MR. HOPKINS TOPPLETON MAKES A DISCOVERY.
IT is hardly to be wondered at that Toppleton did not sleep much that
night at Barncastle Hall. The state of his nerves was not calculated to
permit him to sleep even had he been willing to do so. The experiences
of the day were not of a nature to give him such confidence in his
surroundings as would have enabled him to woo rest with a serene sense
of safety. Furthermore, it was his desire to push his endeavour through
to as immediate a conclusion as was possible, and time was too precious
to waste in rest. Hence it was that the dawning of another day found him
utterly fagged out, awake, and still meditating upon the means most
likely to crown his efforts with success.
"I am afraid," he said, as he turned the matter over and over in his
mind, "I am afraid it's going to be a harder task than I thought. My
plan has worked admirably up to a certain point, but there it has ceased
to result as I had anticipated. He is frightened, that is certain; but
he cannot be frightened into a restitution. He is too selfish to give up
Chatford's body and take his chances of getting another, and his rather
natural distrust of Chatford's ability to sustain the greatness of the
name of Barncastle re-enforces his selfishness. I can't blame him
either. I haven't a doubt that Chatford's spirit would prove too weak to
keep the body going a year at the outside, and yet it is his, and he
ought to have it. He ought to--have--"
Here wearied Nature asserted herself, and Hopkins' head dropped back on
the soft cushion of his couch, and he lost consciousness in a sleep that
knew no dreams.
The morning hours passed away and still he slept. Afternoon gave place
to night, and as the moon rose over the Barbundle and bathed the
beautiful scene as with silver, Hopkins opened his eyes again and looked
about him. He was annoyed to find that his vision had in some manner
become slightly obscured; he seemed to see everything through a faint
suggestion of a haze, and an object ten feet distant that he remembered
admiring as he lay on his couch the afternoon before, its every detail
clear cut and distinct to the eye, was now a confused jumble of lines
only, suggestive of nothing in particular, though the moonlight
streaming in through the window shone directly upon it.
"Dear me!" he said, passing his hands over his eyes as if to sweep away
the filmy web that interfered with his sight. "I seem to have a slight
vertigo, and yet I cannot understand why I should. I hardly drank
anything last night, and as for what I ate it was simplicity itself. But
I wonder how long I have been asleep; let me see." Here he consulted his
watch, the great silver timepiece he had brought with him.
"Humph," he said; "half-past seven. I must have slept nearly thirteen
hours; unlucky number that. No wonder I have vertigo."
He rose from the couch and walked, or rather tottered, to the window to
look out upon the beautifully serene Barbundle.
"Mercy! How weak I am!" he cried, grasping the sill for support. "This
trouble seems to have gone to my knees as well. I can hardly stand,
and--ow--there is a touch of rheumatism in my right arm! I shall have to
ring for Parker to bring me a little resolution in the form of a stiff
horn of whiskey. These old English homes I'm afraid are a little damp."
He touched the bell at the side of the doorway and staggered back to the
couch, falling upon it in a heap in sheer weakness, and as he did so he
again became conscious of someone gazing at him from the other side of
the room, and as he looked, the fiend in his emerald disembodiment took
shape and approached him.
"Ah, Barncastle," said Toppleton, to whom custom had rendered the
fiend's appearance less terrible. "I am glad to see you. I'm afraid I am
ill. I have the most unaccountable weakness in my knees. My eyesight
seems to have grown dim, and I am conscious of my head which is really a
new sensation to me. I wish you'd send your butler up here with some
whiskey."
"All right, I'll send him," returned the fiend with, or so it seemed to
Toppleton, a lack of friendly interest in his tone which rather
surprised him, for Barncastle had hitherto been the quintessence of
politeness. "I fancy you'll be better in the morning; and between you
and me I'd let whiskey alone. Brandy and soda is my drink, and I think
it will do you more good in your present state than whiskey."
"Very well, Barncastle," Hopkins began.
"Don't call me Barncastle," returned the fiend, impatiently. "Your
discovery of my secret has made all that intolerable to me, and I intend
hereafter to spend as little of my time in that form as is consistent
with propriety. I did not realize until you came here how long
confinement within anatomical limits had weakened my powers, and to find
myself at this period of my existence almost, if not quite, as
incompetent to meet the grave crises of life as any mortal, is galling
in the extreme. Call me anything you please, but drop Barncastle."
