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Title: Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes
Mystic-Humorous Stories
Author: Various
Editor: Joseph Lewis French
Release Date: November 10, 2007 [EBook #23432]
Language: English
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Masterpieces of Mystery
_In Four Volumes_
MYSTIC-HUMOROUS STORIES
Edited by
Joseph Lewis French
[Illustration]
Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1922
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.
NOTE
The Editor desires especially to acknowledge assistance in granting
the use of original material, and for helpful advice and suggestion,
to Professor Brander Matthews of Columbia University, to Mrs. Anna
Katherine Green Rohlfs, to Cleveland Moffett, to Arthur Reeve, creator
of "Craig Kennedy," to Wilbur Daniel Steele, to Ralph Adams Cram, to
Chester Bailey Fernando, to Brian Brown, to Mrs. Lillian M. Robins of
the publisher's office, and to Charles E. Farrington of the Brooklyn
Public Library.
FOREWORD
There is an intermediate ground between our knowledge of life and the
unknown which is readily conceived as covered by the term _mysticism_.
Mystery stories of high rank often fall under this general classification.
They are neither of earth, heaven nor Hades, but may partake of either.
In the hands of a master they present at times a rare, if even upon
occasion, unduly thrilling--aesthetic charm. The examples which it has
been possible to gather within the space of this volume are offered as
the best of their type.
The humorist, thank heaven, we have always with us. Spectres cannot
afright him, nor mundane terrors deflect him from his path. He takes
nothing either in earth or heaven seriously, as is his God-given right.
Some of the best examples of what he has done in the general field of
mystery are presented here for the first time in any collection.
JOSEPH LEWIS FRENCH.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. MAY-DAY EVE 3
_Algernon Blackwood_
II. THE DIAMOND LENS 38
_Fitz-James O'Brien_
III. THE MUMMY'S FOOT 77
_Théopile Gautier_
IV. MR. BLOKE'S ITEM 96
_Mark Twain_
V. A GHOST 101
_Lafcadio Hearn_
VI. THE MAN WHO WENT TOO FAR 109
_E. F. Benson_
VII. CHAN TOW THE HIGHROB 143
_Chester Bailey Fernando_
VIII. THE INMOST LIGHT 158
_Arthur Machen_
IX. THE SECRET OF GORESTHORPE GRANGE 203
_A. Conan Doyle_
X. THE MAN WITH THE PALE EYES 230
_Guy de Maupassant_
XI. THE RIVAL GHOSTS 238
_Brander Matthews_
Masterpieces of Mystery
MYSTIC-HUMOROUS STORIES
MAY DAY EVE
Algernon Blackwood
I
It was in the spring when I at last found time from the hospital work
to visit my friend, the old folk-lorist, in his country isolation, and
I rather chuckled to myself, because in my bag I was taking down a book
that utterly refuted all his tiresome pet theories of magic and the
powers of the soul.
These theories were many and various, and had often troubled me. In the
first place, I scorned them for professional reasons, and, in the
second, because I had never been able to argue quite well enough to
convince or to shake his faith, in even the smallest details, and any
scientific knowledge I brought to bear only fed him with confirmatory
data. To find such a book, therefore, and to know that it was safely in
my bag, wrapped up in brown paper and addressed to him, was a deep and
satisfactory joy, and I speculated a good deal during the journey how
he would deal with the overwhelming arguments it contained against the
existence of any important region outside the world of sensory
perceptions.
Speculative, too, I was whether his visionary habits and absorbing
experiments would permit him to remember my arrival at all, and I was
accordingly relieved to hear from the solitary porter that the
"professor" had sent a "veeckle" to meet me, and that I was thus free
to send my bag and walk the four miles to the house across the hills.
It was a calm, windless evening, just after sunset, the air warm and
scented, and delightfully still. The train, already sinking into
distance, carried away with it the noise of crowds and cities and the
last suggestions of the stressful life behind me, and from the little
station on the moorland I stepped at once into the world of silent,
growing things, tinkling sheep-bells, shepherds, and wild, desolate
spaces.
My path lay diagonally across the turfy hills. It slanted a mile or so
to the summit, wandered vaguely another two miles among gorse-bushes
along the crest, passed Tom Bassett's cottage by the pines, and then
dropped sharply down on the other side through rather thin woods to the
ancient house where the old folk-lorist lived and dreamed himself into
his impossible world of theory and fantasy. I fell to thinking busily
about him during the first part of the ascent, and convinced myself, as
usual, that, but for his generosity to the poor, and his benign aspect,
the peasantry must undoubtedly have regarded him as a wizard who
speculated in souls and had dark dealings with the world of faery.
The path I knew tolerably well. I had already walked it once before--a
winter's day some years ago--and from the cottage onward felt sure of
my way; but for the first mile or so there were so many cross
cattle-tracks, and the light had become so dim that I felt it wise to
inquire more particularly. And this I was fortunately able to do of a
man who with astonishing suddenness rose from the grass where he had
been lying behind a clump of bushes, and passed a few yards in front of
me at a high pace downhill toward the darkening valley.
He was in such a state of hurry that I called out loudly to him,
fearing to be too late, but on hearing my voice he turned sharply, and
seemed to arrive almost at once beside me. In a single instant he was
standing there, quite close, looking, with a smile and a certain
expression of curiosity, I thought, into my face. I remember thinking
that his features, pale and wholly untanned, were rather wonderful for
a countryman, and that the eyes were those of a foreigner; his great
swiftness, too, gave me a distinct sensation--something almost of a
start--though I knew my vision was at fault at the best of times, and
of course especially so in the deceptive twilight of the open hillside.
Moreover--as the way often is with such instructions--the words did not
stay in my mind very clearly after he had uttered them, and the rapid,
panther-like movements of the man as he quickly vanished down the hill
again left me with little more than a sweeping gesture indicating the
line I was to follow. No doubt his sudden rising from behind the
gorse-bush, his curious swiftness, and the way he peered into my face,
and even touched me on the shoulder, all combined to distract my
attention somewhat from the actual words he used; and the fact that I
was travelling at a wrong angle, and should have come out a mile too
far to the right, helped to complete my feeling that his gesture,
pointing the way, was sufficient.
On the crest of the ridge, panting a little with the unwonted exertion,
I lay down to rest a moment on the grass beside a flaming yellow
gorse-bush. There was still a good hour before I should be looked for
at the house; the grass was very soft, the peace and silence soothing.
I lingered, and lit a cigarette. And it was just then, I think, that my
subconscious memory gave back the words, the actual words, the man had
spoken, and the heavy significance of the personal pronoun, as he had
emphasised it in his odd foreign voice, touched me with a sense of
vague amusement: "The safest way _for you_ now," he had said, as though
I was so obviously a townsman and might be in danger on the lonely
hills after dark. And the quick way he had reached my side, and then
slipped off again like a shadow down the steep slope, completed a
definite little picture in my mind. Then other thoughts and memories
rose up and formed a series of pictures, following each other in rapid
succession, and forming a chain of reflections undirected by the will
and without purpose or meaning. I fell, that is, into a pleasant
reverie.
Below me, and infinitely far away, it seemed, the valley lay silent
under a veil of blue evening haze, the lower end losing itself among
darkening hills whose peaks rose here and there like giant plumes that
would surely nod their great heads and call to one another once the
final shadows were down. The village lay, a misty patch, in which
lights already twinkled. A sound of rooks faintly cawing, of sea-gulls
crying far up in the sky, and of dogs barking at a great distance rose
up out of the general murmur of evening voices. Odours of farm and
field and open spaces stole to my nostrils, and everything contributed
to the feeling that I lay on the top of the world, nothing between me
and the stars, and that all the huge, free things of the earth--hills,
valleys, woods, and sloping fields--lay breathing deeply about me.
A few sea-gulls--in daytime hereabouts they fill the air--still circled
and wheeled within range of sight, uttering from time to time sharp,
petulant cries; and far in the distance there was just visible a
shadowy line that showed where the sea lay.
Then, as I lay gazing dreamily into this still pool of shadows at my
feet, something rose up, something sheet-like, vast, imponderable, off
the whole surface of the mapped-out country, moved with incredible
swiftness down the valley, and in a single instant climbed the hill
where I lay and swept by me, yet without hurry, and in a sense without
speed. Veils in this way rose one after another, filling the cups
between the hills, shrouding alike fields, village, and hillside as
they passed, and settled down somewhere into the gloom behind me over
the ridge, or slipped off like vapour into the sky.
Whether it was actually mist rising from the surface of the
fast-cooling ground, or merely the earth giving up her heat to the
night, I could not determine. The coming of the darkness is ever a
series of mysteries. I only know that this indescribable vast stirring
of the landscape seemed to me as though the earth were unfolding
immense sable wings from her sides, and lifting them for silent,
gigantic strokes so that she might fly more swiftly from the sun into
the night. The darkness, at any rate, did drop down over everything
very soon afterward, and I rose up hastily to follow my pathway,
realising with a degree of wonder strangely new to me the magic of
twilight, the blue open depths into the valley below, and the pale
yellow heights of the watery sky above.
I walked rapidly, a sense of chilliness about me, and soon lost sight
of the valley altogether as I got upon the ridge proper of these lonely
and desolate hills.
It could not have been more than fifteen minutes that I lay there in
reverie, yet the weather, I at once noticed, had changed very abruptly,
for mist was seething here and there about me, rising somewhere from
smaller valleys in the hills beyond, and obscuring the path, while
overhead there was plainly a sound of wind tearing past, far up, with a
sound of high shouting. A moment before it had been the stillness of a
warm spring night, yet now everything had changed; wet mist coated me,
raindrops smartly stung my face, and a gusty wind, descending out of
cool heights, began to strike and buffet me, so that I buttoned my coat
and pressed my hat more firmly upon my head.
The change was really this--and it came to me for the first time in my
life with the power of a real conviction--that everything about me
seemed to have become suddenly _alive_.
It came oddly upon me--prosaic, matter-of-fact, materialistic doctor
that I was--this realisation that the world about me had somehow
stirred into life; oddly, I say, because Nature to me had always been
merely a more or less definite arrangement of measurement, weight, and
colour, and this new presentation of it was utterly foreign to my
temperament. A valley to me was always a valley; a hill, merely a hill;
a field, so many acres of flat surface, grass or ploughed, drained well
or drained ill; whereas now, with startling vividness, came the
strange, haunting idea that after all they could be something more than
valley, hill, and field; that what I had hitherto perceived by these
names were only the veils of something that lay concealed within,
something alive. In a word, that the poetic sense I had always rather
sneered at, in others, or explained away with some shallow
physiological label, had apparently suddenly opened up in myself
without any obvious cause.
And, the more I puzzled over it, the more I began to realise that its
genesis dated from those few minutes of reverie lying under the
gorse-bush (reverie, a thing I had never before in all my life indulged
in!), or, now that I came to reflect more accurately, from my brief
interview with that wild-eyed, swift-moving, shadowy man of whom I had
first inquired the way.
I recalled my singular fancy that veils were lifting off the surface of
the hills and fields, and a tremor of excitement accompanied the
memory. Such a thing had never before been possible to my practical
intelligence, and it made me feel suspicious--suspicious about myself.
I stood still a moment--I looked about me into the gathering mist,
above me to the vanishing stars, below me to the hidden valley, and
then sent an urgent summons to my individuality, as I had always known
it, to arrest and chase these undesirable fancies.
But I called in vain. No answer came. Anxiously, hurriedly, confusedly,
too, I searched for my normal self, but could not find it; and this
failure to respond induced in me a sense of uneasiness that touched
very nearly upon the borders of alarm.
I pushed on faster and faster along the turfy track among the
gorse-bushes with a dread that I might lose the way altogether, and a
sudden desire to reach home as soon as might be. Then, without warning,
I emerged unexpectedly into clear air again, and the vapour swept past
me in a rushing wall and rose into the sky. Anew I saw the lights of
the village behind me in the depths, here and there a line of smoke
rising against the pale yellow sky, and stars overhead peering down
through thin wispy clouds that stretched their wind-signs across the
night.
After all, it had been nothing but a stray bit of sea-fog driving up
from the coast, for the other side of the hills, I remembered, dipped
their chalk cliffs straight into the sea, and strange lost winds must
often come a-wandering this way with the sharp changes of temperature
about sunset. None the less, it was disconcerting to know that mist and
storm lay hiding within possible reach, and I walked on smartly for a
sight of Tom Bassett's cottage and the lights of the Manor House in the
valley a short mile beyond.
The clearing of the air, however, lasted but a very brief while, and
vapour was soon rising about me as before, hiding the path and making
bushes and stone walls look like running shadows. It came, driven
apparently, by little independent winds up the many side gullies, and
it was very cold, touching my skin like a wet sheet. Curious great
shapes, too, it assumed as the wind worked to and fro through it: forms
of men and animals; grotesque, giant outlines; ever shifting and
running along the ground with silent feet, or leaping into the air with
sharp cries as the gusts twisted them inwardly and lent them voice.
More and more I pushed my pace, and more and more darkness and vapour
obliterated the landscape. The going was not otherwise difficult, and
here and there cowslips glimmered in patches of dancing yellow, while
the springy turf made it easy to keep up speed; yet in the gloom I
frequently tripped and plunged into prickly gorse near the ground, so
that from shin to knee was soon a-tingle with sharp pain. Odd puffs and
spits of rain stung my face, and the periods of utter stillness were
always followed by little shouting gusts of wind, each time from a new
direction. Troubled is perhaps too strong a word, but flustered I
certainly was; and though I recognised that it was due to my being in
an environment so remote from the town life I was accustomed to, I
found it impossible to stifle altogether the feeling of malaise that
had crept into my heart, and I looked about with increasing eagerness
for the lighted windows of Bassett's cottage.
More and more, little pin-pricks of distress and confusion accumulated,
adding to my realisation of being away from streets and shop-windows,
and things I could classify and deal with. The mist, too, distorted as
well as concealed, played tricks with sounds as well as with sights.
And, once or twice, when I stumbled upon some crouching sheep, they got
up without the customary alarm and hurry of sheep, and moved off slowly
into the darkness, but in such a singular way that I could almost have
sworn they were not sheep at all, but human beings crawling on
all-fours, looking back and grimacing at me over their shoulders as
they went. On these occasions--for there were more than one--I never
could get close enough to feel their woolly wet backs, as I should have
liked to do; and the sound of their tinkling bells came faintly through
the mist, sometimes from one direction, sometimes from another,
sometimes all round me as though a whole flock surrounded me; and I
found it impossible to analyse or explain the idea I received that they
were _not_ sheep-bells at all, but something quite different.
But mist and darkness, and a certain confusion of the senses caused by
the excitement of an utterly strange environment, can account for a
great deal. I pushed on quickly. The conviction that I had strayed from
the route grew, nevertheless, for occasionally there was a great
commotion of seagulls about me, as though I had disturbed them in their
sleeping-places. The air filled with their plaintive cries, and I heard
the rushing of multitudinous wings, sometimes very close to my head,
but always invisible owing to the mist. And once, above the swishing of
the wet wind through the gorse-bushes, I was sure I caught the faint
thunder of the sea and the distant crashing of waves rolling up some
steep-throated gully in the cliffs. I went cautiously after this, and
altered my course a little away from the direction of the sound.
Yet, increasingly all the time, it came to me how the cries of the
sea-birds sounded like laughter, and how the everlasting wind blew and
drove about me with a purpose, and how the low bushes persistently took
the shape of stooping people, moving stealthily past me, and how the
mist more and more resembled huge protean figures escorting me across
the desolate hills, silently, with immense footsteps. For the inanimate
world now touched my awakened poetic sense in a manner hitherto
unguided, and became fraught with the pregnant messages of a dimly
concealed life. I readily understood, for the first time, how easily a
superstitious peasantry might people their world, and how even an
educated mind might favour an atmosphere of legend. I stumbled along,
looking anxiously for the lights of the cottage.
Suddenly, as a shape of writhing mist whirled past, I received so
direct a stroke of wind that it was palpably a blow in the face.
Something swept by with a shrill cry into the darkness. It was
impossible to prevent jumping to one side and raising an arm by way of
protection, and I was only just quick enough to catch a glimpse of the
sea-gull as it raced past, with suddenly altered flight, beating its
powerful wings over my head. Its white body looked enormous as the mist
swallowed it. At the same moment a gust tore my hat from my head and
flung the flap of my coat across my eyes. But I was well-trained by
this time, and made a quick dash after the retreating black object,
only to find on overtaking it that I held a prickly branch of gorse.
The wind combed my hair viciously. Then, out of a corner of my eye, I
saw my hat still rolling, and grabbed swiftly at it; but just as I
closed on it, the real hat passed in front of me, turning over in the
wind like a ball, and I instantly released my first capture to chase
it. Before it was within reach, another one shot between my feet so
that I stepped on it. The grass seemed covered with moving hats, yet
each one, when I seized it, turned into a piece of wood, or a tiny
gorse-bush, or a black rabbit hole, till my hands were scored with
prickles and running blood. In the darkness, I reflected, all objects
looked alike, as though by general conspiracy. I straightened up and
took a long breath, mopping the blood with my handkerchief. Then
something tapped at my feet, and on looking down, there was the hat
within easy reach, and I stooped down and put it on my head again. Of
course, there were a dozen ways of explaining my confusion and
stupidity, and I walked along wondering which to select. My eyesight,
for one thing--and under such conditions why seek further? It was
nothing, after all, and the dizziness was a momentary effect caused by
the effort and stooping.
But for all that, I shouted aloud, on the chance that a wandering
shepherd might hear me; and of course no answer came, for it was like
calling in a padded room, and the mist suffocated my voice and killed
its resonance.
It was really very discouraging: I was cold and wet and hungry; my legs
and clothes torn by the gorse, my hands scratched and bleeding; the
wind brought water to my eyes by its constant buffeting, and my skin
was numb from contact with the chill mist. Fortunately I had matches,
and after some difficulty, by crouching under a wall, I caught a swift
glimpse of my watch, and saw that it was but little after eight
o'clock. Supper I knew was at nine, and I was surely over half-way by
this time. But here again was another instance of the way everything
seemed in a conspiracy against me to appear otherwise than ordinary,
for in the gleam of the match my watch-glass showed as the face of a
little old gray man, uncommonly like the folk-lorist himself, peering
up at me with an expression of whimsical laughter. My own reflection it
could not possibly have been, for I am clean-shaven, and this face
looked up at me through a running tangle of gray hair. Yet a second and
third match revealed only the white surface with the thin black hands
moving across it.
II
And it was at this point, I well remember, that I reached what was for
me the true heart of the adventure, the little fragment of real
experience I learned from it and took back with me to my doctor's life
in London, and that has remained with me ever since, and helped me to a
new sympathetic insight into the intricacies of certain curious mental
cases I had never before really understood.
For it was sufficiently obvious by now that a curious change had been
going forward in me for some time, dating, so far as I could focus my
thoughts sufficiently to analyse, from the moment of my speech with
that hurrying man of shadow on the hillside. And the first deliberate
manifestation of the change, now that I looked back, was surely the
awakening in my prosaic being of the "poetic thrill"; my sudden amazing
appreciation of the world around me as something alive. From that
moment the change in me had worked ahead subtly, swiftly. Yet, so
natural had been the beginning of it, that although it was a radically
new departure for my temperament, I was hardly aware at first of what
had actually come about; and it was only now, after so many encounters,
that I was forced at length to acknowledge it.
It came the more forcibly too, because my very commonplace ideas of
beauty had hitherto always been associated with sunshine and crude
effects; yet here this new revelation leaped to me out of wind and mist
and desolation on a lonely hillside, out of night, darkness, and
discomfort. New values rushed upon me from all sides. Everything had
changed, and the very simplicity with which the new values presented
themselves proved to me how profound the change, the readjustment, had
been. In such trivial things the evidence had come that I was not aware
of it until repetition forced my attention: the veils rising from
valley and hill; the mountain tops as personalities that shout or
murmur in the darkness; the crying of the sea birds and of the living,
purposeful wind; above all, the feeling that Nature about me was
instinct with a life differing from my own in degree rather than in
kind; everything, from the conspiracy of the gorse-bushes to the
disappearing hat, showed that a fundamental attitude of mind in me had
changed--and changed, too, without my knowledge or consent.
Moreover, at the same time the deep sadness of beauty had entered my
heart like a stroke; for all this mystery and loveliness, I realized
poignantly was utterly independent and careless of _me_, as me; and
that while I must pass, decay, grow old, these manifestations would
remain for ever young and unalterably potent. And thus gradually had I
become permeated with the recognition of a region hitherto unknown to
me, and that I had always depreciated in others and especially, it now
occurred to me, in my friend the old folk-lorist.
Here surely, I thought, was the beginning of conditions which, carried
a little further, must become pathogenic. That the change was real and
pregnant I had no doubt whatever. My consciousness was expanding and I
had caught it in the very act. I had of course read much concerning the
changes of personality, swift, kaleidoscopic--had come across something
of it in my practice--and had listened to the folk-lorist holding forth
like a man inspired upon ways and means of reaching concealed regions
of the human consciousness, and opening it to the knowledge of things
called magical, so that one became free of a larger universe. But it
was only now for the first time, on these bare hills, in touch with the
wind and the rain, that I realized in how simple a fashion the
frontiers of consciousness could shift this way and that, or with what
touch of genuine awe the certainty might come that one stood on the
borderland of new, untried, perhaps dangerous, experiences.
At any rate, it did now come to me that my consciousness had shifted
its frontiers very considerably, and that whatever might happen must
seem not abnormal, but quite simple and inevitable, and of course
utterly true. This very simplicity, however, doing no violence to my
being, brought with it none the less a sense of dread and discomfort;
and my dim awareness that unknown possibilities were about me in the
night puzzled and distressed me perhaps more than I cared to admit.
III
All this that takes so long to describe became apparent to me in a few
seconds. What I had always despised ascended the throne.
But with the finding of Bassett's cottage, as a sign-post close to
home, my former _sang-froid_, my stupidity, would doubtless return, and
my relief was therefore considerable when at length a faint gleam of
light appeared through the mist, against which the square dark shadow
of the chimney-line pointed upwards. After all, I had not strayed so
very far out of the way. Now I could definitely ascertain where I was
wrong.
Quickening my pace, I scrambled over a broken stone wall, and almost
ran across the open bit of grass to the door. One moment the black
outline of the cottage was there in front of me, and the next, when I
stood actually against it--there was nothing! I laughed to think how
utterly I had been deceived. Yet not utterly, for as I groped back
again over the wall, the cottage loomed up a little to the left, with
its windows lighted and friendly, and I had only been mistaken in my
angle of approach after all. Yet again, as I hurried to the door, the
mist drove past and thickened a second time--and the cottage was not
where I had seen it!
My confusion increased a lot after that. I scrambled about in all
directions, rather foolishly hurried, and over countless stone walls it
seemed, and completely dazed as to the true points of the compass. Then
suddenly, just when a kind of despair came over me, the cottage stood
there solidly before my eyes, and I found myself not two feet from the
door. Was ever mist before so deceptive? And there, just behind it, I
made out the row of pines like a dark wave breaking through the night.
I sniffed the wet resinous odour with joy, and a genuine thrill ran
through me as I saw the unmistakable yellow light of the windows. At
last I was near home and my troubles would soon be over.
A cloud of birds rose with shrill cries off the roof and whirled into
the darkness when I knocked with my stick on the door, and human
voices, I was almost certain, mingled somewhere with them, though it
was impossible to tell whether they were within the cottage or outside.
It all sounded confusedly with a rush of air like a little whirlwind,
and I stood there rather alarmed at the clamour of my knocking. By way,
too, of further proof that my imagination had awakened, the
significance of that knocking at the door set something vibrating
within me that most surely had never vibrated before, so that I
suddenly realized with what atmosphere of mystical suggestion is the
mere act of knocking surrounded--_knocking at a door_--both for him who
knocks, wondering what shall be revealed on opening, and for him who
stands within, waiting for the summons of the knocker. I only know that
I hesitated a lot before making up my mind to knock a second time.
And, anyhow, what happened subsequently came in a sort of haze. Words
and memory both failed me when I try to record it truthfully, so that
even the faces are difficult to visualise again, the words almost
impossible to hear.
Before I knew it the door was open and before I could frame the words
of my first brief question, I was within the threshold, and the door
was shut behind me.
I had expected the little dark and narrow hallway of a cottage,
oppressive of air and odour, but instead I came straight into a room
that was full of light and full of--people. And the air tasted like the
air about a mountain-top.
To the end I never saw what produced the light, nor understood how so
many men and women found space to move comfortably to and fro, and pass
each other as they did, within the confines of those four walls. An
uncomfortable sense of having intruded upon some private gathering was,
I think, my first emotion; though how the poverty-stricken country-side
could have produced such an assemblage puzzled me beyond belief. And my
second emotion--if there was any division at all in the wave of wonder
that fairly drenched me--was feeling a sort of glory in the presence of
such an atmosphere of splendid and vital _youth_. Everything vibrated,
quivered, shook about me, and I almost felt myself as an aged and
decrepit man by comparison.
I know my heart gave a great fiery leap as I saw them, for the faces
that met me were fine, vigourous, and comely, while burning everywhere
through their ripe maturity shone the ardours of youth and a kind of
deathless enthusiasm. Old, yet eternally young they were, as rivers and
mountains count their years by thousands, yet remain ever youthful; and
the first effect of all those pairs of eyes lifted to meet my own was
to send a whirlwind of unknown thrills about my heart and make me catch
my breath with mingled terror and delight. A fear of death, and at the
same time a sensation of touching something vast and eternal that could
never die, surged through me.
A deep hush followed my entrance as all turned to look at me. They
stood, men and women, grouped about a table, and something about
them--not their size alone--conveyed the impression of being
_gigantic_, giving me strangely novel realisations of freedom, power,
and immense existence more or less than human.
I can only record my thoughts and impressions as they came to me and as
I dimly now remember them. I had expected to see old Tom Bassett
crouching half asleep over a peat fire, a dim lamp on the table beside
him, and instead this assembly of tall and splendid men and women stood
there to greet me, and stood in silence. It was little wonder that at
first the ready question died upon my lips, and I almost forgot the
words of my own language.
"I thought this was Tom Bassett's cottage!" I managed to ask at length,
and looked straight at the man nearest me across the table. He had wild
hair falling about his shoulders and a face of clear beauty. His eyes,
too, like all the rest, seemed shrouded by something veil-like that
reminded me of the shadowy man of whom I had first inquired the way.
They were _shaded_--and for some reason I was glad they were.
At the sound of my voice, unreal and thin, there was a general movement
throughout the room, as though everyone changed places, passing each
other like those shapes of fluid sort I had seen outside in the mist.
But no answer came. It seemed to me that the mist even penetrated into
the room about me and spread inwardly over my thoughts.
"Is this the way to the Manor House?" I asked again, louder, fighting
my inward confusion and weakness. "Can _no one_ tell me?"
Then apparently everyone began to answer at once, or rather, not to
answer directly, but to speak to each other in such a way that I could
easily overhear. The voices of the men were deep, and of the women
wonderfully musical, with a slow rhythm like that of the sea, or of the
wind through the pine-trees outside. But the unsatisfactory nature of
what they said only helped to increase my sense of confusion and
dismay.
"Yes," said one; "Tom Bassett _was_ here for a while with the sheep,
but his home was not here."
"He asks the way to a house when he does not even know the way to his
own mind!" another voice said, sounding overhead it seemed.
"And could he recognise the signs if we told him?" came in the singing
tones of a woman's voice close behind me.
And then, with a noise more like running water, or wind in the wings of
birds, than anything else I could liken it to, came several voices
together:
"And what sort of way does he seek? The splendid way, or merely the
easy?"
"Or the short way of fools!"
"But he must have _some_ credentials, or he never could have got as far
as this," came from another.
A laugh ran round the room at this, though what there was to laugh at I
could not imagine. It sounded like wind rushing about the hills. I got
the impression too that the roof was somehow open to the sky, for their
laughter had such a spacious quality in it, and the air was so cool and
fresh, and moving about in currents and waves.
"It was I who showed him the way," cried a voice belonging to someone
who was looking straight into my face over the table. "It was the
safest way for him once he had got so far----"
I looked up and met his eye, and the sentence remained unfinished. It
was the hurrying, shadowy man of the hillside. He had the same shifting
outline as the others now, and the same veiled and shaded eyes, and as
I looked the sense of terror stirred and grew in me. I had come in to
ask for help, but now I was only anxious to be free of them all and out
again in the rain and darkness on the moor. Thoughts of escape filled
my brain, and I searched quickly for the door through which I had
entered. But nowhere could I discover it again. The walls were bare;
not even the windows were visible. And the room seemed to fill and
empty of these figures as the waves of the sea fill and empty a cavern,
crowding one upon another, yet never occupying more space, or less. So
the coming and going of these men and women always evaded me.
And my terror became simply a terror that the veils of their eyes might
lift, and that they would look at me with their clear, naked sight. I
became horribly aware of their eyes. It was not that I felt them evil,
but that I feared the new depths in me their merciless and terrible
insight would stir into life. My consciousness had expanded quite
enough for one night! I must escape at all costs and claim my own self
again, however limited. I must have sanity, even if with limitations,
but sanity at any price.
But meanwhile, though I tried hard to find my voice again, there came
nothing but a thin piping sound that was like reeds whistling where
winds meet about a corner. My throat was contracted, and I could only
produce the smallest and most ridiculous of noises. The power of
movement, too, was far less than when I first came in, and every moment
it became more difficult to use my muscles, so that I stood there,
stiff and awkward, face to face with this assemblage of shifting,
wonderful people.
"And now," continued the voice of the man who had last spoken, "and now
the safest way for him will be through the other door, where he shall
see that which he may more easily understand."
With a great effort I regained the power of movement, while at the same
time a burst of anger and a determination to be done with it all and to
overcome my dreadful confusion drove me forward.
He saw me coming, of course, and the others indeed opened up and made a
way for me, shifting to one side or the other whenever I came too near
them, and never allowing me to touch them. But at last, when I was
close in front of the man, ready both to speak and act, he was no
longer there. I never saw the actual change--but instead of a man it
was a woman! And when I turned with amazement, I saw that the other
occupants walking like figures in some ancient ceremony, were moving
slowly toward the far end of the room. One by one, as they filed past,
they raised their calm, passionless faces to mine, immensely vital,
proud, austere, and then, without further word or gesture, they opened
the door I had lost and disappeared through it one by one into the
darkness of the night beyond. And as they went it seemed that the mist
swallowed them up and a gust of wind caught them away, and the light
also went with them, leaving me alone with the figure who had last
spoken.
Moreover it was just here that a most disquieting thought flashed
through my brain with unreasoning conviction, shaking my personality,
as it were, to the foundations: viz., that I had hitherto been spending
my life in the pursuit of false knowledge, in the mere classifying and
labelling of effects, the analysis of results, scientific so called;
whereas it was the folk-lorist, and such like, who with their dreams
and prayers were all the time on the path of real knowledge, the trail
of causes; that the one was merely adding to the mechanical comfort and
safety of the body, ultimately degrading the highest part of man, and
never advancing the type, while the other--but then I had never yet
believed in a soul--and now was no time to begin, terror or no terror.
Clearly, my thoughts were wandering.
IV
It was at this moment the sound of the purring first reached me--deep,
guttural purring--that made me think at once of some large concealed
animal. It was precisely what I had heard many a time at the Zoological
Gardens, and I had visions of cows chewing the cud, or horses munching
hay in a stall outside the cottage. It was certainly an animal sound,
and one of pleasure and contentment.
Semi-darkness filled the room. Only a very faint moonlight, struggling
through the mist, came through the window, and I moved back
instinctively toward the support of the wall against my back.
Somewhere, through openings, came the sound of the night driving over
the roof, and far above I had visions of those everlasting winds
streaming by with clouds as large as continents on their wings.
Something in me wanted to sing and shout, but something else in me at
the same time was in a very vivid state of unreasoning terror. I felt
immense, yet tiny, confident, yet timid; a part of huge, universal
forces, yet an utterly small, personal, and very limited being.
In the corner of the room on my right stood the woman. Her face was hid
by a mass of tumbling hair, that made me think of living grasses on a
field in June. Thus her head was partially turned from me, and the
moonlight, catching her outline, just revealed it against the wall like
an impressionist picture. Strange hidden memories stirred in the depths
of me, and for a moment I felt that I knew all about her. I stared
about me quickly, nervously, trying to take in everything at once. Then
the purring sound grew much louder and closer, and I forgot my notion
that this woman was no stranger to me and that I knew her as well as I
knew myself. That purring thing was in the room close beside me.
Between us two, indeed, it was, for I now saw that her arm nearest to
me was raised, and that she was pointing to the wall in front of us.
Following the direction of her hand, I saw that the wall was
transparent, and that I could see through a portion of it into a small
square space beyond, as though I was looking through gauze instead of
bricks. This small inner space was lighted, and on stooping down I saw
that it was a sort of cupboard or cell-like cage let into the wall. The
thing that purred was there in the centre of it.
I looked closer. It was a being, apparently a _human_ being, crouched
down in its narrow cage, feeding. I saw the body stooping over a
quantity of coarse-looking, piled-up substance that was evidently food.
It was like a man huddled up. There it squatted, happy and contented,
with the minimum of air, light, and space, dully satisfied with its
prisoned cage behind the bars, utterly unconscious of the vast world
about it, grunting with pleasure, purring like a great cat, scornfully
ignorant of what might lie beyond. The cell, moreover, I saw was a
perfect masterpiece of mechanical contrivance and inventive
ingenuity--the very last word in comfort, safety and scientific skill.
I was in the act of trying to fit in my memory some of the details of
its construction and arrangement, when I made a chance noise, and at
once became too agitated to note carefully what I saw. For at the noise
the creature turned, and I saw that it _was_ a human being--a man. I
was aware of a face close against my own as it pressed forward, but a
face with embryonic features impossible to describe and utterly
loathsome, with eyes, ears, nose and skin, only just sufficiently alive
and developed to transfer the minimum of gross sensation to the brain.
The mouth, however, was large and thick-lipped, and the jaws were still
moving in the act of slow mastication.
I shrank back, shuddering with mingled pity and disgust, and at the
same moment the woman beside me called me softly _by my own name_. She
had moved forward a little so that she stood quite close to me, full in
the thin stream of moonlight that fell across the floor, and I was
conscious of a swift transition from hell to heaven as my gaze passed
from that embryonic visage to a countenance so refined, so majestic, so
divinely sensitive in its strength, that it was like turning from the
face of a devil to look upon the features of a goddess.
At the same instant I was aware that both beings--the creature and the
woman--were moving rapidly toward me.
A pain like a sharp sword dived deep down into me and twisted horribly
through my heart, for as I saw them coming I realized in one swift
moment of terrible intuition that they had their life in me, that they
were born of my own being, and were indeed _projections of myself_.
They were portions of my consciousness projected outwardly into
objectivity, and their degree of reality was just as great as that of
any other part of me.
With a dreadful swiftness they rushed toward me, and in a single second
had merged themselves into my own being; and I understood in some
marvellous manner beyond the possibility of doubt that they were
symbolic of my own soul: the dull animal part of me that had hitherto
acknowledged nothing beyond its cage of minute sensations, and the
higher part, almost out of reach, and in touch with the stars, that for
the first time had feebly awakened into life during my journey over the
hill.
V
I forget altogether how it was that I escaped, whether by the window or
the door. I only know I found myself a moment later making great speed
over the moor, followed by screaming birds and shouting winds, straight
on the track downhill toward the Manor House. Something must have
guided me, for I went with the instinct of an animal, having no
uncertainties as to turnings, and saw the welcome lights of windows
before I had covered another mile. And all the way I felt as though a
great sluice gate had been opened to let a flood of new perceptions
rush like a sea over my inner being, so that I was half ashamed and
half delighted, partly angry, yet partly happy.
Servants met me at the door, several of them, and I was aware at once
of an atmosphere of commotion in the house. I arrived breathless and
hatless, wet to the skin, my hands scratched and my boots caked with
mud.
"We made sure you were lost, sir," I heard the old butler say, and I
heard my own reply, faintly, like the voice of someone else:
"I thought so too."
A minute later I found myself in the study, with the old folk-lorist
standing opposite. In his hands he held the book I had brought down for
him in my bag, ready addressed. There was a curious smile on his face.
"It never occurred to me that you would dare to _walk_--to-night of all
nights," he was saying.
I stared without a word. I was bursting with the desire to tell him
something of what had happened and try to be patient with his
explanations, but when I sought for words and sentences my story seemed
suddenly flat and pointless, and the details of my adventure began to
evaporate and melt away, and seemed hard to remember.
"I had an exciting walk," I stammered, still a little breathless from
running. "The weather was all right when I started from the station."
"The weather is all right still," he said, "though you may have found
some evening mist on the top of the hills. But it's not that I meant."
"What then?"
"I meant," he said, still laughing quizzically, "that you were a very
brave man to walk to-night over the enchanted hills, because this is
May Day eve, and on May Day eve, you know, _They_ have power over the
minds of men, and can put glamour upon the imagination----"
"Who--'_they_?' What do you mean?"
He put my book down on the table beside him and looked quietly for a
moment into my eyes, and as he did so the memory of my adventure began
to revive in detail, and I thought quickly of the shadowy man who had
shown me the way first. What could it have been in the face of the old
folk-lorist that made me think of this man? A dozen things ran like
flashes through my excited mind, and while I attempted to seize them I
heard the old man's voice continue. He seemed to be talking to himself
as much as to me.
"The elemental beings you have always scoffed at, of course; they who
operate ceaselessly behind the screen of appearances, and who fashion
and mould the moods of the mind. And an extremist like you--for
extremes are always dangerously weak--is their legitimate prey."
"Pshaw!" I interrupted him, knowing that my manner betrayed me
hopelessly, and that he had guessed much. "Any man may have subjective
experiences, I suppose----"
Then I broke off suddenly. The change in his face made me start; it had
taken on for the moment so exactly the look of the man on the hillside.
