The Best Ghost Stories
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Title: The Best Ghost Stories
Editor: Joseph Lewis French
Author of introduction, etc.: Arthur B. Reeve
Release date: March 1, 2006 [eBook #17893]
Language: English
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The Modern Library of the World's Best Books
THE BEST GHOST STORIES
Introduction by Arthur B. Reeve
The Modern Library
Publishers New York
Copyright, 1919, by
Boni & Liveright, Inc.
Manufactured in the United States of America by H. Wolff
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION--"THE FASCINATION OF THE GHOST STORY" _Arthur B. Reeve_ vii
THE APPARITION OF MRS. VEAL _Daniel De Foe_ 3
CANON ALBERIC'S SCRAP-BOOK _Montague Rhodes James_ 18
THE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS _Edward Bulwer-Lytton_ 31
THE SILENT WOMAN _Leopold Kompert_ 60
BANSHEES 79
THE MAN WHO WENT TOO FAR _E.F. Benson_ 85
THE WOMAN'S GHOST STORY _Algernon Blackwood_ 108
THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW _Rudyard Kipling_ 118
THE RIVAL GHOSTS _Brander Matthews_ 141
THE DAMNED THING _Ambrose Bierce_ 160
THE INTERVAL _Vincent O'Sullivan_ 170
DEY AIN'T NO GHOSTS _Ellis Parker Butler_ 177
SOME REAL AMERICAN GHOSTS 188
INTRODUCTION
THE FASCINATION OF THE GHOST STORY
ARTHUR B. REEVE
What is the fascination we feel for the mystery of the ghost story?
Is it of the same nature as the fascination which we feel for the
mystery of the detective story?
Of the latter fascination, the late Paul Armstrong used to say that it
was because we are all as full of crime as Sing Sing--only we don't
dare.
Thus, may I ask, are we not fascinated by the ghost story because, no
matter what may be the scientific or skeptical bent of our minds, in our
inmost souls, secretly perhaps, we are as full of superstition as an
obeah man--only we don't let it loose?
Who shall say that he is able to fling off lightly the inheritance of
countless ages of superstition? Is there not a streak of superstition in
us all? We laugh at the voodoo worshiper--then create our own hoodooes,
our pet obsessions.
It has been said that man is incurably religious, that if all religions
were blotted out, man would create a new religion.
Man is incurably fascinated by the mysterious. If all the ghost stories
of the ages were blotted out, man would invent new ones.
For, do we not all stand in awe of that which we cannot explain, of that
which, if it be not in our own experience, is certainly recorded in the
experience of others, of that of which we know and can know nothing?
Skeptical though one may be of the occult, he must needs be interested
in things that others believe to be objective--that certainly are
subjectively very real to them.
The ghost story is not born of science, nor even of super-science,
whatever that may be. It is not of science at all. It is of another
sphere, despite all that the psychic researchers have tried to
demonstrate.
There are in life two sorts of people who, for want of a better
classification, I may call the psychic and the non-psychic. If I ask the
psychic to close his eyes and I say to him, "Horse," he immediately
visualizes a horse. The other, non-psychic, does not. I rather incline
to believe that it is the former class who see ghosts, or rather some of
them. The latter do not--though they share interest in them.
The artists are of the visualizing class and, in our more modern times,
it is the psychic who think in motion pictures, or at least in a
succession of still pictures.
However we explain the ghostly and supernatural, whether we give it
objective or merely subjective reality, neither explanation prevents the
non-psychic from being intensely interested in the visions of the
psychic.
Thus I am convinced that if we were all quite honest with ourselves,
whether we believe in or do not believe in ghosts, at least we are all
deeply interested in them. There is in this interest something that
makes all the world akin.
Who does not feel a suppressed start at the creaking of furniture in the
dark of night? Who has not felt a shiver of goose flesh, controlled only
by an effort of will? Who, in the dark, has not had the feeling of some
_thing_ behind him--and, in spite of his conscious reasoning, turned to
look?
If there be any who has not, it may be that to him ghost stories have no
fascination. Let him at least, however, be honest.
To every human being mystery appeals, be it that of the crime cases on
which a large part of yellow journalism is founded, or be it in the
cases of Dupin, of Le Coq, of Sherlock Holmes, of Arsene Lupin, of Craig
Kennedy, or a host of others of our fiction mystery characters. The
appeal is in the mystery.
The detective's case is solved at the end, however. But even at the end
of a ghost story, the underlying mystery remains. In the ghost story, we
have the very quintessence of mystery.
Authors, publishers, editors, dramatists, writers of motion pictures
tell us that never before has there been such an intense and wide
interest in mystery stories as there is to-day. That in itself explains
the interest in the super-mystery story of the ghost and ghostly doings.
Another element of mystery lies in such stories. Deeper and further
back, is the supreme mystery of life--after death--what?
"Impossible," scorns the non-psychic as he listens to some ghost story.
To which, doggedly replies the mind of the opposite type, "Not so.
I believe _because_ it is impossible."
The uncanny, the unhealthy--as in the master of such writing,
Poe--fascinates. Whether we will or no, the imp of the perverse lures us
on.
That is why we read with enthralled interest these excursions into the
eerie unknown, perhaps reading on till the mystic hour of midnight
increases the creepy pleasure.
One might write a volume of analysis and appreciation of this aptly
balanced anthology of ghost stories assembled here after years of
reading and study by Mr. J.L. French.
Foremost among the impressions that a casual reader will derive is the
interesting fact, just as in detective mystery stories, so in ghost
stories, styles change. Each age, each period has the ghost story
peculiar to itself. To-day, there is a new style of ghost story
gradually evolving.
Once stories were of fairies, fays, trolls, the "little people," of
poltergiest and loup garou. Through various ages we have progressed to
the ghost story of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries until to-day,
in the twentieth, we are seeing a modern style, which the new science is
modifying materially.
High among the stories in this volume, one must recognize the masterful
art of Algernon Blackwood's "The Woman's Ghost Story."
"I was interested in psychic things," says the woman as she starts to
tell her story simply, with a sweep toward the climax that has the ring
of the truth of fiction. Here perhaps we have the modern style of ghost
story at its best.
Times change as well as styles. "The Man Who Went Too Far" is of intense
interest as an attempt to bring into our own times an interpretation of
the symbolism underlying Greek mythology, applied to England of some
years ago.
To see Pan meant death. Hence in this story there is a philosophy of
Pan-theism--no "me," no "you," no "it." It is a mystical story, with a
storm scene in which is painted a picture that reminds one strongly of
"The Fall of the House of Ushur,"--with the frankly added words, "On him
were marks of hoofs of a monstrous goat that had leaped on
him,"--uncompromising mysticism.
Happy is the Kipling selection, "The Phantom 'Rickshaw," if only for
that obiter dictum of ghost-presence as Kipling explains about the rift
in the brain: "--and a little bit of the Dark World came through and
pressed him to death!"
Then there are the racial styles in ghost stories. The volume takes us
from the "Banshees and Other Death Warnings" of Ireland to a strange
example of Jewish mysticism in "The Silent Woman." Mr. French has been
very wide in his choice, giving us these as well as many examples from
the literature of England and France. Finally, he has compiled from the
newspapers, as typically American, many ghost stories of New York and
other parts of the country.
Strange that one should find humor in a subject so weird. Yet we find
it. Take, for instance, De Foe's old narrative, "The Apparition of Mrs.
Veal." It is a hoax, nothing more. Of our own times is Ellis Parker
Butler's "Dey Ain't No Ghosts," showing an example of the modern Negro's
racial heritage.
In our literature and on the stage, the very idea of a Darky and a
graveyard is mirth-provoking. Mr. Butler extracts some pithy philosophy
from his Darky boy: "I ain't skeered ob ghosts whut am, c'ase dey ain't
no ghosts, but I jes' feel kinder oneasy 'bout de ghosts whut ain't!"
Humor is succeeded by pathos. In "The Interval" we find a sympathetic
twist to the ghost story--an actual desire to meet the dead.
It is not, however, to be compared for interest to the story of sheer
terror, as in Bulwer-Lytton's "The Haunted and the Haunters," with the
flight of the servant in terror, the cowering of the dog against the
wall, the death of the dog, its neck actually broken by the terror, and
all that go to make an experience in a haunted house what it should be.
Thus, at last, we come to two of the stories that attempt to give a
scientific explanation, another phase of the modern style of ghost
story.
One of these, perhaps hardly modern as far as mere years are concerned,
is this same story of Bulwer, "The Haunted and the Haunters." Besides
being a rattling good old-fashioned tale of horror, it attempts a
new-fashioned scientific explanation. It is enough to read and re-read
it.
It is, however, the lamented Ambrose Bierce who has gone furthest in the
science and the philosophy of the matter, and in a very short story,
too, splendidly titled "The Damned Thing."
"Incredible!" exclaims the coroner at the inquest.
"That is nothing to you, sir," replies the
newspaper man who relates the experience, and in
these words expresses the true feeling about
ghostly fiction, "that is nothing to you, if I
also swear that it is true!"
But furthest of all in his scientific explanation--not scientifically
explaining away, but in explaining the way--goes Bierce as he outlines a
theory. From the diary of the murdered man he picks out the following
which we may treasure as a gem:
"I am not mad. There are colors that we cannot
see. And--God help me!--the Damned Thing is of
such a color!"
This fascination of the ghost story--have I made it clear?
As I write, nearing midnight, the bookcase behind me cracks. I start and
turn. Nothing. There is a creak of a board in the hallway.
I know it is the cool night wind--the uneven contraction of materials
expanded in the heat of the day.
Yet--do I go into the darkness outside otherwise than alert?
It is this evolution of our sense of ghost terror--ages of it--that
fascinates us.
Can we, with a few generations of modernism behind us, throw it off with
all our science? And, if we did, should we not then succeed only in
abolishing the old-fashioned ghost story and creating a new, scientific
ghost story?
Scientific? Yes. But more,--something that has existed since the
beginnings of intelligence in the human race.
Perhaps, you critic, you say that the true ghost story originated in the
age of shadowy candle light and pine knot with their grotesqueries on
the walls and in the unpenetrated darkness, that the electric bulb and
the radiator have dispelled that very thing on which, for ages, the
ghost story has been built.
What? No ghost stories? Would you take away our supernatural fiction by
your paltry scientific explanation?
Still will we gather about the story teller--then lie awake o' nights,
seeing mocking figures, arms akimbo, defying all your science to crush
the ghost story.
BEST GHOST STORIES
THE APPARITION OF MRS. VEAL
BY DANIEL DE FOE
THE PREFACE
This relation is matter of fact, and attended with such circumstances,
as may induce any reasonable man to believe it. It was sent by a
gentleman, a justice of peace, at Maidstone, in Kent, and a very
intelligent person, to his friend in London, as it is here worded; which
discourse is attested by a very sober and understanding gentlewoman, a
kinswoman of the said gentleman's, who lives in Canterbury, within a few
doors of the house in which the within-named Mrs. Bargrave lives; who
believes his kinswoman to be of so discerning a spirit, as not to be put
upon by any fallacy; and who positively assured him that the whole
matter, as it is related and laid down, is really true; and what she
herself had in the same words, as near as may be, from Mrs. Bargrave's
own mouth, who, she knows, had no reason to invent and publish such a
story, or any design to forge and tell a lie, being a woman of much
honesty and virtue, and her whole life a course, as it were, of piety.
The use which we ought to make of it, is to consider, that there is a
life to come after this, and a just God, who will retribute to every one
according to the deeds done in the body; and therefore to reflect upon
our past course of life we have led in the world; that our time is short
and uncertain; and that if we would escape the punishment of the
ungodly, and receive the reward of the righteous, which is the laying
hold of eternal life, we ought, for the time to come, to return to God
by a speedy repentance, ceasing to do evil, and learning to do well: to
seek after God early, if happily He may be found of us, and lead such
lives for the future, as may be well pleasing in His sight.
A RELATION OF THE APPARITION OF MRS. VEAL
This thing is so rare in all its circumstances, and on so good
authority, that my reading and conversation has not given me anything
like it: it is fit to gratify the most ingenious and serious inquirer.
Mrs. Bargrave is the person to whom Mrs. Veal appeared after her death;
she is my intimate friend, and I can avouch for her reputation, for
these last fifteen or sixteen years, on my own knowledge; and I can
confirm the good character she had from her youth, to the time of my
acquaintance. Though, since this relation, she is calumniated by some
people, that are friends to the brother of this Mrs. Veal, who appeared;
who think the relation of this appearance to be a reflection, and
endeavor what they can to blast Mrs. Bargrave's reputation, and to laugh
the story out of countenance. But by the circumstances thereof, and the
cheerful disposition of Mrs. Bargrave, notwithstanding the ill-usage of
a very wicked husband, there is not yet the least sign of dejection in
her face; nor did I ever hear her let fall a desponding or murmuring
expression; nay, not when actually under her husband's barbarity; which
I have been witness to, and several other persons of undoubted
reputation.
Now you must know, Mrs. Veal was a maiden gentlewoman of about thirty
years of age, and for some years last past had been troubled with fits;
which were perceived coming on her, by her going off from her discourse
very abruptly to some impertinence. She was maintained by an only
brother, and kept his house in Dover. She was a very pious woman, and
her brother a very sober man to all appearance; but now he does all he
can to null or quash the story. Mrs. Veal was intimately acquainted with
Mrs. Bargrave from her childhood. Mrs. Veal's circumstances were then
mean; her father did not take care of his children as he ought, so that
they were exposed to hardships; and Mrs. Bargrave, in those days, had as
unkind a father, though she wanted neither for food nor clothing, whilst
Mrs. Veal wanted for both; insomuch that she would often say, Mrs.
Bargrave, you are not only the best, but the only friend I have in the
world, and no circumstances of life shall ever dissolve my friendship.
They would often condole each other's adverse fortunes, and read
together Drelincourt upon Death, and other good books; and so, like two
Christian friends, they comforted each other under their sorrow.
Some time after, Mr. Veal's friends got him a place in the custom-house
at Dover, which occasioned Mrs. Veal, by little and little, to fall off
from her intimacy with Mrs. Bargrave, though there was never any such
thing as a quarrel; but an indifferency came on by degrees, till at last
Mrs. Bargrave had not seen her in two years and a half; though above a
twelvemonth of the time Mrs. Bargrave hath been absent from Dover, and
this last half year has been in Canterbury about two months of the time,
dwelling in a house of her own.
In this house, on the 8th of September, 1705, she was sitting alone in
the forenoon, thinking over her unfortunate life, and arguing herself
into a due resignation to providence, though her condition seemed hard.
And, said she, I have been provided for hitherto, and doubt not but I
shall be still; and am well satisfied that my afflictions shall end when
it is most fit for me: and then took up her sewing-work, which she had
no sooner done, but she hears a knocking at the door. She went to see
who was there, and this proved to be Mrs. Veal, her old friend, who was
in a riding-habit. At that moment of time the clock struck twelve at
noon.
Madam, says Mrs. Bargrave, I am surprised to see you, you have been so
long a stranger; but told her, she was glad to see her, and offered to
salute her; which Mrs. Veal complied with, till their lips almost
touched; and then Mrs. Veal drew her hand across her own eyes, and said,
I am not very well; and so waived it. She told Mrs. Bargrave, she was
going a journey, and had a great mind to see her first. But, says Mrs.
Bargrave, how came you to take a journey alone? I am amazed at it,
because I know you have a fond brother. Oh! says Mrs. Veal, I gave my
brother the slip, and came away because I had so great a desire to see
you before I took my journey. So Mrs. Bargrave went in with her, into
another room within the first, and Mrs. Veal sat her down in an
elbow-chair, in which Mrs. Bargrave was sitting when she heard Mrs. Veal
knock. Then says Mrs. Veal, My dear friend, I am come to renew our old
friendship again, and beg your pardon for my breach of it; and if you
can forgive me, you are the best of women. O, says Mrs. Bargrave, do not
mention such a thing; I have not had an uneasy thought about it; I can
easily forgive it. What did you think of me? said Mrs. Veal. Says Mrs.
Bargrave, I thought you were like the rest of the world, and that
prosperity had made you forget yourself and me. Then Mrs. Veal reminded
Mrs. Bargrave of the many friendly offices she did her in former days,
and much of the conversation they had with each other in the times of
their adversity; what books they read, and what comfort, in particular,
they received from Drelincourt's Book of Death, which was the best, she
said, on that subject ever written. She also mentioned Dr. Sherlock, the
two Dutch books which were translated, written upon death, and several
others. But Drelincourt, she said, had the clearest notions of death,
and of the future state, of any who had handled that subject. Then she
asked Mrs. Bargrave, whether she had Drelincourt. She said, Yes. Says
Mrs. Veal, Fetch it. And so Mrs. Bargrave goes up stairs and brings it
down. Says Mrs. Veal, Dear Mrs. Bargrave, if the eyes of our faith were
as open as the eyes of our body, we should see numbers of angels about
us for our guard. The notions we have of heaven now, are nothing like
what it is, as Drelincourt says; therefore be comforted under your
afflictions, and believe that the Almighty has a particular regard to
you; and that your afflictions are marks of God's favor; and when they
have done the business they are sent for, they shall be removed from
you. And believe me, my dear friend, believe what I say to you, one
minute of future happiness will infinitely reward you for all your
sufferings. For, I can never believe (and claps her hand upon her knee
with great earnestness, which indeed ran through most of her discourse),
that ever God will suffer you to spend all your days in this afflicted
state; but be assured, that your afflictions shall leave you, or you
them, in a short time. She spake in that pathetical and heavenly
manner, that Mrs. Bargrave wept several times, she was so deeply
affected with it.
Then Mrs. Veal mentioned Dr. Kenrick's Ascetick, at the end of which he
gives an account of the lives of the primitive Christians. Their pattern
she recommended to our imitation, and said, their conversation was not
like this of our age: For now, says she, there is nothing but frothy,
vain discourse, which is far different from theirs. Theirs was to
edification, and to build one another up in faith; so that they were not
as we are, nor are we as they were: but, says she, we ought to do as
they did. There was an hearty friendship among them; but where is it now
to be found? Says Mrs. Bargrave, It is hard indeed to find a true friend
in these days. Says Mrs. Veal, Mr. Norris has a fine copy of verses,
called Friendship in Perfection, which I wonderfully admire. Have you
seen the book? says Mrs. Veal. No, says Mrs. Bargrave, but I have the
verses of my own writing out. Have you? says Mrs. Veal, then fetch them.
Which she did from above stairs, and offered them to Mrs. Veal to read,
who refused, and waived the thing, saying, holding down her head would
make it ache; and then desired Mrs. Bargrave to read them to her, which
she did. As they were admiring friendship, Mrs. Veal said, Dear Mrs.
Bargrave, I shall love you for ever. In these verses there is twice used
the word Elysian. Ah! says Mrs. Veal, these poets have such names for
heaven. She would often draw her hands across her own eyes, and say,
Mrs. Bargrave, do not you think I am mightily impaired by my fits? No,
says Mrs. Bargrave, I think you look as well as ever I knew you. After
all this discourse, which the apparition put in much finer words than
Mrs. Bargrave said she could pretend to, and as much more than she can
remember, (for it cannot be thought, that an hour and three quarters'
conversation could all be retained, though the main of it she thinks she
does,) she said to Mrs. Bargrave, she would have her write a letter to
her brother, and tell him, she would have him give rings to such and
such; and that there was a purse of gold in her cabinet, and that she
would have two broad pieces given to her cousin Watson.
Talking at this rate, Mrs. Bargrave thought that a fit was coming upon
her, and so placed herself in a chair just before her knees, to keep her
from falling to the ground, if her fits should occasion it: for the
elbow-chair, she thought, would keep her from falling on either side.
And to divert Mrs. Veal, as she thought, took hold of her gown-sleeve
several times, and commended it. Mrs. Veal told her, it was a scowered
silk, and newly made up. But for all this, Mrs. Veal persisted in her
request, and told Mrs. Bargrave, she must not deny her: and she would
have her tell her brother all their conversation, when she had
opportunity. Dear Mrs. Veal, says Mrs. Bargrave, this seems so
impertinent, that I cannot tell how to comply with it; and what a
mortifying story will our conversation be to a young gentleman? Why,
says Mrs. Bargrave, it is much better, methinks, to do it yourself. No,
says Mrs. Veal, though it seems impertinent to you now, you will see
more reason for it hereafter. Mrs. Bargrave then, to satisfy her
importunity, was going to fetch a pen and ink; but Mrs. Veal said, Let
it alone now, but do it when I am gone; but you must be sure to do it:
which was one of the last things she enjoined her at parting; and so she
promised her.