"Very well," again replied Toppleton. "I will call you my friend
Greene."
"Humorous to the last, Toppleton," laughed the fiend. "That's a truly
American characteristic. I believe you'll jest with your dying breath."
"Quite likely," said Hopkins, lightly. "That is if I ever draw it."
"Ah! Have you discovered an Elixir of Life, then?" queried the fiend.
"Not yet," returned Hopkins. "But I am sure I cannot see why, with your
assistance, I should not do so. If you know all the secrets of the
universe, I think you might confide at least one of them to me, and the
only one I ask is, what shall I do to live for ever?"
"You are an insinuating young man," returned the fiend. "And I must say
I like you, Toppleton, in spite of your abominable poetry, for now I am
going to be candid with you."
"So much, then, is gained," said Hopkins, cheerfully. "If you like me,
give me the recipe of life."
"I would, my boy," the fiend replied with a harsh laugh, "I would do it
gladly, if I hadn't forgotten it. Some day I shall take a day off from
these mundane operations of mine, and return to the spirit vale and
freshen up my formulae. Then perhaps I can help you. But I have something
very important to say to you, and if you will come with me to my own
quarters I will say it. This room is too chilly for a spirit with
nothing on."
Toppleton readily acquiesced. His other sensations had been so acute
since his awakening, that he did not realize until the fiend spoke of
the chill in the atmosphere that he was himself cold to the very marrow
of his bones; that his blood seemed hardly to run in his veins, so
congealed had it become. He followed the fiend, who led the way from
Toppleton's room to Barncastle's own quarters, where a log fire blazed
fiercely on the hearth. There was no other light than that of the fire
in the room, and Hopkins was glad of it, his eyes were too weary for any
illumination save the one which made the darkness in which he now sat
even blacker than was natural.
"Lie down there on my bed, Toppleton," said the fiend. "Lie down and
listen to me."
Toppleton obeyed, and gladly.
"You are a sick man," began the fiend, "though you may not know it. You
have no more than an even chance of living beyond this night. If you do
live until to-morrow morning I see no reason why you should not continue
to do so for many years to come; in fact I confidently anticipate that
such will be the case, but you have got to be careful."
"If you were not one of the supernatural element, Mr. Greene," said
Toppleton, nervously tapping his fingers together, "I should be inclined
to laugh at your notions respecting my health. A man of my habits and
physique doesn't go to pieces after a single late supper, to be brought
up standing at the doors of death uncertain as to whether he will be
invited in or requested to move on, all in a single night."
"For an acute man you are an obtuse sort of a person," returned the
fiend, gravely. "I do not mean that you are in immediate danger of
physical collapse, though that will come shortly unless you take care of
yourself. It is a worse than physical death that I refer to. You are on
the verge of intellectual death, Toppleton. You need twenty-four hours
of wakefulness to put you in an insane asylum, an incurable, hopelessly
mad for the balance of your days. You remarked a moment since that you
were conscious of your head. By that you meant that you felt the weight
of it, and it is a leaden weight unless my eyes deceive me. I have
experienced it, and I know what it means."
Hopkins' face blanched as the fiend spoke. It was too easy for him to
believe all that had been said; and why should it not be so, he asked
himself. Here was a case of mortal arrayed in combat against a
supernatural being, and in the nature of things it was a contest of the
intellectuals and not one of the sort in which Toppleton's training
would have made him an easy victor. In a bout at arms Barncastle would
have been a prey to Toppleton with scarce an effort on the American's
part, but mind for mind, the young lawyer was fighting against terrible
odds. He had proven to a very considerable extent a winner, and yet his
victory was quite as hollow as the victory of a trotting horse who has
won only the preliminary heats and still has the final test to undergo;
but to win even the trial heat was a great thing, and that his mind
should be well-nigh used up was to have been expected. Realizing this,
and realizing also that it was his defeated adversary who was advising
him as to what was necessary to be done for the preservation of his
sanity, he was quite overcome. He nearly fainted, in fact he would have
done so had not the fiend seeing his condition applied restoratives to
his head and feet, and poured between his open lips a concoction which
made every drop of blood in his body glow as with health, which imparted
strength to his weary limbs, and which seemed to clear his aching head
with its magical potence.