The eyes gazing so steadily into mine had shadows in them, I thought.
"_Glamour!_" he was saying, "all glamour! One of them must have come
very close to you, or perhaps touched you." Then he asked sharply, "Did
you meet anyone? Did you speak with anyone?"
"I came by Tom Bassett's cottage," I said. "I didn't feel quite sure of
my way and I went in and asked."
"All glamour," he repeated to himself, and then aloud to me, "and as
for Bassett's cottage, it was burnt down three years ago, and nothing
stands there now but broken, roofless walls----"
He stopped because I had seized him by the arm. In the shadows of the
lamp-lit room behind him I thought I caught sight of dim forms moving
past the book-shelves. But when my eye tried to focus them they faded
and slipped away again into ceiling and walls. The details of the
hill-top cottage, however, started into life again at the sight, and I
seized my friend's arm to tell him. But instantly, when I tried, it all
faded away again as though it had been a dream, and I could recall
nothing intelligible to repeat to him.
He looked at me and laughed.
"They always obliterate the memory afterward," he said gently, "so that
little remains beyond a mood, or an emotion, to show how profoundly
deep their touch has been. Though sometimes part of the change remains
and becomes permanent--as I hope in your case it may."
Then, before I had time to answer, to swear, or to remonstrate, he
stepped briskly past me and closed the door into the hall, and then
drew me aside farther into the room. The change that I could not
understand was still working in his face and eyes.
"If you have courage enough left to come with me," he said, speaking
very seriously, "we will go out again and see more. Up till midnight,
you know, there is still the opportunity, and with me perhaps you won't
feel so--so----"
It was impossible somehow to refuse; everything combined to make me go.
We had a little food and then went out into the hall, and he clapped a
wide-awake on his gray hairs. I took a cloak and seized a walking-stick
from the stand. I really hardly knew what I was doing. The new world I
had awakened to seemed still a-quiver about me.
As we passed out on to the gravel drive the light from the hall windows
fell upon his face, and I saw that the change I had been so long
observing was nearing its completeness, for there breathed about him
that keen, wonderful atmosphere of eternal youth I had felt upon the
inmates of the cottage. He seemed to have gone back forty years; a veil
was gathering over his eyes; and I could have sworn that somehow his
stature had increased, and that he moved beside me with a vigour and
power I had never seen in him before.
And as we began to climb the hill together in silence I saw that the
stars were clear overhead and there was no mist, that the trees stood
motionless without wind, and that beyond us on the summit of the hills
there were lights dancing to and fro, appearing and disappearing like
the inflection of stars in water.
II
THE DIAMOND LENS
Fitz-James O'Brien
I
THE BENDING OF THE TWIG
From a very early period of my life the entire bent of my inclinations
had been towards microscopic investigations. When I was not more than
ten years old, a distant relative of our family, hoping to astonish my
inexperience, constructed a simple microscope for me, by drilling in a
disk of copper a small hole, in which a drop of pure water was
sustained by capillary attraction. This very primitive apparatus,
magnifying some fifty diameters, presented, it is true, only indistinct
and imperfect forms, but still sufficiently wonderful to work up my
imagination to a preternatural state of excitement.
Seeing me so interested in this rude instrument, my cousin explained to
me all that he knew about the principles of the microscope, related to
me a few of the wonders which had been accomplished through its agency,
and ended by promising to send me one regularly constructed,
immediately on his return to the city. I counted the days, the hours,
the minutes, that intervened between that promise and his departure.
Meantime I was not idle. Every transparent substance that bore the
remotest resemblance to a lens I eagerly seized upon, and employed in
vain attempts to realize that instrument, the theory of whose
construction I as yet only vaguely comprehended. All panes of glass
containing those oblate spheroidal knots familiarly known as
"bull's-eyes" were ruthlessly destroyed, in the hope of obtaining
lenses of marvelous power. I even went so far as to extract the
crystalline humour from the eyes of fishes and animals, and endeavored
to press it into the microscopic service. I plead guilty to having
stolen the glasses from my Aunt Agatha's spectacles, with a dim idea of
grinding them into lenses of wondrous magnifying properties,--in which
attempt it is scarcely necessary to say that I totally failed.
At last the promised instrument came. It was of that order known as
Field's simple microscope, and had cost perhaps about fifteen dollars.
As far as educational purposes went, a better apparatus could not have
been selected. Accompanying it was a small treatise on the
microscope,--its history, uses, and discoveries. I comprehended then
for the first time the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments." The dull veil
of ordinary existence that hung across the world seemed suddenly to
roll away, and to lay bare a land of enchantments. I felt towards my
companions as the seer might feel towards the ordinary masses of men. I
held conversations with nature in a tongue which they could not
understand. I was in daily communication with living wonders, such as
they never imagined in their wildest visions. I penetrated beyond the
external portal of things, and roamed through the sanctuaries. Where
they beheld only a drop of rain slowly rolling down the window-glass, I
saw a universe of beings animated with all the passions common to
physical life, and convulsing their minute sphere with struggles as
fierce and protracted as those of men. In the common spots of mould,
which my mother, good housekeeper that she was, fiercely scooped away
from her jam pots, there abode for me, under the name of mildew,
enchanted gardens, filled with dells and avenues of the densest foliage
and most astonishing verdure, while from the fantastic boughs of these
microscopic forests, hung strange fruits glittering with green, and
silver, and gold.
It was no scientific thirst that at this time filled my mind. It was
the pure enjoyment of a poet to whom a world of wonders has been
disclosed. I talked of my solitary pleasures to none. Alone with my
microscope, I dimmed my sight, day after day and night after night,
poring over the marvels which it unfolded to me. I was like one who,
having discovered the ancient Eden still existing in all its primitive
glory, should resolve to enjoy it in solitude, and never betray to
mortal the secret of its locality. The rod of my life was bent at this
moment. I destined myself to be a microscopist.
Of course, like every novice, I fancied myself a discoverer. I was
ignorant at the time of the thousands of acute intellects engaged in
the same pursuit as myself, and with the advantage of instruments a
thousand times more powerful than mine. The names of Leeuwenhoek,
Williamson, Spencer, Ehrenberg, Schmaltz, Dujardin, Staccato, and
Schlseiden were then entirely unknown to me, or if known, I was
ignorant of their patient and wonderful researches. In every fresh
specimen of cryptogamic which I placed beneath my instrument I believed
that I discovered wonders of which the world was as yet ignorant. I
remember well the thrill of delight and admiration that shot through me
the first time that I discovered the common wheel animalcule (_Rotifera
vulgaris_) expanding and contracting its flexible spokes, and seemingly
rotating through the water. Alas! as I grew older, and obtained some
works treating of my favorite study, I found that I was only on the
threshold of a science to the investigation of which some of the
greatest men of the age were devoting their lives and intellects.
As I grew up, my parents, who saw but little likelihood of anything
practical resulting from the examination of bits of moss and drops of
water through a brass tube and a piece of glass, were anxious that I
should choose a profession. It was their desire that I should enter the
counting-house of my uncle, Ethan Blake, a prosperous merchant, who
carried on business in New York. This suggestion I decisively combated.
I had no taste for trade; I should only make a failure; in short, I
refused to become a merchant.
But it was necessary for me to select some pursuit. My parents were
staid New England people, who insisted on the necessity of labour; and
therefore, although, thanks to the bequest of my poor Aunt Agatha, I
should, on coming of age, inherit a small fortune sufficient to place
me above want, it was decided that, instead of waiting for this, I
should act the nobler part, and employ the intervening years in
rendering myself independent.
After much cogitation I complied with the wishes of my family, and
selected a profession. I determined to study medicine at the New York
Academy. This disposition of my future suited me. A removal from my
relatives would enable me to dispose of my time as I pleased without
fear of detection. As long as I paid my Academy fees, I might shirk
attending the lectures if I chose; and, as I never had the remotest
intention of standing an examination, there was no danger of my being
"plucked." Besides, a metropolis was the place for me. There I could
obtain excellent instruments, the newest publications, intimacy with
men of pursuits kindred with my own,--in short, all things necessary to
insure a profitable devotion of my life to my beloved science. I had an
abundance of money, few desires that were not bounded by my
illuminating mirror on one side and my object-glass on the other; what,
therefore, was to prevent my becoming an illustrious investigator of
the veiled worlds? It was with the most buoyant hope that I left my New
England home and established myself in New York.
II
THE LONGING OF A MAN OF SCIENCE
My first step, of course, was to find suitable apartments. These I
obtained, after a couple of days' search, in Fourth Avenue; a very
pretty second-floor unfurnished, containing sitting-room, bedroom, and
a smaller apartment which I intended to fit up as a laboratory. I
furnished my lodgings simply, but rather elegantly, and then devoted
all my energies to the adornment of the temple of my worship. I visited
Pike, the celebrated optician, and passed in review his splendid
collection of microscopes,--Field's Compound, Hingham's, Spencer's,
Nachet's Binocular (that founded on the principles of the stereoscope),
and at length fixed upon that form known as Spencer's Trunnion
Microscope, as combining the greatest number of improvements with an
almost perfect freedom from tremor. Along with this I purchased every
possible accessory,--draw-tubes, micrometers, a _camera-lucida_,
lever-stage, acromatic condensers, white cloud illuminators, prisms,
parabolic condensers, polarizing apparatus, forceps, aquatic boxes,
fishing-tubes, with a host of other articles, all of which would have
been useful in the hands of an experienced microscopist, but, as I
afterwards discovered, were not of the slightest present value to me.
It takes years of practice to know how to use a complicated microscope.
The optician looked suspiciously at me as I made these wholesale
purchases. He evidently was uncertain whether to set me down as some
scientific celebrity or a madman. I think he inclined to the latter
belief. I suppose I was mad. Every great genius is mad upon the subject
in which he is greatest. The unsuccessful madman is disgraced and
called a lunatic.
Mad or not, I set myself to work with a zeal which few scientific
students have ever equalled. I had everything to learn relative to the
delicate study upon which I had embarked,--a study involving the most
earnest patience, the most rigid analytic powers, the steadiest hand,
the most untiring eyes, the most refined and subtile manipulation.
For a long time half my apparatus lay inactively on the shelves of my
laboratory, which was now most amply furnished with every possible
contrivance for facilitating my investigations. The fact was that I did
not know how to use some of my scientific implements,--never having
been taught microscopic,--and those whose use I understood
theoretically were of little avail, until by practice I could attain
the necessary delicacy of handling. Still, such was the fury of my
ambition, such the untiring perseverance of my experiments, that,
difficult of credit as it may be, in the course of one year I became
theoretically and practically an accomplished microscopist.
During this period of my labours, in which I submitted specimens of
every substance that came under my observation to the action of my
lenses, I became a discoverer--in a small way, it is true, for I was
very young, but still a discoverer. It was I who destroyed Ehrenberg's
theory that the _Volvox globator_ was an animal, and proved that his
"nomads" with stomachs and eyes were merely phases of the formation of
a vegetable cell, and were, when they reached their mature state,
incapable of the act of conjugation, or any true generative act,
without which no organism rising to any stage of life higher than
vegetable can be said to be complete. It was I who resolved the
singular problem of rotation in the cells and hairs of plants into
ciliary attraction, in spite of the assertions of Mr. Wenham and
others, that my explanation was the result of an optical illusion.
But notwithstanding these discoveries, laboriously and painfully made
as they were, I felt horribly dissatisfied. At every step I found
myself stopped by the imperfections of my instruments. Like all active
microscopists, I gave my imagination full play. Indeed, it is a common
complaint against many such, that they supply the defects of their
instruments with the creations of their brains. I imagined depths
beyond depths in nature which the limited power of my lenses prohibited
me from exploring. I lay awake at night constructing imaginary
microscopes of immeasurable power, with which I seemed to pierce
through the envelopes of matter down to its original atom. How I cursed
those imperfect mediums which necessity through ignorance compelled me
to use! How I longed to discover the secret of some perfect lens, whose
magnifying power should be limited only by the resolvability of the
object, and which at the same time should be free from spherical and
chromatic aberrations, in short from all the obstacles over which the
poor microscopist finds himself continually stumbling! I felt convinced
that the simple microscope, composed of a single lens of such vast yet
perfect power was possible of construction. To attempt to bring the
compound microscope up to such a pitch would have been commencing at
the wrong end; this latter being simply a partially successful endeavor
to remedy those very defects of the simple instrument which, if
conquered, would leave nothing to be desired.
It was in this mood of mind that I became a constructive microscopist.
After another year passed in this new pursuit, experimenting on every
imaginable substance,--glass, gems, flints, crystals, artificial
crystals formed of the alloy of various vitreous materials,--in short,
having constructed as many varieties of lenses as Argus had eyes, I
found myself precisely where I started, with nothing gained save an
extensive knowledge of glass-making. I was almost dead with despair. My
parents were surprised at my apparent want of progress in my medical
studies (I had not attended one lecture since my arrival in the city),
and the expenses of my mad pursuit had been so great as to embarrass me
very seriously.
I was in this frame of mind one day, experimenting in my laboratory on
a small diamond,--that stone, from its great refracting power, having
always occupied my attention more than any other,--when a young
Frenchman, who lived on the floor above me, and who was in the habit of
occasionally visiting me, entered the room.
I think that Jules Simon was a Jew. He had many traits of the Hebrew
character: a love of jewelry, of dress, and of good living. There was
something mysterious about him. He always had something to sell, and
yet went into excellent society. When I say sell, I should perhaps have
said peddle; for his operations were generally confined to the disposal
of single articles,--a picture, for instance, or a rare carving in
ivory, or a pair of duelling-pistols, or the dress of a Mexican
_caballero_. When I was first furnishing my rooms, he paid me a visit,
which ended in my purchasing an antique silver lamp, which he assured
me was a Cellini,--it was handsome enough even for that, and some other
knickknacks for my sitting-room. Why Simon should pursue this petty
trade I never could imagine. He apparently had plenty of money, and had
the _entrée_ of the best houses in the city,--taking care, however, I
suppose, to drive no bargains within the enchanted circle of the Upper
Ten. I came at length to the conclusion that this peddling was but a
mask to cover some greater object, and even went so far as to believe
my young acquaintance to be implicated in the slave-trade. That,
however, was none of my affair.
On the present occasion, Simon entered my room in a state of
considerable excitement.
"_Ah! mon ami!_" he cried, before I could even offer him the ordinary
salutation, "it has occurred to me to be the witness of the most
astonishing things in the world. I promenade myself to the house of
Madame ----. How does the little animal--_le renard_--name himself in
the Latin?"
"Vulvas," I answered.
"Ah! yes,--Vulvas. I promenade myself to the house of Madame Vulvas."
"The spirit medium?"
"Yes, the great medium. Great heavens! what a woman! I write on a slip
of paper many of questions concerning affairs the most secret,--affairs
that conceal themselves in the abysses of my heart the most profound;
and behold! by example! what occurs? This devil of a woman makes me
replies the most truthful to all of them. She talks to me of things
that I do not love to talk of to myself. What am I to think? I am fixed
to the earth!"
"Am I to understand you, M. Simon, that this Mrs. Vulvas replied to
questions secretly written by you, which questions related to events
known only to yourself?"
"Ah! more than that, more than that," he answered, with an air of some
alarm. "She related to me things--But," he added, after a pause, and
suddenly changing his manner, "why occupy ourselves with these follies?
It was all the biology, without doubt. It goes without saying that it
has not my credence.--But why are we here, _mon ami_? It has occurred
to me to discover the most beautiful thing as you can imagine,--a vase
with green lizards on it, composed by the great Bernard Palissy. It is
in my apartment; let us mount. I go to show it to you."
I followed Simon mechanically; but my thoughts were far from Palissy
and his enamelled ware, although I, like him, was seeking in the dark a
great discovery. This casual mention of the spiritualist, Madame
Vulpes, set me on a new track. What if this spiritualism should be
really a great fact? What if, through communication with more subtile
organisms than my own, I could reach at a single bound the goal, which
perhaps a life of agonizing mental toil would never enable me to
attain?
While purchasing the Palissy vase from my friend Simon, I was mentally
arranging a visit to Madame Vulpes.
III
THE SPIRIT OF LEEUWENHOEK
Two evenings after this, thanks to an arrangement by letter and the
promise of an ample fee, I found Madame Vulpes awaiting me at her
residence alone. She was a coarse-featured woman, with keen and rather
cruel dark eyes, and an exceedingly sensual expression about her mouth
and under jaw. She received me in perfect silence, in an apartment on
the ground floor, very sparely furnished. In the centre of the room,
close to where Mrs. Vulpes sat, there was a common round mahogany
table. If I had come for the purpose of sweeping her chimney, the woman
could not have looked more indifferent to my appearance. There was no
attempt to inspire the visitor with awe. Everything bore a simple and
practical aspect. This intercourse with the spiritual world was
evidently as familiar an occupation with Mrs. Vulpes as eating her
dinner or riding in an omnibus.
"You come for a communication, Mr. Linley?" said the medium, in a dry,
business-like tone of voice.
"By appointment,--yes."
"What sort of communication do you want--a written one?"
"Yes--I wish for a written one."
"From any particular spirit?"
"Yes."
"Have you ever known this spirit on this earth?"
"Never. He died long before I was born. I wish merely to obtain from
him some information which he ought to be able to give better than any
other."
"Will you seat yourself at the table, Mr. Linley," said the medium,
"and place your hands upon it?"
I obeyed,--Mrs. Vulpes being seated opposite to me, with her hands also
on the table. We remained thus for about a minute and a half, when a
violent succession of raps came on the table, on the back of my chair,
on the floor immediately under my feet, and even on the window-panes.
Mrs. Vulpes smiled composedly.
"They are very strong to-night," she remarked. "You are fortunate." She
then continued, "Will the spirits communicate with this gentleman?"
Vigorous affirmative.
"Will the particular spirit he desires to speak with communicate?"
A very confused rapping followed this question.
"I know what they mean," said Mrs. Vulpes, addressing herself to me;
"they wish you to write down the name of the particular spirit that you
desire to converse with. Is that so?" she added, speaking to her
invisible guests.
That it was so was evident from the numerous affirmatory responses.
While this was going on, I tore a slip from my pocket-book, and
scribbled a name, under the table.
"Will this spirit communicate in writing with this gentleman?" asked
the medium once more.
After a moment's pause, her hand seemed to be seized with a violent
tremour, shaking so forcibly that the table vibrated. She said that a
spirit had seized her hand and would write. I handed her some sheets of
paper that were on the table, and a pencil. The latter she held loosely
in her hand, which presently began to move over the paper with a
singular and seemingly involuntary motion. After a few moments had
elapsed, she handed me the paper, on which I found written, in a large,
uncultivated hand, the words, "He is not here, but has been sent for."
A pause of a minute or so now ensued, during which Mrs. Vulpes remained
perfectly silent, but the raps continued at regular intervals. When the
short period I mention had elapsed, the hand of the medium was again
seized with its convulsive tremour, and she wrote, under this strange
influence, a few words on the paper, which she handed to me. They were
as follows:--
"I am here. Question me. Leeuwenhoek."
I was astounded. The name was identical with that I had written beneath
the table, and carefully kept concealed. Neither was it at all probable
that an uncultivated woman like Mrs. Vulpes should know even the name
of the great father of microscopics. It may have been biology; but this
theory was soon doomed to be destroyed. I wrote on my slip--still
concealing it from Mrs. Vulpes--a series of questions, which, to avoid
tediousness, I shall place with the responses, in the order in which
they occurred:--
I.--Can the microscope be brought to perfection?
Spirit.--Yes.
I.--Am I destined to accomplish this great task?
Spirit.--You are.
I.--I wish to know how to proceed to attain this end. For the love
which you bear to science, help me!
Spirit.--A diamond of one hundred and forty carats, submitted to
electro-magnetic currents for a long period, will experience a
rearrangement of its atoms _inter se_, and from that stone you will
form the universal lens.
I.--Will great discoveries result from the use of such a lens?
Spirit.--So great that all that has gone before is as nothing.
I.--But the refractive power of the diamond is so immense, that the
image will be formed within the lens. How is that difficulty to be
surmounted?
Spirit.--Pierce the lens through its axis, and the difficulty is
obviated. The image will be formed in the pierced space, which will
itself serve as a tube to look through. Now I am called. Good-night.
I cannot at all describe the effect that these extraordinary
communications had upon me. I felt completely bewildered. No biological
theory could account for the _discovery_ of the lens. The medium might,
by means of biological _rapport_ with my mind, have gone so far as to
read my questions, and reply to them coherently. But biology could not
enable her to discover that magnetic currents would so alter the
crystals of the diamond as to remedy its previous defects, and admit of
its being polished into a perfect lens. Some such theory may have
passed through my head, it is true; but if so, I had forgotten it. In
my excited condition of mind there was no course left but to become a
convert, and it was in a state of the most painful nervous exaltation
that I left the medium's house that evening. She accompanied me to the
door, hoping that I was satisfied. The raps followed us as we went
through the hall, sounding on the balusters, the flooring, and even the
lintels of the door. I hastily expressed my satisfaction, and escaped
hurriedly into the cool night air. I walked home with but one thought
possessing me,--how to obtain a diamond of the immense size required.
My entire means multiplied a hundred times over would have been
inadequate to its purchase. Besides, such stones are rare, and become
historical. I could find such only in the regalia of Eastern or
European monarchs.
IV
THE EYE OF MORNING
There was a light in Simon's room as I entered my house. A vague
impulse urged me to visit him. As I opened the door of his sitting-room
unannounced, he was bending, with his back toward me, over a carcel
lamp, apparently engaged in minutely examining some object which he
held in his hands. As I entered, he started suddenly, thrust his hand
into his breast pocket, and turned to me with a face crimson with
confusion.
"What!" I cried, "poring over the miniature of some fair lady? Well,
don't blush so much; I won't ask to see it."
Simon laughed awkwardly enough, but made none of the negative
protestations usual on such occasions. He asked me to take a seat.
"Simon," said I, "I have just come from Madame Vulpes."
This time Simon turned as white as a sheet, and seemed stupefied, as if
a sudden electric shock had smitten him. He babbled some incoherent
words, and went hastily to a small closet where he usually kept his
liquors. Although astonished at his emotion, I was too preoccupied with
my own idea to pay much attention to anything else.
"You say truly when you call Madame Vulpes a devil of a woman," I
continued. "Simon, she told me wonderful things to-night, or rather was
the means of telling me wonderful things. Ah! if I could only get a
diamond that weighed one hundred and forty carats!"
Scarcely had the sigh with which I uttered this desire died upon my
lips, when Simon, with the aspect of a wild beast, glared at me
savagely, and, rushing to the mantelpiece, where some foreign weapons
hung on the wall, caught up a Malay creese, and brandished it furiously
before him.
"No!" he cried in French, into which he always broke when excited. "No!
you shall not have it! You are perfidious! You have consulted with that
demon, and desire my treasure! But I will die first! Me! I am brave!
You cannot make me fear!"
All this, uttered in a loud voice trembling with excitement, astounded
me. I saw at a glance that I had accidentally trodden upon the edges of
Simon's secret, whatever it was. It was necessary to reassure him.
"My dear Simon," I said, "I am entirely at a loss to know what you
mean. I went to Madame Vulpes to consult with her on a scientific
problem, to the solution of which I discovered that a diamond of the
size I just mentioned was necessary. You were never alluded to during
the evening, nor, so far as I was concerned, even thought of. What can
be the meaning of this outburst? If you happen to have a set of
valuable diamonds in your possession, you need fear nothing from me.
The diamond which I require you could not possess; or, if you did
possess it, you would not be living here."
Something in my tone must have completely reassured him; for his
expression immediately changed to a sort of constrained merriment,
combined, however, with a certain suspicious attention to my movements.
He laughed, and said that I must bear with him; that he was at certain
moments subject to a species of vertigo, which betrayed itself in
incoherent speeches, and that the attacks passed off as rapidly as they
came. He put his weapon aside while making this explanation, and
endeavoured, with some success, to assume a more cheerful air.
All this did not impose on me in the least. I was too much accustomed
to analytical labours to be baffled by so flimsy a veil. I determined
to probe the mystery to the bottom.
"Simon," I said, gayly, "let us forget all this over a bottle of
Burgundy. I have a case of Lausseure's _Clos Vougeot_ downstairs,
fragrant with the odours and ruddy with the sunlight of the Côte d'Or.
Let us have up a couple of bottles. What say you?"
"With all my heart," answered Simon, smilingly.
I produced the wine and we seated ourselves to drink. It was of a
famous vintage, that of 1848, a year when war and wine throve
together,--and its pure but powerful juice seemed to impart renewed
vitality to the system. By the time we had half finished the second
bottle, Simon's head, which I knew was a weak one, had begun to yield,
while I remained calm as ever, only that every draught seemed to send a
flush of vigour through my limbs. Simon's utterance became more and
more indistinct. He took to singing French _chansons_ of a not very
moral tendency. I rose suddenly from the table just at the conclusion
of one of those incoherent verses, and, fixing my eyes on him with a
quiet smile, said: "Simon, I have deceived you. I learned your secret
this evening. You may as well be frank with me. Mrs. Vulpes, or rather
one of her spirits, told me all."
He started with horror. His intoxication seemed for the moment to fade
away, and he made a movement towards the weapon that he had a short
time before laid down. I stopped him with my hand.
"Monster!" he cried, passionately, "I am ruined! What shall I do? You
shall never have it! I swear by my mother!"
"I don't want it," I said; "rest secure, but be frank with me. Tell me
all about it."
The drunkenness began to return. He protested with maudlin earnestness
that I was entirely mistaken,--that I was intoxicated; then asked me to
swear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the mystery to me. I
pledged myself, of course, to all. With an uneasy look in his eyes, and
hands unsteady with drink and nervousness, he drew a small case from
his breast and opened it. Heavens! How the mild lamplight was shivered
into a thousand prismatic arrows, as it fell upon a vast rose-diamond
that glittered in the case! I was no judge of diamonds, but I saw at a
glance that this was a gem of rare size and purity. I looked at Simon
with wonder, and--must I confess it?--with envy. How could he have
obtained this treasure? In reply to my questions, I could just gather
from his drunken statements (of which, I fancy, half the incoherence
was affected) that he had been superintending a gang of slaves engaged
in diamond-washing in Brazil; that he had seen one of them secrete a
diamond, but, instead of informing his employers, had quietly watched
the negro until he saw him bury his treasure; that he had dug it up and
fled with it, but that as yet he was afraid to attempt to dispose of it
publicly,--so valuable a gem being almost certain to attract too much
attention to its owner's antecedents,--and he had not been able to
discover any of those obscure channels by which such matters are
conveyed away safely. He added, that, in accordance with oriental
practice, he had named his diamond with the fanciful title of "The Eye
of Morning."
While Simon was relating this to me, I regarded the great diamond
attentively. Never had I beheld anything so beautiful. All the glories
of light, ever imagined or described, seemed to pulsate in its
crystalline chambers. Its weight, as I learned from Simon, was exactly
one hundred and forty carats. Here was an amazing coincidence. The hand
of destiny seemed in it. On the very evening when the spirit of
Leeuwenhoek communicates to me the great secret of the microscope, the
priceless means which he directs me to employ start up within my easy
reach! I determined, with the most perfect deliberation, to possess
myself of Simon's diamond.
I sat opposite to him while he nodded over his glass, and calmly
revolved the whole affair. I did not for an instant contemplate so
foolish an act as a common theft, which would of course be discovered
or at least necessitate flight and concealment, all of which must
interfere with my scientific plans. There was but one step to be
taken,--to kill Simon. After all, what was the life of a little
peddling Jew, in comparison with the interests of science? Human beings
are taken every day from the condemned prisons to be experimented on by
surgeons. This man, Simon, was by his own confession a criminal, a
robber, and I believed on my soul a murderer. He deserved death quite
as much as any felon condemned by the laws: why should I not, like
government, contrive that his punishment should contribute to the
progress of human knowledge?
The means for accomplishing everything I desired lay within my reach.
There stood upon the mantelpiece a bottle half full of French laudanum.
Simon was so occupied with his diamond, which I had just restored to
him, that it was an affair of no difficulty to drug his glass. In a
quarter of an hour he was in a profound sleep.
I now opened his waistcoat, took the diamond from the inner pocket in
which he had placed it, and removed him to the bed, on which I laid him
so that his feet hung down over the edge. I had possessed myself of the
Malay creese, which I held in my right hand, while with the other I
discovered as accurately as I could by pulsation the exact locality of
the heart. It was essential that all the aspects of his death should
lead to the surmise of self-murder. I calculated the exact angle at
which it was probable that the weapon, if levelled by Simon's own hand,
would enter his breast; then with one powerful blow I thrust it up to
the hilt in the very spot which I desired to penetrate. A convulsive
thrill ran through Simon's limbs. I heard a smothered sound issue from
his throat, precisely like the bursting of a large air-bubble, sent up
by a diver, when it reaches the surface of the water; he turned half
round on his side, and, as if to assist my plans more effectually, his
right hand, moved by some mere spasmodic impulse, clasped the handle of
the creese, which it remained holding with extraordinary muscular
tenacity. Beyond this there was no apparent struggle. The laudanum, I
presume, paralyzed the usual nervous action. He must have died
instantly.
There was yet something to be done. To make it certain that all
suspicion of the act should be diverted from any inhabitant of the
house to Simon himself, it was necessary that the door should be in the
morning _locked on the inside_. How to do this, and afterwards escape
myself? Not by the window; that was a physical impossibility. Besides,
I was determined that the windows _also_ should be found bolted. The
solution was simple enough. I descended softly to my own room for a
peculiar instrument which I had used for holding small slippery
substances, such as minute spheres of glass, etc. This instrument was
nothing more than a long slender hand-vise, with a very powerful grip,
and a considerable leverage, which last was accidentally owing to the
shape of the handle. Nothing was simpler than, when the key was in the
lock, to seize the end of its stem in this vise, through the keyhole,
from the outside, and lock the door. Previously, however, to doing
this, I burned a number of papers on Simon's hearth. Suicides almost
always burn papers before they destroy themselves. I also emptied some
more laudanum into Simon's glass,--having first removed from it all
traces of wine,--cleaned the other wine-glass, and brought the bottles
away with me. If traces of two persons drinking had been found in the
room, the question naturally would have arisen, Who was the second?
Besides, the wine-bottles might have been identified as belonging to
me. The laudanum I poured out to account for its presence in his
stomach, in case of a _post-mortem_ examination. The theory naturally
would be, that he first intended to poison himself, but, after
swallowing a little of the drug, was either disgusted with its taste,
or changed his mind from other motives, and chose the dagger. These
arrangements made, I walked out, leaving the gas burning, locked the
door with my vise, and went to bed.
Simon's death was not discovered until nearly three in the afternoon.
The servant, astonished at seeing the gas burning,--the light streaming
on the dark landing from under the door,--peeped through the keyhole
and saw Simon on the bed. She gave the alarm. The door was burst open,
and the neighbourhood was in a fever of excitement.
Everyone in the house was arrested, myself included. There was an
inquest; but no clew to his death beyond that of suicide could be
obtained. Curiously enough, he had made several speeches to his friends
the preceding week, that seemed to point to self-destruction. One
gentleman swore that Simon had said in his presence that "he was tired
of life." His landlord affirmed that Simon, when paying him his last
month's rent, remarked that "he should not pay him rent much longer."
All the other evidence corresponded,--the door locked inside, the
position of the corpse, the burnt papers. As I anticipated, no one knew
of the possession of the diamond by Simon, so that no motive was
suggested for his murder. The jury, after a prolonged examination,
brought in the usual verdict, and the neighbourhood once more settled
down into its accustomed quiet.
V
ANIMULA
The three months succeeding Simon's catastrophe I devoted night and day
to my diamond lens. I had constructed a vast galvanic battery, composed
of nearly two thousand pairs of plates,--a higher power I dared not
use, lest the diamond should be calcined. By means of this enormous
engine I was enabled to send a powerful current of electricity
continually through my great diamond, which it seemed to me gained in
lustre every day. At the expiration of a month I commenced the grinding
and polishing of the lens, a work of intense toil and exquisite
delicacy. The great density of the stone, and the care required to be
taken with the curvatures of the surfaces of the lens, rendered the
labour the severest and most harassing that I had yet undergone.
At last the eventful moment came; the lens was completed. I stood
trembling on the threshold of new worlds. I had the realization of
Alexander's famous wish before me. The lens lay on the table, ready to
be placed upon its platform. My hand fairly shook as I enveloped a drop
of water with a thin coating of oil of turpentine, preparatory to its
examination,--a process necessary in order to prevent the rapid
evaporation of the water. I now placed the drop on a thin slip of glass
under the lens, and throwing upon it, by the combined aid of a prism
and a mirror, a powerful stream of light, I approached my eye to the
minute hole drilled through the axis of the lens. For an instant I saw
nothing save what seemed to be an illuminated chaos, a vast luminous
abyss. A pure white light, cloudless and serene, and seemingly as
limitless as space itself, was my first impression. Gently, and with
the greatest care, I depressed the lens a few hair's-breadths. The
wondrous illumination still continued, but as the lens approached the
object a scene of indescribable beauty was unfolded to my view.
I seemed to gaze upon a vast space, the limits of which extended far
beyond my vision. An atmosphere of magical luminousness permeated the
entire field of view. I was amazed to see no trace of animalculous
life. Not a living thing, apparently, inhabited that dazzling expanse.
I comprehended instantly that, by the wondrous power of my lens, I had
penetrated beyond the grosser particles of aqueous matter, beyond the
realms of infusoria and protozoa, down to the original gaseous globule,
into whose luminous interior I was gazing, as into an almost boundless
dome filled with a supernatural radiance.
It was, however, no brilliant void into which I looked. On every side I
beheld beautiful inorganic forms, of unknown texture, and coloured with
the most enchanting hues. These forms presented the appearance of what
might be called, for want of a more specific definition, foliated
clouds of the highest rarity; that is, they undulated and broke into
vegetable formations, and were tinged with splendours compared with
which the gilding of our autumn woodlands is as dross compared with
gold. Far away into the illimitable distance stretched long avenues of
these gaseous forests, dimly transparent, and painted with prismatic
hues of unimaginable brilliancy. The pendent branches waved along the
fluid glades until every vista seemed to break through half-lucent
ranks of many-coloured drooping silken pennons. What seemed to be
either fruits or flowers, pied with a thousand hues lustrous and ever
varying, bubbled from the crowns of this fairy foliage. No hills, no
lakes, no rivers, no forms animate or inanimate, were to be seen, save
those vast auroral copses that floated serenely in the luminous
stillness, with leaves and fruits and flowers gleaming with unknown
fires, unrealizable by mere imagination.
How strange, I thought, that this sphere should be thus condemned to
solitude! I had hoped, at least, to discover some new form of animal
life--perhaps of a lower class than any with which we are at present
acquainted, but still, some living organism. I found my newly
discovered world, if I may so speak, a beautiful chromatic desert.
While I was speculating on the singular arrangements of the internal
economy of Nature, with which she so frequently splinters into atoms
our most compact theories, I thought I beheld a form moving slowly
through the glades of one of the prismatic forests. I looked more
attentively, and found that I was not mistaken. Words cannot depict the
anxiety with which I awaited the nearer approach of this mysterious
object. Was it merely some inanimate substance, held in suspense in the
attenuated atmosphere of the globule, or was it an animal endowed with
vitality and motion? It approached, flitting behind the gauzy, coloured
veils of cloud-foliage, for seconds dimly revealed, then vanishing. At
last the violet pennons that trailed nearest to me vibrated; they were
gently pushed aside, and the form floated out into the broad light.
It was a female human shape. When I say human, I mean it possessed the
outlines of humanity,--but there the analogy ends. Its adorable beauty
lifted it illimitable heights beyond the loveliest daughter of Adam.
I cannot, I dare not, attempt to inventory the charms of this divine
revelation of perfect beauty. Those eyes of mystic violet, dewy and
serene, evade my words. Her long, lustrous hair following her glorious
head in a golden wake, like the track sown in heaven by a falling star,
seems to quench my most burning phrases with its splendours. If all the
bees of Hybla nestled upon my lips, they would still sing but hoarsely
the wondrous harmonies of outline that enclosed her form.
She swept out from between the rainbow-curtains of the cloud-trees into
the broad sea of light that lay beyond. Her motions were those of some
graceful naiad, cleaving, by a mere effort of her will, the clear,
unruffled waters that fill the chambers of the sea. She floated forth
with the serene grace of a frail bubble ascending through the still
atmosphere of a June day. The perfect roundness of her limbs formed
suave and enchanting curves. It was like listening to the most
spiritual symphony of Beethoven the divine, to watch the harmonious
flow of lines. This, indeed, was a pleasure cheaply purchased at any
price. What cared I if I had waded to the portal of this wonder through
another's blood? I would have given my own to enjoy one such moment of
intoxication and delight.
Breathless with gazing on this lovely wonder, and forgetful for an
instant of everything save her presence, I withdrew my eye from the
microscope eagerly,--alas! As my gaze fell on the thin slide that lay
beneath my instrument, the bright light from mirror and from prism
sparkled on a colourless drop of water! There, in that tiny bead of
dew, this beautiful being was forever imprisoned. The planet Neptune
was not more distant from me than she. I hastened once more to apply my
eye to the microscope.
Animula (let me now call her by that dear name which I subsequently
bestowed on her) had changed her position. She had again approached the
wondrous forest, and was gazing earnestly upwards. Presently one of the
trees--as I must call them--unfolded a long ciliary process, with which
it seized one of the gleaming fruits that glittered on its summit, and,
sweeping slowly down, held it within reach of Animula. The sylph took
it in her delicate hand and began to eat. My attention was so entirely
absorbed by her, that I could not apply myself to the task of
determining whether this singular plant was or was not instinct with
volition.
