CHAPTER X.

HOME.

I made him have candles lighted, and saw the room looking cheery and

inhabited before I left him. I told him that he must regard his illness

strictly as one dependent on physical, though _subtle_ physical, causes.

I told him that he had evidence of God’s care and love in the

deliverance which he had just described, and that I had perceived with

pain that he seemed to regard its peculiar features as indicating that

he had been delivered over to spiritual reprobation. Than such a

conclusion nothing could be, I insisted, less warranted; and not only

so, but more contrary to facts, as disclosed in his mysterious

deliverance from that murderous influence during his Shropshire

excursion. First, his niece had been retained by his side without his

intending to keep her near him; and, secondly, there had been infused

into his mind an irresistible repugnance to execute the dreadful

suggestion in her presence.

As I reasoned this point with him, Mr. Jennings wept. He seemed

comforted. One promise I exacted, which was that should the monkey at

any time return, I should be sent for immediately; and, repeating my

assurance that I would give neither time nor thought to any other

subject until I had thoroughly investigated his case, and that to-morrow

he should hear the result, I took my leave.

Before getting into the carriage I told the servant that his master was

far from well, and that he should make a point of frequently looking

into his room.

My own arrangements I made with a view to being quite secure from

interruption.

I merely called at my lodgings, and with a travelling-desk and

carpet-bag, set off in a hackney-carriage for an inn about two miles out

of town, called The Horns, a very quiet and comfortable house, with good

thick walls. And there I resolved, without the possibility of intrusion

or distraction, to devote some hours of the night, in my comfortable

sitting-room, to Mr. Jennings’ case, and so much of the morning as it

might require.

(There occurs here a careful note of Dr. Hesselius’ opinion upon the

case and of the habits, dietary, and medicines which he prescribed. It

is curious—some persons would say mystical. But on the whole I doubt

whether it would sufficiently interest a reader of the kind I am likely

to meet with, to warrant its being here reprinted. The whole letter was

plainly written at the inn where he had hid himself for the occasion.

The next letter is dated from his town lodgings.)

I left town for the inn where I slept last night at half-past nine, and

did not arrive at my room in town until one o’clock this afternoon. I

found a letter in Mr. Jennings’ hand upon my table. It had not come by

post, and, on inquiry, I learned that Mr. Jennings’ servant had brought

it, and on learning that I was not to return until to-day, and that no

one could tell him my address, he seemed very uncomfortable, and said

that his orders from his master were that he was not to return without

an answer.

I opened the letter, and read:

“Dear Dr. Hesselius. It is here. You had not been an hour gone when it

returned. It is speaking. It knows all that has happened. It knows

everything—it knows you, and is frantic and atrocious. It reviles. I

send you this. It knows every word I have written—I write. This I

promised, and I therefore write, but I fear very confused, very

incoherently. I am so interrupted, disturbed.

“Ever yours, sincerely yours,

“ROBERT LYNDER JENNINGS.”

“When did this come?” I asked.

“About eleven last night: the man was here again, and has been here

three times to-day. The last time is about an hour since.”

Thus answered, and with the notes I had made upon his case in my pocket,

I was in a few minutes driving towards Richmond, to see Mr. Jennings.

I by no means, as you perceive, despaired of Mr. Jennings’ case. He had

himself remembered and applied, though quite in a mistaken way, the

principle which I lay down in my Metaphysical Medicine, and which

governs all such cases. I was about to apply it in earnest. I was

profoundly interested, and very anxious to see and examine him while the

“enemy” was actually present.

I drove up to the sombre house, and ran up the steps, and knocked. The

door, in a little time, was opened by a tall woman in black silk. She

looked ill, and as if she had been crying. She curtseyed, and heard my

question, but she did not answer. She turned her face away, extending

her hand towards two men who were coming down-stairs; and thus having,

as it were, tacitly made me over to them, she passed through a side-door

hastily and shut it.

