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The Laughing Mill, and Other Stories

by Julian Hawthorne · English · Gutenberg #41592 · 421,932 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Laughing Mill, and Other Stories

Author: Julian Hawthorne


        
Release date: December 10, 2012 [eBook #41592]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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THE LAUGHING MILL

And Other Stories.

by

JULIAN HAWTHORNE.







London:
Macmillan and Co.
1879.
[The right of Translation is reserved.]




CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,
CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.




PREFACE.


What is called the human interest in fiction is doubtless more absorbing
than any other, but other legitimate sources of interest exist. The
marvellous always possesses a fascination, and justly; for while it is
neither human nature nor fact, it ministers to an æsthetic appetite of
the mind which neither fact nor human nature can gratify. Superstition
has been well abused; but that were a sad day which should behold
the destruction in us of the quality which keeps superstition alive.
Fortunately that day can never come--least of all under a Positivist
administration.

Such works as "The Tempest," "Faust," and "Consuelo" show their authors
at their best, because, being obliged by the subject to soar above the
level of vulgar possibility, the writers catch a gleam of transcendent
sunlight on their wings. And he who would mirror in his works the whole
of man must needs include the impossible along with the rest. Whoever
has lived thoughtfully feels that there has been something in his
experience beyond what appears in "Tom Jones," "Adam Bede," and "Vanity
Fair." They are earth without sky. I do not refer to that goody-goody
Sunday-school sky which weeps and smirks over the mimic worlds of so
many worthy novelists, male and female; but to that unfathomed mystery
opening all around us--the sky of Shakespeare and Dante, of Goethe and
Georges Sand. A reader with a healthy sense of justice feels that an
occasional excursion mystery-ward is no more than he has a right to
demand. And such excursions are wholesome for literature no less than
for him. For the story-teller, sensible of the risk he runs of making
his supernatural element appear crude and ridiculous, exerts himself to
the utmost, and his style and method purify and wax artistic under the
strain.

These remarks must smooth the way to the confession that in the present
volume no "human interest" will be found, or has been attempted. The
gist of the work (or at least of three-fourths of it) is to show how the
impossible might occur. Now, in order to appreciate the delicate flavour
of a ghost, it is indispensable that the palate should not be cloyed by
a contemporary diet of flesh and blood. In other words, the reality of
the personages amidst whom the disembodied spirit appears should be
insisted upon no further than is necessary to the telling them apart;
only that side of the human figures which is most in accord with the
superhuman should be made prominent. If the writer has managed this part
of his business properly, he is open to criticism only in so far as he
may have sinned in the way of conception and literary execution; and
upon those points he is happily spared the necessity of pronouncing
judgment. He may however be permitted to observe that the following
stories are among the very lightest and least profound of their class;
there are no tears or terrors in them; barely even a smile or a sigh;
and, in short, their success--should they achieve any--will be mainly
due to the fact that with such small pretensions failure would actually
become difficult.

One of the tales, it should be added, is a mere _jeu d'esprit_, the
presence of which in the collection is justifiable only on the plea
that it makes believe to be what the others are--relieving a note too
monotonously sounded by lowering it to the key of mockery. Possibly,
nevertheless, it may turn out to be the float which will save the
weightier portion of the cargo from going too speedily to the bottom.
All the stories have appeared, during the last four years, in various
periodicals, to the editors of which my acknowledgments are due for
leave to reproduce them.

  _January, 1879._




CONTENTS.


                               PAGE
  THE LAUGHING MILL               3

  CALBOT'S RIVAL                105

  MRS. GAINSBOROUGH'S DIAMONDS  177

  THE CHRISTMAS GUEST. A Myth   295




THE LAUGHING MILL.


I.

Among the pleasantest memories of my earlier days is one of an old
gabled farmhouse overlooking the sea. It is a July afternoon, calm and
hot. The sea is pale blue and its surface glassy smooth; but the passage
of a storm somewhere to the eastward causes long slumberous undulations
to lapse shorewards. They break upon the Devil's Ribs--that low black
reef about half a mile out--and the sound is borne to our ears some
seconds after the white-foam line has marked itself against the blue and
vanished. There is a fine throb of sun-loving insects in the air, which
we may hear if we listen for it; but more immediately audible is the
guttural drawing of old Jack Poyntz's meerschaum pipe, and the delicate
clicking of his sweet daughter Agatha's polished knitting-needles. From
within doors comes the fillip of water and the clink of chinaware--good
Mrs. Poyntz washing up the dinner-things. For we have just dined, and
the blessing of a good digestion is upon all of us.

Yes; there we three sit, in my memory, side by side upon the stone
bench outside the farmhouse door. The projecting eaves throw a quiet,
transparent shadow over us. Two or three venerable hens are scratching
and nestling in the hot sandy soil near yonder corner, and conversing
together in long-drawn comfortable croakings. The fragrant smoke from
Poyntz's pipe-bowl circles upwards on the air, until it takes the
sunlight high over head. Truly a pleasant time, whose peacefulness is
still present with me after so many years. I am old, who then was young;
but that July sunshine is warm in my heart to-day.

Poyntz was an ancient mariner--not lean and uncanny, however; but burly,
jovial, and brown; with a huge grizzled beard spreading over his mighty
chest, a voice as deep and mellow as a sea-lion's, and eyes as blue and
clear as the ocean upon which they had looked for more than sixty years.
He had been a successful sailor, had visited many lands and brought home
many cargoes, and was, in a rough simple way, a thorough cosmopolitan.
After his last voyage he had settled down in the ancestral farmhouse,
and applied himself to agriculture. He was as prosperous, contented, and
respected a man as any in the neighbourhood; and during the fortnight
or so that I had lodged beneath his roof, I had grown into a hearty
liking for him. While as to Agatha--ah, it was not liking that I felt
for her! Strange that that fair, finely-moulded, queenly creature was
only a sailor's daughter! Much as I honoured Poyntz, I could not help
sometimes feeling surprised at it. At all events, she was as perfect
a lady as ever stepped on high-arched feet; and I fancied that the
old mariner and his wife treated her in a manner more befitting a
distinguished visitor than a child of their own. There was sturdy little
Peter, now--he whose brown legs were visible beneath the low spreading
bough of a scrub-oak beside the mill-stream yonder--there could be no
doubt as to _him_. But what a brother for Agatha!

How well I recall her aspect, though it is more than twenty years since
that day. Her shapely head was bound about with a turban of her bright
yellow hair, but her eyes and eyebrows were dark. Her neck was round
and slender, and supported its burden in unconscious poses of maidenly
dignity. The contours of her figure were full, yet refined; her wrists
were small, and her hand was shaped like that which lies on the bosom
of Canova's Venus. Her manners breathed simplicity and sweet composure,
yet were reserved and serious withal, and sometimes they were tinged
with a shadow of melancholy. At such moments her hands would fall into
her lap, her head would droop a little forward, and her dark eyes
gravely fix themselves upon some sunlit sail that flecked the pale
horizon. So would she remain until, perhaps, the sail sank below the
verge, or became invisible in shadow; then, with a sigh, the soft
fetters of her preoccupation would seem to fall away from her. What
were her thoughts during those reveries? and why should they be sad
ones? I had never ventured to question her much as yet; her mystery was
itself a fascination.

One thing about her had attracted my particular notice from the
first--the curious pearl-shell necklace that she always wore clasped
round her smooth throat. It was composed of very small shells of a
peculiar species, not found in that part of the world. These were woven
into a singular pattern of involved curves, and were fastened with a
broad gold clasp, in the centre of which was set a large pearl. Handsome
as the ornament was, however, and becoming to its wearer, it would not
have so riveted my attention but for a circumstance to which I must here
make a passing allusion.

Among my most precious possessions at that time was a fine oil portrait
of my great-grandmother, who was a famous beauty in her day. My
family, I should have said, is of Danish extraction, though the
name--Feuerberg--was, after the emigration of the elder branch to
America, translated to the present Firemount. In my great-grandmother's
days there had been a bitter family quarrel; the younger brother had
attempted to cast doubts upon the legitimacy of the firstborn, and when
he failed to make good his claim, he had fraudulently seized upon a
large portion of the inheritance and made his escape--whither was not
known, for no effort was made to pursue him. It was believed that he
went to Germany and married there; and that afterwards he or his son
had made another remove, since which even conjecture had been silent
concerning them. But to return to the portrait. It was a half-length,
and had the quaint headdress and costume of the period, one detail only
being out of the fashion; but this it was that had always possessed most
interest for me. It was the curious pearl-shell necklace, woven in a
strange pattern, and fastened with a golden clasp, which was represented
upon my great-grandmother's statuesque bosom. This necklace had for
centuries been a family heirloom, and many quaint traditions were
connected with it. It was said to have been given to the founder of
our race by a water-witch, or some such mythologic being; and sundry
mysterious virtues were supposed to belong to it. Precisely what
these virtues were I cannot tell, nor does it happen to be of much
consequence. One saying only I remember--that the wearing of it would
ensure us happiness and prosperity so long as no member of the family
brought dishonour on the name; but thereafter it would bring ruin.
Now the necklace had been handed on from one prosperous generation to
another, until the date of the quarrel above alluded to; and then, all
at once, it had disappeared; and my great-grandmother was the last
person known to have worn it. She mentioned it on her deathbed, and
foretold that no good fortune was to be expected for the Feuerbergs
until the sacred heirloom was recovered, and made a symbol of the
healing of the family feud.

The negative part of the prophecy had certainly been verified. The
elder branch of the Feuerbergs never got over the effects of the blow
inflicted upon it by the younger brother. They gradually subsided from
their original high estate; and were at last compelled to abandon the
ancestral homestead, and try their luck in the New World. At the time of
my birth we were in decently comfortable circumstances, which improved
upon the whole as I grew towards manhood. I passed through college,
and was afterwards admitted to the Bar, which by-and-by afforded me a
tolerable income. But one spring I fancied myself ailing, and resolved
to try the sea air; and so it happened that I became acquainted with
Jack Poyntz, and with Agatha, and with her pearl-shell necklace.

Of course, all idea of recovering the original necklace had long ago
been abandoned. It had been conjectured that the seceding brother of
old times had appropriated it along with many other things that did
not belong to him; but there was no proof of this, other than that its
disappearance had been simultaneous with his own. Moreover, if the fact
must be told, I had outgrown the easy credulity of boyhood, and rather
inclined to suspect that the whole picturesque old tradition was three
parts imagination to one of truth. It might soothe my family pride to
ascribe our decadence to the loss of a trinket, or I might excuse my
indolence by declaring that fortune was attainable only on condition of
its being found again; but if I descended to hard matter-of-fact, as a
lawyer should do, I must admit there was nothing cross-questionable in
such an old-wives' tale.

Cross-questionable or not, it will readily be conceived that the sight
of Agatha's pearl-shells gave me a thrill of surprise, and deepened my
interest in one who needed no such accidental attraction to render her
irresistible. The necklace so closely resembled the one in the portrait,
that the latter might have been painted from it. It was possible, no
doubt, that my great-grandmother's necklace was not unique; that a
duplicate--nay, many duplicates--existed. But it was not upon the face
of it probable, nor was I disposed to accept any such commonplace
solution of the problem. I loved Agatha, and I loved to think (for have
I not hinted that I was romantic, though a lawyer?)--I say it suited me
to believe that the necklace linked her, however unaccountably, with
me. It was evident that she herself looked upon it as a most precious
possession. She wore it continually, as she might have worn a talisman,
and touched it often, twisting the golden clasp about, or following the
woven pattern with meditative finger-tips. Once, when suddenly alarmed,
I saw her grasp it quickly in her hand, as if either seeking protection
from it, or instinctively yielding it protection; and another time,
during a storm, when a vessel was labouring in the offing, and seemed in
danger of being carried upon the Devil's Ribs, I came upon her just as
she kissed the great pearl in the clasp, as a Catholic would have kissed
the crucifix to avert misfortune.

"Water-witch! water-witch! be thy spells wholesome?" I said in Danish,
for a knowledge of the ancestral tongue has always been kept alive in
the family.

She turned round, started, and to my no small surprise, answered in the
same language: "Doubt not the spell, if the danger be daunted!"

And then, seeming to recollect herself, she blushed, and said in
English: "It was a song my old nurse taught me. I should like to be a
witch, if I might save people from being shipwrecked."

I made no reply, and we stood silently watching the struggle of the
vessel with the storm for perhaps ten minutes. At length it succeeded in
tacking at the very moment when all seemed lost, and bore safely away.
Agatha's eyes met mine for an instant; there were both smiles and tears
in them. She kissed her pearl again and moved away. But my digression
has already gone farther than I intended. Let us return to the stone
bench beneath the eaves, and the hot July sunshine.


II.

"Mr. Poyntz," said I, clasping my hands behind my head, and crossing
one knee over the other, "how happens your house to be set up directly
opposite the Devil's Ribs, and at least a mile and a half from the
village? It's well enough in summer of course, but in winter, when the
snow is on the ground, I should think you'd want to be nearer your
butcher, not to speak of the meeting-house."

"Ay, surely!" answered Mr. Poyntz, taking the pipe from his mouth, and
smoothing down the great sheaf of his beard. "But, d'ye see, sir, 'twas
not I set the house here, nor my father before me, and maybe there was
no butcher, nor yet no meeting-house along in those times. And another
thing, since you've set me a-going, sir; you see the lighthouse on the
point yonder?" indicating an abrupt rocky promontory half a mile to the
right of our position, which lay athwart the shore like a vast wall,
separating us from the little fishing hamlet on the other side. "Ye see
the lighthouse on tip-end of Gloam's Point, don't ye? Well, sir, old as
that lighthouse looks to you now, I, that am a deal older than you are,
can remember when 'twa'nt there. And that brings me round to what I was
going to say. Along in those times, sir, when there wa'nt no regular
lighthouse, but no bit less danger of craft running ashore, they used to
rig up a sort of a jury-light, if I might so call it, in the front of
our old gable. Ye may see the fixings now if ye steps forward a bit and
look up there. Ay, ay, every dark night, more especially every dirty
night, some of us would mount the garret shrouds, d'ye see, and show the
lantern. And many a ship we saved, no doubt; but they'd come ashore once
in a while, for the best we could do."

"That's a suggestive name--Devil's Ribs. I suppose the bones of many a
good man and vessel lie swallowed up in them."

"Ay, surely," returned the ancient mariner, swathing his head in a haze
of tobacco-smoke. "The more since the currents and whirlpools thereabout
mostly keep back the floating bits--spars, bodies, and such like--from
getting to the beach. Whatever strikes there, sinks there, speaking in a
general way. And forasmuch as there's five-and-thirty fathom clear water
there, and always a tidy bit of surf on, 'tain't very popular work
dredging."

"That's an ugly thought," I observed; "a great ship might go down there,
and nothing ever be found to show what she was or who sailed in her."

I happened to glance at Agatha as I made this observation, and noticed
that she paled a little and let her hands fall in her lap, and after a
few moments she got up and entered the house, leaving Mr. Poyntz and
me to ourselves. I fancied--but I may have been mistaken--that as she
passed the threshold she laid her finger upon the pearl-shell necklace.

"Miss Agatha doesn't like to hear of wrecks," I remarked after a pause.

"Why no, sir," said Poyntz slowly, his blue eyes fixed upon the
surf-whitened reef; "and perhaps 'tis natural she should not--specially
those wrecks that the Devil's Ribs is to blame for."

"Has that necklace of hers anything to do with it?" I asked--though I
cannot tell what possessed me to put so inconsequent a question. Partly
to justify myself, I added: "It looks as if it might have been washed up
out of the sea."

Poyntz threw a sharp look at me out of the corner of his weather-eye.
"Ye've noticed the necklace, have ye?" said he; "and ye've a quick wit
of your own, as they say is the way with lawyers. Howbeit, I think Jack
Poyntz knows an honest man when he sights him, and hoping ye'll excuse
the freedom, sir, methinks you are one. Now there's a bit of a yarn I'd
like to spin ye--you being beknown amongst the great gentlefolks down to
New York and elsewhere--about a wreck that once was on the Devil's Ribs.
Maybe some of those you do business for can throw light upon it like;
for what the ship was that was wrecked, or whence she sailed, was
never known; for only that necklace that Agatha wears--only that
and--something else, ever came to land. Ye guessed right, sir, d'ye see,
and in hopes of your guessing yet more, I'll spin ye the yarn, leastways
if ye've no objection. But afore starting, if ye'll kindly allow me,
sir, I'll load my pipe, for with me the words come ever easier when
there's smoke behind 'em."

I said nothing, but Poyntz saw well enough that I was very much
interested, and, like all incorrigible yarn-spinners, he found a
humorous pleasure in prolonging his hearer's suspense. It was five
minutes before his pipe was cleaned out, refilled, and lighted to his
satisfaction, and then, having spread out his great arms along the back
of the bench, stretched his mighty legs in front of him, and fixed his
gaze upon the lighthouse--his favourite yarn-spinning attitude--he
appeared to wait for an inspiration.

"How long ago was it?" I asked at length, to set him going.

"Well, sir, it might be five-and-twenty years ago that that wreck took
place. You was hardly more than out of your nursery then, I'm thinking.
As for me, I was a chap of maybe forty--or maybe not so much; my old
father he had just parted his last cable, as I might say, and I had just
come in from a voyage to the Pacific Coast for hides, and was living in
this house alone by myself. I'd come home, sir, to find the girl as had
given me her word spliced to another man; and so it happened that I
stayed a bachelor till after the age when many find themselves grandads.
But I wedded at last, sir, as ye see, and never had cause to think the
worse of myself for doing it!"

"I should think not, indeed," I assented, laughing. But meanwhile I was
telling myself that Agatha must be nearly twenty years old, and that if
Poyntz had wedded only at the age of a grandfather, she could hardly
be his own offspring by marriage. Were the doubts which her aspect had
already suggested to me well founded, then? I prudently waited, in the
hope that this question likewise might find its answer in the course of
my host's story.

"It was along about that time, sir," Poyntz continued, having
acknowledged my compliment with a friendly nod, "that I first came
acquainted with Scholar Gloam, as the folks called him; him that yonder
point's named after, and that lived at the Laughing Mill, over there,
back of the wood. But now I come for to think on it," broke off the old
yarn-spinner, pulling his meerschaum out of the corner of his mouth and
looking round at me, "did I ever chance to speak to ye of Scholar Gloam
afore?"

"I don't think you ever did; but I always like to hear about anything
that has a picturesque nickname, as almost everything hereabouts seems
to have."

The hale old man laughed, and raked his brown fingers through his
spreading beard. "In an out-of-the-way place like this, sir," said he,
"where's few enough things anyway, nicknames come natural. Well, now, as
touching Scholar Gloam, he died nigh a score of years ago; leastways he
knocked off living in the body. For there be those," lowering his voice
and wrinkling his brows, "there be those--superstitious like--ready to
take affidavit of having seen him, certain days in the year, a prowling
round the Laughing Mill. His grave is near by, right under the Black
Oak; and maybe the place is a bit skeery.

"Howsoever, that don't concern us now. When I knew Scholar Gloam, he was
a middling-sized, slender-built young gentleman, having queer hair not
all of the same colour, and a trick of talking to himself in a sort of a
low mumbling way, as it might be the bubbling of water under a ship's
stern, if ye know what I mean, sir. He was a comely favoured man of the
pale sort, and grave and silent, though always the gentleman in his
manners, as by blood and breeding. For the Gloams was the great family
here fifty years ago, and was landlords of most of the farms roundabout;
but they steered a bad course, as I might say, and died out, so as
Scholar Gloam was the last of 'em. Old Harold, the Scholar's father, he
was a reckless devil if any man ever was; and when he died 'twas found
that Gloam Hall and all belonging thereto must go to the auction. The
only bit left was the Laughing Mill itself, and an acre or two of land
round about it."

"What did the mill laugh at, Mr. Poyntz? its own prosperity?"

"Nay, sir!" returned the burly mariner, shaking his head. "I heard it
laugh once, and I'd as soon crack jokes with Davy Jones as listen to
it again. 'Twas a mad, wild scream more than a laugh, and like nothing
human, praise goodness, that ever I heard! There was ugly yarns about
that mill, d'ye see; folks said as how it had killed a man, and
afterwards had got possessed with his evil spirit that was always
roaming about seeking whom it might devour ... or maybe I've got
things a bit mixed!"

"Who was it that was killed?" I suggested.