I watched her, as she made her repast, with the most profound
attention. The suppleness of her motions sent a thrill of delight
through my frame; my heart beat madly as she turned her beautiful eyes
in the direction of the spot in which I stood. What would I not have
given to have had the power to precipitate myself into that luminous
ocean, and float with her through those groves of purple and gold!
While I was thus breathlessly following her every movement, she
suddenly started, seemed to listen for a moment, and then cleaving the
brilliant ether in which she was floating, like a flash of light,
pierced through the opaline forest, and disappeared.
Instantly a series of the most singular sensations attacked me. It
seemed as if I had suddenly gone blind. The luminous sphere was still
before me, but my daylight had vanished. What caused this sudden
disappearance? Had she a lover or a husband? Yes, that was the
solution! Some signal from a happy fellow-being had vibrated through
the avenues of the forest, and she had obeyed the summons.
The agony of my sensations, as I arrived at this conclusion, startled
me. I tried to reject the conviction that my reason forced upon me. I
battled against the fatal conclusion,--but in vain. It was so. I had no
escape from it. I loved an animalcule!
It is true that, thanks to the marvellous power of my microscope, she
appeared of human proportions. Instead of presenting the revolting
aspect of the coarser creatures, that live and struggle and die, in the
more easily resolvable portions of the water-drop, she was fair and
delicate and of surpassing beauty. But of what account was all that?
Every time that my eye was withdrawn from the instrument, it fell on a
miserable drop of water, within which, I must be content to know, dwelt
all that could make my life lovely.
Could she but see me once! Could I for one moment pierce the mystical
walls that so inexorably rose to separate us, and whisper all that
filled my soul, I might consent to be satisfied for the rest of my life
with the knowledge of her remote sympathy. It would be something to
have established even the faintest personal link to bind us
together,--to know that at times, when roaming through those enchanted
glades, she might think of the wonderful stranger, who had broken the
monotony of her life with his presence, and left a gentle memory in her
heart!
But it could not be. No invention of which human intellect was capable
could break down the barriers that nature had erected. I might feast my
soul upon the wondrous beauty, yet she must always remain ignorant of
the adoring eyes that day and night gazed upon her, and, even when
closed, beheld her in dreams. With a bitter cry of anguish I fled from
the room, and, flinging myself on my bed, sobbed myself to sleep like a
child.
VI
THE SPILLING OF THE CUP
I arose the next morning almost at daybreak, and rushed to my
microscope. I trembled as I sought the luminous world in miniature that
contained my all. Animula was there. I had left the gas-lamp,
surrounded by its moderators, burning when I went to bed the night
before. I found the sylph bathing, as it were, with an expression of
pleasure animating her features, in the brilliant light which
surrounded her. She tossed her lustrous golden hair over her shoulders
with innocent coquetry. She lay at full length in the transparent
medium, in which she supported herself with ease, and gambolled with
the enchanting grace that the nymph Salmacis might have exhibited when
she sought to conquer the modest Hermaphroditus. I tried an experiment
to satisfy myself if her powers of reflection were developed. I
lessened the lamplight considerably. By the dim light that remained, I
could see an expression of pain flit across her face. She looked upward
suddenly, and her brows contracted. I flooded the stage of the
microscope again with a full stream of light, and her whole expression
changed. She sprang forward like some substance deprived of all weight.
Her eyes sparkled and her lips moved. Ah! if science had only the means
of conducting and reduplicating sounds, as it does the rays of light,
what carols of happiness would then have entranced my ears! what
jubilant hymns to Adonais would have thrilled the illumined air!
I now comprehended how it was that the Count de Gabalis peopled his
mystic world with sylphs,--beautiful beings whose breath of life was
lambent fire, and who sported forever in regions of purest ether and
purest light. The Rosicrucian had anticipated the wonder that I had
practically realized.
How long this worship of my strange divinity went on thus I scarcely
know. I lost all note of time. All day from early dawn, and far into
the night, I was to be found peering through that wonderful lens. I saw
no one, went nowhere, and scarce allowed myself sufficient time for my
meals. My whole life was absorbed in contemplation as rapt as that of
any of the Romish saints. Every hour that I gazed upon the divine form
strengthened my passion,--a passion that was always overshadowed by the
maddening conviction that, although I could gaze on her at will, she
never, never could behold me!
At length I grew so pale and emaciated from want of rest and continual
brooding over my insane love and its cruel conditions that I determined
to make some effort to wean myself from it. "Come," I said, "this is at
best but a fantasy. Your imagination has bestowed on Animula charms
which in reality she does not possess. Seclusion from female society
has produced this morbid condition of mind. Compare her with the
beautiful women of your own world, and this false enchantment will
vanish."
I looked over the newspapers by chance. There I beheld the
advertisement of a celebrated _danseuse_ who appeared nightly at
Niblo's. The Signorina Caradolce had the reputation of being the most
beautiful as well as the most graceful woman in the world. I instantly
dressed and went to the theatre.
The curtain drew up. The usual semicircle of fairies in white muslin
were standing on the right toe around the enamelled flower-bank, of
green canvas, on which the belated prince was sleeping. Suddenly a
flute is heard. The fairies start. The trees open, the fairies all
stand on the left toe, and the queen enters. It was the Signorina. She
bounded forward amid thunders of applause, and, lighting on one foot,
remained poised in air. Heavens! was this the great enchantress that
had drawn monarchs at her chariot-wheels? Those heavy muscular limbs,
those thick ankles, those cavernous eyes, that stereotyped smile, those
crudely painted cheeks! Where were the vermeil blooms, the liquid
expressive eyes, the harmonious limbs of Animula?
The Signorina danced. What gross, discordant movements! The play of her
limbs was all false and artificial. Her bounds were painful athletic
efforts; her poses were angular and distressed the eye. I could bear it
no longer; with an exclamation of disgust that drew every eye upon me,
I rose from my seat in the very middle of the Signorina's
_pas-de-fascination_, and abruptly quitted the house.
I hastened home to feast my eyes once more on the lovely form of my
sylph. I felt that henceforth to combat this passion would be
impossible. I applied my eye to the lens. Animula was there,--but what
could have happened? Some terrible change seemed to have taken place
during my absence. Some secret grief seemed to cloud the lovely
features of her I gazed upon. Her face had grown thin and haggard; her
limbs trailed heavily; the wondrous lustre of her golden hair had
faded. She was ill!--ill, and I could not assist her! I believe at that
moment I would have gladly forfeited all claims to my human birthright,
if I could only have been dwarfed to the size of an animalcule, and
permitted to console her from whom fate had forever divided me.
I racked my brain for the solution of this mystery. What was it that
afflicted the sylph? She seemed to suffer intense pain. Her features
contracted, and she even writhed, as if with some internal agony. The
wondrous forests appeared also to have lost half their beauty. Their
hues were dim and in some places faded away altogether. I watched
Animula for hours with a breaking heart, and she seemed absolutely to
wither away under my very eye. Suddenly I remembered that I had not
looked at the water-drop for several days. In fact, I hated to see it;
for it reminded me of the natural barrier between Animula and myself. I
hurriedly looked down on the stage of the microscope. The slide was
still there,--but, great heavens! the water-drop had vanished! The
awful truth burst upon me; it had evaporated; until it had become so
minute as to be invisible to the naked eye; I had been gazing on its
last atom, the one that contained Animula,--and she was dying!
I rushed again to the front of the lens, and looked through. Alas! the
last agony had seized her. The rainbow-hued forests had all melted
away, and Animula lay struggling feebly in what seemed to be a spot of
dim light. Ah! the sight was horrible; the limbs once so round and
lovely shrivelling up into nothings; the eyes,--those eyes that shone
like heaven--being quenched into black dust; the lustrous golden hair
now lank and discoloured. The last throe came. I beheld that final
struggle of the blackening form--and I fainted.
When I awoke out of a trance of many hours, I found myself lying amid
the wreck of my instrument, myself as shattered in mind and body as it.
I crawled feebly to my bed, from which I did not rise for months.
They say now that I am mad; but they are mistaken. I am poor, for I
have neither the heart nor the will to work; all my money is spent, and
I live on charity. Young men's associations that love a joke invite me
to lecture on Optics before them, for which they pay me and laugh at me
while I lecture. "Linley, the mad microscopist," is the name I go by. I
suppose that I talk incoherently while I lecture. Who could talk sense
when his brain is haunted by such ghastly memories, while ever and anon
among the shapes of death I behold the radiant form of my lost Animula!
III
THE MUMMY'S FOOT
Théophile Gautier
I had entered, in an idle mood, the shop of one of those curiosity
venders who are called _marchands de bric-à-brac_ in that Parisian
_argot_ which is so perfectly unintelligible elsewhere in France.
You have doubtless glanced occasionally through the windows of some of
these shops, which have become so numerous now that it is fashionable
to buy antiquated furniture, and that every petty stock broker thinks
he must have his _chambre au moyen âge_.
There is one thing there which clings alike to the shop of the dealer
in old iron, the ware-room of the tapestry maker, the laboratory of the
chemist, and the studio of the painter: in all those gloomy dens where
a furtive daylight filters in through the window-shutters the most
manifestly ancient thing is dust. The cobwebs are more authentic than
the guimp laces, and the old pear-tree furniture on exhibition is
actually younger than the mahogany which arrived but yesterday from
America.
The warehouse of my bric-à-brac dealer was a veritable Capharnaum. All
ages and all nations seemed to have made their rendezvous there. An
Etruscan lamp of red clay stood upon a Boule cabinet, with ebony
panels, brightly striped by lines of inlaid brass; a duchess of the
court of Louis XV. nonchalantly extended her fawn-like feet under a
massive table of the time of Louis XIII., with heavy spiral supports of
oak, and carven designs of chimeras and foliage intermingled.
Upon the denticulated shelves of several sideboards glittered immense
Japanese dishes with red and blue designs relieved by gilded hatching,
side by side with enamelled works by Bernard Palissy, representing
serpents, frogs, and lizards in relief.
From disembowelled cabinets escaped cascades of silver-lustrous Chinese
silks and waves of tinsels which an oblique sunbeam shot through with
luminous beads; while portraits of every era, in frames more or less
tarnished, smiled through their yellow varnish.
The striped breastplate of a damascened suit of Milanese armour
glittered in one corner; loves and nymphs of porcelain, Chinese
grotesques, vases of _céladon_ and crackle-ware, Saxon and old Sèvres
cups encumbered the shelves and nooks of the apartment.
The dealer followed me closely through the tortuous way contrived
between the piles of furniture, warding off with his hand the hazardous
sweep of my coat-skirts, watching my elbows with the uneasy attention
of an antiquarian and a usurer.
It was a singular face, that of the merchant; an immense skull,
polished like a knee, and surrounded by a thin aureole of white hair,
which brought out the clear salmon tint of his complexion all the more
strikingly, lent him a false aspect of patriarchal _bonhomie_,
counteracted, however, by the scintillation of two little yellow eyes
which trembled in their orbits like two louis d'or upon quicksilver.
The curve of his nose presented an aquiline silhouette, which suggested
the Oriental or Jewish type. His hands--thin, slender, full of nerves
which projected like strings upon the finger-board of a violin, and
armed with claws like those on the terminations of bats' wings--shook
with senile trembling; but those convulsively agitated hands became
firmer than steel pincers or lobsters' claws when they lifted any
precious article--an onyx cup, a Venetian glass, or a dish of Bohemian
crystal. This strange old man had an aspect so thoroughly rabbinical
and cabalistic that he would have been burnt on the mere testimony of
his face three centuries ago.
"Will you not buy something from me to-day, sir? Here is a Malay kreese
with a blade undulating like flame. Look at those grooves contrived for
the blood to run along, those teeth set backward so as to tear out the
entrails in withdrawing the weapon. It is a fine character of ferocious
arm, and will look well in your collection. This two-handed sword is
very beautiful. It is the work of Josepe de la Hera; and this
_colichemarde_, with its fenestrated guard--what a superb specimen of
handicraft!"
"No; I have quite enough weapons and instruments of carnage. I want a
small figure, something which will suit me as a paper-weight, for I
cannot endure those trumpery bronzes which the stationers sell, and
which may be found on everybody's desk."
The old gnome foraged among his ancient wares, and finally arranged
before me some antique bronzes, so-called at least; fragments of
malachite, little Hindoo or Chinese idols, a kind of poussah-toys in
jade-stone, representing the incarnations of Brahma or Vishnoo, and
wonderfully appropriate to the very undivine office of holding papers
and letters in place.
I was hesitating between a porcelain dragon, all constellated with
warts, its mouth formidable with bristling tusks and ranges of teeth,
and an abominable little Mexican fetich, representing the god
Vitziliputzili _au naturel_, when I caught sight of a charming foot,
which I at first took for a fragment of some antique Venus.
It had those beautiful ruddy and tawny tints that lend to Florentine
bronze that warm living look so much preferable to the gray-green
aspect of common bronzes, which might easily be mistaken for statues in
a state of putrefaction. Satiny gleams played over its rounded forms,
doubtless polished by the amorous kisses of twenty centuries, for it
seemed a Corinthian bronze, a work of the best era of art, perhaps
moulded by Lysippus himself.
"That foot will be my choice," I said to the merchant, who regarded me
with an ironical and saturnine air, and held out the object desired
that I might examine it more fully.
I was surprised at its lightness. It was not a foot of metal, but in
sooth a foot of flesh, an embalmed foot, a mummy's foot. On examining
it still more closely the very grain of the skin, and the almost
imperceptible lines impressed upon it by the texture of the bandages,
became perceptible. The toes were slender and delicate, and terminated
by perfectly formed nails, pure and transparent as agates. The great
toe, slightly separated from the rest, afforded a happy contrast, in
the antique style, to the position of the other toes, and lent it an
aërial lightness--the grace of a bird's foot. The sole, scarcely
streaked by a few almost imperceptible cross lines, afforded evidence
that it had never touched the bare ground, and had only come in contact
with the finest matting of Nile rushes and the softest carpets of
panther skin.
"Ha, ha, you want the foot of the Princess Hermonthis!" exclaimed the
merchant, with a strange giggle, fixing his owlish eyes upon me. "Ha,
ha, ha! For a paper-weight! An original idea!--an artistic idea! Old
Pharaoh would certainly have been surprised had some one told him that
the foot of his adored daughter would be used for a paper-weight after
he had had a mountain of granite hollowed out as a receptacle for the
triple coffin, painted and gilded, covered with hieroglyphics and
beautiful paintings of the Judgment of Souls," continued the queer
little merchant, half audibly, as though talking to himself.
"How much will you charge me for this mummy fragment?"
"Ah, the highest price I can get, for it is a superb piece. If I had
the match of it you could not have it for less than five hundred
francs. The daughter of a Pharaoh! Nothing is more rare."
"Assuredly that is not a common article, but still, how much do you
want? In the first place let me warn you that all my wealth consists of
just five louis. I can buy anything that costs five louis, but nothing
dearer. You might search my vest pockets and most secret drawers
without even finding one poor five-franc piece more."
"Five louis for the foot of the Princess Hermonthis! That is very
little, very little indeed. 'Tis an authentic foot," muttered the
merchant, shaking his head, and imparting a peculiar rotary motion to
his eyes. "Well, take it, and I will give you the bandages into the
bargain," he added, wrapping the foot in an ancient damask rag. "Very
fine! Real damask--Indian damask which has never been redyed. It is
strong, and yet it is soft," he mumbled, stroking the frayed tissue
with his fingers, through the trade-acquired habit which moved him to
praise even an object of such little value that he himself deemed it
only worth the giving away.
He poured the gold coins into a sort of medieval alms-purse hanging at
his belt, repeating:
"The foot of the Princess Hermonthis to be used for a paper-weight!"
Then turning his phosphorescent eyes upon me, he exclaimed in a voice
strident as the crying of a cat which has swallowed a fish-bone:
"Old Pharaoh will not be well pleased. He loved his daughter, the dear
man!"
"You speak as if you were a contemporary of his. You are old enough,
goodness knows! but you do not date back to the Pyramids of Egypt," I
answered, laughingly, from the threshold.
I went home, delighted with my acquisition.
With the idea of putting it to profitable use as soon as possible, I
placed the foot of the divine Princess Hermonthis upon a heap of papers
scribbled over with verses, in themselves an undecipherable mosaic work
of erasures; articles freshly begun; letters forgotten, and posted in
the table drawer in stead of the letter-box, an error to which
absent-minded people are peculiarly liable. The effect was charming,
_bizarre_, and romantic.
Well satisfied with this embellishment, I went out with the gravity and
pride becoming one who feels that he has the ineffable advantage over
all the passers-by whom he elbows, of possessing a piece of the
Princess Hermonthis, daughter of Pharaoh.
I looked upon all who did not possess, like myself, a paper-weight so
authentically Egyptian as very ridiculous people, and it seemed to me
that the proper occupation of every sensible man should consist in the
mere fact of having a mummy's foot upon his desk.
Happily I met some friends, whose presence distracted me in my
infatuation with this new acquisition. I went to dinner with them, for
I could not very well have dined with myself.
When I came back that evening, with my brain slightly confused by a few
glasses of wine, a vague whiff of Oriental perfume delicately
titillated my olfactory nerves. The heat of the room had warmed the
natron, bitumen, and myrrh in which the _paraschistes_, who cut open
the bodies of the dead, had bathed the corpse of the princess. It was a
perfume at once sweet and penetrating, a perfume that four thousand
years had not been able to dissipate.
The Dream of Egypt was Eternity. Her odours have the solidity of
granite and endure as long.
I soon drank deeply from the black cup of sleep. For a few hours all
remained opaque to me. Oblivion and nothingness inundated me with their
sombre waves.
Yet light gradually dawned upon the darkness of my mind. Dreams
commenced to touch me softly in their silent flight.
The eyes of my soul were opened, and I beheld my chamber as it actually
was. I might have believed myself awake but for a vague consciousness
which assured me that I slept, and that something fantastic was about
to take place.
The odour of the myrrh had augmented in intensity, and I felt a slight
headache, which I very naturally attributed to several glasses of
champagne that we had drunk to the unknown gods and our future
fortunes.
I peered through my room with a feeling of expectation which I saw
nothing to justify. Every article of furniture was in its proper place.
The lamp, softly shaded by its globe of ground crystal, burned upon its
bracket; the water-colour sketches shone under their Bohemian glass;
the curtains hung down languidly; everything wore an aspect of tranquil
slumber.
After a few moments, however, all this calm interior appeared to become
disturbed. The woodwork cracked stealthily, the ash-covered log
suddenly emitted a jet of blue flame, and the disks of the pateras
seemed like great metallic eyes, watching, like myself, for the things
which were about to happen.
My eyes accidentally fell upon the desk where I had placed the foot of
the Princess Hermonthis.
Instead of remaining quiet, as behooved a foot which had been embalmed
for four thousand years, it commenced to act in a nervous manner,
contracted itself, and leaped over the papers like a startled frog. One
would have imagined that it had suddenly been brought into contact with
a galvanic battery. I could distinctly hear the dry sound made by its
little heel, hard as the hoof of a gazelle.
I became rather discontented with my acquisition, inasmuch as I wished
my paper-weights to be of a sedentary disposition, and thought it very
unnatural that feet should walk about without legs, then I commenced to
experience a feeling closely akin to fear.
Suddenly I saw the folds of my bed-curtain stir, and heard a bumping
sound, like that caused by some person hopping on one foot across the
floor. I must confess I became alternately hot and cold, that I felt a
strange wind chill my back, and that my suddenly rising hair caused my
night-cap to execute a leap of several yards.
The bed-curtains opened and I beheld the strangest figure imaginable
before me.
It was a young girl of a very deep coffee-brown complexion, like the
bayadere Amani, and possessing the purest Egyptian type of perfect
beauty. Her eyes were almond-shaped and oblique, with eyebrows so black
that they seemed blue; her nose was exquisitely chiselled, almost Greek
in its delicacy of outline; and she might indeed have been taken for a
Corinthian statue of bronze but for the prominence of her cheek-bones
and the slightly African fulness of her lips, which compelled one to
recognize her as belonging beyond all doubt to the hieroglyphic race
which dwelt upon the banks of the Nile.
Her arms, slender and spindle-shaped like those of very young girls,
were encircled by a peculiar kind of metal bands and bracelets of glass
beads; her hair was all twisted into little cords, and she wore upon
her bosom a little idol-figure of green paste, bearing a whip with
seven lashes, which proved it to be an image of Isis; her brow was
adorned with a shining plate of gold, and a few traces of paint
relieved the coppery tint of her cheeks.
As for her costume, it was very odd indeed.
Fancy a _pagne_, or skirt, all formed of little strips of material
bedizened with red and black hieroglyphics, stiffened with bitumen, and
apparently belonging to a freshly unbandaged mummy.
In one of those sudden flights of thought so common in dreams I heard
the hoarse falsetto of the bric-à-brac dealer, repeating like a
monotonous refrain the phrase he had uttered in his shop with so
enigmatical an intonation:
"Old Pharaoh will not be well pleased. He loved his daughter, the dear
man!"
One strange circumstance, which was not at all calculated to restore my
equanimity, was that the apparition had but one foot; the other was
broken off at the ankle!
She approached the table where the foot was starting and fidgetting
about more than ever, and there supported herself upon the edge of the
desk. I saw her eyes fill with pearly gleaming tears.
Although she had not as yet spoken, I fully comprehended the thoughts
which agitated her. She looked at her foot--for it was indeed her
own--with an exquisitely graceful expression of coquettish sadness, but
the foot leaped and ran hither and thither, as though impelled on steel
springs.
Twice or thrice she extended her hand to seize it, but could not
succeed.
Then commenced between the Princess Hermonthis and her foot--which
appeared to be endowed with a special life of its own--a very fantastic
dialogue in a most ancient Coptic tongue, such as might have been
spoken thirty centuries ago in the syrinxes of the land of Ser. Luckily
I understood Coptic perfectly well that night.
The Princess Hermonthis cried, in a voice sweet and vibrant as the
tones of a crystal bell:
"Well, my dear little foot, you always flee from me, yet I always took
good care of you. I bathed you with perfumed water in a bowl of
alabaster; I smoothed your heel with pumice-stone mixed with palm oil;
your nails were cut with golden scissors and polished with a
hippopotamus tooth; I was careful to select _tatbebs_ for you, painted
and embroidered and turned up at the toes, which were the envy of all
the young girls in Egypt. You wore on your great toe rings bearing the
device of the sacred Scarabæus, and you supported one of the lightest
bodies that a lazy foot could sustain."
The foot replied in a pouting and chagrined tone:
"You know well that I do not belong to myself any longer. I have been
bought and paid for. The old merchant knew what he was about. He bore
you a grudge for having refused to espouse him. This is an ill turn
which he has done you. The Arab who violated your royal coffin in the
subterranean pits of the necropolis of Thebes was sent thither by him.
He desired to prevent you from being present at the reunion of the
shadowy nations in the cities below. Have you five pieces of gold for
my ransom?"
"Alas, no! My jewels, my rings, my purses of gold and silver were all
stolen from me," answered the Princess Hermonthis, with a sob.
"Princess," I then exclaimed, "I never retained anybody's foot
unjustly. Even though you have not got the five louis which it cost me,
I present it to you gladly. I should feel unutterably wretched to think
that I were the cause of so amiable a person as the Princess Hermonthis
being lame."
I delivered this discourse in a royally gallant, troubadour tone which
must have astonished the beautiful Egyptian girl.
She turned a look of deepest gratitude upon me, and her eyes shone with
bluish gleams of light.
She took her foot, which surrendered itself willingly this time, like a
woman about to put on her little shoe, and adjusted it to her leg with
much skill.
This operation over, she took a few steps about the room, as though to
assure herself that she was really no longer lame.
"Ah, how pleased my father will be! He who was so unhappy because of my
mutilation, and who from the moment of my birth set a whole nation at
work to hollow me out a tomb so deep that he might preserve me intact
until that last day, when souls must be weighed in the balance of
Amenthi! Come with me to my father. He will receive you kindly, for you
have given me back my foot."
I thought this proposition natural enough. I arrayed myself in a
dressing-gown of large-flowered pattern, which lent me a very Pharaonic
aspect, hurriedly put on a pair of Turkish slippers, and informed the
Princess Hermonthis that I was ready to follow her.
Before starting, Hermonthis took from her neck the little idol of green
paste, and laid it on the scattered sheets of paper which covered the
table.
"It is only fair," she observed, smilingly, "that I should replace your
paper-weight."
She gave me her hand, which felt soft and cold, like the skin of a
serpent, and we departed.
We passed for some time with the velocity of an arrow through a fluid
and grayish expanse, in which half-formed silhouettes flitted swiftly
by us, to right and left.
For an instant we saw only sky and sea.
A few moments later obelisks commenced to tower in the distance; pylons
and vast flights of steps guarded by sphinxes became clearly outlined
against the horizon.
We had reached our destination.
The princess conducted me to a mountain of rose-coloured granite, in
the face of which appeared an opening so narrow and low that it would
have been difficult to distinguish it from the fissures in the rock,
had not its location been marked by two stelæ wrought with sculptures.
Hermonthis kindled a torch and led the way before me.
We traversed corridors hewn through the living rock. These walls
covered with hieroglyphics and paintings of allegorical processions,
might well have occupied thousands of arms for thousands of years in
their formation. These corridors of interminable length opened into
square chambers, in the midst of which pits had been contrived, through
which we descended by cramp-irons or spiral stairways. These pits again
conducted us into other chambers, opening into other corridors,
likewise decorated with painted sparrow-hawks, serpents coiled in
circles, the symbols of the _tau_ and _pedum_--prodigious works of art
which no living eye can ever examine--interminable legends of granite
which only the dead have time to read through all eternity.
At last we found ourselves in a hall so vast, so enormous, so
immeasurable, that the eye could not reach its limits. Files of
monstrous columns stretched far out of sight on every side, between
which twinkled livid stars of yellowish flame; points of light which
revealed further depths incalculable in the darkness beyond.
The Princess Hermonthis still held my hand, and graciously saluted the
mummies of her acquaintance.
My eyes became accustomed to the dim twilight, and objects became
discernible.
I beheld the kings of the subterranean races seated upon thrones--grand
old men, though dry, withered, wrinkled like parchment, and blackened
with naphtha and bitumen--all wearing _pshents_ of gold, and
breast-plates and gorgets glittering with precious stones, their eyes
immovably fixed like the eyes of sphinxes, and their long beards
whitened by the snow of centuries. Behind them stood their peoples, in
the stiff and constrained posture enjoined by Egyptian art, all
eternally preserving the attitude prescribed by the hieratic code.
Behind these nations, the cats, ibixes, and crocodiles contemporary
with them--rendered monstrous of aspect by their swathing bands--mewed,
flapped their wings, or extended their jaws in a saurian giggle.
All the Pharaohs were there--Cheops, Chephrenes, Psammetichus,
Sesostris, Amenotaph--all the dark rulers of the pyramids and syrinxes.
On yet higher thrones sat Chronos and Xixouthros, who was contemporary
with the deluge, and Tubal Cain, who reigned before it.
The beard of King Xixouthros had grown seven times around the granite
table, upon which he leaned, lost in deep reverie, and buried in
dreams.
Farther back, through a dusty cloud, I beheld dimly the seventy-two
preadamite kings, with their seventy-two peoples, forever passed away.
After permitting me to gaze upon this bewildering spectacle a few
moments, the Princess Hermonthis presented me to her father Pharaoh,
who favoured me with a most gracious nod.
"I have found my foot again! I have found my foot!" cried the princess,
clapping her little hands together with every sign of frantic joy. "It
was this gentleman who restored it to me."
The races of Kemi, the races of Nahasi--all the black, bronzed, and
copper-coloured nations repeated in chorus:
"The Princess Hermonthis has found her foot again!"
Even Xixouthros himself was visibly affected.
He raised his heavy eyelids, stroked his moustache with his fingers,
and turned upon me a glance weighty with centuries.
"By Oms, the dog of Hell, and Tmei, daughter of the Sun and of Truth,
this is a brave and worthy lad!" exclaimed Pharaoh, pointing to me with
his sceptre, which was terminated with a lotus-flower.
"What recompense do you desire?"
Filled with that daring inspired by dreams in which nothing seems
impossible, I asked him for the hand of the Princess Hermonthis. The
hand seemed to me a very proper antithetic recompense for the foot.
Pharaoh opened wide his great eyes of glass in astonishment at my witty
request.
"What country do you come from, what is your age?"
"I am a Frenchman, and I am twenty-seven years old, venerable Pharaoh."
"Twenty-seven years old, and he wishes to espouse the Princess
Hermonthis who is thirty centuries old!" cried out at once all the
Thrones and all the Circles of Nations.
Only Hermonthis herself did not seem to think my request unreasonable.
"If you were even only two thousand years old," replied the ancient
king, "I would willingly give you the princess, but the disproportion
is too great; and, besides, we must give our daughters husbands who
will last well. You do not know how to preserve yourselves any longer.
Even those who died only fifteen centuries ago are already no more than
a handful of dust. Behold, my flesh is solid as basalt, my bones are
bones of steel!
"I will be present on the last day of the world with the same body and
the same features which I had during my lifetime. My daughter
Hermonthis will last longer than a statue of bronze.
"Then the last particles of your dust will have been scattered abroad
by the winds, and even Isis herself, who was able to find the atoms of
Osiris, would scarce be able to recompense your being.
"See how vigorous I yet remain, and how mighty is my grasp," he added,
shaking my hand in the English fashion with a strength that buried my
rings in the flesh of my fingers.
He squeezed me so hard that I awoke, and found my friend Alfred shaking
me by the arm to make me get up.
"Oh, you everlasting sleeper! Must I have you carried out into the
middle of the street, and fireworks exploded in your ears? It is
afternoon. Don't you recollect your promise to take me with you to see
M. Aguado's Spanish pictures?"
"God! I forgot all, all about it," I answered, dressing myself
hurriedly. "We will go there at once. I have the permit lying there on
my desk."
I started to find it, but fancy my astonishment when I beheld, instead
of the mummy's foot I had purchased the evening before, the little
green paste idol left in its place by the Princess Hermonthis!
IV
MR. BLOKE'S ITEM[1]
Mark Twain
[1] Written about 1865.
Our esteemed friend, Mr. John William Bloke, of Virginia City, walked
into the office where we are sub-editor at a late hour last night, with
an expression of profound and heartfelt suffering upon his countenance,
and, sighing heavily, laid the following item reverently upon the desk,
and walked slowly out again. He paused a moment at the door, and seemed
struggling to command his feelings sufficiently to enable him to speak,
and then, nodding his head toward his manuscript, ejaculated in a
broken voice, "Friend of mine--oh! how sad!" and burst into tears. We
were so moved at his distress that we did not think to call him back
and endeavour to comfort him until he was gone, and it was too late.
The paper had already gone to press, but knowing that our friend would
consider the publication of this item important, and cherishing the
hope that to print it would afford a melancholy satisfaction to his
sorrowing heart, we stopped the press at once and inserted it in our
columns:
DISTRESSING ACCIDENT.--Last evening, about six o'clock, as Mr.
William Schuyler, an old and respectable citizen of South Park, was
leaving his residence to go downtown, as has been his usual custom
for many years with the exception only of a short interval in the
spring of 1850, during which he was confined to his bed by injuries
received in attempting to stop a runaway horse by thoughtlessly
placing himself directly in its wake and throwing up his hands and
shouting, which if he had done so even a single moment sooner, must
inevitably have frightened the animal still more instead of
checking its speed, although disastrous enough to himself as it
was, and rendered more melancholy and distressing by reason of the
presence of his wife's mother, who was there and saw the sad
occurrence notwithstanding it is at least likely, though not
necessarily so, that she should be reconnoitering in another
direction when incidents occur, not being vivacious and on the
lookout, as a general thing, but even the reverse, as her own
mother is said to have stated, who is no more, but died in the full
hope of a glorious resurrection, upwards of three years ago, aged
eighty-six, being a Christian woman and without guile, as it were,
or property, in consequence of the fire of 1849, which destroyed
every single thing she had in the world. But such is life. Let us
all take warning by this solemn occurrence, and let us endeavour so
to conduct ourselves that when we come to die we can do it. Let us
place our hands upon our heart, and say with earnestness and
sincerity that from this day forth, we will beware of the
intoxicating bowl.--_First Edition of the Californian._
The head editor has been in here raising the mischief, and tearing his
hair and kicking the furniture about, and abusing me like a pickpocket.
He says that every time he leaves me in charge of the paper for half an
hour I get imposed upon by the first infant or the first idiot that
comes along. And he says that that distressing item of Mr. Bloke's is
nothing but a lot of distressing bosh, and has no point to it, and no
sense in it, and no information in it, and that there was no sort of
necessity for stopping the press to publish it.
Now all this comes of being good-hearted. If I had been as
unaccommodating and unsympathetic as some people, I would have told Mr.
Bloke that I wouldn't receive his communication at such a late hour;
but no, his snuffling distress touched my heart, and I jumped at the
chance of doing something to modify his misery. I never read his item
to see whether there was anything wrong about it, but hastily wrote the
few lines which preceded it, and sent it to the printers. And what has
my kindness done for me? It has done nothing but bring down upon me a
storm of abuse and ornamental blasphemy.
Now I will read that item myself, and see if there is any foundation
for all this fuss. And if there is, the author of it shall hear from
me.
* * * * *
I have read it, and I am bound to admit that it seems a little mixed at
a first glance. However, I will peruse it once more.
I have read it again, and it does really seem a good deal more mixed
than ever.
I have read it over five times, but if I can get at the meaning of it I
wish I may get my just deserts. It won't bear analysis. There are
things about it which I cannot understand at all. It don't say whatever
became of William Schuyler. It just says enough about him to get one
interested in his career, and then drops him. Who is William Schuyler,
anyhow, and what part of South Park did he live in, and if he started
down-town at six o'clock, did he ever get there, and if he did, did
anything happen to him? Is _he_ the individual that met with the
"distressing accident?" Considering the elaborate circumstantiality of
detail observable in the item, it seems to me that it ought to contain
more information than it does. On the contrary, it is obscure--and not
only obscure, but utterly incomprehensible. Was the breaking of Mr.
Schuyler's leg, fifteen years ago, the "distressing accident" that
plunged Mr. Bloke into unspeakable grief, and caused him to come up
here at dead of night and stop our press to acquaint the world with the
circumstance? Or did the "distressing accident" consist in the
destruction of Schuyler's mother-in-law's property in early times? Or
did it consist in the death of that person herself three years ago
(albeit it does not appear that she died by accident)? In a word, what
_did_ that "distressing accident" consist in? What did that driveling
ass of a Schuyler stand _in the wake_ of a runaway horse for, with his
shouting and gesticulating, if he wanted to stop him? And how the
mischief could he get run over by a horse that had already passed
beyond him? And what are we to take "warning" by? And how is this
extraordinary chapter of incomprehensibilities going to be a "lesson"
to us? And, above all, what has the intoxicating "bowl" got to do with
it, anyhow? It is not stated that Schuyler drank, or that his wife
drank, or that his mother-in-law drank, or that the horse drank--wherefore,
then, the reference to the intoxing bowl? It does seem to me that if
Mr. Bloke had let the intoxicating bowl alone himself, he never would
get into so much trouble about this exasperating imaginary accident. I
have read this absurd item over and over again, with all its
insinuating plausibility, until my head swims; but I can make neither
head nor tail of it. There certainly seems to have been an accident of
some kind or other, but it is impossible to determine what the nature
of it was, or who was the sufferer by it. I do not like to do it, but I
feel compelled to request that the next time anything happens to one of
Mr. Bloke's friends, he will append such explanatory notes to his
account of it as will enable me to find out what sort of an accident it
was and to whom it happened. I had rather all his friends should die
than that I should be driven to the verge of lunacy again in trying to
cipher out the meaning of another such production as the above.
V
A GHOST[1]
Lafcadio Hearn
[1] Reprinted by permission of Boni & Liveright.
I
Perhaps the man who never wanders away from the place of his birth may
pass all his life without knowing ghosts; but the nomad is more than
likely to make their acquaintance. I refer to the civilized nomad,
whose wanderings are not prompted by hope of gain, nor determined by
pleasure, but simply compelled by certain necessities of his
being,--the man whose inner secret nature is totally at variance with
the stable conditions of a society to which he belongs only by
accident. However intellectually trained, he must always remain the
slave of singular impulses which have no rational source, and which
will often amaze him no less by their mastering power than by their
continuous savage opposition to his every material interest.... These
may, perhaps, be traced back to some ancestral habit,--be explained by
self-evident hereditary tendencies. Or perhaps they may not,--in which
event the victim can only surmise himself the _Imago_ of some
pre-existent larval aspiration--the full development of desires long
dormant in a chain of more limited lives....
Assuredly the nomadic impulses differ in every member of the
class,--take infinite variety from individual sensitiveness to
environment: the line of least resistance for one being that of
greatest resistance for another;--no two courses of true nomadism can
ever be wholly the same. Diversified of necessity both impulse and
direction, even as human nature is diversified. Never since
consciousness of time began were two beings born who possessed exactly
the same quality of voice, the same precise degree of nervous
impressibility, or,--in brief, the same combination of those viewless
force-storing molecules which shape and poise themselves in sentient
substance. Vain, therefore, all striving to particularize the curious
psychology of such existences: at the very utmost it is possible only
to describe such impulses and perceptions of nomadism as lie within the
very small range of one's own observation. And whatever in these be
strictly personal can have little interest or value except in so far as
it holds something in common with the great general experience of
restless lives. To such experience may belong, I think, one ultimate
result of all those irrational partings,--self-wreckings,--sudden
isolations,--abrupt severances from all attachment, which form the
history of the nomad ... the knowledge that a strange silence is ever
deepening and expanding about one's life, and that in that silence
there are ghosts.