The man who was nearest the hall, I at once accosted, but being now

close to him, I was shocked to see that both his hands were covered

with blood.

I drew back a little, and the man passing down-stairs merely said in a

low tone, “Here’s the servant, sir.”

The servant had stopped on the stairs, confounded and dumb at seeing me.

He was rubbing his hands in a handkerchief, and it was steeped in blood.

“Jones, what is it, what has happened?” I asked, while a sickening

suspicion overpowered me.

The man asked me to come up to the lobby. I was beside him in a moment,

and frowning and pallid, with contracted eyes, he told me the horror

which I already half guessed.

His master had made away with himself.

I went upstairs with him to the room—what I saw there I won’t tell you.

He had cut his throat with his razor. It was a frightful gash. The two

men had laid him on the bed and composed his limbs. It had happened as

the immense pool of blood on the floor declared, at some distance

between the bed and the window. There was carpet round his bed, and a

carpet under his dressing-table, but none on the rest of the floor, for

the man said he did not like a carpet on his bedroom. In this sombre,

and now terrible room, one of the great elms that darkened the house was

slowly moving the shadow of one of its great boughs upon this dreadful

floor.

I beckoned to the servant and we went down-stairs together. I turned off

the hall into an old-fashioned panelled room, and there standing, I

heard all the servant had to tell. It was not a great deal.

“I concluded, sir, from your words, and looks, sir, as you left last

night, that you thought my master seriously ill. I thought it might be

that you were afraid of a fit, or something. So I attended very close to

your directions. He sat up late, till past three o’clock. He was not

writing or reading. He was talking a great deal to himself, but that was

nothing unusual. At about that hour I assisted him to undress, and left

him in his slippers and dressing-gown. I went back softly in about half

an hour. He was in his bed, quite undressed, and a pair of candles

lighted on the table beside his bed. He was leaning on his elbow and

looking out at the other side of the bed when I came in. I asked him if

he wanted anything, and he said no.

“I don’t know whether it was what you said to me, sir, or something a

little unusual about him, but I was uneasy, uncommon uneasy about him

last night.

“In another half hour, or it might be a little more, I went up again. I

did not hear him talking as before. I opened the door a little. The

candles were both out, which was not usual. I had a bedroom candle, and

I let the light in, a little bit, looking softly round. I saw him

sitting in that chair beside the dressing-table with his clothes on

again. He turned round and looked at me. I thought it strange he should

get up and dress, and put out the candles to sit in the dark, that way.

But I only asked him again if I could do anything for him. He said, no,

rather sharp, I thought. I asked if I might light the candles, and he

said, ‘Do as you like, Jones,’ So I lighted them, and I lingered about

the room, and he said, ‘Tell me truth, Jones, why did you come

again—you did not hear any one cursing?’ ‘No, sir,’ I said, wondering

what he could mean.

“‘No,’ said he, after me, ‘of course, no;’ and I said to him, ‘Wouldn’t

it be well, sir, you went to bed? It’s just five o’clock;’ and he said

nothing but, ‘Very likely; good-night, Jones.’ So I went, sir, but in

less than hour I came again. The door was fast, and he heard me, and

called as I thought from the bed to know what I wanted, and he desired

me not to disturb him again. I lay down and slept for a little. It must

have been between six and seven when I went up again. The door was still

fast, and he made no answer, so I did not like to disturb him, and

thinking he was asleep, I left him till nine. It was his custom to ring

when he wished me to come, and I had no particular hour for calling him.

I tapped very gently, and getting no answer, I stayed away a good while,

supposing he was getting some rest then. It was not till eleven o’clock

I grew really uncomfortable about him—for at the latest he was never,

that I could remember, later than half-past ten. I got no answer. I

knocked and called, and still no answer. So not being able to force the

door, I called Thomas from the stables, and together we forced it, and

found him in the shocking way you saw.”

Jones had no more to tell. Poor Mr. Jennings was very gentle, and very

kind. All his people were fond of him. I could see that the servant was

very much moved.