Then Mrs. Veal asked for Mrs. Bargrave's daughter; she said, she was not
at home: But if you have a mind to see her, says Mrs. Bargrave, I'll
send for her. Do, says Mrs. Veal. On which she left her, and went to a
neighbor's to seek for her; and by the time Mrs. Bargrave was returning,
Mrs. Veal was got without the door in the street, in the face of the
beast-market, on a Saturday, which is market-day, and stood ready to
part, as soon as Mrs. Bargrave came to her. She asked her, why she was
in such haste. She said she must be going, though perhaps she might not
go her journey till Monday; and told Mrs. Bargrave, she hoped she should
see her again at her cousin Watson's, before she went whither she was
going. Then she said, she would take her leave of her, and walked from
Mrs. Bargrave in her view, till a turning interrupted the sight of her,
which was three quarters after one in the afternoon.
Mrs. Veal died the 7th of September, at twelve o'clock at noon of her
fits, and had not above four hours' senses before her death, in which
time she received the sacrament. The next day after Mrs. Veal's
appearing, being Sunday, Mrs. Bargrave was mightily indisposed with a
cold, and a sore throat, that she could not go out that day; but on
Monday morning she sent a person to Captain Watson's, to know if Mrs.
Veal was there. They wondered at Mrs. Bargrave's inquiry; and sent her
word, that she was not there, nor was expected. At this answer Mrs.
Bargrave told the maid she had certainly mistook the name, or made some
blunder. And though she was ill, she put on her hood, and went herself
to Captain Watson's though she knew none of the family, to see if Mrs.
Veal was there or not. They said, they wondered at her asking, for that
she had not been in town; they were sure, if she had, she would have
been there. Says Mrs. Bargrave, I am sure she was with me on Saturday
almost two hours. They said, it was impossible; for they must have seen
her if she had. In comes Captain Watson, while they were in dispute, and
said, that Mrs. Veal was certainly dead, and her escutcheons were
making. This strangely surprised Mrs. Bargrave, when she sent to the
person immediately who had the care of them, and found it true. Then she
related the whole story to Captain Watson's family, and what gown she
had on, and how striped; and that Mrs. Veal told her, it was scowered.
Then Mrs. Watson cried out, You have seen her indeed, for none knew, but
Mrs. Veal and myself, that the gown was scowered. And Mrs. Watson owned,
that she described the gown exactly: For, said she, I helped her to make
it up. This Mrs. Watson blazed all about the town, and avouched the
demonstration of the truth of Mrs. Bargrave's seeing Mrs. Veal's
apparition. And Captain Watson carried two gentlemen immediately to Mrs.
Bargrave's house, to hear the relation of her own mouth. And when it
spread so fast, that gentlemen and persons of quality, the judicious and
skeptical part of the world, flocked in upon her, it at last became such
a task, that she was forced to go out of the way. For they were, in
general, extremely satisfied of the truth of the thing, and plainly saw
that Mrs. Bargrave was no hypochondraic; for she always appears with
such a cheerful air, and pleasing mien, that she has gained the favor
and esteem of all the gentry; and it is thought a great favor, if they
can but get the relation from her own mouth. I should have told you
before, that Mrs. Veal told Mrs. Bargrave, that her sister and
brother-in-law were just come down from London to see her. Says Mrs.
Bargrave, How came you to order matters so strangely? It could not be
helped, says Mrs. Veal. And her brother and sister did come to see her,
and entered the town of Dover just as Mrs. Veal was expiring. Mrs.
Bargrave, asked her, whether she would drink some tea. Says Mrs. Veal,
I do not care if I do; but I'll warrant you, this mad fellow (meaning
Mrs. Bargrave's husband) has broke all your trinkets. But, says Mrs.
Bargrave, I'll get something to drink in for all that; but Mrs. Veal
waived it, and said, It is no matter, let it alone; and so it passed.
All the time I sat with Mrs. Bargrave, which was some hours, she
recollected fresh sayings of Mrs. Veal. And one material thing more she
told Mrs. Bargrave, that old Mr. Breton allowed Mrs. Veal ten pounds a
year; which was a secret, and unknown to Mrs. Bargrave, till Mrs. Veal
told it her.
Mrs. Bargrave never varies in her story; which puzzles those who doubt
of the truth, or are unwilling to believe it. A servant in the
neighbor's yard, adjoining to Mrs. Bargrave's house, heard her talking
to somebody an hour of the time Mrs. Veal was with her. Mrs. Bargrave
went out to her next neighbor's the very moment she parted with Mrs.
Veal, and told her what ravishing conversation she had with an old
friend, and told the whole of it. Drelincourt's Book of Death is, since
this happened, bought up strangely. And it is to be observed, that
notwithstanding all the trouble and fatigue Mrs. Bargrave has undergone
upon this account, she never took the value of a farthing, nor suffered
her daughter to take anything of anybody, and therefore can have no
interest in telling the story.
But Mr. Veal does what he can to stifle the matter, and said, he would
see Mrs. Bargrave; but yet it is certain matter of fact that he has been
at Captain Watson's since the death of his sister, and yet never went
near Mrs. Bargrave; and some of his friends report her to be a liar,
and that she knew of Mr. Breton's ten pounds a year. But the person who
pretends to say so, has the reputation of a notorious liar, among
persons whom I know to be of undoubted credit. Now Mr. Veal is more of a
gentleman than to say she lies; but says, a bad husband has crazed her.
But she needs only present herself, and it will effectually confute that
pretense. Mr. Veal says, he asked his sister on her death-bed, whether
she had a mind to dispose of anything? And she said, No. Now, the things
which Mrs. Veal's apparition would have disposed of, were so trifling,
and nothing of justice aimed at in their disposal, that the design of it
appears to me to be only in order to make Mrs. Bargrave so to
demonstrate the truth of her appearance, as to satisfy the world of the
reality thereof, as to what she had seen and heard; and to secure her
reputation among the reasonable and understanding part of mankind. And
then again, Mr. Veal owns, that there was a purse of gold; but it was
not found in her cabinet, but in a comb-box. This looks improbable; for
that Mrs. Watson owned, that Mrs. Veal was so very careful of the key of
the cabinet, that she would trust nobody with it. And if so, no doubt
she would not trust her gold out of it. And Mrs. Veal's often drawing
her hand over her eyes, and asking Mrs. Bargrave whether her fits had
not impaired her, looks to me as if she did it on purpose to remind Mrs.
Bargrave of her fits, to prepare her not to think it strange that she
should put her upon writing to her brother to dispose of rings and gold,
which looked so much like a dying person's request; and it took
accordingly with Mrs. Bargrave, as the effects of her fits coming upon
her; and was one of the many instances of her wonderful love to her, and
care of her, that she should not be affrighted; which indeed appears in
her whole management, particularly in her coming to her in the day-time,
waiving the salutation, and when she was alone; and then the manner of
her parting, to prevent a second attempt to salute her.
Now, why Mr. Veal should think this relation a reflection, as it is
plain he does, by his endeavoring to stifle it, I cannot imagine;
because the generality believe her to be a good spirit, her discourse
was so heavenly. Her two great errands were to comfort Mrs. Bargrave in
her affliction, and to ask her forgiveness for the breach of friendship,
and with a pious discourse to encourage her. So that, after all, to
suppose that Mrs. Bargrave could hatch such an invention as this from
Friday noon till Saturday noon, supposing that she knew of Mrs. Veal's
death the very first moment, without jumbling circumstances, and without
any interest too; she must be more witty, fortunate, and wicked too,
than any indifferent person, I dare say, will allow. I asked Mrs.
Bargrave several times, if she was sure she felt the gown? She answered
modestly, If my senses be to be relied on, I am sure of it. I asked her,
if she heard a sound when she clapped her hand upon her knee? She said,
she did not remember she did; but said she appeared to be as much a
substance as I did, who talked with her. And I may, said she, be as soon
persuaded, that your apparition is talking to me now, as that I did not
really see her: for I was under no manner of fear, and received her as a
friend, and parted with her as such. I would not, says she, give one
farthing to make any one believe it: I have no interest in it; nothing
but trouble is entailed upon me for a long time, for aught I know; and
had it not come to light by accident, it would never have been made
public. But now, she says, she will make her own private use of it, and
keep herself out of the way as much as she can; and so she has done
since. She says, She had a gentleman who came thirty miles to her to
hear the relation; and that she had told it to a room full of people at
a time. Several particular gentlemen have had the story from Mrs.
Bargrave's own mouth.
This thing has very much affected me, and I am as well satisfied, as I
am of the best-grounded matter of fact. And why we should dispute matter
of fact, because we cannot solve things of which we can have no certain
or demonstrative notions, seems strange to me. Mrs. Bargrave's authority
and sincerity alone, would have been undoubted in any other case.
TO THE READER
The origin of the foregoing curious story seems to have been as
follows:--
An adventurous bookseller had ventured to print a considerable edition
of a work by the Reverend Charles Drelincourt, minister of the Calvinist
church in Paris, and translated by M. D'Assigny, under the title of "The
Christian's Defense against the Fear of Death, with several directions
how to prepare ourselves to die well." But however certain the prospect
of death, it is not so agreeable (unfortunately) as to invite the eager
contemplation of the public; and Drelincourt's book, being neglected,
lay a dead stock on the hands of the publisher. In this emergency, he
applied to De Foe to assist him (by dint of such means as were then, as
well as now, pretty well understood in the literary world) in rescuing
the unfortunate book from the literary death to which general neglect
seemed about to consign it.
De Foe's genius and audacity devised a plan which, for assurance and
ingenuity, defied even the powers of Mr. Puff in the _Critic_: for who
but himself would have thought of summoning up a ghost from the grave to
bear witness in favor of a halting body of divinity? There is a
matter-of-fact, business-like style in the whole account of the
transaction, which bespeaks ineffable powers of self-possession. The
narrative is drawn up "by a gentleman, a _Justice of Peace_ at
Maidstone, in Kent, a very intelligent person." And, moreover, "the
discourse is attested by a very sober gentlewoman, who lives in
Canterbury, within a few doors of the house in which Mrs. Bargrave
lives." The Justice believes his kinswoman to be of so discerning a
spirit, as not to be put upon by any fallacy--and the kinswoman
positively assures the Justice, "that the whole matter, as it is related
and laid down, is really true, and what she herself heard, as near as
may be, from Mrs. Bargrave's own mouth, who, she knows, had no reason to
invent or publish such a story, or any design to forge and tell a lie,
being a woman of so much honesty and virtue, and her whole life a
course, as it were, of piety." Skepticism itself could not resist this
triple court of evidence so artfully combined, the Justice attesting
for the discerning spirit of the sober and understanding gentlewoman his
kinswoman, and his kinswoman becoming bail for the veracity of Mrs.
Bargrave. And here, gentle reader, admire the simplicity of those days.
Had Mrs. Veal's visit to her friend happened in our time, the conductors
of the daily press would have given the word, and seven gentlemen unto
the said press belonging, would, with an obedient start, have made off
for Kingston, for Canterbury, for Dover,--for Kamchatka if
necessary,--to pose the Justice, cross-examine Mrs. Bargrave, confront
the sober and understanding kinswoman, and dig Mrs. Veal up from her
grave, rather than not get to the bottom of the story. But in our time
we doubt and scrutinize; our ancestors wondered and believed.
Before the story is commenced, the understanding gentlewoman (not the
Justice of Peace), who is the reporter, takes some pains to repel the
objections made against the story by some of the friends of Mrs. Veal's
brother, who consider the marvel as an aspersion on their family, and do
what they can to laugh it out of countenance. Indeed, it is allowed,
with admirable impartiality, that Mr. Veal is too much of a gentleman to
suppose Mrs. Bargrave invented the story--scandal itself could scarce
have supposed that--although one notorious liar, who is chastised
towards the conclusion of the story, ventures to throw out such an
insinuation. No reasonable or respectable person, however, could be
found to countenance the suspicion, and Mr. Veal himself opined that
Mrs. Bargrave had been driven crazy by a cruel husband, and dreamed the
whole story of the apparition. Now all this is sufficiently artful. To
have vouched the fact as universally known, and believed by every one,
_nem. con._, would not have been half so satisfactory to a skeptic as to
allow fairly that the narrative had been impugned, and hint at the
character of one of those skeptics, and the motives of another, as
sufficient to account for their want of belief. Now to the fact itself.
Mrs. Bargrave and Mrs. Veal had been friends in youth, and had protested
their attachment should last as long as they lived; but when Mrs. Veal's
brother obtained an office in the customs at Dover, some cessation of
their intimacy ensued, "though without any positive quarrel." Mrs.
Bargrave had removed to Canterbury, and was residing in a house of her
own, when she was suddenly interrupted by a visit from Mrs. Veal, as she
was sitting in deep contemplation of certain distresses of her own. The
visitor was in a riding-habit, and announced herself as prepared for a
distant journey (which seems to intimate that spirits have a
considerable distance to go before they arrive at their appointed
station, and that the females at least put on a _habit_ for the
occasion). The spirit, for such was the seeming Mrs. Veal, continued to
waive the ceremony of salutation, both in going and coming, which will
remind the reader of a ghostly lover's reply to his mistress in the fine
old Scottish ballad:--
Why should I come within thy bower?
I am no earthly man;
And should I kiss thy rosy lips,
Thy days would not be lang.
They then began to talk in the homely style of middle-aged ladies, and
Mrs. Veal proses concerning the conversations they had formerly held,
and the books they had read together. Her very recent experience
probably led Mrs. Veal to talk of death, and the books written on the
subject, and she pronounced _ex cathedrá_, as a dead person was best
entitled to do, that "Drelincourt's book on Death was the best book on
the subject ever written." She also mentioned Dr. Sherlock, two Dutch
books which had been translated, and several others; but Drelincourt,
she said, had the clearest notions of death and the future state of any
who had handled that subject. She then asked for the work [we marvel the
edition and impress had not been mentioned] and lectured on it with
great eloquence and affection. Dr. Kenrick's _Ascetick_ was also
mentioned with approbation by this critical specter [the Doctor's work
was no doubt a tenant of the shelf in some favorite publisher's shop];
and Mr. Norris's _Poem on Friendship_, a work, which I doubt, though
honored with a ghost's approbation, we may now seek for as vainly as
Correlli tormented his memory to recover the sonata which the devil
played to him in a dream. Presently after, from former habits we may
suppose, the guest desires a cup of tea; but, bethinking herself of her
new character, escapes from her own proposal by recollecting that Mr.
Bargrave was in the habit of breaking his wife's china. It would have
been indeed strangely out of character if the spirit had lunched, or
breakfasted upon tea and toast. Such a consummation would have sounded
as ridiculous as if the statue of the commander in _Don Juan_ had not
only accepted of the invitation of the libertine to supper, but had also
committed a beefsteak to his flinty jaws and stomach of adamant. A
little more conversation ensued of a less serious nature, and tending to
show that even the passage from life to death leaves the female anxiety
about person and dress somewhat alive. The ghost asked Mrs. Bargrave
whether she did not think her very much altered, and Mrs. Bargrave of
course complimented her on her good looks. Mrs. Bargrave also admired
the gown which Mrs. Veal wore, and as a mark of her perfectly restored
confidence, the spirit led her into the important secret, that it was a
_scoured silk_, and lately made up. She informed her also of another
secret, namely, that one Mr. Breton had allowed her ten pounds a year;
and, lastly, she requested that Mrs. Bargrave would write to her
brother, and tell him how to distribute her mourning rings, and
mentioned there was a purse of gold in her cabinet. She expressed some
wish to see Mrs. Bargrave's daughter; but when that good lady went to
the next door to seek her, she found on her return the guest leaving the
house. She had got without the door, in the street, in the face of the
beast market, on a Saturday, which is market day, and stood ready to
part. She said she must be going, as she had to call upon her cousin
Watson (this appears to be a _gratis dictum_ on the part of the ghost)
and, maintaining the character of mortality to the last, she quietly
turned the corner, and walked out of sight.
Then came the news of Mrs. Veal's having died the day before at noon.
Says Mrs. Bargrave, "I am sure she was with me on Saturday almost two
hours." And in comes Captain Watson, and says Mrs. Veal was certainly
dead. And then come all the pieces of evidence, and especially the
striped silk gown. Then Mrs. Watson cried out, "You have seen her
indeed, for none knew but Mrs. Veal and I that that gown was scoured";
and she cried that the gown was described exactly, for, said she, "I
helped her to make it up." And next we have the silly attempts made to
discredit the history. Even Mr. Veal, her brother, was obliged to allow
that the gold was found, but with a difference, and pretended it was not
found in a cabinet, but elsewhere; and, in short, we have all the gossip
of _says I_, and _thinks I_, and _says she_, and _thinks she_, which
disputed matters usually excite in a country town.
When we have thus turned the tale, the seam without, it may be thought
too ridiculous to have attracted notice. But whoever will read it as
told by De Foe himself, will agree that, could the thing have happened
in reality, so it would have been told. The sobering the whole
supernatural visit into the language of the middle or low life, gives it
an air of probability even in its absurdity. The ghost of an exciseman's
housekeeper, and a seamstress, were not to converse like Brutus with his
Evil Genius. And the circumstances of scoured silks, broken tea-china,
and such like, while they are the natural topics of such persons'
conversation, would, one might have thought, be the last which an
inventor would have introduced into a pretended narrative betwixt the
dead and living. In short, the whole is so distinctly circumstantial,
that, were it not for the impossibility, or extreme improbability at
least, of such an occurrence, the evidence could not but support the
story.
The effect was most wonderful. _Drelincourt upon Death_, attested by one
who could speak from experience, took an unequaled run. The copies had
hung on the bookseller's hands as heavy as a pile of lead bullets. They
now traversed the town in every direction, like the same balls
discharged from a field-piece. In short, the object of Mrs. Veal's
apparition was perfectly attained.--[See The Miscellaneous Prose Works
of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., vol. iv. p. 305, ed. 1827.]
CANON ALBERIC'S SCRAP-BOOK
BY MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES
St. Bertrand de Comminges is a decayed town on the spurs of the
Pyrenees, not very far from Toulouse, and still nearer to
Bagnères-de-Luchon. It was the site of a bishopric until the Revolution,
and has a cathedral which is visited by a certain number of tourists. In
the spring of 1883 an Englishman arrived at this old-world place--I can
hardly dignify it with the name of city, for there are not a thousand
inhabitants. He was a Cambridge man, who had come specially from
Toulouse to see St. Bertrand's Church, and had left two friends, who
were less keen archæologists than himself, in their hotel at Toulouse,
under promise to join him on the following morning. Half an hour at the
church would satisfy _them_, and all three could then pursue their
journey in the direction of Auch. But our Englishman had come early on
the day in question, and proposed to himself to fill a note-book and to
use several dozens of plates in the process of describing and
photographing every corner of the wonderful church that dominates the
little hill of Comminges. In order to carry out this design
satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of the church
for the day. The verger or sacristan (I prefer the latter appellation,
inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the somewhat
brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge; and when he came,
the Englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of study. It
was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened old man
that the interest lay, for he was precisely like dozens of other
church-guardians in France, but in a curious furtive, or rather hunted
and oppressed, air which he had. He was perpetually half glancing behind
him; the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a
continual nervous contraction, as if he were expecting every moment to
find himself in the clutch of an enemy. The Englishman hardly knew
whether to put him down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one
oppressed by a guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband.
The probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea;
but, still, the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable
persecutor even than a termagant wife.
However, the Englishman (let us call him Dennistoun) was soon too deep
in his note-book and too busy with his camera to give more than an
occasional glance to the sacristan. Whenever he did look at him, he
found him at no great distance, either huddling himself back against the
wall or crouching in one of the gorgeous stalls. Dennistoun became
rather fidgety after a time. Mingled suspicions that he was keeping the
old man from his _déjeuner_, that he was regarded as likely to make away
with St. Bertrand's ivory crozier, or with the dusty stuffed crocodile
that hangs over the font, began to torment him.
"Won't you go home?" he said at last; "I'm quite well able to finish my
notes alone; you can lock me in if you like. I shall want at least two
hours more here, and it must be cold for you, isn't it?"
"Good heavens!" said the little man, whom the suggestion seemed to throw
into a state of unaccountable terror, "such a thing cannot be thought of
for a moment. Leave monsieur alone in the church? No, no; two hours,
three hours, all will be the same to me. I have breakfasted, I am not at
all cold, with many thanks to monsieur."