II
... Oh! the first vague charm, the first sunny illusion of some fair
city,--when vistas of unknown streets all seem leading to the
realization of a hope you dare not even whisper; when even the shadows
look beautiful, and strange façades appear to smile good omen through
light of gold! And those first winning relations with men, while you
are still a stranger, and only the better and the brighter side of
their nature is turned to you!... All is yet a delightful, luminous
indefiniteness--sensation of streets and of men,--like some beautifully
tinted photograph slightly out of focus....
Then the slow solid sharpening of details all about you,--thrusting
through illusion and dispelling it--growing keener and harder day by
day, through long dull seasons, while your feet learn to remember all
asperities of pavements, and your eyes all physiognomy of buildings and
of persons,--failures of masonry,--furrowed lines of pain. Thereafter
only the aching of monotony intolerable,--and the hatred of sameness
grown dismal,--and dread of the merciless, inevitable, daily and hourly
repetition of things;--while those impulses of unrest, which are Nature's
urgings through that ancestral experience which lives in each one
of us,--outcries of sea and peak and sky to man,--ever make wilder
appeal.... Strong friendships may have been formed; but there finally
comes a day when even these can give no consolation for the pain of
monotony,--and you feel that in order to live you must decide,--regardless
of result,--to shake forever from your feet the familiar dust of that
place....
And, nevertheless, in the hour of departure you feel a pang. As train
or steamer bears you away from the city and its myriad associations,
the old illusive impression will quiver back about you for a
moment,--not as if to mock the expectation of the past, but softly,
touchingly, as if pleading to you to stay; and such a sadness, such a
tenderness may come to you, as one knows after reconciliation with a
friend misapprehended and unjustly judged.... But you will never more
see those streets,--except in dreams.
Through sleep only they will open again before you,--steeped in the
illusive vagueness of the first long-past day,--peopled only by friends
outreaching to you. Soundlessly you will tread those shadowy pavements
many times,--to knock in thought, perhaps, at doors which the dead will
open to you.... But with the passing of years all becomes dim--so dim
that even asleep you know 'tis only a ghost-city, with streets going to
nowhere. And finally whatever is left of it becomes confused and
blended with cloudy memories of other cities,--one endless bewilderment
of filmy architecture in which nothing is distinctly recognizable,
though the whole gives the sensation of having been seen before ...
ever so long ago.
* * * * *
Meantime, in the course of wanderings more or less aimless, there has
slowly grown upon you a suspicion of being haunted,--so frequently does
a certain hazy presence intrude itself upon the visual memory. This,
however, appears to gain rather than to lose in definiteness: with each
return its visibility seems to increase.... And the suspicion that you
may be haunted gradually develops into a certainty.
III
You are haunted,--whether your way lie through the brown gloom of
London winter, or the azure splendour of an equatorial day,--whether
your steps be tracked in snows, or in the burning black sand of a
tropic beach,--whether you rest beneath the swart shade of Northern
pines, or under spidery umbrages of palm:--you are haunted ever and
everywhere by a certain gentle presence. There is nothing fearsome in
this haunting ... the gentlest face ... the kindliest voice--oddly
familiar and distinct, though feeble as the hum of a bee....
But it tantalizes,--this haunting,--like those sudden surprises of
sensation _within_ us, though seemingly not _of_ us, which some dreamers
have sought to interpret as inherited remembrances,--recollections of
pre-existence.... Vainly you ask yourself:--"Whose voice?--whose face?"
It is neither young nor old, the Face: it has a vapoury indefinableness
that leaves it a riddle;--its diaphaneity reveals no particular
tint;--perhaps you may not even be quite sure whether it has a beard.
But its expression is always gracious, passionless, smiling--like the
smiling of unknown friends in dreams, with infinite indulgence for any
folly, even a dream-folly.... Except in that you cannot permanently
banish it, the presence offers no positive resistance to your will: it
accepts each caprice with obedience; it meets your every whim with
angelic patience. It is never critical,--never makes plaint even by a
look,--never proves irksome: yet you cannot ignore it, because of a
certain queer power it possesses to make something stir and quiver in
your heart,--like an old vague sweet regret,--something buried alive
which will not die.... And so often does this happen that desire to
solve the riddle becomes a pain,--that you finally find yourself making
supplication to the Presence,--addressing to it questions which it will
never answer directly, but only by a smile or by words having no
relation to the asking,--words enigmatic, which make mysterious
agitation in old forsaken fields of memory ... even as a wind betimes,
over wide wastes of marsh, sets all the grasses whispering about
nothing. But you will question on, untiringly, through the nights and
days of years:--
--"Who are you?--what are you?--what is this weird relation that you
bear to me? All you say to me I feel that I have heard before--but
where?--but when? By what name am I to call you,--since you will answer
to none that I remember? Surely you do not live: yet I know the
sleeping-places of all my dead,--and yours, I do not know! Neither are
you any dream;--for dreams distort and change; and you, you are ever
the same. Nor are you any hallucination; for all my senses are still
vivid and strong.... This only I know beyond doubt,--that you are of
the Past: you belong to memory--but to the memory of what dead
suns?..."
* * * * *
Then, some day or night, unexpectedly, there comes to you at
least,--with a soft swift tingling shock as of fingers invisible,--the
knowledge that the Face is not the memory of any one face, but a
multiple image formed of the traits of many dear faces,--superimposed
by remembrance, and interblended by affection into one ghostly
personality,--infinitely sympathetic, phantasmally beautiful: a
Composite of recollections! And the Voice is the echo of no one voice,
but the echoing of many voices, molten into a single utterance,--a
single impossible tone,--thin through remoteness of time, but
inexpressibly caressing.
IV
Thou most gentle Composite!--thou nameless and exquisite Unreality,
thrilled into semblance of being from out the sum of all lost
sympathies!--thou Ghost of all dear vanished things ... with thy vain
appeal of eyes that looked for my coming,--and vague faint pleading of
voices against oblivion,--and thin electric touch of buried hands, ...
must thou pass away forever with my passing,--even as the Shadow that I
cast, O thou Shadowing of Souls?...
I am not sure.... For there comes to me this dream,--that if aught in
human life hold power to pass--like a swerved sunray through
interstellar spaces,--into the infinite mystery ... to send one sweet
strong vibration through immemorial Time ... might not some luminous
future be peopled with such as thou?... And in so far as that which
makes for us the subtlest charm of being can lend one choral note to
the Symphony of the Unknowable Purpose,--in so much might there not
endure also to greet thee, another Composite One,--embodying indeed,
the comeliness of many lives, yet keeping likewise some visible memory
of all that may have been gracious in this thy friend...?
VI
THE MAN WHO WENT TOO FAR
E. F. Benson
The little village of St. Faith's nestles in a hollow of wooded hill up
on the north bank of the river Fawn in the county of Hampshire huddling
close round its gray Norman church as if for spiritual protection
against the fays and fairies, the trolls and "little people," who might
be supposed still to linger in the vast empty spaces of the New Forest,
and to come after dusk and do their doubtful businesses. Once outside
the hamlet you may walk in any direction (so long as you avoid the high
road which leads to Brockenhurst) for the length of a summer afternoon
without seeing sign of human habitation, or possibly even catching
sight of another human being. Shaggy wild ponies may stop their feeding
for a moment as you pass, the white scuts of rabbits will vanish into
their burrows, a brown viper perhaps will glide from your path into a
clump of heather, and unseen birds will chuckle in the bushes, but it
may easily happen that for a long day you will see nothing human. But
you will not feel in the least lonely; in summer, at any rate, the
sunlight will be gay with butterflies, and the air thick with all those
woodland sounds which like instruments in an orchestra combine to play
the great symphony of the yearly festival of June. Winds whisper in the
birches and sigh among the firs; bees are busy with their irredolent
labor among the heather, a myriad birds chirp in the green temples of
the forest trees, and the voice of the river prattling over stony
places, bubbling into pools, chuckling and gulping round corners, gives
you the sense that many presences and companions are near at hand.
Yet, oddly enough, though one would have thought that these benign and
cheerful influences of wholesome air and spaciousness of forest were
very healthful comrades for a man, in so far as nature can really
influence this wonderful human genus which has in these centuries
learned to defy her most violent storms in its well-established houses,
to bridle her torrents and make them light its streets, to tunnel her
mountains and plough her seas, the inhabitants of St. Faith's will not
willingly venture into the forest after dark. For in spite of the
silence and loneliness of the hooded night it seems that a man is not
sure in what company he may suddenly find himself, and though it is
difficult to get from these villagers any very clear story of occult
appearances, the feeling is widespread. One story indeed I have heard
with some definiteness, the tale of a monstrous goat that has been seen
to skip with hellish glee about the woods and shady places, and this
perhaps is connected with the story which I have here attempted to
piece together. It too is well-known to them; for all remember the
young artist who died here not long ago, a young man, or so he struck
the beholder, of great personal beauty, with something about him that
made men's faces to smile and brighten when they looked on him. His
ghost they will tell you "walks" constantly by the stream and through
the woods which he loved so, and in especial it haunts a certain house,
the last of the village, where he lived, and its garden in which he was
done to death. For my part I am inclined to think that the terror of
the Forest dates chiefly from that day. So, such as the story is, I
have set it forth in connected form. It is based partly on the accounts
of the villagers, but mainly on that of Darcy, a friend of mine and a
friend of the man with whom these events were chiefly concerned.
* * * * *
The day had been one of untarnished midsummer splendour, and as the sun
drew near to its setting, the glory of the evening grew every moment
more crystalline, more miraculous. Westward from St. Faith's the
beechwood which stretched for some miles toward the heathery upland
beyond already cast its veil of clear shadow over the red roofs of the
village, but the spire of the gray church, overtopping all, still
pointed a flaming orange finger into the sky. The river Fawn, which
runs below, lay in sheets of sky-reflected blue, and wound its dreamy
devious course round the edge of this wood, where a rough two-planked
bridge crossed from the bottom of the garden of the last house in the
village, and communicated by means of a little wicker gate with the
wood itself. Then once out of the shadow of the wood the stream lay in
flaming pools of the molten crimson of the sunset, and lost itself in
the haze of woodland distances.
This house at the end of the village stood outside the shadow, and the
lawn which sloped down to the river was still flecked with sunlight.
Garden-beds of dazzling colour lined its gravel walks, and down the
middle of it ran a brick pergola, half-hidden in clusters of
rambler-rose and purple with starry clematis. At the bottom end of it,
between two of its pillars, was slung a hammock containing a shirt
sleeved figure.
The house itself lay somewhat remote from the rest of the village, and
a footpath leading across two fields, now tall and fragrant with hay,
was its only communication with the high road. It was low-built, only
two stories in height, and like the garden, its walls were a mass of
flowering roses. A narrow stone terrace ran along the garden front,
over which was stretched an awning, and on the terrace a young
silent-footed man-servant was busied with the laying of the table for
dinner. He was neat-handed and quick with his job, and having finished
it he went back into the house, and reappeared again with a large rough
bath-towel on his arm. With this he went to the hammock in the pergola.
"Nearly eight, sir," he said.
"Has Mr. Darcy come yet?" asked a voice from the hammock.
"No, sir."
"If I'm not back when he comes, tell him that I'm just having a bathe
before dinner."
The servant went back to the house, and after a moment or two Frank
Halton struggled to a sitting posture, and slipped out on to the grass.
He was of medium height and rather slender in build, but the supple
ease and grace of his movements gave the impression of great physical
strength: even his descent from the hammock was not an awkward
performance. His face and hands were of very dark complexion, either
from constant exposure to wind and sun, or, as his black hair and dark
eyes tended to show, from some strain of southern blood. His head was
small, his face of an exquisite beauty of modelling, while the
smoothness of its contour would have led you to believe that he was a
beardless lad still in his teens. But something, some look which living
and experience alone can give, seemed to contradict that, and finding
yourself completely puzzled as to his age, you would next moment
probably cease to think about that, and only look at this glorious
specimen of young manhood with wondering satisfaction.
He was dressed as became the season and the heat, and wore only a shirt
open at the neck, and a pair of flannel trousers. His head, covered
very thickly with a somewhat rebellious crop of short curly hair, was
bare as he strolled across the lawn to the bathing-place that lay
below. Then for a moment there was silence, then the sound of splashed
and divided waters, and presently after, a great shout of ecstatic joy,
as he swam up-stream with the foamed water standing in a frill round
his neck. Then after some five minutes of limb-stretching struggle with
the flood, he turned over on his back, and with arms thrown wide,
floated down-stream, ripple-cradled and inert. His eyes were shut, and
between half-parted lips he talked gently to himself.
"I am one with it," he said to himself, "the river and I, I and the
river. The coolness and splash of it is I, and the water-herbs that
wave in it are I also. And my strength and my limbs are not mine but
the river's. It is all one, all one, dear Fawn."
* * * * *
A quarter of an hour later he appeared again at the bottom of the lawn,
dressed as before, his wet hair already drying into its crisp short
curls again. Then he paused a moment, looking back at the stream with
the smile with which men look on the face of a friend, then turned
toward the house. Simultaneously his servant came to the door leading
on to the terrace, followed by a man who appeared to be some half-way
through the fourth decade of his years. Frank and he saw each other
across the bushes and garden-beds, and each quickening his step, they
met suddenly face to face round an angle of the garden walk, in the
fragrance of syringa.
"My dear Darcy," cried Frank, "I am charmed to see you."
But the other stared at him in amazement.
"Frank!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, that is my name," he said laughing, "what is the matter?"
Darcy took his hand.
"What have you done to yourself?" he asked. "You are a boy again."
"Ah, I have a lot to tell you," said Frank. "Lots that you will hardly
believe, but I shall convince you----"
He broke off suddenly, and held up his hand.
"Hush, there is my nightingale," he said.
The smile of recognition and welcome with which he had greeted his
friend faded from his face, and a look of rapt wonder took its place,
as of a lover listening to the voice of his beloved. His mouth parted
slightly, showing the white line of teeth, and his eyes looked out and
out till they seemed to Darcy to be focused on things beyond the vision
of man. Then something perhaps startled the bird, for the song ceased.
"Yes, lots to tell you," he said. "Really I am delighted to see you.
But you look rather white and pulled down; no wonder after that fever.
And there is to be no nonsense about this visit. It is June now, you
stop here till you are fit to begin work again. Two months at least."
"Ah, I can't trespass quite to that extent."
Frank took his arm and walked him down the grass.
"Trespass? Who talks of trespass? I shall tell you quite openly when I
am tired of you, but you know when we had the studio together, we used
not to bore each other. However, it is ill talking of going away on the
moment of your arrival. Just a stroll to the river, and then it will be
dinner-time."
Darcy took out his cigarette case, and offered it to the other.
Frank laughed.
"No, not for me. Dear me, I suppose I used to smoke once. How very
odd!"
"Given it up?"
"I don't know. I suppose I must have. Anyhow I don't do it now. I would
as soon think of eating meat."
"Another victim on the smoking altar of vegetarianism?"
"Victim?" asked Frank. "Do I strike you as such?"
He paused on the margin of the stream and whistled softly. Next moment
a moor-hen made its splashing flight across the river, and ran up the
bank. Frank took it very gently in his hands and stroked its head, as
the creature lay against his shirt.
"And is the house among the reeds still secure?" he half-crooned to it.
"And is the missus quite well, and are the neighbours flourishing?
There, dear, home with you," and he flung it into the air.
"That bird's very tame," said Darcy, slightly bewildered.
"It is rather," said Frank, following its flight.
* * * * *
During dinner Frank chiefly occupied himself in bringing himself
up-to-date in the movements and achievements of this old friend whom he
had not seen for six years. Those six years, it now appeared, had been
full of incident and success for Darcy; he had made a name for himself
as a portrait painter which bade fair to outlast the vogue of a couple
of seasons, and his leisure time had been brief. Then some four months
previously he had been through a severe attack of typhoid, the result
of which as concerns this story was that he had come down to this
sequestrated place to recruit.
"Yes, you've got on," said Frank at the end. "I always knew you would.
A.R.A. with more in prospect. Money? You roll in it, I suppose, and, O
Darcy, how much happiness have you had all these years? That is the
only imperishable possession. And how much have you learned? Oh, I
don't mean in Art. Even I could have done well in that."
Darcy laughed.
"Done well? My dear fellow, all I have learned in these six years you
knew, so to speak, in your cradle. Your old pictures fetch huge prices.
Do you never paint now?"
Frank shook his head.
"No, I'm too busy," he said.
"Doing what? Please tell me. That is what every one is for ever asking
me."
"Doing? I suppose you would say I do nothing."
Darcy glanced up at the brilliant young face opposite him.
"It seems to suit you, that way of being busy," he said. "Now, it's
your turn. Do you read? Do you study? I remember you saying that it
would do us all--all us artists, I mean--a great deal of good if we
would study any one human face carefully for a year, without recording
a line. Have you been doing that?"
Frank shook his head again.
"I mean exactly what I say," he said, "I have been _doing_ nothing. And
I have never been so occupied. Look at me, have I not done something to
myself to begin with?"
"You are two years younger than I," said Darcy, "at least you used to
be. You therefore are thirty-five. But had I never seen you before I
should say you were just twenty. But was it worth while to spend six
years of greatly occupied life in order to look twenty? Seems rather
like a woman of fashion."
Frank laughed boisterously.
"First time I've ever been compared to that particular bird of prey,"
he said. "No, that has not been my occupation--in fact I am only very
rarely conscious that one effect of my occupation has been that. Of
course, it must have been if one comes to think of it. It is not very
important. Quite true my body has become young. But that is very
little; I have become young."
Darcy pushed back his chair and sat sideways to the table looking at
the other.
"Has that been your occupation then?" he asked. "Yes, that anyhow is
one aspect of it. Think what youth means! It is the capacity for
growth, mind, body, spirit, all grow, all get stronger, all have a
fuller, firmer life every day. That is something, considering that
every day that passed after the ordinary man reaches the full-blown
flower of his strength, weakens his hold on life. A man reaches his
prime, and remains, we say, in his prime, for ten years, or perhaps
twenty. But after his primest prime is reached, he slowly, insensibly
weakens. These are the signs of age in you, in your body, in your art
probably, in your mind. You are less electric than you were. But I,
when I reach my prime--I am nearing it--ah, you shall see."
The stars had begun to appear in the blue velvet of the sky, and to the
east the horizon seen above the black silhouette of the village was
growing dove-coloured with the approach of moon-rise. White moths
hovered dimly over the garden-beds, and the footsteps of night tip-toed
through the bushes. Suddenly Frank rose.
"Ah, it is the supreme moment," he said softly. "Now more than at any
other time the current of life, the eternal imperishable current runs
so close to me that I am almost enveloped in it. Be silent a minute."
He advanced to the edge of the terrace and looked out standing
stretched with arms outspread. Darcy heard him draw a long breath into
his lungs, and after many seconds expel it again. Six or eight times he
did this, then turned back into the lamplight.
"It will sound to you quite mad, I expect," he said, "but if you want
to hear the soberest truth I have ever spoken and shall ever speak, I
will tell you about myself. But come into the garden if it is not too
damp for you. I have never told anyone yet, but I shall like to tell
you. It is long, in fact, since I have even tried to classify what I
have learned."
They wandered into the fragrant dimness of the pergola, and sat down.
Then Frank began:
"Years ago, do you remember," he said, "we used often to talk about the
decay of joy in the world. Many impulses, we settled, had contributed
to this decay, some of which were good in themselves, others that were
quite completely bad. Among the good things, I put what we may call
certain Christian virtues, renunciation, resignation, sympathy with
suffering, and the desire to relieve sufferers. But out of those things
spring very bad ones, useless renunciations, asceticism for its own
sake, mortification of the flesh with nothing to follow, no
corresponding gain that is, and that awful and terrible disease which
devastated England some centuries ago, and from which by heredity of
spirit we suffer now, Puritanism. That was a dreadful plague, the
brutes held and taught that joy and laughter and merriment were evil:
it was a doctrine the most profane and wicked. Why, what is the
commonest crime one sees? A sullen face. That is the truth of the
matter.
"Now all my life I have believed that we are intended to be happy, that
joy is of all gifts the most divine. And when I left London, abandoned
my career, such as it was, I did so because I intended to devote my
life to the cultivation of joy, and, by continuous and unsparing
effort, to be happy. Among people, and in constant intercourse with
others, I did not find it possible; there were too many distractions in
towns and work-rooms, and also too much suffering. So I took one step
backward or forward, as you may choose to put it, and went straight to
Nature, to trees, birds, animals, to all those things which quite
clearly pursue one aim only, which blindly follow the great native
instinct to be happy without any care at all for morality, or human law
or divine law. I wanted, you understand, to get all joy first-hand and
unadulterated, and I think it scarcely exists among men; it is
obsolete."
Darcy turned in his chair.
"Ah, but what makes birds and animals happy?" he asked. "Food, food and
mating."
Frank laughed gently in the stillness.
"Do not think I became a sensualist," he said. "I did not make that
mistake. For the sensualist carries his miseries pick-a-back, and round
his feet is wound the shroud that shall soon enwrap him. I may be mad,
it is true, but I am not so stupid anyhow as to have tried that. No,
what is it that makes puppies play with their own tails, that sends
cats on their prowling ecstatic errands at night?"
He paused a moment.
"So I went to Nature," he said. "I sat down here in this New Forest,
sat down fair and square, and looked. That was my first difficulty, to
sit here quiet without being bored, to wait without being impatient, to
be receptive and very alert, though for a long time nothing particular
happened. The change in fact was slow in those early stages."
"Nothing happened?" asked Darcy rather impatiently, with the sturdy
revolt against any new idea which to the English mind is synonymous
with nonsense. "Why, what in the world _should_ happen?"
Now Frank as he had known him was the most generous, most
quick-tempered of mortal men; in other words his anger would flare to a
prodigious beacon, under almost no provocation, only to be quenched
again under a gust of no less impulsive kindliness. Thus the moment
Darcy had spoken, an apology for his hasty question was half-way up his
tongue. But there was no need for it to have travelled even so far, for
Frank laughed again with kindly, genuine mirth.
"Oh, how I should have resented that a few years ago," he said. "Thank
goodness that resentment is one of the things I have got rid of. I
certainly wish that you should believe my story--in fact, you are going
to--but that you at this moment should imply that you do not, does not
concern me."
"Ah, your solitary sojournings have made you inhuman," said Darcy,
still very English.
"No, human," said Frank. "Rather more human, at least rather less of an
ape."
"Well, that was my first quest," he continued, after a moment, "the
deliberate and unswerving pursuit of joy, and my method, the eager
contemplation of Nature. As far as motive went, I dare say it was
purely selfish, but as far as effect goes, it seems to me about the
best thing one can do for one's fellow-creatures, for happiness is more
infectious than small-pox. So, as I said, I sat down and waited; I
looked at happy things, zealously avoided the sight of anything
unhappy, and by degrees a little trickle of the happiness of this
blissful world began to filter into me. The trickle grew more abundant,
and now, my dear fellow, if I could for a moment divert from me into
you one half of the torrent of joy that pours through me day and night,
you would throw the world, art, everything aside, and just live, exist.
When a man's body dies, it passes into trees and flowers. Well, that is
what I have been trying to do with my soul before death."
The servant had brought into the pergola a table with syphons and
spirits, and had set a lamp upon it. As Frank spoke he leaned forward
toward the other, and Darcy for all his matter-of-fact common-sense
could have sworn that his companion's face shone, was luminous in
itself. His dark brown eyes glowed from within, the unconscious smile
of a child irradiated and transformed his face. Darcy felt suddenly
excited, exhilarated.
"Go on," he said. "Go on. I can feel you are somehow telling me sober
truth. I dare say you are mad; but I don't see that matters."
Frank laughed again.
"Mad?" he said. "Yes, certainly, if you wish. But I prefer to call it
sane. However, nothing matters less than what anybody chooses to call
things. God never labels his gifts; He just puts them into our hands;
just as he put animals in the garden of Eden, for Adam to name if he
felt disposed."
"So by the continual observance and study of things that were happy,"
continued he, "I got happiness, I got joy. But seeking it, as I did,
from Nature, I got much more which I did not seek, but stumbled upon
originally by accident. It is difficult to explain, but I will try.
"About three years ago I was sitting one morning in a place I will show
you to-morrow. It is down by the river brink, very green, dappled with
shade and sun, and the river passes there through some little clumps of
reeds. Well, as I sat there, doing nothing, but just looking and
listening, I heard the sound quite distinctly of some flute-like
instrument playing a strange unending melody. I thought at first it was
some musical yokel on the highway and did not pay much attention. But
before long the strangeness and indescribable beauty of the tune struck
me. It never repeated itself, but it never came to an end, phrase after
phrase ran its sweet course, it worked gradually and inevitably up to a
climax, and having attained it, it went on; another climax was reached
and another and another. Then with a sudden gasp of wonder I localized
where it came from. It came from the reeds and from the sky and from
the trees. It was everywhere, it was the sound of life. It was, my dear
Darcy, as the Greeks would have said, it was Pan playing on his pipes,
the voice of Nature. It was the life-melody, the world-melody."
Darcy was far too interested to interrupt, though there was a question
he would have liked to ask, and Frank went on:
"Well, for the moment I was terrified, terrified with the impotent
horror of nightmare, and I stopped my ears and just ran from the place
and got back to the house panting, trembling, literally in a panic.
Unknowingly, for at that time I only pursued joy, I had begun, since I
drew my joy from Nature, to get in touch with Nature. Nature, force,
God, call it what you will, had drawn across my face a little gossamer
web of essential life. I saw that when I emerged from my terror, and I
went very humbly back to where I had heard the Pan-pipes. But it was
nearly six months before I heard them again."
"Why was that?" asked Darcy.
"Surely because I had revolted, rebelled, and worst of all been
frightened. For I believe that just as there is nothing in the world
which so injures one's body as fear, so there is nothing that so much
shuts up the soul. I was afraid, you see, of the one thing in the world
which has real existence. No wonder its manifestation was withdrawn."
"And after six months?"
"After six months one blessed morning I heard the piping again. I
wasn't afraid that time. And since then it has grown louder, it has
become more constant. I now hear it often, and I can put myself into
such an attitude toward Nature that the pipes will almost certainly
sound. And never yet have they played the same tune, it is always
something new, something fuller, richer, more complete than before."
"What do you mean by 'such an attitude toward nature'?" asked Darcy.
"I can't explain that; but by translating it into a bodily attitude it
is this."
Frank sat up for a moment quite straight in his chair, then slowly sank
back with arms outspread and head drooped.
"That," he said, "an effortless attitude, but open, resting, receptive.
It is just that which you must do with your soul."
Then he sat up again.
"One word more," he said, "and I will bore you no further. Nor unless
you ask me questions shall I talk about it again. You will find me, in
fact, quite sane in my mode of life. Birds and beasts you will see
behaving somewhat intimately to me, like that moor-hen, but that is
all. I will walk with you, ride with you, play golf with you, and talk
with you on any subject you like. But I wanted you on the threshold to
know what has happened to me. And one thing more will happen."
He paused again, and a slight look of fear crossed his eyes.
"There will be a final revelation," he said, "a complete and blinding
stroke which will throw open to me, once and for all, the full
knowledge, the full realization and comprehension that I am one, just
as you are, with life. In reality there is no 'me,' no 'you,' no 'it.'
Everything is part of the one and only thing which is life. I know that
that is so, but the realization of it is not yet mine. But it will be,
and on that day, so I take it, I shall see Pan. It may mean death, the
death of my body, that is, but I don't care. It may mean immortal,
eternal life lived here and now and for ever. Then having gained that,
ah, my dear Darcy, I shall preach such a gospel of joy, showing myself
as the living proof of the truth, that Puritanism, the dismal religion
of sour faces, shall vanish like a breath of smoke, and be dispersed
and disappear in the sunlit air. But first the full knowledge must be
mine."
Darcy watched his face narrowly.
"You are afraid of that moment," he said.
Frank smiled at him.
"Quite true; you are quick to have seen that. But when it comes I hope
I shall not be afraid."
For some little time there was silence; then Darcy rose.
"You have bewitched me, you extraordinary boy," he said. "You have been
telling me a fairy-story, and I find myself saying, 'Promise me it is
true.'"
"I promise you that," said the other.
"And I know I sha'n't sleep," added Darcy.
Frank looked at him with a sort of mild wonder as if he scarcely
understood.
"Well, what does that matter?" he said.
"I assure you it does. I am wretched unless I sleep."
"Of course I can make you sleep if I want," said Frank in a rather
bored voice.
"Well, do."
"Very good: go to bed. I'll come upstairs in ten minutes."
Frank busied himself for a little after the other had gone, moving the
table back under the awning of the veranda and quenching the lamp. Then
he went with his quick silent tread upstairs and into Darcy's room. The
latter was already in bed, but very wide-eyed and wakeful, and Frank
with an amused smile of indulgence, as for a fretful child, sat down on
the edge of the bed.
"Look at me," he said, and Darcy looked.
"The birds are sleeping in the brake," said Frank softly, "and the
winds are asleep. The sea sleeps, and the tides are but the heaving of
its breast. The stars swing slow, rocked in the great cradle of the
Heavens, and----"
He stopped suddenly, gently blew out Darcy's candle, and left him
sleeping.
Morning brought to Darcy a flood of hard commonsense, as clear and
crisp as the sunshine that filled his room. Slowly as he woke he
gathered together the broken threads of the memories of the evening
which had ended, so he told himself, in a trick of common hypnotism.
That accounted for it all; the whole strange talk he had had was under
a spell of suggestion from the extraordinary vivid boy who had once
been a man; all his own excitement, his acceptance of the incredible
had been merely the effect of a stronger, more potent will imposed on
his own. How strong that will was he guessed from his own instantaneous
obedience to Frank's suggestion of sleep. And armed with impenetrable
commonsense he came down to breakfast. Frank had already begun, and was
consuming a large plateful of porridge and milk with the most prosaic
and healthy appetite.
"Slept well?" he asked.
"Yes, of course. Where did you learn hypnotism?"
"By the side of the river."
"You talked an amazing quantity of nonsense last night," remarked
Darcy, in a voice prickly with reason.
"Rather. I felt quite giddy. Look, I remembered to order a dreadful
daily paper for you. You can read about money markets or politics or
cricket matches."
Darcy looked at him closely. In the morning light Frank looked even
fresher, younger, more vital than he had done the night before, and the
sight of him somehow dinted Darcy's armour of commonsense.
"You are the most extraordinary fellow I ever saw," he said. "I want to
ask you some more questions."
"Ask away," said Frank.
* * * * *
For the next day or two Darcy plied his friend with many questions,
objections and criticisms on the theory of life and gradually got out
of him a coherent and complete account of his experience. In brief
then, Frank believed that "by lying naked," as he put it, to the force
which controls the passage of the stars, the breaking of a wave, the
budding of a tree, the love of a youth and maiden, he had succeeded in
a way hitherto undreamed of in possessing himself of the essential
principle of life. Day by day, so he thought, he was getting nearer to,
and in closer union with the great power itself which caused all life
to be, the spirit of nature, of force, or the spirit of God. For
himself, he confessed to what others would call paganism; it was
sufficient for him that there existed a principle of life. He did not
worship it, he did not pray to it, he did not praise it. Some of it
existed in all human beings, just as it existed in trees and animals;
to realize and make living to himself the fact that it was all one, was
his sole aim and object.
Here perhaps Darcy would put in a word of warning.
"Take care," he said. "To see Pan meant death, did it not?"
Frank's eyebrows would rise at this.
"What does that matter?" he said. "True the Greeks were always right,
and they said so, but there is another possibility. For the nearer I
get to it, the more living, the more vital and young I become."
"What then do you expect the final revelation will do for you?"
"I have told you," said he. "It will make me immortal."
But it was not so much from speech and argument that Darcy grew to
grasp his friend's conception as from the ordinary conduct of his life.
They were passing, for instance, one morning down the village street,
when an old woman, very bent and decrepit but with an extraordinary
cheerfulness of face, hobbled out from her cottage. Frank instantly
stopped when he saw her.
"You old darling! How goes it all?" he said.
But she did not answer, her dim old eyes were riveted on his face; she
seemed to drink in like a thirsty creature the beautiful radiance which
shone there. Suddenly she put her two withered old hands on his
shoulders.
"You're just the sunshine itself," she said, and he kissed her and
passed on.
But scarcely a hundred yards further a strange contradiction of such
tenderness occurred. A child running along the path toward them fell on
its face, and set up a dismal cry of fright and pain. A look of horror
came into Frank's eyes, and, putting his fingers in his ears, he fled
at full speed down the street and did not pause till he was out of
hearing. Darcy, having ascertained that the child was not really hurt,
followed him in bewilderment.
"Are you without pity then?" he asked.
Frank shook his head impatiently.
"Can't you see?" he asked. "Can't you understand that that sort of
thing, pain, anger, anything unlovely throws me back, retards the
coming of the great hour! Perhaps when it comes I shall be able to
piece that side of life on to the other, on to the true religion of
joy. At present I can't."
"But the old woman. Was she not ugly?"
Frank's radiance gradually returned.
"Ah, no. She was like me. She longed for joy, and knew it when she saw
it, the old darling."
Another question suggested itself.
"Then what about Christianity?" asked Darcy.
"I can't accept it. I can't believe in any creed of which the central
doctrine is that God who is Joy should have had to suffer. Perhaps it
was so; in some inscrutable way I believe it may have been so, but I
don't understand how it was possible. So I leave it alone; my affair is
joy."
They had come to the weir above the village, and the thunder of riotous
cool water was heavy in the air. Trees dipped into the translucent
stream with slender trailing branches, and the meadow where they stood
was starred with midsummer blossomings. Larks shot up caroling into the
crystal dome of blue, and a thousand voices of June sang round them.
Frank, bare-headed as was his wont, with his coat slung over his arm
and his shirt sleeves rolled up above the elbow, stood there like some
beautiful wild animal with eyes half-shut and mouth half-open, drinking
in the scented warmth of the air. Then suddenly he flung himself face
downward on the grass at the edge of the stream, burying his face in
the daisies and cowslips, and lay stretched there in wide-armed
ecstasy, with his long fingers pressing and stroking the dewy herbs of
the field. Never before had Darcy seen him thus fully possessed by his
idea; his caressing fingers, his half-buried face pressed close to the
grass, even the clothed lines of his figure were instinct with a
vitality that somehow was different from that of other men. And some
faint glow from it reached Darcy, some thrill, some vibration from that
charged recumbent body passed to him, and for a moment he understood as
he had not understood before, despite his persistent questions and the
candid answers they received, how real, and how realized by Frank, his
idea was.
Then suddenly the muscles in Frank's neck became stiff and alert, and
he half-raised his head, whispering, "The Pan-pipes, the Pan-pipes.
Close, oh, so close."
Very slowly, as if a sudden movement might interrupt the melody, he
raised himself and leaned on the elbow of his bent arm. His eyes opened
wider, the lower lids drooped as if he focused his eyes on something
very far away, and the smile on his face broadened and quivered like
sunlight on still water till the exultance of its happiness was
scarcely human. So he remained, motionless and rapt for some minutes,
then the look of listening died from his face, and he bowed his head
satisfied.
"Ah, that was good," he said. "How is it possible you did not hear? Oh,
you poor fellow! Did you really hear nothing?"
A week of this outdoor and stimulating life did wonders in restoring to
Darcy the vigour and health which his weeks of fever had filched from
him, and as his normal activity and higher pressure of vitality
returned, he seemed to himself to fall even more under the spell which
the miracle of Frank's youth cast over him. Twenty times a day he found
himself saying to himself suddenly at the end of some ten minutes'
silent resistance to the absurdity of Frank's idea: "But it isn't
possible; it can't be possible," and from the fact of his having to
assure himself so frequently of this, he knew that he was struggling
and arguing with a conclusion which already had taken root in his mind.
For in any case a visible living miracle confronted him, since it was
equally impossible that this youth, this boy, trembling on the verge of
manhood, was thirty-five. Yet such was the fact.
July was ushered in by a couple of days of blustering and fretful rain,
and Darcy, unwilling to risk a chill, kept to the house. But to Frank
this weeping change of weather seemed to have no bearing on the
behaviour of man, and he spent his days exactly as he did under the
suns of June, lying in his hammock, stretched on the dripping grass, or
making huge rambling excursions into the forest, the birds hopping from
tree to tree after him, to return in the evening, drenched and soaked,
but with the same unquenchable flame of joy burning within him.
"Catch cold?" he would ask, "I've forgotten how to do it, I think. I
suppose it makes one's body more sensible always to sleep out-of-doors.
People who live indoors always remind me of something peeled and
skinless."
"Do you mean to say you slept out-of-doors last night in that deluge?"
asked Darcy. "And where, may I ask?"
Frank thought a moment.
"I slept in the hammock till nearly dawn," he said. "For I remember the
light blinked in the east when I awoke. Then I went--where did I
go?--oh, yes, to the meadow where the Pan-pipes sounded so close a week
ago. You were with me, do you remember? But I always have a rug if it
is wet."
And he went whistling upstairs.
Somehow that little touch, his obvious effort to recall where he had
slept, brought strangely home to Darcy the wonderful romance of which
he was the still half-incredulous beholder. Sleep till close on dawn in
a hammock, then the tramp--or probably scamper--underneath the windy
and weeping heavens to the remote and lonely meadow by the weir! The
picture of other such nights rose before him; Frank sleeping perhaps by
the bathing-place under the filtered twilight of the stars, or the
white blaze of moonshine, a stir and awakening at some dead hour,
perhaps a space of silent wide-eyed thought, and then a wandering
through the hushed woods to some other dormitory, alone with his
happiness, alone with the joy and the life that suffused and enveloped
him, without other thought or desire or aim except the hourly and
never-ceasing communion with the joy of nature.
They were in the middle of dinner that night, talking on indifferent
subjects, when Darcy suddenly broke off in the middle of a sentence.
"I've got it," he said. "At last I've got it."