So, dejected and agitated, I passed from that terrible house, and its

dark canopy of elms, and I hope I shall never see it more. While I write

to you I feel like a man who has but half waked from a frightful and

monotonous dream. My memory rejects the picture with incredulity and

horror. Yet I know it is true. It is the story of the process of a

poison, a poison which excites the reciprocal action of spirit and

nerve, and paralyses the tissue that separates those cognate functions

of the senses, the external and the interior. Thus we find strange

bed-fellows, and the mortal and immortal prematurely make acquaintance.

CONCLUSION.

A WORD FOR THOSE WHO SUFFER.

My dear Van L——, you have suffered from an affection similar to that

which I have just described. You twice complained of a return of it.

Who, under God, cured you? Your humble servant, Martin Hesselius. Let me

rather adopt the more emphasised piety of a certain good old French

surgeon of three hundred years ago: “I treated, and God cured you.”

Come, my friend, you are not to be hippish. Let me tell you a fact.

I have met with, and treated, as my book shows, fifty-seven cases of

this kind of vision, which I term indifferently “sublimated,”

“precocious,” and “interior.”

There is another class of affections which are truly termed—though

commonly confounded with those which I describe—spectral illusions.

These latter I look upon as being no less simply curable than a cold in

the head or a trifling dyspepsia.

It is those which rank in the first category that test our promptitude

of thought. Fifty-seven such cases have I encountered, neither more nor

less. And in how many of these have I failed? In no one single instance.

There is no one affliction of mortality more easily and certainly

reducible, with a little patience, and a rational confidence in the

physician. With these simple conditions, I look upon the cure as

absolutely certain.

You are to remember that I had not even commenced to treat Mr. Jennings’

case. I have not any doubt that I should have cured him perfectly in

eighteen months, or possibly it might have extended to two years. Some

cases are very rapidly curable, others extremely tedious. Every

intelligent physician who will give thought and diligence to the task,

will effect a cure.

You know my tract on The Cardinal Functions of the Brain. I there, by

the evidence of innumerable facts, prove, as I think, the high

probability of a circulation arterial and venous in its mechanism,

through the nerves. Of this system, thus considered, the brain is the

heart. The fluid, which is propagated hence through one class of nerves,

returns in an altered state through another, and the nature of that

fluid is spiritual, though not immaterial, any more than, as I before

remarked, light or electricity are so.

By various abuses, among which the habitual use of such agents as green

tea is one, this fluid may be affected as to its quality, but it is more

frequently disturbed as to equilibrium. This fluid being that which we

have in common with spirits, a congestion found upon the masses of brain

or nerve, connected with the interior sense, forms a surface unduly

exposed, on which disembodied spirits may operate: communication is thus

more or less effectually established. Between this brain circulation and

the heart circulation there is an intimate sympathy. The seat, or rather

the instrument of exterior vision, is the eye. The seat of interior

vision is the nervous tissue and brain, immediately about and above the

eyebrow. You remember how effectually I dissipated your pictures by the

simple application of iced eau-de-cologne. Few cases, however, can be

treated exactly alike with anything like rapid success. Cold acts

powerfully as a repellant of the nervous fluid. Long enough continued it

will even produce that permanent insensibility which we call numbness,

and a little longer, muscular as well as sensational paralysis.

I have not, I repeat, the slightest doubt that I should have first

dimmed and ultimately sealed that inner eye which Mr. Jennings had

inadvertently opened. The same senses are opened in delirium tremens,

and entirely shut up again when the over-action of the cerebral heart,

and the prodigious nervous congestions that attend it, are terminated by

a decided change in the state of the body. It is by acting steadily upon

the body, by a simple process, that this result is produced—and

inevitably produced—I have never yet failed.

