I write these last words after the dead of night, towards the coming of
the dawn. Ere the light is grey in the sky I shall be away to the burn
to meet him, the grey traveller. He is there waiting for me. He has come
back. I go to meet him, and I shall never return. Carlounie will know my
face no more. All is done as he ordained. My words have been as deeds,
have marched on inevitably to actual deeds. Long ago he said that
sometimes, even as we can never go back from things that we have done,
we can never go back from things that we have said. So, indeed, it is.
According to my fixed intention, I determined on a night for the
destruction of the Manse. The house was old and would burn like tinder.
I should break into it through the window of the study, which was never
shuttered. I should set fire to the interior at several points, and
escape in the darkness of the night. By dawn the accursed place would be
a ruin, and then--then I looked for a new era. Fool! Fool! I looked to
see the burden of the vile influence of the spectre lifted from the soul
of Fraser, and so from the soul of Kate, which was infected by him. I
looked to see my people sane and satisfied as of old, Carlounie no more
a plague-spot in the land, that poor and zealous man, the minister, calm
and at rest with his little faithful flock once more. All this I looked
for confidently. And so, when the black and starless night of my deed
came, I was happy and serene. That night Kate pleaded a headache, and
went to bed very early, before nine. She begged me not to come to her
room to bid her good-night, as she wanted perfect quiet and sleep. All
unsuspecting, I agreed to her request. Soon after she had gone, Fraser,
who had seemed heavy with unusual fatigue all through the evening, also
went off to bed, and I was left alone. But it was not yet time for me to
start on my errand of the darkness. The burning Manse would surely
attract attention before midnight. People might be out and about in the
village. A belated peasant might be on his way home by the lane that
skirted the privet hedge. I must wait till all were sleeping. The time
seemed very long. Once I fancied I heard a movement in the house--again
I dreamed that soft and hurried footsteps upon the gravel outside broke
on the silence. But I said to myself that I was nervous, highly strung
because of my strange project, that my imagination tricked me. At last
the hour came. Without going upstairs I drew on my thickest overcoat,
took my hat and a heavy stick, opened the hall door, and passed out into
the night. It was still and very cold, and the voice of the burn came
loudly to my ears. Treading quietly, I made my way into the road, and
set forth along it in the direction of the Manse. The ground was hard,
and scarcely had I gone a few yards before I thought that some one was
furtively following me. I stopped rather uneasily, and listened, but
heard nothing. I went on, and again seemed aware of distant footsteps
treading gently behind me. The sound made me suppose that some one of my
household must be after me, moved by curiosity as to the reason of my
present pilgrimage; but I was not minded to be watched, so I turned
sharply, yet very softly, around and faced the way I had come. I
encountered no one, nor did I any longer catch the patter of feet. So,
reckoning that my nerves must be playing with me, I pursued my way. But
the whole of the distance between my dwelling and the Manse I seemed
vaguely to hear a noise of one treading behind me. And, although I said
to myself that there was nobody out beside myself, I was filled with the
stir of a shifting uneasiness. I entered the lonely and narrow lane that
led beside the Manse, and presently arrived in front of the house; when,
what was my astonishment to perceive a light gleaming in the study
window. My hand was on the gate when it went out, and all the front of
the house was black and eyeless. For so brief a moment had I seen the
light that I was moved to think that it, too, existed, like the sound of
steps, only in my excited brain. Nevertheless, I did not go up at once
to the house, but paced the lane for a full half-hour, always--so it
seemed to me--tracked by some one. But, since I kept turning about, and
the footfalls were always at my back, I grew certain that they were
nothing more nor less than a fantasy on my part. It must have been well
after twelve when I summoned courage to enter the garden and to approach
the Manse. The steps, I thought, followed me to the gate and then
paused, as if a sentinel was posted there to keep watch. Arrived at the
stone step which preceded the hall door, I, too, paused in my turn and
listened. Did the spectre that inhabited this abode know of my coming,
of my purpose? Was it crouching within, like some frantic shadow,
fearful of its impending fate? Or was it, perhaps, preparing to attack,
to repel me? Strangely, I had now no fear of it, or of anything. I was
calm. I felt that my deed was one of rescue, even though, by performing
it, I wrought destruction. I moved to the study window, and was about to
smash in the glass with my heavy stick when a mad idea came to me to try
the hall door. I put my hand upon it and found it not locked. This
opening of the door sent a shiver through me, and a ghastly sense of the
occupation of this deserted abode. I was filled again with an acute
consciousness of the indwelling spectre, whom, in truth, I came to
murder. But, I reasoned, this door has been left unbarred by the
carelessness of Fraser's servants, that is all.