"Ay, surely," said Mr. Poyntz thoughtfully, "I should have told ye that.
It was the man that was married to old Squire Harold's housekeeper.
And that housekeeper, sir, when she was a young one, was about as
well-favoured a wench as a man would care to speak with on a week day;
and 'twas said," hitching himself nearer to me on the bench and rumbling
in my ear, "that the Squire had a fancy to her, and that after a time
she was married off in a hurry and sent to live at the mill, and that
her baby was born six months from the wedding. Well, all I know is,
little enough that child looked like him as passed for its father; and
now comes the ugliest part of it. A year after the child's birth the
miller was found dead one morning underneath his own mill-wheel. Seems
he'd fallen in the mill-race by some mishap, and so had the life crushed
out of him. But bad things was said ... and the widow and child they
went back to the Hall, and lived there many years, till the Squire died.
The child got all his growth and training there, and folks used to say
he'd have been more like the Squire if he hadn't been most like his
mother. Well, the Squire being gone at last, and the estate all sold
saving just the mill, as I told ye, what does the housekeeper and her
son do but go back to the mill again. The son--David he was called--was
then a likely young chap of maybe seventeen; and he took right hold and
began for to run the mill, and a very fair profit he made out of it,
taking one year with another. And Scholar Gloam, he was living in the
mill-house along with them, having his room to himself, and his books
and instruments quite cosy."

"Wasn't that rather an odd thing for him to do, Mr. Poyntz, under the
circumstances?"

"Ay, surely; but ye must keep it in mind, sir, that Scholar Gloam was a
wondrous odd man. He'd been his whole life shut up with his books and
his studies, and no doubt had a vast deal of that sort of learning; but
of worldly knowledge, as I might say, he'd none at all whatever, no more
than a child. Little he'd heard of his father's doings, be it with the
handsome housekeeper or anything else; and little he dreamed--ye can
make affidavit--that her son had any claim to call himself his brother,
though 'twas told him once afterwards, as we'll come to presently. Nay,
but my thought of him is, he was a simple, honest gentleman at that
time, kind of heart and thinking ill of no one; only a bit strange and
distant, d'ye see, as was no harm in the world for him to be. And being
quite the same thing to him whether he lived in a palace or a mud hut,
so long as he might study his fill, why, likely he'd an easy enough time
of it.

"And 'twould have been smooth enough sailing for the whole of them only
for one thing, which is to say as how, ever and anon, in the mid of a
big run of luck, that there mill would take on a spell of its laughing;
and with that folks would be giving it a wide berth, and business would
slack up again. It was no use the old woman and David a swearing that a
bit of rust on the axle was the cause of it all; for, mind ye, there was
no steering round that black fact of the old miller's having met his
death on the wheel; and, too, though they was never done hunting for
that bit of a rust spot, they never found it, or if ever they thought
they had, lo! there'd be the laugh in their faces again, so to say, the
next morning. Ay, 'twas a bad, unholy sound that, sir; but the Scholar,
strange to be told, seemed less to mind it than anyone; the cause being,
mayhap, as how he was a wondrous absent-minded man anyway, and the only
one as had never been told the true story of how the old miller came by
his end.

"So now, sir, having dropped ye this bit of a hint of who Scholar Gloam
was, I'll go on with the yarn of the wreck on the Devil's Ribs and the
necklace.


III.

"But, first and foremost," continued Mr. Poyntz, after having revived
his failing pipe with a dozen or so of quick whiffs, "first and foremost
I must mention a queer habit he had--Scholar Gloam, I mean--and by which
it was as I first came acquainted with him. As long as the sun was over
the horizon line he'd stay indoors, behind the lock of his study door;
but at nightfall out he'd walk, foul weather or fair, and through the
wood back yonder, down across the rocky pasture to the sea, a trip of
maybe a mile and over. And often at midnight, as I've been pulling
shorewards from the offing in my fishing dory, I've seen him standing
a-top of the point, where the lighthouse stands now, the sky being
light behind him, and he looking black, and bigger than any human
creature; and sometimes he'd be tossing his arms about, and shouting
out some un-Christian lingo, though there was no one there to talk
to--leastways that I could see. 'Twas a queer thing, I say, for a
slender, delicate-looking gentleman like him to be out so by night, in
all weathers, seeming not to know the difference whether it blew, or
rained, or snowed, or all three together. Some folks used for to shake
their heads over it, and say he was gone daft; others there was (the
superstitious kind, d'ye see) would have it as how Davy Jones, whose
black bones had been the end of many a good ship and cargo, was in the
custom of coming nightly to the point to hold parley with him, as it
might be to strike a bargain whereby Davy should get the Scholar his
estates and riches again in change for his soul.

"But Jack Poyntz never troubled his head with such fancies, sir; and
times, when I'd stowed my boat away, I'd hail him, and have him down to
the house; and sitting snug together by the kitchen fire, many a strange
yarn has he spun me, the like of which never was heard before--leastways
not outside of the books that were hid in his library--and of which many
were writ in strange tongues as are not spoken in our Christian times.
But it's not for me to be repeating of 'em now, only, as I was a-telling
ye, it was such-like things brought us acquainted; and very good chums
we were, allowing for his being a young gentleman scholar, and me a
sailor as had no great book-learning, though knowing more of men and
things than a hundred such as him. And by the end of a couple of years
or so, meeting him that way off and on, I knew him as well as ever
anybody knew him--as well, maybe, as he knew himself.

"Well, things being this way, one day, about the last week in September,
it came on to blow. There was no rain, but no moon either, and the air
was thick; and night coming on, it was as black as my hat. It wasn't
long afore there was a heavy sea running, and ye could have heard the
surf on them Devil's Ribs five miles inland. I shipped the lantern up in
the fore gable as usual, though knowing it couldn't show far in such a
night; and, thinks I, see it or not, any ship that gets caught in the
tide this weather is bound to wreck; so I'll hope, says I to myself,
that they'll give us a wide berth. Howbe, I wasn't sleepy, so I loaded
my pipe, and, thinks I, I'll have a snug smoke and a drop of grog
alongside the kitchen fire afore turning in. No chance, thinks I, of my
Scholar happening in this night; he never could beat up against that
wind, not if he had Davy Jones himself to pilot him. Well, there I
sat for maybe an hour, the noise of the storm getting ever louder and
louder, so at times I could hardly hear the rattle of my spoon as I
stirred up the grog in the tumbler. Then all of a sudden there comes
a knocking at the door, quick and heavy, and up I jumps and opens
it, and lo! there was the Scholar, with no hat and no coat, and that
strange-coloured hair of his blown up wild about his head, and his eyes
wide open and bright as a binnacle.

"'Why don't you come in, sir?' shouts I, loud as if I was a-hailing him
at the maintop, such a noise the wind made; 'ye'll get the heart and
lungs blown clean out of ye if ye stop there!'

"Seemed like he answered me something, I couldn't make out what; but he
laid hold on my sleeve with that thin white hand of his, that gripped
like a vice, as if he'd pull me out into the storm with him, instead of
coming in to me. And by his face I could see there was a storm within
him as stirred him more than the one without; and then he pointed down
seawards, and, thinks I, 'tis a ship he's seen or heard on the Devil's
Ribs. And though I knew well we could no more help any poor wrecked
souls than if they was in the moon, yet it wasn't in me to back out of
going with him to see what there was to see. So just laying hold of my
tarpaulin and a flask of rum, off we starts on the run, dead in the
wind's eye. How he managed for to scud over the ground at that rate is
more than I could make out; the wind seemed to take no hold on him, but
just let him through easy, though all the time it was near blowing my
ears off.

"Well, down we came to the beach at last, at a place about a cable's
length this side of the point. I'd kept my man in sight up to this time
by reason of the white shirt he had on, his coat, as I told ye, being
off him, but whither gone I'd not remembered for to ask him. But now,
all of a sudden, I found he'd disappeared, and all I could see was the
pale froth of the surf that came leaping up the beach, with a sound from
the black wave behind it like the going off of a big gun. Howsoever,
I presently stumbled round the corner of a big boulder--ye may see it
yonder, sir, in a line with the face of the lighthouse and the top of
the pine stump--and there he was on his knees beside something wrapped
up and still; and when I looked, 'twas seemingly a young girl, about
twelve to thirteen years old, with no life in her. She had come ashore
on a bit of planking, and the Scholar he had seen her coming, and had
scrambled down from the cliff in time to haul her in and under the lea
of the boulder. How he did it the Lord only knows, for ten men working
together might have failed in it. But there she lay, with no mark of
harm or bruise upon her, and yet (as my heart misgave me) lifeless from
the washing of the waves through which she had voyaged to land.

"I saw 'twould be no use trying to give her rum yet awhile, so I stoops
to lift her up along with the bit of planking that she lay upon; and
Scholar Gloam he helped, though neither of us spoke, by reason of the
thundering noise of the surf and the wind that half deafened us. It took
us maybe a quarter of an hour, and then we were at home, and had her
down before the fire, and wrapped in hot blankets, and everything done
that could be done; and after nigh a couple of hours' work, she moved
the least mite in the world, and fetched a sigh. With that I sings out
like I'd come upon a chest full of gold dollars, and says I, 'All's
well, Scholar Gloam; she's a-coming to, and she'll live to smile on us
yet!' And then what does he do, sir, but just throws his head back with
a little laugh, and topples over in a dead faint. 'Twas the exhaustion,
ye must understand, as had come on all at once after the suspense of
whether she was alive or dead was over. So there was I with the two of
'em to doctor. Well, I soon had the Scholar all right again; but when he
saw as how the child was a-doing well, he drops off suddenly to sleep,
being tired right out and unable for to keep his eyes open; and I didn't
wake him, but just threw a blanket over him, and let him sleep it out.

"It was, maybe, half an hour after that that the little girl spoke; she
had been opening her eyes and then shutting them several times, and
wondering where she was got to, I suppose, poor little dear. She was
pretty and white, with yellow hair and big blue eyes, and soft little
feet and hands, and pointed fingers; and round her neck was the
pearl-shell necklace that ye've seen Agatha wearing, sir. Well, she
looked at me for a bit, and seemed like to cry, not knowing who I was,
or where she'd got to, d'ye see; and then she said something, repeating
it over twice or thrice; but I couldn't understand her, by reason of her
speaking some foreign lingo as was unknown to me. Howsoever, I took for
granted that it must be some of her people she was asking after; so I
pointed to the back room, and made believe as they were in there, but
asleep, and not to be disturbed then. She believed me, poor little soul,
and presently after dropped quietly asleep, with the tears yet under her
eyelids, and the firelight flickering over her sweet face and yellow
hair.

"Well, I sat there between the two, for I wasn't sleepy at all myself,
and kept the fire alight, and my own pipe a-going, till morning, by
which time the storm was mostly cleared off. So I got the old lantern
down from the gable, and stirred about to get breakfast ready; and at
sunrise, the two being still sleeping, I walked out to see if so be as
anything of the wreck was visible. But the Devil's Ribs was only a bank
of foam, and when I came to the beach there was naught there but a few
shattered timbers and bits of spars and rigging; whatever else there
may have been had gone down within the whirlpool of the Devil's Ribs,
and would never see daylight more; nor was there anything to tell where
the wrecked ship hailed from, or what she was, or whither she was bound.
Nay, a man might well have doubted whether there'd been any wreck at
all; and superstitious folks might have thought that the pretty child we
had found was a sea-nymph or a mermaid, who had come on the shoulders
of waves to bring us good luck--or bad, maybe! Not that I'd have ye to
think, sir, that I'm of the superstitious kind, being a man as has
seen much of the world, and lived a number of years in it. But 'twas a
strange thing altogether, and stranger yet was to follow, as ye shall
hear.

"In my walk I happened by the boulder where I'd been with the Scholar
overnight, and there I picked up a small iron box, with a big lock on
it; it was lashed to four bits of wood, so as it might float, and I
think it must have come ashore along with the raft that brought the
little girl. Just as I laid hands on it, and cut away the lashings, I
sighted one of the villagers a-coming over the cliff path towards me.
So, not caring to be hailed at that time, I slipped the box in the
pocket of my jacket, and steered for the house.

"And lo! there was the fair child sitting in the chair, and the Scholar
he was kneeling in front of her, with her hands in his, and they were
a-talking together in that same foreign lingo as she had spoken in to
me; for, d'ye see, he had learnt it all from his books, and understood
it as well as she who was born to it. The child was a bit scared and
tearful still, and he seemed to be a-comforting of her; and as I came
in, says he, 'Don't let on that her folks are drowned, Jack; for I've
told her they're but borne away to another harbour, and will return one
day to claim her. So meanwhile,' says he, 'she'll come to live with me
at the mill, and be my little girl; for is she not my little girl now,
since 'twas I brought her forth from the ocean that would have robbed
her sweet young life?' With that he kisses her little hands, and says
somewhat to her again in her own tongue. It touched my heart to see the
two together, sir; for, d'ye see, the Scholar had never seemed to be
aware, as I may say, of women or children until now; he had moved
through life without seeing them or speaking to them, save at times
in an absent, dreamy sort of a way, as though they were in different
worlds. But now he was full of earnestness and a kind of joyful
trembling surprise, as one who had all of a sudden opened his eyes to a
great treasure, and was delighting in it all the more for that he had
been unknowing of it before. He was all in all a changed man, and
softened, and waked up inside, so that his eyes seemed to be a-seeing
the things that was round him, and not things in a dream; and methought
there was a difference in his voice, too; it was deeper and tenderer
like, and made you feel as how he had grown to be a man more than a
scholar. I thought he was as a ship that had long been lingering in cold
dark waters, baffled with winds that set towards no pleasant harbour,
but which had at last found its sails filled with a fair fresh breeze,
as was blowing her to warm southern seas and tropic islands full of heat
and life. Ye'll maybe laugh, sir, to hear an old sailor talk like this;
but surely I had loved the man, and pitied him, too, for his loneliness;
and it touched me, as I said, to see that he had found a good thing in
the world, and could feel the happiness of it.

"'Pretty soon, Jack,' says he again, 'ye must help me carry her to the
mill this morning, before the village folks are astir; and don't tell
them that she's there, or whence she came. She's my own, and her past is
all gone for ever; God has sent her to me for my own. I shall make her
love me as I now love her, and no other shall have any part in her. I
will be to her all that she has lost, and more; and I will cherish her
always and make her happy. And when the village folks find out that I
have her (as soon of course they must), they shall be told that she is
a good fairy come to bring me fortune and delight. I'd say that she rose
up one morning out of the deep clear pool just above the mill-race; and
that though appearing as a human being, she is in very truth not mortal,
but has consented to live with me so long as I continue worthy of
her companionship. But when the time comes--which God forbid it ever
should!--that I prove unworthy, then shall she vanish back to her
natural abode, and I be more desolate than before she came. And as
for this necklace,' says he, 'it is a talisman; and should fate ever
separate us, yet this be left me, 'twill be a pledge that'...."

"What's happened?"


IV.

The yarn broke off abruptly enough. Poyntz and I had both started to our
feet, our eyes and ears straining towards the mill-stream, where little
Peter had during the last hour been quietly fishing. The sound of a
quick scramble, a heavy plunge, and simultaneously a lusty scream, had
sharply broken the repose of the summer afternoon.

"'Tis the brat has toppled in!" cried Poyntz, the sunburnt ruddiness of
his complexion turning to a tawny sallow hue. "He can't swim; haste ye
lower down, sir; I'll to the pool; but if as he's carried over the fall,
ye'll stop him at the rapid."

We had already set off on a run towards the bank, and we now separated
in accordance with Poyntz's suggestion. I saw no more of the latter,
being wholly absorbed in carrying out my part of the programme; and in a
few moments I was standing panting beside the rushing water, trying to
select the best point from which to take my plunge. Just then I heard a
swift rustling step behind me, and there was Agatha, her lovely face and
eyes aglow with terrified excitement. Then it passed through my mind
that she had always evinced a particular tenderness and affection for
poor little Peter; and at the thought I must confess that my resolve to
save him at all risks became tenfold as strong as it had been before.

It was all a whirl and confusion; and only by comparing notes afterwards
did we make out the order of events. Master Peter, it seems, after much
unfruitful angling, had at last succeeded in hooking a huge trout, and
straightway had lost first his mental and then his bodily balance. The
fish being fairly on the hook, and pulling hard, the little man had
rather chosen to go in after it, rod and all, than save himself at
the cost of losing it. His scream, however, had startled not only his
father and myself but Agatha and his mother likewise; and the latter had
followed her husband, as Agatha did me. When Poyntz reached the brink of
the pool, the young fisherman had just risen for the second time, and
was circling helplessly in the eddy. Poyntz sprang forward; but his foot
catching in a vine, he fell prone, his head in the water and the rest of
his body on dry land.

Before he could disentangle himself (an operation which the well-meant
but too convulsive efforts of Mrs. Poyntz only served to retard) the
child had drifted into the current and was carried over the fall. It was
now that Agatha and I first caught sight of him. She pressed impulsively
forward, and had I not retained her would have leaped into the headlong
rapids herself. As I caught her arm, I felt rather than saw her
glance at me, as though measuring my ability to do what must be done.
Apparently her decision was in my favour, for she stepped back; and
an instant after I was staggering breast deep in the boiling stream,
watching the swift but topsy-turvy onset of Master Peter. Down he swept;
and to make a long story short, I succeeded in catching hold of him
without losing my footing, and thereby in saving his life and my own.
Agatha helping from the bank, we were soon landed high and dry, or
rather, very wet. Then ensued a great and indescribable hullaballo,
wherein the first distinguishable words burst from Mr. Poyntz:

"Look ye here, wife!" cried he, laughing and weeping in the same breath,
"look if the lad hasn't stuck to his fish through it all!"

And so it proved; Peter had rivalled the childish exploit of his
predecessor, stout little Kit North. There was the rod, still lightly
gripped in his small fist; and a three-pound trout was flapping and
gasping at the end of the line.

"He's but a chip of the old block, Mr. Poyntz," said I, when the shouts
that greeted the discovery had somewhat subsided. "What is that sticking
in the corner of your mouth?"

The old mariner put up his hand and took the thing out, and after
staring at it for a moment in comical dismay, he burst into a laugh, in
which everybody joined. It was the stem of his well-loved meerschaum,
held unconsciously between his teeth throughout the entire turmoil; the
bowl had probably been snapped off when he fell on the brink of the
pool. So we all retraced our way to the house, the trout resting
triumphantly in Peter's arms, who was himself carried by his father.
Agatha and I walked side by side; neither spoke to the other, and I knew
not what thoughts were in her mind; but for my own part I had never
been more light of heart, and I regarded Peter and his trout as the best
friends that ever lover had. My achievement had been trifling enough,
Heaven knows; but such as it was, it had been done before her eyes, and
partly at least for her sake. When we had reached the house-door, and
the others had passed in before us, she paused on the threshold and
turned to me, smiling, with her finger upon the necklace-clasp.

"I kissed it to save you ... and Peter!" she added hastily, and with a
light in her dark eyes that was half mischievous, half earnest.

"And now that we're saved, I suppose you are going to kiss ... Peter?"
I dared to reply, for my ducking had given me courage.

She blushed, but looked straight at me; and the next moment was gone
into the house, leaving me uncertain whether I had gone too far or not
far enough. But, ah! happy Peter. A few bruises, and the involuntary
swallowing of a gallon or two of water, were the extent of his injuries;
while his blessings were beyond estimation. When I came downstairs half
an hour later, after changing my clothes, I found him bundled up in an
old pea-jacket of his father's, and sitting in Agatha's arms. He was
watching his mother clean the big trout, the prize of his valour; and
as I passed by, Agatha glanced up at me and kissed him!

I stole out by the kitchen-door and looked about for Mr. Poyntz; for his
yarn had, for several reasons, begun to interest me exceedingly, and I
was most anxious to hear the end of it. But he was nowhere to be seen;
he had gone off to attend to something on the farm, and would as likely
as not be absent till supper-time. It was a long time till then, and
meanwhile I was without anything to amuse me. My mind was restless and
excited, and I would have been thankful for any distraction. Nothing
turned up, however, and at length--without being at the pains even to
notice what direction I was taking--I set off on an objectless tramp,
and was soon out of sight of the farmhouse.

I had plenty to think about--so much, indeed, that I could think
coherently about nothing. Ideas crowded incongruously upon one another,
now this one and now that catching my attention for a moment, and then
receding to the background. From the picture of my late adventure in the
mill-stream, I slid to a review of Agatha--my relations with her; did
she care for me? had my lucky exploit really advantaged me? and ought I
to have stolen a kiss upon the doorstep? Instead of considering these
questions, I was pondering the tale which Poyntz had begun to tell. Was
it all true? would he ever finish it? and what would be its upshot? But
now the pearl-shell necklace ruled my thoughts. Was it possibly the same
as that which my great-grandmother had lost? and if so, would Agatha be
likely to know anything about it? The next moment a vision of Scholar
Gloam had risen before me. How had he come to die, and be buried beneath
the Black Oak? and why was the old mill considered haunted? David--the
handsome housekeeper's son--what had become of him? and, above all,
what had been the fate of the little sea-nymph? Then the necklace once
more--how came Agatha to attach such talismanic virtues to it? and was
not her doing so evidence that she must know its ancient history? Again,
was Agatha Poyntz's own daughter? and if so, who and what had been her
mother? for she must be the child of a union prior to that which had
resulted in Peter. The speculation gave place in turn to the idea of
the mill-wheel possessed by the devil, or by the soul of the murdered
miller--Poyntz had seemed uncertain which. Had its "laugh" really been
so terrible? or had not an originally harmless, if disagreeable noise,
acquired a supernatural horror only because listened to across a gap
of twenty years? Ah well, what matter to me were all these idle,
unanswerable queries? Behind all things--before all things, I seemed to
meet the sweet fascination of Agatha's dark eyes, and to catch the gleam
of her yellow hair. Yes, ever and ever, as the pendulum swings outwards
and returns, does my thought come back to Agatha!