"Very well, my little man," quoth Dennistoun to himself: "you have been
warned, and you must take the consequences."
Before the expiration of the two hours, the stalls, the enormous
dilapidated organ, the choir-screen of Bishop John de Mauléon, the
remnants of glass and tapestry, and the objects in the treasure-chamber,
had been well and truly examined; the sacristan still keeping at
Dennistoun's heels, and every now and then whipping round as if he had
been stung, when one or other of the strange noises that trouble a
large empty building fell on his ear. Curious noises they were
sometimes.
"Once," Dennistoun said to me, "I could have sworn I heard a thin
metallic voice laughing high up in the tower. I darted an inquiring
glance at my sacristan. He was white to the lips. 'It is he--that is--it
is no one; the door is locked,' was all he said, and we looked at each
other for a full minute."
Another little incident puzzled Dennistoun a good deal. He was examining
a large dark picture that hangs behind the altar, one of a series
illustrating the miracles of St. Bertrand. The composition of the
picture is well-nigh indecipherable, but there is a Latin legend below,
which runs thus:
"Qualiter S. Bertrandus liberavit hominem quem
diabolus diu volebat strangulare." (How St.
Bertrand delivered a man whom the Devil long
sought to strangle.)
Dennistoun was turning to the sacristan with a smile and a jocular
remark of some sort on his lips, but he was confounded to see the old
man on his knees, gazing at the picture with the eye of a suppliant in
agony, his hands tightly clasped, and a rain of tears on his cheeks.
Dennistoun naturally pretended to have noticed nothing, but the question
would not away from him, "Why should a daub of this kind affect any one
so strongly?" He seemed to himself to be getting some sort of clue to
the reason of the strange look that had been puzzling him all the day:
the man must be monomaniac; but what was his monomania?
It was nearly five o'clock; the short day was drawing in, and the church
began to fill with shadows, while the curious noises--the muffled
footfalls and distant talking voices that had been perceptible all
day--seemed, no doubt because of the fading light and the consequently
quickened sense of hearing, to become more frequent and insistent.
The sacristan began for the first time to show signs of hurry and
impatience. He heaved a sigh of relief when camera and note-book were
finally packed up and stowed away, and hurriedly beckoned Dennistoun to
the western door of the church, under the tower. It was time to ring the
Angelus. A few pulls at the reluctant rope, and the great bell
Bertrande, high in the tower, began to speak, and swung her voice up
among the pines and down to the valleys, loud with mountain-streams,
calling the dwellers on those lonely hills to remember and repeat the
salutation of the angel to her whom he called Blessed among women. With
that a profound quiet seemed to fall for the first time that day upon
the little town, and Dennistoun and the sacristan went out of the
church.
On the doorstep they fell into conversation.
"Monsieur seemed to interest himself in the old choir-books in the
sacristy."
"Undoubtedly. I was going to ask you if there were a library in the
town."
"No, monsieur; perhaps there used to be one belonging to the Chapter,
but it is now such a small place----" Here came a strange pause of
irresolution, as it seemed; then, with a sort of plunge, he went on:
"But if monsieur is _amateur des vieux livres_, I have at home something
that might interest him. It is not a hundred yards."
At once all Dennistoun's cherished dreams of finding priceless
manuscripts in untrodden corners of France flashed up, to die down again
the next moment. It was probably a stupid missal of Plantin's printing,
about 1580. Where was the likelihood that a place so near Toulouse would
not have been ransacked long ago by collectors? However, it would be
foolish not to go; he would reproach himself for ever after if he
refused. So they set off. On the way the curious irresolution and sudden
determination of the sacristan recurred to Dennistoun, and he wondered
in a shamefaced way whether he was being decoyed into some purlieu to be
made away with as a supposed rich Englishman. He contrived, therefore,
to begin talking with his guide, and to drag in, in a rather clumsy
fashion, the fact that he expected two friends to join him early the
next morning. To his surprise, the announcement seemed to relieve the
sacristan at once of some of the anxiety that oppressed him.
"That is well," he said quite brightly--"that is very well. Monsieur
will travel in company with his friends; they will be always near him.
It is a good thing to travel thus in company--sometimes."
The last word appeared to be added as an afterthought, and to bring with
it a relapse into gloom for the poor little man.
They were soon at the house, which was one rather larger than its
neighbors, stone-built, with a shield carved over the door, the shield
of Alberic de Mauléon, a collateral descendant, Dennistoun tells me, of
Bishop John de Mauléon. This Alberic was a Canon of Comminges from 1680
to 1701. The upper windows of the mansion were boarded up, and the whole
place bore, as does the rest of Comminges, the aspect of decaying age.
Arrived on his doorstep, the sacristan paused a moment.
"Perhaps," he said, "perhaps, after all, monsieur has not the time?"
"Not at all--lots of time--nothing to do till to-morrow. Let us see what
it is you have got."
The door was opened at this point, and a face looked out, a face far
younger than the sacristan's, but bearing something of the same
distressing look: only here it seemed to be the mark, not so much of
fear for personal safety as of acute anxiety on behalf of another.
Plainly, the owner of the face was the sacristan's daughter; and, but
for the expression I have described, she was a handsome girl enough. She
brightened up considerably on seeing her father accompanied by an
able-bodied stranger. A few remarks passed between father and daughter,
of which Dennistoun only caught these words, said by the sacristan, "He
was laughing in the church," words which were answered only by a look of
terror from the girl.
But in another minute they were in the sitting-room of the house, a
small, high chamber with a stone floor, full of moving shadows cast by a
wood-fire that flickered on a great hearth. Something of the character
of an oratory was imparted to it by a tall crucifix, which reached
almost to the ceiling on one side; the figure was painted of the natural
colors, the cross was black. Under this stood a chest of some age and
solidity, and when a lamp had been brought, and chairs set, the
sacristan went to this chest, and produced therefrom, with growing
excitement and nervousness, as Dennistoun thought, a large book wrapped
in a white cloth, on which cloth a cross was rudely embroidered in red
thread. Even before the wrapping had been removed, Dennistoun began to
be interested by the size and shape of the volume. "Too large for a
missal," he thought, "and not the shape of an antiphoner; perhaps it may
be something good, after all." The next moment the book was open, and
Dennistoun felt that he had at last lit upon something better than good.
Before him lay a large folio, bound, perhaps, late in the seventeenth
century, with the arms of Canon Alberic de Mauléon stamped in gold on
the sides. There may have been a hundred and fifty leaves of paper in
the book, and on almost every one of them was fastened a leaf from an
illuminated manuscript. Such a collection Dennistoun had hardly dreamed
of in his wildest moments. Here were ten leaves from a copy of Genesis,
illustrated with pictures, which could not be later than 700 A.D.
Further on was a complete set of pictures from a psalter, of English
execution, of the very finest kind that the thirteenth century could
produce; and, perhaps best of all, there were twenty leaves of uncial
writing in Latin, which, as a few words seen here and there told him at
once, must belong to some very early unknown patristic treatise. Could
it possibly be a fragment of the copy of Papias "On the Words of Our
Lord," which was known to have existed as late as the twelfth century at
Nîmes?[A] In any case, his mind was made up; that book must return to
Cambridge with him, even if he had to draw the whole of his balance from
the bank and stay at St. Bertrand till the money came. He glanced up at
the sacristan to see if his face yielded any hint that the book was for
sale. The sacristan was pale, and his lips were working.
"If monsieur will turn on to the end," he said.
So monsieur turned on, meeting new treasures at every rise of a leaf;
and at the end of the book he came upon two sheets of paper, of much
more recent date than anything he had yet seen, which puzzled him
considerably. They must be contemporary, he decided, with the
unprincipled Canon Alberic, who had doubtless plundered the Chapter
library of St. Bertrand to form this priceless scrapbook. On the first
of the paper sheets was a plan, carefully drawn and instantly
recognizable by a person who knew the ground, of the south aisle and
cloisters of St. Bertrand's. There were curious signs looking like
planetary symbols, and a few Hebrew words in the corners; and in the
northwest angle of the cloister was a cross drawn in gold paint. Below
the plan were some lines of writing in Latin, which ran thus:
"Responsa 12^{mi} Dec. 1694. Interrogatum est:
Inveniamne? Responsum est: Invenies. Fiamne dives?
Fies. Vivamne invidendus? Vives. Moriarne in lecto
meo? Ita." (Answers of the 12th of December, 1694.
It was asked: Shall I find it? Answer: Thou shalt.
Shall I become rich? Thou wilt. Shall I live an
object of envy? Thou wilt. Shall I die in my bed?
Thou wilt.)
"A good specimen of the treasure-hunter's record--quite reminds one of
Mr. Minor-Canon Quatremain in 'Old St. Paul's,'" was Dennistoun's
comment, and he turned the leaf.
What he then saw impressed him, as he has often told me, more than he
could have conceived any drawing or picture capable of impressing him.
And, though the drawing he saw is no longer in existence, there is a
photograph of it (which I possess) which fully bears out that statement.
The picture in question was a sepia drawing at the end of the
seventeenth century, representing, one would say at first sight, a
Biblical scene; for the architecture (the picture represented an
interior) and the figures had that semi-classical flavor about them
which the artists of two hundred years ago thought appropriate to
illustrations of the Bible. On the right was a king on his throne, the
throne elevated on twelve steps, a canopy overhead, soldiers on either
side--evidently King Solomon. He was bending forward with outstretched
scepter, in attitude of command; his face expressed horror and disgust,
yet there was in it also the mark of imperious command and confident
power. The left half of the picture was the strangest, however. The
interest plainly centered there. On the pavement before the throne were
grouped four soldiers, surrounding a crouching figure which must be
described in a moment. A fifth soldier lay dead on the pavement, his
neck distorted, and his eyeballs starting from his head. The four
surrounding guards were looking at the King. In their faces the
sentiment of horror was intensified; they seemed, in fact, only
restrained from flight by their implicit trust in their master. All this
terror was plainly excited by the being that crouched in their midst.
I entirely despair of conveying by any words the impression which this
figure makes upon any one who looks at it. I recollect once showing the
photograph of the drawing to a lecturer on morphology--a person of, I
was going to say, abnormally sane and unimaginative habits of mind. He
absolutely refused to be alone for the rest of that evening, and he told
me afterwards that for many nights he had not dared to put out his light
before going to sleep. However, the main traits of the figure I can at
least indicate. At first you saw only a mass of coarse, matted black
hair; presently it was seen that this covered a body of fearful
thinness, almost a skeleton, but with the muscles standing out like
wires. The hands were of a dusky pallor, covered, like the body, with
long, coarse hairs, and hideously taloned. The eyes, touched in with a
burning yellow, had intensely black pupils, and were fixed upon the
throned king with a look of beast-like hate. Imagine one of the awful
bird-catching spiders of South America translated into human form, and
endowed with intelligence just less than human, and you will have some
faint conception of the terror inspired by the appalling effigy. One
remark is universally made by those to whom I have shown the picture:
"It was drawn from the life."
As soon as the first shock of his irresistible fright had subsided,
Dennistoun stole a look at his hosts. The sacristan's hands were pressed
upon his eyes; his daughter, looking up at the cross on the wall, was
telling her beads feverishly.
At last the question was asked, "Is this book for sale?"
There was the same hesitation, the same plunge of determination, that he
had noticed before, and then came the welcome answer, "If monsieur
pleases."
"How much do you ask for it?"
"I will take two hundred and fifty francs."
This was confounding. Even a collector's conscience is sometimes
stirred, and Dennistoun's conscience was tenderer than a collector's.
"My good man!" he said again and again, "your book is worth far more
than two hundred and fifty francs, I assure you--far more."
But the answer did not vary: "I will take two hundred and fifty francs,
not more."
There was really no possibility of refusing such a chance. The money was
paid, the receipt signed, a glass of wine drunk over the transaction,
and then the sacristan seemed to become a new man. He stood upright, he
ceased to throw those suspicious glances behind him, he actually laughed
or tried to laugh. Dennistoun rose to go.
"I shall have the honor of accompanying monsieur to his hotel?" said the
sacristan.
"Oh no, thanks! it isn't a hundred yards. I know the way perfectly, and
there is a moon."
The offer was pressed three or four times, and refused as often.
"Then, monsieur will summon me if--if he finds occasion; he will keep
the middle of the road, the sides are so rough."
"Certainly, certainly," said Dennistoun, who was impatient to examine
his prize by himself; and he stepped out into the passage with his book
under his arm.
Here he was met by the daughter; she, it appeared, was anxious to do a
little business on her own account; perhaps, like Gehazi, to "take
somewhat" from the foreigner whom her father had spared.
"A silver crucifix and chain for the neck; monsieur would perhaps be
good enough to accept it?"
Well, really, Dennistoun hadn't much use for these things. What did
mademoiselle want for it?
"Nothing--nothing in the world. Monsieur is more than welcome to it."
The tone in which this and much more was said was unmistakably genuine,
so that Dennistoun was reduced to profuse thanks, and submitted to have
the chain put round his neck. It really seemed as if he had rendered the
father and daughter some service which they hardly knew how to repay. As
he set off with his book they stood at the door looking after him, and
they were still looking when he waved them a last good-night from the
steps of the Chapeau Rouge.
Dinner was over, and Dennistoun was in his bedroom, shut up alone with
his acquisition. The landlady had manifested a particular interest in
him since he had told her that he had paid a visit to the sacristan and
bought an old book from him. He thought, too, that he had heard a
hurried dialogue between her and the said sacristan in the passage
outside the _salle à manger_; some words to the effect that "Pierre and
Bertrand would be sleeping in the house" had closed the conversation.
At this time a growing feeling of discomfort had been creeping over
him--nervous reaction, perhaps, after the delight of his discovery.
Whatever it was, it resulted in a conviction that there was some one
behind him, and that he was far more comfortable with his back to the
wall. All this, of course, weighed light in the balance as against the
obvious value of the collection he had acquired. And now, as I said, he
was alone in his bedroom, taking stock of Canon Alberic's treasures, in
which every moment revealed something more charming.
"Bless Canon Alberic!" said Dennistoun, who had an inveterate habit of
talking to himself. "I wonder where he is now? Dear me! I wish that
landlady would learn to laugh in a more cheering manner; it makes one
feel as if there was some one dead in the house. Half a pipe more, did
you say? I think perhaps you are right. I wonder what that crucifix is
that the young woman insisted on giving me? Last century, I suppose.
Yes, probably. It is rather a nuisance of a thing to have round one's
neck--just too heavy. Most likely her father had been wearing it for
years. I think I might give it a clean up before I put it away."
He had taken the crucifix off, and laid it on the table, when his
attention was caught by an object lying on the red cloth just by his
left elbow. Two or three ideas of what it might be flitted through his
brain with their own incalculable quickness.
"A penwiper? No, no such thing in the house. A rat? No, too black. A
large spider? I trust to goodness not--no. Good God! a hand like the
hand in that picture!"
In another infinitesimal flash he had taken it in. Pale, dusky skin,
covering nothing but bones and tendons of appalling strength; coarse
black hairs, longer than ever grew on a human hand; nails rising from
the ends of the fingers and curving sharply down and forward, gray,
horny and wrinkled.
He flew out of his chair with deadly, inconceivable terror clutching at
his heart. The shape, whose left hand rested on the table, was rising to
a standing posture behind his seat, its right hand crooked above his
scalp. There was black and tattered drapery about it; the coarse hair
covered it as in the drawing. The lower jaw was thin--what can I call
it?--shallow, like a beast's; teeth showed behind the black lips; there
was no nose; the eyes, of a fiery yellow, against which the pupils
showed black and intense, and the exulting hate and thirst to destroy
life which shone there, were the most horrifying feature in the whole
vision. There was intelligence of a kind in them--intelligence beyond
that of a beast, below that of a man.
The feelings which this horror stirred in Dennistoun were the intensest
physical fear and the most profound mental loathing. What did he do?
What could he do? He has never been quite certain what words he said,
but he knows that he spoke, that he grasped blindly at the silver
crucifix, that he was conscious of a movement towards him on the part of
the demon, and that he screamed with the voice of an animal in hideous
pain.
Pierre and Bertrand, the two sturdy little serving-men, who rushed in,
saw nothing, but felt themselves thrust aside by something that passed
out between them, and found Dennistoun in a swoon. They sat up with him
that night, and his two friends were at St. Bertrand by nine o'clock
next morning. He himself, though still shaken and nervous, was almost
himself by that time, and his story found credence with them, though not
until they had seen the drawing and talked with the sacristan.
Almost at dawn the little man had come to the inn on some pretense, and
had listened with the deepest interest to the story retailed by the
landlady. He showed no surprise.
"It is he--it is he! I have seen him myself," was his only comment; and
to all questionings but one reply was vouchsafed: "Deux fois je l'ai vu;
mille fois je l'ai senti." He would tell them nothing of the provenance
of the book, nor any details of his experiences. "I shall soon sleep,
and my rest will be sweet. Why should you trouble me?" he said.[B]
We shall never know what he or Canon Alberic de Mauléon suffered. At the
back of that fateful drawing were some lines of writing which may be
supposed to throw light on the situation:
"Contradictio Salomonis cum demonio nocturno.
Albericus de Mauleone delineavit.
V. Deus in adiutorium. Ps. Qui habitat.
Sancte Bertrande, demoniorum effugator, intercede pro me miserrimo.
Primum uidi nocte 12^{mi} Dec. 1694: uidebo mox ultimum.
Peccaui et passus sum, plura adhuc passurus. Dec. 29, 1701."[C]
I have never quite understood what was Dennistoun's view of the events
I have narrated. He quoted to me once a test from Ecclesiasticus: "Some
spirits there be that are created for vengeance, and in their fury lay
on sore strokes." On another occasion he said: "Isaiah was a very
sensible man; doesn't he say something about night monsters living in
the ruins of Babylon? These things are rather beyond us at present."
Another confidence of his impressed me rather, and I sympathized with
it. We had been, last year, to Comminges, to see Canon Alberic's tomb.
It is a great marble erection with an effigy of the Canon in a large wig
and soutane, and an elaborate eulogy of his learning below. I saw
Dennistoun talking for some time with the Vicar of St. Bertrand's, and
as we drove away he said to me: "I hope it isn't wrong: you know I am a
Presbyterian--but I--I believe there will be 'saying of Mass and singing
of dirges' for Alberic de Mauléon's rest." Then he added, with a touch
of the Northern British in his tone, "I had no notion they came so
dear."
* * * * *
The book is in the Wentworth Collection at Cambridge. The drawing was
photographed and then burnt by Dennistoun on the day when he left
Comminges on the occasion of his first visit.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] We now know that these leaves did contain a considerable fragment of
that work, if not of that actual copy of it.
[B] He died that summer; his daughter married, and settled at St.
Papoul. She never understood the circumstances of her father's
"obsession."
[C] _I.e._, The Dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night. Drawn by
Alberic de Mauléon. _Versicle._ O Lord, make haste to help me. _Psalm._
Whoso dwelleth (xci.).
Saint Bertrand, who puttest devils to flight, pray for me most unhappy.
I saw it first on the night of Dec. 12, 1694: soon I shall see it for
the last time. I have sinned and suffered, and have more to suffer yet.
Dec. 29, 1701.
The "Gallia Christiana" gives the date of the Canon's death as December
31, 1701, "in bed, of a sudden seizure." Details of this kind are not
common in the great work of the Sammarthani.
THE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS
OR,
THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN
BY EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
A friend of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said to me
one day, as if between jest and earnest,--"Fancy! since we last met, I
have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London."
"Really haunted?--and by what? ghosts?"
"Well, I can't answer that question: all I know is this--six weeks ago
my wife and I were in search of a furnished apartment. Passing a quiet
street, we saw on the window of one of the houses a bill, 'Apartments
Furnished.' The situation suited us; we entered the house--liked the
rooms--engaged them by the week--and left them the third day. No power
on earth could have reconciled my wife to stay longer; and I don't
wonder at it."
"What did you see?"
"Excuse me--I have no desire to be ridiculed as a superstitious
dreamer--nor, on the other hand, could I ask you to accept on my
affirmation what you would hold to be incredible without the evidence of
your own senses. Let me only say this, it was not so much what we saw or
heard (in which you might fairly suppose that we were the dupes of our
own excited fancy, or the victims of imposture in others) that drove us
away, as it was an undefinable terror which seized both of us whenever
we passed by the door of a certain unfurnished room, in which we neither
saw nor heard anything. And the strangest marvel of all was, that for
once in my life I agreed with my wife, silly woman though she be--and
allowed, after the third night, that it was impossible to stay a fourth
in that house. Accordingly, on the fourth morning I summoned the woman
who kept the house and attended on us, and told her that the rooms did
not quite suit us, and we would not stay out our week. She said, dryly,
'I know why: you have stayed longer than any other lodger. Few ever
stayed a second night; none before you a third. But I take it they have
been very kind to you.'