Poor Mr. Jennings made away with himself. But that catastrophe was the

result of a totally different malady, which, as it were, projected

itself upon that disease which was established. His case was in the

distinctive manner a complication, and the complaint under which he

really succumbed, was hereditary suicidal mania. Poor Mr. Jennings I

cannot call a patient of mine, for I had not even begun to treat his

case, and he had not yet given me, I am convinced, his full and

unreserved confidence. If the patient do not array himself on the side

of the disease, his cure is certain.

THE FAMILIAR.

PROLOGUE.

Out of about two hundred and thirty cases, more or less nearly akin to

that I have entitled “Green Tea,” I select the following, which I call

“The Familiar.”

To this MS. Doctor Hesselius, has, after his wont, attached some sheets

of letter-paper, on which are written, in his hand nearly as compact as

print, his own remarks upon the case. He says—

“In point of conscience, no more unexceptionable narrator, than the

venerable Irish Clergyman who has given me this paper, on Mr. Barton’s

case, could have been chosen. The statement is, however, medically

imperfect. The report of an intelligent physician, who had marked its

progress, and attended the patient, from its earlier stages to its

close, would have supplied what is wanting to enable me to pronounce

with confidence. I should have been acquainted with Mr. Barton’s

probable hereditary pre-dispositions; I should have known, possibly, by

very early indications, something of a remoter origin of the disease

than can now be ascertained.

“In a rough way, we may reduce all similar cases to three distinct

classes. They are founded on the primary distinction between the

subjective and the objective. Of those whose senses are alleged to be

subject to supernatural impressions—some are simply visionaries, and

propagate the illusions of which they complain, from diseased brain or

nerves. Others are, unquestionably, infested by, as we term them,

spiritual agencies, exterior to themselves. Others, again, owe their

sufferings to a mixed condition. The interior sense, it is true, is

opened; but it has been and continues open by the action of disease.

This form of disease may, in one sense, be compared to the loss of the

scarf-skin, and a consequent exposure of surfaces for whose excessive

sensitiveness, nature has provided a muffling. The loss of this covering

is attended by an habitual impassability, by influences against which we

were intended to be guarded. But in the case of the brain, and the

nerves immediately connected with its functions and its sensuous

impressions, the cerebral circulation undergoes periodically that

vibratory disturbance, which, I believe, I have satisfactorily examined

and demonstrated, in my MS. Essay, A. 17. This vibratory disturbance

differs, as I there prove, essentially from the congestive disturbance,

the phenomena of which are examined in A. 19. It is, when excessive,

invariably accompanied by _illusions_.

“Had I seen Mr. Barton, and examined him upon the points, in his case,

which need elucidation, I should have without difficulty referred those

phenomena to their proper disease. My diagnosis is now, necessarily,

conjectural.”

Thus writes Doctor Hesselius; and adds a great deal which is of interest

only to a scientific physician.

The Narrative of the Rev. Thomas Herbert, which furnishes all that is

known of the case, will be found in the chapters that follow.

CHAPTER I.

FOOT-STEPS.

I was a young man at the time, and intimately acquainted with some of

the actors in this strange tale; the impression which its incidents made

on me, therefore, were deep, and lasting. I shall now endeavour, with

precision, to relate them all, combining, of course, in the narrative,

whatever I have learned from various sources, tending, however

imperfectly, to illuminate the darkness which involves its progress and

termination.

Somewhere about the year 1794, the younger brother of a certain baronet,

whom I shall call Sir James Barton, returned to Dublin. He had served in

the navy with some distinction, having commanded one of His Majesty’s

frigates during the greater part of the American war. Captain Barton was

apparently some two or three-and-forty years of age. He was an

intelligent and agreeable companion when he pleased it, though generally

reserved, and occasionally even moody.

In society, however, he deported himself as a man of the world, and a

gentleman. He had not contracted any of the noisy brusqueness sometimes

acquired at sea; on the contrary, his manners were remarkably easy,

quiet, and even polished. He was in person about the middle size, and

somewhat strongly formed—his countenance was marked with the lines of

thought, and on the whole wore an expression of gravity and melancholy;

being, however, as I have said, a man of perfect breeding, as well as of

good family, and in affluent circumstances, he had, of course, ready

access to the best society of Dublin, without the necessity of any other

credentials.