Immersed in such disjointed musings, I had journeyed on I know not how
long, when all at once I became conscious, so to speak, of the outward
world, and looked up and on all sides of me. Where was I? In no place
certainly that I had ever visited before. The sea was nowhere visible;
the surface of the ground was rocky and irregular, and in nearly every
direction the view was shut in by thick growths of pine, birch, and oak.
From beyond a clump of the latter, southward from where I stood, I
thought I detected the noise of falling water; and glancing eastwards,
I could trace the course of a stream which was itself unseen, by the
hedge of stunted timber that fringed its banks. The aspect of the
neighbourhood was wild and remote; it seemed to lie apart from men's
ways; and certainly he would have been an unsocial spirit who should
have chosen such a spot to live in. On the other hand, anyone in search
of a good place to do a murder in, or hold a witch meeting, need not
have looked farther. A corpse might lie amongst these rocks and bushes
for twenty years without a chance of being discovered; and ghost and
witches might scream their eeriest unheard by mortal ear.

Meanwhile I walked on to the other side of the clump of oak trees, when
I suddenly found myself gazing on a scene that involuntarily brought me
to a standstill.


V.

I was now standing on the bank of a stream which, coming from the west,
took its course past my feet eastwards. For some distance its approach
was between gradually rising walls of rock, which were highest just
where I stood. Thence was a precipitous descent into a small gorge about
one hundred paces in length, whose steep sides opened out towards the
east, their meeting-point being my present station. Through the natural
gateway which it had cut for itself in the face of the precipice, the
stream fell cataract-wise into a deep pool below, whence overflowing
it rushed down a rugged incline, and, having leapt another fall, raced
along the middle of the little glen, and so hurried with foam and noise
onward to the sea.

There were vestiges of a rude bridge, long since broken down, across the
natural gateway just mentioned; and I even fancied that I could detect
traces of an ancient footpath which had its beginning somewhere in the
west, and, crossing the stream at this point, had then clambered down
the slope to the bottom of the gorge. The bridge had not been entirely
of stone; but a stout plank had probably spanned the flood, secured
at either end by rough masonry. It must have been a ticklish passage
without a handrail, for a false step, followed by a plunge over the
cataract, would have been almost certain death. If Master Peter had
tumbled in here instead of at the other pool miles lower down, not
Poyntz, nor Agatha, nor I, nor all the luck in the world could have got
him out alive.

The hollow of the gorge was much overgrown with bushes and brambles, and
along the margin of the noisy stream the grass was high and rank. At the
opening of the little valley farthest from where I stood rose an immense
oak-tree--the only tree of anything like its size to be seen within a
mile--whose wide-spreading branches cast a deep shadow on the earth
beneath. So thickly clustered the leaves on the stalwart boughs, and so
dark was their tint of green, the whole great tree seemed to have been
steeped in night. The gorge, though full of sunlight and verdure, and
vocal with the splash of the cataracts, wrought on me even at the first
glance an impression of loneliness and desolation. The blue sky seemed
farther away from this than from other parts of the earth's surface, and
methought the sun shone upon it rather in mockery than in love.

Nearly midway down the hollow, and just under the second cataract, hung
a huge water-wheel. It hung there motionless, and plainly many a year
had passed since it had revolved upon its ponderous axle. It was
built of wood, on a clumsy and old-fashioned model, and had become so
blackened by age and weather that one might have fancied it charred
by fire. Its parts were fastened together with great nails and clamps
of iron, the strength of which, however, was now but a deceptive
appearance, for the metal was eaten away by red rust, so that a hearty
shake would probably have caused the whole structure to tumble into
ruin. The rain and snow of unrecorded seasons had spread the rust in
streaks and blotches over the swarthy rottenness of the woodwork until I
could almost have believed it dabbled with unsightly stains of blood.

Side by side with these ominous discolorations, however, were growing
patches of tender green moss; and thick tufts of grass bent gracefully
over the heavy rim of the wheel, where it impended above the rushing
water. A delicate vine of convolvulus had become rooted somewhere
above, and had wreathed itself in and out among the rigid spokes. It
seemed as though Nature were striving, with but partial success, to win
back to her own fresh bosom this gaunt relic of man's handiwork. With
but partial success; for all the magic of her beautiful adornments
could not annul the odd feeling of repulsion--or was it perverted
fascination?--with which this sullen wheel began to affect me. I
know not how to interpret, even to my own mind, the nature of this
impression. Solitary as I stood there, I yet could not rid myself of
the notion that I was not (in the ordinary sense of the word) alone.
That wheel--there was something about it more than belongs to mere
negative brute matter. It seemed not devoid of a low and evil form
of consciousness--almost of personality. I recognised the morbid
extravagance of the idea at the same time that I was powerless to do
away with it. Everyone, probably, has had some similar experience; and
the fact that reason cannot account for the sensation does not lessen
its impressiveness.

The wheel had caught my eye from the first, and, as it were, commanded
my main attention. But after a few minutes I looked away from it, not
without a conscious effort of will, and gave a closer examination to
other objects in the glen. The mill to which the wheel appertained
stood on the right bank of the stream, but was now little more than
a heap of ruins. The wooden part was wholly decayed, and the stone
foundations were displaced and shattered, and covered with weeds
and rubbish. A few paces farther back, huddled against the southern
acclivity of the gorge, was the carcase of a dismantled and deserted
house. The roof had fallen in, the window frames and sashes were gone,
and the lifeless rooms stood open to the air. The stone walls had
formerly been overlaid with plaster, but this had mostly fallen away,
and what patches remained here and there were stained with greenish
mould. A tall clump of barberry bushes was growing just within the
threshold of the doorway, as if to dispute the entrance of any chance
intruder; and a vigorous plantation of some species of yellow flowers
was waving above the remains of the chimney. The spectacle was in every
respect forlorn and depressing; no barren desert, that had never been
trodden by the foot of man, could have so repelled and saddened the
observer. Man feels no sympathy for what has never known life; but
that which once has lived and now is dead, yet retains in death some
semblance of its extinct vitality,--that it is which brings the true
feeling of desolation home to us.

After a time I climbed cautiously down from my coign of vantage, and
making my way between loose stones and tangled shrubbery, I passed
the black wheel and arrived at length beneath the shadow of the great
oak. And here, for the first time, I began to feel very weary, with a
weariness as much of the mind as of the body. In fact, what with my
adventure with Peter, my long walk, and the excitement produced by
old Jack Poyntz's strange yarn, I had been through a good deal for an
invalid, and had earned the right to a little rest. Looking about me for
a seat, my eye fell upon a small mound which lay between me and the base
of the oak, with a bit of gray stone jutting out from one end of it. It
might once have been a bench; at all events it would serve my turn, so
I threw myself down at full length and pillowed my head and shoulders
against it. As I lay, my face was turned towards the open end of the
gorge, and away from the house and mill-wheel. These, however, dwelt in
my memory; and on closing my eyes, I found that the scene of the ruin
stood distinctly before my mental sight, more weird than the reality,
because the phantom sunshine appeared pallid and ineffective.

The sound of a breeze stirring amid the thick leaves over my head
mingled with the gurgle of the stream, until it seemed as if some voice
were speaking in a low minor key--a tone without passion and without
hope. As I listened, and fancifully attempted to fashion words and
sentences out of the inarticulate murmur, that odd sensation of not
being alone (which had all along been hovering about me) suddenly
intensified itself to the pitch of conviction. Sitting up with something
of a start, I glanced nervously towards the mill, and at once had the
pleasure of seeing my conviction justified. The figure of a man was
actually standing on the opposite side of the stream, one hand resting
upon the wheel, while he fixed upon me the gaze of a pair of black eyes.
He had probably been there from the first, or if not precisely there,
then in the near vicinity; there were hiding-places enough amongst the
ruins. Nevertheless I felt an unreasonable anger against him. He had
come upon me unawares; and a surprise, if it be not agreeable, is apt to
be very much the reverse.

He was a person of medium height, perhaps a little below it, and was
clad in a shabby old-fashioned coat and small-clothes. He wore no hat,
and the black hair which grew thickly upon his high head was curiously
variegated with large patches of white. His countenance showed
refinement and sensitiveness but the expression stamped upon it was
singularly painful. I cannot better describe it than by saying that it
seemed to indicate loss, loss beyond remedy either in this world or
the next. Its effect upon me resembled that wrought by the desolate
house, but was more potent, because humanised. The man seemed beyond
middle-age, judging from the furrows on his brow and the stoop on his
shoulders; and yet there was a kind of immaturity in his aspect. He was
as one whose intellectual much outweighed his actual experience; who had
dwelt amidst theories and eschewed reality. Such a combination of age
and youth needs a strong seasoning of sincerity and simplicity to make
it palatable; but in the present case these qualities were wanting, and
instead there was an indefinable flavour of moral perversion.

When we had regarded each other for several moments, the man crossed the
mill-race and advanced towards me, making a gesture of greeting with his
hand. His manner was well-bred and quiet, and left no doubt that he was
a gentleman; notwithstanding which I felt an antipathy against him, and
was half-minded to admonish him that his presence was unwelcome. That I
did not yield to this impulse was due, perhaps, less to courtesy than to
the strong sentiment of curiosity with which the stranger had already
inspired me. In other words, he was a magnet that attracted me with one
pole while repelling me with the other; and the attraction was, for the
moment, the stronger force of the two.

At this juncture it occurred to me--I know not how I had failed to
think of it before--that these ruins must be what was left of the
Laughing Mill, to which Poyntz had made allusion in his interrupted
yarn. The recognition gave me a thrill of a kind not altogether
agreeable; I was glad that the sun shone instead of the moon. Nor did
I, under these changed conditions, so much regret the presence of a
companion. I was in a nervous and abnormal state, and though far from
superstitious--no lawyer could venture to be that--I preferred society
to solitude in a place which had the reputation of being haunted.
It was healthier to converse about such follies--even with an
unsympathetic interlocutor--than to brood over them in private. This
old-fashioned personage, moreover, had the air of being familiar with
the neighbourhood; perhaps he was in the habit of coming here, and
could give me some information about its former inhabitants--Scholar
Gloam and the rest. I repented my former rude intentions, and resolved
to be friends with him, and draw him out. Accordingly I returned his
salute, and commanded my features to an expression of affability.


VI.

Within about three paces of me he stopped, and passed his hand two or
three times through the black and white masses of his hair. He had the
air of trying to rouse himself from a mood of painful preoccupation. At
length he spoke in a faint, unaccented tone, like a voice heard far off.

"I want your sympathy," said he.

"Have we met before?" I asked, rather taken aback. "I really don't
remember--but I believe I've been half asleep, and am hardly awake yet."

He shook his head slowly, his black eyes curiously perusing my face.
"You have chosen an ill place to sleep in," he remarked after a pause.
"Many a year have I sought repose there--in vain."

"Indeed? Well, I came here quite by accident, and judging by the aspect
of the place, I shouldn't have supposed it would have been often
visited."

"You are right, few come hither now; but as many as do so are liable to
meet with me."

I looked more narrowly at my queer companion, and all at once the
thought struck me, the man is mad! Yes, it must be so. How otherwise
could the strangeness of his appearance, behaviour, and conversation be
accounted for? He did not look dangerous, probably he was incapable of
doing harm, and therefore permitted to wander about as he liked. In the
moral atmosphere of these ruins he was sensible of somewhat congenial
to his own forlornness, and hence haunted them rather than any
more cheerful spot. Certainly, this was an appropriate haunt for a
madman--for one whose mind had fallen into that ugliest chaos which was
once beauty and order. But I liked the spectacle of mental even less
than that of material decay; and though the poor gentleman had asked me
for my sympathy, I scarcely knew how to give it to him.

By I know not what faculty of divination, he appeared to suspect what
was passing in my mind.

"I am not mad," he said quietly, but with a tremor of the finely-cut
though irresolute lips. "I am not mad, I have passed beyond insanity.
Let me sit down here and talk to you. Nay--do not rise! Recline as you
were doing, and close your eyes if you will; I need only your ears."

While speaking thus he passed behind me, and apparently seated himself
at the foot of the oak-tree, outside of my range of vision. But no
sooner was he out of plain sight, than I was seized with an odd fantasy
that he had actually vanished into thin air, and that were I to look
round, I should not find him. His voice only was left, and even that now
seemed unearthly. Was it a human voice? and not rather the rustling of
leaves and the gurgling of water, translated by my feverish imagination
into weird speech?

"You were dreaming," resumed the voice; "what dreams had you of the
wheel?"

"What dreams had I of the wheel?" I repeated, leaning back on the mound,
and clasping my hands across my eyes. Here was another instance of my
new friend's insight. How had he known that the wheel was in my thoughts
at all! Yet it was true that I had given rein to all sorts of fanciful
speculations concerning it, and was now, moreover, quite in the mood
to give them utterance. And what better auditor could I desire than a
madman, whom the wildest extravagance could not disconcert, nor the most
palpable absurdities annoy? The opportunity was too fair to lose.

"What dreamt I of the wheel?" I exclaimed again: "I dreamt it was the
mighty Wheel of Fortune, who, weary of trundling it about the world, had
left it here amidst the sedge and spray of the waterfall. Henceforth,
therefore, there shall be no more ups and downs in life, but mankind
shall move for ever across one level plain, unchecked by darkness and
uncheered by light!"

"Would you have it thus?"

"Oh no--not I! Come back, fair goddess! come back and wrest thy wheel
from amidst those clinging vines and brambles--the arms wherewith
reluctant nature strives to hold it back! Bring it forth once again
upon the dusty road, and turn it as you go, lest our sluggish hearts
forget to beat, and we cease to draw the very breath of life, and our
souls, torpid and uninspired, grovel earthwards, nor dream of climbing
higher than themselves! Bring forth thy wheel, and turn it for ever even
as the world turns; for thy fickleness is the life of our lives!"

"Methinks the wheel of misfortune were its truer title; for it turns
ever between a fool above and a corpse beneath; and the laugh of madness
sounds before, and behind is a track of blood!"

"Nay, name it how you will; since all of human joy and grief, and life
and death, have clustered round its course, as the moss and the vines
cluster about it now. See how Nature seeks to make the awful symbol of
destiny into a plaything for her own beautiful idleness! How fearlessly
the light and shadow rest upon it! Yet it is bloodstained. Those rank
ferns bend and peer in quest of some lurking horror? What is it? I feel
its influence upon me."

"Aye, you feel it!" murmured my unseen companion, tremulously; "and how
could you help but feel it? Do not the tragedies of human life instil
their essence into the things we call inanimate? You have shuddered when
handling the rack and the Iron Virgin of the Inquisition, and felt faint
at the sight of the guillotine and the gallows. You were awed by an
evil influence breathed from the actual wood and iron--not by the mere
knowledge of ghastly scenes in which they had borne a part."

"How came the influence there?" I asked, humouring his grotesque theory.

"That which has existed in an atmosphere of revenge, hatred, and
despair, becomes at last impregnated with a malignant intelligence
derived from them; an intelligence both devilish in itself and able to
endow you with its own deformity. And if you hold not aloof from it, you
shall surely be destroyed--in soul, if not in body likewise!"

"But do we feel this influence unless aware beforehand that it is
there?"

"Fix your thought constantly upon yonder wheel," was the reply, "and
mark if it does not answer you."

Still with my hands clasped across my eyes, I concentrated my mind
as directed, and presently felt my veins crawl with a slow chill of
dismay--a chill which deprived me of control over my faculties, while
awakening them to unnatural activity. That the wheel had a conscious
personality, instinct with evil, seemed no longer open to doubt. Now the
plash and gurgle of the water changed to the stealthy drip of blood;
and I shrank from the breeze that moved my hair as from a pestilential
breath. Was I going mad too? My will seemed to falter; a tremor which I
could not repress passed through me from head to foot.

"Aye, you feel it," murmured the voice again. "You are answered!"

By a determined effort I regained command of myself. Perhaps it was none
too soon. Nothing is easier than to indulge this morbid vein, and few
indulgences, I believe, are more perilous. With my change of mood came a
change of tone; I cast aside the hysteric style, and adopted one more
brusque and matter-of-fact, to which the reaction from sentimentality
may have added a touch of asperity.

"Come, come!" I said. "We are overdoing this folly. I know well enough
what place this is; Mr. Poyntz began to tell me about it this afternoon.
An amusing story--all about the Laughing Mill, and the fellow who was
drowned, and the nymph of the pearl-shell necklace. You see, I know what
I am talking about! But the tale broke off in the middle; perhaps you
can finish it?"

"It is you who must finish it!" returned the other. "But I want your
sympathy; so let me tell my part."

"Do so," said I, "by all means. When I know you better, I shall be
better able to sympathise with you. As to my finishing the story, I
think I'm more likely to succeed as a listener than as a narrator;
however, if it must be so, I'll give it the best ending I can. And I do
sympathise with you already," I added, after a pause, in a less flippant
tone. "I am a man, and I believe in human brotherhood."

My eccentric companion made no rejoinder, though I fancied he gave a
sigh. Presently he began to speak in the same evenly-pitched, far-away
voice that he had used throughout. The effect was rather as of a weary
reader reading from a book than as of one who talks spontaneously,
there was no hesitation, no rise and fall, no fire, no faltering. Yet
the recital moved me more deeply than if it had been delivered with
impassioned eloquence. Through the sad colourless medium I seemed to
behold the direct movement of events, and almost to take part in them.
Moreover, as the narrator proceeded, the notion more than once possessed
me that his words reached my ears from some inward source--that I was
merely thinking the things I seemed to hear. His tone was so attuned
to the desolateness of the surroundings, as to appear like the mystic
interpretation of their significance, such as might result from intense
brooding over them. Indeed, taking into consideration all that I had
seen, heard, and fancied that day, I almost believe I could have fallen
asleep and dreamed just such a story as he told me. Certainly no dream
could have been stranger than the things he told.


VII.

They brought the yellow-haired little maiden to the mill (ran the
story), and Gloam called her Swanhilda. Jael, the old housekeeper,
looked at her sharply, and asked what good such a little creature could
be among poor people? the girl was of no use herself, and would only
hinder those who had to work.

Gloam answered, "Heaven has sent her to us. She shall be our
inspiration, and the symbol of our good. Treat her with reverence, and
tenderly, as you would treat the best and purest aspiration of your
heart. If we wrong her, it will be our deadliest sin. If we cherish
her, the sins we have committed may be forgiven us."

"She is a gentleman's daughter, at all events," said Jael. "Look at the
shape of her hands and feet! No, she never worked, nor did her mother
before her. Well, maybe her family will come after her some day, and
pay us well for taking care of her. Or who knows but she may turn out
heiress to some great estate, when she grows up? If that were so....
David, son, come hither. See--she's a pretty little thing."

Handsome David stooped down and took the child's small soft hand. "And
so she is--a little beauty!" he exclaimed, looking into her blue eyes.
"Can't speak English, eh? That's a pity; but live and learn. Right glad
am I that you brought her here, sir," he added to Gloam. "Where did you
pick her up?"

"She's the rainbow after the storm," Gloam answered, smiling. "But I
shall not teach her English. Let her speak only the language which she
has brought with her." And he led the child away.

"That may do for him," muttered David, "but it won't do for me. He can
talk with her and I can't; so if he won't teach her English I will.
Devil take me if she isn't a sweet little fairy; and she's quite
enchanted the Scholar already. He's a changed man since yesterday. But
he shan't have all the fun to himself."

"She looks thirteen, don't you think?" said Jael. "She won't be a child
much longer, David. Why, come three years or so, she'll be old enough to
be married."

"Ay, old woman; but I shall be too old to marry her," he answered, with
a keen look and a laugh.

"I tell you, son, she's a lady, and good enough to mate with any man."

"That's your notion, and likely enough it's true. But good blood isn't
all I want--I've got that already, thanks to your good looks; what I
want and haven't got is money. And Miss Swanhilda, pretty as she is, has
less money even than I."

"But she has relations--rich relations; her own father and mother may be
alive for all we know. If she was saved off a ship where all the rest
were lost, of course there'll be no telling for some time to come. But
it's worth waiting for."