"'They--who?' I asked, affecting to smile.
"'Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are. I don't mind them;
I remember them many years ago, when I lived in this house, not as a
servant; but I know they will be the death of me some day. I don't
care--I'm old, and must die soon anyhow; and then I shall be with them,
and in this house still.' The woman spoke with so dreary a calmness,
that really it was a sort of awe that prevented my conversing with her
further. I paid for my week, and too happy were my wife and I to get off
so cheaply."
"You excite my curiosity," said I; "nothing I should like better than to
sleep in a haunted house. Pray give me the address of the one which you
left so ignominiously."
My friend gave me the address; and when we parted, I walked straight
towards the house thus indicated.
It is situated on the North side of Oxford Street (in a dull but
respectable thoroughfare). I found the house shut up--no bill at the
window, and no response to my knock. As I was turning away, a beer-boy,
collecting pewter pots at the neighboring areas, said to me, "Do you
want any one at that house, sir?"
"Yes, I heard it was to be let."
"Let!--why, the woman who kept it is dead--has been dead these three
weeks, and no one can be found to stay there, though Mr. J---- offered
ever so much. He offered mother, who chars for him, £1 a week just to
open and shut the windows, and she would not."
"Would not!--and why?"
"The house is haunted: and the old woman who kept it was found dead in
her bed, with her eyes wide open. They say the devil strangled her."
"Pooh!--you speak of Mr. J----. Is he the owner of the house?"
"Yes."
"Where does he live?"
"In G---- Street, No. --."
"What is he?--in any business?"
"No, sir--nothing particular; a single gentleman."
I gave the pot-boy the gratuity earned by his liberal information, and
proceeded to Mr. J----, in G---- Street, which was close by the street
that boasted the haunted house. I was lucky enough to find Mr. J---- at
home--an elderly man, with intelligent countenance and prepossessing
manners.
I communicated my name and my business frankly. I said I heard the house
was considered to be haunted--that I had a strong desire to examine a
house with so equivocal a reputation--that I should be greatly obliged
if he would allow me to hire it, though only for a night. I was willing
to pay for that privilege whatever he might be inclined to ask. "Sir,"
said Mr. J----, with great courtesy, "the house is at your service, for
as short or as long a time as you please. Rent is out of the
question--the obligation will be on my side should you be able to
discover the cause of the strange phenomena which at present deprive it
of all value. I cannot let it, for I cannot even get a servant to keep
it in order or answer the door. Unluckily the house is haunted, if I may
use that expression, not only by night, but by day; though at night the
disturbances are of a more unpleasant and sometimes of a more alarming
character. The poor old woman who died in it three weeks ago was a
pauper whom I took out of a workhouse, for in her childhood she had been
known to some of my family, and had once been in such good circumstances
that she had rented that house of my uncle. She was a woman of superior
education and strong mind, and was the only person I could ever induce
to remain in the house. Indeed, since her death, which was sudden, and
the coroner's inquest, which gave it a notoriety in the neighborhood,
I have so despaired of finding any person to take charge of the house,
much more a tenant, that I would willingly let it rent-free for a year
to any one who would pay its rates and taxes."
"How long is it since the house acquired this sinister character?"
"That I can scarcely tell you, but very many years since. The old woman
I spoke of said it was haunted when she rented it between thirty and
forty years ago. The fact is, that my life has been spent in the East
Indies, and in the civil service of the Company. I returned to England
last year, on inheriting the fortune of an uncle, among whose
possessions was the house in question. I found it shut up and
uninhabited. I was told that it was haunted, that no one would inhabit
it. I smiled at what seemed to me so idle a story. I spent some money in
repairing it--added to its old-fashioned furniture a few modern
articles--advertised it, and obtained a lodger for a year. He was a
colonel retired on half-pay. He came in with his family, a son and a
daughter, and four or five servants: they all left the house the next
day; and, although each of them declared that he had seen something
different from that which had scared the others, a something still was
equally terrible to all. I really could not in conscience sue, nor even
blame, the colonel for breach of agreement. Then I put in the old woman
I have spoken of, and she was empowered to let the house in apartments.
I never had one lodger who stayed more than three days. I do not tell
you their stories--to no two lodgers have there been exactly the same
phenomena repeated. It is better that you should judge for yourself,
than enter the house with an imagination influenced by previous
narratives; only be prepared to see and to hear something or other, and
take whatever precautions you yourself please."
"Have you never had a curiosity yourself to pass a night in that house?"
"Yes. I passed not a night, but three hours in broad daylight alone in
that house. My curiosity is not satisfied but it is quenched. I have no
desire to renew the experiment. You cannot complain, you see, sir, that
I am not sufficiently candid; and unless your interest be exceedingly
eager and your nerves unusually strong, I honestly add, that I advise
you not to pass a night in that house."
"My interest _is_ exceedingly keen," said I, "and though only a coward
will boast of his nerves in situations wholly unfamiliar to him, yet my
nerves have been seasoned in such variety of danger that I have the
right to rely on them--even in a haunted house."
Mr. J---- said very little more; he took the keys of the house out of
his bureau, gave them to me--and, thanking him cordially for his
frankness, and his urbane concession to my wish, I carried off my prize.
Impatient for the experiment, as soon as I reached home, I summoned my
confidential servant--a young man of gay spirits, fearless temper, and
as free from superstitious prejudices as any one I could think of.
"F----," said I, "you remember in Germany how disappointed we were at
not finding a ghost in that old castle, which was said to be haunted by
a headless apparition? Well, I have heard of a house in London which,
I have reason to hope, is decidedly haunted. I mean to sleep there
to-night. From what I hear, there is no doubt that something will allow
itself to be seen or to be heard--something, perhaps, excessively
horrible. Do you think if I take you with me, I may rely on your
presence of mind, whatever may happen?"
"Oh, sir! pray trust me," answered F----, grinning with delight.
"Very well; then here are the keys of the house--this is the address. Go
now--select for me any bedroom you please; and since the house has not
been inhabited for weeks, make up a good fire--air the bed well--see, of
course, that there are candles as well as fuel. Take with you my
revolver and my dagger--so much for my weapons--arm yourself equally
well; and if we are not a match for a dozen ghosts, we shall be but a
sorry couple of Englishmen."
I was engaged for the rest of the day on business so urgent that I had
not leisure to think much on the nocturnal adventure to which I had
plighted my honor. I dined alone, and very late, and while dining, read,
as is my habit. I selected one of the volumes of Macaulay's Essays.
I thought to myself that I would take the book with me; there was so
much of the healthfulness in the style, and practical life in the
subjects, that it would serve as an antidote against the influence of
superstitious fancy.
Accordingly, about half-past nine, I put the book into my pocket, and
strolled leisurely towards the haunted house. I took with me a favorite
dog--an exceedingly sharp, bold and vigilant bull-terrier--a dog fond of
prowling about strange ghostly corners and passages at night in search
of rats--a dog of dogs for a ghost.
It was a summer night, but chilly, the sky somewhat gloomy and overcast.
Still there was a moon--faint and sickly, but still a moon--and if the
clouds permitted, after midnight it would be brighter.
I reached the house, knocked, and my servant opened with a cheerful
smile.
"All right, sir, and very comfortable."
"Oh!" said I, rather disappointed; "have you not seen nor heard anything
remarkable?"
"Well, sir, I must own I have heard something queer."
"What?--what?"
"The sound of feet pattering behind me; and once or twice small noises
like whispers close at my ear--nothing more."
"You are not at all frightened?"
"I! not a bit of it, sir," and the man's bold look reassured me on one
point--viz., that happen what might, he would not desert me.
We were in the hall, the street-door closed, and my attention was now
drawn to my dog. He had at first run in eagerly enough, but had sneaked
back to the door, and was scratching and whining to get out. After
patting him on the head, and encouraging him gently, the dog seemed to
reconcile himself to the situation, and followed me and F---- through
the house, but keeping close at my heels instead of hurrying
inquisitively in advance, which was his usual and normal habit in all
strange places. We first visited the subterranean apartments, the
kitchen and other offices, and especially the cellars, in which last
there were two or three bottles of wine still left in a bin, covered
with cobwebs, and evidently, by their appearance, undisturbed for many
years. It was clear that the ghosts were not wine-bibbers. For the rest
we discovered nothing of interest. There was a gloomy little backyard
with very high walls. The stones of this yard were very damp; and what
with the damp, and what with the dust and smoke-grime on the pavement,
our feet left a slight impression where we passed.
And now appeared the first strange phenomenon witnessed by myself in
this strange abode. I saw, just before me, the print of a foot suddenly
form itself, as it were. I stopped, caught hold of my servant, and
pointed to it. In advance of that footprint as suddenly dropped another.
We both saw it. I advanced quickly to the place; the footprint kept
advancing before me, a small footprint--the foot of a child; the
impression was too faint thoroughly to distinguish the shape, but it
seemed to us both that it was the print of a naked foot. This phenomenon
ceased when we arrived at the opposite wall, nor did it repeat itself on
returning. We remounted the stairs, and entered the rooms on the ground
floor, a dining-parlor, a small back parlor, and a still smaller third
room that had been probably appropriated to a footman--all still as
death. We then visited the drawing-rooms, which seemed fresh and new. In
the front room I seated myself in an armchair. F---- placed on the table
the candlestick with which he had lighted us. I told him to shut the
door. As he turned to do so, a chair opposite to me moved from the wall
quickly and noiselessly, and dropped itself about a yard from my own
chair, immediately fronting it.
"Why, this is better than the turning tables," said I, with a
half-laugh; and as I laughed, my dog put back his head and howled.
F----, coming back, had not observed the movement of the chair. He
employed himself now in stilling the dog. I continued to gaze on the
chair, and fancied I saw on it a pale blue misty outline of a human
figure, but an outline so indistinct that I could only distrust my own
vision. The dog now was quiet.
"Put back that chair opposite me," said I to F----; "put it back to the
wall."
F---- obeyed. "Was that you, sir?" said he, turning abruptly.
"I!--what?"
"Why, something struck me. I felt it sharply on the shoulder--just
here."
"No," said I. "But we have jugglers present, and though we may not
discover their tricks, we shall catch _them_ before they frighten _us_."
We did not stay long in the drawing-rooms--in fact, they felt so damp
and so chilly that I was glad to get to the fire upstairs. We locked the
doors of the drawing-rooms--a precaution which, I should observe, we had
taken with all the rooms we had searched below. The bedroom my servant
had selected for me was the best on the floor--a large one, with two
windows fronting the street. The four-posted bed, which took up no
inconsiderable space, was opposite to the fire, which burnt clear and
bright; a door in the wall to the left, between the bed and the window,
communicated with the room which my servant appropriated to himself.
This last was a small room with a sofa-bed, and had no communication
with the landing-place--no other door but that which conducted to the
bedroom I was to occupy. On either side of my fireplace was a cupboard,
without locks, flush with the wall and covered with the same dull-brown
paper. We examined these cupboards--only hooks to suspend female
dresses--nothing else; we sounded the walls--evidently solid--the outer
walls of the building. Having finished the survey of these apartments,
warmed myself a few moments, and lighted my cigar, I then, still
accompanied by F----, went forth to complete my reconnoiter. In the
landing-place there was another door; it was closed firmly. "Sir," said
my servant, in surprise, "I unlocked this door with all the others when
I first came; it cannot have got locked from the inside, for----"
Before he had finished his sentence, the door, which neither of us then
was touching, opened quietly of itself. We looked at each other a single
instant. The same thought seized both--some human agency might be
detected here. I rushed in first, my servant followed. A small blank
dreary room without furniture--few empty boxes and hampers in a
corner--a small window--the shutters closed--not even a fireplace--no
other door than that by which we had entered--no carpet on the floor,
and the floor seemed very old, uneven, worm-eaten, mended here and
there, as was shown by the whiter patches on the wood; but no living
being, and no visible place in which a living being could have hidden.
As we stood gazing round, the door by which we had entered closed as
quietly as it had before opened: we were imprisoned.
For the first time I felt a creep of undefinable horror. Not so my
servant. "Why, they don't think to trap us, sir; I could break the
trumpery door with a kick of my foot."
"Try first if it will open to your hand," said I, shaking off the vague
apprehension that had seized me, "while I unclose the shutters and see
what is without."
I unbarred the shutters--the window looked on the little back yard I
have before described; there was no ledge without--nothing to break the
sheer descent of the wall. No man getting out of that window would have
found any footing till he had fallen on the stones below.
F----, meanwhile, was vainly attempting to open the door. He now turned
round to me and asked my permission to use force. And I should here
state, in justice to the servant, that, far from evincing any
superstitious terrors, his nerve, composure, and even gayety amidst
circumstances so extraordinary, compelled my admiration, and made me
congratulate myself on having secured a companion in every way fitted to
the occasion. I willingly gave him the permission he required. But
though he was a remarkably strong man, his force was as idle as his
milder efforts; the door did not even shake to his stoutest kick.
Breathless and panting, he desisted. I then tried the door myself,
equally in vain. As I ceased from the effort, again that creep of horror
came over me; but this time it was more cold and stubborn. I felt as if
some strange and ghastly exhalation were rising up from the chinks of
that rugged floor, and filling the atmosphere with a venomous influence
hostile to human life. The door now very slowly and quietly opened as
of its own accord. We precipitated ourselves into the landing-place. We
both saw a large pale light--as large as the human figure but shapeless
and unsubstantial--move before us, and ascend the stairs that led from
the landing into the attics. I followed the light, and my servant
followed me. It entered, to the right of the landing, a small garret, of
which the door stood open. I entered in the same instant. The light then
collapsed into a small globule, exceedingly brilliant and vivid; rested
a moment on a bed in the corner, quivered, and vanished.
We approached the bed and examined it--a half-tester, such as is
commonly found in attics devoted to servants. On the drawers that stood
near it we perceived an old faded silk kerchief, with the needle still
left in a rent half repaired. The kerchief was covered with dust;
probably it had belonged to the old woman who had last died in that
house, and this might have been her sleeping room. I had sufficient
curiosity to open the drawers: there were a few odds and ends of female
dress, and two letters tied round with a narrow ribbon of faded yellow.
I took the liberty to possess myself of the letters. We found nothing
else in the room worth noticing--nor did the light reappear; but we
distinctly heard, as we turned to go, a pattering footfall on the
floor--just before us. We went through the other attics (in all four),
the footfall still preceding us. Nothing to be seen--nothing but the
footfall heard. I had the letters in my hand: just as I was descending
the stairs I distinctly felt my wrist seized, and a faint soft effort
made to draw the letters from my clasp. I only held them the more
tightly, and the effort ceased.
We regained the bedchamber appropriated to myself, and I then remarked
that my dog had not followed us when we had left it. He was thrusting
himself close to the fire, and trembling. I was impatient to examine the
letters; and while I read them, my servant opened a little box in which
he had deposited the weapons I had ordered him to bring; took them out,
placed them on a table close at my bed-head, and then occupied himself
in soothing the dog, who, however, seemed to heed him very little.
The letters were short--they were dated; the dates exactly thirty-five
years ago. They were evidently from a lover to his mistress, or a
husband to some young wife. Not only the terms of expression, but a
distinct reference to a former voyage, indicated the writer to have been
a seafarer. The spelling and handwriting were those of a man imperfectly
educated, but still the language itself was forcible. In the expressions
of endearment there was a kind of rough wild love; but here and there
were dark and unintelligible hints at some secret not of love--some
secret that seemed of crime. "We ought to love each other," was one of
the sentences I remember, "for how every one else would execrate us if
all was known." Again: "Don't let any one be in the same room with you
at night--you talk in your sleep." And again: "What's done can't be
undone; and I tell you there's nothing against us unless the dead could
come to life." Here there was underlined in a better handwriting (a
female's), "They do!" At the end of the letter latest in date the same
female hand had written these words: "Lost at sea the 4th of June, the
same day as ----."
I put down the letters, and began to muse over their contents.
Fearing, however, that the train of thought into which I fell might
unsteady my nerves, I fully determined to keep my mind in a fit state to
cope with whatever of marvelous the advancing night might bring forth.
I roused myself--laid the letters on the table--stirred up the fire,
which was still bright and cheering--and opened my volume of Macaulay.
I read quietly enough till about half-past eleven. I then threw myself
dressed upon the bed, and told my servant he might retire to his own
room, but must keep himself awake. I bade him leave open the door between
the two rooms. Thus alone, I kept two candles burning on the table by my
bed-head. I placed my watch beside the weapons, and calmly resumed my
Macaulay. Opposite to me the fire burned clear; and on the hearthrug,
seemingly asleep, lay the dog. In about twenty minutes I felt an
exceedingly cold air pass by my cheek, like a sudden draught. I fancied
the door to my right, communicating with the landing-place, must have
got open; but no--it was closed. I then turned my glance to my left, and
saw the flame of the candles violently swayed as by a wind. At the same
moment the watch beside the revolver softly slid from the table--softly,
softly--no visible hand--it was gone. I sprang up, seizing the revolver
with the one hand, the dagger with other: I was not willing that my
weapons should share the fate of the watch. Thus armed, I looked round
the floor--no sign of the watch. Three slow, loud, distinct knocks were
now heard at the bed-head; my servant called out, "Is that you, sir?"
"No; be on your guard."
The dog now roused himself and sat on his haunches, his ears moving
quickly backwards and forwards. He kept his eyes fixed on me with a look
so strange that he concentered all my attention on himself. Slowly he
rose up, all his hair bristling, and stood perfectly rigid, and with the
same wild stare. I had no time, however, to examine the dog. Presently
my servant emerged from his room; and if ever I saw horror in the human
face, it was then. I should not have recognized him had we met in the
street, so altered was every lineament. He passed by me quickly, saying
in a whisper that seemed scarcely to come from his lips, "Run--run! it
is after me!" He gained the door to the landing, pulled it open, and
rushed forth. I followed him into the landing involuntarily, calling him
to stop; but, without heeding me, he bounded down the stairs, clinging
to the balusters, and taking several steps at a time. I heard, where I
stood, the street-door open--heard it again clap to. I was left alone in
the haunted house.
It was but for a moment that I remained undecided whether or not to
follow my servant; pride and curiosity alike forbade so dastardly a
flight. I re-entered my room, closing the door after me, and proceeded
cautiously into the interior chamber. I encountered nothing to justify
my servant's terror. I again carefully examined the walls, to see if
there were any concealed door. I could find no trace of one--not even a
seam in the dull-brown paper with which the room was hung. How, then,
had the THING, whatever it was, which had so scared him, obtained
ingress except through my own chamber?
I returned to my room, shut and locked the door that opened upon the
interior one, and stood on the hearth, expectant and prepared. I now
perceived that the dog had slunk into an angle of the wall, and was
pressing himself close against it, as if literally striving to force his
way into it. I approached the animal and spoke to it; the poor brute was
evidently beside itself with terror. It showed all its teeth, the slaver
dropping from its jaws, and would certainly have bitten me if I had
touched it. It did not seem to recognize me. Whoever has seen at the
Zoological Gardens a rabbit fascinated by a serpent, cowering in a
corner, may form some idea of the anguish which the dog exhibited.
Finding all efforts to soothe the animal in vain, and fearing that his
bite might be as venomous in that state as in the madness of
hydrophobia, I left him alone, placed my weapons on the table beside the
fire, seated myself, and recommenced my Macaulay.
Perhaps, in order not to appear seeking credit for a courage, or rather
a coolness, which the reader may conceive I exaggerate, I may be
pardoned if I pause to indulge in one or two egotistical remarks.
As I hold presence of mind, or what is called courage, to be precisely
proportioned to familiarity with the circumstances that lead to it, so I
should say that I had been long sufficiently familiar with all
experiments that appertain to the Marvelous. I had witnessed many very
extraordinary phenomena in various parts of the world--phenomena that
would be either totally disbelieved if I stated them, or ascribed to
supernatural agencies. Now, my theory is that the Supernatural is the
Impossible, and that what is called supernatural is only a something in
the laws of nature of which we have been hitherto ignorant. Therefore,
if a ghost rise before me, I have not the right to say, "So, then, the
supernatural is possible," but rather, "So, then, the apparition of a
ghost is, contrary to received opinion, within the laws of
nature--_i.e._, not supernatural."