In his personal habits Mr. Barton was unexpensive. He occupied lodgings

in one of the _then_ fashionable streets in the south side of the

town—kept but one horse and one servant—and though a reputed

free-thinker, yet lived an orderly and moral life—indulging neither in

gaming, drinking, nor any other vicious pursuit—living very much to

himself, without forming intimacies, or choosing any companions, and

appearing to mix in gay society rather for the sake of its bustle and

distraction, than for any opportunities it offered of interchanging

thought or feeling with its votaries.

Barton was therefore pronounced a saving, prudent, unsocial sort of

fellow, who bid fair to maintain his celibacy alike against stratagem

and assault, and was likely to live to a good old age, die rich, and

leave his money to an hospital.

It was now apparent, however, that the nature of Mr. Barton’s plans had

been totally misconceived. A young lady, whom I shall call Miss

Montague, was at this time introduced into the gay world, by her aunt,

the Dowager Lady L——. Miss Montague was decidedly pretty and

accomplished, and having some natural cleverness, and a great deal of

gaiety, became for a while a reigning toast.

Her popularity, however, gained her, for a time, nothing more than that

unsubstantial admiration which, however, pleasant as an incense to

vanity, is by no means necessarily antecedent to matrimony—for,

unhappily for the young lady in question, it was an understood thing,

that beyond her personal attractions, she had no kind of earthly

provision. Such being the state of affairs, it will readily be believed

that no little surprise was consequent upon the appearance of Captain

Barton as the avowed lover of the penniless Miss Montague.

His suit prospered, as might have been expected, and in a short time it

was communicated by old Lady L—— to each of her hundred and fifty

particular friends in succession, that Captain Barton had actually

tendered proposals of marriage, with her approbation, to her niece, Miss

Montague, who had, moreover, accepted the offer of his hand,

conditionally upon the consent of her father, who was then upon his

homeward voyage from India, and expected in two or three weeks at the

furthest.

About this consent there could be no doubt—the delay, therefore, was

one merely of form—they were looked upon as absolutely engaged, and

Lady L——, with a rigour of old-fashioned decorum with which her niece

would, no doubt, gladly have dispensed, withdrew her thenceforward from

all further participation in the gaieties of the town.

Captain Barton was a constant visitor, as well as a frequent guest at

the house, and was permitted all the privileges of intimacy which a

betrothed suitor is usually accorded. Such was the relation of parties,

when the mysterious circumstances which darken this narrative first

begun to unfold themselves.

Lady L—— resided in a handsome mansion at the north side of Dublin,

and Captain Barton’s lodgings, as we have already said, were situated at

the south. The distance intervening was considerable, and it was Captain

Barton’s habit generally to walk home without an attendant, as often as

he passed the evening with the old lady and her fair charge.

His shortest way in such nocturnal walks, lay, for a considerable space,

through a line of street which had as yet merely been laid out, and

little more than the foundations of the houses constructed.

One night, shortly after his engagement with Miss Montague had

commenced, he happened to remain unusually late, in company with her and

Lady L——. The conversation had turned upon the evidences of

revelation, which he had disputed with the callous scepticism of a

confirmed infidel. What were called “French principles,” had in those

days found their way a good deal into fashionable society, especially

that portion of it which professed allegiance to Whiggism, and neither

the old lady nor her charge were so perfectly free from the taint, as to

look upon Mr. Barton’s views as any serious objection to the proposed

union.

The discussion had degenerated into one upon the supernatural and the

marvellous, in which he had pursued precisely the same line of argument

and ridicule. In all this, it is but truth to state, Captain Barton, was

guilty of no affectation—the doctrines upon which he insisted, were, in

reality, but, too truly the basis of his own fixed belief, if so it

might be called; and perhaps not the least strange of the many strange

circumstances connected with my narrative, was the fact, that the

subject of the fearful influences I am about to describe, was himself,

from the deliberate conviction of years, an utter disbeliever in what

are usually termed preternatural agencies.