I stood on the lintel, struck a match and set it to a candle end which
I drew from my coat pocket. The flame burned up, showing the narrow
passage, the umbrella stand, the doors on either side. I entered the
study softly, looking swiftly on all sides of me as I did so. Did I
expect a vision of Doctor Wedderburn lounging at the table, his fingers
thrust into a Bible? I scarcely know; but I saw nothing except the
grimly standing furniture, the lamp on the table, the vacant chairs, the
books in their shelves. I listened. There was no rustle of the spectre
that I came to kill. Did it watch me? Did it see me there? I set fire to
the room, passed quickly to the chamber on the other side of the
passage, from thence to the kitchen and the dining-parlour, leaving a
track of dwarf flames behind me. The means of destruction I had prepared
and carried with me. They availed. When I once more reached the garden,
the ground floor of the Manse was in a blaze. But now came the
incredible event which I must chronicle before I go down to the burn for
the last time.
Having gained the garden, I waited there in the darkness to watch my
work progress. I saw the light within the Manse, at first a twinkle,
grow to a glare. I heard the faint crackle of the burning rooms increase
to a soft and continuous roar. And, as I watched and listened, a mighty
sense of relief ran through me. Thus did I burn up my past! thus did I
sacrifice grandly and gladly the ill spirit my wild desires had evoked!
Thus--thus! All the base of the Manse was red-hot, when, on a sudden, I
heard a great shout that seemed to come from the sky. Light sprang in an
upper window. There followed a sound like the smash of glass, and I saw
two arms shoot out, the top part of a figure and a face framed in the
glare. I deemed it the vision of the poor spectre that I destroyed. I
looked upon it and fancied I could detect the tortured lineaments of the
doctor, his accustomed gestures distorted by fear and fury. But then I
seemed to see behind him another figure, struggling, and to hear the
failing scream of a woman. But the flames from below leaped to the roof.
The floors fell in with an uproar. The figure, or figures, disappeared.
Trembling I turned to go, my mind shuddering at the thought of the
apparition I had seen. I got into the lane and hastened towards home.
Soon the burning Manse was out of sight, and I was swallowed up in the
intense darkness.
Now, as I went along, a terrible and very peculiar sensation came upon
me. I heard no footsteps; all was silence. Yet I seemed to be aware that
I was closely companioned, that at my very side something--I knew not
what--walked, keeping pace with me. And so close did I believe this
thing to be, that at moments I even felt it pressing against me like a
slim figure in the night. Once, when it thus nestled to me, as if in
affection, I could not refrain from crying out aloud. I stretched forth
my arms to grasp this surely amorous horror of the darkness, but found
nothing, and pursued my road in a sweat of apprehension. And still, the
thing was certainly with me, and seemed, I thought, to praise me as I
walked, as the good man is praised on his journey. My great horror was
that this creature that I could not see, could not hear, could not feel,
and yet was so sharply conscious of, was _well disposed towards me_. My
heart craved its hatred--but it loved me I knew. My soul demanded its
curses. I almost heard it bless me as I moved. My knees knocked
together, my limbs were turned to wax, as it was borne in upon me that I
had surely done this terror that walked in darkness a service of some
kind. To be pursued in fury by one of the dreadful beings that dwell in
the borderland beyond our sight is sad and dreary; but to be followed
thus by one as by a dog, to be fawned upon and caressed--this is
appalling. I longed to shriek aloud. I broke into a run, and, like one
demented, gained the gate of Carlounie; but always the thing was with
me--full of joy and laudation. At the house door I paused, facing round.
I was moved to address this thing I could not see.
"Who is it that walks with me?" I cried, and my voice was high and
strained.
A voice I knew, young, clear, level, a little formal, answered out of
the darkness:--
"It is I."
It was the voice of the grey traveller whom I had seen long ago by the
burnside. I leaned back against the door and my shoulders shook against
it.
"What do you want of me?"
"I come to thank you."
"What, then, have I done?"
"You have brought the tribute money."