"Did no papers come ashore--nothing to help identify her?"

"I asked Poyntz that," said Jael, "and so far as I can make out, I think
there hasn't been anything."

"Well, I'll make sure of that next time I go over. We might advertise in
the foreign papers after awhile. A right pretty little thing she is, and
no mistake. But I'm not a-going to run any risks, old woman. Supposing I
was to get tied down to her for life, and then find out that she'd got
nothing, what would I do then?"

"There's no need of supposing any such thing, David. As if you couldn't
make the girl fond of you so as she wouldn't marry any but you; then
you'd have her safe, and if all turned out well, 'twould be time enough
to put the ring on her finger."

"Ay, that's about the idea, I suppose. Well, the Scholar's got the start
of us now; and 'twon't do to let him see what we're up to; luckily he
never did see what's going on under his nose. By-the-way, that's a
quaint bit of a necklace the child wears; mayhaps that'll help us to
find out something----"

He broke off suddenly, with an oath, and he and his mother stood
listening, pale-faced. His eyes were angry, but terror lurked in those
of the woman.

A strange jarring sound filled the air; it seemed to come from every
side, and screamed harshly into the listeners' ears. If a fiend had
burst into a long fit of malignant laughter close at hand the effect
could not have been more hateful and discordant.

"The laugh again!" David muttered between his teeth. "It would be just
our luck if it scared our best customer away. Devil take me if I don't
begin to believe it is the soul of that cursed husband of yours, that
you treated so affectionately. I'll swear there's not a spot of rust on
the machinery as big as a pin's head."

"Oh, son, don't look that way at me," said the woman, in a shaken voice.
"I would prevent it if I could; what can I do?"

"You might jump in and follow your husband; that's what he wants, I
suppose," returned the son, angrily. "It's you that wronged him, not I;
and as long as you're here we'll have no luck. That's the long and short
of it!"

The laugh had died away, and Jael, pressing her hand above her heart,
turned aside and passed out. She loved her son, and would have shed her
blood for him; but this was not the first time he had spoken thus.

After she was gone, David stood at the window, biting his lips and
muttering to himself. Suddenly he heard Gloam's step behind him, and
looked round in surprise.

"What was that noise?" Gloam asked.

"Why, nothing new, sir. The same old story. Something wrong with the
wheel again, I suppose."

"I remember no such sound before," said Gloam, excitedly. "It is
hideous, like the shriek of an evil spirit. Let it never come again; it
frightens Swanhilda, and comes between us like a prophecy of woe. Let it
never come again!"

"You have taken to hearing through her ears and feeling through her
senses--that's all the matter," answered David, smiling. "It sounds bad
to you because it makes her head ache. As to stopping it, I'd do so, and
gladly, if I but knew how. It loses us half our custom, for folks say
the devil's at the bottom of it, sure enough."

"It is a wicked sound!" exclaimed Gloam again, "full of mockery and
bitterness. Swanhilda was born to hear divine harmonies, and she will
leave us if we greet her with such hideous discord."

"She was born to take her chance with the rest of the world, Mr. Gloam,"
replied the younger man, in a harder tone. Then he smiled again and
added, in his muttering way, as he left the room, "She'll get used to it
fast enough, never fear."

But a long time passed without the recurrence of the hateful sound,
and meanwhile Swanhilda was recovering from her first melancholy and
home-sickness. Gloam had told her that she would see her father and
mother again some day, and by degrees her anxiety calmed down to a quiet
and not uncheerful expectation. She seemed to know little of the history
of her family, or else was averse from discussing it; for amidst all her
winning sweetness and pure sincerity she retained a maidenly reserve and
dignity not lightly to be overcome. But the guileless fascination which
she unconsciously exercised upon all she met was impossible to resist.
She gladdened all eyes and hearts, and the mill became a storehouse of
beauty and gladness as well as of grain and meal. People came from all
the surrounding neighbourhood to see Scholar Gloam's water-nymph; and at
last, when the Laughing Mill was mentioned, they thought of Swanhilda's
airy merriment--not of the ill-omened sound that had first given it
that name, but was already being fast forgotten. So the prosperity of
handsome David increased, and was greater than it had ever been before;
he had as many customers as the mill could supply, and bade fair, in the
course of years, to become a wealthy man. He and Jael treated the little
water-nymph with every kindness, as well they might; and what Gloam had
said seemed likely to come true--that she would be the means of their
regeneration.

And Gloam himself was as a man transfigured. He lived no longer amidst
his books, but made himself free to all; and the neighbours wondered
to find him so genial and gladsome. He and Swanhilda were constantly
together; they played and laughed like children; they went on long
rambles hand-in-hand; in winter they pelted each other with snow-balls;
in summer and autumn they gathered flowers and berries and nuts. He
treated her with the most reverent and entire affection; he was ready to
sacrifice anything for her sake, to give her anything--unless it were,
perhaps, the freedom to be to another all that she was to him. But
apparently she was well content. Gloam was the only one who spoke her
language, and the only one, therefore, with whom she could converse
unrestrainedly. He would not teach her English, and if others attempted
to do so it was without his knowledge or consent. He believed, it
may be, that no one but himself could appreciate her full worth, and
thought it would be a kind of desecration to let another approach her
too nearly. Certainly they were happy together. That part of his nature
to which she appealed was not less youthful than she was herself; and in
her society he felt himself immortally young. He forgot that there were
lines upon his brow, and that his figure was bent, and that his hair had
begun to be prematurely white. And he doubted not that as he felt so he
seemed to her.

Was his confidence justified? Had this child who was just beginning to
be a young woman, penetration to see the fresh soul within the imperfect
body? A more experienced man would have had misgivings, knowing that
young women are apt to judge by appearances, and to be more swayed by
downright power and passion than by abstract right and beauty. But
Gloam's experience had not taught him this. He did not dream that she
could ever learn to deceive him, or to give him less than the first
place in her heart. But he dreamed that some day, distant perhaps, at
least indefinite--they would be married. By all rights they belonged to
each other, and when they had played their childish games to the end,
and had wearied of them, then would they enter upon that new phase of
life. Meanwhile he would not speak to her of the deeper love, lest she
should be startled, and the frankness of their present intercourse be
impaired. But women have been lost ere now through fear of startling
them.

So more than two years slipped away, and the child Swanhilda had grown
to be a tall and graceful maiden; which seemed half a miracle, so
quickly had the time passed. Her blue eyes had waxed larger and deeper,
and in moments of excitement they became almost black. Her hair was
yellow as an evening cloud; her face and bearing full of life and
warmth. Her nature was strengthening and expanding; she was beginning to
measure herself against her associates. Though so gentle, she was all
untamed; no one had ever mastered or controlled her. She knew neither
her own strength nor weakness, but the time approached when she would
seek to know them. Every woman is both weaker and stronger than she
believes, and it is well for her, when the trial comes, if her strength
be not the betrayer of her weakness.


VIII.

At this point in the story the voice of the narrator grew fainter and
then made a pause. I still kept my reclining position, with my hands
clasped above my closed eyes. In fact, it would have required a greater
effort than I at the moment cared to make to have sat up and looked
about me. The sun, I knew, had already sunk below the crest of the
slope; the gorge lay in shadow, and beneath the oak it was almost dark.
As I lay waiting for the tale to recommence, the sombre influence of the
wheel asserted itself more strongly than ever. There it loomed, in my
imagination, black, grim, and portentous. Its huge spokes stretched out
like rigid arms, and the long grass which streamed along the gurgling
water resembled the hair of a drowned woman's head.... But now the voice
began again.

One summer afternoon Gloam and Swanhilda were sitting on the wooden
bench beside the mill, watching the heavy revolutions of the great
wheel. They were alone. David was in the mill-room finishing the day's
work, and Jael was preparing supper in the kitchen. For several minutes
neither of them had spoken.

"Do you remember," said Swanhilda at last, using her native tongue, "the
first day I came here, how there came a terrible sound that made me
miserably frightened? I have never heard it since then. What was it?"

"Only a rusty axle; at least, so I suppose. That careless David had
forgotten to oil it properly. But I gave him such a scolding that there
has been no more trouble."

"David is not careless--he works very hard, and I love him," retorted
Swanhilda, tossing back her yellow hair. "Besides, such a noise could
not be made by an axle."

"You may like David, but you mustn't love him; you are a little
princess, and he is only the housekeeper's son."

"What is the difference between loving and liking?" inquired Swanhilda,
folding her hands in her lap, and turning round on her companion.

He took her hand and answered, "I shall teach you that when you are
older."

"I am not so young as you think. I am old enough to be taught now."

"No, no, no!" said Gloam, shaking his head and laughing; "you are
nothing but a child yet. There is plenty of time, little water-nymph."

"If you will not teach me, I'll find someone else who will teach me. I
will ask David; he has taught me some things already."

"He? What have you learnt from him?" cried Gloam.

Swanhilda hesitated. "I should not have said that--but it's nothing,
only that I am learning to speak English. He didn't want you to know
until I was quite perfect, so as to make it a surprise to you."

"He had no right to do it. Why should you learn to speak with anyone but
me?" exclaimed Gloam passionately.

"Do you think I belong to you?" demanded Swanhilda, lifting her head in
half-earnest, half-laughing defiance. "No; I am my own, and there are
other places besides this in the world, and other people. I will go back
to my own country."

"Oh, Swanhilda," said Gloam, his voice husky with dismay, "you will
never leave us? I cannot live without you."

"I will, if you are unkind to me.... Well, then, you must not be angry
because David taught me English; and you must let him teach me the
difference between liking and loving; I'm sure he knows what it is!"

"Do not ask him--do not ask him! That is my right; no one can take it
from me! I saved you, Swanhilda; I brought you back to life, and that
new life belongs to me!" The hand that held hers had turned cold, and he
was pale and trembling. "I have kept you for myself; I have given up my
own life--the life that I used to live--for you. But I cannot return to
it, if you leave me."

"I did not ask you to give it up," she returned, waywardly. Then she
relented, and said, "Well, you may teach me about loving, if you want
to. Only, afterwards, you must let me love anyone I please!"

Gloam looked upon her for several moments, his black eyes lingering over
every line of her face and figure. "You belong to me," he repeated at
last. "If you left me for another, I should wish that your pearl-shells
had drawn you down----"

Before he could finish uttering the thought that was in his heart, the
words were drowned in a throbbing yell as of demoniac laughter. The
evil spirit of the wheel, after biding its time so long in silence,
had seemingly leapt exultingly into life at the first premonition of
meditated wrong. Swanhilda shuddered, and hid her face in her hands.
David thrust his head out of the mill-room window, and saw Gloam make
a gesture of rage and defiance.

"Aha!" he muttered to himself, "so the children's games are over, are
they? Can it be the devil's game that my beloved brother thinks of
beginning now?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Another year passed, and again a man and a woman were sitting together
on the bench beside the mill. It was night, and a few stars twinkled
between the rifts of cloud overhead. The gorge was so dark that the
mill-stream gurgled past invisibly, save where occasionally a rising
eddy caught the dim starlight. The tall wheel, motionless now, and only
discernible as a blacker imprint on the darkness, lurked like a secret
enemy in ambush. The man's arm was clasped round the woman's waist; her
head rested on his shoulder, and her soft fingers were playing with the
pearl-shell necklace that encircled her neck. They spoke together in
whispers, as though fearful of being overheard.

"You silly little goose!" the man said; "a few months ago nothing would
make you happy but learning what love was; and now you have found out
you must ever be whimpering and paling. Why, what are you afraid of?"

"You know I am happy in loving you, David," was the tremulous answer;
"but must lovers always hide their love, and pretend before others that
they do not feel it? When I first dreamed of love, it seemed to me like
the blue sky and the sunshine, and the songs of birds; but our love is
secret and silent, like the night."

"Pooh! nonsense, and so much the better! Our love is nobody's business
but our own, my lass. You wouldn't have Gloam find it out, would you,
and part us? What! have you forgotten the fit he was in at my teaching
you English a year ago? He wants you all to himself, the old miser! You
weren't happier with him than you have been with me, were you?"

"Oh, David," whispered the girl, clinging to him, "that was so
different! I was happy, then, like a wave on the beach in summer. I
had no deep thoughts, and my heart never beat as you make it beat, and
my breath never came in long sighs as it does often now. Gloam used to
say that he had brought me back from death to life; but it was not so.
I lived first when I loved you. And the old happiness was not real
happiness, for there was no sadness in it; it never made me cry, as
this does."

He drew her to him with a little laugh. "When you've lived a little more
and got used to it, you'll stop sighing and crying, and be as bright and
saucy as you were with Gloam. But you won't want to tell him ... eh?"

She hid her face on his shoulder. "Oh no, no, no; I could not; I should
feel ashamed. But why do I feel ashamed, David? Is not loving right?"

"Right? to be sure it is. Nothing more so! And the pleasantest kind of
right, too, to my thinking. Eh, little one?"

"David, I have heard--are not people who love each other married--at
least sometimes? and after that they are not afraid, or sad, or
ashamed?"

A smile hovered on David's handsome lips. "Married, yes, stupid people
get married. Timid folks, who are afraid to manage their own affairs,
and can't be easy till they've called in the parson to help them out.
They're the folks that don't love each other right down hard, as you and
I do. They're suspicious, and afraid of being left in the lurch; so they
stand up in a church and tie themselves together by a troublesome knot
they call marriage. No, no; we've nothing to do with that; we're much
better off as it is."

"But my father and mother were married, and they were not suspicious,"
ventured Swanhilda again, after a pause.

"Oh, ay, they were married," assented David; adding, half to himself,
"and if they were alive, too, and anxious to fill a son-in-law's
pockets, I'd open mine, and gladly. But my father and mother were not
married," he resumed to Swanhilda, with another smile, "so you see
we've a good example either way."

She made no reply, but lifted her head from his shoulder and sat
twisting the necklace between her restless fingers, her eyes fixed
absently on the darkness. The clasps of the necklace came unawares
apart, and it slipped from her bosom to the ground. She uttered a little
cry, and stood up with her hands clasped, all of a tremble.

"I have lost it!" she said. "David, some harm is coming to me!"

"Nonsense! here it is, as good as ever." He picked it up as he spoke,
and drawing her down beside him, fastened it again round her neck, and
then kissed her face and lips. "There, there, you're all right. Did you
think it was dropped in the mill-race?"

"Some harm is coming," she repeated. "It has never fallen from me since
my mother put it on my shoulders, and said it would keep me from being
hurt or drowned, but that I must never part from it. But I trust you,
oh, my love! I trust you. Something seems wrong somehow; I have given
you all myself...."

"Lean close up to me, little one; rest that soft little cheek of yours
against mine, and have done with crying now, or I'll think you mean to
melt all away and leave me; and what would I do then?"

She turned and clasped her arms around him with a kind of fierceness.
"I leave you, David? Oh--ha, ha, ha! Oh, but you must never leave me,
my love--love--love! Oh, what should I do if you were to leave me?"

"Hush, girl; hush! you'll rouse the house, laughing and crying in the
same minute! Don't you know I won't leave you? There--hush! You'll wake
Gloam else."

"He loved me, too; he wouldn't leave me; but he thought I wasn't old
enough--not old enough, ha, ha!... David, does God know about us?"

"Not enough to trouble Him much, I expect," said the young man, with
a short laugh. "If anything knows about us, it's the old wheel there,
waiting like a black devil to carry us off. Come, we must creep back to
the house."

They rose, Swanhilda stood before him, her sweet sad face glimmering
shadowy pale through the darkness. "Say, 'I love you, Swanhilda, and I
will never leave you!'" she whispered.

He hesitated, laughed, stroked her hair, and stooping, gazed deep into
her eyes, as on the day when they first met. Did his heart falter for
a moment, realising how utterly she was his own? "You trusted me just
now," said he; "are you getting suspicious again?"

"No; but I am afraid--always afraid now. When you are not with me, I am
afraid of everyone I meet; I think they will see our secret in my eyes.
When I lie alone at night I am afraid to pray to God, as I used to do.
What is it? Why do I feel so? It must be that we have done some wrong.
My poor love! have I made you do any wrong? I would rather be dead."

"Little darling--no! You couldn't do wrong if you tried. There is no
wrong--I swear there isn't. Listen, now in your ear: I love you,
Swanhilda, and I will never leave you! Satisfied now?"

Low as the words were whispered, they were heard beyond the stars, and
stamped themselves upon the eternal records. But their only palpable
witness was the mill wheel. A log of wood, carried over the fall, came
forcibly in contact with the low-impending rim. It swung the heavy
structure partly round upon its axle. And straightway, upon the hollow
night, echoed a faint yet appalling sound as of jeering laughter. Slowly
it died away, and silence closed in once more, like darkness after a
midnight lightning flash. But it vibrated still in the startled hearts
of the man and the woman, who crept so stealthily back to the house, and
vanished in the blackness of the doorway, and it revisited their unquiet
dreams.


IX.

Summer and winter came and went, and were followed by a gloomy and
dismal spring. The late-lying snow was dissolved by heavy rains so that
the mill stream was swollen beyond precedent, and rolled thundering
through the gorge with the force of a full-grown cataract. But the mill
was idle, and the wheel stood still. None came for flour now, nor to
bring grist; for many a week all work had been foregone.

Yet the house was not deserted. An elderly woman, with a forbidding face
that had once been handsome, moved to and fro behind the windows; and a
man, bent and feeble, with strangely-grizzled hair, sat motionless for
hours at a time in his study-chair. Sometimes, in his loneliness, he
would set his teeth edge to edge, and clench his thin hands desperately,
and utter an inarticulate sound of menace. But at a certain hour of the
evening he would arise and walk with noiseless steps to the door of a
darkened chamber. There he would pause and lean and listen. Presently
from within would be heard the shrill, petulant crying of an infant,
and anon the voice of its young mother, sad and tender, soothing and
pathetic: "Baby, baby, don't cry; hush, hush, hush! father will come to
us soon; he will come, he will come! he loves us and will never leave
us; hush, hush, hush!"

At these sounds the pallid visage of the man would quiver and darken,
and he would press his clenched hands upon his breast. Returning at
length to his study, he got upon his knees and stretched his arms
upwards.

"God--God of evil or of good, whichever you are--give my enemy into my
power! Let my curse work upon him till it destroy him: let my eyes see
him perish! He has robbed me of my love, and my hope, and my salvation;
he has defiled and dishonoured that which was mine; he has made my life
a desert and an abomination! Yet I would live, and suffer all this and
more, if he might perish by my curse, body and soul, for ever! Grant me
this, God or Devil, and after do with me what you will!"

Such was his prayer. But he never entered the darkened chamber where the
child and its young mother lay; he never looked upon them or spoke to
them, nor did his heart forgive them. He could not forgive till he had
had revenge. Since that hour in which he had first learnt the truth, and
with hysteric fury had sprung at the seducer's throat, his soul had been
empoisoned against them and all the world. He was possessed by that
devil to which he prayed, and good was evil to him.

One day he was standing in a kind of stupor at his window staring out
at the black mill-wheel, which was now the only object in the world
with which he felt himself in sympathy. There came a knock at the
door, and Jael, the housekeeper, entered. Since the calamity which had
befallen, her manner towards Gloam had undergone a change. She had
before exercised a kind of authority over him, such as a compact and
unsympathetic nature easily acquires over one of wider culture but
more sensitive than itself. But Gloam had become more terrible in his
desolation than a less naturally gentle man would have been; and Jael
feared him. She felt that he might murder her; and minded her steps,
lest in some sudden paroxysm he should leap out upon her.

She advanced a little way into the room, and stopped. He did not turn,
or show that he was aware of her presence. After a few moments she said:

"Master, he is coming back; David's coming home again, sir. He's going
to make it all right with Swanhilda--he means to marry her!"

Gloam did not stir; but as Jael watched him narrowly, she fancied that
his limbs and body slowly stiffened, until they became quite rigid; only
his head had a slight shivering motion. The woman shrank back a step,
with a feeling of alarm.

It seemed a long while before Gloam spoke, and the same slight,
involuntary shiver pervaded his voice. He still kept his face carefully
averted.

"David coming back?"

"Yes, sir; I had a message from him this morning."

"To ... marry her!"

"Yes, indeed, sir; he'll make an honest woman of her. What he has done
has laid heavy on his conscience ever since. And so he says he hopes
you'll forgive and forget, and that we'll all prosper and be happy in
the future."

Gloam's chest began to heave, and he folded his arms tightly across it.
There was another long pause, as though he feared to trust his voice to
speak. Finally the words came between his shut teeth:

"When--when--when?"

"Did you mean, when will he be here, sir? Well, he was expecting to
reach the next town late this afternoon; and from there he'd foot it
over here; and that wouldn't bring him here till nigh midnight. But
likely he'll wait over, and get here to-morrow morning. Luckily though
there's a moon to-night, to show him where to step, in case he comes
right on."

