loud,' replied Rebecca evasively. "'Mrs. Brigham looked at her. She had not resumed rocking. She still sat up straight, with a slight knitting of intensity on her fair forehead between the pretty rippling curves of her auburn hair. "'Did you—ever hear anything?' she asked in a low voice, with a glance toward the door. "'I was just across the hall in the South Parlour, and that door was open, and this door ajar,' replied Rebecca with a slight flush. "'Then you must have.' "'I couldn't help it.' "'Everything?' "'Most of it.' "'What was it?' "'The old story.' "'I suppose Henry was mad, as he always was, because Edward was living on here for nothing when he had wasted all the money father left him.' Rebecca nodded with a fearful glance at the door.
When Emma spoke again, her voice was still more hushed. "'I know how he felt,' said she. "'It must have looked as if Edward was living at his expense. But he wasn't.' "'No, he wasn't.' "'And Edward had a right here according to the terms of Father's will, and Henry ought to have remembered it.' "'Yes, he ought.' "'Did he say hard things?' "'Pretty hard, from what I heard.' What? I heard him tell Edward that he had no business here at all, and he thought he had better go away. What did Edward say? That he would stay here as long as he lived, and afterward, too—if he was a mind to—and he would like to see Henry get him out, and then—what? Then he laughed. What did Henry say? I didn't hear him say anything.
But—but what? "'I saw him when he came out of this room.' He looked mad. "'You've seen him when he looked so?' Emma nodded. The expression of horror on her face had deepened. "'Do you remember that time he killed the cat because she had scratched him?' "'Yes, don't.' Then Caroline re-entered the room. She went up to the stove, in which a wood fire was burning. It was a cold, gloomy day of fall, and she warmed her hands, which were reddened from recent washing in cold water. Mrs. Brigham looked at her and hesitated. She glanced at the door, which was still ajar. It did not easily shut, being still swollen with the damp weather of the summer. She rose and pushed it together with a sharp thud, which jarred the house.
Rebekah started painfully with a half-exclamation. Caroline looked at her disapprovingly. "'It is time you controlled your nerves, Rebekah,' she said. Mrs. Brigham returned from the closed door, said imperiously that it ought to be fixed. It shut so hard. "'It will shrink enough after we have had the fire a few days,' replied Caroline. "'I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself for talking as he did to Edward,' said Mrs. Brigham abruptly, but in an almost inaudible voice. "'Hush,' said Caroline, with a glance of actual fear at the closed door. Nobody can hear with the door shut. I say again, I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself. I shouldn't think he'd ever get over it, having words with poor Edward the very night before he died.
Edward was enough sight better disposition than Henry, with all his faults. I never heard him speak a cross word, unless he spoke cross to Henry that last night. I don't know, but he did from what Rebecca overheard. Not so much cross. It's sort of soft and sweet and aggravating. sniffed Rebecca. "'What do you think really ailed, Edward?' asked Emma, in hardly more than a whisper. She did not look at her sister. "'I know you said that he had terrible pains in his stomach and had spasms, but what do you think made him have them?' "'Henry called it gastric trouble. You know Edward has always had dyspepsia.' Mrs. Brigham hesitated a moment. "'Was there any talk of an—examination?' said she. Then Caroline turned on her fiercely.
"'No,' said she in a terrible voice. "'No!' The three sisters' souls seemed to meet on one common ground of terrified understanding through their eyes. The old-fashioned latch of the door was heard to rattle, and a push from without made the door shake ineffectually. "'It's Henry,' Rebecca sighed rather than whispered. Mrs. Brigham settled herself, after a noiseless rush across the floor, into her rocking chair again, and was swaying back and forth with her head comfortably leaning back, when the door at last yielded and Henry Glynn entered. He cast a covertly sharp, comprehensive glance at Mrs. Brigham with her elaborate calm, at Rebecca quietly huddled on the corner of the sofa with her handkerchief to her face, and only one small uncovered reddened ear, as attentive as a dog's.
and at Caroline's sitting with a strained composure in her armchair by the stove. She met his eyes quite firmly with a look of inscrutable fear, and defiance of the fear and of him. Henry Glynn looked more like this sister than the others. Both had the same hard delicacy of form and aquilinity of feature. They confronted each other with the pitiless immovability of two statues in whose marble lineaments emotions were fixed for all eternity. Then Henry Glynn smiled, and the smile transformed his face. He looked suddenly years younger, and an almost boyish recklessness appeared in his face. He flung himself into a chair with a gesture which was bewildering from its incongruity with his general appearance.
He leaned his head back, flung one leg over the other, and looked laughingly at Mrs. Brigham. "'I declare, Emma, you grow younger every year,' he said. She flushed a little, and her placid mouth widened at the corners. She was susceptible to praise. "'Our thoughts to-day ought to belong to the one of us who will never grow older,' said Caroline in a hard voice. "'Henry looked at her, still smiling. "'Of course. We none of us forget that,' said he in a deep, gentle voice. "'But we have to speak to the living, Caroline. And I have not seen Emma for a long time. And the living are as dear as the dead.' Not to me, said Caroline. She rose and went abruptly out of the room again. Rebekah also rose and hurried after her, sobbing loudly.
Henry looked slowly after them. Caroline is completely unstrung, said he. Mrs. Brigham rocked. A confidence in him, inspired by his manner, was stealing over her. Out of that confidence, she spoke quite easily and naturally. His death was very sudden, said she. Henry's eyelids quivered slightly, but his gaze was unswerving. "'Yes,' said he. "'It was very sudden. He was sick only a few hours.' "'What did you call it?' "'Gastrick.' "'You did not think of an examination?' "'There was no need. I am perfectly certain as to the cause of his death.' Suddenly Mrs. Brigham felt a creep as of some live horror over her very soul. Her flesh prickled with cold before an inflection of his voice. She rose, tottering on weak knees.
