It made me look like a credulous fool. It gave the Doctor such a pull
over me as nothing else could. I should point all his morals for years
to come; and his materialism, his scepticism, would be increased beyond
endurance. "It seems, indeed," I said, "that there is to be no----"
"Manifestation," he said, laughing; "that is what all the mediums say.
No manifestations, in consequence of the presence of an unbeliever." His
laugh sounded very uncomfortable to me in the silence; and it was now
near midnight. But that laugh seemed the signal; before it died away the
moaning we had heard before was resumed. It started from some distance
off, and came towards us, nearer and nearer, like some one walking along
and moaning to himself. There could be no idea now that it was a hare
caught in a trap. The approach was slow, like that of a weak person,
with little halts and pauses. We heard it coming along the grass
straight towards the vacant door-way. Simson had been a little startled
by the first sound. He said hastily, "That child has no business to be
out so late." But he felt, as well as I, that this was no child's voice.
As it came nearer, he grew silent, and, going to the door-way with his
taper, stood looking out towards the sound. The taper being unprotected
blew about in the night air, though there was scarcely any wind. I threw
the light of my lantern steady and white across the same space. It was
in a blaze of light in the midst of the blackness. A little icy thrill
had gone over me at the first sound, but as it came close, I confess
that my only feeling was satisfaction. The scoffer could scoff no more.
The light touched his own face, and showed a very perplexed countenance.
If he was afraid, he concealed it with great success, but he was
perplexed. And then all that had happened on the previous night was
enacted once more. It fell strangely upon me with a sense of
repetition. Every cry, every sob seemed the same as before. I listened
almost without any emotion at all in my own person, thinking of its
effect upon Simson. He maintained a very bold front, on the whole. All
that coming and going of the voice was, if our ears could be trusted,
exactly in front of the vacant, blank door-way, blazing full of light,
which caught and shone in the glistening leaves of the great hollies at
a little distance. Not a rabbit could have crossed the turf without
being seen; but there was nothing. After a time, Simson, with a certain
caution and bodily reluctance, as it seemed to me, went out with his
roll of taper into this space. His figure showed against the holly in
full outline. Just at this moment the voice sank, as was its custom, and
seemed to fling itself down at the door. Simson recoiled violently, as
if some one had come up against him, then turned, and held his taper
low, as if examining something. "Do you see anybody?" I cried in a
whisper, feeling the chill of nervous panic steal over me at this
action. "It's nothing but a--confounded juniper-bush," he said. This I
knew very well to be nonsense, for the juniper-bush was on the other
side. He went about after this, round and round, poking his taper
everywhere, then returned to me on the inner side of the wall. He
scoffed no longer; his face was contracted and pale. "How long does this
go on?" he whispered to me, like a man who does not wish to interrupt
some one who is speaking. I had become too much perturbed myself to
remark whether the successions and changes of the voice were the same
as last night. It suddenly went out in the air almost as he was
speaking, with a soft reiterated sob dying away. If there had been
anything to be seen, I should have said that the person was at that
moment crouching on the ground close to that door.
We walked home very silent afterwards. It was only when we were in sight
of the house that I said, "What do you think of it?" "I can't tell what
to think of it," he said quickly. He took--though he was a very
temperate man--not the claret I was going to offer him, but some brandy
from the tray, and swallowed it almost undiluted. "Mind you, I don't
believe a word of it," he said, when he had lighted his candle; "but I
can't tell what to think," he turned round to add, when he was half-way
upstairs.
All of this, however, did me no good with the solution of my problem. I
was to help this weeping, sobbing thing, which was already to me as
distinct a personality as anything I knew; or what should I say to
Roland? It was on my heart that my boy would die if I could not find
some way of helping this creature. You may be surprised that I should
speak of it in this way. I did not know if it was man or woman; but I no
more doubted that it was a soul in pain than I doubted my own being; and
it was my business to soothe this pain,--to deliver it, if that was
possible. Was ever such a task given to an anxious father trembling for
his only boy? I felt in my heart, fantastic as it may appear, that I
must fulfil this somehow, or part with my child; and you may conceive
that rather than do that I was ready to die. But even my dying would
not have advanced me, unless by bringing me into the same world with
that seeker at the door.