Gloam unfolded his arms, and raising his hands to his head, passed them
several times slowly through his hair; staring downwards, meanwhile, at
the wheel. The rigidity had passed away, and he seemed to be recovering
from the agitation into which the first shock of the news had thrown
him. Jael's mind was a good deal relieved at the absence of any signs of
hostility on his part against David; and she was just about withdrawing,
when Gloam turned quickly about and stepped after her.

For the first time in the interview she now saw his face; and the sight
so far startled her firm nerves as to draw from her a short low cry. It
was not that the face was pallid, furrowed, and wasted; it had been all
that from the first; but what appalled her was the ghastly expression of
the mouth and eyes. It was not a smile, unless an evil spirit smiles,
foreseeing the destruction of its victim. Evil it was--delightedly evil,
like the triumph of long-baffled hate. It was a cruel, hungry, debased
expression, hideously at variance with the passionate and ill-regulated
but refined character of the man. It suggested the idea that Gloam was
possessed by a strange spirit, more potent and more wicked than his own,
which commanded his body to what uses it pleased, in spite of all that
he could do.

For it was evident that he himself understood the cause of Jael's
dismay; and he made a violent effort to drive the awful look out of his
face. So far from succeeding, however, he was forced to break out into
a frantic laugh, which echoed shrilly through the silent house, and
seemed, to Jael's scared ears, a copy of the infernal cachinnation which
was wont to issue from the bewitched mill!

"Don't mind it, Jael," he said, as soon as he could speak; "it's
nervousness--it's the reaction from suspense! Wait,--have you told...?"

"Swanhilda, sir? not yet,--I thought I'd best break it gradually----"

"Don't tell her! don't hint it to her!" He spoke in a harsh whisper,
bending forwards towards her: "Because--because he might not come after
all!" Then the mocking devil seized upon him again; and though he folded
his arms and held down his head, the unholy laughter which he strove to
suppress shook his whole body and turned his white face dark.

The housekeeper was glad to escape from the room; for she thought
Gloam must have gone mad, and knew not what insane violence he might
commit. Her first impulse was to run out and summon help, but after
her immediate panic had cooled down, she thought better of such a
proceeding. The explanation of his behaviour which Gloam himself had
given seemed, upon reflection, reasonable enough. The abrupt manner
in which she had told the news had thrown him for the moment off his
balance. It was, upon the whole, rather a good sign than a bad one,
for it showed him not so much deadened by suffering as he had appeared
to be. When he had had time to rally, he would be his own gentle and
manageable self once more.

Meanwhile she made preparations to receive David on his return. The
young man's conduct towards Swanhilda had so angered his mother that
she had more than acquiesced in the banishment which Gloam's rage had
forced upon him. Not that she loved Swanhilda much; nor did the mere
immorality of her son's deed greatly afflict her. But she had never
ceased to have faith that, sooner or later, news would come of the
yellow-haired maiden's relatives beyond the sea. It would come, perhaps,
in the form of a wealthy and open-hearted gentleman; or of a lady, with
diamonds sparkling on her hands and bosom. They would say, "We have
learnt that the little niece or cousin whom we had thought lost, was
saved, and is living here with you." "Yes," Jael would reply; "and she
has been brought up as true a lady as if she were in a queen's palace;
for we knew she had blue blood in her veins, and would come by her own
at last." Then Swanhilda would appear, and captivate them with her
beauty and simplicity. But when they offered to take her away, the girl
would say, "Not without David, for I love him!" Whereupon, no doubt,
there would be objections and remonstrances; but David's handsome face
and engaging manners would half disarm them; and at the last Jael
herself would arise, and sacrificing the woman to the mother, would
declare openly, "He too is of gentle blood; his father was old Harold
Gloam; he is the descendant of gentlemen, and not unworthy of the girl
who loves him." So would resistance finally be overcome, and all
concerned be enriched.

Such had been Jael's dream; and her resentment at the revelation of
David's crime had been mainly aroused by the fact that it involved
the frustration of a chance of fortune her own espousal of which had
rendered especially dear to her. When the scheme was first conceived,
the young man had, indeed, acquiesced in it, but as time went on, and
inquiries proved fruitless, he had abandoned the hope of obtaining
wealth and station through Swanhilda's means. Yet the girl loved him,
and was very beautiful; much of their time was of necessity passed in
each other's society; and in the end the sin was sinned. Doubtless
he had regretted her ruin; but to make her honourable amends had not
been compatible with the projects of his ambition: and when Gloam's
unexpectedly violent outbreak had driven him forth upon the world, he
had perhaps deemed his banishment a not inconvenient pretext for freeing
himself from the encumbrances, such as they were, which might otherwise
have impeded him. He left Swanhilda behind, to pass her dark hour alone.

But, this being so, what was the occasion of his sudden change of
purpose? Was he penitent? or had he found that honour and expediency
could be made compatible after all? The letter which he had written to
Jael did not explicitly answer this question; but from hints which it
contained, the housekeeper had drawn favourable inferences; and she
looked forward to his coming with agreeable anxiety. She had told Gloam
the news, intending (should he refuse a reconciliation) to acknowledge
to him that his father was David's likewise. But his strange behaviour
had frightened this purpose out of her head; and when she recollected
it again, it seemed most advisable that the revelation should for the
present be postponed.


X.

About sunset Jael was surprised by the beginning of a jarring and
rumbling noise, the like of which had not been heard in the gorge for a
number of weeks past. Half incredulous of the evidence of her own ears,
she paused to listen. Certainly there was no mistake--the mill was
going! She stepped to the window and looked out. Yes, there revolved the
great black wheel heavily upon its axle, churning the headlong torrent
into foam, and hurling the white froth from its rigid rims. As she
gazed, astonished, she saw Gloam issue from the mill and stand beside
the boiling mill-race, watching, with manifest excitement, the sullen
churning of the huge machine. He wore no hat, his hair was tossed and
tangled, his bearing reckless and wild. All at once (for the machinery,
having been so long out of use, had doubtless become very rusty) an
unearthly peal of laughter--or what seemed such--was launched upon the
evening air. It partly died away; then it again burst forth, clinging to
the listener's ears and stabbing them, and leaving a sting that rankled
there long afterwards. In the midst of the infernal din, Jael saw Gloam
toss up his arms and abandon himself to a sympathetic paroxysm of grisly
merriment. The man and the machinery were possessed by one and the same
demon.

"Master--Master Gloam!" cried the woman, throwing open the window and
lifting her voice to her shrillest pitch, "what is the matter? Why have
you set the mill going?"

He glanced up at her with wild eyes, and waved his hand. "It is a season
of rejoicing," he answered. "The prayer that I prayed is coming to pass.
Therefore let the wheel go round. Hear it, how it laughs and rejoices!"

"But there is no grist--the mill is empty."

"It will not be empty long; the grist is coming. It comes! it comes! Let
the great wheel go round and grind it to powder!"

Jael drew back with a sickening apprehension at her heart. Gloam was too
plainly in a state of delirious frenzy, if he were not actually mad. She
longed for David's appearance, and yet dreaded it; she knew not whether
the meeting between the two men would issue well or ill. And then her
mind reverted to Swanhilda, and she asked herself what the effect of her
lover's presence would be upon her. Ever since the first week following
upon his departure the young mother had maintained a singularly passive
demeanour, only occasionally disturbed by seasons of vague and tremulous
anxiety. The housekeeper had looked in upon her several times that
afternoon. She lay quietly in one position, her eyes open and fixed,
save when the baby claimed her attention. She did not speak, and seemed
scarcely aware of outward things. Even the uproar of the mill, when that
began, commanded her notice but for a short time, and appeared rather to
gratify than to distress her. She perhaps associated it with the thought
of David, and fancied it in some way indicative of that home-return
which she had all along never allowed herself to despair of. But she
was as one partly entranced, whose ears and eyes, as some believe, are
opened to things beyond the ordinary ken of human senses.

The evening was cloudy, and night came on apace. Gloam had re-entered
the house shortly after dark, and Jael presently went to his room to ask
him where he would take his evening meal. But he met her in the upper
passage-way. He seemed to carry something in his hand. She could not
make out what it was, and he immediately hid it beneath his coat. To her
inquiries he replied that he was going forth to resume his old practice
of walking, and that he would sup with David after his return. Jael, in
her uneasiness, would gladly have persuaded him to remain at home; but
he was obstinate against all entreaties, and finally pushed roughly by
her and was gone.

Meanwhile the mill was still in motion. The housekeeper had an impulse,
soon after Gloam's departure, to go out and uncouple the machinery; but
she feared lest he might resent her interference, and forebore. The
noise, and the suspense she was in, combined to keep her in a state of
feverish restlessness. Her thoughts busied themselves, against her will,
with all manner of gloomy and painful memories and speculations. The
vision of her youth rose up before her, and filled her with vain,
remorseful terrors. She strove to cheer herself with picturing her son's
arrival; but even that had now become a source of apprehension rather
than of comfort. All the time she was oppressed by an indefinable
sensation that someone was prowling about outside the house; and once,
after the wheel had delivered itself of an outpouring of inhuman mirth,
Jael fancied the strain was taken up in a no less wild, though not so
penetrating key. Was it possible that Gloam was lurking in the gorge?
And, if so, what could he be doing there? Cautiously she peered out of
the window; but the moon was as yet obscured by clouds, and nothing was
certainly distinguishable. She returned to the fireside; yet paused
and listened again, because--or else her excited imagination deceived
her--another and a different sound had reached her from without: a
sharp, grating sound, like that made by a rusty saw eating its way
through close-grained timber. Ere she could be certain about the matter,
however, the noise stopped, and returned no more.

An hour or so later, it wanting then only a few minutes of midnight,
Swanhilda suddenly awoke from her half-trance, and sat upright in
her bed. The house resounded dully to the muffled throbbing of the
machinery, but otherwise there was no stir. The little baby had fallen
sound asleep, and lay at its mother's side, with its tiny hands folded
beneath its chin, and grasping the pearl-shell necklace, which
was its favourite plaything. After sitting tense and still for a
moment, Swanhilda got out of bed, huddled on some clothes, kissed the
unconscious baby twice or thrice, and then silently left the room. In
another minute she had stolen down the stairs, and was standing between
the house and the stream in the open air. She looked first one way and
then another, and finally, without any hesitation in her manner, but
with an assured and joyful bearing, bent her steps towards the top of
the gorge. A narrow footpath led up thither, and at the highest point
turned to the right, and was carried across the torrent by a narrow
bridge formed of a single plank. When Swanhilda came to the turn, she
did not go over the bridge, but sat down upon a stone amidst the
shrubbery, and waited.

How had she known that there was anyone to wait for? Jael, certainly,
had told her nothing; still less could she have learned anything from
Gloam. Nevertheless, there she sat, waiting, and knowing beyond question
that her lover was near, and was rapidly coming nearer. In a few minutes
she would hear his steps; then he would be upon the bridge, and she
would rise and meet him there. Had he not promised, months ago, that he
would never leave her? and though he had been driven away for a time,
she had never doubted that he would return. He loved her; soon, soon
she would feel his arms about her, his kisses on her lips. Ah! what
happiness after all this pain; what measureless content! How glad would
be their meeting; and when she showed him their little baby, the cup of
joy would be full. Nay, it was so already. In all Swanhilda's life she
had never known a moment so free from all earthly trouble as was this!

It was near the end. She stood up; she had heard a footstep; yes, there
again! He must be close at hand; if it were not so dark she would have
already seen him. And now the clouds which had so long obscured the moon
broke away, and the pale sphere hung poised in dark purple space, and
shed a dim lustre over the little gorge. The light glanced on the curve
of the cataract, and twinkled in the eddies of the pool, and danced
along the tumultuous rapid, and glistened upon the froth of the
mill-race. There the black wheel still plunged to its work, whirling its
gaunt arms about as if grasping for a victim. In the bushes close beside
it crouched a man with white face and staring eyes. He had laid his
trap, and was waiting the issue. He had not seen Swanhilda leave the
house and climb the little path; his eyes and thoughts had been turned
elsewhither.

David came swiftly along the upland path, whistling to himself as he
walked. We will not search his thoughts, seeing he was so near the
end of his journey. When he arrived at the brow of the gorge, and
was within a few paces of the bridge, he halted and peered forward
earnestly. What figure was that that seemed to stand expectantly on the
other side? It could not be Swanhilda--ay, but it was! He gave a little
laugh, and then his hard heart softened and warmed towards her. "How she
does love me, poor little thing!" he muttered. "And I've treated her
devilish badly, no mistake. Well, well, I'll make it up to her, if all
goes well, see if I don't!"

He came on to the bridge, and Swanhilda also hurried forward. Then the
man below among the bushes started up, dry-mouthed and breathless. In an
instant he sent forth a great, terrible cry of warning and agony; but
before it could be uttered the lovers had met upon the narrow plank,
and Swanhilda had received her kiss. While their lips yet touched, the
plank, sawn in two all but a finger's breadth, broke downwards, and they
fell, clasped in each other's arms--headlong down over the fall, down
to the bottom of the eddying pool; up again, and over in the rapids,
whirling round and round, dashed against the jagged stones, bleeding
piteously; stunned, let us trust, already, but still clinging to each
other. Now the last plunge: and so, at length, with a final shriek of
heaven-defying laughter, the hungry demon of the wheel grappled its
prey. Ay, snatch at them, tear, break, grind them down and hold them
there; they are past feeling now. But not so the man upon the bank, with
uncovered hair showing black and white in the moonlight, who has looked
on at this scene, powerless to help, but awake to every swift phase
of the tragedy, losing not a struggle or a pang, realising his own
unspeakable horror and anguish, and foreseeing no comfort or pardon
through all time to come.

The wheel stopped suddenly. Jael came breathless out of the mill-house,
and shrinkingly approached the margin. A formless mass of something was
wedged beneath the lower rim of the wheel and the bed of the stream,
and a long mass of yellow hair floated out along the black water, and
gleamed in the lustre of the untroubled moon. The man on the other side
was kneeling down, and seemed to be gazing idly into the current.

"He was your brother," said Jael, sobbing with rage and misery. "Your
father was his. You have murdered him. God curse you! I wish you lay
where he is."

"Why, Jael," returned Gloam, smiling at her, "you invoke a curse and a
blessing in the same breath! My brother?--well. Swanhilda loved him and
not me. Thank God I was the brother of the man she loved; the same blood
ran in our veins--she loved a part of me in him. But why do you trouble
yourself to curse me, Jael? I ask the charity of all men, and their
sympathy!"...

I unclasped my hands from above my eyes, and started to my feet. No,
there was no one near me; I was quite alone. It was deep twilight, but
objects were still discernible: yet nowhere, neither beneath the Black
Oak, nor beside the Laughing Wheel, nor anywhere in the gorge, could I
see a trace of my late companion--of him whose last words were even then
ringing in my ears: "I ask the charity of all men, and their sympathy!"


XI.

The next morning I was down late to breakfast. It was glorious weather,
and the blue sparkle of the sea came through the open window, bringing
with it a limitless inspiration of hope and wholesomeness. It was
difficult to believe that there had ever been any sorrow or wrong in the
world.

"Ye're not looking right hearty," said Mr. Poyntz, with bluff geniality,
while his good wife set before me a huge plate of daintily fried bacon
and eggs, and a smoking cup of coffee. "Maybe ye walked a bit too far
last night? 'Twas powerful late afore ye got home, anyhow."

"Yes," said I, glancing at Agatha, who was knitting a pair of stockings
for Peter in the eastern window, the morning sun glistening on the broad
plaits of her yellow hair. "Yes, Mr. Poyntz, I think I must have made a
very long journey last evening. By-the-way, is not to-day Sunday?"

"Ay, surely!" exclaimed husband and wife in a breath; and then the
former added, "Ye'll be wanting to go to church, I suppose?"

"No, not this Sunday; though I hope to go before long, if Miss Agatha is
willing to show me the way." I glanced at her again as I said this, but
she would not look up, and I could not even be sure whether she were
listening. "What I want," I continued, "is for you, Mr. Poyntz, since
you'll be at leisure, to take a stroll with me a little way up the
stream. It will be a novelty, perhaps almost as much so to you as to
me."

"Up the stream, is it?" returned he, pausing in the operation of cutting
up a piece of tobacco, and turning his blue eyes on me; "why, truly,
sir, that's a trip I've not made for a number of years. Howsoever, none
knows the road better than I do, and if so be as naught else 'll do ye,
why, I'm your man!"

Accordingly, so soon as I had done breakfast, the sturdy old mariner
mounted a wonderful glazed hat and a new pea-jacket of blue pilot
cloth, took a fresh clay pipe from the mantelpiece, with a sigh and a
shake of the head over the destruction of his beloved meerschaum, and
professed himself ready.

"Good-bye, Agatha," I said, passing the window. "Is there anything you
would like me to bring you when we come back?"

"Oh, a great many!" answered she, looking up gravely; "but nothing, I'm
afraid, that you can get for me. Though--you'll bring yourself back to
dinner, I suppose, won't you?"

She bent over her knitting as she said it, and her mouth and downcast
eyelids were very demure. Nevertheless, I was encouraged to fancy that
my former remark about church-going had not fallen so entirely unheeded
as it had appeared to do. Before I could hammer out a fitting answer (my
brain always seemed to work with really abnormal sluggishness when I
most wanted to do myself credit with Agatha), Poyntz rolled out in his
deep, jovial voice, "Back to Sunday dinner? Well, I should hope so.
Why, the old woman is baking a pie as I'd sail round the Horn to get a
snack of! Come on, Mr. Firemount; it'll go hard but we fetches back an
appetite as 'll warm the women's hearts to look at."

We trudged off at a tolerably round pace, and soon struck into a narrow
grass-grown lane which led towards the east; and had proceeded some
distance along it before I said:

"Do you know, Mr. Poyntz, that your daughter is one of the loveliest
women in the world?"

"Ye mean Agatha? Ay, surely, that she is, heaven bless her! She was
always that. A tiny bit of a lass, I remember her, not so long as my
arm; as pretty a baby she was then as she's a woman now."

"Has she any thought of getting married soon? Such a face and character
must have suitors enough."

"Well, as touching that, sir," said Poyntz, taking his pipe out of his
mouth and looking at it carefully, "ye mustn't think of Agatha just the
same as of the fishermen's girls you meet round about. Good, honest
girls they all are, I'm saying naught against that; but Agatha, d'ye
see, is a bit different. Ye'll maybe think it queer I should say it,
sir; but say it I will that Agatha is a lady. She may live in our house,
and put up with our ways--nay, and love us too, which sure I am she
does; but all the same, if ye notice, she don't speak the same as me and
the old woman do, nor she don't think the same neither. She's built on
other lines, as I may say--a clipper yacht, while we're but fishing
smacks, or trading schooners at best. And that being so as it is, the
young fellows of our neighbourhood don't find they've got much show
alongside of her somehow. They're afraid of her, that's the long and
short of it. Not but she treats 'em kind enough, ye understand, as a
lady should; but 'tis the kindness of a lady, and not of an equal, and
there's not one of 'em staunch enough to hold out against it. And how be
they're fine lads, many of them, I can't truly say as I'm sorry for it,
if so as Agatha is content."

"Nor can I," I echoed to myself, with devout earnestness. "She does seem
of a different stock from most I see here," I said aloud. "I have seen
women somewhat like her at Copenhagen; though I don't know whether I
should have thought of that if I hadn't happened to say something in
Danish, yesterday, and she answered me in the same language."

"Did she now!" said Poyntz, tipping forward his hat and scratching the
back of his head. "And if I might ask it, sir, how came ye to speak
Danish your own self?"

"My family was Danish before I was born; and I was taught the language
almost before I knew English. Our name used to be Feuerberg; but we've
translated it since we've emigrated, you see."

"Ay, surely--Feuerberg," said Poyntz, puffing his pipe preoccupiedly.

We walked on for awhile in silence. So great was my desire that the
evidence I had been arranging in my mind should be borne out by the
facts, that I was almost afraid to put the matter definitely to the
proof; while Poyntz, on the other hand, was evidently taken by surprise,
and had not got his ideas quite settled. At length, however, I thought
I would hazard one hint more.

"I've been thinking of that yarn you were spinning yesterday
afternoon--in fact, I believe I dreamt of it last night; and I should
imagine that the little yellow-haired girl, if she grew up, would have
looked enough like Agatha to be her sister--or her mother, at any rate."