It was considerably past midnight when Mr. Barton took his leave, and

set out upon his solitary walk homeward. He had now reached the lonely

road, with its unfinished dwarf walls tracing the foundations of the

projected row of houses on either side—the moon was shining mistily,

and its imperfect light made the road he trod but additionally

dreary—that utter silence which has in it something indefinably

exciting, reigned there, and made the sound of his steps, which alone

broke it, unnaturally loud and distinct.

He had proceeded thus some way, when he, on a sudden, heard other

footfalls, pattering at a measured pace, and, as it seemed, about two

score steps behind him.

The suspicion of being dogged is at all times unpleasant; it is,

however, especially so in a spot so lonely; and this suspicion became so

strong in the mind of Captain Barton, that he abruptly turned about to

confront his pursuer, but, though there was quite sufficient moonlight

to disclose any object upon the road he had traversed, no form of any

kind was visible there.

The steps he had heard could not have been the reverberation of his own,

for he stamped his foot upon the ground, and walked briskly up and

down, in the vain attempt to awake an echo; though by no means a

fanciful person, therefore he was at last fain to charge the sounds upon

his imagination, and treat them as an illusion. Thus satisfying himself,

he resumed his walk, and before he had proceeded a dozen paces, the

mysterious footfall was again audible from behind, and this time, as if

with the special design of showing that the sounds were not the

responses of an echo—the steps sometimes slackened nearly to a halt,

and sometimes hurried for six or eight strides to a run, and again

abated to a walk.

Captain Barton, as before, turned suddenly round, and with the same

result—no object was visible above the deserted level of the road. He

walked back over the same ground, determined that, whatever might have

been the cause of the sounds which had so disconcerted him, it should

not escape his search—the endeavour, however, was unrewarded.

In spite of all his scepticism, he felt something like a superstitious

fear stealing fast upon him, and with these unwonted and uncomfortable

sensations, he once more turned and pursued his way. There was no

repetition of these haunting sounds, until he had reached the point

where he had last stopped to retrace his steps—here they were

resumed—and with sudden starts of running, which threatened to bring

the unseen pursuer up to the alarmed pedestrian.

Captain Barton arrested his course as formerly—the unaccountable nature

of the occurrence filled him with vague and disagreeable sensations—and

yielding to the excitement that was gaining upon him, he shouted

sternly, “Who goes there?” The sound of one’s own voice, thus exerted,

in utter solitude, and followed by total silence, has in it something

unpleasantly dismaying, and he felt a degree of nervousness which,

perhaps, from no cause had he ever known before.

To the very end of this solitary street the steps pursued him—and it

required a strong effort of stubborn pride on his part, to resist the

impulse that prompted him every moment to run for safety at the top of

his speed. It was not until he had reached his lodging, and sate by his

own fire-side, that he felt sufficiently reassured to rearrange and

reconsider in his own mind the occurrences which had so discomposed him.

So little a matter, after all, is sufficient to upset the pride of

scepticism and vindicate the old simple laws of nature within us.

CHAPTER II.

THE WATCHER.

Mr. Barton was next morning sitting at a late breakfast, reflecting upon

the incidents of the previous night, with more of inquisitiveness than

awe, so speedily do gloomy impressions upon the fancy disappear under

the cheerful influence of day, when a letter just delivered by the

postman was placed upon the table before him.

There was nothing remarkable in the address of this missive, except

that it was written in a hand which he did not know—perhaps it was

disguised—for the tall narrow characters were sloped backward; and with

the self-inflicted suspense which we often see practised in such cases,

he puzzled over the inscription for a full minute before he broke the

seal. When he did so, he read the following words, written in the same

hand:—

“Mr. Barton, late captain of the ‘Dolphin,’ is warned of DANGER. He will

do wisely to avoid —— street—[here the locality of his last night’s

adventure was named]—if he walks there as usual he will meet with

something unlucky—let him take warning, once for all, for he has reason

to dread

“THE WATCHER.”