"You have had a narrow escape, my dear fellow," said the fiend, as
Hopkins revived. "If I hadn't saved you, you would have stepped over the
line."
"You--are--very--very kind," murmured Hopkins, raising himself on his
elbow and then dropping wearily back into the pillows again. "You place
me under very deep obli--"
"Don't speak of that," said the fiend with a smile. "The obligation you
have placed me under is still greater. But now, Toppleton, you must
sleep, or you will be beyond all hope to-morrow."
"I will," said Toppleton, faintly, and then he closed his eyes and
consciousness departed from him.
The fiend regarded him for a moment and turned away with a sigh.
"If I had had the good fortune to operate on you instead of upon
Chatford," he said, "well, there'd have been a president of the United
States in your family by this time, or, better still, a railway king
with an amount of brains equal to the possessions of the best of them.
Oh, well! he wasn't to be had, and I haven't done badly with Chatford."
With which reflection the fiend passed from the room, and left Toppleton
breathing heavily in sleep.
When next Toppleton opened his eyes consciously to himself, he was lying
on a great oak bed with a tapestry canopy over his head. The sun was
streaming in through the broad mullioned windows. The world without was
white with snow, the tall evergreens down by the now ice-covered
Barbundle presenting the only vestige of green in sight.
"Ah!" he sighed, as he looked wearily out of the window. "We shall have
a white Christmas after all, but," he added, gazing about him, "how the
dickens did I ever come to be here, I wonder? In Barncastle's own
room--oh, yes, I remember. I fell asleep here last night and I suppose
he has--Hello!--Who's that?"
The last words were addressed to whomsoever it was that entered the room
at the moment, for the door had opened and closed softly.
"It is I," came a soft, sweet voice, and before Hopkins had time to
place it, Lady Alice entered the room.
"Good morning!" said Toppleton, slightly embarrassed at the unexpected
appearance of his hostess.
"Good morning!" she replied, coming to his side and stroking his
forehead lightly. "And I can say with all my heart, after these awful
days of suspense, that it is a good morning. You have been very ill."
"Oh, it was nothing," said Hopkins, endeavouring to conceal his surprise
at the way things were going. "Only a little headache and rackety
feeling generally. It will pass off. Barncastle was very good to let me
have his quarters."
Lady Alice's face took on a troubled look.
"How beautiful it is out," said Toppleton, turning his eyes toward the
snow-clad landscape again. "I was just thinking that we should have a
white Christmas after all."
"Why, my dear, Christmas is over by two weeks. You have been ill here
for three weeks yesterday."
"What?" cried Toppleton. "I?"
"Why, certainly," said Lady Alice. "Of course, you didn't know it, but
it is so. You haven't had a lucid moment in all that time."
A sudden fear clutched at Toppleton's heart.
"But--but tell me, have I--what do--what have the doctors said--that I
had lost my mind, was in danger of a living death; that--"
"Don't get so excited," returned Lady Alice, softly, still retaining the
look of anxiety on her face. "Here, read this. It is a letter from your
Rocky Mountain friend, I think, and I fancy it will amuse you. It has
only just come."
"My Rocky Mountain friend!" ejaculated Hopkins under his breath. "What
devilish complication does this mean, I wonder?"
"Shall I open it for you?" asked Lady Alice.
"Yes," said Hopkins mechanically; "I'll be very much obliged to you if
you will do so. Thank you," he added, staring wildly at the foot of the
bed as the young woman opened and handed him the letter.
"While you are reading it," said she, "I'll run downstairs a moment, and
tell Parker to prepare you a little breakfast."
"You are very kind," said Toppleton, faintly; and then as Lady Alice
went softly from the room he began to read the letter. "'17, The Temple,
London, January 2nd. My dear Barncastle--' Why, she must have made a
mistake," he said; "this is for Barn--by Jove! it's in my handwriting,
and signed--Hopkins--Top--ple--ton. What in the name of Heav--"
Here he ceased his soliloquizing and began to read the letter which was
as follows:--
"MY DEAR BARNCASTLE,--I understood your game from
the beginning. It was audacious, but unavailing,
as the attack of a finite upon an infinite mind
must always be. I led you on to your own undoing
if you so regard it. I removed gladly every
obstacle from your path, and let you think in your
own conceit that you were an easy victor in the
fight. By so doing I put your caution asleep, and
when your caution slept you became a victim to my
ambition just as did Chatford, with this
exception, that I have left you in a position to
enjoy life, while circumstances made it necessary
for me to place him in perpetual exile. Perhaps
when you get this letter and realize what I have
done, you will curse me. Do not do so. You are not
a loser in the premises. You have gained the
Burningford estates, you have gained the enjoyment
of the honours which I have won, at the expense of
the difference of strength between the body I have
put off and this one of yours which I now occupy.