Now, in all that I had hitherto witnessed, and indeed in all the wonders
which the amateurs of mystery in our age record as facts, a material
living agency is always required. On the continent you will find still
magicians who assert that they can raise spirits. Assume for the moment
that they assert truly, still the living material form of the magician
is present; and he is the material agency by which, from some
constitutional peculiarities, certain strange phenomena are represented
to your natural senses.
Accept, again, as truthful, the tales of spirit Manifestation in
America--musical or other sounds--writings on paper, produced by no
discernible hand--articles of furniture moved without apparent human
agency--or the actual sight and touch of hands, to which no bodies seem
to belong--still there must be found the MEDIUM or living being, with
constitutional peculiarities capable of obtaining these signs. In fine,
in all such marvels, supposing even that there is no imposture, there
must be a human being like ourselves by whom, or through whom, the
effects presented to human beings are produced. It is so with the now
familiar phenomena of mesmerism or electro-biology; the mind of the
person operated on is affected through a material living agent. Nor,
supposing it true that a mesmerized patient can respond to the will or
passes of a mesmerizer a hundred miles distant, is the response less
occasioned by a material fluid--call it Electric, call it Odic, call it
what you will--which has the power of traversing space and passing
obstacles, that the material effect is communicated from one to the
other. Hence all that I had hitherto witnessed, or expected to witness,
in this strange house, I believed to be occasioned through some agency
or medium as mortal as myself: and this idea necessarily prevented the
awe with which those who regard as supernatural, things that are not
within the ordinary operations of nature, might have been impressed by
the adventures of that memorable night.
As, then, it was my conjecture that all that was presented, or would be
presented to my senses, must originate in some human being gifted by
constitution with the power so to present them, and having some motive
so to do, I felt an interest in my theory which, in its way, was rather
philosophical than superstitious. And I can sincerely say that I was in
as tranquil a temper for observation as any practical experimentalist
could be in awaiting the effect of some rare, though perhaps perilous,
chemical combination. Of course, the more I kept my mind detached from
fancy, the more the temper fitted for observation would be obtained; and
I therefore riveted eye and thought on the strong daylight sense in the
page of my Macaulay.
I now became aware that something interposed between the page and the
light--the page was over-shadowed: I looked up, and I saw what I shall
find it very difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe.
It was a Darkness shaping itself forth from the air in very undefined
outline. I cannot say it was of a human form, and yet it had more
resemblance to a human form, or rather shadow, than to anything else. As
it stood, wholly apart and distinct from the air and the light around
it, its dimensions seemed gigantic, the summit nearly touching the
ceiling. While I gazed, a feeling of intense cold seized me. An iceberg
before me could not more have chilled me; nor could the cold of an
iceberg have been more purely physical. I feel convinced that it was not
the cold caused by fear. As I continued to gaze, I thought--but this I
cannot say with precision--that I distinguished two eyes looking down on
me from the height. One moment I fancied that I distinguished them
clearly, the next they seemed gone; but still two rays of a pale-blue
light frequently shot through the darkness, as from the height on which
I half believed, half doubted, that I had encountered the eyes.
I strove to speak--my voice utterly failed me; I could only think
to myself, "is this fear? it is _not_ fear!" I strove to rise--in
vain; I felt as if weighed down by an irresistible force. Indeed, my
impression was that of an immense and overwhelming Power opposed to any
volition;--that sense of utter inadequacy to cope with a force beyond
man's, which one may feel _physically_ in a storm at sea, in a
conflagration, or when confronting some terrible wild beast, or rather,
perhaps, the shark of the ocean, I felt _morally_. Opposed to my will
was another will, as far superior to its strength as storm, fire, and
shark are superior in material force to the force of man.
And now, as this impression grew on me--now came, at last,
horror--horror to a degree that no words can convey. Still I retained
pride, if not courage; and in my own mind I said, "This is horror, but
it is not fear; unless I fear I cannot be harmed; my reason rejects this
thing, it is an illusion--I do not fear." With a violent effort I
succeeded at last in stretching out my hand towards the weapon on the
table: as I did so, on the arm and shoulder I received a strange shock,
and my arm fell to my side powerless. And now, to add to my horror, the
light began slowly to wane from the candles, they were not, as it were,
extinguished, but their flame seemed very gradually withdrawn: it was
the same with the fire--the light was extracted from the fuel; in a few
minutes the room was in utter darkness.
The dread that came over me, to be thus in the dark with that dark
Thing, whose power was so intensely felt, brought a reaction of nerve.
In fact, terror had reached that climax, that either my senses must have
deserted me, or I must have burst through the spell. I did burst through
it. I found voice, though the voice was a shriek. I remember that I
broke forth with words like these--"I do not fear, my soul does not
fear"; and at the same time I found the strength to rise. Still in that
profound gloom I rushed to one of the windows--tore aside the
curtain--flung open the shutters; my first thought was--LIGHT.--And when
I saw the moon high, clear, and calm, I felt a joy that almost
compensated for the previous terror. There was the moon, there was also
the light from the gas-lamps in the deserted slumberous street. I turned
to look back into the room; the moon penetrated its shadow very palely
and partially--but still there was light. The dark Thing, whatever it
might be, was gone--except that I could yet see a dim shadow, which
seemed the shadow of that shade, against the opposite wall.
My eye now rested on the table, and from under the table (which was
without cloth or cover--an old mahogany round table) there rose a hand,
visible as far as the wrist. It was a hand, seemingly, as much of flesh
and blood as my own, but the hand of an aged person--lean, wrinkled,
small, too--a woman's hand. That hand very softly closed on the two
letters that lay on the table: hand and letters both vanished.
There then came the same three loud measured knocks I heard at the
bed-head before this extraordinary drama had commenced.
As those sounds slowly ceased, I felt the whole room vibrate sensibly;
and at the far end there rose, as from the floor, sparks or globules
like bubbles of light, many-colored--green, yellow, fire-red, azure. Up
and down, to and fro, hither, thither, as tiny Will-o'-the-Wisps the
sparks moved, slow or swift, each at his own caprice. A chair (as in the
drawing-room below) was now advanced from the wall without apparent
agency, and placed at the opposite side of the table. Suddenly as forth
from the chair, there grew a shape--a woman's shape. It was distinct as
a shape of life--ghastly as a shape of death. The face was that of
youth, with a strange mournful beauty: the throat and shoulders were
bare, the rest of the form in a loose robe of cloudy white. It began
sleeking its long yellow hair, which fell over its shoulders; its eyes
were not turned towards me, but to the door; it seemed listening,
watching, waiting. The shadow of the shade in the background grew
darker; and again I thought I beheld the eyes gleaming out from the
summit of the shadow--eyes fixed upon that shape.
As if from the door, though it did not open, there grew out another
shape, equally distinct, equally ghastly--a man's shape--a young man's.
It was in the dress of the last century, or rather in a likeness of such
dress (for both the male shape and the female, though defined, were
evidently unsubstantial, impalpable--simulacra--phantasms); and there
was something incongruous, grotesque, yet fearful, in the contrast
between the elaborate finery, the courtly precision of that
old-fashioned garb, with its ruffles and lace and buckles, and the
corpse-like aspect and ghost-like stillness of the flitting wearer. Just
as the male shape approached the female, the dark shadow started from
the wall, all three for a moment wrapped in darkness. When the pale
light returned, the two phantoms were as in the grasp of the shadow that
towered between them; and there was a blood-stain on the breast of the
female; and the phantom male was leaning on its phantom sword, and blood
seemed trickling fast from the ruffles, from the lace; and the darkness
of the intermediate Shadow swallowed them up--they were gone. And again
the bubbles of light shot, and sailed, and undulated, growing thicker
and thicker and more wildly confused in their movements.
The closet door to the right of the fireplace now opened, and from the
aperture there came the form of an aged woman. In her hand she held
letters,--the very letters over which I had seen _the_ Hand close; and
behind her I heard a footstep. She turned round as if to listen, and
then she opened the letters and seemed to read; and over her shoulder I
saw a livid face, the face as of a man long drowned--bloated, bleached,
seaweed tangled in its dripping hair; and at her feet lay a form as of a
corpse, and beside the corpse there cowered a child, a miserable squalid
child, with famine in its cheeks and fear in its eyes. And as I looked
in the old woman's face, the wrinkles and lines vanished and it became a
face of youth--hard-eyed, stony, but still youth; and the Shadow darted
forth, and darkened over these phantoms as it had darkened over the
last.
Nothing now was left but the Shadow, and on that my eyes were intently
fixed, till again eyes grew out of the Shadow--malignant, serpent eyes.
And the bubbles of light again rose and fell, and in their disorder,
irregular, turbulent maze, mingled with the wan moonlight. And now from
these globules themselves, as from the shell of an egg, monstrous things
burst out; the air grew filled with them; larvæ so bloodless and so
hideous that I can in no way describe them except to remind the reader
of the swarming life which the solar microscope brings before his eyes
in a drop of water--things transparent, supple, agile, chasing each
other, devouring each other--forms like nought ever beheld by the naked
eye. As the shapes were without symmetry, so their movements were
without order. In their very vagrancies there was no sport; they came
round me and round, thicker and faster and swifter, swarming over my
head, crawling over my right arm, which was outstretched in involuntary
command against all evil beings. Sometimes I felt myself touched, but
not by them; invisible hands touched me. Once I felt the clutch as of
cold soft fingers at my throat. I was still equally conscious that if I
gave way to fear I should be in bodily peril; and I concentrated all my
faculties in the single focus of resisting, stubborn will. And I turned
my sight from the Shadow--above all, from those strange serpent
eyes--eyes that had now become distinctly visible. For there, though in
nought else round me, I was aware that there was a WILL, and a will of
intense, creative, working evil, which might crush down my own.
The pale atmosphere in the room began now to redden as if in the air of
some near conflagration. The larvæ grew lurid as things that live in
fire. Again the room vibrated; again were heard the three measured
knocks; and again all things were swallowed up in the darkness of the
dark Shadow, as if out of that darkness all had come, into that darkness
all returned.
As the gloom receded, the Shadow was wholly gone. Slowly as it had been
withdrawn, the flame grew again into the candles on the table, again
into the fuel in the grate. The whole room came once more calmly,
healthfully into sight.
The two doors were still closed, the door communicating with the
servant's room still locked. In the corner of the wall into which he had
so convulsively niched himself, lay the dog. I called to him--no
movement; I approached--the animal was dead; his eyes protruded; his
tongue out of his mouth; the froth gathered round his jaws. I took him
in my arms; I brought him to the fire, I felt acute grief for the loss
of my poor favorite--acute self-reproach; I accused myself of his death;
I imagined he had died of fright. But what was my surprise on finding
that his neck was actually broken. Had this been done in the dark?--must
it not have been by a hand human as mine?--must there not have been
a human agency all the while in that room? Good cause to suspect it.
I cannot tell. I cannot do more than state the fact fairly; the reader
may draw his own inference.
Another surprising circumstance--my watch was restored to the table from
which it had been so mysteriously withdrawn; but it had stopped at the
very moment it was so withdrawn; nor, despite all the skill of the
watchmaker, has it ever gone since--that is, it will go in a strange
erratic way for a few hours, and then come to a dead stop--it is
worthless.
Nothing more chanced for the rest of the night. Nor, indeed, had I long
to wait before the dawn broke. Nor till it was broad daylight did I quit
the haunted house. Before I did so, I revisited the little blind room in
which my servant and myself had been for a time imprisoned. I had a
strong impression--for which I could not account--that from that room
had originated the mechanism of the phenomena--if I may use the
term--which had been experienced in my chamber. And though I entered it
now in the clear day, with the sun peering through the filmy window I
still felt, as I stood on its floor, the creep of the horror which I had
first there experienced the night before, and which had been so
aggravated by what had passed in my own chamber. I could not, indeed,
bear to stay more than half a minute within those walls. I descended the
stairs, and again I heard the footfall before me; and when I opened the
street door, I thought I could distinguish a very low laugh. I gained my
own home, expecting to find my runaway servant there. But he had not
presented himself; nor did I hear more of him for three days, when I
received a letter from him, dated from Liverpool to this effect:--
"HONORED SIR,--I humbly entreat your pardon,
though I can scarcely hope that you will think I
deserve it, unless--which Heaven forbid--you saw
what I did. I feel that it will be years before
I can recover myself: and as to being fit for
service, it is out of the question. I am therefore
going to my brother-in-law at Melbourne. The ship
sails to-morrow. Perhaps the long voyage may set
me up. I do nothing now but start and tremble, and
fancy IT is behind me. I humbly beg you, honored
sir, to order my clothes, and whatever wages are
due to me, to be sent to my mother's, at
Walworth.--John knows her address."
The letter ended with additional apologies, somewhat incoherent, and
explanatory details as to effects that had been under the writer's
charge.
This flight may perhaps warrant a suspicion that the man wished to go to
Australia, and had been somehow or other fraudulently mixed up with the
events of the night. I say nothing in refutation of that conjecture;
rather, I suggest it as one that would seem to many persons the most
probable solution of improbable occurrences. My belief in my own theory
remained unshaken. I returned in the evening to the house, to bring away
in a hack cab the things I had left there, with my poor dog's body. In
this task I was not disturbed, nor did any incident worth note befall
me, except that still, on ascending and descending the stairs, I heard
the same footfall in advance. On leaving the house, I went to Mr. J.'s.
He was at home. I returned him the keys, told him that my curiosity was
sufficiently gratified, and was about to relate quickly what had passed,
when he stopped me, and said, though with much politeness, that he had
no longer any interest in a mystery which none had ever solved.
I determined at least to tell him of the two letters I had read, as well
as of the extraordinary manner in which they had disappeared, and I then
inquired if he thought they had been addressed to the woman who had died
in the house, and if there were anything in her early history which
could possibly confirm the dark suspicions to which the letters gave
rise. Mr. J---- seemed startled, and, after musing a few moments,
answered, "I am but little acquainted with the woman's earlier history,
except, as I before told you, that her family were known to mine. But
you revive some vague reminiscences to her prejudice. I will make
inquiries, and inform you of their result. Still, even if we could admit
the popular superstition that a person who had been either the
perpetrator or the victim of dark crimes in life could revisit, as a
restless spirit, the scene in which those crimes had been committed, I
should observe that the house was infested by strange sights and sounds
before the old woman died--you smile--what would you say?"
"I would say this, that I am convinced, if we could get to the bottom of
these mysteries, we should find a living human agency."
"What! you believe it is all an imposture? for what object?"
"Not an imposture in the ordinary sense of the word. If suddenly I were
to sink into a deep sleep, from which you could not awake me, but in
that sleep could answer questions with an accuracy which I could not
pretend to when awake--tell you what money you had in your pocket--nay,
describe your very thoughts--it is not necessarily an imposture, any
more than it is necessarily supernatural. I should be, unconsciously to
myself, under a mesmeric influence, conveyed to me from a distance by a
human being who had acquired power over me by previous _rapport_."
"But if a mesmerizer could so affect another living being, can you
suppose that a mesmerizer could also affect inanimate objects: move
chairs--open and shut doors?"
"Or impress our senses with the belief in such effects--we never having
been _en rapport_ with the person acting on us? No. What is commonly
called mesmerism could not do this; but there may be a power akin to
mesmerism, and superior to it--the power that in the old days was called
Magic. That such a power may extend to all inanimate objects of matter I
do not say; but if so, it would not be against nature--it would be only
a rare power in nature which might be given to constitutions with
certain peculiarities, and cultivated by practice to an extraordinary
degree. That such a power might extend over the dead--that is, over
certain thoughts and memories that the dead may still retain--and
compel, not that which ought properly to be called the SOUL, and which
is far beyond human reach, but rather a phantom of what has been most
earth-stained on earth, to make itself apparent to our senses--is a very
ancient though obsolete theory, upon which I will hazard no opinion. But
I do not conceive the power would be supernatural. Let me illustrate
what I mean from an experiment which Paracelsus describes as not
difficult, and which the author of the _Curiosities of Literature_ cites
as credible:--A flower perishes; you burn it. Whatever were the elements
of that flower while it lived are gone, dispersed, you know not whither;
you can never discover nor recollect them. But you can, by chemistry,
out of the burnt dust of that flower, raise a spectrum of the flower,
just as it seemed in life. It may be the same with the human being. The
soul has as much escaped you as the essence or elements of the flower.
Still you may make a spectrum of it.
"And this phantom, though in the popular superstition it is held to be
the soul of the departed, must not be confounded with the true soul; it
is but eidolon of the dead form. Hence, like the best attested stories
of ghosts or spirits, the thing that most strikes us is the absence of
what we hold to be soul; that is, of superior emancipated intelligence.
These apparitions come for little or no object--they seldom speak when
they do come; if they speak, they utter no ideas above those of an
ordinary person on earth. American spirit-seers have published volumes
of communications in prose and verse, which they assert to be given in
the names of the most illustrious dead--Shakespeare, Bacon--heaven knows
whom. Those communications, taking the best, are certainly not a whit of
higher order than would be communications from living persons of fair
talent and education; they are wondrously inferior to what Bacon,
Shakespeare, and Plato said and wrote when on earth. Nor, what is more
noticeable, do they ever contain an idea that was not on the earth
before. Wonderful, therefore, as such phenomena may be (granting them to
be truthful), I see much that philosophy may question, nothing that it
is incumbent on philosophy to deny, viz., nothing supernatural. They are
but ideas conveyed somehow or other (we have not yet discovered the
means) from one mortal brain to another. Whether, in so doing, tables
walk of their own accord, or fiend-like shapes appear in a magic circle,
or bodyless hands rise and remove material objects, or a Thing of
Darkness, such as presented itself to me, freeze our blood--still am I
persuaded that these are but agencies conveyed, as if by electric wires,
to my own brain from the brain of another. In some constitutions there
is a natural chemistry, and these constitutions may produce chemic
wonders--in others a natural fluid, call it electricity, and these may
produce electric wonders.
"But the wonders differ from Normal Science in this--they are alike
objectless, purposeless, puerile, frivolous. They lead on to no grand
results; and therefore the world does not heed, and true sages have not
cultivated them. But sure I am, that of all I saw or heard, a man,
human as myself, was the remote originator; and I believe unconsciously
to himself as to the exact effects produced, for this reason: no two
persons, you say, have ever told you that they experienced exactly the
same thing. Well, observe, no two persons ever experience exactly the
same dream. If this were an ordinary imposture, the machinery would be
arranged for results that would but little vary; if it were a
supernatural agency permitted by the Almighty, it would surely be for
some definite end. These phenomena belong to neither class; my
persuasion is, that they originate in some brain now far distant; that
that brain had no distinct volition in anything that occurred; that what
does occur reflects but its devious, motley, ever-shifting, half-formed
thoughts; in short, that it has been but the dreams of such a brain put
into action and invested with a semi-substance. That this brain is of
immense power, that it can set matter into movement, that it is
malignant and destructive, I believe; some material force must have
killed my dog; the same force might, for aught I know, have sufficed to
kill myself, had I been as subjugated by terror as the dog--had my
intellect or my spirit given me no countervailing resistance in my
will."
"It killed your dog! that is fearful! indeed it is strange that no
animal can be induced to stay in that house; not even a cat. Rats and
mice are never found in it."
"The instincts of the brute creation detect influences deadly to their
existence. Man's reason has a sense less subtle, because it has a
resisting power more supreme. But enough; do you comprehend my theory?"
"Yes, though imperfectly--and I accept any crotchet (pardon the word),
however odd, rather than embrace at once the notion of ghosts and
hob-goblins we imbibed in our nurseries. Still, to my unfortunate house
the evil is the same. What on earth can I do with the house?"
"I will tell you what I would do. I am convinced from my own internal
feelings that the small unfurnished room at right angles to the door of
the bedroom which I occupied, forms a starting-point or receptacle for
the influences which haunt the house; and I strongly advise you to have
the walls opened, the floor removed--nay, the whole room pulled down.
I observe that it is detached from the body of the house, built over the
small back-yard, and could be removed without injury to the rest of the
building."
"And you think, if I did that----"
"You would cut off the telegraph wires. Try it. I am so persuaded that I
am right, that I will pay half the expense if you will allow me to
direct the operations."
"Nay, I am well able to afford the cost; for the rest, allow me to write
to you."