"Congratulate you," said Frank. "But what?"
"The radical unsoundness of your idea. It is this: All nature from
highest to lowest is full, crammed full of suffering; every living
organism in nature preys on another, yet in your aim to get close to,
to be one with nature, you leave suffering altogether out; you run away
from it, you refuse to recognize it. And you are waiting, you say, for
the final revelation."
Frank's brow clouded slightly.
"Well," he asked, rather wearily.
"Cannot you guess then when the final revelation will be? In joy you
are supreme, I grant you that; I did not know a man could be so master
of it. You have learned perhaps practically all that nature can teach.
And if, as you think, the final revelation is coming to you, it will be
the revelation of horror, suffering, death, pain in all its hideous
forms. Suffering does exist: you hate it and fear it."
Frank held up his hand.
"Stop; let me think," he said.
There was silence for a long minute.
"That never struck me," he said at length. "It is possible that what
you suggest is true. Does the sight of Pan mean that, do you think? Is
it that nature, take it altogether, suffers horribly, suffers to a
hideous inconceivable extent? Shall I be shown all the suffering?"
He got up and came round to where Darcy sat.
"If it is so, so be it," he said. "Because, my dear fellow, I am near,
so splendidly near to the final revelation. To-day the pipes have
sounded almost without pause. I have even heard the rustle in the
bushes, I believe, of Pan's coming. I have seen, yes, I saw to-day, the
bushes pushed aside as if by a hand, and piece of a face, not human,
peered through. But I was not frightened, at least I did not run away
this time."
He took a turn up to the window and back again.
"Yes, there is suffering all through," he said, "and I have left it all
out of my search. Perhaps, as you say, the revelation will be that. And
in that case, it will be good-bye. I have gone on one line. I shall
have gone too far along one road, without having explored the other.
But I can't go back now. I wouldn't if I could; not a step would I
retrace! In any case, whatever the revelation is, it will be God. I'm
sure of that."
* * * * *
The rainy weather soon passed, and with the return of the sun Darcy
again joined Frank in long rambling days. It grew extraordinarily
hotter, and with the fresh bursting of life, after the rain, Frank's
vitality seemed to blaze higher and higher. Then, as is the habit of
the English weather, one evening clouds began to bank themselves up in
the west, the sun went down in a glare of coppery thunder-rack, and the
whole earth broiling under an unspeakable oppression and sultriness
paused and panted for the storm. After sunset the remote fires of
lightning began to wink and flicker on the horizon, but when bed-time
came the storm seemed to have moved no nearer, though a very low
unceasing noise of thunder was audible. Weary and oppressed by the
stress of the day, Darcy fell at once into a heavy uncomforting sleep.
He woke suddenly into full consciousness, with the din of some
appalling explosion of thunder in his ears, and sat up in bed with
racing heart. Then for a moment, as he recovered himself from the
panic-land which lies between sleeping and waking, there was silence,
except for the steady hissing of rain on the shrubs outside his window.
But suddenly that silence was shattered and shredded into fragments by
a scream from somewhere close at hand outside in the black garden, a
scream of supreme and despairing terror. Again and once again it
shrilled up, and then a babble of awful words was interjected. A
quivering sobbing voice that he knew, said:
"My God, oh, my God; oh, Christ!"
And then followed a little mocking, bleating laugh. Then was silence
again; only the rain hissed on the shrubs.
All this was but the affair of a moment, and without pause either to
put on clothes or light a candle, Darcy was already fumbling at his
door-handle. Even as he opened it he met a terror-stricken face
outside, that of the man-servant who carried a light.
"Did you hear?" he asked.
The man's face was bleached to a dull shining whiteness.
"Yes, sir," he said. "It was the master's voice."
* * * * *
Together they hurried down the stairs, and through the dining-room
where an orderly table for breakfast had already been laid, and out on
to the terrace. The rain for the moment had been utterly stayed, as if
the tap of the heavens had been turned off, and under the lowering
black sky, not quite dark, since the moon rode somewhere serene behind
the conglomerated thunder-clouds, Darcy stumbled into the garden,
followed by the servant with the candle. The monstrous leaping shadow
of himself was cast before him on the lawn; lost and wandering odours
of rose and lily and damp earth were thick about him, but more pungent
was some sharp and acrid smell that suddenly reminded him of a certain
châlet in which he had once taken refuge in the Alps. In the blackness
of the hazy light from the sky, and the vague tossing of the candle
behind him, he saw that the hammock in which Frank so often lay was
tenanted. A gleam of white shirt was there, as if a man sitting up in
it, but across that there was an obscure dark shadow, and as he
approached the acrid odour grew more intense.
He was now only some few yards away, when suddenly the black shadow
seemed to jump into the air, then came down with tappings of hard hoofs
on the brick path that ran down the pergola, and with frolicsome
skippings galloped off into the bushes. When that was gone Darcy could
see quite clearly that a shirted figure sat up in the hammock. For one
moment, from sheer terror of the unseen, he hung on his step, and the
servant joining him they walked together to the hammock.
It was Frank. He was in shirt and trousers only, and he sat up with
braced arms. For one half second he stared at them, his face a mask of
horrible contorted terror. His upper lip was drawn back so that the
gums of the teeth appeared, and his eyes were focused not on the two
who approached him but on something quite close to him; his nostrils
were widely expanded, as if he panted for breath, and terror incarnate
and repulsion and deathly anguish ruled dreadful lines on his smooth
cheeks and forehead. Then even as they looked the body sank backward,
and the ropes of the hammock wheezed and strained.
Darcy lifted him out and carried him indoors. Once he thought there was
a faint convulsive stir of the limbs that lay with so dead a weight in
his arms, but when they got inside there was no trace of life. But the
look of supreme terror and agony of fear had gone from his face, a boy
tired with play but still smiling in his sleep was the burden he laid
on the floor. His eyes closed, and the beautiful mouth lay in smiling
curves, even as when a few mornings ago, in the meadow by the weir, it
had quivered to the music of the unheard melody of Pan's pipes. Then
they looked further.
Frank had come back from his bath before dinner that night in his usual
costume of shirt and trousers only. He had not dressed, and during
dinner, so Darcy remembered, he had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt
to above the elbow. Later, as they sat and talked after dinner on the
close sultriness of the evening, he had unbuttoned the front of his
shirt to let what little breath of wind there was play on his skin. The
sleeves were rolled up now, the front of the shirt was unbuttoned, and
on his arms and on the brown skin of his chest were strange
discolorations which grew momently more clear and defined, till they
saw that the marks were pointed prints, as if caused by the hoofs of
some monstrous goat that had leaped and stamped upon him.
VII
CHAN TOW THE HIGHROB
Chester Bailey Fernald
Before me sits the Chinese--my friend who, when the hurlyburly's done,
spins me out the hours with narratives of ancient Yellowland. His name
is Fuey Fong, and he speaks to me thus:
"Missa Gordon, whatta is Chrisinjin Indevil Shoshiety?"
I explain to him as best a journalist may the purpose of the Society
for Christian Endeavour.
"We', dissa morning I go down to lailload station. Shee vay many
peoples getta on tlain. Assa conductor, 'Whatta is?' Conductor tole me:
'You can't go. You a _heeffen_. Dissa _Chrisinjin_ Indevil Shoshiety.'
"Dissa mek me vay tire. 'Me'ican peoples fink ole China heeffen. Fink
doan' know about Gaw of heffen. Dissa 'Me'icans doan' know whatta is.
China peoples benieve Olemighty Gaw semma lika you."
Fuey endures in meditation several moments. Then he says:
"Missa Gordon, I tay you how about Gaw convert China clilimal?"
"How God converted a Chinese criminal?"
"Yeh. I tay you. Dissa case somma lika dis:
"One tem was China highrob. His nem was Chan Tow. Live by rob on pubnic
highway evely one he can. Dissa highrob live in place call Kan Suh.
We', one tem was merchan', nem Jan Han Sun, getta lich in Kan Suh; say
hisse'f: 'I getta lich; now mus' go home Tsan Ran Foo, shee my de-ah
fadder-mudder-in-'aw an' my de-ah wife.' So med determine to go home
nex' day.
"Kan Suh to Tsan Ran Foo about dousands miles distant, and dissa parts
China no lailload, no canal. So dissa trivveler declude to ride in
horse-carry-chair."
"What is a horse-carry-chair?"
"We', I tay you. Somma lika dis: Two horse--one befront, one inhine.
Two long stick, and carry-chair in minnle. Usa roop somma lika harness.
Dissa way trivvle long distance ole ove' China.
"We', nex' day Missa Jan start out faw Tsan Ran Foo in
horse-carry-chair. Hed big backage of go' an' sivver. Bye-bye--trivvle
long tem--was pass high tree. Up high tree was Chan Tow--dissa
highrob--was vay bad man! Chan Tow up tree to watch to stea' whatta he
can, semma lika vutture."
"Like a _vulture_."
"Like a vutture--big bird--eat dead beas' ole he can.
"Chan Tow look down on load, and shee horse-carry-chair wif Missa Jan
feet stick out. Nen dissa highrob say hisse'f: 'Vay nice feet; lich
man. I go fonnow him. Maybe can stea' from him.' So fonnow 'long Missa
Jan by day, by night, severow day--doan' lose sight ole dissa tem.
Bye-bye Missa Jan was trivvle ole night, and leach hotel early morning.
He tole hotel-kipper: 'You giva me loom. I slip ole day.' Nen tek his
backage go' an' sivver, an' tek to bed wif him. Chan Tow come 'long;
say: 'Giva me loom nex' my de-ah frien' jussa come in horse-carry-chair.'
Hotelkipper look him, an' say, 'Whatta your nem is?' Chan Tow say, 'My
nem Chow Ying Hoo.' Dissa nem, transnate Ingernish, mean Brev Tiger."
"And what does Chan Tow mean?"
"Oh, Chan Tow mean ole semma bad faminy.
"We', dissa highrob slip nex' loom Missa Jan; but no can fine how to
rob him ole dissa tem. Getta vay much disgussion; but nex' day he
fonnow long inhine dissa lich man jussa semma befaw. Somma tem eat at
semma tabuh wif Jan; but Jan getta begin to suspicious, an' ole tem
getta his go' an' sivver unnerneaf him when he shet down to tabuh. Chan
Tow say hisse'f: 'You fink I doan' know how to shucshess to stea' yo'
money. Maybe I big foo' you.'
"We', bye-bye was mont' go by. Dissa merchan' reach his netive sheety.
Firs' he go immedinity to respec' his fadder-mudder-in-'aw, becose his
fadder-mudder dead. Dey vay gnad to shee him--vay denight. Dey assa him
vay many quishuns; but he tole dem: 'I mus' go to my de-ah wife. I not
sheen her so long tem.' Nen he smi' hisse'f, an' tole horse-carry-chair-man
run wif him quick to fine his de-ah wife. When he allive ne' his house,
say to man: 'Goo'-by! I go ressa way on footstep.' Nen go vay quier on
his tiptoe, and lock vay soft at his daw."
Here pauses the Chinese, and looks at me. Shortly he says:
"We'?"
"Well?" I echo.
"We', dissa last tem dissa merchan' Jan Han Sun was sheen annibe!"
"Does the highrob follow him and kill him?"
"No one shee any highrob. No one shee any horse-carry-chair-man. No one
shee any Jan. No maw!
"Nex' morning come fadder-mudder-in-'aw to congratchnate dissa
daughter. Said, 'We vay denight, vay gnad, yo' husban' come home. Where
he is dissa morning? Daughter look vay supp'ise.' Said, 'When you shee
my husban' come home?' Parents said: 'Why, my de-ah daughter, yo'
husban' pass by my daw las' night. We hev vay short convisition
beggedder, an' he say bling home glate many go' an' sivver--mek you
habby. Nen left us come shee you.'
"Nen, vay suddenity, dissa daughter say: 'I fink you ki' my husban', so
you can rob! I hev you arres'.'
"An' she go to magistrate an' mek petition. Say her fadder-mudder to
ki' her husban'. Her fadder-mudder bofe vay indignant; but was putta in
jai'.
"Magistrate examine case, assa many quishuns, search bofe dissa
house--but can't fine who mudder dissa merchan'. Fadder-mudder-in'-aw
say, 'We innocent.' Daughter say, 'You liars!' Her parents med
declaration, 'I doan' hed mudder to any person.' Two mont's go by.
Can't fine who mudder. Nen daughter petition to supere court; say dissa
magistrate doan' know how fine who mudder. Supere court send word, 'You
doan' fine who mudder in six mont's--deglade yo' lank.' Dissa China way
to mek law.
"We', dissa magistrate, whatta he do? Doan' like getta deglade; dissa
spoi' his whole life. Say hisse'f: 'I vay detest to get deglade. Mus'
go mek detectif--fine who mudder.' Nex' day left his court, and go mek
long trivvle--ole dress up like a fortune-tayer."
"Like a fortune-teller?"
"Yeh; fortune-tayer. Vay low common in China. Go roun' wif ole kine bad
peoples.
"Magistrate look jussa somma poh fortune-taye. Nen go on load an'
trivvle--trivvle vay far. Eve'y tem shee a man look lika somma bad man,
try mek frien's wif him. But no can fine who mudder. Long tem
trivvle--'way intehuh China; but no can fine anyone knows about dissa
case. Say hisse'f: 'Pitty soon I getta discoulagement. Two mont's maw
getta deglade, getta disglace! I doan' know I ki' hisse'f!'
"One day was stag' 'long load; getta 'mos' exhaus'. Bofe sides load was
high heels, no house. Kep' on, on; semma heels; semma no house; mus'
lie down in load wifout any subber, wifout any dlink. Dissa magistrate
begin getta desplate. Nen he finks, 'I play to Gaw an' my ancestors.'
So begin play lika diss: 'O Gaw, O my ancestors, givva me res'; givva
me foo'; givva me wadder! Nen I kip on fawever fine who ki' Jan Han
Sun.' Nen magistrate stag' 'long few steps, an' dlop down on big lock.
No _can_ any fudder.
"Pitty soon look roun'; shee litty light shine from winnidow. Dissa was
littyoshantyhouse--vay poh look----"
"Littyoshantyhouse?"
"Litty--ole--shanty--house!
"We', magistrate to lock at daw. Come to daw littyoneddy----"
"Little old what?"
"Litty--ole--neddy!
"Dissa oneddy she was vay ole, vay feeble. He tole her: 'Please,
oneddy, you givva me kunderness let me go slip in yo' house to-night! I
'mos' died. No subber, no wadder--'mos' exhaus'!' Oneddy tole him:
'Walks in; walks in! But you mus' kip vay quier, my de-ah sir; as quier
as can be! My son is dreffel differcut man. His profussion was highrob.
He getta home minnernight; an' you doan' kip quier, I fred he to strike
you!' But magistrate say: 'I too tire' to getta scare'. You nedda me
stay wif you.'
"So oneddy giva him to eat, an' show him to go slip unner tabuh in
katchen. Nen he lie down, an' play once more his ancestors an' Gaw:
'You he'p me oleleddy; I kip plomise. Nou he'p me somma maw--I fine who
mudder.' Nen go slip.
"Bye-bye was dleam 'bout gleen moudens, gleen wadder. Hear' spi'its
say, 'I wi' assist you.' Ole dissa vay good sign. Suddinity was wek up
from his slip, and shaw oneddy stand befaw him--ole in dark. She say:
'My son come home in vay good humours. Say lak mek yo' acquaintenance.'
Dissa tem was minnernight. Magistrate craw' out from unner tabuh, an'
fonnow oneddy in nex' loom. Heah was Chan Tow, dissa highrob. Was fee'
in vay good tempiniment to-night--hedda jus' rob litty gir' her
earlings."
"It made him very happy to have stolen earrings from a little girl?"
"Oh, yeh. Earlings med jay-stone.
"We', Chan Tow he vay denight to shee dissa fortune-tayer. Mek put
hisse'f down to tabuh, eat subbah wif him, an' mek oneddy hop 'long
getta ole bes' was in oshantyhouse. Chan Tow say: 'My de-ah sir, I am
exceediny denight to shee you. We bofe about sem profussions: you
fortune-tayer; I was highrob.' Nen bofe eat, dlink long tem, an' Chan
Tow tay ole about his shucshess in binniziz."
"You mean business?"
"Yeh; binniziz.
"Tay ole about his binniziz. Tay how stea' watch from 'Me'ican
missiolary man. Tay how----"
"How did he steal the watch from the American missionary?"
"We', somma lika dis: Chan Tow was vay stlong man, but vay litty meat
on his boles. One day shee missiolary man come 'long load. Hedda
watch-chain hang out. Chan Tow lie down in load, an' begin kick an'
scleam ole semma sick white woman. Missiolary man was vay sympafy, an'
tole him, 'Whatta is?' Chan Tow say: 'Much vay sick! Much vay sick! You
no he'p me home I getta died! You tekka me home I mek good Chrisinjin
boy!' Missiolary man vay good man; say hisse'f: 'Gaw sen' me dissa man
mek convict to Chrisinjanity. I he'p him!' So tek up Chan Tow in his
arm to tek home. Chan Tow kep' gloan, gloan,--an' ole dissa tem was put
his han' in missiolary his pocket an' stea' dissa watch! Nen Chan Tow
kep' hang on missiolary his neck an' say hisse'f: 'I lika dissa to ride
better I lika to walk. I letta dissa missiolary man ca'y me jusso far
he can.' So missiolary man stag' long tem 'long load, an' kep' sweat,
sweat--semma lika glass ice-wadder; an' Chan Tow kep' gloan semma like
ole barn daw."
"Chan Tow kept groaning like an old barn door, and the missionary man
kept perspiring like a glass of ice-water?"
"Oh, no! Missiolary man sweat. Bye-bye, hedda ca'y dissa highrob two
miles--'way down vanney, 'way up heel. Nen missiolary man lose ole his
breffs, an' begin to gaps. He say, 'Mus' res'; mus' putta you down!'
Chan Tow kep' gloan, an' say: 'You putta me down I doan' know I die.
Mus' getta home!' Missiolary man say: 'Can't he'p--I 'mos' exhaus'.'
Nen dissa highrob jump down vay well, an' say: 'We', I mus' getta home.
I walk ressa way--leave you to res'. Goo'-by!' Nen run fas' he can down
dissa heel.
"Missiolary man stay look him run, an' kep' fink ole tem. Nen say
hisse'f: 'I fink dissa man inshinsherity. I lose ole dissa tem wif him!
Whatta tem it is?' Nen he search his watch. 'Oh, my! No watch; no
convict! Dissa vay bad day!"
The Chinese grins with the greatest pleasure.
"We', magistrate an' highrob kep' tay ole 'bout expelunces in
binniziz."
"_Business!_"
"Yeh; _binniziz_.
"Kep' tay ole about binniziz. Bye-bye pea-oil light go out. Oneddy
craw' up on bed an' go slip. Nen two men stay an' smoke pipe--ole dark.
Magistrate closs his legs an' say, ole lika he doan' care: 'Missa
Highrob, dissa light go out mek me remin' whatta habben Tsan Ran Foo.
You heard about dissa case? Man nem Jan Han Sun go home his wife--no
can fine who mudder.' Chan Tow smi' vay plou',[1] an' say: 'Oh, my
de-ah brudder, I know ole 'bout dissa case. I was to shee dissa man
getta ki' in his own houses.'
[1] Proud.
"Magistrate dlaw glate big breff frough his pipe. Swallow smoke clea'
down his stomach! Mek big cough--nearny cough his top head off!--an'
wek oneddy! Nen he say: 'We', we'! You good dea' maw wise dissa
magistrate Tsan Ran Foo. I hea' he was deglade his rank. Cannot fine
who mudder!'
"Chan Tow say: 'Dissa magistrate mus' come fine me. No one ess can tay
him. I tay you ole about dissa mudder. You lika hea'?' Magistrate say:
'We', I vay tire'. But lika hea' you talk better I lika go slip, my
de-ah sir!' Dissa mek highrob vay plou', an' he begin lika dis:
"'One day shaw horse-carry-chair trivvle 'long load. Shaw feet stick
out--vay nice feet; mus' be lich man. So fonnow him. He hev big backage
go' an' sivver, but eve'y tem go subbah mus' oleways shet hisse'f on
top dissa backage. Fonnow him long tem--severow weeks. But cannot stea'
from him. Bye-bye he reach his home Tsan Ran Foo, an' go to respec' his
mudder-fadder-in-'aw; nen go fine his wife. Dissa tem was
minnernight--vay dark. Fink was good tem to stea' from him, an' getta
his go' an' sivver. So kep' fonnow 'long load. When he getta his house
he lock long tem at his daw, but was no answer. Nen say, vay loud:
"De-ah wife, letta me in! I am yo' de-ah husban' come home." So bye-bye
was daw open, an' his wife come say: "O my de-ah husban'! so denight to
shee you!" Nen ole dark.
"'Nen I go roun' back his house. Getta long bamboo po', an' putta dissa
po' up 'gainst house to shin up dissa loof. Nen cut with knife a litty
roun' ho' frough loof, an' look down into dissa house. Can look down
into loom, an' shee ole whatta was habben.
"'Vay soon Jan examine tabuh; say: "O my de-ah wife, whatta faw you
setta dissa tabuh for two peoples? You have compaly?" Wife say: "O my
de-ah husban', eve'y tem since you go 'way I setta dissa tabuh faw two
peoples--you and me--jussa semma you heah!" Jan smi' vay plou,' an'
say, "You are shinsherny[2] my de-ah wife!"--was mak fee' vay good.
[2] Sincerely.
"'Nen his wife tole him: "Now we hev jubinee; eat, dlink--mek me'y
tem!" So I lie on top dissa loof, vay dly, vay hunger; an' ole tem shee
her husban' eat subbah an' kip dlink, dlink, an' kiss his wife, an'
dlink, an' getta maw an' maw intoshcate. Bye-bye was so intoshcate mus'
go slip. Nen his wife he'p him go bed, an' he begin snow.'"
"How's that?"
"Begin snow--snowul--snole! Begin snole!"
"It began to snow?"
"On, no; I tay you. Dissa merchan' begin mekka lika dis." Fuey makes a
sound that is unmistakable.
"'We', nen look shee whatta dissa woman go do. She go to hooks on wa',
an' tek down lot her dresses. Nen I shee man step out. Dissa woman
whisper to him: "Shee my husban' slip. He bling back glate many go' and
sivver! You love me, you tekka dissa sharp knife and ki' him. Nen we
getta marry begedder to-morrow, an' mek habby tem."
"'Her beau say: "Oh, no. I fred ki' him. Fred I get behead." An' nen
dissa woman getta vay mad wif him, an' say: "You doan' ki' him, I tekka
dissa knife an' chot op yo' head op, instamentty!" Nen he begin tek off
his mine----'"
"Took off his mind?"
"Yeh," says Fuey; "I do' know dissa word--semma you tek off yo' clo's."
"Changed his mind?"
"Yeh."
"'Begin to tek off--chenge his mine--an' say: "How I ki' him?" Woman
say: "You tekka dissa sharp knife."
"'Nen he clep up to dissa bed, his eye ole stick from his head. When he
getta where dissa mer-out chan' slip, an' snow, snow, ole semma hev
good dleam, dissa beau mek like was to chenge his mine 'gain; but dissa
woman whisper: "Quick! Quick!"--an' nen ole sudden dissa beau stlike.
Nen Jan Han Sun was died--instamentty!
"'Dissa woman begin rip up flaw. Her beau he'p her ole he can, an' work
vay hard, fas'--fred somebody come. Kep' look roun'. An' eve'y tem
pea-oil light flicker, look roun' to shee who was. Ole tem stop to hol'
his ear on flaw--shee who come. Flaw rip up; nen go getta shover an'
dig long ho' in earf, unnerneaf dissa bed. Nen vay quick shover back
ole dissa earf, fix flaw, an' blow out light.
"'Ole tem I stay up dissa loof. Vay hunger--no wadder; an' cannot rob
dissa merchan' becose he dead! Getta vay disgussion. Light go out, I
hang foot over' side dissa loof, an' begin fink. Maw I fink, maw getta
disgussion. Bye-bye getta _vay, vay_ disgussion. Nen tek dissa bamboo
po' to shove frough dissa ho' in loof--vay quier. When he shove frough,
nen I ole suddenity begin push, jab, shove--quick--ole semma churn
budder. Down below woman an' her beau begin squea', squea', ole semma
rat! 'Most scare' to def! Nen I shin down loof--run 'way.'"
Fuey draws a long breath, and smiles at me his calm, celestial smile.
"We', Chan Tow finis' his sto'y. Magistrate was ole tem smoke big
clou's smoke, an' mek loom look lika was on fire. Mek oneddy wek up an'
open daw. When Chan Tow finis', magistrate say: 'My de-ah brudder de
highrob, yo' sto'y vay intinesse, vay intinesse! I fink I go slip.' So
ole thlee was lie down to go slip, an' Chan Tow was tek his op' pipe
an' begin smoke opi'. Whatta you say--hurt de pipe?"
"Hit the pipe."
"Oh, yeh; hit pipe. I doan' spe'k Ingernish vay we'.
"Magistrate wet long tem. Bye-bye oneddy begin to snow, an' nen bye-bye
Chan Tow getta doan' know."
"Chan Tow got _don't know_?"
"Getta ole semma was died. Doan' know."
"Unconscious?"
"Yeh; uh-uh-coshious!" sneezes Fuey.
"Nen magistrate begin craw' 'long on his stoamch--inchy--inchy--cross
flaw--out daw. Nen run fas' he can towards Tsan Ran Foo.
"One mont' go by, an' magistrate sit up in his high chair in his court.
Befron him dissa woman an' her beau,--ole cover wif mark dissa bamboo
po',--an' dissa fadder-mudder-in-'aw, an' dissa highrob. Magistrate
say, vay slow--ole semma idol talk: '_Dissa--woman--her lover--are
convert--to behead--by hev dey heads cut off--till dey dead!_ What you
fink, woman?' Woman say: 'Yo' Excennency, I vay gnad to be behead wif
my de-ah lover. I vay satisfaction we behead begedder. Our spi'its
begedder habby fo'ever.' Nen she turn kiss her beau; but he too scare
to spe'k. An' bofe was tek out to behead--dissa woman ole tem to mek to
kiss her beau.
"Magistrate say to highrob: 'You know me? Who eata subbah wif you
sucha-sucha night?' Chan Tow say, 'O yo' Excennency, I doan' know who
was!' Magistrate say: 'I was dissa man. I glate t'anks faw you. Awso
dissa fadder-mudder-in-'aw dissa dead man. Gaw sen' me to yo' house to
mek you instlument to convert dissa mudderers. I give you good
position; awso money."
"And that was how these criminals were _converted_?" I say, remembering
the promise of the story.
"Yeh; convert to behead. Dissa case," concluded Fuey, "show how Gaw can
convert cliliman when he wish; show how Gaw is glate. I tay you China
peoples not heeffen. China 'ligion teach to try to affection one
anudder; respec' yo' parents; an' charity an' pure moral. If people do
right I fink he shall be saved."
VIII
THE INMOST LIGHT
Arthur Machen
I
One evening in autumn, when the deformities of London were veiled in
faint, blue mist and its vistas and far-reaching streets seemed
splendid, Mr. Charles Salisbury was slowly pacing down Rupert Street,
drawing nearer to his favourite restaurant by slow degrees. His eyes
were downcast in study of the pavement, and thus it was that as he
passed in at the narrow door a man who had come up from the lower end
of the street jostled against him.
"I beg your pardon--wasn't looking where I was going. Why, it's Dyson!"
"Yes, quite so. How are you, Salisbury?"
"Quite well. But where have you been, Dyson? I don't think I can have
seen you for the last five years."
"No; I dare say not. You remember I was getting rather hard up when you
came to my place at Charlotte Street?"
"Perfectly. I think I remember your telling me that you owed five
weeks' rent, and that you had parted with your watch for a
comparatively small sum."
"My dear Salisbury, your memory is admirable. Yes, I was hard up. But
the curious thing is that soon after you saw me I became harder up. My
financial state was described by a friend as 'stone broke.' I don't
approve of slang, mind you, but such was my condition. But suppose we
go in; there might be other people who would like to dine--it's a human
weakness, Salisbury."
"Certainly; come along. I was wondering as I walked down whether the
corner table were taken. It has a velvet back, you know."
"I know the spot; it's vacant. Yes, as I was saying, I became even
harder up."
"What did you do then?" asked Salisbury, disposing of his hat, and
settling down in the corner of the seat, with a glance of fond
anticipation at the _menu_.
"What did I do? Why, I sat down and reflected. I had a good classical
education, and a positive distaste for business of any kind; that was
the capital with which I faced the world. Do you know, I have heard
people describe olives as nasty! What lamentable philistinism! I have
often thought, Salisbury, that I could write genuine poetry under the
influence of olives and red wine. Let us have Chianti; it may not be
very good, but the flasks are simply charming."
"It is pretty good here. We may as well have a big flask."
"Very good. I reflected, then, on my want of prospects, and I
determined to embark in literature."
"Really, that was strange. You seem in pretty comfortable
circumstances, though."
"Though! What a satire upon a noble profession. I am afraid, Salisbury,
you haven't a proper idea of the dignity of an artist. You see me
sitting at my desk,--or at least you can see me if you care to
call,--with pen and ink, and simple nothingness before me, and if you
come again in a few hours you will (in all probability) find a
creation!"
"Yes, quite so. I had an idea that literature was not remunerative."
"You are mistaken; its rewards are great. I may mention, by the way,
that shortly after you saw me I succeeded to a small income. An uncle
died, and proved unexpectedly generous."
"Ah, I see. That must have been convenient."
"It was pleasant,--undeniably pleasant. I have always considered it in
the light of an endowment of my researches. I told you I was a man of
letters; it would, perhaps, be more correct to describe myself as a man
of science."
"Dear me, Dyson, you have really changed very much in the last few
years. I had a notion, don't you know, that you were a sort of idler
about town, the kind of man one might meet on the north side of
Piccadilly every day from May to July."
"Exactly. I was even then forming myself, though all unconsciously. You
know my poor father could not afford to send me to the university. I
used to grumble in my ignorance at not having completed my education.
That was the folly of youth, Salisbury; my university was Piccadilly.
There I began to study the great science which still occupies me."
"What science do you mean?"
"The science of the great city; the physiology of London; literally and
metaphysically the greatest subject that the mind of man can conceive.
What an admirable _salmi_ this is; undoubtedly the final end of the
pheasant. Yes, I feel sometimes positively overwhelmed with the thought
of the vastness and complexity of London. Paris a man may get to
understand thoroughly with a reasonable amount of study; but London is
always a mystery. In Paris you may say, 'Here live the actresses, here
the Bohemians, and the _Ratés_;' but it is different in London. You may
point out a street, correctly enough, as the abode of washerwomen; but,
in that second floor, a man may be studying Chaldee roots, and in the
garret over the way a forgotten artist is dying by inches."
"I see you are Dyson, unchanged and unchangeable," said Salisbury,
slowly sipping his Chianti. "I think you are misled by a too fervid
imagination; the mystery of London exists only in your fancy. It seems
to me a dull place enough. We seldom hear of a really artistic crime in
London, whereas I believe Paris abounds in that sort of thing."
"Give me some more wine. Thanks. You are mistaken, my dear fellow, you
are really mistaken. London has nothing to be ashamed of in the way of
crime. Where we fail is for want of Homers, not Agamemnons. _Carent
quia vale sacro_, you know."
"I recall the quotation. But I don't think I quite follow you."
"Well, in plain language, we have no good writers in London who make a
specialty of that kind of thing. Our common reporter is a dull dog;
every story that he has to tell is spoilt in the telling. His idea of
horror and of what excites horror is so lamentably deficient. Nothing
will content the fellow but blood, vulgar red blood, and when he can
get it he lays it on thick, and considers that he has produced a
telling story. It's a poor notion. And, by some curious fatality, it is
the most commonplace and brutal murders which always attract the most
attention and get written up the most. For instance, I dare say that
you never heard of the Harlesden case?"
"No, no; I don't remember anything about it."
"Of course not. And yet the story is a curious one. I will tell it you
over our coffee. Harlesden, you know, or I expect you don't know, is
quite on the out-quarters of London; something curiously different from
your fine old crusted suburb like Norwood or Hampstead, different as
each of these is from the other. Hampstead, I mean, is where you look
for the head of your great China house with his three acres of land and
pine houses, though of late there is the artistic substratum; while
Norwood is the home of the prosperous middle-class family who took the
house 'because it was near the Palace,' and sickened of the Palace six
months afterwards; but Harlesden is a place of no character. It's too
new to have any character as yet. There are the rows of red houses and
the rows of white houses and the bright green venetians, and the
blistering doorways, and the little back-yards they call gardens, and a
few feeble shops, and then, just as you think you're going to grasp the
physiognomy of the settlement it all melts away."
"How the dickens is that? The houses don't tumble down before one's
eyes I suppose."
"Well, no, not exactly that. But Harlesden as an entity disappears.
Your street turns into a quiet lane, and your staring houses into elm
trees, and the back gardens into green meadows. You pass instantly from
town to country; there is no transition as in a small country town, no
soft gradations of wider lawns and orchards, with houses gradually
becoming less dense, but a dead stop. I believe the people who live
there mostly go into the city. I have seen once or twice a laden 'bus
bound thitherwards. But however that may be, I can't conceive a greater
loneliness in a desert at midnight than there is there at midday. It is
like a city of the dead; the streets are glaring and desolate, and as
you pass it suddenly strikes you that this, too, is part of London.
Well, a year or two ago there was a doctor living there; he had set up
his brass plate and his red lamp at the very end of one of those
shining streets, and from the back of the house the fields stretched
away to the north. I don't know what his reason was in settling down in
such an out-of-the-way place, perhaps Dr. Black, as we will call him,
was a far-seeing man and looked ahead. His relations, so it appeared
afterwards, had lost sight of him for many years and didn't even know
he was a doctor, much less where he lived. However, there he was,
settled in Harlesden, with some fragments of a practice, and an
uncommonly pretty wife. People used to see them walking out together in
the summer evenings soon after they came to Harlesden, and, so far as
could be observed, they seemed a very affectionate couple. These walks
went on through the autumn, and then ceased; but, of course, as the
days grew dark and the weather cold, the lanes near Harlesden might be
expected to lose many of their attractions. All through the winter
nobody saw anything of Mrs. Black; the doctor used to reply to his
patients' inquiries that she was a 'little out of sorts, would be
better, no doubt, in the spring.' But the spring came, and the summer,
and no Mrs. Black appeared, and at last people began to rumor and talk
amongst themselves, and all sorts of queer things were said at 'high
teas,' which you may possibly have heard are the only form of
entertainment known in such suburbs. Dr. Black began to surprise some
very odd looks cast in his direction, and the practice, such as it was,
fell off before his eyes. In short, when the neighbours whispered about
the matter, they whispered that Mrs. Black was dead, and that the
doctor had made away with her. But this wasn't the case; Mrs. Black was
seen alive in June. It was a Sunday afternoon, one of those few
exquisite days that an English climate offers, and half London had
strayed out into the fields North, South, East, and West, to smell the
scent of the white May, and to see if the wild roses were yet in
blossom in the hedges. I had gone out myself early in the morning, and
had had a long ramble, and somehow or other, as I was steering
homeward, I found myself in this very Harlesden we have been talking
about. To be exact, I had a glass of beer in the 'General Gordon,' the
most flourishing house in the neighbourhood, and as I was wandering
rather aimlessly about I saw an uncommonly tempting gap in a hedgerow,
and resolved to explore the meadow beyond. Soft grass is very grateful
to the feet after the infernal grit strewn on suburban sidewalks, and
after walking about for some time, I thought I should like to sit down
on a bank and have a smoke. While I was getting out my pouch, I looked
up in the direction of the houses, and as I looked I felt my breath
caught back, and my teeth began to chatter, and the stick I had in one
hand snapped in two with the grip I gave it. It was as if I had had an
electric current down my spine, and yet for some moment of time which
seemed long, but which must have been very short, I caught myself
wondering what on earth was the matter. Then I knew what had made my
very heart shudder and my bones grind together in an agony. As I
glanced up I had looked straight towards the last house in the row
before me, and in an upper window of that house I had seen for some
short fraction of a second a face. It was the face of a woman, and yet
it was not human. You and I, Salisbury, have heard in our time, as we
sat in our seats in church in sober English fashion, of a lust that
cannot be satiated, and of a fire that is unquenchable, but few of us
have any notion what these words mean. I hope you never may, for as I
saw that face at the window, with the blue sky above me and the warm
air playing in gusts about me, I knew I had looked into another
world--looked through the window of a commonplace, brand-new house, and
seen hell open before me. When the first shock was over, I thought once
or twice that I should have fainted; my face streamed with a cold
sweat, and my breath came and went in sobs, as if I had been half
drowned. I managed to get up at last, and walked round to the street,
and there I saw the name Dr. Black on the post by the front gate. As
fate or my luck would have it, the door opened and a man came down the
steps as I passed by. I had no doubt it was the doctor himself. He was
of a type rather common in London,--long and thin with a pasty face and
a dull black moustache. He gave me a look as we passed each other on
the pavement, and though it was merely the casual glance which one
foot-passenger bestows on another, I felt convinced in my mind that
here was an ugly customer to deal with. As you may imagine I went my
way a good deal puzzled and horrified, too, by what I had seen; for I
had paid another visit to the 'General Gordon,' and had got together a
good deal of the common gossip of the place about the Blacks. I didn't
mention the fact that I had seen a woman's face in the window; but I
heard that Mrs. Black had been much admired for her beautiful golden
hair, and round what had struck me with such a nameless terror there
was a mist of flowing yellow hair, as it were an aureole of glory round
the visage of a satyr. The whole thing bothered me in an indescribable
manner; and when I got home I tried my best to think of the impression
I had received as an illusion, but it was no use. I knew very well I
had seen what I have tried to describe to you, and I was morally
certain that I had seen Mrs. Black. And then there was the gossip of
the place, the suspicion of foul play, which I knew to be false, and my
own conviction that there was some deadly mischief or other going on in
that bright red house at the corner of the Devon Road,--how to
construct a theory of a reasonable kind out of these two elements. In
short, I found myself in a world of mystery; I puzzled my head over it
and filled up my leisure moments by gathering together odd threads of
speculation, but I never moved a step toward any real solution, and as
the summer days went on the matter seemed to grown misty and
indistinct, shadowing some vague terror, like a nightmare of last
month. I suppose it would before long have faded into the background of
my brain--I should not have forgotten it, for such a thing could never
be forgotten--but one morning as I was looking over the paper my eye
was caught by a heading over some two dozen lines of small type. The
words I had seen were simply, 'The Harlesden Case,' and I knew what I
was going to read. Mrs. Black was dead. Black had called in another
medical man to certify as to cause of death, and something or other had
aroused the strange doctor's suspicions, and there had been an inquest
and _post-mortem_. And the result? That, I will confess, did astonish
me considerably; it was the triumph of the unexpected. The two doctors
who made the autopsy were obliged to confess that they could not
discover the faintest trace of any kind of foul play; their most
exquisite tests and reagents failed to detect the presence of poison in
the most infinitesimal quantity. Death, they found, had been caused by
a somewhat obscure and scientifically interesting form of brain
disease. The tissue of the brain and the molecules of the gray matter
had undergone a most extraordinary series of changes; and the younger
of the two doctors, who has some reputation, I believe, as a specialist
in brain trouble, made some remarks in giving his evidence, which
struck me deeply at the time, though I did not then grasp their full
significance. He said: 'At the commencement of the examination I was
astonished to find appearances of a character entirely new to me,
notwithstanding my somewhat large experience. I need not specify these
appearances at present; it will be sufficient for me to state that as I
proceeded in my task I could scarcely believe that the brain before me
was that of a human being at all.' There was some surprise at this
statement, as you may imagine, and the coroner asked the doctor if he
meant to say that the brain resembled that of an animal. 'No,' he
replied, 'I should not put it in that way. Some of the appearances I
noticed seemed to point in that direction, but others, and these were
the more surprising, indicated a nervous organization of a wholly
different character to that either of man or of the lower animals.' It
was a curious thing to say, but of course the jury brought in a verdict
of death from natural causes, and, so far as the public was concerned,
the case came to an end. But after I had read what the doctor said, I
made up my mind that I should like to know a good deal more, and I set
to work on what seemed likely to prove an interesting investigation. I
had really a good deal of trouble, but I was successful in a measure.