"'Where are you going?' asked Henry, in a strange, breathless voice. Mrs. Brigham said something incoherent about some sewing, which she had to do, some black for the funeral, and was out of the room. She went up to the front chamber, which she occupied. Caroline was there. She went close to her and took her hands, and the two sisters looked at each other. Don't speak, don't. I won't have it, said Caroline finally, in an awful whisper. I won't, replied Emma. That afternoon the three sisters were in the study. Mrs. Brigham was hemming some black material. At last she laid her work on her lap. It's no use. I cannot see to sew another stitch until we have a light, said she. Caroline, who was writing some letters at the table, turned to Rebecca in her usual place on the sofa.
"'Rebecca, you had better get a lamp,' she said. "'Rebecca started up. Even in the dusk her face showed her agitation. "'It doesn't seem to me that we need a lamp quite yet,' she said in a piteous, pleading voice like a child's. "'Yes, we do,' returned Mrs. Brigham peremptorily. "'I can't see to sew another stitch.' "'Rebecca rose and left the room. Presently she entered with a lamp.' She set it on the table, an old-fashioned card-table, which was placed against the opposite wall from the window. That opposite wall was taken up with three doors. The one small space was occupied by the table. "'What have you put that lamp over there for?' asked Mrs. Brigham, with more of impatience than her voice usually revealed.
"'Why didn't you set it in the hall and have done with it? Neither Caroline nor I can see if it is on that table.' "'I thought perhaps you would move,' replied Rebecca hoarsely. If I do move, we can't both sit at that table. Caroline has her paper all spread around. Why don't you set the lamp on the study table in the middle of the room? Then we can both see. Rebekah hesitated. Her face was very pale. She looked with an appeal that was fairly agonizing at her sister Caroline. "'Why don't you put the lamp on this table, as she says?' asked Caroline almost fiercely. "'Why do you act so, Rebekah?' Rebekah took the lamp and set it on the table. in the middle of the room without another word. Then she seated herself on the sofa and placed a hand over her eyes as if to shade them, and remained so.
"'Does the light hurt your eyes? And is that the reason why you didn't want the lamp?' asked Mrs. Brigham kindly. "'I always like to sit in the dark,' replied Rebecca chokingly. Then she snatched her handkerchief hastily from her pocket and began to weep. Caroline continued to write, Mrs. Brigham to sew. Suddenly, Mrs. Brigham, as she sewed, glanced at the opposite wall. The glance became a steady stare. She looked intently, her work suspended in her hands. Then she looked away again and took a few more stitches. Then she looked again, and again turned to her task. At last she laid her work in her lap and stared concentratedly. She looked from the wall round the room, taking note of the various objects.
Then she turned to her sisters. "'What is that?' said she. "'What?' asked Caroline harshly. "'That strange shadow on the wall,' replied Mrs. Brigham. Rebecca sat with her face hidden. Caroline dipped her pen in the inkstand. "'Why don't you turn around and look?' asked Mrs. Brigham, in a wondering and somewhat aggrieved way. "'I am in a hurry to finish this letter,' replied Caroline shortly. Mrs. Brigham rose, her work slipping to the floor, and began walking round the room. moving various articles of furniture, with her eyes on the shadow. Then suddenly she shrieked out. Look! Look at this awful shadow! What is it? Caroline, look! Look! Rebecca, look! What is it? All Mrs. Brigham's triumphant placidity was gone.
Her handsome face was livid with horror. She stood stiffly, pointing at the shadow. Then, after a shuddering glance at the wall, Rebecca burst out in a wild wail. Oh, Caroline, there it is again, there it is again. Caroline Glynn, you look, said Mrs. Brigham. Look, what is that dreadful shadow? Caroline rose, turned, and stood, confronting the wall. How should I know? she said. It has been there every night since he died, cried Rebecca. Every night? Yes, he died Thursday, and this is Saturday. That makes three nights, said Caroline rigidly. She stood as if holding her calm with a vice of concentrated will. "'It—it looks like—like,' stammered Mrs. Brigham in a tone of intense horror. "'I know what it looks like well enough,' said Caroline.
"'I've got eyes in my head.' "'It looks like Edward,' burst out Rebecca in a sort of frenzy of fear. "'Only—'yes, it does,' asserted Mrs. Brigham, whose horror-stricken tone matched her sister's. "'Only—'yes,' "'Oh, it is awful! What is it, Caroline?' "'I ask you again, how should I know?' replied Caroline. "'I see it there like you. How should I know any more than you?' "'It must be something in the room,' said Mrs. Brigham, staring wildly around. "'We moved everything in the room the first night it came,' said Rebecca. "'It is not anything in the room!' Caroline turned upon her with a sort of fury. "'Of course it is something in the room. said she. How you act! What do you mean, talking so?
Of course it is something in the room! Of course it is, agreed Mrs. Brigham, looking at Caroline suspiciously. It must be something in the room! It is not anything in the room, repeated Rebecca with obstinate horror. The door opened suddenly, and Henry Glynn entered. He began to speak. Then his eyes followed the direction of the others. He stood staring at the shadow on the wall. "'What is it?' he demanded in a strange voice. "'It must be due to something in the room,' Mrs. Brigham said faintly. Henry Glynn stood and stared a moment longer. His face showed a gamut of emotions—horror, conviction, then furious incredulity. Suddenly he began hastening hither and thither about the room. He moved the furniture with fierce jerks, turning ever to see the effect upon the shadow on the wall.
Not a line of its terrible outlines wavered. "'It must be something in the room,' he declared in a voice which seemed to snap like a lash. His face changed. The inmost secrecy of his nature seemed evident upon his face until one almost lost sight of his lineaments. Rebecca stood close to her sofa, regarding him with woeful, fascinated eyes. Mrs. Brigham clutched Caroline's hand. They both stood in a corner out of his way. For a few moments he raged about the room like a caged wild animal. He moved every piece of furniture. When the moving of a piece did not affect the shadow, he flung it to the floor. Then suddenly he desisted. He laughed. What an absurdity, he said easily. Such a to-do about a shadow.