About ten days afterwards I received a letter from Mr. J----, telling me
that he had visited the house since I had seen him; that he had found
the two letters I had described replaced in the drawer from which I had
taken them; that he had read them with misgivings like my own; that he
had instituted a cautious inquiry about the woman to whom I rightly
conjectured they had been written. It seemed that thirty-six years ago
(a year before the date of the letters) she had married, against the
wish of her relations, an American of very suspicious character, in
fact, he was generally believed to have been a pirate. She herself was
the daughter of very respectable tradespeople, and had served in the
capacity of nursery governess before her marriage. She had a brother, a
widower, who was considered wealthy, and who had one child of about six
years old. A month after the marriage, the body of this brother was
found in the Thames, near London Bridge; there seemed some marks of
violence about his throat, but they were not deemed sufficient to
warrant the inquest in any other verdict than that of "found drowned."
The American and his wife took charge of the little boy, the deceased
brother having by his will left his sister the guardian of his only
child--and in the event of the child's death, the sister inherited. The
child died about six months afterwards--it was supposed to have been
neglected and ill-treated. The neighbors deposed to have heard it shriek
at night. The surgeon who had examined it after death said that it was
emaciated as if from want of nourishment, and the body was covered with
livid bruises. It seemed that one winter night the child had sought to
escape--crept out into the back-yard--tried to scale the wall--fallen
back exhausted, and been found at morning on the stones in a dying
state. But though there was some evidence of cruelty, there was none of
murder; and the aunt and her husband had sought to palliate cruelty by
alleging the exceeding stubbornness and perversity of the child, who was
declared to be half-witted. Be that is it may, at the orphan's death the
aunt inherited her brother's fortune. Before the first wedded year was
out the American quitted England abruptly, and never returned to it. He
obtained a cruising vessel, which was lost in the Atlantic two years
afterwards. The widow was left in affluence; but reverses of various
kinds had befallen her; a bank broke--an investment failed--she went
into a small business and became insolvent--then she entered into
service, sinking lower and lower, from housekeeper down to maid-of-all
work--never long retaining a place, though nothing decided against her
character was ever alleged. She was considered sober, honest, and
peculiarly quiet in her ways; still nothing prospered with her. And so
she had dropped into the workhouse, from which Mr. J---- had taken her,
to be placed in charge of the very house which she had rented as
mistress in the first year of her wedded life.
Mr. J---- added that he had passed an hour alone in the unfurnished room
which I had urged him to destroy, and that his impressions of dread
while there were so great, though he had neither heard nor seen
anything, that he was eager to have the walls bared and the floors
removed as I had suggested. He had engaged persons for the work, and
would commence any day I would name.
The day was accordingly fixed. I repaired to the haunted house--he went
into the blind dreary room, took up the skirting, and then the floors.
Under the rafters, covered with rubbish, was found a trap-door, quite
large enough to admit a man. It was closely nailed down, with clamps and
rivets of iron. On removing these we descended into a room below, the
existence of which had never been suspected. In this room there had been
a window and a flue, but they had been bricked over, evidently for many
years. By the help of candles we examined this place; it still retained
some mouldering furniture--three chairs, an oak settle, a table--all of
the fashion of about eighty years ago. There was a chest of drawers
against the wall, in which we found, half-rotted away, old-fashioned
articles of a man's dress, such as might have been worn eighty or a
hundred years ago by a gentleman of some rank--costly steel buckles and
buttons, like those yet worn in court-dresses, a handsome court
sword--in a waistcoat which had once been rich with gold-lace, but which
was now blackened and foul with damp, we found five guineas, a few
silver coins, and an ivory ticket, probably for some place of
entertainment long since passed away. But our main discovery was in a
kind of iron safe fixed to the wall, the lock of which it cost us much
trouble to get picked.
In this safe were three shelves, and two small drawers. Ranged on the
shelves were several small bottles of crystal, hermetically stopped.
They contained colorless volatile essences, of the nature of which I
shall only say that they were not poisons--phosphor and ammonia entered
into some of them. There were also some very curious glass tubes, and a
small pointed rod of iron, with a large lump of rock-crystal, and
another of amber--also a loadstone of great power.
In one of the drawers we found a miniature portrait set in gold, and
retaining the freshness of its colors most remarkably, considering the
length of time it had probably been there. The portrait was that of a
man who might be somewhat advanced in middle life, perhaps forty-seven
or forty-eight.
It was a remarkable face--a most impressive face. If you could fancy
some mighty serpent transformed into a man, preserving in the human
lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better idea of that
countenance than long descriptions can convey: the width and flatness of
frontal--the tapering elegance of contour disguising the strength of the
deadly jaw--the long, large, terrible eye, glittering and green as the
emerald--and withal a certain ruthless calm, as if from the
consciousness of an immense power.
Mechanically I turned round the miniature to examine the back of it,
and on the back was engraved a pentacle; in the middle of the pentacle a
ladder, and the third step of the ladder was formed by the date 1765.
Examining still more minutely, I detected a spring; this, on being
pressed, opened the back of the miniature as a lid. Withinside the lid
were engraved, "Marianna to thee--be faithful in life and in death
to----." Here follows a name that I will not mention, but it was not
unfamiliar to me. I had heard it spoken of by old men in my childhood as
the name borne by a dazzling charlatan who had made a great sensation in
London for a year or so, and had fled the country on the charge of a
double murder within his own house--that of his mistress and his rival.
I said nothing of this to Mr. J----, to whom reluctantly I resigned the
miniature.
We had found no difficulty in opening the first drawer within the iron
safe; we found great difficulty in opening the second: it was not
locked, but it resisted all efforts, till we inserted in the clinks the
edge of a chisel. When we had thus drawn it forth we found a very
singular apparatus in the nicest order. Upon a small thin book, or
rather tablet, was placed a saucer of crystal: this saucer was filled
with a clear liquid--on that liquid floated a kind of compass, with a
needle shifting rapidly round; but instead of the usual points of a
compass were seven strange characters, not very unlike those used by
astrologers to denote the planets.
A peculiar, but not strong nor displeasing odor came from this drawer,
which was lined with a wood that we afterwards discovered to be hazel.
Whatever the cause of this odor, it produced a material effect on the
nerves. We all felt it, even the two workmen who were in the room--a
creeping tingling sensation from the tips of the fingers to the roots of
the hair. Impatient to examine the tablet, I removed the saucer. As I
did so the needle of the compass went round and round with exceeding
swiftness, and I felt a shock that ran through my whole frame, so that
I dropped the saucer on the floor. The liquid was spilt--the saucer was
broken--the compass rolled to the end of the room--and at that instant
the walls shook to and fro, as if a giant had swayed and rocked them.
The two workmen were so frightened that they ran up the ladder by which
we had descended from the trap-door; but seeing that nothing more
happened, they were easily induced to return.
Meanwhile I had opened the tablet: it was bound in plain red leather,
with a silver clasp; it contained but one sheet of thick vellum, and on
that sheet were inscribed within a double pentacle, words in old monkish
Latin, which are literally to be translated thus: "On all that it can
reach within these walls--sentient or inanimate, living or dead--as
moves the needle, so work my will! Accursed be the house, and restless
be the dwellers therein."
We found no more. Mr. J---- burnt the tablet and its anathema. He razed
to the foundations the part of the building containing the secret room
with the chamber over it. He had then the courage to inhabit the house
himself for a month, and a quieter, better-conditioned house could not
be found in all London. Subsequently he let it to advantage, and his
tenant has made no complaints.
THE SILENT WOMAN[D]
BY LEOPOLD KOMPERT
The uproarious merriment of a wedding-feast burst forth into the night
from a brilliantly lighted house in the "gasse" (narrow street). It was
one of those nights touched with the warmth of spring, but dark and full
of soft mist. Most fitting it was for a celebration of the union of two
yearning hearts to share the same lot, a lot that may possibly dawn in
sunny brightness, but also become clouded and sullen--for a long, long
time! But how merry and joyous they were over there, those people of the
happy olden times! They, like us, had their troubles and trials, and
when misfortune visited them it came not to them with soft cushions and
tender pressures of the hand. Rough and hard, with clinched fist, it
laid hold upon them. But when they gave vent to their happy feelings and
sought to enjoy themselves, they were like swimmers in cooling waters.
They struck out into the stream with freshness and courage, suffered
themselves to be borne along by the current whithersoever it took its
course. This was the cause of such a jubilee, such a thoughtlessly noisy
outburst of all kinds of soul-possessing gayety from this house of
nuptials.
"And if I had known," the bride's father, the rich Ruben Klattaner, had
just said, "that it would take the last gulden in my pocket, then out it
would have come."
In fact, it did appear as if the last groschen had really taken flight,
and was fluttering about in the form of platters heaped up with geese
and pastry-tarts. Since two o'clock--that is, since the marriage
ceremony had been performed out in the open street--until nearly
midnight, the wedding-feast had been progressing, and even yet the
_sarvers_, or waiters, were hurrying from room to room. It was as if a
twofold blessing had descended upon all this abundance of food and
drink, for, in the first place, they did not seem to diminish; secondly,
they ever found a new place for disposal. To be sure, this appetite was
sharpened by the presence of a little dwarf-like, unimportant-looking
man. He was esteemed, however, none the less highly by every one. They
had specially written to engage the celebrated "Leb Narr," of Prague.
And when was ever a mood so out of sorts, a heart so imbittered as not
to thaw out and laugh if Leb Narr played one of his pranks. Ah, thou art
now dead, good fool! Thy lips, once always ready with a witty reply, are
closed. Thy mouth, then never still, now speaks no more! But when the
hearty peals of laughter once rang forth at thy command, intercessors,
as it were, in thy behalf before the very throne of God, thou hadst
nothing to fear. And the joy of that "other" world was thine, that joy
that has ever belonged to the most pious of country rabbis!
In the mean time the young people had assembled in one of the rooms to
dance. It was strange how the sound of violins and trumpets accorded
with the drolleries of the wit from Prague. In one part the outbursts of
merriment were so boisterous that the very candles on the little table
seemed to flicker with terror; in another an ordinary conversation was
in progress, which now and then only ran over into a loud tittering,
when some old lady slipped into the circle and tried her skill at a
redowa, then altogether unknown to the young people. In the very midst
of the tangle of dancers was to be seen the bride in a heavy silk
wedding-gown. The point of her golden hood hung far down over her face.
She danced continuously. She danced with every one that asked her. Had
one, however, observed the actions of the young woman, they would
certainly have seemed to him hurried, agitated, almost wild. She looked
no one in the eye, not even her own bridegroom. He stood for the most
part in the door-way, and evidently took more pleasure in the witticisms
of the fool than in the dance or the lady dancers. But who ever thought
for a moment why the young woman's hand burned, why her breath was so
hot when one came near to her lips? Who should have noticed so strange
a thing? A low whispering already passed through the company, a stealthy
smile stole across many a lip. A bevy of ladies was seen to enter the
room suddenly. The music dashed off into one of its loudest pieces, and,
as if by enchantment, the newly made bride disappeared behind the
ladies. The bridegroom, with his stupid, smiling mien, was still left
standing on the threshold. But it was not long before he too vanished.
One could hardly say how it happened. But people understand such
skillful movements by experience, and will continue to understand them
as long as there are brides and grooms in the world.
This disappearance of the chief personages, little as it seemed to be
noticed, gave, however, the signal for general leave-taking. The dancing
became drowsy; it stopped all at once, as if by appointment. That noisy
confusion now began which always attends so merry a wedding-party.
Half-drunken voices could be heard still intermingled with a last,
hearty laugh over a joke of the fool from Prague echoing across the
table. Here and there some one, not quite sure of his balance, was
fumbling for the arm of his chair or the edge of the table. This
resulted in his overturning a dish that had been forgotten, or in
spilling a beer-glass. While this, in turn, set up a new hubbub, some
one else, in his eagerness to betake himself from the scene, fell flat
into the very débris. But all this tumult was really hushed the moment
they all pressed to the door, for at that very instant shrieks, cries of
pain, were heard issuing from the entrance below. In an instant the
entire outpouring crowd with all possible force pushed back into the
room, but it was a long time before the stream was pressed back again.
Meanwhile, painful cries were again heard from below, so painful,
indeed, that they restored even the most drunken to a state of
consciousness.
"By the living God!" they cried to each other, "what is the matter down
there? Is the house on fire?"
"She is gone! she is gone!" shrieked a woman's voice from the entry
below.
"Who? who?" groaned the wedding-guests, seized, as it were, with an icy
horror.
"Gone! gone!" cried the woman from the entry, and hurrying up the stairs
came Selde Klattaner, the mother of the bride, pale as death, her eyes
dilated with most awful fright, convulsively grasping a candle in her
hand. "For God's sake, what has happened?" was heard on every side of
her.
The sight of so many people about her, and the confusion of voices,
seemed to release the poor woman from a kind of stupor. She glanced
shyly about her then, as if overcome with a sense of shame stronger than
her terror, and said, in a suppressed tone:
"Nothing, nothing, good people. In God's name, I ask, what was there to
happen?"
Dissimulation, however, was too evident to suffice to deceive them.
"Why, then, did you shriek so, Selde," called out one of the guests to
her, "if nothing happened?"
"Yes, she has gone," Selde now moaned in heart-rending tones, "and she
has certainly done herself some harm!"
The cause of this strange scene was now first discovered. The bride has
disappeared from the wedding-feast. Soon after that she had vanished in
such a mysterious way, the bridegroom went below to the dimly-lighted
room to find her, but in vain. At first thought this seemed to him to be
a sort of bashful jest; but not finding her here, a mysterious
foreboding seized him. He called to the mother of the bride:
"Woe to me! This woman has gone!"
Presently this party, that had so admirably controlled itself, was again
thrown into commotion. "There was nothing to do," was said on all sides,
"but to ransack every nook and corner. Remarkable instances of such
disappearances of brides had been known. Evil spirits were wont to lurk
about such nights and to inflict mankind with all sorts of sorceries."
Strange as this explanation may seem, there were many who believed it at
this very moment, and, most of all, Selde Klattaner herself. But it was
only for a moment, for she at once exclaimed:
"No, no, my good people, she is gone; I know she is gone!"
Now for the first time many of them, especially the mothers, felt
particularly uneasy, and anxiously called their daughters to them. Only
a few showed courage, and urged that they must search and search, even
if they had to turn aside the river Iser a hundred times. They urgently
pressed on, called for torches and lanterns, and started forth. The
cowardly ran after them up and down the stairs. Before any one perceived
it the room was entirely forsaken.
Ruben Klattaner stood in the hall entry below, and let the people hurry
past him without exchanging a word with any. Bitter disappointment and
fear had almost crazed him. One of the last to stay in the room above
with Selde was, strange to say, Leb Narr, of Prague. After all had
departed, he approached the miserable mother, and, in a tone least
becoming his general manner, inquired:
"Tell me, now, Mrs. Selde, did she not wish to have 'him'?"
"Whom? whom?" cried Selde, with renewed alarm, when she found herself
alone with the fool.
"I mean," said Leb, in a most sympathetic manner, approaching still
nearer to Selde, "that maybe you had to make your daughter marry him."
"Make? And have we, then, made her?" moaned Selde, staring at the fool
with a look of uncertainty.
"Then nobody needs to search for her," replied the fool, with a
sympathetic laugh, at the same time retreating. "It's better to leave
her where she is."
Without saying thanks or good-night, he was gone.
Meanwhile the cause of all this disturbance had arrived at the end of
her flight.
Close by the synagogue was situated the house of the rabbi. It was built
in an angle of a very narrow street, set in a framework of tall
shade-trees. Even by daylight it was dismal enough. At night it was
almost impossible for a timid person to approach it, for people declared
that the low supplications of the dead could be heard in the dingy house
of God when at night they took the rolls of the law from the ark to
summon their members by name.
Through this retired street passed, or rather ran, at this hour a shy
form. Arriving at the dwelling of the rabbi, she glanced backward to see
whether any one was following her. But all was silent and gloomy enough
about her. A pale light issued from one of the windows of the synagogue;
it came from the "eternal lamp" hanging in front of the ark of the
covenant. But at this moment it seemed to her as if a supernatural eye
was gazing upon her. Thoroughly affrighted, she seized the little iron
knocker of the door and struck it gently. But the throb of her beating
heart was even louder, more violent, than this blow. After a pause,
footsteps were heard passing slowly along the hallway.
The rabbi had not occupied this lonely house a long time. His
predecessor, almost a centenarian in years, had been laid to rest a few
months before. The new rabbi had been called, from a distant part of the
country. He was unmarried, and in the prime of life. No one had known
him before his coming. But his personal nobility and the profundity of
his scholarship made up for his deficiency in years. An aged mother had
accompanied him from their distant home, and she took the place of wife
and child.
"Who is there?" asked the rabbi, who had been busy at his desk even at
this late hour and thus had not missed hearing the knocker.
"It is I," the figure without responded, almost inaudibly.
"Speak louder, if you wish me to hear you," replied the rabbi.
"It is I, Ruben Klattaner's daughter," she repeated.
The name seemed to sound strange to the rabbi. He as yet knew too few of
his congregation to understand that this very day he performed the
marriage ceremony of the person who had just repeated her name.
Therefore he called out, after a moment's pause, "What do you wish so
late at night?"
"Open the door, rabbi," she answered, pleadingly, "or I shall die at
once!"
The bolt was pushed back. Something gleaming, rustling, glided past the
rabbi into the dusky hall. The light of the candle in his hand was not
sufficient to allow him to descry it. Before he had time to address her,
she had vanished past him and had disappeared through the open door
into the room. Shaking his head, the rabbi again bolted the door.
On reëntering the room he saw a woman's form sitting in the chair which
he usually occupied. She had her back turned to him. Her head was bent
low over her breast. Her golden wedding-hood, with its shading lace, was
pulled down over her forehead. Courageous and pious as the rabbi was, he
could not rid himself of a feeling of terror.
"Who are you?" he demanded, in a loud tone, as if its sound alone would
banish the presence of this being that seemed to him at this moment to
be the production of all the enchantments of evil spirits.
She raised herself, and cried in a voice that seemed to come from the
agony of a human being:
"Do you not know me--me, whom you married a few hours since under the
_chuppe_ (marriage-canopy) to a husband?"
On hearing this familiar voice the rabbi stood speechless. He gazed at
the young woman. Now, indeed, he must regard her as one bereft of
reason, rather than as a specter.
"Well, if you are she," he stammered out, after a pause, for it was with
difficulty that he found words to answer, "why are you here and not in
the place where you belong?"
"I know no other place to which I belong more than here where I now am!"
she answered, severely.
These words puzzled the rabbi still more. Is it really an insane woman
before him? He must have thought so, for he now addressed her in a
gentle tone of voice, as we do those suffering from this kind of
sickness, in order not to excite her, and said:
"The place where you belong, my daughter, is in the house of your
parents, and, since you have to-day been made a wife, your place is in
your husband's house."
The young woman muttered something which failed to reach the rabbi's
ear. Yet he only continued to think that he saw before him some poor
unfortunate whose mind was deranged. After a pause, he added, in a still
gentler tone: "What is your name, then, my child?"
"God, god," she moaned, in the greatest anguish, "he does not even yet
know my name!"
"How should I know you," he continued, apologetically, "for I am a
stranger in this place?"
This tender remark seemed to have produced the desired effect upon her
excited mind.
"My name is Veile," she said, quietly, after a pause.
The rabbi quickly perceived that he had adopted the right tone towards
his mysterious guest.
"Veile," he said, approaching nearer her, "what do you wish of me?"
"Rabbi, I have a great sin resting heavily upon my heart," she replied
despondently. "I do not know what to do."
"What can you have done," inquired the rabbi, with a tender look, "that
cannot be discussed at any other time than just now? Will you let me
advise you, Veile?"
"No, no," she cried again, violently, "I will not be advised. I see, I
know what oppresses me. Yes, I can grasp it by the hand, it lies so near
before me. Is that what you call to be advised?"
"Very well," returned the rabbi, seeing that this was the very way to
get the young woman to talk--"very well, I say, you are not imagining
anything. I believe that you have greatly sinned. Have you come here
then to confess this sin? Do your parents or your husband know anything
about it?"
"Who is my husband?" she interrupted him, impetuously.
Thoughts welled up in the rabbi's heart like a tumultuous sea in which
opposing conjectures cross and recross each other's course. Should he
speak with her as with an ordinary sinner?
"Were you, perhaps, forced to be married?" he inquired, as quietly as
possible, after a pause.
A suppressed sob, a strong inward struggle, manifesting itself in the
whole trembling body, was the only answer to this question.
"Tell me, my child," said the rabbi, encouragingly.