Though--why, my dear fellow, I had no notion of the time. Are you aware
that we have been here nearly four hours? The waiters are staring at
us. Let's have the bill and be gone."
The two men went out in silence, and stood a moment in the cool air,
watching the hurrying traffic of Coventry Street pass before them to
the accompaniment of ringing bells of hansoms and the cries of the
newsboys, the deep far murmur of London surging up ever and again from
beneath these louder noises.
"It is a strange case, isn't it?" said Dyson, at length. "What do you
think of it?"
"My dear fellow, I haven't heard the end, so I will reserve my opinion.
When will you give me the sequel?"
"Come to my rooms some evening; say next Thursday. Here's the address.
Good-night; I want to get down to the Strand."
Dyson hailed a passing hansom, and Salisbury turned northward to walk
home to his lodgings.
II
Mr. Salisbury, as may have been gathered from the few remarks which he
had found it possible to introduce in the course of the evening, was a
young gentleman of a peculiarly solid form of intellect, coy and
retiring before the mysterious and the uncommon, with a constitutional
dislike of paradox. During the restaurant dinner he had been forced to
listen in almost absolute silence to a strange tissue of
improbabilities strung together with the ingenuity of a born meddler in
plots and mysteries, and it was with a feeling of weariness that he
crossed Shaftesbury Avenue, and dived into the recesses of Soho, for
his lodgings were in a modest neighbourhood to the north of Oxford
Street. As he walked he speculated on the probable fate of Dyson,
relying on literature unbefriended by a thoughtful relative; and could
not help concluding that so much subtlety united to a too vivid
imagination would in all likelihood have been rewarded with a pair of
Sandwich-boards or a super's banner. Absorbed in this train of thought,
and admiring the perverse dexterity which could transmute the face of a
sickly woman and a case of brain disease into the crude elements of
romance, Salisbury strayed on through the dimly lighted streets, not
noticing the gusty wind which drove sharply round corners and whirled
the stray rubbish of the pavement into the air in eddies, while black
clouds gathered over the sickly yellow moon. Even a stray drop or two
of rain blown into his face did not rouse him from his meditations, and
it was only when with a sudden rush the storm tore down upon the street
that he began to consider the expediency of finding some shelter. The
rain, driven by the wind, pelted down with the violence of a
thunder-storm, dashing up from the stones and hissing through the air,
and soon a perfect torrent of water coursed along the kennels and
accumulated in pools over the choked-up drains. The few stray
passengers who had been loafing rather than walking about the street,
had scuttered away like frightened rabbits to some invisible places of
refuge, and though Salisbury whistled loud and long for a hansom, no
hansom appeared. He looked about him, as if to discover how far he
might be from the haven of Oxford Street; but strolling carelessly
along he had turned out of his way, and found himself in an unknown
region, and one to all appearance devoid even of a public-house where
shelter could be bought for the modest sum of twopence. The street
lamps were few and at long intervals, and burned behind grimy glasses
with the sickly light of oil lamps, and by this wavering light
Salisbury could make out the shadowy and vast old houses of which the
street was composed. As he passed along, hurrying, and shrinking from
the full sweep of the rain, he noticed the innumerable bell-handles,
with names that seemed about to vanish of old age graven on brass
plates beneath them, and here and there a richly carved pent-house
overhung the door, blackening with the grime of fifty years. The storm
seemed to grow more and more furious; he was wet through, and a new hat
had become a ruin, and still Oxford Street seemed as far off as ever.
It was with deep relief that the dripping man caught sight of a dark
archway which seemed to promise shelter from the rain if not from the
wind. Salisbury took up his position in the dryest corner and looked
about him; he was standing in a kind of passage contrived under part of
a house, and behind him stretched a narrow footway leading between
blank walls to regions unknown. He had stood there for some time,
vainly endeavouring to rid himself of some of his superfluous moisture,
and listening for the passing wheel of a hansom, when his attention was
aroused by a loud noise coming from the direction of the passage
behind, and growing louder as it drew nearer. In a couple of minutes he
could make out the shrill, raucous voice of a woman, threatening and
denouncing and making the very stones echo with her accents, while now
and then a man grumbled and expostulated. Though to all appearance
devoid of romance, Salisbury had some relish for street rows, and was,
indeed, somewhat of an amateur in the more amusing phases of
drunkenness; he therefore composed himself to listen and observe with
something of the air of a subscriber to grand opera. To his annoyance,
however, the tempest seemed suddenly to be composed, and he could hear
nothing but the impatient steps of the woman and the slow lurch of the
man as they came toward him. Keeping back in the shadow of the wall, he
could see the two drawing nearer; the man was evidently drunk, and had
much ado to avoid frequent collision with the wall as he tacked across
from one side to the other, like some bark beating up against a wind.
The woman was looking straight in front of her, with tears streaming
from her eyes, but suddenly as they went by, the flame blazed up again,
and she burst forth into a torrent of abuse, facing round upon her
companion.
"You low rascal! You mean, contemptible cur!" she went on, after an
incoherent storm of curses: "You think I'm to work and slave for you
always, I suppose, while you're after that Green Street girl and
drinking every penny you've got. But you're mistaken, Sam,--indeed,
I'll bear it no longer. Damn you, you dirty thief, I've done with you
and your master too, so you can go your own errands, and I only hope
they'll get you into trouble."
The woman tore at the bosom of her dress, and taking something out that
looked like paper, crumpled it up and flung it away. It fell at
Salisbury's feet. She ran out and disappeared in the darkness, while
the man lurched slowly into the street, grumbling indistinctly to
himself in a perplexed tone of voice. Salisbury looked out after him,
and saw him maundering along the pavement, halting now and then and
swaying indecisively, and then starting off at some fresh tangent. The
sky had cleared, and white fleecy clouds were fleeting across the moon,
high in the heaven. The light came and went by turns as the clouds
passed by, and, turning round as the clear white rays shone into the
passage, Salisbury saw the little ball of crumpled paper which the
woman had cast down. Oddly curious to know what it might contain, he
picked it up and put it in his pocket, and set out afresh on his
journey.
III
Salisbury was a man of habit. When he got home, drenched to the skin,
his clothes hanging lank about him, and a ghastly dew besmearing his
hat, his only thought was of his health, of which he took studious
care. So, after changing his clothes and encasing himself in a warm
dressing-gown he proceeded to prepare a sudorific in the shape of hot
gin and water, warming the latter over one of those spirit lamps which
mitigate the austerities of the modern hermit's life. By the time this
preparation had been imbibed, and Salisbury's disturbed feelings had
been soothed by a pipe of tobacco, he was able to get into bed in a
happy state of vacuity, without a thought of his adventure in the dark
archway, or of the weird fancies with which Dyson had seasoned his
dinner. It was the same at breakfast the next morning, for Salisbury
made a point of not thinking of anything until that meal was over; but
when the cup and saucer were cleared away, and the morning pipe was
lit, he remembered the little ball of paper, and began fumbling in the
pockets of his wet coat. He did not remember into which pocket he had
put it, and as he dived now into one, and now into another, he
experienced a strange feeling of apprehension lest it should not be
there at all, though he could not for the life of him have explained
the importance he attached to what was in all probability mere rubbish.
But he sighed with relief when his fingers touched the crumpled surface
in an inside pocket, and he drew it out gently and laid it on the
little desk by his easy chair with as much care as if it had been some
rare jewel. Salisbury sat smoking and staring at his find for a few
minutes, an odd temptation to throw the thing in the fire and have done
with it struggling with as odd a speculation as to its possible
contents and as to the reason why the infuriated woman should have
flung a bit of paper from her with such vehemence. As might be
expected, it was the latter feeling that conquered in the end, and yet
it was with something like repugnance that he at last took the paper
and unrolled it, and laid it out before him. It was a piece of common
dirty paper, to all appearance torn out of a cheap exercise book, and
in the middle were a few lines written in a queer cramped hand.
Salisbury bent his head and stared eagerly at it for a moment, drawing
a long breath, and then fell back in his chair gazing blankly before
him, till at last with a sudden revulsion he burst into a peal of
laughter, so long and loud and uproarious that the landlady's baby in
the floor below awoke from sleep and echoed his mirth with hideous
yells. But he laughed again and again, and took up the paper to read a
second time what seemed such meaningless nonsense.
"Q. has had to go and see his friends in Paris," it began. "Traverse
Handel S. 'Once around the grass, and twice around the lass, and thrice
around the maple tree.'"
Salisbury took up the paper and crumpled it as the angry woman had
done, and aimed it at the fire. He did not throw it there, however, but
tossed it carelessly into the well of the desk, and laughed again. The
sheer folly of the thing offended him, and he was ashamed of his own
eager speculation, as one who pores over the high-sounding
announcements in the agony column of the daily paper, and finds nothing
but advertisement and triviality. He walked to the window, and stared
out at the languid morning life of his quarter; the maids in slatternly
print-dresses washing door-steps, the fishmonger and the butcher on
their rounds, and the tradesmen standing at the doors of their small
shops, drooping for lack of trade and excitement. In the distance a
blue haze gave some grandeur to the prospect, but the view as a whole
was depressing, and would have only interested a student of the life of
London, who finds something rare and choice in its every aspect.
Salisbury turned away in disgust, and settled himself in the easy
chair, upholstered in a bright shade of green, and decked with yellow
gimp, which was the pride and attraction of the apartments. Here he
composed himself to his morning's occupation, the perusal of a novel
that dealt with sport and love in a manner that suggested the
collaboration of a stud-groom and a ladies' college. In an ordinary
way, however, Salisbury would have been carried on by the interest of
the story up to lunch time, but this morning he fidgeted in and out of
his chair, took the book up and laid it down again, and swore at last
to himself and at himself in mere irritation. In point of fact the
jingle of the paper found in the archway had "got into his head," and
do what he would he could not help muttering over and over, "Once
around the grass, and twice around the lass, and thrice around the
maple tree." It became a positive pain, like the foolish burden of a
music-hall song, everlastingly quoted, and sung at all hours of the day
and night, and treasured by the street boys as an unfailing resource
for six months together. He went out into the streets, and tried to
forget his enemy in the jostling of the crowds, and the roar and
clatter of the traffic; but presently he would find himself stealing
quietly aside and pacing some deserted byway, vainly puzzling his
brains, and trying to fix some meaning to phrases that were
meaningless. It was a positive relief when Thursday came, and he
remembered that he had made an appointment to go and see Dyson; the
flimsy reveries of the self-styled man of letters appeared entertaining
when compared with this ceaseless iteration, this maze of thought from
which there seemed no possibility of escape. Dyson's abode was in one
of the quietest of the quiet streets that lead down from the Strand to
the river, and when Salisbury passed from the narrow stairway into his
friend's room, he saw that the uncle had been beneficent indeed. The
floor glowed and flamed with all the colours of the east; it was, as
Dyson pompously remarked, "a sunset in a dream," and the lamplight, the
twilight of London streets, was shut out with strangely worked
curtains, glittering here and there with threads of gold. In the
shelves of an oak _armoire_ stood jars and plates of old French china,
and the black and white of etchings not to be found in the Haymarket or
in Bond Street, stood out against the splendour of a Japanese paper.
Salisbury sat down on the settle by the hearth, and sniffed the mingled
fumes of incense and tobacco, wondering and dumb before all this
splendour after the green rep and the oleographs, the gilt-framed
mirror and the lustres of his own apartment.
"I am glad you have come," said Dyson. "Comfortable little room, isn't
it? But you don't look very well, Salisbury. Nothing disagreed with
you, has it?"
"No; but I have been a good deal bothered for the last few days. The
fact is I had an odd kind of--of--adventure, I suppose I may call it,
that night I saw you, and it has worried me a good deal. And the
provoking part of it is that it's the merest nonsense--but, however, I
will tell you all about it, by and by. You were going to let me have
the rest of that odd story you began at the restaurant."
"Yes. But I am afraid, Salisbury, you are incorrigible. You are a slave
to what you call matter of fact. You know perfectly well that in your
heart you think the oddness in that case is of my making, and that it
is all really as plain as the police reports. However, as I have begun,
I will go on. But first we will have something to drink, and you may as
well light your pipe."
Dyson went up to the oak cupboard, and drew from its depths a rotund
bottle and two little glasses quaintly gilded.
"It's Benedictin," he said. "You'll have some, won't you?"
Salisbury assented, and the two men sat sipping and smoking
reflectively for some minutes before Dyson began.
"Let me see," he said at last; "we were at the inquest, weren't we? No,
we had done with that. Ah, I remember. I was telling you that on the
whole I had been successful in my inquiries, investigation, or what
ever you like to call it, into the matter. Wasn't that where I left
off?"
"Yes, that was it. To be precise, I think 'though' was the last word
you said on the matter."
"Exactly. I have been thinking it all over since the other night, and I
have come to the conclusion that that 'though' is a very big 'though'
indeed. Not to put too fine a point on it, I have had to confess that
what I found out, or thought I found out, amounts in reality to
nothing. I am as far away from the heart of the case as ever. However,
I may as well tell you what I do know. You may remember my saying that
I was impressed a good deal by some remarks of one of the doctors who
gave evidence at the inquest. Well, I determined that my first step
must be to try if I could get something more definite and intelligible
out of that doctor. Somehow or other I managed to get an introduction
to the man, and he gave me an appointment to come and see him. He
turned out to be a pleasant, genial fellow; rather young and not in the
least like the typical medical man, and he began the conference by
offering me whiskey and cigars. I didn't think it worth while to beat
about the bush, so I began by saying that part of his evidence at the
Harlesden Inquest struck me as very peculiar, and I gave him the
printed report, with the sentences in question underlined. He just
glanced at the slip, and gave me a queer look. 'It struck you as
peculiar, did it?' said he. 'Well, you must remember the Harlesden case
was very peculiar. In fact, I think I may safely say that in some
features it was unique--quite unique.' 'Quite so,' I replied, 'and
that's exactly why it interests me, and why I want to know more about
it. And I thought that if anybody could give me any information it
would be you. What is your opinion of the matter?'
"It was a pretty downright sort of question, and my doctor looked
rather taken aback.
"'Well,' he said, 'as I fancy your motive in inquiring into the
question must be mere curiosity, I think I may tell you my opinion with
tolerable freedom. So, Mr.--Mr. Dyson, if you want to know my theory,
it is this: I believe that Dr. Black killed his wife.'
"'But the verdict,' I answered, 'the verdict was given from your own
evidence.'
"'Quite so, the verdict was given in accordance with the evidence of my
colleague and myself, and, under the circumstances, I think the jury
acted very sensibly. In fact I don't see what else they could have
done. But I stick to my opinion, mind you, and I say this also: I don't
wonder at Black's doing what I firmly believe he did. I think he was
justified.'
"'Justified! How could that be?' I asked. I was astonished, as you may
imagine, at the answer I had got. The doctor wheeled round his chair,
and looked steadily at me for a moment before he answered.
"'I suppose you are not a man of science yourself? No; then it would be
of no use my going into detail. I have always been firmly opposed
myself to any partnership between physiology and psychology. I believe
that both are bound to suffer. No one recognizes more decidedly than I
do the impassable gulf, the fathomless abyss that separates the world
of consciousness from the sphere of matter. We know that every change
of consciousness is accompanied by a rearrangement of the molecules in
the gray matter; and that is all. What the link between them is, or why
they occur together, we do not know, and most authorities believe that
we never can know. Yet, I will tell you that as I did my work, the
knife in my hand, I felt convinced, in spite of all theories, that what
lay before me was not the brain of a dead woman; not the brain of a
human being at all. Of course I saw the face; but it was quite placid,
devoid of all expression. It must have been a beautiful face, no doubt;
but I can honestly say that I would not have looked in that face when
there was life behind it for a thousand guineas, no, nor for twice that
sum.'
"'My dear sir,' I said, 'you surprise me extremely. You say that it was
not the brain of a human being. What was it then?'
"'The brain of a devil.' He spoke quite coolly, and never moved a
muscle. 'The brain of a devil,' he repeated, 'and I have no doubt that
Black put a pillow over her mouth and kept it there for a few minutes.
I don't blame him if he did. Whatever Mrs. Black was, she was not fit
to stay in this world. Will you have anything more? No? Good-night,
good-night.'
"It was a queer sort of opinion to get from a man of science, wasn't
it? When he was saying that he would not have looked on that face when
alive for a thousand guineas or two thousand guineas, I was thinking of
the face I had seen, but I said nothing. I went again to Harlesden, and
passed from one shop to another, making small purchases, and trying to
find out whether there was anything about the Blacks which was not
already common property; but there was very little to hear. One of the
tradesmen to whom I spoke said he had known the dead woman well--she
used to buy of him such quantities of grocery as were required for
their small household, for they never kept a servant, but had a
charwoman in occasionally, and she had not seen Mrs. Black for months
before she died. According to this man, Mrs. Black was 'a nice lady,'
always kind and considerate, so fond of her husband, and he of her, as
everyone thought. And yet, to put the doctor's opinion on one side, I
knew what I had seen. And then, after thinking it all over and putting
one thing with another, it seemed to me that the only person likely to
give me much assistance would be Black himself, and I made up my mind
to find him. Of course he wasn't to be found in Harlesden; he had left,
I was told, directly after the funeral. Everything in the house had
been sold, and one fine day Black got into the train with a small
portmanteau, and went nobody knew where. It was a chance if he were
ever heard of again, and it was by a mere chance that I came across him
at last. I was walking one day along Gray's Inn Road, not bound for
anywhere in particular, but looking about me, as usual, and holding on
to my hat, for it was a gusty day in early March, and the wind was
making the tree-tops in the Inn rock and quiver. I had come up from the
Holborn end, and I had almost got to Theobald's Road, when I noticed a
man walking in front of me, leaning on a stick and to all appearance
very feeble. There was something about his look that made me curious, I
don't know why; and I began to walk briskly, with the idea of
overtaking him, when of a sudden his hat blew off, and came bounding
along the pavement to my feet. Of course I rescued the hat, and gave it
a glance as I went towards its owner. It was a biography in itself; a
Piccadilly maker's name in the inside, but I don't think a beggar would
have picked it out of the gutter. Then I looked up, and saw Dr. Black
of Harlesden waiting for me. A queer thing, wasn't it? But, Salisbury,
what a change! When I saw Dr. Black come down the steps of his house at
Harlesden, he was an upright man, walking firmly with well-built limbs;
a man, I should say, in the prime of his life. And now before me there
crouched this wretched creature, bent and feeble, with shrunken cheeks,
and hair that was whitening fast, and limbs that trembled and shook
together, and misery in his eyes. He thanked me for bringing him his
hat, saying, 'I don't think I should ever have got it, I can't run much
now. A gusty day, sir, isn't it?' and with this he was turning away;
but by little and little I contrived to draw him into the current of
conversation, and we walked together eastward. I think the man would
have been glad to get rid of me, but I didn't intend to let him go, and
he stopped at last in front of a miserable house in a miserable street.
It was, I verily believe, one of the most wretched quarters I have ever
seen,--houses that must have been sordid and hideous enough when new,
that had gathered foulness with every year, and now seemed to lean and
totter to their fall. 'I live up there,' said Black, pointing to the
tiles, 'not in the front,--in the back. I am very quiet there. I won't
ask you to come in now, but perhaps some other day----'
"I caught him up at that, and told him I should be only too glad to
come and see him. He gave me an odd sort of glance, as if he was
wondering what on earth I or anybody else could care about him, and I
left him fumbling with his latch-key. I think you will say I did pretty
well, when I tell you that within a few weeks I had made myself an
intimate friend of Black's. I shall never forget the first time I went
to this room; I hope I shall never see such abject, squalid misery
again. The foul paper, from which all pattern or trace of a pattern had
long vanished, subdued and penetrated with the grime of the evil
street, was hanging in mouldering pennons from the wall. Only at the
end of the room was it possible to stand upright; and the sight of the
wretched bed and the odour of corruption that pervaded the place made
me turn faint and sick. Here I found him munching a piece of bread; he
seemed surprised to find that I had kept my promise, but he gave me his
chair, and sat on the bed while we talked. I used to go and see him
often, and we had long conversations together, but he never mentioned
Harlesden or his wife. I fancy that he supposed me ignorant of the
matter, or thought that if I had heard of it, I should never connect
the respectable Dr. Black of Harlesden with a poor garreteer in the
backwoods of London. He was a strange man, and as we sat together
smoking, I often wondered whether he were mad or sane, for I think the
wildest dreams of Paracelsus and the Rosicrucians would appear plain
and sober fact, compared with the theories I have heard him earnestly
advance in that grimy den of his. I once ventured to hint something of
the sort to him; I suggested that something he had said was in flat
contradiction to all science and all experience. 'No, Dyson,' he
answered, 'not all experience, for mine counts for something. I am no
dealer in unproved theories; what I say I have proved for myself, and
at a terrible cost. There is a region of knowledge of which you will
never know, which wise men, seeing from afar off, shun like the plague,
as well they may; but into that region I have gone. If you knew, if you
could even dream of what may be done, of what one or two men have done,
in this quiet world of ours, your very soul would shudder and faint
within you. What you have heard from me has been but the merest husk
and outer covering of true science,--that science which means death and
that which is more awful than death to those who gain it. No, Dyson,
when men say that there are strange things in the world, they little
know the awe and the terror that dwell always within them and about
them.'"
There was a sort of fascination about the man that drew me to him, and
I was quite sorry to have to leave London for a month or two; I missed
his odd talk. A few days after I came back to town I thought I would go
and look him up; but when I gave the two rings at the bell that used to
summon him, there was no answer. I rang and rang again, and was just
turning to go away, when the door opened and a dirty woman asked me
what I wanted. From her look I fancy she took me for a plain-clothes
officer after one of her lodgers; but when I inquired if Mr. Black was
in, she gave me a stare of another kind. 'There's no Mr. Black lives
here,' she said. 'He's gone. He's dead this six weeks. I always thought
he was a bit queer in his head, or else had been and got into some
trouble or other. He used to go out every morning from ten till one,
and one Monday morning we heard him come in and go into his room and
shut the door, and a few minutes after, just as we was a-sitting down
to our dinner, there was such a scream that I thought I should have
gone right off. And then we heard a stamping, and down he came raging
and cursing most dreadful, swearing he had been robbed of something
that was worth millions. And then he just dropped down in the passage,
and we thought he was dead. We got him up to his room, and put him on
his bed, and I just sat there and waited, while my 'usband he went for
the doctor. And there was the winder wide open, and a little tin box he
had lying on the floor open and empty; but of course nobody could
possible have got in at the winder, and as for him having anything that
was worth anything, it's nonsense, for he was often weeks and weeks
behind with his rent, and my 'usband he threatened often and often to
turn him into the street, for, as he said, we've got a living to myke
like other people, and of course that's true; but somehow I didn't like
to do it, though he was an odd kind of a man, and I fancy had been
better off. And then the doctor came and looked at him, and said as he
couldn't do nothing, and that night he died as I was a-sitting by his
bed; and I can tell you that, with one thing and another, we lost money
by him, for the few bits of clothes as he had were worth next to
nothing when they came to be sold.'
"I gave the woman half a sovereign for her trouble, and went home
thinking of Dr. Black and the epitaph she had made him, and wondering
at his strange fancy that he had been robbed. I take it that he had
very little to fear on that score, poor fellow; but I suppose that he
was really mad, and died in a sudden access of his mania. His landlady
said that once or twice when she had had occasion to go into his room
(to dun the poor wretch for his rent, most likely), he would keep her
at the door for about a minute, and that when she came in she would
find him putting away his tin box in the corner by the window. I
suppose he had become possessed with the idea of some great treasure,
and fancied himself a wealthy man in the midst of all his misery.
"_Explicit_, my tale is ended; and you see that though I knew Black I
know nothing of his wife or of the history of her death. That's the
Harlesden case, Salisbury, and I think it interests me all the more
deeply because there does not seem the shadow of a possibility that I
or anyone else will ever know more about it. What do you think of it?"
"Well, Dyson, I must say that I think you have contrived to surround
the whole thing with a mystery of your own making. I go for the
doctor's solution,--Black murdered his wife, being himself, in all
probability, an undeveloped lunatic."
"What? Do you believe, then, that this woman was something too awful,
too terrible, to be allowed to remain on the earth? You will remember
that the doctor said it was the brain of a devil?"
"Yes, yes; but he was speaking, of course, metaphorically. It's really
quite a simple matter, Dyson, if you only look at it like that."
"Ah, well, you may be right; but yet I am sure you are not. Well, well,
it's no good discussing it anymore. A little more Benedictine? That's
right; try some of this tobacco. Didn't you say that you had been
bothered by something,--something which happened that night we dined
together?"
"Yes, I have been worried, Dyson,--worried a great deal. I--But it's
such a trivial matter, indeed, such an absurdity, that I feel ashamed
to trouble you with it."
"Never mind; let's have it, absurd or not."
With many hesitations, and with much inward resentment of the folly of
the thing, Salisbury told his tale, and repeated reluctantly the absurd
intelligence and the absurder doggerel of the scrap of paper, expecting
to hear Dyson burst out into a roar of laughter.
"Isn't it too bad that I should let myself be bothered by such stuff as
that?" he asked, when he had stuttered out the jingle of once and twice
and thrice.
Dyson had listened to it all gravely, even to the end, and meditated
for a few minutes in silence.
"Yes," he said at length, "it was a curious chance, your taking shelter
in that archway just as those two went by. But I don't know that I
should call what was written on the paper nonsense; it is bizarre
certainly, but I expect it has a meaning for somebody. Just repeat it
again, will you? and I will write it down. Perhaps we might find a
cipher of some sort, though I hardly think we shall."
Again had the reluctant lips of Salisbury to slowly stammer out the
rubbish he abhorred, while Dyson jotted it down on a slip of paper.
"Look over it, will you?" he said, when it was done; "it may be
important that I should have every word in its place. Is that all
right?"
"Yes, that is an accurate copy. But I don't think you will get much out
of it. Depend upon it, it is mere nonsense, a wanton scribble. I must
be going now, Dyson. No, no more; that stuff of yours is pretty strong.
Good-night."
"I suppose you would like to hear from me, if I did find out anything?"
"No, not I; I don't want to hear about the thing again. You may regard
the discovery, if it is one as your own."
"Very well. Good-night."
IV
A good many hours after Salisbury had returned to the company of the
green rep chairs, Dyson still sat at his desk, itself a Japanese
romance, smoking many pipes, and meditating over his friend's story.
The bizarre quality of the inscription which had annoyed Salisbury was
to him an attraction; and now and again he took it up and scanned
thoughtfully what he had written, especially the quaint jingle at the
end. It was a token, a symbol, he decided, and not a cipher; and the
woman who had flung it away was, in all probability, entirely ignorant
of its meaning. She was but the agent of the "Sam" she had abused and
discarded, and he, too, was again the agent of some one
unknown,--possibly of the individual styled Q., who had been forced to
visit his French friends. But what to make of "Traverse Handel S.?"
Here was the root and source of the enigma, and not all the tobacco of
Virginia seemed likely to suggest any clew here. It seemed almost
hopeless; but Dyson regarded himself as the Wellington of mysteries,
and went to bed feeling assured that sooner or later he would hit upon
the right track. For the next few days he was deeply engaged in his
literary labours,--labours which were a profound mystery even to the
most intimate of his friends, who searched the railway bookstalls in
vain for the result of so many hours spent at the Japanese bureau in
company with strong tobacco and black tea. On this occasion Dyson
confined himself to his room for four days, and it was with genuine
relief that he laid down his pen and went out into the streets in quest
of relaxation and fresh air. The gas lamps were being lighted, and the
fifth edition of the evening papers was being howled through the
streets; and Dyson, feeling that he wanted quiet, turned away from the
clamorous Strand, and began to trend away to the northwest. Soon he
found himself in streets that echoed to his foot-steps; and crossing a
broad new throughfare, and verging still to the west, Dyson discovered
that he had penetrated to the depths of Soho. Here again was life; rare
vintages of France and Italy, at prices which seemed contemptibly
small, allured the passer-by; here were cheeses, vast and rich; here
olive oil, and here a grove of Rabelaisian sausages; while in a
neighbouring shop the whole press of Paris appeared to be on sale. In
the middle of the roadway a strange miscellany of nations sauntered to
and fro; for there cab and hansom rarely ventured, and from window over
window the inhabitants looked forth in pleased contemplation of the
scene. Dyson made his way slowly along, mingling with the crowd on the
cobblestones, listening to the queer babel of French and German and
Italian and English, glancing now and again at the shop windows with
their levelled batteries of bottles, and had almost gained the end of
the street, when his attention was arrested by a small shop at the
corner, a vivid contrast to its neighbours. It was the typical shop of
the poor quarter, a shop entirely English. Here were vended tobacco and
sweets, cheap pipes of clay and cherry wood; penny exercise-books and
penholders jostled for precedence with comic songs, and story papers
with appalling cuts showed that romance claimed its place beside the
actualities of the evening paper, the bills of which fluttered at the
doorway. Dyson glanced up at the name above the door, and stood by the
kennel trembling; for a sharp pang, the pang of one who has made a
discovery, had for a moment left him incapable of motion. The name over
the little shop was Travers. Dyson looked up again, this time at the
corner of the wall above the lamp-post, and read, in white letters on a
blue ground, the words "Handel Street, W.C.," and the legend was
repeated in fainter letters just below. He gave a little sigh of
satisfaction, and without more ado walked boldly into the shop, and
stared the fat man who was sitting behind the counter full in the face.
The fellow rose to his feet and returned the stare a little curiously,
and then began in stereotyped phrase,--
"What can I do for you, sir?"
Dyson enjoyed the situation, and a dawning perplexity on the man's
face. He propped his stick carefully against the counter, and leaning
over it, said slowly and impressively:
"Once around the grass, and twice around the lass, and thrice around
the maple-tree."
Dyson had calculated on his words producing an effect, and he was not
disappointed. The vendor of miscellanies gasped, open-mouthed, like a
fish, and steadied himself against the counter. When he spoke, after a
short interval, it was in a hoarse mutter, tremulous and unsteady.
"Would you mind saying that again, sir? I didn't quite catch it."
"My good man, I shall most certainly do nothing of the kind. You heard
what I said perfectly well. You have got a clock in your shop, I see;
an admirable timekeeper I have no doubt. Well, I give you a minute by
your own clock."
The man looked about him in perplexed indecision, and Dyson felt that
it was time to be bold.
"Look here, Travers, the time is nearly up. You have heard of Q., I
think. Remember, I hold your life in my hands. Now!"
Dyson was shocked at the result of his own audacity. The man shrunk and
shrivelled in terror, the sweat poured down a face of ashy white, and
he held up his hands before him.
"Mr. Davies, Mr. Davies, don't say that, don't for Heaven's sake. I
didn't know you at first, I didn't indeed. Good God! Mr. Davies, you
wouldn't ruin me? I'll get it in a moment."
"You had better not lose any more time."
The man slunk piteously out of his shop, and went into a back parlour.
Dyson heard his trembling fingers fumbling with a bunch of keys, and
the creak of an opening box. He came back presently with a small
package neatly tied up in brown paper in his hands, and, still full of
terror, handed it to Dyson.
"I'm glad to be rid of it," he said. "I'll take no more jobs of this
sort."
Dyson took the parcel and his stick, and walked out of the shop with a
nod, turning round as he passed the door. Travers had sunk into his
seat, his face still white with terror, with one hand over his eyes,
and Dyson speculated a good deal as he walked rapidly away as to what
queer chords those could be on which he had played so roughly. He
hailed the first hansom he could see, and drove home, and when he had
lit his hanging lamp, and laid his parcel on the table, he paused for a
moment, wondering on what strange thing the lamplight would soon shine.
He locked his door, and cut the strings, and unfolded the paper layer
after layer, and came at last to a small wooden box, simply but solidly
made. There was no lock, and Dyson had simply to raise the lid, and as
he did so he drew a long breath and started back. The lamp seemed to
glimmer feebly like a single candle, but the whole room blazed with
light--and not with light alone but with a thousand colours, with all
the glories of some painted window; and upon the walls of his room and
on the familiar furniture, the glow flamed back and seemed to flow
again to its source, the little wooden box. For there upon a bed of
soft wool lay the most splendid jewel,--a jewel such as Dyson had never
dreamed of, and within it shone the blue of far skies, and the green of
the sea by the shore, and the red of the ruby, and deep violet rays,
and in the middle of all it seemed aflame as if a fountain of fire rose
up, and fell, and rose again with sparks like stars for drops. Dyson
gave a long deep sigh, and dropped into his chair, and put his hands
over his eyes to think. The jewel was like an opal, but from a long
experience of the shop windows he knew there was no such thing as an
opal one quarter or one eighth of its size. He looked at the stone
again, with a feeling that was almost awe, and placed it gently on the
table under the lamp, and watched the wonderful flame that shone and
sparkled in its centre, and then turned to the box, curious to know
whether it might contain other marvels. He lifted the bed of wool on
which the opal had reclined, and saw beneath, no more jewels, but a
little old pocket-book, worn and shabby with use. Dyson opened it at
the first leaf, and dropped the book again appalled. He had read the
name of the owner, neatly written in blue ink:--
STEVEN BLACK, M.D.,
Oranmore,
Devon Road,
Harlesden.
It was several minutes before Dyson could bring himself to open the
book a second time; he remembered the wretched exile in his garret and
his strange talk, and the memory too of the face he had seen at the
window, and of what the specialist had said surged up in his mind, and
as he held his finger on the cover he shivered, dreading what might be
written within. When at last he held it in his hand, and turned the
pages, he found that the first two leaves were blank, but the third was
covered with clear minute writing, and Dyson began to read with the
light of the opal flaming in his eyes.
V
"Ever since I was a young man," the record began, "I devoted all my
leisure and a good deal of time that ought to have been given to other
studies to the investigation of curious and obscure branches of
knowledge. What are commonly called the pleasures of life had never any
attractions for me, and I lived alone in London, avoiding my
fellow-students, and in my turn avoided by them as a man self-absorbed
and unsympathetic. So long as I could gratify my desire of knowledge of
a peculiar kind, knowledge of which the very existence is a profound
secret to most men, I was intensely happy, and I have often spent whole
nights sitting in the darkness of my room, and thinking of the strange
world on the brink of which I trod. My professional studies, however,
and the necessity of obtaining a degree, for some time forced my more
obscure employment into the background, and soon after I had qualified
I met Agnes, who became my wife. We took a new house in this remote
suburb, and I began the regular routine of a sober practice, and for
some months lived happily enough, sharing in the life about me, and
only thinking at odd intervals of that occult science which had once
fascinated my whole being. I had learnt enough of the paths I had begun
to tread to know that they were beyond all expression difficult and
dangerous, that to persevere meant in all probability the wreck of a
life, and that they lead to regions so terrible that the mind of man
shrinks appalled at the very thought. Moreover, the quiet and the peace
I had enjoyed since my marriage had wiled me away to a great extent
from places where I knew no peace could dwell. But suddenly,--I think,
indeed, it was the work of a single night, as I lay awake on my bed
gazing into the darkness,--suddenly, I say, the old desire, the former
longing returned, and returned with a force that had been intensified
ten times by its absence; and when the day dawned and I looked out of
the window and saw with haggard eyes the sun rise in the East, I knew
that my doom had been pronounced; that as I had gone far, so now I must
go farther with steps that know no faltering. I turned to the bed where
my wife was sleeping peacefully, and lay down again weeping bitter
tears, for the sun had set on our happy life and had risen with a dawn
of terror to us both. I will not set down here in minute detail what
followed; outwardly I went about the day's labour as before, saying
nothing to my wife. But she soon saw that I had changed. I spent my
spare time in a room which I had fitted up as a laboratory, and often I
crept upstairs in the gray dawn of the morning, when the light of many
lamps still glowed over London; and each night I had stolen a step
nearer to that great abyss which I was to bridge over, the gulf between
the world of consciousness and the world of matter. My experiments were
many and complicated in their nature, and it was some months before I
realized whither they all pointed, and when this was borne in upon me
in a moment's time, I felt my face whiten and my heart still within me.