* * * * *
Next morning Simson was out before breakfast, and came in with evident
signs of the damp grass on his boots, and a look of worry and weariness,
which did not say much for the night he had passed. He improved a little
after breakfast, and visited his two patients,--for Bagley was still an
invalid. I went out with him on his way to the train, to hear what he
had to say about the boy. "He is going on very well," he said; "there
are no complications as yet. But mind you, that's not a boy to be
trifled with, Mortimer. Not a word to him about last night." I had to
tell him then of my last interview with Roland, and of the impossible
demand he had made upon me, by which, though he tried to laugh, he was
much discomposed, as I could see. "We must just perjure ourselves all
round," he said, "and swear you exorcised it"; but the man was too
kind-hearted to be satisfied with that. "It's frightfully serious for
you, Mortimer. I can't laugh as I should like to. I wish I saw a way out
of it, for your sake. By the way," he added shortly, "didn't you notice
that juniper-bush on the left-hand side?" "There was one on the right
hand of the door. I noticed you made that mistake last night."
"Mistake!" he cried, with a curious low laugh, pulling up the collar of
his coat as though he felt the cold,--"there's no juniper there this
morning, left or right. Just go and see." As he stepped into the train
a few minutes after, he looked back upon me and beckoned me for a
parting word. "I'm coming back tonight," he said.
I don't think I had any feeling about this as I turned away from that
common bustle of the railway which made my private preoccupations feel
so strangely out of date. There had been a distinct satisfaction in my
mind before, that his scepticism had been so entirely defeated. But the
more serious part of the matter pressed upon me now. I went straight
from the railway to the manse, which stood on a little plateau on the
side of the river opposite to the woods of Brentwood. The minister was
one of a class which is not so common in Scotland as it used to be. He
was a man of good family, well educated in the Scotch way, strong in
philosophy, not so strong in Greek, strongest of all in experience,--a
man who had "come across," in the course of his life, most people of
note that had ever been in Scotland, and who was said to be very sound
in doctrine, without infringing the toleration with which old men, who
are good men, are generally endowed. He was old-fashioned; perhaps he
did not think so much about the troublous problems of theology as many
of the young men, nor ask himself any hard questions about the
Confession of Faith; but he understood human nature, which is perhaps
better. He received me with a cordial welcome. "Come away, Colonel
Mortimer," he said; "I'm all the more glad to see you, that I feel it's
a good sign for the boy. He's doing well?--God be praised,--and the
Lord bless him and keep him. He has many a poor body's prayers, and that
can do nobody harm."
"He will need them all, Dr. Moncrieff," I said, "and your counsel, too."
And I told him the story,--more than I had told Simson. The old
clergyman listened to me with many suppressed exclamations, and at the
end the water stood in his eyes.
"That's just beautiful," he said. "I do not mind to have heard anything
like it; it's as fine as Burns when he wished deliverance to one--that
is prayed for in no kirk. Ay, ay! so he would have you console the poor
lost spirit? God bless the boy! There's something more than common in
that, Colonel Mortimer. And also the faith of him in his father!--I
would like to put that into a sermon." Then the old gentleman gave me an
alarmed look, and said, "No, no; I was not meaning a sermon; but I must
write it down for the 'Children's Record.'" I saw the thought that
passed through his mind. Either he thought, or he feared I would think,
of a funeral sermon. You may believe this did not make me more cheerful.
I can scarcely say that Dr. Moncrieff gave me any advice. How could any
one advise on such a subject? But he said, "I think I'll come too. I'm
an old man; I'm less liable to be frightened than those that are further
off the world unseen. It behooves me to think of my own journey there.
I've no cut-and-dry beliefs on the subject. I'll come too; and maybe at
the moment the Lord will put into our heads what to do."
This gave me a little comfort,--more than Simson had given me. To be
clear about the cause of it was not my grand desire. It was another
thing that was in my mind,--my boy. As for the poor soul at the open
door, I had no more doubt, as I have said, of its existence than I had
of my own. It was no ghost to me. I knew the creature, and it was in
trouble. That was my feeling about it, as it was Roland's. To hear it
first was a great shock to my nerves, but not now; a man will get
accustomed to anything. But to do something for it was the great
problem; how was I to be serviceable to a being that was invisible, that
was mortal no longer? "Maybe at the moment the Lord will put it into our
heads." This is very old-fashioned phraseology, and a week before, most
likely, I should have smiled (though always with kindness) at Dr.
Moncrieff's credulity; but there was a great comfort, whether rational
or otherwise I cannot say, in the mere sound of the words.