"'That's so,' assented Mrs. Brigham, in a scared voice which she tried to make natural. As she spoke, she lifted a chair near her. "'I think you have broken the chair that Edward was fond of,' said Caroline. Terror and wrath were struggling for expression on her face. Her mouth was set, her eyes shrinking. Henry lifted the chair with a show of anxiety. Just as good as ever, he said pleasantly. He laughed again, looking at his sisters. Did I scare you? He said. I should think you might be used to me by this time. You know my way of wanting to leap to the bottom of a mystery, and that shadow does look queer, like—and I thought if there was any way of accounting for it, I would like to without any delay.
"'You don't seem to have succeeded,' remarked Caroline dryly, with a slight glance at the wall. Henry's eyes followed hers, and he quivered perceptibly. "'Oh, there is no accounting for shadows,' he said, and he laughed again. "'A man is a fool to try to account for shadows.' Then the supper bell rang, and they all left the room. But Henry kept his back to the wall, as did, indeed, the others. Henry led the way with an alert motion like a boy. Rebekah brought up the rear. She could scarcely walk, her knees trembled so. "'I can't sit in that room again this evening,' she whispered to Caroline after supper. "'Very well. We will sit in the South Room,' replied Caroline. "'I think we will sit in the South Parlour,' she said aloud.
"'It isn't as damp as the study, and I have a cold.' So they all sat in the South Room with their sewing. Henry read the newspaper, his chair drawn close to the lamp on the table. About nine o'clock he rose abruptly and crossed the hall to the study. The three sisters looked at one another. Mrs. Brigham rose, folded her rustling skirts compactly around her, and began tiptoeing toward the door. "'What are you going to do?' inquired Rebecca agitatedly. "'I am going to see what he is about,' replied Mrs. Brigham cautiously. As she spoke, she pointed to the study door across the hall. It was ajar. Henry had striven to pull it together behind him, but it had somehow swollen beyond the limit with curious speed.
It was still ajar, and a streak of light showed from top to bottom. Mrs. Brigham folded her skirts so tightly that her bulk with its swelling curves was revealed in a black silk sheath, and she went with a slow toddle across the hall to the study door. She stood there, her eye at the crack. In the south room, Rebecca stopped sewing and sat watching with dilated eyes. Caroline sewed steadily. What Mrs. Brigham, standing at the crack in the study door, saw was this. Henry Glynn, evidently reasoning that the source of the strange shadow must be between the table on which the lamp stood in the wall, was making systematic passes and thrusts with an old sword, which had belonged to his father, all over and through the intervening space.
Not an inch was left unpierced. He seemed to have divided the space into mathematical sections. He brandished the sword with a sort of cold fury and calculation. The blade gave out flashes of light. The shadow remained unmoved. Mrs. Brigham, watching, felt herself cold with horror. Finally, Henry ceased and stood with the sword in hand and raised as if to strike, surveying the shadow on the wall threateningly. Mrs. Brigham toddled back across the hall and shut the south room door behind her before she related what she had seen. "'He looked like a demon,' she said again. "'Have you got any of that old wine in the house, Caroline? I don't feel as if I could stand much more.' Yes, there's plenty, said Caroline.
You can have some when you go to bed. I think we all had better take some, said Mrs. Brigham. Oh, Caroline, what—don't ask—don't speak, said Caroline. No, I'm not going to, replied Mrs. Brigham. But—Soon the three sisters went to their chambers, and the south parlour was deserted. Caroline called to Henry in the study to put out the light before he came upstairs. They had been gone about an hour when he came into the room bringing the lamp which had stood in the study. He set it on the table and waited a few minutes, pacing up and down. His face was terrible, his fair complexion showed livid, and his blue eyes seemed dark blanks of awful reflections. Then he took up the lamp and returned to the library.
He set the lamp on the center table, and the shadow sprang out on the wall. Again he studied the furniture and moved it about, but deliberately, with none of his former frenzy. Nothing affected the shadow. Then he returned to the south room with the lamp and again waited. Again he returned to the study and placed the lamp on the table, and the shadow sprang out upon the wall. It was midnight before he went upstairs. Mrs. Brigham and the other sisters, who could not sleep, heard him. The next day was the funeral. That evening, the family sat in the south room. Some relatives were with them. Nobody entered the study until Henry carried a lamp in there after the others had retired for the night.
He saw again the shadow on the wall leap to an awful life before the light. The next morning, at breakfast, Henry Glynn announced that he had to go to the city for three days. The sisters looked at him with surprise. He very seldom left home. And just now his practice had been neglected on account of Edward's death. "'How can you leave your patients now?' asked Mrs. Brigham, wonderingly. "'I don't know how to, but there is no other way,' replied Henry easily. "'I have had a telegram from Dr. Mitford.' "'Consultation,' inquired Mrs. Brigham. "'I have business,' replied Henry. Dr. Mitford was an old classmate of his who lived in a neighboring city and who occasionally called upon him in the case of a consultation.
After he had gone, Mrs. Brigham said to Caroline that, after all, Henry had not said that he was going to consult with Dr. Mitford, and she thought it very strange. "'Everything is very strange,' said Rebecca with a shudder. "'What do you mean?' inquired Caroline. "'Nothing,' replied Rebecca. Nobody entered the study that day, nor the next. The third day Henry was expected home, but he did not arrive, and the last train from the city had come. "'I call it pretty queer work,' said Mrs. Brigham, "'the idea of a doctor leaving his patients at such a time as this, and the idea of a consultation lasting three days. There is no sense in it, and now he has not come. I don't understand it for my part.' "'I don't either.' said Rebecca.