"And I've been thinking, sir, of the accident that stopped me from
finishing that there yarn ye speak of, and of the hearty thanks I owe ye
for the stout heart and ready hand that saved my Peter. But thanks is
easily said; and I mean more than words come to. I'd not have ye suppose
as I'd give all trust and confidence to a man just because he's done a
brave act for me and mine. But as I told you once afore, and speaking
out man to man, I like the looks of ye, and ever did; and seeing as how
ye've found out a good bit of our little secret already, and seem like
you'd an interest to know more of it; for that, and likewise because of
another thing, as I've just found out myself, and it may be as important
as any--well, I'll tell ye what about Agatha there is to tell."

At this moment, however, we passed round a clump of oak trees, and found
ourselves right at the entrance of the little gorge where I had had my
adventure the night before. Poyntz halted, and fixed his eyes gravely
upon the scene for several moments. "Ay, the same old harbour," said he;
"it's changed a bit now, but it brings it all back to me the last time I
was here. This is the Laughing Mill, Mr. Feuerberg. And this here is the
Black Oak, and here is poor Gloam's grave, d'ye see? with the bit of
gray stone a-sticking out of the end of it."

"Why was he buried here?"

"Well, 'twas his wish; that's all. He was crazed the last years of his
life, with grieving on the death of the young girl as he'd picked up on
the beach, that I was telling you of. A sad thing it was altogether. She
went wrong, d'ye see, with the fellow David, the Scholar's brother, and
was drowned here along with him; but how that came to pass was never
rightly known. 'Tis thought the Scholar had meant for to marry the girl
himself. And so would David have married her, I doubt, if he'd known
what I know."

"About the family?"

"Ay, sir, that. Ye maybe 'll remember the iron box as I picked up?
Well, I didn't tell anyone about it then, not even the Scholar; and soon
after the night of the storm I shipped for Rio, and was away a matter
of two years. When I came back I heard as how David was thick with the
girl--Swanhilda they called her. Then I opened the box, not having done
it before, and found papers in it telling who she was, and that folks of
hers were living in Germany, having emigrated there from Denmark; and
from what I could make out--for 'twas in a foreign lingo, and I was
forced to borrow a lexicon to it--it seemed likely as how they was well
off. Now, I had my opinion of David, that he was a worthless sort of a
chap, though clever and handsome; so thinks I, I won't tell him of this,
for if so be as I do, he'll wed the girl in the hope of money, and not
for true love of her, who was worthy the love of better than he. But
what I'll do, I'll write to those her folks in Germany, telling them as
how she's here; and when they come, then they can do for her as they
find best, and it'll be out of my hands. And so I did, but had never an
answer, why I don't know. But it never came in my mind, sir, that the
fellow David would ever be so black a scoundrel as to lead the poor
innocent girl wrong. How be, when he had done it, thinks I, I'll tell
him of her folks now, because now the best can happen will be that they
marry, though the best is bad enough; and if I tell him, maybe he'll
make her an honest woman, as the saying is. And tell him I did, with a
piece of my mind touching my thought of him, into the bargain. And he
promised me as he'd go and make it right the next day--this being spoke
in the town above here, whither I'd gone for to see him. And it can't
be said but what he kept his word; only he and she was drowned in the
night, and crushed under that there wheel, as never has turned since,
to this day."

"What became of her baby--she had a baby?"

"Ay, and so she did, sir. Well, 'twas cared for by the housekeeper--she
being grandmother to it and so having first right, the more as the
Scholar was crazed, though not dangerous, but mild and melancholy-like.
But in years the old woman she came to the poor-house, and there died;
and I took the baby, and gave her what best I had to give, and better
schooling than the lasses care for hereabouts. And as luck would have
it, an elderly woman of Danish blood being come by a chance to the
village, I got her to be nurse to the little one, and so grew up to a
knowledge of her native tongue, d'ye see, and the fairy tales and such
like thereto belonging. And--ay, I see you've guessed it long already,
sir--that's Agatha."

I had intended relating my vision to Mr. Poyntz on the spot where it
occurred; but I know not what reluctance prevented me. It was too solemn
and inexplicable an experience to bear discussion so soon. So, instead
of that, I told him, as we trudged homewards together, the history of
the Feuerberg family, and how all tended to ratify my conviction that
Agatha and I were cousins, though far removed. And I may remark here
that he and I between us had afterwards no difficulty (what with his
documents and my knowledge) in establishing the relationship beyond a
doubt. "But," I added, as we stood on the brow of the slope overlooking
the old house, and saw Agatha appear round the corner and kiss her hand
to us, "but she and I are the last of our race, and there is no great
fortune awaiting us, that I know of. Only, Mr. Poyntz, I love her with
my whole heart; if she can love me, will you trust her to me?"

"Nay, ye mustn't ask me," replied the ancient mariner, grasping my hand,
with tears in his old blue eyes. "I doubt she loves you well, already.
And so do we all, for ye're a man, all be a quiet one. 'Twill be hard
parting with her, as has been sunshine to us this many a year; but ye'll
bring her to see the old folks, as time serves; and I'm bold for to
believe ye'll be as happy as the day is long."

It is twenty years since then, and old Jack Poyntz's prophecy has proved
true. My wife is wont to say, with a smile in her dark eyes, that our
prosperity is due to the restored virtue of the pearl-shell necklace,
which still rests upon her bosom. To me, however, the necklace seems but
as the symbol of the true love whose radiance has blessed our lives, and
brought us better luck than any witchcraft can bestow.




CALBOT'S RIVAL.


I.

The bitter cold weather out of doors made the cosy glow of my little
library even more than usually grateful. I had carried the warm and
bright anticipation of it close-buttoned under my top-coat throughout
my cold drive in the hansom from the South-Western Railway Station to
my rooms on the Thames Embankment. But now, as I stepped in and shut
the door behind me, I found I had done it less than justice.

The four comfortable walls gave a broad smile of welcome, which was
multitudinously repeated from the well-known back of every beloved
book. Softly gleamed the Argand burner from the green-topped study
table; hospitably flickered the blazing Wallsend from the wide-mouthed
grate; seductive was the invitation extended me by padded easy-chair,
fox-skin hearthrug, and toasted slippers; crisp was the greeting of
the evening's _Pall Mall_ lying on the table; and solid the promise of
the latest _Contemporary_, containing, as I knew, my article on
"Unrecognisable Truths in their Relation to Non-existent Phenomena."
Bethinking myself, moreover, of the decanter of matchless old
port-wine in the right-hand cupboard of the table, and of the box of
prime Cabanas, made to my own order in Habana, in the drawer on the
left, I was not so much disposed to envy Calbot his late betrothal to
the beautiful Miss Burleigh, the news whereof he had triumphantly
poured into my bachelor ears a week or two before.

"Never mind, Drayton, old fellow," I muttered to myself, as I pushed
off my boots and slid my feet into the toasted slippers; "what matter
though love, courtship, and marriage be not for thee? Thou hast yet
thy luxuries"--here I sank slowly into my easy-chair, "thy creature
comforts"--here I got out the wine and the cigars, "and thy beloved
offspring!"--here I glanced at "Unrecognisable Truths," &c., printed on
the cover of the _Contemporary_.

While I am pouring out and tasting a mellow glass of port, let me
briefly recall what and whence I am.

Snugness, comfort, and privacy are my _desiderata_. My visible
possessions must be few, intrinsically valuable, and so disposed as to
lie within the scope of two or three paces and an outstretched arm. My
being a bachelor (and at the age of forty, I think I may add a confirmed
one) enables me to indulge these and other whims conveniently and
without embarrassment.

My forefathers kept large establishments and had big families--and
plenty of bother and discomfort into the bargain. But when my turn came,
I sold out everything (except a few old heirlooms, and a part of the
library, and an ancestral portrait or two), put the cash proceeds in the
Funds, and myself, with my literary tastes and æsthetic culture, into
the rooms which I now occupy. I might live in a much more grandiose
style if I pleased, but in my opinion I am very well off as I am. I can
find my way to Freemasons' Tavern on occasions; my essays are a power in
the philosophic and theologic worlds; and I can count on a friend or two
worth their weight in gold, morally, mentally, and materially. Poor
Calbot, to be sure--but more of him anon.

That is old Dean Drayton's portrait, over the mantelpiece--taken one
hundred and fifty years ago: an ancestor and namesake of mine. He wrote
a pamphlet on witchcraft, or something of that sort, which made a stir
in its day. I had thoughts of entering the ministry myself a long while
ago; I think it was about the time of my engagement to Miss Seraphine
Angell--the Bishop of Maresnest's daughter. But when she jil---- when
the affair was discontinued I had second thoughts, ending in the resolve
to let both women and the ministry severely alone for the future. So the
name of Drayton dies with me.

There is, I fancy, at once a curious similarity and dissimilarity
between the Dean and his descendant. For one thing, we are both of us
singularly liable to be made confidants of delicate subjects; with this
difference, however, that whereas the Dean is--or was--an old busybody
(I am quoting history, not my private judgment), my natural tendency
is not only to mind my own business, but to tell other people to mind
theirs. It's no use, though--they only babble the more; and were I
to lose all my fortune, I could, by turning black-mailer, ensure a
permanent income twice as large as the one I have now.

Another thing. The Dean was an alchemist--so tradition says; and his
descendant has a marked taste for scientific subjects, though not of the
occult kind. One of the family heirlooms, by-the-way, was a monument
of the Dean's alchemic skill; it was a large sealed vase or phial,
ornamented with cabalistic figures and inscriptions, and affirmed to
contain the veritable Elixir Vitæ, manufactured after years of labour
by the old gentleman, and corked up and put away for future use. It
unfortunately happened, however, that he was killed by an upset of his
coach, away from home; and the vase remained sealed ever afterwards. I
have often thought of taking a little out and analysing it; for even
should it turn out not to be the water of life, I thought it might
possibly resolve itself into a bottle of excellent brandy. But I delayed
too long; and at last the mysterious phial very unexpectedly analysed
itself, and dissipated itself at the same moment--but, again, let me not
anticipate.


II.

I finished my first glass of wine, poured out another, and taking up
the _Contemporary_ turned to the masterly discussion of "Unrecognisable
Truths," &c. Before I had reached the close of the opening period,
however, I heard the postman's knock.

I ought to have mentioned that I had been down to Richmond that
afternoon--an unusual thing for me to do at that time of year. But the
fact was that a distant connection of mine had died a short time before,
and his effects were announced to be sold at auction. I had reason
to believe that among these effects were some old relics of my
family--documents and so forth--which I was interested to recover;
indeed, but that some foolish quarrel or other had parted my relative
and me years ago, I might doubtless have had them at any time for the
asking. Of the precise nature of the documents in question I was not
precisely informed; Armstrong--such was my relative's name--had taken
care not to enlighten me on the subject. When I read the announcement
of his death in _The Times_ I had half expected that he might have
bequeathed me the old things; but it turned out that he had made no will
at all, having, as it appeared, no very great property to dispose of.
He was a queer fellow, and came of a queer family; half insane I always
considered them; and I know they were suspected of witchcraft as long
ago as the time of our old Dean. Nay, the Dean himself was whispered to
have been the least bit overshadowed at that epoch, owing, I understand,
to one fussy habit he had of encouraging confidences. One of these
Armstrong witches had communicated some devilish secret or other to the
reverend gentleman, I suppose, and thus brought ill-repute upon him.
However, the Dean was no fool, and got out of the scrape by writing that
pamphlet on witchcraft.

Well, I was about to say that when I heard of the sale I resolved to run
over to Richmond and see what I could pick up. I got there just in time
to see the last lot knocked down. It was shockingly stupid of me to
have mistaken the hour--such a cold day, too, and I so unaccustomed to
running about the country at that time of year. But there was no help
for it; I had to return as wise as I started, and the poorer by the loss
of my temper and expectations. I was beginning to get in a good humour
again, however, what with my fire, and my cigar, and my article on
"Truths," &c, and partly, no doubt, by reason of the genial effect of
that old port-wine; besides, I am by no means of a sour disposition,
naturally; when all of a sudden came the postman's knock, making
me start so that the ash of my cigar fell on the open page of the
_Contemporary_ and scorched a hole in it. Postmen have always been a
horror to me; I have never enjoyed receiving letters since the date of a
certain missive from--from someone who is now the wife of another man;
and on this particular evening I was more than commonly averse to any
such interruption. I laid my book on my knees, leaned back in my chair,
and blew an irritated cloud of smoke towards the painted countenance of
my ecclesiastical ancestor over the fireplace. It curled and twisted
about his respectable visage, until I could almost have believed that he
winked one eye and moved his ancient lips as if to speak.

The servant brought in a square packet done up in brown wrapping-paper,
and sealed in half-a-dozen places. It was about the size and shape of
the magazine I had been reading--a little thicker, perhaps, and heavier.
I put my name to the receipt accompanying the parcel, and the servant
went out.

At first I was disposed to let the thing lie unopened till the next day,
being well assured that it would not repay examination: and I actually
did put it aside and attempt to resume my reading as though no
interruption had occurred. But I found it impossible to get on, or to
fix my thoughts upon anything except just that parcel. What could be in
it? Who could have sent it? I looked at the direction, but could make
nothing out of that; it was written in an ordinary business hand, quite
characterless and non-committal. I felt it carefully all over; it was
stiffer than ordinary paper, but not hard like wood. Meanwhile I glanced
up at my pictured ancestor, and was struck with the expression of
anxious interest which appeared to have come over his features. Perhaps
he knew what the packet contained; or more probably his ruling passion
of curiosity, strong in death, was making his old painted fingers itch
to break the seals and take a peep at the mystery. The idea provoked me,
and with a sudden impulse I held the packet out over the blazing
Wallsend, two-thirds minded to drop it in. But the next moment I was
more provoked at my own childish folly. I drew the thing back, took my
penknife from my pocket, and cut the strings that tied it. Unwrapping
the paper, there was disclosed to view a very antique-looking leather
case or cover--a pocketbook or portfolio to all appearance. I undid
the worn strap that fastened it, and it fell open, showing a number
of leaves of musty parchment, written over with a quaint and crabbed
chirography, such as could not have been in vogue for a good deal more
than a century, to say the least.


III.

I am something of an antiquary, and not entirely without experience of
MS. older even than this appeared to be. Having convinced myself by a
cursory inspection that the matter was worth looking into, I lost no
time in composing myself to its perusal.

It was written in Latin--a fortunate circumstance, since there was none
of the difficulty attendant upon old-fashioned bad spelling to contend
with. The substance of the writing consisted, so far as I was able to
make out, of extracts from a number of private letters, supplemented
by passages from the pages of a journal and by occasional observations
made apparently in the transcriber's own person. The combination formed
a tolerably consecutive and logical history of three individuals--a
woman and two men--who lived and loved and hated with the antiquated
vehemence of a century and a half ago.

An odd circumstance which was immediately noticeable in the compilation
was a systematic omission of the names of all the actors in the events
narrated. A blank space of some length was left for each one, as though
the writer had intended filling them in afterwards, but, for whatever
cause, had failed to do so. Even the scribe himself--he was a friend
or confidential adviser, as it seemed, of the principal figure in the
narrative--had suffered himself to remain as nameless as the rest.

This omission affected me strangely. So far from alienating my interest,
it greatly augmented it; and although the body of the writing was
couched in terms sufficiently dry and matter-of-fact, the blank spaces
gave rein to the imagination, and lent the story a present and almost
a personal vitality and significance. It almost seemed to me that the
matter was, in some way or other, my individual concern--that I was, or
had been, involved in the incidents here set forth, and had still to
look forward to the catastrophe. The potent port, I fancy, must have a
little o'ercrowed my spirit; but I believe I ascribed it, at the same
time, to the peculiar influence exerted over me by the portrait of my
reverend ancestor. He seemed positively to be alive, and preparing to
come down from his frame and take the MS. into his own possession.

I spent a long time in trying to find out whence the MS. came, and
why it had been sent to me. But to this problem there was no apparent
clue--no tangible evidence, external or internal. Of course I was sure
that the secret lay in the blank spaces; and was half inclined to cut
the knot by filling them up with my own name and with those of the first
three friends of mine that happened to come into my head. However, after
quite working myself into a fever, and ruining the flavour of my Cabana
by letting it go out and then relighting it, I finally contented myself
by stopping the pregnant gaps with the first four letters of the
alphabet; and thus furnished forth, I buckled earnestly and steadily to
my work, progressing so rapidly that in less than three hours' time I
had mastered the whole narrative.

It was an unpleasant story, certainly, but there was nothing
particularly weird or remarkable, after all, in the incidents related.
From a literary point of view, it was greatly lacking in point and
completeness; for though it ended with the death of the chief character
and the marriage of the other two, yet the interest of the reader
advanced beyond the written limits, and demanded a more definite
conclusion. Things were left at such loose ends, in spite of death and
marriage, that it was hard not to believe that more remained behind.
In the heated and excited condition of my imagination, I felt strongly
tempted to snatch up my pen and improvise an ending on my own
responsibility.

The longer I mused over the matter the more convinced did I become that
all had not been told. Moreover, I could almost fancy that I had some
occult perception of what the true and ultimate conclusion really
was; nay, even that the authorship of this very MS., which had been
penned considerably more than a hundred years before I was born, was
nevertheless mystically my own. I repeat, there seemed to be something
of myself in it; and the events had an inexplicable sort of familiarity
to my mind, as though they were long forgotten, rather than now known
for the first time. And all the while that alchemic progenitor of mine
kept up his mysterious winking and nodding.

It would be too long and tedious to transcribe the tale as I read it; I
will therefore give, as briefly as possible, an abstract of the leading
points round which it was woven.


IV.

Shortly before the beginning of the last century, a wealthy
gentleman--let us call him A.--made a proposal for the hand of a young
lady living in the neighbourhood of London, the daughter of an excellent
family, though at that time somewhat reduced in circumstances, probably
in consequence of political jealousies. Judging from what is said of
her, this young lady--Miss B.--must have been a famous beauty; and it
would not therefore be surprising if A. had met with some rivalry in his
suit. To all appearances, however, the course of true love flowed as
smooth as oil. The B. family, in spite of their political disaffection,
did not oppose the marriage of their daughter to so wealthy and
respectable a suitor; and if she herself had any disinclination to him,
she very probably and prudently said nothing about it, but treated Mr.
A. very graciously.

A.'s property, and the general management of his business affairs, were
entrusted by him to the care of a talented young barrister, C. by name;
who, indeed, largely owed his prosperity and brilliant prospects to A.'s
kindness, the latter having aided him in his preparation for the Bar,
and afterwards put a great deal of business in his way, which otherwise
he would have obtained but slowly. In fact, A's attitude towards this
young man was almost parental; and no wonder if he felt himself secure
in trusting his most private concerns to one who owed him so deep a debt
of gratitude.

Nevertheless, it would doubtless have been wiser in him, a man somewhat
advanced in life, not to have made C. the bearer and utterer of
his loving messages to the lady of his heart, quite so often or so
unreservedly as he appears to have done. C., who was probably a
well-favoured and fascinating fellow enough, must have seen more of Miss
B. than did her lover; and in his capacity of the latter's recognised
confidant, he could easily have obtained access to her at any moment.
Perhaps the young beauty was not averse to a little flirtation with the
handsome and clever barrister. Perhaps she encouraged him; the evidence,
such as it is, would seem to point that way. Be that as it may, we must
admit that C. was exposed to pretty strong temptation. His virtue, be
he who he might, must have had a struggle for it; and if we imagine him
rather warm-blooded and tolerably weak-principled, we may be justly
anxious as to virtue's victory.

Having made what allowances we will, there is no denying that C. turned
out a great scoundrel. A. one morning took his carriage and went up to
London, and the coachman stopped at the door of the Court jeweller. Out
steps Mr. A., with his velvet cloak, his silk stockings, his plumed hat,
and his peaked beard; and, with his long rapier dangling at his side,
and his lace ruffles half concealing his white hands, he makes his
stately entry into the bowing tradesman's shop. There he spends a long
time examining, with all the whimsical particularity of an elderly
lover, the trays upon trays of rare, rich, and costly nicknacks which
are set before him. It seems as though he would never be suited. The
pompous horses, standing outside, shake their rattling head-gear and
stamp their proud hoofs impatiently; the obsequious jeweller racks
his brain and exhausts his eloquence unavailingly. Never was there
so difficult a customer. At length the man of jewels picks up a
quaint-looking little locket, and is just on the point of putting it
down again, as not even worth the trouble of offering, when Mr. A.
exclaims:

"Hold, Mr. Jeweller, that is what we are looking for. What is the price
of that locket?"

"Oh sir," replies the shrewd man of business, quickly recovering from
his first surprise, "I see you need not be informed of what is truly
valuable. This little locket, which most persons would look upon as
commonplace, is in fact, in more senses than one, the jewel of my stock.
It is made, you perceive, out of a simple brown tourmaline, exquisitely
cut in relief. The workmanship is really matchless, and the tourmaline
itself--as perhaps you are aware--is believed to be endowed with certain
mystic properties----"

"Yes, yes, Mr. Jeweller," interrupts the dark-visaged customer, in a
somewhat testy tone; "I know the nature and properties of the trinket
quite as well as you do. What I desired of you was to name your price."