In such tones as the rabbi had never before heard, so strange, so
surpassing any human sounds, the young woman began:
"Yes, rabbi, I will speak, even though I know that I shall never go from
this place alive, which would be the very best thing for me! No, rabbi,
I was not forced to be married. My parents have never once said to me
'you must,' but my own will, my own desire, rather, has always been
supreme. My husband is the son of a rich man in the community. To enter
his family was to be made the first lady in the _gasse_, to sit buried
in gold and silver. And that very thing, nothing else, was what
infatuated me with him. It was for that that I forced myself, my heart
and will, to be married to him, hard as it was for me. But in my
innermost heart I detested him. The more he loved me, the more I hated
him. But the gold and silver had an influence over me. More and more
they cried to me, 'You will be the first lady in the _gasse_!'"
"Continue," said the rabbi, when she ceased, almost exhausted by these
words.
"What more shall I tell you, rabbi?" she began again. "I was never a
liar, when a child, or older, and yet during my whole engagement it has
seemed to me as if a big, gigantic lie had followed me step by step.
I have seen it on every side of me. But to-day, when I stood under the
_chuppe_, rabbi, and he took the ring from his finger and put it on
mine, and when I had to dance at my own wedding with him, whom I now
recognized, now for the first time, as the lie, and--when they led me
away----"
This sincere confession escaping from the lips of the young woman, she
sobbed aloud and bowed her head still deeper over her breast. The rabbi
gazed upon her in silence. No insane woman ever spoke like that! Only a
soul conscious of its own sin, but captivated by a mysterious power,
could suffer like this!
It was not sympathy which he felt with her; it was much more a living
over the sufferings of the woman. In spite of the confused story, it was
all clear to the rabbi. The cause of the flight from the father's house
at this hour also required no explanation. "I know what you mean," he
longed to say, but he could only find words to say: "Speak further,
Veile!"
The young woman turned towards him. He had not yet seen her face. The
golden hood with the shading lace hung deeply over it.
"Have I not told you everything?" she said, with a flush of scorn.
"Everything?" repeated the rabbi, inquiringly. He only said this,
moreover, through embarrassment.
"Do you tell me now," she cried, at once passionately and mildly, "what
am I to do?"
"Veile!" exclaimed the rabbi, entertaining now, for the first time, a
feeling of repugnance for this confidential interview.
"Tell me now!" she pleaded; and before the rabbi could prevent it the
young woman threw herself down at his feet and clasped his knees in her
arms. This hasty act had loosened the golden wedding-hood from her head,
and thus exposed her face to view, a face of remarkable beauty.
So overcome was the young rabbi by the sight of it that he had to shade
his eyes with his hands, as if before a sudden flash of lightning.
"Tell me now, what shall I do?" she cried again. "Do you think that I
have come from my parents' home merely to return again without help? You
alone in the world must tell me. Look at me! I have kept all my hair
just as God gave it me. It has never been touched by the shears. Should
I, then, do anything to please my husband? I am no wife. I will not be a
wife! Tell me, tell me, what am I to do?"
"Arise, arise," bade the rabbi; but his voice quivered, sounded almost
painful.
"Tell me first," she gasped; "I will not rise till then!"
"How can I tell you?" he moaned, almost inaudibly.
"Naphtali!" shrieked the kneeling woman.
But the rabbi staggered backward. The room seemed ablaze before him,
like a bright fire. A sharp cry rang from his breast, as if one
suffering from some painful wound had been seized by a rough hand. In
his hurried attempt to free himself from the embrace of the young
woman, who still clung to his knees, it chanced that her head struck
heavily against the floor.
"Naphtali!" she cried once again.
"Silence, silence," groaned the rabbi, pressing both hands against his
head.
And still again she called out this name, but not with that agonizing
cry. It sounded rather like a commingling of exultation and lamentation.
And again he demanded, "Silence! silence!" but this time so imperiously,
so forcibly, that the young woman lay on the floor as if conjured, not
daring to utter a single word.
The rabbi paced almost wildly up and down the room. There must have been
a hard, terrible struggle in his breast. It seemed to the one lying on
the floor that she heard him sigh from the depths of his soul. Then his
pacing became calmer; but it did not last long. The fierce conflict
again assailed him. His step grew hurried; it echoed loudly through the
awful stillness of the room. Suddenly he neared the young woman, who
seemed to lie there scarcely breathing. He stopped in front of her. Had
any one seen the face of the rabbi at this moment the expression on it
would have filled him with terror. There was a marvelous tranquillity
overlying it, the tranquillity of a struggle for life or death.
"Listen to me now, Veile," he began, slowly. "I will talk with you."
"I listen, rabbi," she whispered.
"But do you hear me well?"
"Only speak," she returned.
"But will you do what I advise you? Will you not oppose it? For I am
going to say something that will terrify you."
"I will do anything that you say. Only tell me," she moaned.
"Will you swear?"
"I will," she groaned.
"No, do not swear yet, until you have heard me," he cried. "I will not
force you."
This time came no answer.
"Hear me, then, daughter of Ruben Klattaner," he began, after a pause.
"You have a twofold sin upon your soul, and each is so great, so
criminal, that it can only be forgiven by severe punishment. First you
permitted yourself to be infatuated by the gold and silver, and then you
forced your heart to lie. With the lie you sought to deceive the man,
even though he had intrusted you with his all when he made you his wife.
A lie is truly a great sin! Streams of water cannot drown them. They
make men false and hateful to themselves. The worst that has been
committed in the world was led in by a lie. That is the one sin."
"I know, I know," sobbed the young woman.
"Now hear me further," began the rabbi again, with a wavering voice,
after a short pause. "You have committed a still greater sin than the
first. You have not only deceived your husband, but you have also
destroyed the happiness of another person. You could have spoken, and
you did not. For life you have robbed him of his happiness, his light,
his joy, but you did not speak. What can he now do, when he knows what
has been lost to him?"
"Naphtali!" cried the young woman.
"Silence! silence! do not let that name pass your lips again," he
demanded, violently. "The more you repeat it the greater becomes your
sin. Why did you not speak when you could have spoken? God can never
easily forgive you that. To be silent, to keep secret in one's breast
what would have made another man happier than the mightiest monarch!
Thereby you have made him more than unhappy. He will nevermore have the
desire to be happy. Veile, God in heaven cannot forgive you for that."
"Silence! silence!" groaned the wretched woman.
"No, Veile," he continued, with a stronger voice, "let me talk now. You
are certainly willing to hear me speak? Listen to me. You must do severe
penance for this sin, the twofold sin which rests upon your head. God is
long-suffering and merciful. He will perhaps look down upon your misery,
and will blot out your guilt from the great book of transgressions. But
you must become penitent. Hear, now, what it shall be."
The rabbi paused. He was on the point of saying the severest thing that
had ever passed his lips.
"You were silent, Veile," then he cried, "when you should have spoken.
Be silent now forever to all men and to yourself. From the moment you
leave this house, until I grant it, you must be dumb; you dare not let a
loud word pass from your mouth. Will you undergo this penance?"
"I will do all you say," moaned the young woman.
"Will you have strength to do it?" he asked, gently.
"I shall be as silent as death," she replied.
"And one thing more I have to say to you," he continued. "You are the
wife of your husband. Return home and be a Jewish wife."
"I understand you," she sobbed in reply.
"Go to your home now, and bring peace to your parents and husband. The
time will come when you may speak, when your sin will be forgiven you.
Till then bear what has been laid upon you."
"May I say one thing more?" she cried, lifting up her head.
"Speak," he said.
"Naphtali!"
The rabbi covered his eyes with one hand, with the other motioned her to
be silent. But she grasped his hand, drew it to her lips. Hot tears fell
upon it.
"Go now," he sobbed, completely broken down.
She let go the hand. The rabbi had seized the candle, but she had
already passed him, and glided through the dark hall. The door was left
open. The rabbi locked it again.
* * * * *
Veile returned to her home, as she had escaped, unnoticed. The narrow
street was deserted, as desolate as death. The searchers were to be
found everywhere except there where they ought first to have sought for
the missing one. Her mother, Selde, still sat on the same chair on which
she had sunk down an hour ago. The fright had left her like one
paralyzed, and she was unable to rise. What a wonderful contrast this
wedding-room, with the mother sitting alone in it, presented to the
hilarity reigning here shortly before! On Veile's entrance her mother
did not cry out. She had no strength to do so. She merely said: "So you
have come at last, my daughter?" as if Veile had only returned from a
walk somewhat too long. But the young woman did not answer to this and
similar questions. Finally she signified by gesticulations that she
could not speak. Fright seized the wretched mother a second time, and
the entire house was filled with her lamentations.
Ruben Klattaner and Veile's husband having now returned from their
fruitless search, were horrified on perceiving the change which Veile
had undergone. Being men, they did not weep. With staring eyes they
gazed upon the silent young woman, and beheld in her an apparition which
had been dealt with by God's visitation in a mysterious manner.
From this hour began the terrible penance of the young woman.
The impression which Veile's woeful condition made upon the people of
the _gasse_ was wonderful. Those who had danced with her that evening on
the wedding now first recalled her excited state. Her wild actions were
now first remembered by many. It must have been an "evil eye," they
concluded--a jealous, evil eye, to which her beauty was hateful. This
alone could have possessed her with a demon of unrest. She was driven by
this evil power into the dark night, a sport of these malicious
potencies which pursue men step by step, especially on such occasions.
The living God alone knows what she must have seen that night. Nothing
good, else one would not become dumb. Old legends and tales were
revived, each more horrible than the other. Hundreds of instances were
given to prove that this was nothing new in the _gasse_. Despite this
explanation, it is remarkable that the people did not believe that the
young woman was dumb. The most thought that her power of speech had been
paralyzed by some awful fright, but that with time it would be restored.
Under this supposition they called her "Veile the Silent."
There is a kind of human eloquence more telling, more forcible than the
loudest words, than the choicest diction--the silence of woman!
Ofttimes they cannot endure the slightest vexation, but some great,
heart-breaking sorrow, some pain from constant renunciation,
self-sacrifice, they suffer with sealed lips--as if, in very truth, they
were bound with bars of iron.
It would be difficult to fully describe that long "silent" life of the
young woman. It is almost impossible to cite more than one incident.
Veile accompanied her husband to his home, that house resplendent with
that gold and silver which had infatuated her. She was, to be sure, the
"first" woman in the _gasse_; she had everything in abundance. Indeed,
the world supposed that she had but little cause for complaint. "Must
one have everything?" was sometimes queried in the _gasse_. "One has one
thing; another, another." And, according to all appearances, the people
were right. Veile continued to be the beautiful, blooming woman. Her
penance of silence did not deprive her of a single charm. She was so
very happy, indeed, that she did not seem to feel even the pain of her
punishment. Veile could laugh and rejoice, but never did she forget to
be silent. The seemingly happy days, however, were only qualified to
bring about the proper time of trials and temptations. The beginning was
easy enough for her, the middle and end were times of real pain. The
first years of their wedded life were childless. "It is well," the
people in the _gasse_ said, "that she has no children, and God has
rightly ordained it to be so. A mother who cannot talk to her child,
that would be something awful!" Unexpectedly to all, she rejoiced one
day in the birth of a daughter. And when that affectionate young
creature, her own offspring, was laid upon her breast, and the first
sounds were uttered by its lips--that nameless, eloquent utterance of an
infant--she forgot herself not; she was silent!
She was silent also when from day to day that child blossomed before her
eyes into fuller beauty. Nor had she any words for it when, in effusions
of tenderness, it stretched forth its tiny arms, when in burning fever
it sought for the mother's hand. For days--yes, weeks--together she
watched at its bedside. Sleep never visited her eyes. But she ever
remembered her penance.
Years fled by. In her arms she carried another child. It was a boy. The
father's joy was great. The child inherited its mother's beauty. Like
its sister, it grew in health and strength. The noblest, richest mother,
they said, might be proud of such children! And Veile was proud, no
doubt, but this never passed her lips. She remained silent about things
which mothers in their joy often cannot find words enough to express.
And although her face many times lighted up with beaming smiles, yet she
never renounced the habitual silence imposed upon her.
The idea that the slightest dereliction of her penance would be
accompanied with a curse upon her children may have impressed itself
upon her mind. Mothers will understand better than other persons what
this mother suffered from her penalty of silence.
Thus a part of those years sped away which we are wont to call the best.
She still flourished in her wonderful beauty. Her maiden daughter was
beside her, like the bud beside the full-blown rose. Suitors were
already present from far and near, who passed in review before the
beautiful girl. The most of them were excellent young men, and any
mother might have been proud in having her own daughter sought by such.
Even then Veile did not undo her penance. Those busy times of
intercourse which keep mothers engaged in presenting the superiorities
of their daughters in the best light were not allowed her. The choice of
one of the most favored suitors was made. Never before did any couple in
the _gasse_ equal this in beauty and grace. A few weeks before the
appointed time for the wedding a malignant disease stole on, spreading
sorrow and anxiety over the greater part of the land. Young girls were
principally its victims. It seemed to pass scornfully over the aged and
infirm. Veile's daughter was also laid hold upon by it. Before three
days had passed there was a corpse in the house--the bride!
Even then Veile did not forget her penance. When they bore away the
corpse to the "good place," she did utter a cry of anguish which long
after echoed in the ears of the people; she did wring her hands in
despair, but no one heard a word of complaint. Her lips seemed dumb
forever. It was then, when she was seated on the low stool in the seven
days of mourning, that the rabbi came to her, to bring to her the usual
consolation for the dead. But he did not speak with her. He addressed
words only to her husband. She herself dared not look up. Only when he
turned to go did she lift her eyes. They, in turn, met the eyes of the
rabbi, but he departed without a farewell.
After her daughter's death Veile was completely broken down. Even that
which at her time of life is still called beauty had faded away within a
few days. Her cheeks had become hollow, her hair gray. Visitors wondered
how she could endure such a shock, how body and spirit could hold
together. They did not know that that silence was an iron fetter firmly
imprisoning the slumbering spirits. She had a son, moreover, to whom, as
to something last and dearest, her whole being still clung.
The boy was thirteen years old. His learning in the Holy Scriptures was
already celebrated for miles around. He was the pupil of the rabbi, who
had treated him with a love and tenderness becoming his own father. He
said that he was a remarkable child, endowed with rare talents. The boy
was to be sent to Hungary, to one of the most celebrated teachers of the
times, in order to lay the foundation for his sacred studies under this
instructor's guidance and wisdom. Years might perhaps pass before she
would see him again. But Veile let her boy go from her embrace. She did
not say a blessing over him when he went; only her lips twitched with
the pain of silence.
Long years expired before the boy returned from the strange land, a
full-grown, noble youth. When Veile had her son with her again a smile
played about her mouth, and for a moment it seemed as if her former
beauty had enjoyed a second spring. The extraordinary ability of her son
already made him famous. Wheresoever he went people were delighted with
his beauty, and admired the modesty of his manner, despite such great
scholarship.
The next Sabbath the young disciple of the Talmud, scarcely twenty years
of age, was to demonstrate the first marks of this great learning.
The people crowded shoulder to shoulder in this great synagogue. Curious
glances were cast through the lattice-work of the women's gallery above
upon the dense throng. Veile occupied one of the foremost seats. She
could see everything that took place below. Her face was extremely pale.
All eyes were turned towards her--the mother, who was permitted to see
such a day for her son! But Veile did not appear to notice what was
happening before her. A weariness, such as she had never felt before,
even in her greatest suffering, crept over her limbs. It was as if she
must sleep during her son's address. He had hardly mounted the stairs
before the ark of the laws--hardly uttered his first words--when a
remarkable change crossed her face. Her cheeks burned. She arose. All
her vital energy seemed aroused. Her son meanwhile was speaking down
below. She could not have told what he was saying. She did not hear
him--she only heard the murmur of approbation, sometimes low, sometimes
loud, which came to her ears from the quarters of the men. The people
were astonished at the noble bearing of the speaker, his melodious
speech, and his powerful energy. When he stopped at certain times to
rest it seemed as if one were in a wood swept by a storm. She could now
and then hear a few voices declaring that such a one had never before
been listened to. The women at her side wept; she alone could not. A
choking pain pressed from her breast to her lips. Forces were astir in
her heart which struggled for expression. The whole synagogue echoed
with buzzing voices, but to her it seemed as if she must speak louder
than these. At the very moment her son had ended she cried out
unconsciously, violently throwing herself against the lattice-work:
"God! living God! shall I not now speak?" A dead silence followed this
outcry. Nearly all had recognized this voice as that of the "silent
woman." A miracle had taken place!
"Speak! speak!" resounded the answer of the rabbi from the men's seats
below. "You may now speak!"
But no reply came. Veile had fallen back into her seat, pressing both
hands against her breast. When the women sitting beside her looked at
her they were terrified to find that the "silent woman" had fainted.
She was dead! The unsealing of her lips was her last moment.
Long years afterwards the rabbi died. On his death-bed he told those
standing about him this wonderful penance of Veile.
Every girl in the _gasse_ knew the story of the "silent woman."
FOOTNOTE:
[D] Copyright, 1890, by Harper Bros.
BANSHEES[E]
Of all Irish ghosts, fairies, or bogles, the Banshee (sometimes called
locally the "Boh[=ee]ntha" or "Bank[=ee]ntha") is the best known to the
general public: indeed, cross-Channel visitors would class her with
pigs, potatoes, and other fauna and flora of Ireland, and would expect
her to make manifest her presence to them as being one of the sights of
the country. She is a spirit with a lengthy pedigree--how lengthy no man
can say, as its roots go back into the dim, mysterious past. The most
famous Banshee of ancient times was that attached to the kingly house of
O'Brien, Aibhill, who haunted the rock of Craglea above Killaloe, near
the old palace of Kincora. In A.D. 1014 was fought the battle of
Clontarf, from which the aged king, Brian Boru, knew that he would never
come away alive, for the previous night Aibhill had appeared to him to
tell him of his impending fate. The Banshee's method of foretelling
death in olden times differed from that adopted by her at the present
day: now she wails and wrings her hands, as a general rule, but in the
old Irish tales she is to be found washing human heads and limbs, or
blood-stained clothes, till the water is all dyed with human blood--this
would take place before a battle. So it would seem that in the course of
centuries her attributes and characteristics have changed somewhat.
Very different descriptions are given of her personal appearance.
Sometimes she is young and beautiful, sometimes old and of a fearsome
appearance. One writer describes her as "a tall, thin woman with
uncovered head, and long hair that floated round her shoulders, attired
in something which seemed either a loose white cloak, or a sheet thrown
hastily around her, uttering piercing cries." Another person, a
coachman, saw her one evening sitting on a stile in the yard; she seemed
to be a very small woman, with blue eyes, long light hair, and wearing
a red cloak. Other descriptions will be found in this chapter. By the
way, it does not seem to be true that the Banshee exclusively follows
families of Irish descent, for the last incident had reference to the
death of a member of a Co. Galway family English by name and origin.
One of the oldest and best-known Banshee stories is that related in the
_Memoirs_ of Lady Fanshaw.[F] In 1642 her husband, Sir Richard, and she
chanced to visit a friend, the head of an Irish sept, who resided in his
ancient baronial castle, surrounded with a moat. At midnight she was
awakened by a ghastly and supernatural scream, and looking out of bed,
beheld in the moonlight a female face and part of the form hovering at
the window. The distance from the ground, as well as the circumstance of
the moat, excluded the possibility that what she beheld was of this
world. The face was that of a young and rather handsome woman, but pale,
and the hair, which was reddish, was loose and disheveled. The dress,
which Lady Fanshaw's terror did not prevent her remarking accurately,
was that of the ancient Irish. This apparition continued to exhibit
itself for some time, and then vanished with two shrieks similar to that
which had first excited Lady Fanshaw's attention. In the morning, with
infinite terror, she communicated to her host what she had witnessed,
and found him prepared not only to credit, but to account for the
superstition. "A near relation of my family," said he; "expired last
night in this castle. We disguised our certain expectation of the event
from you, lest it should throw a cloud over the cheerful reception which
was your due. Now, before such an event happens in this family or
castle, the female specter whom you have seen is always visible. She is
believed to be the spirit of a woman of inferior rank, whom one of my
ancestors degraded himself by marrying, and whom afterwards, to expiate
the dishonor done to his family, he caused to be drowned in the moat."
In strictness this woman could hardly be termed a Banshee. The motive
for the haunting is akin to that in the tale of the Scotch "Drummer of
Cortachy," where the spirit of the murdered man haunts the family out of
revenge, and appears before a death.