They were all in the south parlour. There was no light in the study. The door was ajar. Presently Mrs. Brigham rose. She could not have told why. Something seemed to impel her. Some will outside her own. She went out of the room, again wrapping her rustling skirts round that she might pass noiselessly, and began pushing at the swollen door of the study. She has not got any lamp, said Rebecca in a shaking voice. Caroline, who was writing letters, rose again, took the only remaining lamp in the room, and followed her sister. Rebekah had risen, but she stood trembling, not venturing to follow. The doorbell rang, but the others did not hear it. It was on the south door on the other side of the house from the study.
Rebekah, after hesitating until the bell rang the second time, went to the door. She remembered that the servant was out. Caroline and her sister Emma entered the study. Caroline set the lamp on the table. They looked at the wall, and there were two shadows. The sisters stood clutching each other, staring at the awful things on the wall. Then Rebecca came in, staggering, with a telegram in her hand. "'Here is—a telegram,' she gasped. "'Henry is—dead!' End of Shadows on the Wall by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
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8 Tales of Treasure 6:25
Folklore and Legends. Scandian. Author. Various. Story. Tales of Treasure.
There are still to be seen near Flensburg the ruins of a very ancient building. Two soldiers once stood on guard there, but when one of them was gone to the town, it chanced that a tall white woman came to the other and spoke to him, and said, "'I am an unhappy spirit, who has wandered here these many hundred years, but never shall I find rest in the grave.' She then informed him that under the walls of the castle a great treasure was concealed, which only three men in the world could take up. and that he was one of the three. The man who now saw that his fortune was made promised to follow her directions in every particular, whereupon she desired him to come to the same place at twelve o'clock the following night.
The other soldier, meanwhile, had come back from the town just as the appointment was made with his comrade. He said nothing about what, unseen, he had seen and heard. but went early the next evening and concealed himself amongst some bushes. When his fellow-soldier came with his spade and shovel, he found the white woman at the appointed place, but when she perceived that they were watched, she put off the appointed business until the next evening. The man who had lain on the watch to no purpose went home, and suddenly fell ill, and as he thought he should die of that sickness, he sent for his comrade, and told him how he knew all and conjured him not to have anything to do with witches or with spirits, but rather to seek counsel of the priest who was a prudent man.
The other thought it would be the wisest plan to follow the advice of his comrade, so he went and discovered the whole affair to the priest, who, however, desired him to do as the spirit had bidden him, only he was to make her lay the first hand to the work herself. The point of time was now arrived, and the man was at the place. When the white woman had pointed out to him the spot, and they were just beginning the work, she said to him that when the treasure was taken up, when half of it should be his, but that he must divide the other half equally between the church and the poor. Then the devil entered into the man, and awakened his covetousness, so that he cried out, "'What, shall I not have the whole?' Scarcely had he spoken when the figure, with a most mournful wail, passed in a blue flame over the moat of the castle, and the man fell sick and died within three days.
The story soon spread through the country, and a poor scholar who heard it thought he had now an opportunity of making his fortune. He therefore went at midnight to the place, and there he met with the wandering white woman, and he told her why he was come. and offered his services to raise the treasure. She, however, answered that he was not one of the three, one of whom alone could free her, and that the wall in which was the money would still remain so firm that no human being should be able to break it. She told him that at some future time he should be rewarded for his good inclination, and, it is said, when, a long time after he had passed by that place, and thought with compassion on the sufferings of the unblest woman, He fell on his face over a great heap of money, which soon put him again on his feet.
The wall still remains undisturbed, and as often as any one has attempted to throw it down, whatever's thrown down in the day is replaced again in the night. Three men went once in the night-time to Klumhoi to try their luck, for a dragon watches there over a great treasure. They dug into the ground, giving each other a strict charge not to utter a word whatever might happen, otherwise all their labour would be in vain. When they had dug pretty deep, their spades struck against a copper chest. They then made signs to one another, and all, with both hands, laid hold of a great copper ring that was on the top of the chest, and pulled up the treasure. When they had just got it into their possession, one of them forgot the necessity of silence, and shouted out, "'One pull more, and we have it!' That very instant the chest flew away out of their hands to the lake Storrup, but as they all held hard on the ring it remained in their grasp.
They went and fastened the ring on the door of St. Olaf's Church, and there it remains to this very day. Near Dangstrup there is a hill which is called Dangberg Dons. Of this hill it is related that it is at all times covered with a blue mist. and that under it there lies a large copper kettle full of money. One night two men went there to dig after this treasure, and they had got so far as to lay hold of the handle of the kettle. All sorts of wonderful things began then to appear to disturb them at their work. One time a coach, drawn by four black horses, drove by them. Then they saw a black dog with a fiery tongue. Then there came a cock drawing a load of hay. Still the men persisted in not letting themselves speak, and still dug on without stopping.
At last a fellow came limping up to them and said, "'See, Dangstrup is on fire!' When the men looked towards the town, it appeared exactly as if the whole place were in bright flame. Then at length one of the men forgot to keep silence, and the moment he uttered an exclamation, the treasure sank deeper and deeper, and as often since as any attempt has been made to get it up, The trolls have, by their spells and artifices, prevented its success. The End Folklore and Legends Scandian, Author Various, Story, Tales of Treasure.
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9 The Trial for Murder 29:14
The trial for murder by Charles Dickens.
I have always noticed a prevalent want of courage even among persons of superior intelligence and culture, As to imparting their own psychological experiences when those have been of a strange sort. Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in such wise would find no parallel or response in a listener's internal life, and might be suspected or laughed at. A truthful traveler, who should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness of a sea-serpent, would have no fear of mentioning it, but the same traveler, having had some singular presentiment, Impulse, vagary of thought, vision, so-called, dream, or other remarkable mental impression would hesitate considerably before he would own to it.