The tradesman hesitated for a moment, and then, summoning all his
audacity to his aid, mentioned a sum which made his own heart beat and
his eyes water. But the composure of Mr. A. was not dashed a whit. He
even appeared to smile a little satirically, as though to intimate that
he considered himself as having altogether the best of the bargain. He
paid the money without a moment's demur, and taking up the locket before
the excited jeweller had time to put it in a box for him, Mr. A. saluted
him gravely and stalked out of the shop.

"Well," thought the tradesman, as he watched the heavy coach roll away,
"if he's satisfied, I'm sure I ought to be. And yet--I wonder what that
locket was after all! I don't remember having ever noticed it amongst
the stock before to-day. It really was finely enchased, and may have
been more valuable than I supposed. But pshaw! fifty guineas! Such a
stroke of business was never heard of before. If the locket had been a
witch's amulet, with power to drive men mad or raise the Devil, I should
still have made a good profit!"

Meanwhile Mr. A. was speeding on his way to his betrothed. The fact is,
they were to be married on the morrow, and the honest gentleman had
bought the locket as a pre-nuptial gift. Probably the horses, fleet and
well-conditioned as they were, were somewhat put to it to keep pace with
their owner's eagerness to be at the end of his journey. In due time,
however, behold them reined snorting up at the gateway of the B.
mansion, and Mr. A., locket in hand, preparing to alight.

But, alas! it is too evident that some disaster has occurred. The
servant who opens the door is pale and scared; the household is in
disorder. Twice does the visitor demand news of the master and mistress
before he can elicit a reply.

"Present them my compliments, if they are at leisure," continues Mr. A.,
"and ask whether I may request the honour of an interview with their
daughter."

"Lord bless me, sir!" falters the trembling servant, "haven't you
heard----"

"Heard what?" says A., turning pale; "what is the matter, fellow? Is the
young lady ill?"

"Ill, sir? Lord bless me, sir, she--she's gone!"

Mr. A. recoiled, and seemed to gasp for breath for a moment. His face,
from pale, became suddenly overspread with a deep crimson flush, and the
veins on his forehead swelled. At length he burst out in a terrible
voice:

"Gone? Where? With whom?"

But at this point the appearance of the master and mistress relieved the
wretched footman from his unenviable position. The miserable story was
soon told. The young lady to whom Mr. A. had entrusted his heart and
honour, to whom he was to have been united the next day, whose wedding
gift he even then held in his hand, had eloped the night before in the
good old-fashioned manner, and was by this time far beyond the reach of
pursuit, could pursuit have availed. The flight had been six hours old
before it was discovered by the young lady's mother.

"But with whom? with whom? Who was the villain who dared to rob me?"
cried Mr. A., storming up and down the hall in ungovernable fury. "Who
was it, madam, I say? Stop your wretched whimpering and speak!"

"Dear me, Mr. A.," quavered the poor lady, struggling with her sobs,
"can't you think? Why, it's that young Mr. C. of yours, of course. Who
else could it be?"

At this reply, which he seems not in the least to have expected, Mr.
A. became suddenly and appallingly calm. During a short space he made
neither sound nor movement. At length he slowly uplifted one clenched
hand above his head, and shook it there with a kind of sluggish
deliberation. To the frightened and hushed spectators it seemed as if
the air grew dark around him as he did it. Still without uttering a word
he now partly unclosed his hand, and there was seen to proceed from it a
dusky glow or gleam, as of phosphorescence. Drawing in a deep breath, he
exhaled it slowly over this phosphorescent appearance, as if desirous of
inspiring it with the very essence of his being. If the account is to be
believed, the glow became more lurid, and the tall figure of Mr. A. more
sombre, with the action.

Whatever this odd ceremony might mean, it had the good effect of
restoring the betrayed suitor to his wonted courteous and grave
self-possession. In a manner at once earnest and dignified he besought
Mr. and Mrs. B. to pardon and overlook his late violent and passionate
demeanour.

"I have erred deeply," added he, "in permitting, even for a short time,
that evil spirit which is ever at hand to ensnare the rash and unwary to
gain dominion over me. For, alas! what right have I to be angry? Your
daughter, methinks, has better reason to upbraid me than I her. What
charm could such a one as she is find in a graybeard like myself? Truly,
I blame her not, and sorrow only that she did not frankly make known to
me her disfavour, rather than thus violently and suddenly cast me off.
And as for the partner of her flight, how can I do otherwise than pardon
him? Have I not trusted him and loved him as a son? Nay, nay, I have
been an old fool--an old fool; but I will not be an unforgiving one.
See," he went on, in the same quiet and colourless tone in which he had
spoken throughout, "here is a trifle which I had purposed presenting
to your daughter as a symbol of my affection. It is a jewel, curiously
carven as you see, and fabled to exert a benign and wholesome influence
over the wearer. How that may be, I know not; but sure am I that aught
freighted, like this, with the deepest prayers and most earnest hopes
of him who had thought (a foolish thought--I see it now!) to win
the highest place in her regard, will not be refused by her when,
acknowledging my error, I beg her to accept it as the gift of elder
friend to friend. Permit me, madam"--he laid the locket in Mrs. B.'s
hand, she half shrinkingly receiving it; "you will soon hear from your
daughter and her husband"--this word he pronounced with a certain grave
emphasis--"and your reply, let me venture to hope, will tend to a
speedy reconciliation. Present her, in my name and with my blessing,
with this gem; bid her transmit it as an heirloom to her descendants;
and believe that, so long as it retains its form and virtue, my spirit
will not forget this solemn hour."

Having delivered himself of this long-winded and not altogether
unambiguous speech, good Mr. A. bowed himself out, and rumbled away in
his stately coach. Shortly afterwards the abdication of James II. was
known throughout England. The B.'s rose at once from their position of
political obscurity to an honoured and powerful place under the new
_régime_. C., who now turned out to have been for a long time a plotter
for the successful cause, was not long afterwards installed as a Court
favourite, and his beautiful wife became the idol of society. Poor
Mr. A., on the other hand, had a sour time of it. He had been bitterly
opposed to the Prince of Orange, and naturally found his present
predicament an embarrassing one. He appears to have met with quite an
Iliad of misfortunes and reverses; and a few years after William's
accession he died.

The general opinion was that he had devoted his latter days to religious
exercises. Certain it is, that he was on terms of intimacy with an
eminent divine of the day; indeed, a careful analysis of references
satisfied me that the compiler of the mysterious MS. and this divine
could be no other than one and the same person. And the inference thence
that he had died in the odour of sanctity would have been easy enough,
save for one discordant and sinister circumstance.

This was reserved for the very last paragraph of the narrative, and shed
a peculiar and ill-omened light over all that had gone before. It was
related in the transcriber's own person; and after describing with
some minuteness the last hours of Mr. A., it concluded as follows. I
translate from the original Latin:

"Mr. A. having long lain without motion, breathing hoarsely, and with
his eyes half open, and of a rigid and glazed appearance, as of a man
already dead--all at once raised himself up in bed, with a strength and
deliberation altogether unexpected; and having once or twice passed his
hand over his brow, and coughed slightly in his throat, he said to me:

"'Take your pen, friend, and write. I will now dictate my last will and
testament.'

"It appeared to me that he must be delirious both because he had,
several hours previous, caused his will to be brought to him and read in
his ear (this will bore date before the date of his intended marriage
with Miss B.), and also because his aspect, notwithstanding the
strength of his movements and voice, was more that of a corpse than of a
living man; and he might have been believed, by those who put faith in
such superstitions, to be animated by some unhallowed spirit not his
own.

"But when I showed him that former will, supposing him to have forgotten
it, he bade me put it in the fire; and when this had been done, and the
will consumed, he bade me write thus:

"'I, ---- A., being nowe about to die, yet knowynge well the nature of
this my act, doe herebye bequeathe my ondyinge Hatred to C. and to his
wife (formerly Miss B.), to them and to their Posteritie. And I doe
herebye pray Almighty God that the Revenge which my Soule hath desired
and conceived, be fulfilled to the uttermoste, whether soon or
hereafter: yea, at the perill of my Salvation. Amen!'"

This Satanic composition was duly signed, sealed, and witnessed as A.'s
last will and testament; and the latest earthly act of the wretched man
was the affixing his signature to an instrument which, whatever other
end it might accomplish, could hardly fail of exercising its deadliest
venom against himself.


V.

I lit a fresh cigar, poured out another glass of wine, and gave myself
up to meditation. Those blank spaces completely mystified me. For what
other object had this lengthy transcription been made than to record
A.'s "last will," and the causes leading up to and (so far as that was
possible) justifying it? Yet, on the other hand, the careful omission
of every clue whereby the persons concerned might have been identified
seemed to annul and stultify the laborious record of their actions. Or
if the composition were a mere fiction, why not have invented names as
well as incidents?

But fiction, I was satisfied, it could not be. It was not the fashion to
compose such fictions a hundred and fifty or more years ago. And it was
not within the scope of such an arid old specimen of the antique clergy
as he whose stilted Latin and angular chirography I had just examined to
follow such a fashion even had it existed. No, no. Account for it how I
might, the things here set down were facts, not fancies.

The will was the only part of the compilation written in English, as
though it were especially commended to the knowledge of all men; and it
was certainly not the sort of thing a dying man would be apt to compose
and have attested purely for his own amusement. Yet, as it stood, it was
no more than a lifeless formula. But, indeed, so far as this feature of
the narrative was concerned, the subtlest casuistry failed to enlighten
me as to what Mr. A.'s proposed revenge had been, and how he expected it
to be accomplished. An attempt to make the tourmaline locket serve as a
key to the enigma promised well at first, but could not quite be induced
to fit the lock after all. Either the problem was too abstruse, or my
head was not in the best condition for solving it. The longer I puzzled
over it, the more plainly did my inefficiency appear; and at last I came
to the very sensible determination to go to bed, and hope for clearer
faculties on the morrow.

I had just finished winding up my watch, which marked half-past ten,
when there was a violent ring at my door-bell, followed by a rattling
appeal to the knocker.

"A telegram!" I exclaimed, falling back in my chair. "The only thing I
detest more than a postman. Well, the postman brought an enigma; perhaps
the telegram may contain the solution."

It was not a telegram, but Calbot, to whom I have already made
incidental allusion. He opened the library door without knocking, came
swiftly in, and walked up to the fire. This abruptness of manner, which
was by no means proper to him, added to something very peculiar in his
general aspect and expression, gave me quite a start.

He was dressed in light in-door costume, and, in spite of the cold, wore
neither top-coat nor gloves. His face had a pallor which would have been
extraordinary in anyone, but in a man whose cheek was ordinarily so
ruddy and robust as Calbot's, it was almost ghastly. He said nothing
for some moments, but seemed to be struggling with an irrepressible and
exaggerated physical tremor, resembling St. Vitus's dance. I must
say that my nerves have never been more severely tried than by this
unexpected apparition, in so strange a guise, of a friend whom I had
always looked upon as about the most imperturbable and common-sensible
one I had. He was a young man, but older than his years, clear-headed,
practical, clever, an excellent lawyer, and a fine fellow. Eccentricity
of any kind was altogether foreign to his character. Something very
unpleasant, I apprehended, must be at the bottom of his present profound
and uncontrollable agitation.

Of course I jumped up after the first shock, and shook his hand--which,
notwithstanding the cold weather and his own paleness, was dry and hot.
I fancied Calbot hardly knew where he was or what he was doing; not
that he seemed delirious, but rather overwhelmingly preoccupied about
something altogether hateful and ugly.

"What's the matter, John?" I said, instinctively using a sharp tone, and
laying my hand heavily on his shoulder. "Are you ill?" Then a thought
struck me, and I added: "Nothing wrong about Miss Burleigh, I hope?"

"Drayton," said my friend--his utterance was interrupted somewhat by the
nervous starts and twitches which still mastered his efforts to control
them--"something terrible has happened. I wanted to tell you. I can't
fathom it. Drayton, I've seen---- May I take a glass of wine?"

He drank two glasses in quick succession. As he hardly ever touched
wine, there was no little significance in the act. The rich old liquor
evidently did him good. To tell the truth, I would rather have given him
some brandy. He was not in a state to appreciate a fine flavour, and my
port was as rare as it was good. However, I was really concerned about
him, and would gladly have given the whole decanterful to set him right
again.

He would not take a chair, but stood on the rug with his back to the
fire. As I sat looking up at his tall figure, I caught the painted
eye of my priestly ancestor over his shoulder, and it seemed to me to
twinkle with saturnine humour.

"Well, what have you seen, Calbot?"

"Some evil thing has come between Miss Burleigh and me, and has parted
us. I have seen it--two or three times. She has felt it. It's killing
her, Drayton. As for me.... You know me pretty well, and you know what
my life has been thus far. I've not been a good man, of course--quite
the contrary; I've done any quantity of bad things, but I don't know
that I've committed any such hideous sin as ought to bring a punishment
like this upon me--not to speak of _her_! I'm not a parricide, nor an
adulterer; I never sold my salvation to the devil--did I, Drayton?"

"No, no, of course not, my dear Calbot. You have a fever, that's all.
Don't get excited. Just lie down on the sofa for half an hour, and quiet
yourself a little."

"I see you think I'm out of my head, and no wonder. I behave like a
madman. But I'm not mad at all; I wish I could think I were. This
shuddering--it won't last--but I tell you, Drayton, when you see a man
of my health and strength stricken this way in two days, you may believe
it would have driven many a man to madness, or to suicide----"

"Let me pour it out for you; your hand shakes so. I can give you some
splendid French cognac, if you'd prefer it? Well. Hadn't you better lie
down?"

"Come, I can control myself, now--I will!" said Calbot, through his
teeth, and putting a strong constraint upon himself. For about a minute
he kept silent, the blood gradually coming into his cheeks and the
nervous twitchings growing less frequent.

"That's better," said I, encouragingly. "You don't look so much as
though you'd seen a ghost, now. How is that Chancery case of yours
getting on?"

"A ghost? You speak lightly enough, and I suppose your idea of a ghost
is some conventional bogey such as children are scared with. We laugh
at such things--heaven knows why! An evil, sin-breathing spirit, coming
from hell to take vengeance, for some dead and buried wrong, upon living
men and women--what is there laughable in that?"

"Really, Calbot," I said, with a smile--a rather uneasy smile, be it
admitted--"I never laughed at a ghost, for the simple reason that I
never saw one to laugh at."

"You never saw one, and you mean to hint, I suppose, that there are none
to see?"

"Well," returned I, still maintaining a precarious grimace, "I'm not a
spiritualist, you know----"

"Nor I," interrupted Calbot, in a lower and quieter tone than he had
yet used. He took a chair, and, sitting down close in front of me, bent
forward and whispered in my ear: "But I saw the soul of a dead man
yesterday; and this afternoon I saw it again, and chased it from the
Burleighs' house in Mayfair, along the Strand, and through the heart of
London, to its grave in St. G----'s churchyard. I copied the inscription
on the stone: it is a very old one, as you will see by the date."

A far bolder man than I have ever claimed to be might have felt his
heart stand still at this speech; and its effect on me was greatly
heightened by Calbot's tone and manner, and by the way he fastened
his eyes upon me. Nor were the circumstances in other respects
reassuring--alone at night, with a man three or four times my physical
equal, who was wholly emancipated from rational control. I sat quite
still for a few moments--very long moments they seemed to me--staring
helplessly at Calbot, who took a small notebook out of his pocket, tore
out a leaf with something scrawled on it, and handed it to me. I read it
mechanically--"Archibald Armstrong. Died February 6th, 1698." Meanwhile
Calbot helped himself to another glass of wine; but I was too much
unnerved to restrain him, and, indeed, too much bewildered.

"Archibald Armstrong," muttered I, repeating the name aloud; "died
February 6th--yes; but it was this present year 1875--not 1698. Why, I
went to the auction-sale of his effects this very afternoon!"

"Keep the paper," said Calbot, not noticing my observation, "it
may possibly lead to something. And now I wish you to listen to
my statement. I am neither crazy, Drayton, nor intoxicated. But I
am not the same man you have known heretofore; my life has been
seared--blasted. Perhaps you think my language extravagant; but after
what I have experienced there can be no such thing as extravagance for
me. It is an awful thing," he added, with a long involuntary sigh, "to
have been face to face with an evil spirit!"

"In Heaven's name, Calbot," cried I, starting up from my chair, and
trembling all over, I believe, from nervous excitement, "don't go on
talking and looking like that. If you can tell me a straightforward,
consistent story, I'll listen to it; but these hints and interjections
of yours will drive me mad!"

"I'm going to tell you, Drayton, though it will be the next worst thing
to meeting that----Thing----itself, to tell about it. But the matter
is too grim earnest to allow of trifling. You have a great deal of
knowledge on queer and out-of-the-way subjects, Drayton, and I thought
it not impossible that you might make some suggestions, for there must
be some reason for this hideous visitation--some cause for it; and
though all is over for me now, there would be a kind of satisfaction in
knowing what that reason was. Besides, I must speak to someone, and you
are a dear friend, and an old one."

I was a good deal relieved to hear Calbot speak thus affectionately of
our relations with each other; and indeed he appeared no way inclined to
violence. Accordingly, having offered him a Cabana (which he refused), I
put the box and the decanter back in the cupboard, and locked the door.
Then, relighting my own cigar, and putting a lump or two of coal on the
fire, I resumed my chair, and bade my friend begin his story.


VI.

"There was an intermarriage between the Burleighs and the Calbots four
or five generations ago," said he; "I found the record of it in our
family papers, shortly before Miss Burleigh and I were engaged; but it
appears not to have turned out well. I don't know whether the husband
and wife quarrelled, or whether their troubles came from some outside
interference; but they had not been long married before a separation
took place--not a regular divorce, but the wife went quietly back to her
fathers house, and my ancestor is supposed to have gone abroad. But this
was not the end of it, Drayton; for, some years later, the husband
returned, and he and his wife lived together again."

"Was there any further estrangement between them, afterwards?"

"It is an ugly story," said Calbot, gloomily, getting up from his chair,
and taking his old place before the fire. "No; they lived together--as
long as they did live! But it was about the era of the witchcraft
mania--or delusion, if you choose to call it so--and it is strongly
hinted in some of the documents in my possession that the Calbots
were--not witches--but victims of witchcraft. They accused no one, but
they seemed to have been shunned by everybody like persons under the
shadow of a curse. Well--it wasn't a great while before Mrs. Calbot
died, and her husband went mad soon afterwards. There were two children.
One of them, the son, was born before the first separation. The other, a
daughter, came into the world after the reunion, and she was an idiot!"

"An ugly story, sure enough," said I, shrugging my shoulders with a
chilly sensation; "but what has it to do with your business?"

"Perhaps nothing; but there is one thing which would go for nothing in
the way of legal evidence, but which has impressed me, nevertheless. The
date of the second coming-together of my ancestor and his wife was
1698."

"Well?"

"If you look at that paper I gave you you'll see the date of Armstrong's
death is also 1698."

"Still I don't see the point."

"It's simply this: the--Thing I saw was the condemned soul of that
Archibald Armstrong. Who he may have been I don't know; but I can't help
believing that my ancestor knew him when he was still in the flesh. They
had a feud, perhaps--maybe about this very marriage--of course you
understand I'm only supposing a case. Well, Calbot gets the better of
his rival, and is married. Then Armstrong exerts his malignant ingenuity
to set them at odds with each other. He may have played on the
superstitious fancies which they probably shared with others of that
age, and at last we may suppose he accomplished their separation."

"An ingenious idea," I admitted, "but what about your date?"

"Why, on hearing of his death, they would naturally suppose all danger
over, and that they might live together unmolested. And from this point
you may differ with me or not, as you choose. I believe that it was only
after Armstrong was dead that his power for evil became commensurate
with his will. I believe, Drayton," said Calbot, drawing himself up to
his full height, and emphasising his words with the slow gesture of his
right arm, "that the soul of that dead man haunted that wretched couple
from the day of his death until the whole tragedy was consummated--until
the woman died and the man went mad. And I believe that his devilish
malignity has lived on to this day, and wreaked itself, a second time,
on Miss Burleigh and myself."

There was a short pause, during which my poor friend stood tapping one
foot on the hearth-rug, his eyes bent downwards in sombre abstraction.

"Look here, my dear John," I said at length, speaking with an effort,
for there was a sensation of heavy oppression on my chest; "listen
to me, old fellow. You've had time to cool down and bethink yourself:
so far as I can judge you appear, as you say, neither crazy nor
intoxicated. Now I wish you, remembering that we are sensible,
enlightened men, living in London in this year 1875, to tell me honestly
whether I am to understand you as deliberately asserting a belief in
visitations from the other world. Because, really, you know, that
is what anyone would infer from the way you have been talking this
evening."