The latter, let me say to you, is a superb
specimen, the ideal habitation for a soul like
mine. Aided by it a still greater future than the
one, to be paradoxical, I have left behind me,
will be mine, and not mine only, but yours also,
since it is under your name that my future
greatness is to be achieved. I repeat, do not
curse me, for in cursing me you but curse
yourself, and when you get over the first
sensation of horror at the changes I have wrought
in our respective destinies, and can think upon it
calmly and dispassionately, you will not find me
so much to blame. Nor are you to be deprived of
any of your years by my act. The infusion of a
younger spirit into the corse of Barncastle will
make it young again, and gradually you will
recover the physical ground you now seem to have
lost.
"I sail for New York on the _City of Paris_
to-morrow, and you may rest assured that the name
that now flies at the mast-head in the firm of
Toppleton, Morley, Bronson, Mawson, Perkins,
Harkins, Smithers and Hicks will no longer be a
mere figurehead, a minimum among maxima; it will
become once more what it used to be, a tower of
strength in the legal profession, and, permit me
to say, a tower of such height that beside it the
famous structure erected by your illustrious
father will become but as an ant hill to the
pyramid of Cheops.
"Good-bye, Barncastle, for that is now your name.
In the years to come we may meet again, and when
we do, may it be in friendship, for as Barncastle
I loved myself, and as Toppleton I love you. May
you go and do likewise, and above all, give up
masquerading as a Broncho poet, and get down to
the business for which you were fitted by nature,
if not by birth: that of a member of the noblest
aristocracy in the world; that of a peer of the
British realm.
"Faithfully yours,
"HOPKINS TOPPLETON, _alias_ BARNCASTLE,
"_Ne_ CALDERWOOD.
"P.S.--I have had an interview with the original
Chatford, and have informed him that it is
impossible for him to return to his former
corporeal state, because Barncastle no longer
knows the formula by which the re-entrance can be
effected, which is true. He believes it, and has
gone off into space with his whistle and his
sigh."
For a moment Toppleton was overcome. This unexpected denouement was
almost too much for him, but the indignation that surged up in his
breast gave him strength to withstand the shock; and then, singular to
relate, he laughed.
"To think that I should be born a Yankee and at my time of life become a
peer surrounded by everything that wealth can procure, and loaded down
with every honour that man can devise; oh, nonsense! it's all a joke,
and a good one. Barncastle saw through my trick, and is paying me back
in my own coin."
Here Hopkins laughed till the room echoed with his mirth, and as his
laugh died away the door opened and the heiress of Burningford entered.
"Why, father!" she cried, exultantly, "do you feel as well--"
At the word "father," Hopkins' heart gave a great throb.
"My dear," he said in a moment, "I have been ill you say for three
weeks, and with no lucid intervals?"
"Yes."
"And my hallucination was what?"
"That you were that ridiculous American poet."
"Bring me the glass, my child," said Hopkins, gravely. "I--I'd just like
to see my face in the mirror."
The glass was brought and Hopkins looked into it. The face of Barncastle
in very truth gazed back at him from its silver depths.
"Ah!" he said. "I have changed; have I not?"
"Yes, indeed," said the Lady of Burningford. "But really I think your
illness has done you good, for I do believe you look ten years younger."
"It is well," said the new Barncastle, with a sigh of resignation. "I
have worked too hard. I shall now retire from public life and devote my
remaining years to--to the accomplishment of my one great ambition."
"And what is that?" asked his daughter.
"To becoming a leader in the busy world of leisure, my child," said
Toppleton, falling back to his pillow once more, and again losing
consciousness in sleep.
This time fortunately the sleep was that of one who had fought a good
fight, had lost, but whose conscience was clear; and to whom, after many
days, had been restored a sound mind in a body sound enough to last
through many years of unremitting rest.