To this reticence I attribute much of the obscurity in which such subjects are involved. We do not habitually communicate our experiences of these subjective things as we do our experiences of objective creation. The consequence is, that the general stock of experience in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in respect of being miserably imperfect. In what I am going to relate, I have no intention of setting up, opposing, or supporting any theory whatever. I know the history of the bookseller of Berlin. I have studied the case of the wife of a late astronomer royal, As related by Sir David Brewster, and I have followed the minutest details of a much more remarkable case of spectral illusion occurring within my private circle of friends.
It may be necessary to state as to this last that the sufferer, a lady, was in no degree, however distant, related to me. A mistaken assumption on that head might suggest an explanation of a part of my own case, but only a part, which would Be wholly without foundation. I cannot be referred to my inheritance of any developed peculiarity, nor had I ever before any at all similar experience, nor have I ever had any at all similar experience since. It does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a certain murder was committed in England which attracted great attention. We hear more than enough of murderers as they rise in succession to their atrocious eminence, and I would bury the memory of this particular brute, if I could, as his body was buried in Newgate Gaol.
I purposely abstain from giving any direct clue to the criminal's individuality. When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell, or I ought to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts, It was nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fell on the man who was afterwards brought to trial. As no reference was at that time made to him in the newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any description of him can at that time have been given in the newspapers. It is essential that this fact be remembered. Unfolding at breakfast my morning paper containing the account of that first discovery, I found it to be deeply interesting, and I read it with close attention. I read it twice, if not three times.
The discovery had been made in a bedroom, and when I laid down the paper I was aware of a flash, rush, flow. I do not know what to call it. No word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive. In which I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room, like a picture impossibly painted on a running river. Though almost instantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear, so clear that I distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the absence of the dead body from the bed. It was in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation, but in chambers in Piccadilly, very near the corner of St. James Street. It was entirely new to me. I was in my easy chair at the moment, and the sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver which started the chair from its position, but it is to be noted that the chair ran easily on castors.
I went to one of the windows—there are two in the room, and the room is on the second floor—to refresh my eyes with the moving objects down in Piccadilly. It was a bright autumn morning, and the street was sparkling and cheerful. The wind was high. As I looked out, it brought down from the park a quantity of fallen leaves, which a gust took and whirled into a spiral pillar. As the pillar fell and the leaves dispersed, I saw two men on the opposite side of the way going from west to east. They were one behind the other. The foremost man often looked back over his shoulder. The second man followed him at a distance of some thirty paces, with his right hand menacingly raised. First, the singularity and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so public a thoroughfare attracted my attention, and next, the more remarkable circumstance that nobody heeded it.
Both men threaded their way among the other passengers with a smoothness hardly consistent, even with the action of walking on a pavement, and no single creature, that I could see, gave them place, touched them, or looked after them. In passing before my window, they both stared up at me. I saw their two faces very distinctly, and I knew that I could recognize them anywhere. Not that I had consciously noticed anything very remarkable in either face, except that the man who went first had an unusually lowering appearance, and that the face of the man who followed him was of the color of impure wax. I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole establishment. My occupation is in a certain branch bank, and I wish that my duties as head of a department were as light as they are popularly supposed to be.
They kept me in town that autumn when I stood in need of change. I was not ill, but I was not well. My reader is to make the most that can be reasonably made of my feeling jaded, having a depressing sense upon me of a monotonous life, and being slightly dyspeptic. I am assured by my renowned doctor that my real state of health at that time justifies no stronger description, and I quote his own from his written answer to my request for it. As the circumstances of the murder, gradually unravelling, took stronger and stronger possession of the public mind, I kept them away from mine by knowing as little about them as was possible in the midst of the universal excitement. But I knew that a verdict of wilful murder had been found against the suspected murderer, and that he had been committed to Newgate for trial.
I also knew that his trial had been postponed over one sessions of the Central Criminal Court, on the ground of general prejudice and want of time for the preparation of the defense. I may further have known, but I believe I did not, When, or about when, the sessions to which his trial stood postponed would come on. My sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room are all on one floor. With the last, there is no communication but through the bedroom. True, there is a door in it, once communicating with the staircase. But a part of the fitting of my bath has been, and had been then for some years, fixed across it. At the same period, And as a part of the same arrangement, the door had been nailed up and canvassed over.
I was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some directions to my servant before he went to bed. My face was towards the only available door of communication with the dressing room, and it was closed. My servant's back was towards that door. While I was speaking to him, I saw it open and a man look in. who very earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me. The man was the man who had gone second from the two along Piccadilly, and whose face was of the colour of impure wax. The figure having beckoned drew back and closed the door. With no longer pause than was made by my crossing the bedroom, I opened the dressing-room door and looked in. I had a lighted candle already in my hand, I felt no inward expectation of seeing the figure in the dressing-room, and I did not see it there.
Conscious that my servant stood amazed, I turned round to him and said, "'Derek, could you believe that in my cool senses I fancied I saw a—' As I there laid my hand upon his breast, with a sudden start he trembled violently and said, "'O, Lord, yes, sir, a dead man beckoning!' Now I—' Do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty and attached servant for more than twenty years, had any impression whatever of having seen such a figure until I touched him. The change in him was so startling when I touched him that I fully believe he derived his impression in some occult manner from me at that instant. I bade John Derrick bring me some brandy, and I gave him a dram, and was glad to take one myself.
Of what had preceded the night's phenomenon, I told him not a single word. Reflecting on it, I was absolutely certain that I had never seen that face before, except on the one occasion in Piccadilly. Comparing its expression when beckoning at the door with its expression when it had stared up at me as I stood at my window, I came to the conclusion that on the first occasion it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory, and on the second occasion it had made sure of being immediately remembered. I was not very comfortable that night, though I felt a certainty difficult to explain that the figure would not return. At daylight I fell into a heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John Derrick's coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand.
This paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an altercation at the door between its bearer and my servant, It was a summons to me to serve upon a jury at the forthcoming sessions of the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey. I had never before been summoned on such a jury as John Derrick well knew. He believed—I am not certain at this hour whether with reason or otherwise—that that class of jurors were customarily chosen on a lower qualification than mine, and he had at first refused to accept the summons. The man who served it had taken the matter very coolly. He said that my attendance or non-attendance was nothing to him. There the summons was, and I should deal with it at my own peril and not at his.
For a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to this call or take no notice of it. I was not conscious of the slightest mysterious bias, influence or attention, one way or another. Of that I am as strictly sure as of every other statement that I make here. Ultimately I decided, as a break in the monotony of my life, that I would go. The appointed morning was a raw morning in the month of November. There was a dense brown fog in Piccadilly, and it became positively black, and in the last degree oppressive, east of Temple Bar. I found the passages and staircases of the court-house Flaringly lighted with gas, and the court itself similarly illuminated. I think that until I was conducted by officers into the old court and saw its crowded state, I did not know that the murderer was to be tried that day.
I think that until I was so helped into the old court with considerable difficulty, I did not know into which of the two courts Sitting, my summons, would take me. But this must not be received as a positive assertion, for I am not completely satisfied in my mind on either point.
I took my seat in the place appropriated to jurors in waiting, and I looked about the court as well as I could through the cloud of fog and breath that was heavy in it. I noticed the black vapor hanging like a murky curtain outside the great windows, and I noticed the stifled sound of wheels on straw or tan that was littered in the street. Also, the hum of the people gathered there, which a shrill whistle or a louder song or hail than the rest occasionally pierced. Soon afterwards, the judges, two in number, entered and took their seats. The buzz in the court was awfully hushed. The direction was given to put the murderer to the bar. He appeared there, and in that same instant I recognized in him the first of the two men who had gone down Piccadilly.
If my name had been called then, I doubt if I could have answered to it audibly. But it was called about sixth or eighth in the panel, and I was by that time able to say, Here. Now observe. As I stepped into the box, the prisoner, who had been looking on attentively but with no sign of concern, became violently agitated and beckoned to his attorney. The prisoner's wish to challenge me was so manifest that it occasioned a pause during which the attorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his client and shook his head. I afterwards had it from that gentleman that the prisoner's first affrighted words to him were, "'At all hazards challenge that man!' But that as he could give no reason for it, and admitted that he had not even known my name until he heard it called and I appeared, it was not done.
Both on the ground already explained that I wished to avoid reviving an unwholesome memory of that murderer, And also because a detailed account of his long trial is by no means indispensable to my narrative, I shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the ten days and nights during which we, the jury, were kept together, as directly bear on my own curious personal experience. It is to that, and not to a page of the Newgate Calendar, that I beg attention. I was chosen Foreman of the jury. On the second morning of the trial, after evidence had been taken for two hours—I heard the church clock strike—happening to cast my eyes over my brother jurymen, I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them.
I counted them several times, yet always with the same difficulty. In short, I made them one too many. I touched the brother juryman whose place was next me, and I whispered to him— Obliged me by counting us. He looked surprised by the request, but turned his head and counted. Why, says he suddenly, we are third—but no, that is not possible. No, we are twelve. According to my counting that day, we were always right in detail, but in the gross we were always one too many. There was no appearance, no figure to account for it. But I had an inward foreshadowing of the figure that was surely coming.
The jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all slept in one large room on separate tables, and we were constantly in the charge and under the eye of the officer sworn to hold us in safekeeping. I see no reason for suppressing the real name of that officer. He was intelligent, highly polite and obliging, and, I was glad to hear, much respected in the city. He had an agreeable presence, good eyes, enviable black whiskers, and a fine sonorous voice. His name was Mr. Harker. When we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr. Harker's bed was drawn across the door. On the night of the second day, not being disposed to lie down, and seeing Mr. Harker sitting on his bed, I went and sat beside him, and offered him a pinch of snuff.
As Mr. Harker's hand touched mine in taking it from my box, a peculiar shiver crossed him, and he said, "'Who is this?' Following Mr. Harker's eyes, and looking along the room, I saw again the figure I expected, the second of the two men who had gone down Piccadilly. I rose and advanced a few steps, then stopped and looked round at Mr. Harker. He was quite unconcerned, laughed, and said in a pleasant way, I thought for a moment we had a thirteenth juryman without a bed, but I see it is the moonlight. Making no revelation to Mr. Harker, but inviting him to take a walk with me to the end of the room, I watched what the figure did. It stood for a few moments by the bedside of each of my eleven brother jurymen close to the pillow.
It always went to the right-hand side of the bed, and always passed out crossing the foot of the next bed. It seemed, from the action of the head, merely to look down pensively at each recumbent figure. It took no notice of me or of my bed, which was the nearest to Mr. Harker's. It seemed to go out where the moonlight came in, through a high window, as by an aerial flight of stairs. Next morning, at breakfast, it appeared that everybody present had dreamed of the murdered man last night, except myself and Mr. Harker. I now felt as convinced that the second man who had gone down Piccadilly was the murdered man, so to speak, as if it had been borne into my comprehension by his immediate testimony, but even this took place, and in a manner for which I was not at all prepared.
On the fifth day of the trial, when the case Before the prosecution was drawing to a close, a miniature of the murdered man, missing from his bedroom upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards found in a hiding-place where the murderer had been seen digging, was put in evidence. Having been identified by the witness under examination, it was handed up to the bench, and thence handed down, to be inspected by the jury. As an officer in a black gown was making his way with it across to me, the figure of the second man, who had gone down Piccadilly, impetuously stared from the crowd, caught the miniature from the officer, and gave it to me in his own hands, at the same time saying in a low and hollow tone, before I saw the miniature, which was in a locket, I was younger then, and my face was not then drained of blood.