The road to the station and the village lay through the glen, not by the
ruins; but though the sunshine and the fresh air, and the beauty of the
trees, and the sound of the water were all very soothing to the spirits,
my mind was so full of my own subject that I could not refrain from
turning to the right hand as I got to the top of the glen, and going
straight to the place which I may call the scene of all my thoughts. It
was lying full in the sunshine, like all the rest of the world. The
ruined gable looked due east, and in the present aspect of the sun the
light streamed down through the door-way as our lantern had done,
throwing a flood of light upon the damp grass beyond. There was a
strange suggestion in the open door,--so futile, a kind of emblem of
vanity: all free around, so that you could go where you pleased, and yet
that semblance of an enclosure,--that way of entrance, unnecessary,
leading to nothing. And why any creature should pray and weep to get
in--to nothing, or be kept out--by nothing! You could not dwell upon it,
or it made your brain go round. I remembered, however, what Simson said
about the juniper, with a little smile on my own mind as to the
inaccuracy of recollection which even a scientific man will be guilty
of. I could see now the light of my lantern gleaming upon the wet
glistening surface of the spiky leaves at the right hand,--and he ready
to go to the stake for it that it was the left! I went round to make
sure. And then I saw what he had said. Right or left there was no
juniper at all! I was confounded by this, though it was entirely a
matter of detail: nothing at all,--a bush of brambles waving, the grass
growing up to the very walls. But after all, though it gave me a shock
for a moment, what did that matter? There were marks as if a number of
footsteps had been up and down in front of the door, but these might
have been our steps; and all was bright and peaceful and still. I poked
about the other ruin--the larger ruins of the old house--for some time,
as I had done before. There were marks upon the grass here and there--I
could not call them footsteps--all about; but that told for nothing one
way or another. I had examined the ruined rooms closely the first day.
They were half-filled up with soil and debris, withered brackens and
bramble,--no refuge for any one there. It vexed me that Jarvis should
see me coming from that spot when he came up to me for his orders. I
don't know whether my nocturnal expeditions had got wind among the
servants. But there was a significant look in his face. Something in it
I felt was like my own sensation when Simson in the midst of his
scepticism was struck dumb. Jarvis felt satisfied that his veracity had
been put beyond question. I never spoke to a servant of mine in such a
peremptory tone before. I sent him away "with a flea in his lug," as the
man described it afterwards. Interference of any kind was intolerable to
me at such a moment.
But what was strangest of all was, that I could not face Roland. I did
not go up to his room, as I would have naturally done, at once. This the
girls could not understand. They saw there was some mystery in it.
"Mother has gone to lie down," Agatha said; "he has had such a good
night." "But he wants you so, papa!" cried little Jeanie, always with
her two arms embracing mine in a pretty way she had. I was obliged to go
at last, but what could I say? I could only kiss him, and tell him to
keep still,--that I was doing all I could. There is something mystical
about the patience of a child. "It will come all right, won't it,
father?" he said. "God grant it may! I hope so, Roland." "Oh, yes, it
will come all right." Perhaps he understood that in the midst of my
anxiety I could not stay with him as I should have done otherwise. But
the girls were more surprised than it is possible to describe. They
looked at me with wondering eyes. "If I were ill, papa, and you only
stayed with me a moment, I should break my heart," said Agatha. But the
boy had a sympathetic feeling. He knew that of my own will I would not
have done it. I shut myself up in the library, where I could not rest,
but kept pacing up and down like a caged beast. What could I do? and if
I could do nothing, what would become of my boy? These were the
questions that, without ceasing, pursued each other through my mind.
Simson came out to dinner, and when the house was all still, and most of
the servants in bed, we went out and met Dr. Moncrieff, as we had
appointed, at the head of the glen. Simson, for his part, was disposed
to scoff at the Doctor. "If there are to be any spells, you know, I'll
cut the whole concern," he said. I did not make him any reply. I had not
invited him; he could go or come as he pleased. He was very talkative,
far more so than suited my humour, as we went on. "One thing is certain,
you know; there must be some human agency," he said. "It is all bosh
about apparitions. I never have investigated the laws of sound to any
great extent, and there's a great deal in ventriloquism that we don't
know much about." "If it's the same to you," I said, "I wish you'd keep
all that to yourself, Simson. It doesn't suit my state of mind." "Oh, I
hope I know how to respect idiosyncrasy," he said. The very tone of his
voice irritated me beyond measure. These scientific fellows, I wonder
people put up with them as they do, when you have no mind for their
cold-blooded confidence. Dr. Moncrieff met us about eleven o'clock, the
same time as on the previous night. He was a large man, with a venerable
countenance and white hair,--old, but in full vigour, and thinking less
of a cold night walk than many a younger man. He had his lantern, as I
had. We were fully provided with means of lighting the place, and we
were all of us resolute men. We had a rapid consultation as we went up,
and the result was that we divided to different posts. Dr. Moncrieff
remained inside the wall--if you can call that inside where there was no
wall but one. Simson placed himself on the side next the ruins, so as to
intercept any communication with the old house, which was what his mind
was fixed upon. I was posted on the other side. To say that nothing
could come near without being seen was self-evident. It had been so also
on the previous night. Now, with our three lights in the midst of the
darkness, the whole place seemed illuminated. Dr. Moncrieff's lantern,
which was a large one, without any means of shutting up,--an
old-fashioned lantern with a pierced and ornamental top,--shone
steadily, the rays shooting out of it upward into the gloom. He placed
it on the grass, where the middle of the room, if this had been a room,
would have been. The usual effect of the light streaming out of the
door-way was prevented by the illumination which Simson and I on either
side supplied. With these differences, everything seemed as on the
previous night.