But the power to draw back, the power to stand before the doors that
now opened wide before me and not to enter in, had long ago been
absent; the way was closed, and I could only pass onward. My position
was as utterly hopeless as that of the prisoner in an utter dungeon,
whose only light is that of the dungeon above him; the doors were shut
and escape was impossible. Experiment after experiment gave the same
result, and I knew, and shrank even as the thought passed through my
mind, that in the work I had to do there must be elements which no
laboratory could furnish, which no scales could ever measure. In that
work, from which even I doubted to escape with life, life itself must
enter; from some human being there must be drawn that essence which men
call the soul, and in its place (for in the scheme of the world there
is no vacant chamber), in its place would enter in what the lips can
hardly utter, what the mind cannot conceive without a horror more awful
than the horror of death itself. And when I knew this, I knew also on
whom this fate would fall; I looked into my wife's eyes. Even at that
hour, if I had gone out and taken a rope and hanged myself I might have
escaped, and she also, but in no other way. At last I told her all. She
shuddered, and wept, and called on her dead mother for help, and asked
me if I had no mercy, and I could only sigh. I concealed nothing from
her; I told her what she would become, and what would enter in where
her life had been; I told her of all the shame and of all the horror.
You who will read this when I am dead,--if indeed I allow this record
to survive--you who have opened the box and have seen what lies there,
if you could understand what lies hidden in that opal! For one night my
wife consented to what I asked of her, consented with the tears running
down her beautiful face, and hot shame flushing red over her neck and
breast, consented to undergo this for me. I threw open the window, and
we looked together at the sky and the dark earth for the last time; it
was a fine starlight night, and there was a pleasant breeze blowing,
and I kissed her on her lips, and her tears ran down upon my face. That
night she came down to my laboratory, and there, with shutters bolted
and barred down, with curtains drawn thick and close so that the very
stars might be shut out from the sight of that room, while the crucible
hissed and boiled over the lamp, I did what had to be done, and led out
what was no longer a woman. But on the table the opal flamed and
sparkled with such light as no eyes of man have ever gazed on, and the
rays of the flame that was within it flashed and glittered, and shone
even to my heart. My wife had only asked one thing of me; that when
there came at last what I had told her, I would kill her. I have kept
that promise."
* * * * *
There was nothing more. Dyson let the little pocket-book fall, and
turned and looked again at the opal with its flaming inmost light, and
then, with unutterable irresistible horror surging up in his heart,
grasped the jewel, and flung it on the ground, and trampled it beneath
his heel. His face was white with terror as he turned away, and for a
moment stood sick and trembling, and then with a start he leapt across
the room and steadied himself against the door. There was an angry
hiss, as of steam escaping under great pressure, and as he gazed,
motionless, a volume of heavy yellow smoke was slowly issuing from the
very centre of the jewel, and wreathing itself in snake-like coils
above it. And then a thin white flame burst forth from the smoke, and
shot up into the air and vanished; and on the ground there lay a thing
like a cinder, black, and crumbling to the touch.
IX
THE SECRET OF GORESTHORPE GRANGE
A. Conan Doyle
I am sure that Nature never intended me to be a self-made man. There
are times when I can hardly bring myself to realize that twenty years
of my life were spent behind the counter of a grocer's shop in the East
End of London, and that it was through such an avenue that I reached a
wealthy independence and the possession of Goresthorpe Grange. My
habits are Conservative, and my tastes refined and aristocratic. I have
a soul which spurns the vulgar herd. Our family, the D'Odds, date back
to a prehistoric era, as is to be inferred from the fact that their
advent into British history is not commented on by any trustworthy
historian. Some instinct tells me that the blood of a Crusader runs in
my veins. Even now, after the lapse of so many years, such exclamations
as "By'r Lady!" rise naturally to my lips, and I feel that, should
circumstances require it, I am capable of rising in my stirrups and
dealing an infidel a blow--say with a mace--which would considerably
astonish him.
Goresthorpe Grange is a feudal mansion--or so it was termed in the
advertisement which originally brought it under my notice. Its right to
this adjective had a most remarkable effect upon its price, and the
advantages gained may possibly be more sentimental than real. Still, it
is soothing to me to know that I have slits in my staircase through
which I can discharge arrows: and there is a sense of power in the fact
of possessing a complicated apparatus by means of which I am enabled to
pour molten lead upon the head of the casual visitor. These things
chime in with my peculiar humour, and I do not grudge to pay for them.
I am proud of my battlements and of the circular uncovered sewer which
girds me round. I am proud of my portcullis and donjon and keep. There
is but one thing wanting to round off the mediævalism of my abode, and
to render it symmetrically and completely antique. Goresthorpe Grange
is not provided with a ghost.
Any man with old-fashioned tastes and ideas as to how such
establishments should be conducted would have been disappointed at the
omission. In my case it was particularly unfortunate. From my childhood
I had been an earnest student of the supernatural, and a firm believer
in it. I have revelled in ghostly literature until there is hardly a
tale bearing upon the subject which I have not perused. I learned the
German language for the sole purpose of mastering a book upon
demonology. When an infant I have secreted myself in dark rooms in the
hope of seeing some of those bogies with which my nurse used to
threaten me; and the same feeling is as strong in me now as then. It
was a proud moment when I felt that a ghost was one of the luxuries
which my money might command.
It is true that there was no mention of an apparition in the
advertisement. On reviewing the mildewed walls, however, and the
shadowy corridors, I had taken it for granted that there was such a
thing on the premises. As the presence of a kennel pre-supposes that of
a dog, so I imagined that it was impossible that such desirable
quarters should be untenanted by one or more restless shades. Good
heavens, what can the noble family from whom I purchased it have been
doing during these hundreds of years! Was there no member of it
spirited enough to make away with his sweetheart, or take some other
steps calculated to establish a hereditary spectre? Even now I can
hardly write with patience upon the subject.
For a long time I hoped against hope. Never did a rat squeak behind the
wainscot, or rain drip upon the attic-floor, without a wild thrill
shooting through me as I thought that at last I had come upon traces of
some unquiet soul. I felt no touch of fear upon these occasions. If it
occurred in the night-time, I would send Mrs. D'Odd--who is a
strong-minded woman--to investigate the matter while I covered up my
head with the bed-clothes and indulged in an ecstasy of expectation.
Alas, the result was always the same! The suspicious sound would be
traced to some cause so absurdly natural and commonplace that the most
fervid imagination could not clothe it with any of the glamour of
romance.
I might have reconciled myself to this state of things had it not been
for Jorrocks of Havistock Farm. Jorrocks is a coarse, burly,
matter-of-fact fellow whom I only happen to know through the accidental
circumstance of his fields adjoining my demesne. Yet this man, though
utterly devoid of all appreciation of archæological unities, is in
possession of a well authenticated and undeniable spectre. Its
existence only dates back, I believe, to the reign of the Second
George, when a young lady cut her throat upon hearing of the death of
her lover at the battle of Dettingen. Still, even that gives the house
an air of respectability, especially when coupled with bloodstains upon
the floor. Jorrocks is densely unconscious of his good fortune; and his
language when he reverts to the apparition is painful to listen to. He
little dreams how I covet every one of those moans and nocturnal wails
which he describes with unnecessary objurgation. Things are indeed
coming to a pretty pass when democratic spectres are allowed to desert
the landed proprietors and annul every social distinction by taking
refuge in the houses of the great unrecognized.
I have a large amount of perseverance. Nothing else could have raised
me into my rightful sphere, considering the uncongenial atmosphere in
which I spent the earlier part of my life. I felt now that a ghost must
be secured, but how to set about securing one was more than either Mrs.
D'Odd or myself was able to determine. My reading taught me that such
phenomena are usually the outcome of crime. What crime was to be done,
then, and who was to do it? A wild idea entered my mind that Watkins,
the house-steward, might be prevailed upon--for a consideration--to
immolate himself or someone else in the interests of the establishment.
I put the matter to him in a half jesting manner; but it did not seem
to strike him in a favourable light. The other servants sympathized
with him in his opinion--at least, I cannot account in any other way
for their having left the house in a body the same afternoon.
"My dear," Mrs. D'Odd remarked to me one day after dinner as I sat
moodily sipping a cup of sack--I love the good old names--"my dear,
that odious ghost of Jorrocks' has been gibbering again."
"Let it gibber!" I answered recklessly.
Mrs. D'Odd struck a few chords on her virginal and looked thoughtfully
into the fire.
"I'll tell you what it is, Argentine," she said at last, using the pet
name which we usually substituted for Silas, "we must have a ghost sent
down from London."
"How can you be so idiotic, Matilda?" I remarked severely. "Who could
get us such a thing?"
"My cousin, Jack Brocket, could," she answered confidently.
Now, this cousin of Matilda's was rather a sore subject between us. He
was a rakish clever young fellow, who had tried his hand at many
things, but wanted perseverance to succeed at any. He was, at that
time, in chambers in London, professing to be a general agent, and
really living, to a great extent, upon his wits. Matilda managed so
that most of our business should pass through his hands, which
certainly saved me a great deal of trouble, but I found that Jack's
commission was generally considerably larger than all the other items
of the bill put together. It was this fact which made me feel inclined
to rebel against any further negotiations with the young gentleman.
"O yes, he could," insisted Mrs. D., seeing the look of disapprobation
upon my face. "You remember how well he managed that business about the
crest?"
"It was only a resuscitation of the old family coat-of-arms, my dear,"
I protested.
Matilda smiled in an irritating manner. "There was a resuscitation of
the family portraits, too, dear," she remarked. "You must allow that
Jack selected them very judiciously."
I thought of the long line of faces which adorned the walls of my
banqueting-hall, from the burly Norman robber, through every gradation
of casque, plume, and ruff, to the sombre Chesterfieldian individual
who appears to have staggered against a pillar in his agony at the
return of a maiden MS. which he grips convulsively in his right hand. I
was fain to confess that in that instance he had done his work well,
and that it was only fair to give him an order--with the usual
commission--for a family spectre, should such a thing be attainable.
It is one of my maxims to act promptly when once my mind is made up.
Noon of the next day found me ascending the spiral stone staircase
which leads to Mr. Brocket's chambers, and admiring the succession of
arrows and fingers upon the whitewashed wall, all indicating the
direction of that gentleman's sanctum. As it happened, artificial aids
of the sort were entirely unnecessary, as an animated flap-dance
overhead could proceed from no other quarter, though it was replaced by
a deathly silence as I groped my way up the stair. The door was opened
by a youth evidently astounded at the appearance of a client, and I was
ushered into the presence of my young friend, who was writing furiously
in a large ledger--upside down, as I afterwards discovered.
After the first greetings, I plunged into business at once.
"Look here, Jack," I said, "I want you to get me a spirit, if you can."
"Spirits you mean!" shouted my wife's cousin, plunging his hand into
the waste-paper basket and producing a bottle with the celerity of a
conjuring trick. "Let's have a drink!"
I held up my hand as a mute appeal against such a proceeding so early
in the day; but on lowering it again I found that I had almost
involuntarily closed my fingers round the tumbler which my adviser had
pressed upon me. I drank the contents hastily off, lest anyone should
come in upon us and set me down as a toper. After all there was
something very amusing about the young fellow's eccentricities.
"Not spirits," I explained smilingly; "an apparition--a ghost. If such
a thing is to be had, I should be very willing to negotiate."
"A ghost for Goresthorpe Grange?" inquired Mr. Brocket, with as much
coolness as if I had asked for a drawing-room suite.
"Quite so," I answered.
"Easiest thing in the world," said my companion, filling up my glass
again in spite of my remonstrance. "Let us see!" Here he took down a
large red notebook, with all the letters of the alphabet in a fringe
down the edge. "A ghost you said, didn't you? That's G.
G--gems--gimlets--gaspipes--gauntlets--guns--galleys. Ah, here we are.
Ghosts. Volume nine, section six, page forty-one. Excuse me!" And Jack
ran up a ladder and began rummaging among a pile of ledgers on a high
shelf. I felt half inclined to empty my glass into the spittoon when
his back was turned; but on second thoughts I disposed of it in a
legitimate way.
"Here it is!" cried my London agent, jumping off the ladder with a
crash, and depositing an enormous volume of manuscript upon the table.
"I have all these things tabulated, so that I may lay my hands upon
them in a moment. It's all right--it's quite weak" (here he filled our
glasses again). "What were we looking up, again?"
"Ghosts," I suggested.
"Of course; page 41. Here we are. 'J. H. Fowler & Son, Dunkel Street,
suppliers of mediums to the nobility and gentry; charms
sold--love-philtres--mummies--horoscopes cast.' Nothing in your line
there, I suppose?"
I shook my head despondingly.
"Frederick Tabb," continued my wife's cousin, "solo channel of
communication between the living and dead. Proprietor of the spirits of
Byron, Kirke White, Grimaldi, Tom Cribb, and Inigo Jones. That's about
the figure!"
"Nothing romantic enough there," I objected. "Good heavens! Fancy a
ghost with a black eye and a handkerchief tied round its waist, or
turning summersaults, and saying, 'How are you to-morrow?'" The very
idea made me so warm that I emptied my glass and filled it again.
"Here is another," said my companion, "Christopher McCarthy; bi-weekly
seances--attended by all the eminent spirits of ancient and modern
times. Nativities--charms--abracadabras, messages from the dead. He
might be able to help us. However, I shall have a hunt round myself
to-morrow, and see some of these fellows. I know their haunts, and it's
odd if I can't pick up something cheap. So there's an end of business,"
he concluded, hurling the ledger into the corner, "and now we'll have
something to drink."
We had several things to drink--so many that my inventive faculties
were dulled next morning, and I had some little difficulty in
explaining to Mrs. D'Odd why it was that I hung my boots and spectacles
upon a peg along with my other garments before retiring to rest. The
new hopes excited by the confident manner in which my agent had
undertaken the commission caused me to rise superior to alcoholic
reaction, and I paced about the rambling corridors and old-fashoned
rooms, picturing to myself the appearance of my expected acquisition,
and deciding what part of the building would harmonize best with its
presence. After much consideration, I pitched upon the banqueting-hall
as being, on the whole, most suitable for its reception. It was a long
low room, hung round with valuable tapestry and interesting relics of
the old family to whom it had belonged. Coats of mail and implements of
war glimmered fitfully as the light of the fire played over them, and
the wind crept under the door, moving the hangings to and fro with a
ghastly rustling. At one end there was the raised dais, on which in
ancient times the host and his guests used to spread their table, while
a descent of a couple of steps led to the lower part of the hall, where
the vassals and retainers held wassail. The floor was uncovered by any
sort of carpet, but a layer of rushes had been scattered over it by my
direction. In the whole room there was nothing to remind one of the
nineteenth century; except, indeed, my own solid silver plate, stamped
with the resuscitated family arms, which was laid out upon an oak table
in the centre. This, I determined, should be the haunted room,
supposing my wife's cousin to succeed in his negotiation with the
spirit mongers. There was nothing for it now but to wait patiently
until I heard some news of the result of his inquiries.
A letter came in the course of a few days, which, if it was short, was
at least encouraging. It was scribbled in pencil on the back of a
playbill, and sealed apparently with a tobacco-stopper. "Am on the
track," it said. "Nothing of the sort to be had from any professional
spiritualist, but picked up a fellow in a pub yesterday who says he can
manage it for you. Will send him down unless you wire to the contrary.
Abrahams is his name, and he has done one or two of these jobs before."
The letter wound up with some incoherent allusions to a cheque, and was
signed by my affectionate cousin, John Brocket.
I need hardly say that I did not wire, but awaited the arrival of Mr.
Abrahams with all impatience. In spite of my belief in the
supernatural, I could scarcely credit the fact that any mortal could
have such a command over the spirit-world as to deal in them and barter
them against mere earthly gold. Still, I had Jack's word for it that
such a trade existed; and here was a gentleman with a Judaical name
ready to demonstrate it by proof positive. How vulgar and commonplace
Jorrock's eighteenth-century ghost would appear should I succeed in
securing a real mediæval apparition! I almost thought that one had been
sent down in advance, for, as I walked down the moat that night before
retiring to rest, I came upon a dark figure engaged in surveying the
machinery of my portcullis and drawbridge. His start of surprise,
however, and the manner in which he hurried off into the darkness,
speedily convinced me of his earthly origin, and I put him down as some
admirer of one of my female retainers mourning over the muddy
Hellespont which divided him from his love. Whoever he may have been,
he disappeared and did not return, though I loitered about for some
time in the hope of catching a glimpse of him and exercising my feudal
rights upon his person.
Jack Brocket was as good as his word. The shades of another evening
were beginning to darken round Goresthorpe Grange, when a peal at the
outer bell, and the sound of a fly pulling up, announced the arrival of
Mr. Abrahams. I hurried down to meet him, half expecting to see a
choice assortment of ghosts crowding in at his rear. Instead, however,
of being the sallow-faced, melancholy-eyed man that I had pictured to
myself, the ghost-dealer was a sturdy little podgy fellow, with a pair
of wonderfully keen sparkling eyes and a mouth which was constantly
stretched in a good-humoured, if somewhat artificial, grin. His sole
stock-in-trade seemed to consist of a small leather bag jealously
locked and strapped, which emitted a metallic chink upon being placed
on the stone flags of the hall.
"And 'ow are you, sir?" he asked, wringing my hand with the utmost
effusion. "And the missis, 'ow is she? And all the others--'ow's all
their 'ealth?"
I intimated that we were all as well as could reasonably be expected;
but Mr. Abrahams happened to catch a glimpse of Mrs. D'Odd in the
distance, and at once plunged at her with another string of inquiries
as to her health, delivered so volubly and with such an intense
earnestness that I half expected to see him terminate his
cross-examination by feeling her pulse and demanding a sight of her
tongue. All this time his little eyes rolled round and round, shifting
perpetually from the floor to the ceiling, and from the ceiling to the
walls, taking in apparently every article of furniture in a single
comprehensive glance.
Having satisfied himself that neither of us was in a pathological
condition, Mr. Abrahams suffered me to lead him upstairs, where a
repast had been laid out for him to which he did ample justice. The
mysterious little bag he carried along with him, and deposited it under
his chair during the meal. It was not until the table had been cleared
and we were left together that he broached the matter on which he had
come down.
"I hunderstand," he remarked, puffing at a trichinopoly, "that you want
my 'elp in fitting up this 'ere 'ouse with a happarition."
I acknowledged the correctness of his surmise, while mentally wondering
at those restless eyes of his, which still danced about the room as if
he were making an inventory of the contents.
"And you won't find a better man for the job, though I says it as
shouldn't," continued my companion. "Wot did I say to the young gent
wot spoke to me in the bar of the Lame Dog? 'Can you do it?' says he.
'Try me,' says I, 'me and my bag. Just try me.' I couldn't say fairer
than that."
My respect for Jack Brocket's business capacities began to go up very
considerably. He certainly seemed to have managed the matter
wonderfully well. "You don't mean to say that you carry ghosts about in
bags?" I remarked, with diffidence.
Mr. Abrahams smiled a smile of superior knowledge. "You wait," he said;
"give me the right place and the right hour, with a little of the
essence of Lucoptolycus"--here he produced a small bottle from his
waistcoat-pocket--"and you won't find no ghost that I ain't up to.
You'll see them yourself, and pick your own, and I can't say fairer
than that."
As all Mr. Abraham's protestations of fairness were accompanied by a
cunning leer and a wink from one or other of his wicked little eyes,
the impression of candour was somewhat weakened.
"When are you going to do it?" I asked reverentially.
"Ten minutes to one in the morning," said Mr. Abrahams, with decision.
"Some says midnight, but I says ten to one, when there ain't such a
crowd, and you can pick your own ghost. And now," he continued, rising
to his feet, "suppose you trot me round the premises, and let me see
where you wants it; for there's some places as attracts 'em, and some
as they won't hear of--not if there was no other place in the world."
Mr. Abrahams inspected our corridors and chambers with a most critical
and observant eye, fingering the old tapestry with the air of a
connoisseur, and remarking in an undertone that it would "match
uncommon nice." It was not until he reached the banqueting-hall,
however, which I had myself picked out, that his admiration reached the
pitch of enthusiasm. "'Ere's the place!" he shouted, dancing, bag in
hand, round the table on which my plate was lying, and looking not
unlike some quaint little goblin himself. "'Ere's the place; we won't
get nothin' to beat this! A fine room--noble, solid, none of your
electro-plate trash! That's the way as things ought to be done, sir.
Plenty of room for 'em to glide here. Send up some brandy and the box
of weeds; I'll sit here by the fire and do the preliminaries, which is
more trouble than you think; for them ghosts carries on hawful at
times, before they finds out who they've got to deal with. If you was
in the room they'd tear you to pieces as like as not. You leave me
alone to tackle them, and at half-past twelve come in, and I'll lay
they'll be quiet enough by then."
Mr. Abraham's request struck me as a reasonable one, so I left him with
his feet upon the mantelpiece, and his chair in front of the fire,
fortifying himself with stimulants against his refractory visitors.
From the room beneath, in which I sat with Mrs. D'Odd, I could hear
that after sitting for some time he rose up, and paced about the hall
with quick impatient steps. We then heard him try the lock of the door,
and afterwards drag some heavy article of furniture in the direction of
the window, on which, apparently, he mounted, for I heard the creaking
of the rusty hinges as the diamond-paned casement folded backwards, and
I knew it to be situated several feet above the little man's reach.
Mrs. D'Odd says that she could distinguish his voice speaking in low
and rapid whispers after this, but that may have been her imagination.
I confess that I began to feel more impressed than I had deemed it
possible to be. There was something awesome in the thought of the
solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the
gloom outside the spirits of the nether world. It was with a
trepidation which I could hardly disguise from Matilda that I observed
that the clock was pointing to half-past twelve, and that the time had
come for me to share the vigil of my visitor.
He was sitting in his old position when I entered, and there were no
signs of the mysterious movements which I had overheard, though his
chubby face was flushed as with recent exertion.
"Are you succeeding all right?" I asked as I came in, putting on as
careless an air as possible, but glancing involuntarily round the room
to see if we were alone.
"Only your help is needed to complete the matter," said Mr. Abrahams,
in a solemn voice. "You shall sit by me and partake of the essence of
Lucoptolycus, which removes the scales from our earthly eyes. Whatever
you may chance to see, speak not and make no movement, lest you break
the spell." His manner was subdued, and his usual cockney vulgarity had
entirely disappeared. I took the chair which he indicated, and awaited
the result.
My companion cleared the rushes from the floor in our neighbourhood,
and going down upon his hands and knees, described a half circle with
chalk, which enclosed the fireplace and ourselves. Round the edge of
this half circle he drew several hieroglyphics, not unlike the signs of
the zodiac. He then stood up and uttered a long invocation, delivered
so rapidly that it sounded like a single gigantic word in some uncouth
guttural language. Having finished this prayer, if prayer it was, he
pulled out the small bottle which he had produced before, and poured a
couple of teaspoonfuls of clear transparent fluid into a phial, which
he handed to me with an intimation that I should drink it.
The liquid had a faintly sweet odour, not unlike the aroma of certain
sorts of apples. I hesitated a moment before applying it to my lips,
but an impatient gesture from my companion overcame my scruples, and I
tossed it off. The taste was not unpleasant; and, as it gave rise to no
immediate effects, I leaned back in my chair and composed myself for
what was to come. Mr. Abrahams seated himself beside me, and I felt
that he was watching my face from time to time while repeating some
more of the invocations in which he had indulged before.
A sense of delicious warmth and languor began gradually to steal over
me, partly, perhaps, from the heat of the fire, and partly from some
unexplained cause. An uncontrollable impulse to sleep weighed down my
eyelids, while, at the same time, my brain worked actively, and a
hundred beautiful and pleasing ideas flitted through it. So utterly
lethargic did I feel that, though I was aware that my companion put his
hand over the region of my heart, as if to feel how it were beating, I
did not attempt to prevent him, nor did I even ask him for the reason
of his action. Everything in the room appeared to be reeling slowly
round in a drowsy dance, of which I was the centre. The great elk's
head at the far end wagged solemnly backward and forward, while the
massive salvers on the tables performed cotillons with the claret
cooler and the epergne. My head fell upon my breast from sheer
heaviness, and I should have become unconscious had I not been recalled
to myself by the opening of the door at the other end of the hall.
This door led on to the raised dais, which, as I have mentioned, the
heads of the house used to reserve for their own use. As it swung
slowly back upon its hinges, I sat up in my chair, clutching at the
arms, and staring with a horrified glare at the dark passage outside.
Something was coming down it--something unformed and intangible, but
still a _something_. Dim and shadowy, I saw it flit across the
threshold, while a blast of ice-cold air swept down the room, which
seemed to blow through me, chilling my very heart. I was aware of the
mysterious presence, and then I heard it speak in a voice like the
sighing of an east wind among pine-trees on the banks of a desolate
sea.
It said: "I am the invisible nonentity. I have affinities and am
subtle. I am electric, magnetic, and spiritualistic. I am the great
ethereal sigh-heaver. I kill dogs. Mortal, wilt thou choose me?"
I was about to speak, but the words seemed to be choked in my throat;
and, before I could get them out, the shadow flitted across the hall
and vanished in the darkness at the other side, while a long-drawn
melancholy sigh quivered through the apartment.
I turned my eyes toward the door once more, and beheld, to my
astonishment, a very small old woman, who hobbled along the corridor
and into the hall. She passed backward and forward several times, and
then, crouching down at the very edge of the circle upon the floor, she
disclosed a face the horrible malignity of which shall never be
banished from my recollection. Every foul passion appeared to have left
its mark upon that hideous countenance.
"Ha! ha!" she screamed, holding out her wizened hands like the talons
of an unclean bird. "You see what I am. I am the fiendish old woman. I
wear snuff-coloured silks. My curse descends on people. Sir Walter was
partial to me. Shall I be thine, mortal?"
I endeavoured to shake my head in horror; on which she aimed a blow at
me with her crutch, and vanished with an eldritch scream.
By this time my eyes turned naturally toward the open door, and I was
hardly surprised to see a man walk in of tall and noble stature. His
face was deadly pale, but was surmounted by a fringe of dark hair which
fell in ringlets down his back. A short pointed beard covered his chin.
He was dressed in loose-fitting clothes, made apparently of yellow
satin, and a large white ruff surrounded his neck. He paced across the
room with slow and majestic strides. Then turning, he addressed me in a
sweet, exquisitely-modulated voice.
"I am the cavalier," he remarked. "I pierce and am pierced. Here is my
rapier. I clink steel. This is a blood-stain over my heart. I can emit
hollow groans. I am patronized by many old Conservative families. I am
the original manor-house apparition. I work alone, or in company with
shrieking damsels."
He bent his head courteously, as though awaiting my reply, but the same
choking sensation prevented me from speaking; and, with a deep bow, he
disappeared.
He had hardly gone before a feeling of intense horror stole over me,
and I was aware of the presence of a ghastly creature in the room of
dim outlines and uncertain proportions. One moment it seemed to pervade
the entire apartment, while at another it would become invisible, but
always leaving behind it a distinct consciousness of its presence. Its
voice, when it spoke, was quavering and gusty. It said, "I am the
leaver of footsteps and the spiller of gouts of blood. I tramp upon
corridors. Charles Dickens has alluded to me. I make strange and
disagreeable noises. I snatch letters and place invisible hands on
people's wrists. I am cheerful. I burst into peals of hideous laughter.
Shall I do one now?" I raised my hand in a deprecating way, but too
late to prevent one discordant outbreak which echoed through the room.
Before I could lower it the apparition was gone.
I turned my head toward the door in time to see a man come hastily and
stealthily into the chamber. He was a sunburned powerfully-built
fellow, with earrings in his ears and a Barcelona handkerchief tied
loosely round his neck. His head was bent upon his chest, and his whole
aspect was that of one afflicted by intolerable remorse. He paced
rapidly backward and forward like a caged tiger, and I observed that a
drawn knife glittered in one of his hands, while he grasped what
appeared to be a piece of parchment in the other. His voice, when he
spoke, was deep and sonorous. He said, "I am a murderer. I am a
ruffian. I crouch when I walk. I step noiselessly. I know something of
the Spanish Main. I can do the lost treasure business. I have charts.
Am able-bodied and a good walker. Capable of haunting a large park." He
looked toward me beseechingly, but before I could make a sign I was
paralyzed by the horrible sight which appeared at the door.
It was a very tall man, if, indeed, it might be called a man, for the
gaunt bones were protruding through the corroding flesh, and the
features of a leaden hue. A winding sheet was wrapped round the figure,
and formed a hood over the head, from under the shadow of which two
fiendish eyes, deep-set in their grisly sockets, blazed and sparkled
like red-hot coals. The lower jaw had fallen upon the breast,
disclosing a withered, shrivelled tongue and two lines of black and
jagged fangs. I shuddered and drew back as this fearful apparition
advanced to the edge of the circle.
"I am the American blood-curdler," it said, in a voice which seemed to
come in a hollow murmur from the earth beneath it. "None other is
genuine. I am the embodiment of Edgar Allan Poe. I am circumstantial
and horrible. I am a low-caste spirit-subduing spectre. Observe my
blood and my bones. I am grisly and nauseous. No depending on
artificial aid. Work with grave-clothes, a coffin-lid, and a galvanic
battery. Turn hair white in a night." The creature stretched out its
fleshless arms to me as if in entreaty, but I shook my head; and it
vanished, leaving a low sickening repulsive odour behind it. I sank
back in my chair, so overcome by terror and disgust that I would have
very willingly resigned myself to dispensing with a ghost altogether,
could I have been sure that this was the last of the hideous
procession.
A faint sound of trailing garments warned me that it was not so. I
looked up, and beheld a white figure emerging from the corridor into
the right. As it stepped across the threshold I saw that it was that of
a young and beautiful woman dressed in the fashion of a bygone day. Her
hands were clasped in front of her, and her pale proud face bore traces
of passion and of suffering. She crossed the hall with a gentle sound,
like the rustling of autumn leaves, and then, turning her lovely and
unutterably sad eyes upon me, she said,
"I am the plaintive and sentimental, the beautiful and ill-used. I have
been forsaken and betrayed. I shriek in the night-time and glide down
passages. My antecedents are highly respectable and generally
aristocratic. My tastes are æsthetic. Old oak furniture like this would
do, with a few more coats of mail and plenty of tapestry. Will you not
take me?"
Her voice died away in a beautiful cadence as she concluded, and she
held out her hands as in supplication. I am always sensitive to female
influences. Besides, what would Jorrocks' ghost be to this? Could
anything be in better taste? Would I not be exposing myself to the
chance of injuring my nervous system by interviews with such creatures
as my last visitor, unless I decided at once? She gave me a seraphic
smile, as if she knew what was passing in my mind. That smile settled
the matter. "She will do!" I cried; "I choose this one;" and as, in my
enthusiasm, I took a step toward her, I passed over the magic circle
which had girdled me round.
"Argentine, we have been robbed!"
I had an indistinct consciousness of these words being spoken, or
rather screamed, in my ear a great number of times without my being
able to grasp their meaning. A violent throbbing in my head seemed to
adapt itself to their rhythm, and I closed my eyes to the lullaby of
"Robbed, robbed, robbed." A vigorous shake caused me to open them
again, however, and the sight of Mrs. D'Odd in the scantiest of
costumes and most furious of tempers was sufficiently impressive to
recall all my scattered thoughts, and make me realize that I was lying
on my back on the floor, with my head among the ashes which had fallen
from last night's fire, and a small glass phial in my hand.
I staggered to my feet, but felt so weak and giddy that I was compelled
to fall back into a chair. As my brain became clearer, stimulated by
the exclamations of Matilda, I began gradually to recollect the events
of the night. There was the door through which my supernatural visitors
had filed. There was the circle of chalk with the hieroglyphics round
the edge. There was the cigar-box and brandy bottle which had been
honoured by the attentions of Mr. Abrahams. But the seer himself--where
was he? and what was this open window with a rope running out of it?
And where, O where, was the pride of Goresthorpe Grange, the glorious
plate which was to have been the delectation of generations of D'Odds?
And why was Mrs. D. standing in the gray light of dawn, wringing her
hands and repeating her monotonous refrain? It was only very gradually
that my misty brain took these things in, and grasped the connection
between them.
Reader, I have never seen Mr. Abrahams since; I have never seen the
plate stamped with the resuscitated family crest; hardest of all, I
have never caught a glimpse of the melancholy spectre with the trailing
garments, nor do I expect that I ever shall. In fact my night's
experiences have cured me of my mania for the supernatural, and quite
reconciled me to inhabiting the humdrum nineteenth century edifice on
the outskirts of London which Mrs. D. has long had in her mind's eye.
As to the explanation of all that occurred--that is a matter which is
open to several surmises. That Mr. Abrahams, the ghost-hunter, was
identical with Jemmy Wilson, _alias_ the Nottingham crackster, is
considered more than probable at Scotland Yard, and certainly the
description of that remarkable burglar tallied very well with the
appearance of my visitor. The small bag which I have described was
picked up in a neighbouring field next day, and found to contain a
choice assortment of jimmies and centrebits. Footmarks deeply imprinted
in the mud on either side of the moat showed that an accomplice from
below had received the sack of precious metals which had been let down
through the open window. No doubt the pair of scoundrels, while looking
round for a job, had overheard Jack Brocket's indiscreet inquiries, and
had promptly availed themselves of the tempting opening.
And now as to my less substantial visitors, and the curious grotesque
vision which I had enjoyed--am I to lay it down to any real power over
occult matters possessed by my Nottingham friend? For a long time I was
doubtful upon the point, and eventually endeavoured to solve it by
consulting a well-known analyst and medical man, sending him the few
drops of the so-called essence of Lucoptolycus which remained in my
phial. I append the letter which I received from him, only too happy to
have the opportunity of winding up my little narrative by the weighty
words of a man of learning.
"Arundel Street.
"Dear Sir,--Your very singular case has interested me extremely.
The bottle which you sent contained a strong solution of chloral,
and the quantity which you describe yourself as having swallowed
must have amounted to at least eighty grains of the pure hydrate.
This would of course have reduced you to a partial state of
insensibility, gradually going on to complete coma. In this
semi-unconscious state of chloralism it is not unusual for
circumstantial and _bizarre_ visions to present themselves--more
especially to individuals unaccustomed to the use of the drug. You
tell me in your note that your mind was saturated with ghostly
literature, and that you had long taken a morbid interest in
classifying and recalling the various forms in which apparitions
have been said to appear. You must also remember that you were
expecting to see something of that very nature, and that your
nervous system was worked up to an unnatural state of tension.
Under the circumstances, I think that, far from the sequel being an
astonishing one, it would have been very surprising indeed to
anyone versed in narcotics had you not experienced some such
effects.--I remain, dear sir, sincerely yours,
"T. E. STUBE, M.D.
"Argentine D'Odd, Esq.,
The Elms, Brixton."
X
THE MAN WITH THE PALE EYES
Guy de Maupassant
Monsieur Pierre Agénor de Vargnes, the Examining Magistrate, was the
exact opposite of a practical joker. He was dignity, staidness,
correctness personified. As a sedate man, he was quite incapable of
being guilty, even in his dreams, of anything resembling a practical
joke, however remotely. I know nobody to whom he could be compared,
unless it be the present president of the French Republic. I think it
is useless to carry the analogy any further, and having said thus much,
it will be easily understood that a cold shiver passed through me when
Monsieur Pierre Agénor de Vargnes did me the honour of sending a lady
to await on me.
At about eight o'clock, one morning last winter, as he was leaving the
house to go to the _Palais de Justice_, his footman handed him a card,
on which was printed:
DOCTOR JAMES FERDINAND,
_Member of the Academy of Medicine,
Port-au-Prince,
Chevalier of the Legion of Honour._
At the bottom of the card there was written in pencil: _From Lady
Frogère_.
Monsieur de Vargnes knew the lady very well, who was a very agreeable
Creole from Hayti, and whom he had met in many drawing-rooms, and, on
the other hand, though the doctor's name did not awaken any
recollections in him, his quality and titles alone required that he
should grant him an interview, however short it might be. Therefore,
although he was in a hurry to get out, Monsieur de Vargnes told the
footman to show in his early visitor, but to tell him beforehand that
his master was much pressed for time, as he had to go to the Law
Courts.
When the doctor came in, in spite of his usual imperturbability, he
could not restrain a movement of surprise, for the doctor presented
that strange anomaly of being a negro of the purest, blackest type,
with the eyes of a white man, of a man from the North, pale, cold,
clear blue eyes, and his surprise increased, when, after a few words of
excuse for his untimely visit, he added, with an enigmatical smile:
"My eyes surprise you, do they not? I was sure that they would, and, to
tell you the truth, I came here in order that you might look at them
well, and never forget them."
His smile, and his words, even more than his smile, seemed to be those
of a madman. He spoke very softly, with that childish, lisping voice,
which is peculiar to negroes, and his mysterious, almost menacing
words, consequently, sounded all the more as if they were uttered at
random by a man bereft of his reason. But his looks, the looks of those
pale, cold, clear blue eyes, were certainly not those of a madman. They
clearly expressed menace, yes, menace, as well as irony, and, above
all, implacable ferocity, and their glance was like a flash of
lightning, which one could never forget.