"I see there would be little use, Drayton, in my answering your question
directly; but I will give you a deliberate and honest account of my
personal experiences during these last two days: there will be no
danger of your mistaking my meaning then. You won't mind my walking up
and down the room while I'm speaking, will you? The subject is a painful
one, and motion seems to make it easier, somehow."

I did mind it very much, it made me as nervous as a water-beetle; but,
of course, I forbore to say so, and Calbot went on:

"I said I found out all this ancestral trouble some time before I was
engaged; and, as you may imagine, I kept silence about it to Miss
Burleigh. I think now it was a mistake to do so; but my ideas on many
subjects have undergone modification of late. I believe I had forgotten
all about the discovery by the time I had made up my mind to risk an
avowal: at any rate, I had no misgivings about it; and when I came out
from my interview with her--the happiest man in England!--ah Drayton, it
seemed to me then that there could be no more pains nor shadows in life
for me thence-forward for ever!"

I devoutly wished, not for the first time that evening, that Calbot
would not be so painfully in earnest. In his normal state it was
difficult to get a serious word out of him; he was brimming over with
quaint humour and fun; but, as he himself had remarked, he was another
man to-day. After walking backwards and forwards once or twice in
silence, he continued:

"You know how happy I was those first few days. I daresay you wished me
and my happiness in Jericho, when I insisted on deluging you with an
account of it. Think! Drayton, that was hardly a week ago. Well, as soon
as I had got a little bit used to the feeling of being engaged, I began
to think what I should give her--Edna, you know--for a betrothal gift. A
ring, of course, is the usual thing; but I couldn't be satisfied with a
ring: I wanted my gift to be something rare--unique; in short, something
different from what any other fellow could give his mistress; for I
loved her more than any woman was ever loved before. After a good deal
of fruitless bother, I suddenly bethought myself of a jewel-box which
had belonged to my mother--God bless her!--and which she had bequeathed
to me, intending, very likely, that I should use it for the very purpose
I was now thinking of. I got out the box, and overhauled it. There was a
lot of curious old trinkets in it; but the thing which at once took my
eye was a delicately wrought gold necklace, that looked as though it had
been made expressly for Edna's throat. There was a locket attached to
it, which I at first meant to take off; but on examining it closely,
I found it was quite worthy of the chain--was an exquisite work of
art, indeed. It was made of a dark yellow or brownish sort of stone,
semi-transparent, and was engraven with a very finely-wrought
bas-relief."

"Calbot!" exclaimed I, starting upright in my chair, "what sort of a
stone did you say that locket was made of?"

"What is the matter?" returned he, stopping short in his walk and facing
me with a glance partly apprehensive, partly expectant. "I never saw
exactly such a stone before--but why?"

"Oh, nothing," said I, after a moment's excited thought; "it certainly
is very strange! But, never mind, go on," I added, throwing a glance at
the old manuscript which lay open on the table; "go on. I'll tell you
afterwards; I must turn it over in my mind a bit."

"The reason I described it so minutely," remarked Calbot, "was that I
got a notion into my head that it had something to do with what happened
afterwards, and the reason of that notion is, that almost from the
very moment that Edna took the necklace--I clasped it round her neck
myself--the strange awful influence--visitation--call it what you
like--began to be apparent.

"Oh Drayton, you can never know how lovely, how divine she looked that
evening. She had on what they call, I believe, a demi-toilette; open
at the throat, you know, and half the arm showing. No woman could have
looked more beautiful than she, before I put on the chain and locket;
yet when they were on, she looked as handsome again. It was really
wonderful--the effect they had. Her eyes deepened, and an indescribable
change or modulation--imperceptible, very likely, to anyone beside
myself, her lover--came over her face. I think it was a shade of
sadness--of mystery--no, I can only repeat, that it was indescribable;
but it gave her beauty just the touch that made it, humanly speaking,
perfect. I daresay this is all very tiresome to you, Drayton, but I
can't help it!"

"Oh, go on, my dear fellow," said I warmly; for, indeed, I was moved as
well as excited. "Won't you sit down? Here, take my chair!"

But he would not.

"As I fastened the clasp, I said: 'You are fettered for ever now, Edna!'
and she said, with her eyes sparkling: 'Yes, I am the thrall of the
locket; the giver may lead me in triumph where he will!' Just as the
words passed her lips, Drayton, I felt a sensation of coldness and
depression; I gave an involuntary shudder, and looking quickly in
Edna's eyes, I saw there the very reflection of my own feeling! We were
alone, and yet there seemed to be a third person present--cold, hateful,
malevolent. He seemed to be between us--to be pressing us irresistibly
apart; and I felt powerless to contend against the insidious influence;
and so was she. For an instant or two we gazed fearfully and strangely
at each other; then she said faintly: 'Come to me--take me!' and half
held out her arms, her face and lips all pale. Drayton, I cannot tell
you what a desperate struggle I had with myself then! My whole soul
leapt out towards her with a passion such as I had never known before;
and yet my body seemed paralysed. I had felt something similar to it in
dreams before then; but the dream pain was nothing to the real pain. A
cold dead hand was on my heart, dragging it backward, deadening it; and
another at my throat, stifling me. But I fought against it--it seemed
to me I sweated drops of blood--but I overcame. I put my arm round her
waist--I kissed her; and yet, though I seemed to hold her--though our
lips seemed to meet--still that Thing was between us--we did not really
touch each other! With all our love, we were like lifeless clay to one
another's caress. It was a mockery--our souls could meet no more." Here
Calbot covered his eyes with his hand for a short time. "It was the last
time I ever kissed her," said he.

I said nothing; my sympathy with my hapless friend was keen. Yet I must
confess to a secret sensation of relief that there was to be no more
kissing. It was natural, under the circumstances, that Calbot--poor
fellow!--should speak recklessly; but I am a bachelor, a confirmed
bachelor, and such descriptions distress me; they make me restless,
wakeful, and unhappy. Yes, I was glad we had had the last of them.

"It all passed very quickly, and a third person would perhaps have seen
no change in us; probably the change was more inward than outward, after
all. It was peculiar that we, both of us, by a tacit understanding,
forbore to speak to each other of this dismal mystery that had so
suddenly grown up between us. It was too real, and at the same time too
hopeless; but to have acknowledged it would have been to pronounce it
hopeless indeed. We would not do that yet. We sat apart, quietly and
conventionally making observations on ordinary topics, as though we had
been newly introduced. And yet my betrothal gift was round her neck,
moving as she breathed; and we loved each other, and our hearts were
breaking. Oh, it is cruel!"

In exclaiming thus, my friend (being at the farther end of the room at
the time) struck his foot sharp against the leg of a small antique table
which stood against the wall. Like many other valuable things, the
table was fragile, and the leg broke. The table tipped over, and a vase
(the ancestral vase, containing the elixir of life), fell off to the
floor.

Calbot--I think it was much to his credit--found room amidst his proper
anguish to be sincerely distressed at this accident. On picking up the
vase, however, he immediately exclaimed that it was unbroken. This was
fortunate: the table could be mended, but the vase, not to speak of its
contents, would have been irreplaceable. Calbot put it carefully on the
study table, beside the MS.; set the invalid table in a corner; and
then, to my great satisfaction, drew up a chair to the fire, and
continued his sad story in a civilised posture.


VII.

"I did not stay long after this; and ours was a strange parting that
evening, if our hearts could have been seen. We felt it a relief to
separate, and yet the very relief was a finer kind of pain. We knew
not what had befallen us; but, perhaps, we both had a hope, then, that
another day would somehow set things right.

"I only took her hand in saying good-bye; but again it seemed as if her
soft fingers were not actually in contact with mine--as if some rival
hand were interposed. And I noticed (as I had done once or twice before
during our latter conversation) that, even while the farewell words were
being spoken, she turned her head abruptly with a startled, listening
expression, as though another voice had spoken close at her ear. I could
hear nothing, nor understand the dimly terrified look in her eyes--a
look appealing and yet shrinking. But afterwards I understood it all.
When I reached the street, I turned back and caught a glimpse of Edna
at the window. Beside her I fancied I distinguished the half-defined
outlines of a strange figure--that of a man who appeared to be
gesticulating in an extravagant manner. But before I could decide
whether it were a shadow or a reality, Edna had turned away, and the
apparition vanished with her."

"Her father, of course," I threw in, with a glance over my shoulder;
"or perhaps it was the footman." Calbot made no reply.

"I got up yesterday morning," said he, "convinced that the whole
thing was a delusion. I took a brisk walk round Hyde Park, ate a good
breakfast, and by eleven o'clock was on my way to her house, sure that
I should find her as cheerfully disposed to laugh at our dolorous
behaviour the night before as I myself was. I went down Piccadilly in
the best of spirits; but on turning the corner of Park Lane, I very
plainly saw three persons coming down towards me."

Here Calbot paused so long that I could hardly refrain from springing
out of my chair. I had never heard him argue a case before a jury; but
had I been the presiding judge himself, I was convinced that Calbot
could have moulded my opinions to whatsoever issue he had pleased. But,
on the other hand, I doubt whether he was aware of his own best powers.
The effect he was now producing on me was certainly not the result of
any premeditated artifice.

"I saw Edna," he finally went on, speaking in a husky labouring tone,
and gazing intently over my shoulder, as if he saw her _there_. "She
was walking in the centre, with a weary lifeless step, her head bent
downwards: on her right was her father, as jolly and portly as ever; and
on her left, Drayton, was the same strange figure of which I fancied I
had caught a glimpse the night before. It was no shadow now, however,
but looked as real and palpable as General Burleigh himself. It appeared
to be diligently addressing itself to Edna, occasionally even stooping
to speak in her ear; and once I saw it put its arm round her waist, and
apparently press its bearded cheek to her own."

"Why, in Heaven's name, Calbot, didn't you----" But there was something
in my friend's eyes, as he turned them on me, which made me break off
just there.

"When I first turned the corner the three were sixty or seventy yards
distant. It struck me at once that Edna seemed to have no direct
consciousness of the stranger's presence. That is, she did not act as if
he were visible to her; though, at the same time, I could hardly doubt
that the _idea_ of him was present to her mind; and from her manner of
involuntary shrinking and starting when the Thing became particularly
demonstrative in its manner, I fancied that the words which it appeared
to address to her insinuated themselves into her brain under the form
of dismal and hateful thoughts. Perhaps, Drayton, the base or wicked
notions that sometimes creep into our minds unawares, asserting
themselves our own, are whispered to us by some evil spirit, invisible
to our sight, but capable of impressing the immaterial part of us all
the more effectively.

"As they drew near, I could no longer doubt that the Thing was viewless,
not only to Edna, but to everyone else besides myself alone. Had it
been otherwise, the figure's remarkable costume, no less than its many
eccentricities, would have drawn a great crowd in a few moments. It was
a tall fantastic apparition, clad in a black velvet cloak and doublet,
silk hose, and high-heeled shoes. On its head was a broad-brimmed hat,
with heavy plumes; there were lace ruffles at its wrists and round
its throat. A long rapier dangled by its side; its beard was gray and
peaked, but a copious powdered wig flowed out beneath the hat and rested
on the shoulders.

"Its gait, as it stalked along the pavement, was mincing and affected,
and under other circumstances I might have laughed at it. Its manner and
gestures were absurdly exaggerated and fantastic. It was continually
bowing and scraping to Edna, and seemingly making hot love to her; but
as often as she winced or shrank from it, it appeared hugely delighted,
throwing up its arms, wagging its head, and contorting its body, as if
carried away by an immoderate fit of laughter.

"The sun was shining broadly, but none of its rays seemed to fall on the
sable garments of this singular personage. In fact, though I saw him as
plainly as I now see you, Drayton, I was, nevertheless, well aware that
here was something more or less than flesh and blood. It was a being of
another state than this mortal one of ours. I say I saw him; and yet I
do not believe that it was with my natural eyesight. A deeper sense of
vision had been temporarily opened within me, and this spectre came
within its scope.

"For a spectre it was. General Burleigh, striding bluffly along by the
other side of his daughter, swinging his cane, twisting his moustaches,
and ever and anon smiling and bowing to a passing friend, was
ludicrously unconscious of there being anything supernatural in his
vicinity. Moreover, I saw at least twenty persons pass the apparition
shoulder to shoulder, evidently without seeing it; though they would
often shiver, and wrap their top-coats or shawls more closely round
them, as if a sudden blast of icy air had penetrated them. All this time
the three were approaching slowly, and were now but little more than
twenty paces distant. I had not moved a step since first coming in view
of them, and had kept my eyes fixed point-blank upon the apparition.

"At this moment I was puzzled to observe that the black-garmented figure
was a good deal less distinctly discernible than when it had been
farther off. The sun was still as bright as ever, the air as clear, but
the outline of the shape was blurred and undefined, as though seen out
of focus through a telescope. General Burleigh now caught sight of
me for the first time, and his cordial gesture of salute caused Edna
quickly to raise her eyes. We saw despair in each other's looks,
and then she dropped her eyes again, and moved wearily onward.
Simultaneously with her glance the spectre (which appeared to be as
unconscious of everything save Edna and myself, as everyone except
us was of it)--the spectre also directed its gaze at me. I can never
forget that face, Drayton. I seemed to grow older and more miserable
as I confronted it. And all the while it was getting less and less
perceptible; now it was magnified, clouded, and distorted; but the
devilish expression of it was still recognisable. Now it faded or
expanded into vagueness; only a foggy shadow seemed gliding by Edna's
side; and when she was within ten paces, and her father's voice was
speaking out its hearty welcome to me, every trace even of the shadow
had disappeared; nothing was left but that chilliness and horror of the
heart which I had felt the night previous, but now vastly intensified,
because I was no longer ignorant of the cause of it. Edna and I would
never again be alone together. This devil was to haunt us henceforth,
mocking our love by its hideous mimicry and derision, marring and
polluting our most sacred secrets, sickening our hearts and paralysing
our hope and reliance in each other. We could neither escape it nor
resist it; and its invisibility when we were together was not the
least fearful thing about it. To see it, awful as it was, must be less
unendurable than to imagine it, unseen; and the certainty that, so
often as I left Edna, I should leave this devil in her company, visible
once more the moment he was out of my reach, but never to be met and
grappled with hand to hand--this was hard to bear! Had ever mortal man
before such a rival?

"All this, of course, was but dimly apprehended by my mind at the time;
but I had sufficient opportunity to muse upon it afterwards. General
Burleigh seized my hand, and shook the head of his cane at me.

"'Shall be obliged to court-martial you, young man! What have you been
doing to my daughter, sir? Why, no one can get a word or a smile out
of her, since you came with your tomfooleries! She keeps all her good
humour for you, confound you! It's witchcraft--you've bewitched my
little girl with your lockets and your necklaces and your tomfooleries!
You've bewitched her--and I'll have you court-martialed, and executed
for witchcraft, by Jove! Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha!' And with that he
gripped my hand again, and vowing that the club was the only place for
him since I had appeared with my tomfooleries and witchcraft, he swung
round on his heel and strode away, his broad military shoulders shaking
with jollity; and left Edna alone with me--and my rival!

"We strolled off along Piccadilly, and I daresay every man we met was
envying me from the bottom of his heart. But though her arm was in mine,
I knew I might as well have been miles away from her. And we both were
reticent of our words on all matters lying near our hearts, as if that
third presence had been as palpable and visible as it was otherwise
real. We spoke constrainedly and coldly; nay, we even tried not to
_think_ of our love or of our misery, lest it might possess power to see
our thoughts as well as hear our voices. We walked on, seldom looking at
one another, for fear of catching a glimpse of it in each other's eyes.
I saw, however, that Edna still wore her locket--indeed, she had told
me, the night before, that she would never take it off, until I bade her
do so.

"'So your father thinks you bewitched, Edna,' I said at length, trying
to throw off the incubus a little.

"'I am not very well, I think.'

"'He seemed to fancy the spell was connected with that old locket,' I
continued; my very disinclination to the subject driving me to tamper
with it.

"'Perhaps it is,' returned Edna listlessly, lifting her hand for a
moment to her throat. 'I am not quite used to it yet.'

"'To witchcraft, do you mean? You have seen no phantoms, have you?'

"I felt her little hand clutch my arm with an involuntary start. I
looked down, and she met my eye with a blush, and at the same time with
a terrified shrinking expression that was bitter to behold.

"'I see nothing with my open eyes,' she said, scarcely above a whisper;
'but at night--I cannot help my dreams; and they follow me into the
day.'

"It was as I had thought, therefore; the spectre was not objectively
visible to her. She could not get away from her own self, and hence
could gain no point of vantage whence her persecutor could be seen.
There was little doubt, nevertheless, that her mental picture of him
agreed with my ocular experience. It seemed to me, on the whole, that
her burden must be far harder to bear than mine. There is a kind of
relief in being able to face a horror; and my own feelings, since seeing
this evil spirit which was haunting us, had been in a certain sense more
tolerable, if more hopeless, than the night before. But how did I know
what agony she might suffer? Even her innocent sleep was not sacred from
this evil thing; all her maiden reserve and delicacy were outraged; she
could be safe nowhere--no one could protect her; and with me, who would
have given my life to please a whim of hers, her suffering and exposure
must be less endurable than anywhere else. I could well understand her
blush, poor girl--poor girl!"

Not for many years--not since, in fact, certain sad experiences of my
own early days--had I been so deeply stirred as by this recital of
Calbot's. His voice had great compass and expression, and the needs of
his profession had given its natural powers every cultivation. He
had a way of dwelling on certain words, and of occasionally pausing,
or appearing to hesitate, which greatly added to the effect of his
narrative. All this might be acquired by art, but not so the ever
and anon recurring falterings and breaks, into which, as now, he was
unexpectedly betrayed. I felt that it was unwise in me to listen to
him, to sympathise with him, as I was doing; yet could I not find it in
my heart to stop him. All fears of violence on his part had been for
some time past allayed. I was well aware that my encouragement of his
confidences could only result in my passing a feverish uncomfortable
night, and a listless dismal morrow; and yet I forbore to interrupt him.
Ah! it is we old bachelors who have hearts after all.

I blew my nose, Calbot cleared his throat, and continued.


VIII.

"Well, Drayton, I shan't keep you much longer. From Piccadilly we turned
into Bond Street, and were walking up the side-walk on the left-hand
side, when suddenly Edna stopped, and clasped both her hands round my
arm. She uttered a low exclamation, and trembled perceptibly. Her face,
as I looked at it, was quite rigid and colourless. I did not know what
was the matter, but fearing she was about to swoon, I looked round for a
cab. In so doing my eye caught my own reflection in a mirror, fixed at a
shop entrance on the other side of the street. It was in this direction
that Edna also was gazing, and the next moment I no longer wondered
at her ghastly aspect. Close by her shoulder appeared the fantastic
black-garmented figure which I had seen awhile before in Park Lane. He
was making the wildest and most absurd gestures--grinning, throwing
about his arms, making profound mock obeisances, and evidently in an
ecstasy of enjoyment. I looked suddenly round, but the place which
should have been occupied by the original of the reflection appeared
entirely empty. Looking back to the mirror, however, there was the
spectre again, actually capering with ugly glee.

"Meantime people were beginning to notice the strange behaviour of Edna
and myself, and I was thankful when a passing cab enabled me to shield
her from their scrutiny. No sooner were we seated than she fainted away,
and only recovered a few moments before we stopped at her door. As I
helped her out she looked me sadly in the face, and said:

"'Come to me to-morrow afternoon--for the last time.'

"I could say nothing against her decision, Drayton; I felt we should be
really more united, living apart, than were we to force ourselves to
outward association. Our calamity was too strong for us; separation
might appease the mysterious malice of the phantom, and cause him to
return whither he belonged. The persecution of our long-dead ancestors
now recurred to me, as I had read it a few months before in those dusty
old documents, and I could not help seeing a strange similarity between
their fate and ours. Yet we had an advantage in not being married, and
in having the warning of their history before us. You see," observed
Calbot, somewhat bitterly, "even I can talk of advantages!

"I went to her house to-day and had a short interview. I cannot tell you
in detail what we said, but it seems to me as though the memory of it
would gradually oust all other memories from my mind. I told her that
passage of history. We agreed to part--for ever in this world. I took
back the chain and locket which I had given her but so short a time
before. We said good-bye, in cold and distant words. We could not
gratify the evil spirit, which we knew was watching us, by any embrace
or show of grief and passion. We could be proud in our despair."

"One moment, Calbot," said I, interrupting him at this point; "you say
she gave you back the locket?"

"Yes."

"Is it in your possession now?"

"It is at the bottom of the Thames."

"Good! And have you or Miss Burleigh seen anything of your phantom since
then?"

"You forget that we parted only this afternoon. But I 

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