And what occurred was exactly the same, with the same air of repetition,
point for point, as I had formerly remarked. I declare that it seemed to
me as if I were pushed against, put aside, by the owner of the voice as
he paced up and down in his trouble,--though these are perfectly futile
words, seeing that the stream of light from my lantern, and that from
Simson's taper, lay broad and clear, without a shadow, without the
smallest break, across the entire breadth of the grass. But just as it
threw itself sobbing at the door (I cannot use other words), there
suddenly came something which sent the blood coursing through my veins,
and my heart into my mouth. It was a voice inside the wall,--my
minister's well-known voice. I would have been prepared for it in any
kind of adjuration, but I was not prepared for what I heard. It came out
with a sort of stammering, as if too much moved for utterance. "Willie,
Willie! Oh, God preserve us! is it you?"
I made a dash round to the other side of the wall. The old minister was
standing where I had left him, his shadow thrown vague and large upon
the grass by the lantern which stood at his feet. I lifted my own light
to see his face. He was very pale, his eyes wet and glistening, his
mouth quivering with parted lips. He neither saw nor heard me. His whole
being seemed absorbed in anxiety and tenderness. He held out his hands,
which trembled, but it seemed to me with eagerness, not fear. He went on
speaking all the time. "Willie, if it is you,--and it's you, if it is
not a delusion of Satan,--Willie, lad! why come ye here frighting them
that know you not? Why came ye not to me? Your mother's gone with your
name on her lips. Do you think she would ever close her door on her own
lad? Do ye think the Lord will close the door, ye faint-hearted
creature? No!--I forbid ye! I forbid ye!" cried the old man. The sobbing
voice had begun to resume its cries. He made a step forward, calling out
the last words in a voice of command. "I forbid ye! Cry out no more to
man. Go home, ye wandering spirit! go home! Do you hear me?--me that
christened ye, that have struggled with ye, that have wrestled for ye
with the Lord!" Here the loud tones of his voice sank into tenderness.
"And her too, poor woman! poor woman! her you are calling upon. She's no
here. You'll find her with the Lord. Go there and seek her, not here. Do
you hear me, lad? go after her there. He'll let you in, though it's
late. Man, take heart! if you will lie and sob and greet, let it be at
heaven's gate, and no your poor mother's ruined door."
He stopped to get his breath; and the voice had stopped, not as it had
done before, when its time was exhausted and all its repetitions said,
but with a sobbing catch in the breath as if overruled. Then the
minister spoke again, "Are you hearing me, Will? Oh, laddie, you've
liked the beggarly elements all your days. Be done with them now. Go
home to the Father--the Father! Are you hearing me?" Here the old man
sank down upon his knees, his face raised upwards, his hands held up
with a tremble in them, all white in the light in the midst of the
darkness. I resisted as long as I could, though I cannot tell why; then
I, too, dropped upon my knees. Simson all the time stood in the
door-way, with an expression in his face such as words could not tell,
his under lip dropped, his eyes wild, staring. It seemed to be to him,
that image of blank ignorance and wonder, that we were praying. All the
time the voice, with a low arrested sobbing, lay just where he was
standing, as I thought.
"Lord," the minister said,--"Lord, take him into Thy everlasting
habitations. The mother he cries to is with Thee. Who can open to him
but Thee? Lord, when is it too late for Thee, or what is too hard for
Thee? Lord, let that woman there draw him inower! Let her draw him
inower!"
I sprang forward to catch something in my arms that flung itself wildly
within the door. The illusion was so strong, that I never paused till I
felt my forehead graze against the wall and my hands clutch the
ground,--for there was nobody there to save from falling, as in my
foolishness I thought. Simson held out his hand to me to help me up. He
was trembling and cold, his lower lip hanging, his speech almost
inarticulate. "It's gone," he said, stammering,--"it's gone!"
As long as I live I will never forget the shining of the strange lights,
the blackness all round, the kneeling figure with all the whiteness of
the light concentrated on its white venerable head and uplifted hands.