Mr. T.J. Westropp, M.A., has furnished the following story: "My maternal
grandmother heard the following tradition from her mother, one of the
Miss Ross-Lewins, who witnessed the occurrence. Their father, Mr.
Harrison Ross-Lewin, was away in Dublin on law business, and in his
absence the young people went off to spend the evening with a friend who
lived some miles away. The night was fine and lightsome as they were
returning, save at one point where the road ran between trees or high
hedges not far to the west of the old church of Kilchrist. The latter,
like many similar ruins, was a simple oblong building, with long
side-walls and high gables, and at that time it and its graveyard were
unenclosed, and lay in the open fields. As the party passed down the
long dark lane they suddenly heard in the distance loud keening and
clapping of hands, as the country-people were accustomed to do when
lamenting the dead. The Ross-Lewins hurried on, and came in sight of the
church, on the side wall of which a little gray-haired old woman, clad
in a dark cloak, was running to and fro, chanting and wailing, and
throwing up her arms. The girls were very frightened, but the young men
ran forward and surrounded the ruin, and two of them went into the
church, the apparition vanishing from the wall as they did so. They
searched every nook, and found no one, nor did any one pass out. All
were now well scared, and got home as fast as possible. On reaching
their home their mother opened the door, and at once told them that she
was in terror about their father, for, as she sat looking out the window
in the moonlight, a huge raven with fiery eyes lit on the sill, and
tapped three times on the glass. They told her their story, which only
added to their anxiety, and as they stood talking, taps came to the
nearest window, and they saw the bird again. A few days later news
reached them that Mr. Ross-Lewin had died suddenly in Dublin. This
occurred about 1776."
Mr. Westropp also writes that the sister of a former Roman Catholic
Bishop told his sisters that when she was a little girl she went out
one evening with some other children for a walk. Going down the road,
they passed the gate of the principal demesne near the town. There was a
rock, or large stone, beside the road, on which they saw something.
Going nearer, they perceived it to be a little dark, old woman, who
began crying and clapping her hands. Some of them attempted to speak to
her, but got frightened, and all finally ran home as quickly as they
could. Next day the news came that the gentleman near whose gate the
Banshee had cried, was dead, and it was found on inquiry that he had
died at the very hour at which the children had seen the specter.
A lady who is a relation of one of the compilers, and a member of a Co.
Cork family of English descent, sends the two following experiences of a
Banshee in her family. "My mother, when a young girl, was standing
looking out of the window in their house at Blackrock, near Cork. She
suddenly saw a white figure standing on a bridge which was easily
visible from the house. The figure waved her arms towards the house, and
my mother heard the bitter wailing of the Banshee. It lasted some
seconds, and then the figure disappeared. Next morning my grandfather
was walking as usual into the city of Cork. He accidentally fell, hit
his head against the curbstone, and never recovered consciousness.
"In March, 1900, my mother was very ill, and one evening the nurse and I
were with her arranging her bed. We suddenly heard the most extraordinary
wailing, which seemed to come in waves round and under her bed. We
naturally looked everywhere to try and find the cause, but in vain. The
nurse and I looked at one another, but made no remark, as my mother did
not seem to hear it. My sister was downstairs sitting with my father.
She heard it, and thought some terrible thing had happened to her little
boy, who was in bed upstairs. She rushed up, and found him sleeping
quietly. My father did not hear it. In the house next door they heard
it, and ran downstairs, thinking something had happened to the servant;
but the latter at once said to them, 'Did you hear the Banshee? Mrs.
P---- must be dying.'"
A few years ago (_i.e._ before 1894) a curious incident occurred in a
public school in connection with the belief in the Banshee. One of the
boys, happening to become ill, was at once placed in a room by himself,
where he used to sit all day. On one occasion, as he was being visited
by the doctor, he suddenly started up from his seat, and affirmed that
he heard somebody crying. The doctor, of course, who could hear or see
nothing, came to the conclusion that the illness had slightly affected
his brain. However, the boy, who appeared quite sensible, still
persisted that he heard some one crying, and furthermore said, "It is
the Banshee, as I have heard it before." The following morning the
head-master received a telegram saying that the boy's brother had been
accidentally shot dead.[G]
That the Banshee is not confined within the geographical limits of
Ireland, but that she can follow the fortunes of a family abroad, and
there foretell their death, is clearly shown by the following story. A
party of visitors were gathered together on the deck of a private yacht
on one of the Italian lakes, and during a lull in the conversation one
of them, a Colonel, said to the owner, "Count, who's that queer-looking
woman you have on board?" The Count replied that there was nobody except
the ladies present, and the stewardess, but the speaker protested that
he was correct, and suddenly, with a scream of horror, he placed his
hands before his eyes, and exclaimed, "Oh, my God, what a face!" For
some time he was overcome with terror, and at length reluctantly looked
up, and cried:
"Thank Heavens, it's gone!"
"What was it?" asked the Count.
"Nothing human," replied the Colonel--"nothing belonging to this world.
It was a woman of no earthly type, with a queer-shaped, gleaming face, a
mass of red hair, and eyes that would have been beautiful but for their
expression, which was hellish. She had on a green hood, after the
fashion of an Irish peasant."
An American lady present suggested that the description tallied with
that of the Banshee, upon which the Count said:
"I am an O'Neill--at least I am descended from one. My family name is,
as you know, Neilsini, which, little more than a century ago, was
O'Neill. My great-grandfather served in the Irish Brigade, and on its
dissolution at the time of the French Revolution had the good fortune to
escape the general massacre of officers, and in company with an O'Brien
and a Maguire fled across the frontier and settled in Italy. On his
death his son, who had been born in Italy, and was far more Italian than
Irish, changed his name to Neilsini, by which name the family has been
known ever since. But for all that we are Irish."
"The Banshee was yours, then!" ejaculated the Colonel. "What exactly
does it mean?"
"It means," the Count replied solemnly, "the death of some one very
nearly associated with me. Pray Heaven it is not my wife or daughter."
On that score, however, his anxiety was speedily removed, for within two
hours he was seized with a violent attack of angina pectoris, and died
before morning.[H]
Mr. Elliott O'Donnell, to whose article on "Banshees" we are indebted
for the above, adds: "The Banshee never manifests itself to the person
whose death it is prognosticating. Other people may see or hear it, but
the fated one never, so that when every one present is aware of it but
one, the fate of that one may be regarded as pretty well certain."
FOOTNOTES:
[E] From "True Irish Ghost Stories."
[F] Scott's _Lady of the Lake_, notes to Canto III (edition of 1811).
[G] A.G. Bradley, _Notes on some Irish Superstitions_, p. 9.
[H] _Occult Review_ for September, 1913.
THE MAN WHO WENT TOO FAR
BY E.F. BENSON
The little village of St. Faith's nestles in a hollow of wooded hill up
on the north bank of the river Fawn in the county of Hampshire, huddling
close round its gray Norman church as if for spiritual protection
against the fays and fairies, the trolls and "little people," who might
be supposed still to linger in the vast empty spaces of the New Forest,
and to come after dusk and do their doubtful businesses. Once outside
the hamlet you may walk in any direction (so long as you avoid the high
road which leads to Brockenhurst) for the length of a summer afternoon
without seeing sign of human habitation, or possibly even catching sight
of another human being. Shaggy wild ponies may stop their feeding for a
moment as you pass, the white scuts of rabbits will vanish into their
burrows, a brown viper perhaps will glide from your path into a clump of
heather, and unseen birds will chuckle in the bushes, but it may easily
happen that for a long day you will see nothing human. But you will not
feel in the least lonely; in summer, at any rate, the sunlight will be
gay with butterflies, and the air thick with all those woodland sounds
which like instruments in an orchestra combine to play the great
symphony of the yearly festival of June. Winds whisper in the birches,
and sigh among the firs; bees are busy with their redolent labor among
the heather, a myriad birds chirp in the green temples of the forest
trees, and the voice of the river prattling over stony places, bubbling
into pools, chuckling and gulping round corners, gives you the sense
that many presences and companions are near at hand.
Yet, oddly enough, though one would have thought that these benign and
cheerful influences of wholesome air and spaciousness of forest were
very healthful comrades for a man, in so far as nature can really
influence this wonderful human genus which has in these centuries
learned to defy her most violent storms in its well-established houses,
to bridle her torrents and make them light its streets, to tunnel her
mountains and plow her seas, the inhabitants of St. Faith's will not
willingly venture into the forest after dark. For in spite of the
silence and loneliness of the hooded night it seems that a man is not
sure in what company he may suddenly find himself, and though it is
difficult to get from these villagers any very clear story of occult
appearances, the feeling is widespread. One story indeed I have heard
with some definiteness, the tale of a monstrous goat that has been seen
to skip with hellish glee about the woods and shady places, and this
perhaps is connected with the story which I have here attempted to piece
together. It too is well-known to them; for all remember the young
artist who died here not long ago, a young man, or so he struck the
beholder, of great personal beauty, with something about him that made
men's faces to smile and brighten when they looked on him. His ghost
they will tell you "walks" constantly by the stream and through the
woods which he loved so, and in especial it haunts a certain house, the
last of the village, where he lived, and its garden in which he was done
to death. For my part I am inclined to think that the terror of the
Forest dates chiefly from that day. So, such as the story is, I have set
it forth in connected form. It is based partly on the accounts of the
villagers, but mainly on that of Darcy, a friend of mine and a friend of
the man with whom these events were chiefly concerned.
* * * * *
The day had been one of untarnished midsummer splendor, and as the sun
drew near to its setting, the glory of the evening grew every moment
more crystalline, more miraculous. Westward from St. Faith's the
beechwood which stretched for some miles toward the heathery upland
beyond already cast its veil of clear shadow over the red roofs of the
village, but the spire of the gray church, over-topping all, still
pointed a flaming orange finger into the sky. The river Fawn, which runs
below, lay in sheets of sky-reflected blue, and wound its dreamy devious
course round the edge of this wood, where a rough two-planked bridge
crossed from the bottom of the garden of the last house in the village,
and communicated by means of a little wicker gate with the wood itself.
Then once out of the shadow of the wood the stream lay in flaming pools
of the molten crimson of the sunset, and lost itself in the haze of
woodland distances.
This house at the end of the village stood outside the shadow, and the
lawn which sloped down to the river was still flecked with sunlight.
Garden-beds of dazzling color lined its gravel walks, and down the
middle of it ran a brick pergola, half-hidden in clusters of
rambler-rose and purple with starry clematis. At the bottom end of it,
between two of its pillars, was slung a hammock containing a
shirt-sleeved figure.
The house itself lay somewhat remote from the rest of the village, and a
footpath leading across two fields, now tall and fragrant with hay, was
its only communication with the high road. It was low-built, only two
stories in height, and like the garden, its walls were a mass of
flowering roses. A narrow stone terrace ran along the garden front, over
which was stretched an awning, and on the terrace a young silent-footed
man-servant was busied with the laying of the table for dinner. He was
neat-handed and quick with his job, and having finished it he went back
into the house, and reappeared again with a large rough bath-towel on
his arm. With this he went to the hammock in the pergola.
"Nearly eight, sir," he said.
"Has Mr. Darcy come yet?" asked a voice from the hammock.
"No, sir."
"If I'm not back when he comes, tell him that I'm just having a bathe
before dinner."
The servant went back to the house, and after a moment or two Frank
Halton struggled to a sitting posture, and slipped out on to the grass.
He was of medium height and rather slender in build, but the supple ease
and grace of his movements gave the impression of great physical
strength: even his descent from the hammock was not an awkward
performance. His face and hands were of very dark complexion, either
from constant exposure to wind and sun, or, as his black hair and dark
eyes tended to show, from some strain of southern blood. His head was
small, his face of an exquisite beauty of modeling, while the smoothness
of its contour would have led you to believe that he was a beardless lad
still in his teens. But something, some look which living and experience
alone can give, seemed to contradict that, and finding yourself
completely puzzled as to his age, you would next moment probably cease
to think about that, and only look at this glorious specimen of young
manhood with wondering satisfaction.
He was dressed as became the season and the heat, and wore only a shirt
open at the neck, and a pair of flannel trousers. His head, covered very
thickly with a somewhat rebellious crop of short curly hair, was bare as
he strolled across the lawn to the bathing-place that lay below. Then
for a moment there was silence, then the sound of splashed and divided
waters, and presently after, a great shout of ecstatic joy, as he swam
up-stream with the foamed water standing in a frill round his neck. Then
after some five minutes of limb-stretching struggle with the flood, he
turned over on his back, and with arms thrown wide, floated down-stream,
ripple-cradled and inert. His eyes were shut, and between half-parted
lips he talked gently to himself.
"I am one with it," he said to himself, "the river and I, I and the
river. The coolness and splash of it is I, and the water-herbs that wave
in it are I also. And my strength and my limbs are not mine but the
river's. It is all one, all one, dear Fawn."
* * * * *
A quarter of an hour later he appeared again at the bottom of the lawn,
dressed as before, his wet hair already drying into its crisp short
curls again. There he paused a moment, looking back at the stream with
the smile with which men look on the face of a friend, then turned
towards the house. Simultaneously his servant came to the door leading
on to the terrace, followed by a man who appeared to be some half-way
through the fourth decade of his years. Frank and he saw each other
across the bushes and garden-beds, and each quickening his step, they
met suddenly face to face round an angle of the garden walk, in the
fragrance of syringa.
"My dear Darcy," cried Frank, "I am charmed to see you."
But the other stared at him in amazement.
"Frank!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, that is my name," he said laughing, "what is the matter?"
Darcy took his hand.
"What have you done to yourself?" he asked. "You are a boy again."
"Ah, I have a lot to tell you," said Frank. "Lots that you will hardly
believe, but I shall convince you----"
He broke off suddenly, and held up his hand.
"Hush, there is my nightingale," he said.
The smile of recognition and welcome with which he had greeted his
friend faded from his face, and a look of rapt wonder took its place, as
of a lover listening to the voice of his beloved. His mouth parted
slightly, showing the white line of teeth, and his eyes looked out and
out till they seemed to Darcy to be focused on things beyond the vision
of man. Then something perhaps startled the bird, for the song ceased.
"Yes, lots to tell you," he said. "Really I am delighted to see you. But
you look rather white and pulled down; no wonder after that fever. And
there is to be no nonsense about this visit. It is June now, you stop
here till you are fit to begin work again. Two months at least."
"Ah, I can't trespass quite to that extent."
Frank took his arm and walked him down the grass.
"Trespass? Who talks of trespass? I shall tell you quite openly when I
am tired of you, but you know when we had the studio together, we used
not to bore each other. However, it is ill talking of going away on the
moment of your arrival. Just a stroll to the river, and then it will be
dinner-time."
Darcy took out his cigarette case, and offered it to the other.
Frank laughed.
"No, not for me. Dear me, I suppose I used to smoke once. How very odd!"
"Given it up?"
"I don't know. I suppose I must have. Anyhow I don't do it now. I would
as soon think of eating meat."
"Another victim on the smoking altar of vegetarianism?"
"Victim?" asked Frank. "Do I strike you as such?"
He paused on the margin of the stream and whistled softly. Next moment a
moor-hen made its splashing flight across the river, and ran up the
bank. Frank took it very gently in his hands and stroked its head, as
the creature lay against his shirt.
"And is the house among the reeds still secure?" he half-crooned to it.
"And is the missus quite well, and are the neighbors flourishing? There,
dear, home with you," and he flung it into the air.
"That bird's very tame," said Darcy, slightly bewildered.
"It is rather," said Frank, following its flight.
* * * * *
During dinner Frank chiefly occupied himself in bringing himself
up-to-date in the movements and achievements of this old friend whom he
had not seen for six years. Those six years, it now appeared, had been
full of incident and success for Darcy; he had made a name for himself
as a portrait painter which bade fair to outlast the vogue of a couple
of seasons, and his leisure time had been brief. Then some four months
previously he had been through a severe attack of typhoid, the result of
which as concerns this story was that he had come down to this
sequestered place to recruit.
"Yes, you've got on," said Frank at the end. "I always knew you would.
A.R.A. with more in prospect. Money? You roll in it, I suppose, and, O
Darcy, how much happiness have you had all these years? That is the only
imperishable possession. And how much have you learned? Oh, I don't mean
in Art. Even I could have done well in that."
Darcy laughed.
"Done well? My dear fellow, all I have learned in these six years you
knew, so to speak, in your cradle. Your old pictures fetch huge prices.
Do you never paint now?"
Frank shook his head.
"No, I'm too busy," he said.
"Doing what? Please tell me. That is what every one is for ever asking
me."
"Doing? I suppose you would say I do nothing."
Darcy glanced up at the brilliant young face opposite him.
"It seems to suit you, that way of being busy," he said. "Now, it's your
turn. Do you read? Do you study? I remember you saying that it would do
us all--all us artists, I mean--a great deal of good if we would study
any one human face carefully for a year, without recording a line. Have
you been doing that?"
Frank shook his head again.
"I mean exactly what I say," he said, "I have been _doing_ nothing. And
I have never been so occupied. Look at me; have I not done something to
myself to begin with?"
"You are two years younger than I," said Darcy, "at least you used to
be. You therefore are thirty-five. But had I never seen you before I
should say you were just twenty. But was it worth while to spend six
years of greatly-occupied life in order to look twenty? Seems rather
like a woman of fashion."
Frank laughed boisterously.
"First time I've ever been compared to that particular bird of prey," he
said. "No, that has not been my occupation--in fact I am only very
rarely conscious that one effect of my occupation has been that. Of
course, it must have been if one comes to think of it. It is not very
important. Quite true my body has become young. But that is very little;
I have become young."
Darcy pushed back his chair and sat sideways to the table looking at the
other.
"Has that been your occupation then?" he asked.
"Yes, that anyhow is one aspect of it. Think what youth means! It is the
capacity for growth, mind, body, spirit, all grow, all get stronger, all
have a fuller, firmer life every day. That is something, considering
that every day that passes after the ordinary man reaches the
full-blown flower of his strength, weakens his hold on life. A man
reaches his prime, and remains, we say, in his prime, for ten years, or
perhaps twenty. But after his primest prime is reached, he slowly,
insensibly weakens. These are the signs of age in you, in your body, in
your art probably, in your mind. You are less electric than you were.
But I, when I reach my prime--I am nearing it--ah, you shall see."
The stars had begun to appear in the blue velvet of the sky, and to the
east the horizon seen above the black silhouette of the village was
growing dove-colored with the approach of moon-rise. White moths hovered
dimly over the garden-beds, and the footsteps of night tip-toed through
the bushes. Suddenly Frank rose.
"Ah, it is the supreme moment," he said softly. "Now more than at any
other time the current of life, the eternal imperishable current runs so
close to me that I am almost enveloped in it. Be silent a minute."
He advanced to the edge of the terrace and looked out standing stretched
with arms outspread. Darcy heard him draw a long breath into his lungs,
and after many seconds expel it again. Six or eight times he did this,
then turned back into the lamplight.
"It will sound to you quite mad, I expect," he said, "but if you want to
hear the soberest truth I have ever spoken and shall ever speak, I will
tell you about myself. But come into the garden if it is not too damp
for you. I have never told any one yet, but I shall like to tell you. It
is long, in fact, since I have even tried to classify what I have
learned."
They wandered into the fragrant dimness of the pergola, and sat down.
Then Frank began:
"Years ago, do you remember," he said, "we used often to talk about the
decay of joy in the world. Many impulses, we settled, had contributed to
this decay, some of which were good in themselves, others that were
quite completely bad. Among the good things, I put what we may call
certain Christian virtues, renunciation, resignation, sympathy with
suffering, and the desire to relieve sufferers. But out of those things
spring very bad ones, useless renunciations, asceticism for its own
sake, mortification of the flesh with nothing to follow, no
corresponding gain that is, and that awful and terrible disease which
devastated England some centuries ago, and from which by heredity of
spirit we suffer now, Puritanism. That was a dreadful plague, the brutes
held and taught that joy and laughter and merriment were evil: it was a
doctrine the most profane and wicked. Why, what is the commonest crime
one sees? A sullen face. That is the truth of the matter.
"Now all my life I have believed that we are intended to be happy, that
joy is of all gifts the most divine. And when I left London, abandoned
my career, such as it was, I did so because I intended to devote my life
to the cultivation of joy, and, by continuous and unsparing effort, to
be happy. Among people, and in constant intercourse with others, I did
not find it possible; there were too many distractions in towns and
work-rooms, and also too much suffering. So I took one step backwards or
forwards, as you may choose to put it, and wen
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