It also came between me and the brother juryman to whom I would have given the miniature, and between him and the brother juryman to whom he would have given it, and so it passed on through the whole of our number and back into my possession. Not one of them, however, detected this. At table, and generally when we were shut up together in Mr. Harker's custody, We had from the first naturally discussed the day's proceedings a good deal. On that fifth day, the case for the prosecution being closed, and we having that side of the question in a completed shape before us, our discussion was more animated and serious. Among our number was a vestryman, the densest idiot I've ever seen at large, who met the plainest evidence with the most preposterous objections.
and who was sighted with by two flabby parochial parasites, all three impanelled from a district so delivered over to fever that they ought to have been upon their own trial for five hundred murders. When these mischievous blockheads were at their loudest, which was towards midnight, while some of us were already preparing for bed, I again saw the murdered man. He stood grimly behind them, beckoning to me. On my going towards them, and striking into the conversation, he immediately retired. This was the beginning of a separate series of appearances, confined to that long room in which we were confined. Whenever a knot of my brother-jurymen laid their heads together, I saw the head of the murdered man among theirs.
Whenever their comparison of notes was going against him, he would solemnly and irresistibly beckon to me. It will be borne in mind that down to the production of the miniature on the fifth day of the trial I had never seen the appearance in court. Three changes occurred now as we entered on the case for the defence. Two of them I will mention together first. The figure was now in court continually, and it never there addressed itself to me, but always to the person who was speaking at the time. For instance, the throat of the murdered man had been cut straight across. In the opening speech for the defense, it was suggested that the deceased might have cut his own throat. At that very moment, the figure, with its throat in the dreadful condition referred to—this it had concealed before—stood at the speaker's elbow, motioning across its windpipe, now with the right hand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to the speaker himself the impossibility of such a wound having been self-inflicted by either hand.
For another instance, a witnessed character, a woman, deposed to the prisoner's being the most amiable of mankind. The figure at that instant stood on the floor before her, looking her full in the face and pointing out the prisoner's evil countenance with an extended arm and an outstretched finger. The third change, now to be added, impressed me strongly as the most marked and striking of all. I do not theorize upon it. I accurately state it, and there leave it. Although the appearance was not itself perceived by those whom it addressed, its coming close to such persons was invariably attended by some trepidation or disturbance on their part. It seemed to me as if it were prevented by laws to which I was not amenable from fully revealing itself to others, and yet as if it could invisibly dumbly and darkly overshadow their minds.
When the leading counsel for the defense suggested that hypothesis of suicide, and the figure stood at the learned gentleman's elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed throat, it is undeniable that the counsel faltered in his speech, lost for a few seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse, wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and turned extremely pale. When the witness to the character was confronted by the appearance, her eyes most certainly did follow the direction of its pointed finger, and rest with great hesitation and trouble upon the prisoner's face. Two additional illustrations will suffice. On the eighth day of the trial, after the pause, which was every day made early in the afternoon for a few minutes rest and refreshment, I came back into court with the rest of the jury some little time before the return of the judges.
Standing up in the box, and looking about me, I thought the figure was not there until, chancing to raise my eyes to the gallery, I saw it bending forward, and leaning over a very decent woman, as if to assure itself whether the judges had resumed their seats or not. Immediately afterwards, the woman screamed, fainted, and was carried out. So, with the venerable, sagacious, and patient judge who conducted the trial, when the case was over, and he settled himself and his papers to sum up, the murdered man, entering by the judge's door, advanced to his lordship's desk, and looked eagerly over his shoulder at the pages of his notes, which he was turning. A change came over his lordship's face. His hand stopped.
The peculiar shiver that I knew so well passed over him. He faltered. Excuse me, gentlemen, for a few minutes. I am somewhat oppressed by the vitiated air, and did not recover until he had drunk a glass of water. Through all the monotony of six of those interminable ten days, the same judges and others on the bench, the same murderer in the dock, the same lawyers at the table, the same tones of questions and answers rising to the roof of the court, the same scratching of the judge's pen, The same ushers going in and out, the same lights kindled at the same hour when there had been any natural light of day, the same foggy curtain outside the great windows when it was foggy, the same rain pattering and dripping when it was rainy, the same footmarks of turnkeys and prisoners day after day on the same sawdust, the same keys locking and unlocking the same heavy doors.
Through all the wearisome monotony which made me feel as if I had been foreman of the jury for a vast period of time, and Piccadilly had flourished coevally with Babylon, the murdered man never lost one trace of his distinctness in my eyes, nor was he at any moment less distinct than anybody else. I must not admit, as a matter of fact, that I never once saw the appearance, which I call by the name of the murdered man, Look at the murderer. Again and again I wondered, why does he not? But he never did. Nor did he look at me after the production of the miniature until the last closing minutes of the trial arrived. We retired to consider at seven minutes before ten at night. The idiomatic vestryman and his two parochial parasites gave us so much trouble that we twice returned into court to beg to have certain extracts from the judge's notes re-read.
Nine of us had not the smallest doubt about those passages. Neither, I believe, had any one in the court. The dunder-headed triumvirate, having no idea but obstruction, disputed them for that very reason. At length we prevailed, and finally the jury returned into court at ten minutes past twelve. The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the jury-box on the other side of the court. As I took my place, his eyes rested on me with great attention. He seemed satisfied, and slowly shook a great gray veil, which he carried on his arm for the first time, over his head and whole form.
As I gave in our verdict, guilty, the veil collapsed, all was gone, and his place was empty. The murderer, being asked by the judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before sentence of death should be passed upon him, indistinctly muttered something which was described in the leading newspapers the following day, as a few rambling, incoherent, and half-audible words, in which he was understood to complain that he had not had a fair trial, because the foreman of the jury was prepossessed against him. The remarkable declaration that he really made was this. My Lord, I knew I was a doomed man, when the foreman of my jury came into the box. My Lord, I knew he would never let me off.