I never knew how long we stood, like sentinels guarding him at his
prayers. But at last the old minister rose from his knees, and standing
up at his full height, raised his arms, as the Scotch manner is at the
end of a religious service, and solemnly gave the apostolical
benediction,--to what? to the silent earth, the dark woods, the wide
breathing atmosphere; for we were but spectators gasping an Amen!
It seemed to me that it must be the middle of the night, as we all
walked back. It was in reality very late. Dr. Moncrieff himself was the
first to speak. "I must be going," he said; "I will go down the glen, as
I came."
"But not alone. I am going with you, Doctor."
"Well, I will not oppose it. I am an old man, and agitation wearies more
than work. Yes; I'll be thankful of your arm. Tonight, Colonel, you've
done me more good turns than one."
I pressed his hand on my arm, not feeling able to speak. But Simson, who
turned with us, and who had gone along all this time with his taper
flaring, in entire unconsciousness, became himself, sceptical and
cynical. "I should like to ask you a question," he said. "Do you believe
in Purgatory, Doctor? It's not in the tenets of the Church, so far as I
know."
"Sir," said Dr. Moncrieff, "an old man like me is sometimes not very
sure what he believes. There is just one thing I am certain of--and that
is the loving-kindness of God."
"But I thought that was in this life. I am no theologian----"
"Sir," said the old man again, with a tremor in him which I could feel
going over all his frame, "if I saw a friend of mine within the gates of
hell, I would not despair but his Father would take him by the hand
still, if he cried like _you_."
"I allow it is very strange, very strange. I cannot see through it. That
there must be human agency, I feel sure. Doctor, what made you decide
upon the person and the name?"
The minister put out his hand with the impatience which a man might show
if he were asked how he recognized his brother. "Tuts!" he said, in
familiar speech; then more solemnly, "How should I not recognize a
person that I know better--far better--than I know you?"
"Then you saw the man?"
Dr. Moncrieff made no reply. He moved his hand again with a little
impatient movement, and walked on, leaning heavily on my arm. We parted
with him at his own door, where his old housekeeper appeared in great
perturbation, waiting for him. "Eh, me, minister! the young gentleman
will be worse?" she cried.
"Far from that--better. God bless him!" Dr. Moncrieff said.
I think if Simson had begun again to me with his questions, I should
have pitched him over the rocks as we returned up the glen; but he was
silent, by a good inspiration. And the sky was clearer than it had been
for many nights, shining high over the trees, with here and there a star
faintly gleaming through the wilderness of dark and bare branches. We
went up to the boy's room when we went in. There we found the complete
hush of rest. My wife looked up out of a doze, and gave me a smile; "I
think he is a great deal better; but you are very late," she said in a
whisper, shading the light with her hand that the Doctor might see his
patient. The boy had got back something like his own colour. He woke as
we stood all round his bed. His eyes had the happy, half-awakened look
of childhood, glad to shut again, yet pleased with the interruption and
glimmer of the light. I stooped over him and kissed his forehead, which
was moist and cool. "All is well, Roland," I said. He looked up at me
with a glance of pleasure, and took my hand and laid his cheek upon it,
and so went to sleep.
* * * * *
For some nights after, I watched among the ruins, spending all the dark
hours up to midnight patrolling about the bit of wall which was
associated with so many emotions; but I heard nothing, and saw nothing
beyond the quiet course of nature; nor, so far as I am aware, has
anything been heard again. Dr. Moncrieff gave me the history of the
youth, whom he never hesitated to name. I did not ask, as Simson did,
how he recognized him. He had been a prodigal,--weak, foolish, easily
imposed upon, and "led away," as people say. All that we had heard had
passed actually in life, the Doctor said. The young man had come home
thus a day or two after his mother died,--who was no more than
housekeeper in the old house,--and distracted with the news, had thrown
himself down at the door and called upon her to let him in. The old man
could scarcely speak of it for tears. He was not terrified, as I had
been myself, and all the rest of us. It was no "ghost," as I fear we all
vulgarly considered it, to him,--but a poor creature whom he knew under
these conditions, just as he had known him in the flesh, having no doubt
of his identity. And to Roland it was the same. This spirit in pain,--if
it was a spirit,--this voice out of the unseen,--was a poor
fellow-creature in misery, to be succoured and helped out of his
trouble, to my boy. He spoke to me quite frankly about it when he got
better. "I knew father would find out some way," he said. And this was
when he was strong and well, and all idea that he would turn hysterical
or become a seer of visions had happily passed away.
* * * * *