"I have seen," Monsieur de Vargnes used to say, when speaking about it,
"the looks of many murderers, but in none of them have I ever observed
such a depth of crime, and of impudent security in crime."
And this impression was so strong, that Monsieur de Vargnes thought
that he was the sport of some hallucination, especially as when he
spoke about his eyes, the doctor continued with a smile, and in his
most childish accents: "Of course, Monsieur, you cannot understand what
I am saying to you, and I must beg your pardon for it. To-morrow you
will receive a letter which will explain it all to you, but, first of
all, it was necessary that I should let you have a good, a careful look
at my eyes, my eyes, which are myself, my only and true self, as you
will see."
With these words, and with a polite bow, the doctor went out, leaving
Monsieur de Vargnes extremely surprised, and a prey to this doubt, as
he said to himself:
"Is he merely a madman? The fierce expression, and the criminal depths
of his looks are perhaps caused merely by the extraordinary contrast
between his fierce looks and his pale eyes."
And absorbed by these thoughts, Monsieur de Vargnes unfortunately
allowed several minutes to elapse, and then he thought to himself
suddenly:
"No, I am not the sport of any hallucination, and this is no case of an
optical phenomenon. This man is evidently some terrible criminal, and I
have altogether failed in my duty in not arresting him myself at once,
illegally, even at the risk of my life."
The judge ran downstairs in pursuit of the doctor but it was too late;
he had disappeared. In the afternoon, he called on Madame Frogère, to
ask her whether she could tell him anything about the matter. She,
however, did not know the negro doctor in the least, and was even able
to assure him that he was a fictitious personage, for, as she was well
acquainted with the upper classes in Hayti, she knew that the Academy
of Medicine at Port-au-Prince had no doctor of that name among its
members. As Monsieur de Vargnes persisted, and gave descriptions of the
doctor, especially mentioning his extraordinary eyes, Madame Frogère
began to laugh and said:
"You have certainly had to do with a hoaxer, my dear monsieur. The eyes
which you have described are certainly those of a white man, and the
individual must have been painted."
On thinking it over, Monsieur de Vargnes remembered that the doctor had
nothing of the negro about him, but his black skin, his woolly hair and
beard, and his way of speaking, which was easily imitated, but nothing
of the negro, not even the characteristic, undulating walk. Perhaps,
after all, he was only a practical joker, and during the whole day,
Monsieur de Vargnes took refuge in that view, which rather wounded his
dignity as a man of consequence, but which appeased his scruples as a
magistrate.
The next day, he received the promised letter, which was written, as
well as addressed, in letters cut out of the newspapers. It was as
follows:
* * * * *
"MONSIEUR: Doctor James Ferdinand does not exist, but the man whose
eyes you saw does, and you will certainly recognize his eyes. This
man has committed two crimes, for which he does not feel any
remorse, but, as he is a psychologist, he is afraid of some day
yielding to the irresistible temptation of confessing his crimes.
You know better than anyone (and that is your most powerful aid),
with what imperious force criminals, especially intellectual ones,
feel this temptation. That great poet, Edgar Poe, has written
masterpieces on this subject, which express the truth exactly, but
he has omitted to mention the last phenomenon, which I will tell
you. Yes, I, a criminal, feel a terrible wish for somebody to know
of my crimes, and when this requirement is satisfied, my secret has
been revealed to a confidant, I shall be tranquil for the future,
and be freed from this demon of perversity, which only tempts us
once. Well! Now that is accomplished. You shall have my secret;
from the day that you recognize me by my eyes, you will try and
find out what I am guilty of, and how I was guilty, and you will
discover it, being a master of your profession, which, by the by,
has procured you the honour of having been chosen by me to bear the
weight of this secret, which now is shared by us, and by us two
alone. I say, advisedly, _by us two alone_. You could not, as a
matter of fact, prove the reality of this secret to anyone, unless
I were to confess it, and I defy you to obtain my public
confession, as I have confessed it to you, _and without danger to
myself_."
* * * * *
Three months later, Monsieur de Vargnes met Monsieur X---- at an
evening party, and at first sight, and without the slightest
hesitation, he recognized in him those very pale, very cold, and very
clear blue eyes, eyes which it was impossible to forget.
The man himself remained perfectly impassive, so that Monsieur de
Vargnes was forced to say to himself:
"Probably I am the sport of an hallucination at this moment, or else
there are two pairs of eyes that are perfectly similar in the world.
And what eyes! Can it be possible?"
The magistrate instituted inquiries into his life, and he discovered
this, which removed all his doubts.
Five years previously, Monsieur X---- had been a very poor, but very
brilliant medical student, who, although he never took his doctor's
degree, had already made himself remarkable by his microbiological
researches.
A young and very rich widow had fallen in love with him and married
him. She had one child by her first marriage, and in the space of six
months, first the child and then the mother died of typhoid fever, and
thus Monsieur X---- had inherited a large fortune, in due form, and
without any possible dispute. Everybody said that he had attended to
the two patients with the utmost devotion. Now, were these two deaths
the two crimes mentioned in his letter?
But then, Monsieur X---- must have poisoned his two victims with the
microbes of typhoid fever, which he had skilfully cultivated in them,
so as to make the disease incurable, even by the most devoted care and
attention. Why not?
"Do you believe it?" I asked Monsieur de Vargnes.
"Absolutely," he replied. "And the most terrible thing about it is,
that the villain is right when he defies me to force him to confess his
crime publicly, for I see no means of obtaining a confession, none
whatever. For a moment, I thought of magnetism, but who could magnetize
that man with those pale, cold, bright eyes? With such eyes, he would
force the magnetizer to denounce himself as the culprit."
And then he said, with a deep sigh:
"Ah! Formerly there was something good about justice!"
And when he saw my inquiring looks, he added in a firm and perfectly
convinced voice:
"Formerly, justice had torture at its command."
"Upon my word," I replied, with all an author's unconscious and simple
egotism, "it is quite certain that without the torture, this strange
tale will have no conclusion, and that is very unfortunate, as far as
regards the story I intended to make out of it."
XI
THE RIVAL GHOSTS[1]
Brander Matthews
[1] Reprinted by permission of the author.
The good ship sped on her way across the calm Atlantic. It was an
outward passage, according to the little charts which the company had
charily distributed, but most of the passengers were homeward bound,
after a summer of rest and recreation, and they were counting the days
before they might hope to see Fire Island Light. On the lee side of the
boat, comfortably sheltered from the wind, and just by the door of the
captain's room (which was theirs during the day), sat a little group of
returning Americans. The Duchess (she was on the purser's list as Mrs.
Martin, but her friends and familiars called her the Duchess of
Washington Square) and Baby Van Rensselaer (she was quite old enough to
vote, had her sex been entitled to that duty, but as the younger of two
sisters she was still the baby of the family)--the Duchess and Baby Van
Rensselaer were discussing the pleasant English voice and the not
unpleasant English accent of a manly young lordling who was going to
America for sport. Uncle Larry and Dear Jones were enticing each other
into a bet on the ship's run of the morrow.
"I'll give you two to one she don't make 420," said Dear Jones.
"I'll take it," answered Uncle Larry. "We made 427 the fifth day last
year." It was Uncle Larry's seventeenth visit to Europe, and this was
therefore his thirty-fourth voyage.
"And when did you get in?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer. "I don't care a
bit about the run, so long as we get in soon."
"We crossed the bar Sunday night, just seven days after we left
Queenstown, and we dropped anchor off Quarantine at three o'clock on
Monday morning."
"I hope we shan't do that this time. I can't seem to sleep any when the
boat stops."
"I can; but I didn't," continued Uncle Larry; "because my state-room
was the most for'ard in the boat, and the donkey-engine that let down
the anchor was right over my head."
"So you got up and saw the sunrise over the bay," said Dear Jones,
"with the electric lights of the city twinkling in the distance, and
the first faint flush of the dawn in the east just over Fort Lafayette,
and the rosy tinge which spread softly upward, and----"
"Did you both come back together?" asked the Duchess.
"Because he has crossed thirty-four times you must not suppose that he
has a monopoly in sunrises," retorted Dear Jones. "No, this was my own
sunrise; and a mighty pretty one it was, too."
"I'm not matching sunrises with you," remarked Uncle Larry, calmly;
"but I'm willing to back a merry jest called forth by my sunrise
against any two merry jests called forth by yours."
"I confess reluctantly that my sunrise evoked no merry jest at all."
Dear Jones was an honest man, and would scorn to invent a merry jest on
the spur of the moment.
"That's where my sunrise has the call," said Uncle Larry, complacently.
"What was the merry jest?" was Baby Van Rensselaer's inquiry, the
natural result of a feminine curiosity thus artistically excited.
"Well, here it is. I was standing aft, near a patriotic American and a
wandering Irishman, and the patriotic American rashly declared that you
couldn't see a sunrise like that anywhere in Europe, and this gave the
Irishman his chance, and he said, 'Sure ye don't have 'em here till
we're through with 'em over there.'"
"It is true," said Dear Jones, thoughtfully, "that they have some
things over there better than we do; for instance, umbrellas."
"And gowns," added the Duchess.
"And antiquities,"--this was Uncle Larry's contribution.
"And we do have some things so much better in America!" protested Baby
Van Rensselaer, as yet uncorrupted by any worship of the effete
monarchies of despotic Europe. "We make lots of things a great deal
nicer than you can get them in Europe--especially ice-cream."
"And pretty girls," added Dear Jones; but he did not look at her.
"And spooks," remarked Uncle Larry casually.
"Spooks?" queried the Duchess.
"Spooks. I maintain the word. Ghosts, if you like that better, or
spectres. We turn out the best quality of spook----"
"You forget the lovely ghost stories about the Rhine, and the Black
Forest," interrupted Miss Van Rensselaer, with feminine inconsistency.
"I remember the Rhine and the Black Forest and all the other haunts of
elves and fairies and hobgoblins; but for good honest spooks there is
no place like home. And what differentiates our spook--_Spiritus
Americanus_--from the ordinary ghost of literature is that it responds
to the American sense of humour. Take Irving's stories for example.
_The Headless Horseman_, that's a comic ghost story. And Rip Van
Winkle--consider what humour, and what good-humour, there is in the
telling of his meeting with the goblin crew of Kendrick Hudson's men! A
still better example of this American way of dealing with legend and
mystery is the marvelous tale of the rival ghosts."
"The rival ghosts?" queried the Duchess and Baby Van Rensselaer
together. "Who were they?"
"Didn't I ever tell you about them?" answered Uncle Larry, a gleam of
approaching joy flashing from his eye.
"Since he is bound to tell us sooner or later, we'd better be resigned
and hear it now," said Dear Jones.
"If you are not more eager, I won't tell it at all."
"Oh, do, Uncle Larry; you know I just dote on ghost stories," pleaded
Baby Van Rensselaer.
"Once upon a time," began Uncle Larry--"in fact, a very few years
ago--there lived in the thriving town of New York a young American
called Duncan--Eliphalet Duncan. Like his name, he was half Yankee and
half Scotch, and naturally he was a lawyer, and had come to New York to
make his way. His father was a Scotchman, who had come over and settled
in Boston, and married a Salem girl. When Eliphalet Duncan was about
twenty he lost both of his parents. His father left him with enough
money to give him a start, and a strong feeling of pride in his Scotch
birth; you see there was a title in the family in Scotland, and
although Eliphalet's father was the younger son of a younger son, yet
he always remembered, and always bade his only son to remember, that
his ancestry was noble. His mother left him her full share of Yankee
grit, and a little house in Salem which has belonged to her family for
more than two hundred years. She was a Hitchcock, and the Hitchcocks had
been settled in Salem since the year 1. It was a great-great-grandfather
of Mr. Eliphalet Hitchcock who was foremost in the time of the Salem
witchcraft craze. And this little old house which she left to my friend
Eliphalet Duncan was haunted."
"By the ghost of one of the witches, of course," interrupted Dear
Jones.
"Now how could it be the ghost of a witch, since the witches were all
burned at the stake? You never heard of anybody who was burned having a
ghost, did you?"
"That's an argument in favour of cremation, at any rate," replied
Jones, evading the direct question.
"It is, if you don't like ghosts; I do," said Baby Van Rensselaer.
"And so do I," added Uncle Larry. "I love a ghost as dearly as an
Englishman loves a lord."
"Go on with your story," said the Duchess, majestically overruling all
extraneous discussion.
"This little old house at Salem was haunted," resumed Uncle Larry. "And
by a very distinguished ghost--or at least by a ghost with very
remarkable attributes."
"What was he like?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a premonitory
shiver of anticipatory delight.
"It had a lot of peculiarities. In the first place, it never appeared
to the master of the house. Mostly it confined its visitations to
unwelcome guests. In the course of the last hundred years it had
frightened away four successive mothers-in-law, while never intruding
on the head of the household."
"I guess that ghost had been one of the boys when he was alive and in
the flesh." This was Dear Jones's contribution to the telling of the
tale.
"In the second place," continued Uncle Larry, "it never frightened
anybody the first time it appeared. Only on the second visit were the
ghost-seers scared; but then they were scared enough for twice, and
they rarely mustered up courage enough to risk a third interview. One
of the most curious characteristics of this well-meaning spook was that
it had no face--or at least that nobody ever saw its face."
"Perhaps he kept his countenance veiled?" queried the Duchess, who was
beginning to remember that she never did like ghost stories.
"That was what I was never able to find out. I have asked several
people who saw the ghost, and none of them could tell me anything about
its face, and yet while in its presence they never noticed its
features, and never remarked on their absence or concealment. It was
only afterward when they tried to recall calmly all the circumstances
of meeting with the mysterious stranger, that they became aware that
they had not seen its face. And they could not say whether the features
were covered, or whether they were wanting, or what the trouble was.
They knew only that the face was never seen. And no matter how often
they might see it, they never fathomed this mystery. To this day nobody
knows whether the ghost which used to haunt the little old house in
Salem had a face, or what manner of face it had."
"How awfully weird!" said Baby Van Rensselaer. "And why did the ghost
go away?"
"I haven't said it went away," answered Uncle Larry, with much dignity.
"But you said it _used_ to haunt the little old house at Salem, so I
supposed it had moved. Didn't it?"
"You shall be told in due time. Eliphalet Duncan used to spend most of
his summer vacations at Salem, and the ghost never bothered him at all,
for he was the master of the house--much to his disgust, because he
wanted to see for himself the mysterious tenant at will of his
property. But he never saw it, never. He arranged with friends to call
him whenever it might appear, and he slept in the next room with the
door open; and yet when their frightened cries waked him the ghost was
gone, and his only reward was to hear reproachful sighs as soon as he
went back to bed. You see, the ghost thought it was not fair of
Eliphalet to seek an introduction which was plainly unwelcome."
Dear Jones interrupted the story-teller by getting up and tucking a
heavy rug snugly around Baby Van Rensselaer's feet, for the sky was now
overcast and gray and the air was damp and penetrating.
"One fine spring morning," pursued Uncle Larry, "Eliphalet Duncan
received great news. I told you that there was a title in the family in
Scotland, and that Eliphalet's father was the younger son of a younger
son. Well, it happened that all Eliphalet's father's brothers and
uncles had died off without male issue except the eldest son of the
eldest, and he, of course, bore the title, and was Baron Duncan of
Duncan. Now the great news that Eliphalet Duncan received in New York
one fine spring morning was that Baron Duncan and his only son had been
yachting in the Hebrides, and they had been caught in a black squall,
and they were both dead. So my friend Eliphalet Duncan inherited the
title and the estates."
"How romantic!" said the Duchess. "So he was a baron!"
"Well," answered Uncle Larry, "he was a baron if he chose. But he
didn't choose."
"More fool he," said Dear Jones sententiously.
"Well," answered Uncle Larry, "I'm not so sure of that. You see,
Eliphalet Duncan was half Scotch and half Yankee, and he had two eyes
to the main chance. He held his tongue about his windfall of luck until
he could find out whether the Scotch estates were enough to keep up the
Scotch title. He soon discovered that they were not, and that the late
Lord Duncan, having married money, kept up such state as he could out
of the revenues of the dowry of Lady Duncan. And Eliphalet, he decided
that he would rather be a well-fed lawyer in New York, living
comfortably on his practice, than a starving lord in Scotland, living
scantily on his title."
"But he kept his title?" asked the Duchess.
"Well," answered Uncle Larry, "he kept it quiet. I knew it, and a
friend or two more. But Eliphalet was a sight too smart to put Baron
Duncan of Duncan, Attorney and Counsellor at Law, on his shingle."
"What has all this got to do with your ghost?" asked Dear Jones
pertinently.
"Nothing with that ghost, but a good deal with another ghost. Eliphalet
was very learned in spirit lore--perhaps because he owned the haunted
house at Salem, perhaps because he was a Scotchman by descent. At all
events, he had made a special study of the wraiths and white ladies and
banshees and bogies of all kinds whose sayings and doings and warnings
are recorded in the annals of the Scottish nobility. In fact, he was
acquainted with the habits of every reputable spook in the Scotch
peerage. And he knew that there was a Duncan ghost attached to the
person of the holder of the title of Baron Duncan of Duncan."
"So, besides being the owner of a haunted house in Salem, he was also a
haunted man in Scotland?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer.
"Just so. But the Scotch ghost was not unpleasant, like the Salem
ghost, although it had one peculiarity in common with its
trans-Atlantic fellow-spook. It never appeared to the holder of the
title, just as the other never was visible to the owner of the house.
In fact, the Duncan ghost was never seen at all. It was a guardian
angel only. Its sole duty was to be in personal attendance on Baron
Duncan of Duncan, and warn him of impending evil. The traditions of the
house told that the Barons of Duncan had again and again felt a
premonition of ill fortune. Some of them had yielded and withdrawn from
the venture they had undertaken, and it had failed dismally. Some had
been obstinate, and had hardened their hearts, and had gone on reckless
of defeat and to death. In no case had a Lord Duncan been exposed to
peril without fair warning."
"Then how came it that the father and son were lost in the yacht off
the Hebrides?" asked Dear Jones.
"Because they were too enlightened to yield to superstition. There is
extant now a letter of Lord Duncan, written to his wife a few minutes
before he and his son set sail, in which he tells her how hard he had
to struggle with an almost overmastering desire to give up the trip.
Had he obeyed the friendly warning of the family ghost, the latter
would have been spared a journey across the Atlantic."
"Did the ghost leave Scotland for America as soon as the old baron
died?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with much interest.
"How did he come over," queried Dear Jones--"in the steerage, or as a
cabin passenger?"
"I don't know," answered Uncle Larry calmly, "and Eliphalet, he didn't
know. For as he was in danger, and stood in no need of warning, he
couldn't tell whether the ghost was on duty or not. Of course he was on
the watch for it all the time. But he never got any proof of its
presence until he went down to the little old house of Salem, just
before the Fourth of July. He took a friend down with him--a young
fellow who had been in the regular army since the day Fort Sumter was
fired on, and who thought that after four years of the little
unpleasantness down South, including six months in Libby, and after ten
years of fighting the bad Indians on the plains, he wasn't likely to be
much frightened by a ghost. Well, Eliphalet and the officer sat out on
the porch all the evening smoking and talking over points in military
law. A little after twelve o'clock, just as they began to think it was
about time to turn in, they heard the most ghastly noise in the house.
It wasn't a shriek, or a howl, or a yell, or anything they could put a
name to. It was an indeterminate, inexplicable shiver and shudder of
sound, which went wailing out of the window. The officer had been at
Cold Harbor, but he felt himself getting colder this time. Eliphalet
knew it was the ghost who haunted the house. As this weird sound died
away, it was followed by another, sharp, short, blood-curdling in its
intensity. Something in this cry seemed familiar to Eliphalet, and he
felt sure that it proceeded from the family ghost, the warning wraith
of the Duncans."
"Do I understand you to intimate that both ghosts were there together?"
inquired the Duchess anxiously.
"Both of them were there," answered Uncle Larry. "You see, one of them
belonged to the house and had to be there all the time, and the other
was attached to the person of Baron Duncan, and had to follow him
there; wherever he was there was the ghost also. But Eliphalet, he had
scarcely time to think this out when he heard both sounds again, not
one after another, but both together, and something told him--some sort
of an instinct he had--that those two ghosts didn't agree, didn't get
on together, didn't exactly hit it off; in fact, that they were
quarreling."
"Quarreling ghosts! Well, I never!" was Baby Van Rensselaer's remark.
"It is a blessed thing to see ghosts dwell together in unity," said
Dear Jones.
And the Duchess added, "It would certainly be setting a better
example."
"You know," resumed Uncle Larry, "that two waves of light or of sound
may interfere and produce darkness or silence. So it was with these
rival spooks. They interfered, but they did not produce silence or
darkness. On the contrary, as soon as Eliphalet and the officer went
into the house, there began at once a series of spiritualistic
manifestations, a regular dark séance. A tambourine was played upon, a
bell was rung, and a flaming banjo went singing around the room."
"Where did they get the banjo?" asked Dear Jones sceptically.
"I don't know. Materialized it, maybe, just as they did the tambourine.
You don't suppose a quiet New York lawyer kept a stock of musical
instruments large enough to fit out a strolling minstrel troupe just on
the chance of a pair of ghosts coming to give him a surprise party, do
you? Every spook has its own instrument of torture. Angels play on
harps, I'm informed, and spirits delight in banjos and tambourines.
These spooks of Eliphalet Duncan's were ghosts with all the modern
improvements, and I guess they were capable of providing their own
musical weapons. At all events, they had them there in the little old
house at Salem the night Eliphalet and his friend came down. And they
played on them and they rang the bell, and they rapped here, there, and
everywhere. And they kept it up all night."
"All night?" asked the awe-stricken Duchess.
"All night long," said Uncle Larry solemnly; "and the next night, too.
Eliphalet did not get a wink of sleep, neither did his friend. On the
second night the house ghost was seen by the officer; on the third
night it showed itself again; and the next morning the officer packed
his grip-sack and took the first train to Boston. He was a New Yorker,
but he said he'd sooner go to Boston than see that ghost again.
Eliphalet, he wasn't scared at all, partly because he never saw either
the domiciliary or the titular spook, and partly because he felt
himself on friendly terms with the spirit world, and didn't scare
easily. But after losing three nights' sleep and the society of his
friend, he began to be a little impatient, and to think that the thing
had gone far enough. You see, while in a way he was fond of ghosts, yet
he liked them best one at a time. Two ghosts were one too many. He
wasn't bent on making a collection of spooks. He and one ghost were
company, but he and two ghosts were a crowd."
"What did he do?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer.
"Well, he couldn't do anything. He waited awhile, hoping they would get
tired; but he got tired out first. You see, it comes natural to a spook
to sleep in the daytime, but a man wants to sleep nights, and they
wouldn't let him sleep nights. They kept on wrangling and quarreling
incessantly; they manifested and they dark-séanced as regularly as the
old clock on the stairs struck twelve; they rapped and they rang bells
and they banged the tambourine and they threw the flaming banjo about
the house, and worse than all, they swore."
"I did not know that spirits were addicted to bad language," said the
Duchess.
"How did he know they were swearing? Could he hear them?" asked Dear
Jones.
"That was just it," responded Uncle Larry; "he could not hear them--at
least not distinctly. There were inarticulate murmurs and stifled
rumblings. But the impression produced on him was that they were
swearing. If they had only sworn right out, he would not have minded it
so much, because he would have known the worst. But the feeling that
the air was full of suppressed profanity was very wearing and after
standing it for a week, he gave up in disgust and went to the White
Mountains."
"Leaving them to fight it out, I suppose," interjected Baby Van
Rensselaer.
"Not at all," explained Uncle Larry. "They could not quarrel unless he
was present. You see, he could not leave the titular ghost behind him,
and the domiciliary ghost could not leave the house. When he went away
he took the family ghost with him leaving the house ghost behind. Now
spooks can't quarrel when they are a hundred miles apart any more than
men can."
"And what happened afterward?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a pretty
impatience.
"A most marvelous thing happened. Eliphalet Duncan went to the White
Mountains, and in the car of the railroad that runs to the top of Mount
Washington he met a classmate whom he had not seen for years, and this
classmate introduced Duncan to his sister, and this sister was a
remarkably pretty girl, and Duncan fell in love with her at first
sight, and by the time he got to the top of Mount Washington he was so
deep in love that he began to consider his own unworthiness, and to
wonder whether she might ever be induced to care for him a little--ever
so little."
"I don't think that is so marvelous a thing," said Dear Jones glancing
at Baby Van Rensselaer.
"Who was she?" asked the Duchess, who had once lived in Philadelphia.
"She was Miss Kitty Sutton, of San Francisco, and she was a daughter of
old Judge Sutton, of the firm of Pixley and Sutton."
"A very respectable family," assented the Duchess.
"I hope she wasn't a daughter of that loud and vulgar old Mrs. Sutton
whom I met at Saratoga, one summer, four or five years ago?" said Dear
Jones.
"Probably she was."
"She was a horrid old woman. The boys used to call her Mother Gorgon."
"The pretty Kitty Sutton with whom Eliphalet Duncan had fallen in love
was the daughter of Mother Gorgon. But he never saw the mother, who was
in 'Frisco, or Los Angeles, or Santa Fe, or somewhere out West, and he
saw a great deal of the daughter, who was up in the White Mountains.
She was traveling with her brother and his wife, and as they journeyed
from hotel to hotel, Duncan went with them, and filled out the
quartette. Before the end of the summer he began to think about
proposing. Of course he had lots of chances, going on excursions as
they were every day. He made up his mind to seize the first
opportunity, and that very evening he took her out for a moonlight row
on Lake Winnipiseogee. As he handed her into the boat he resolved to do
it, and he had a glimmer of a suspicion that she knew he was going to
do it, too."
"Girls," said Dear Jones, "never go out in a row-boat at night with a
young man unless you mean to accept him."
"Sometimes it's best to refuse him, and get it over once for all," said
Baby Van Rensselaer.
"As Eliphalet took the oars he felt a sudden chill. He tried to shake
it off, but in vain. He began to have a growing consciousness of
impending evil. Before he had taken ten strokes--and he was a swift
oarsman--he was aware of a mysterious presence between him and Miss
Sutton."
"Was it the guardian-angel ghost warning him off the match?"
interrupted Dear Jones.
"That's just what it was," said Uncle Larry. "And he yielded to it, and
kept his peace, and rowed Miss Sutton back to the hotel with his
proposal unspoken."
"More fool he," said Dear Jones. "It will take more than one ghost to
keep me from proposing when my mind is made up." And he looked at Baby
Van Rensselaer.
"The next morning," continued Uncle Larry, "Eliphalet overslept
himself, and when he went down to a late breakfast he found that the
Suttons had gone to New York by the morning train. He wanted to follow
them at once, and again he felt the mysterious presence overpowering
his will. He struggled two days, and at last he roused himself to do
what he wanted in spite of the spook. When he arrived in New York it
was late in the evening. He dressed himself hastily and went to the
hotel where the Suttons put up, in the hope of seeing at least her
brother. The guardian angel fought every inch of the walk with him,
until he began to wonder whether, if Miss Sutton were to take him, the
spook would forbid the banns. At the hotel he saw no one that night,
and he went home determined to call as early as he could the next
afternoon, and make an end of it. When he left his office about two
o'clock the next day to learn his fate, he had not walked five blocks
before he discovered that the wraith of the Duncans had withdrawn his
opposition to the suit. There was no feeling of impending evil, no
resistance, no struggle, no consciousness of an opposing presence.
Eliphalet was greatly encouraged. He walked briskly to the hotel; he
found Miss Sutton alone. He asked her the question, and got his
answer."
"She accepted him, of course," said Baby Van Rensselaer.
"Of course," said Uncle Larry. "And while they were in the first flush
of joy, swapping confidences and confessions, her brother came into the
parlour with an expression of pain on his face and a telegram in
his Frisco hand. The former was caused by the latter, which was from
'Frisco, and which announced the sudden death of Mrs. Sutton, their
mother."
"And that was why the ghost no longer opposed the match?" questioned
Dear Jones.
"Exactly. You see, the family ghost knew that Mother Gorgon was an
awful obstacle to Duncan's happiness, so it warned him. But the moment
the obstacle was removed, it gave its consent at once."
The fog was lowering its thick damp curtain, and it was beginning to be
difficult to see from one end of the boat to the other. Dear Jones
tightened the rug which enwrapped Baby Van Rensselaer, and then
withdrew again into his own substantial coverings.
Uncle Larry paused in his story long enough to light another of the
tiny cigars he always smoked.
"I infer that Lord Duncan"--the Duchess was scrupulous in the bestowal
of titles--"saw no more of the ghosts after he was married."
"He never saw them at all, at any time, either before or since. But
they came very near breaking off the match, and thus breaking two young
hearts."
"You don't mean to say that they knew any just cause or impediment why
they should not forever after hold their peace?" asked Dear Jones.
"How could a ghost, or even two ghosts, keep a girl from marrying the
man she loved?" This was Baby Van Rensselaer's question.
"It seems curious, doesn't it?" and Uncle Larry tried to warm himself
by two or three sharp pulls at his fiery little cigar. "And the
circumstances are quite as curious as the fact itself. You see, Miss
Sutton wouldn't be married for a year after her mother's death, so she
and Duncan had lots of time to tell each other all they knew.
Eliphalet, he got to know a good deal about the girls she went to
school with, and Kitty, she learned all about his family. He didn't
tell her about the title for a long time, as he wasn't one to brag. But
he described to her the little old house at Salem. And one evening
toward the end of the summer, the wedding-day having been appointed for
early in September, she told him that she didn't want to bridal tour at
all; she just wanted to go down to the little old house at Salem to
spend her honeymoon in peace and quiet, with nothing to do and nobody
to bother them. Well, Eliphalet jumped at the suggestion. It suited him
down to the ground. All of a sudden he remembered the spooks, and it
knocked him all of a heap. He had told her about the Duncan Banshee,
and the idea of having an ancestral ghost in personal attendance on her
husband tickled her immensely. But he had never said anything about the
ghost which haunted the little old house at Salem. He knew she would be
frightened out of her wits if the house ghost revealed itself to her,
and he saw at once that it would be impossible to go to Salem on their
wedding trip. So he told her all about it, and how whenever he went to
Salem the two ghosts interfered, and gave dark séances and manifested
and materialised and made the place absolutely impossible. Kitty, she
listened in silence, and Eliphalet, he thought she had changed her
mind. But she hadn't done anything of the kind."
"Just like a man--to think she was going to," remarked Baby Van
Rensselaer.
"She just told him she could not bear ghosts herself, but she would not
marry a man who was afraid of them."
"Just like a girl--to be so inconsistent," remarked Dear Jones.
Uncle Larry's tiny cigar had long been extinct. He lighted a new one,
and continued: "Eliphalet protested in vain. Kitty said her mind was
made up. She was determined to pass her honeymoon in the little old
house at Salem, and she was equally determined not to go there as long
as there were any ghosts there. Until he could assure her that the
spectral tenants had received notice to quit, and that there was no
danger of manifestations and materialising, she refused to be married
at all. She did not intend to have her honeymoon interrupted by two
wrangling ghosts, and the wedding could be postponed until he had made
ready the house for her."
"She was an unreasonable young woman," said the Duchess.
"Well, that's what Eliphalet thought, much as he was in love with her.
And he believed he could talk her out of her determination. But he
couldn't. She was set. And when a girl is set, there's nothing to do
but yield to the inevitable. And that's just what Eliphalet did. He saw
he would either have to give her up or to get the ghosts out; and as he
loved her and did not care for the ghosts, he resolved to tackle the
ghosts. He had clear grit, Eliphalet had--he was half Scotch and half
Yankee, and neither breed turns tail in a hurry. So he made his plans
and he went down to Salem. As he said good-bye to Kitty he had an
impression that she was sorry she had made him go, but she kept up
bravely, and put a bold face on it, and saw him off, and went home and
cried for an hour, and was perfectly miserable until he came back the
next day."
"Did he succeed in driving the ghosts away?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer,
with great interest.
"That's just what I'm coming to," said Uncle Larry, pausing at the
critical moment, in the manner of the trained story teller. "You see,
Eliphalet had got a rather tough job, and he would gladly have had an
extension of time on the contract, but he had to choose between the
girl and the ghosts, and he wanted the girl. He tried to invent or
remember some short and easy way with ghosts, but he couldn't. He
wished that somebody had invented a specific for spooks--something that
would make the ghosts come out of the house and die in the yard."
"What did he do?" interrupted Dear Jones. "The learned counsel will
please speak to the point."
"You will regret this unseemly haste," said Uncle Larry, gravely, "when
you know what really happened."
"What was it, Uncle Larry?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer. "I'm all
impatience."
And Uncle Larry proceeded:
"Eliphalet went down to the little old house at Salem, and as soon as
the clock struck twelve the rival ghosts began wrangling as before.
Raps here, there, and everywhere, ringing bells, banging tambourines,
strumming banjos sailing about the room, and all the other
manifestations and materializations followed one another just as they
had the summer before. The only difference Eliphalet could detect was a
stronger flavour in the spectral profanity; and this, of course, was
only a vague impression, for he did not actually hear a single word. He
waited awhile in patience, listening and watching. Of course he never
saw either of the ghosts, because neither of them could appear to him.
At last he got his dander up, and he thought it was about time to
interfere, so he rapped on the table, and asked for silence. As soon as
he felt that the spooks were listening to him he explained the
situation to them. He told them he was in love, and that he could not
marry unless they vacated the house. He appealed to them as old
friends, and he laid claim to their gratitude. The titular ghost had
been sheltered by the Duncan family for hundreds of years, and the
domiciliary ghost had had free lodging in the little old house at Salem
for nearly two centuries. He implored them to settle their differences,
and to get him out of his difficulty at once. He suggested they'd
better fight it out then and there, and see who was master. He had
brought down with him the needful weapons. And he pulled out his
valise, and spread on the table a pair of navy revolvers, a pair of
shot-guns, a pair of duelling swords, and a couple of bowie-knives. He
offered to serve as second for both parties, and to give the word when
to begin. He also took out of his valise a pack of cards and a bottle
of poison, telling them that if they wished to avoid carnage they might
cut the cards to see which one should take the poison. Then he waited
anxiously for their reply. For a little space there was silence. Then
he became conscious of a tremulous shivering in one corner of the room,
and he remembered that he had heard from that direction what sounded
like a frightened sigh when he made the first suggestion of the duel.
Something told him that this was the domiciliary ghost, and that it was
badly scared. Then he was impressed by a certain movement in the
opposite corner of the room, as though the titular ghost were drawing
himself up with offended dignity. Eliphalet couldn't exactly see these
things, because he never saw the ghosts, but he felt them. After a
silence of nearly a minute a voice came from the corner where the
family ghost stood--a voice strong and full, but trembling slightly
with suppressed passion. And this voice told Eliphalet it was plain
enough that he had not long been the head of the Duncans, and that he
had never properly considered the characteristics of his race if now he
supposed that one of his blood could draw his sword against a woman.
Eliphalet said he had never suggested that the Duncan ghost should
raise his hand against a woman and all he wanted was that the Duncan
ghost should fight the other ghost. And then the voice told Eliphalet
that the other ghost was a woman."
"What?" said Dear Jones, sitting up suddenly. "You don't mean to tell
me that the ghost which haunted the house was a woman?"
"Those were the very words Eliphalet Duncan used," said Uncle Larry;
"but he did not need to wait for the answer. All at once he recalled
the traditions about the domiciliary ghost, and he knew that what the
titular ghost said was the fact. He had never thought of the sex of a
spook, but there was no doubt whatever that the house ghost was a
woman. No sooner was this firmly fixed in Eliphalet's mind than he saw
his way out of the difficulty. The ghosts must be married!--for then
there would be no more interference, no more quarrelling, no more
manifestations and materializations, no more dark séances, with their
raps and bells and tambourines and banjos. At first the ghosts would
not hear of it. The voice in the corner declared that the Duncan wraith
had never thought of matrimony. But Eliphalet argued with them, and
pleaded and persuaded and coaxed, and dwelt on the advantages of
matrimony. He had to confess, of course, that he did not know how to
get a clergyman to marry them; but the voice from the corner gravely
told him that there need be no difficulty in regard to that, as there
was no lack of spiritual chaplains. Then, for the first time, the house
ghost spoke, in a low, clear gentle voice, and with a quaint,
old-fashioned New England accent, which contrasted sharply with the
broad Scotch speech of the family ghost. She said that Eliphalet Duncan
seemed to have forgotten that she was married. But this did not upset
Eliphalet at all; he remembered the whole case clearly and he told her
she was not a married ghost, but a widow, since her husband had been
hung for murdering her. Then the Duncan ghost drew attention to the
great disparity of their ages, saying that he was nearly four hundred
and fifty years old, while she was barely two hundred. But Eliphalet
had not talked to juries for nothing; he just buckled to, and coaxed
those ghosts into matrimony. Afterward he came to the conclusion that
they were willing to be coaxed, but at the time he thought he had
pretty hard work to convince them of the advantages of the plan."
"Did he succeed?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a young lady's
interest in matrimony.
"He did," said Uncle Larry. "He talked the wraith of the Duncans and
the spectre of the little old house at Salem into a matrimonial
engagement. And from the time they were engaged he had no more trouble
with them. They were rival ghosts no longer. They were married by their
spiritual chaplain the very same day that Eliphalet Duncan met Kitty
Sutton in front of the railing of Grace Church. The ghostly bride and
bridegroom went away at once on their bridal tour, and Lord and Lady
Duncan went down to the little old house at Salem to pass their
honeymoon."
Uncle Larry stopped. His tiny cigar was out again. The tale of the
rival ghosts was told. A solemn silence fell on the little party on the
deck of the ocean steamer, broken harshly by the hoarse roar of the
fog-horn.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes, by Various
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