Because, before I was taken, he somehow got to my bedside in the night, woke me, and put a rope round my neck.
End of the trial for murder by Charles Dickens
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10 Uncle Abraham's Romance 8:45
Uncle Abraham's Romance by E. Nesbit.
No, my dear, my uncle Abraham answered me. No, Nothing romantic ever happened to me, unless... but no, that wasn't romantic either. I was. To me, I being eighteen, romance was the world. My Uncle Abraham was old and lame. I followed the gaze of his faded eyes, and my own rested on a miniature that hung at his elbow-chair's right hand. A portrait of a woman, Whose loveliness even the miniature painter's art had been powerless to disguise, a woman with large eyes that shone, and face of that alluring oval which one hardly sees nowadays. I rose to look at it. I had looked at it a hundred times. Often enough in my baby days I had asked, "'Who's that, uncle?' And always the answer was the same. "'A lady who died long ago, my dear.' As I looked again at the picture, I asked, Was she like this?
Who? Your—your romance? Uncle Abraham looked hard at me. Yes, he said at last. Very—very like. I sat down on the floor by him. Won't you tell me about her? There's nothing to tell, he said. I think it was fancy, mostly. And folly. But it's the realest thing in my life, my dear. A long pause. I kept silent. You should always give people time, especially old people. I remember, he said in the dreamy tone always promising so well to the ear that loves a story. I remember when I was a young man I was very lonely indeed. I never had a sweetheart. I was always lame, my dear, from quite a boy. And the girls used to laugh at me. Silence again. Presently he went on. And so I got into the way of moaning off by myself in lonely places.
And one of my favorite walks was up through our churchyard, which was set on a hill in the middle of the marsh country. I liked that, because I never met anyone there. It's all over years ago. I was a silly lad. But I couldn't bear of a summer evening to hear a rustle and a whisper from the other side of the hedge, or maybe a kiss, as I went by. Well, I used to go and sit all by myself in the churchyard, which was always sweet with the time, and quite light, on account of its being so high, long after the marshes were dark. I used to watch the bats flitting about in the red light, and wonder why, God didn't make everyone's legs straight and strong, and wicked follies like that. But by the time the light was gone, I had always worked it off, so to speak, and could go home quietly and say my prayers without bitterness.
Well, one hot night in August, when I had watched the sunset fade and the crescent moon grow golden, I was just stepping over the low stone wall of the churchyard when I heard a rustle behind me. I turned around, expecting it to be a rabbit or a bird. It was a woman. He looked at the portrait. So did I. Yes, he said. That was her very face. I was a bit scared, and said something. I don't know what. She laughed, and said, Did I think she was a ghost? And I answered back, and I stayed talking to her over the churchyard wall, till it was quite dark. And the glowworms were out in the wet grass all along the way home. Next night I saw her again, and the next, and the next, always at twilight time.
And if I passed any lovers leaning on the stiles in the marshes, it was nothing to me now. Again my uncle paused. It was very long ago, he said shyly, and I'm an old man, but I know what youth means. and happiness, though I was always lame, and the girls used to laugh at me. I don't know how long it went on. You don't measure time in dreams. But at last your grandfather said I looked as if I had one foot in the grave, and he would be sending me to stay with our kin in Bath, and to take the waters. I had to go. I could not tell my father why I would rather die than go. What was her name, uncle? I asked. She never would tell me her name, and why should she? I had names enough in my heart to call her by.
Marriage? My dear, even then I knew marriage was not for me. But I met her, night after night, always in our churchyard, where the yew-trees were, and the old crooked gravestones, so thick in the grass. It was there we always met, and always parted. The last time, was the night before I went away. She was very sad and dearer than life itself, and she said, "'If you come back before the new moon, I shall meet you here, just as usual. But if the new moon shines on this grave, and you are not here, you will never see me again any more.' She laid her hand on the tomb against which we had been leaning. It was an old, lichened, weather-worn stone, and its inscription was just Susanna, King's North, Ob.
1723. "'I shall be here,' I said. "'I mean it,' she said, very seriously and slowly. "'It is no fancy. You will be here when the new moon shines.' I promised, and after a while we parted.
I had been with my kinsfolk in Bath for nearly a month, I was to go home on the next day when, turning over a case in the parlour, I came upon that miniature. I could not speak for a minute. At last I said, with a dry tongue and heart beating to the tune of Heaven and Hell, Who is this? That, said my aunt, oh, she was betrothed to one of our family years ago, but she died before the wedding. They say she was a bit of a witch. A handsome one, wasn't she? I looked again at the face, the lips, The eyes of my dear lovely love, whom I was to meet tomorrow night when the new moon shone on that tomb in our churchyard. "'Did you say she was dead?' I asked, and hardly knew my own voice. "'Years and years ago, and names on the back, and the date.' I took the portrait out of its case.
I remember just the colour of its faded red velvet bed, and read on the back, "'Susanna, King's North, Ob' 1723. That was in 1823. My uncle stopped short. "'What happened?' I asked breathlessly. "'I believe I had a fit,' my uncle answered slowly. "'At any rate, I was very ill.' "'And you missed the new moon on the grave?' "'I missed the new moon on the grave.' "'And you never saw her again?' "'I never saw her again.' "'But, uncle, do you really believe? Can the dead—was she—did you?' My uncle took his pipe and filled it. "'It's a long time ago,' he said. "'A many, many years. Old men's tales, my dear, old men's tales. Don't you take any notice of them?' He lighted the pipe, and puffed silently a moment or two before he said, "'But I know what youth means, and love—' And happiness, though I was always lame, and the girls used to laugh at me.
End of Uncle Abraham's Romance by E. Nesbitt