"O, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days;
So full of dismal terror was the time."
RICHARD III.
A shapeless tissue of dreams follow this dark warp upon the web of
memory--how much the flashes of half-received truth, how much the fabric
of distorted fancy, I cannot say. Into some such form as this, they have
shaped themselves: mixed up in a confused way with the sights and sounds
of that wild solitude, comes the recollection of being clasped in arms
whose familiar hold inspired no terror; of hurried words of endearment,
and a kiss upon my forehead that lulled the returning pulsations of fear
into repose again; then a blank; then shouting voices, and the sound of
footsteps, many and heavy, rouse me once more into faint and fitful
consciousness, and dim and spectral as a graveyard dance of witches,
appear strange men with lanterns, who cluster round me; and as I close
my eyes in shuddering fear, Michael's face, in distorted ugliness, takes
a hundred ghastly shapes, dances before my eyes, and keeps out
everything else, for a space of time unspeakably frightful, as it is
immeasurably long.
At last, dull stupor overpowers it; and long, long, after that, comes a
woman's kind face and gentle touch; then a hand and voice that are
unfamiliar and unwelcome; cat-like and soft, from which I shrink in
aversion. Then, they too vanish, and when next the uncertain mist of
oblivion rolls up, I am lying in a long low room, strange and new to
me, but not unpleasing, even by the dim light that burns upon the table,
shaded from me by a painted screen. My eyes wander around inquiringly
upon the simple furniture of the room, the dark, low walls, the piles of
books and pamphlets that heap the shelves irregularly, till they rest
upon the two figures at the other end of the room. A fire burns low on
the hearth, and beside it sits a man, stooping his head upon his hand.
Another in an attitude that is familiar to me, stands with his arm upon
the mantelpiece shading his eyes from the light. They talk low and
earnestly; sometimes the one standing by the mantelpiece strides
impatiently backward and forward, across the room, and resumes his
former attitude. He by the fire never moves. I try to listen, but the
effort confuses me; and it is a long while before any of their words
reach me, and then only in a broken, uncertain way. The first I catch
are those of the voice that is familiar to me:
"It is the first time I ever rejected your counsel; the first time I
ever put aside your warning. Do you believe me when I say it pains me to
the heart, after so many years of steadfast and close friendship, to
rebel against the sacrifice it requires of me? But you do not know what
you ask, indeed you do not!"
"Perhaps not, Arthur, perhaps not," answered his companion, in a low
voice. "Do not think again of what I said; it was an over-anxiety for
your happiness that prompted me to speak; and now forget the words, and
remember only the love that moved them."
"No, Shenstone, I will not forget them," the other says, warmly; "I know
too well the value of your counsels. I will remember what you have said,
and keep the caution by me, when there is need for caution. But you must
not blame me, if I cannot put aside at once a hope that has got so
strong a hold upon me. I promise you to do nothing rashly, to let
nothing blind my judgment, to put the test of absence, change of scene,
change of interest, upon us both; years, if you will, shall pass before
I dare attempt to realize my hope; years that shall prove its
possibility, or show its folly; but do not ask me to give it up at
once."
Mr. Shenstone shook his head. "Will it be easier to tear up the
cherished hope of years, than to put down the fond fancy of a day, my
friend, do you think?"
"I am not a man given to fancies, am I, Shenstone? A life as cold as the
last twenty years of mine has been, does not look much like the pursuit
of fancies. You have known--who better?--the bitterness that poisoned
the very fountain-head of my youth; you have seen how it has tainted the
current of my whole life; how that after years of suffering and
self-denial, it only needs a word, a recollection of the past to bring
the bitter flood back upon my heart. You know all this, and yet you deny
me the only charm I see in life; the only light that gilds the dark
future! Is this kind?"
He walked impatiently across the room, then came back to his place. The
other did not look up nor speak.
"I know what you would say," continued his companion, after a moment; "I
know you would remind me that the same blow that blighted my youth,
struck deeper at your heart; that you have learned to live without what
was life to you once; that I can learn the same hard lesson. I have
tried, oh, my friend! I have tried to gain your heights of faith and
hope; but still the unconquered flesh drags me down: the curse that
generations of godless ancestors have laid upon me is unexpiated yet.
You stand now where I cannot hope to stand till
"Death comes to set me free."
Death, that I shall have won! And hoped for, you know longingly, in the
old days of wretchedness."
"That's past, Arthur, thank God's good grace; and life is no longer a
penance to you; and that it never may be again, God in His mercy grant,
and spare you what I dreaded for you. God bring you higher than I stand,
but by a gentler way, if it be His will! Arthur, it was a fiercer
struggle than even you can understand, in which my faith was born. It
was a conflict that lasts through most men's lives, that I passed
through at one dire struggle, and died unto the world forever. But,
looking backward, oh, Arthur, I can look back now and see how
----"One dead joy appears
The platform of some better hope."
Better, as heaven is than earth, as peace is than temptation, as the
service of God is than the weary bondage of the world!"
He lifted his head a moment, as if in involuntary triumph, then bent it
again, and was silent.
At that moment the door softly opened, and the woman I had seen before
stole up to where I lay, and bending down, looked in my face with
anxious inquiry, while the friends at the other end of the room hushed
their earnest tones, and one (my head was throbbing too much to see
which) started forward, and said anxiously:
"Has the doctor come back yet, Mrs. Arnold?"
"He is in the hall at this moment, sir," she answered, with preciseness
of manner, and a peculiar sweetness of voice.
Again the door opened, and again I heard the cat-like step, and felt the
velvet touch that sent a shiver through me; and then succeeded a
throbbing pain in my temples, dull aching in every limb, a high fever
coursing through every vein, and I lived over again in delirium the
scenes from which I had just escaped. Again I was lying beneath the
roaring forest trees; again the sharp throes of mortal terror wrung from
me the cry that I had uttered then, this time to be soothed by a tender
and familiar voice; then restless with pain, and burning with fever,
only pacified from that dream to be hurried off into another, wilder and
more terrible. With glaring eyes and demoniac faces, the crowd of men,
with Michael at their head, were in mad pursuit of a flying horse and
rider; with hideous jeers and yells they urge them on, and closing round
the frantic steed, they tear me, clinging round her, from Madge's neck,
and holding me down upon the ground, wrench from my arm the bracelet,
that resists, at first, their strongest efforts, till the warm blood
flows, and the torn flesh quivers, as staggering back, a ruffian lifts
the bloody prize, and with a wild cry I wake, only to drop into another
broken slumber, and to dream another hideous dream.
This time it is Mrs. Roberts, who, with rigid, cruel face, holds me
down, and binding my powerless hands, thrusts me, struggling and
frantic, into the dread, mysterious darkness of _that room_. And choking
with terror, the agony is dispelled by the low voice that says, "What is
it now, poor child?" and panting with fright, I cling to the hand that
soothes me, and only from its steady grasp gain anything like peace. And
so the night wears on. How much of these wild dreams revealed themselves
in speech I know not, and how much of the history of that night belongs
to fact, and how much to fancy, it is beyond me to decide.