Captain Barton read and re-read this strange effusion; in every light

and in every direction he turned it over and over; he examined the

paper on which it was written, and scrutinized the hand-writing once

more. Defeated here, he turned to the seal; it was nothing but a patch

of wax, upon which the accidental impression of a thumb was imperfectly

visible.

There was not the slightest mark, or clue of any kind, to lead him to

even a guess as to its possible origin. The writer’s object seemed a

friendly one, and yet he subscribed himself as one whom he had “reason

to dread.” Altogether the letter, its author, and its real purpose were

to him an inexplicable puzzle, and one, moreover, unpleasantly

suggestive, in his mind, of other associations connected with his last

night’s adventure.

In obedience to some feeling—perhaps of pride—Mr. Barton did not

communicate, even to his intended bride, the occurrences which I have

just detailed. Trifling as they might appear, they had in reality most

disagreeably affected his imagination, and he cared not to disclose,

even to the young lady in question, what she might possibly look upon as

evidences of weakness. The letter might very well be but a hoax, and the

mysterious footfall but a delusion or a trick. But although he affected

to treat the whole affair as unworthy of a thought, it yet haunted him

pertinaciously, tormenting him with perplexing doubts, and depressing

him with undefined apprehensions. Certain it is, that for a considerable

time afterwards he carefully avoided the street indicated in the letter

as the scene of danger.

It was not until about a week after the receipt of the letter which I

have transcribed, that anything further occurred to remind Captain

Barton of its contents, or to counteract the gradual disappearance from

his mind of the disagreeable impressions then received.

He was returning one night, after the interval I have stated, from the

theatre, which was then situated in Crow-street, and having there seen

Miss Montague and Lady L—— into their carriage, he loitered for some

time with two or three acquaintances.

With these, however, he parted close to the college, and pursued his way

alone. It was now fully one o’clock, and the streets were quite

deserted. During the whole of his walk with the companions from whom he

had just parted, he had been at times painfully aware of the sound of

steps, as it seemed, dogging them on their way.

Once or twice he had looked back, in the uneasy anticipation that he was

again about to experience the same mysterious annoyances which had so

disconcerted him a week before, and earnestly hoping that he might see

some form to account naturally for the sounds. But the street was

deserted—no one was visible.

Proceeding now quite alone upon his homeward way, he grew really nervous

and uncomfortable, as he became sensible, with increased distinctness,

of the well-known and now absolutely dreaded sounds.

By the side of the dead wall which bounded the college park, the sounds

followed, recommencing almost simultaneously with his own steps. The

same unequal pace—sometimes slow, sometimes for a score yards or so,

quickened almost to a run—was audible from behind him. Again and again

he turned; quickly and stealthily he glanced over his shoulder—almost

at every half-dozen steps; but no one was visible.

The irritation of this intangible and unseen pursuit became gradually

all but intolerable; and when at last he reached his home, his nerves

were strung to such a pitch of excitement that he could not rest, and

did not attempt even to lie down until after the daylight had broken.

He was awakened by a knock at his chamber-door, and his servant

entering, handed him several letters which had just been received by the

penny post. One among them instantly arrested his attention—a single

glance at the direction aroused him thoroughly. He at once recognized its

character, and read as follows:—

“You may as well think, Captain Barton, to escape from your own shadow

as from me; do what you may, I will see you as often as I please, and

you shall see me, for I do not want to hide myself, as you fancy. Do not

let it trouble your rest, Captain Barton; for, with a _good conscience_,

what need you fear from the eye of

“THE WATCHER.”

It is scarcely necessary to dwell upon the feelings that accompanied a

perusal of this strange communication. Captain Barton was observed to be

unusually absent and out of spirits for several days afterwards, but no

one divined the cause.

Whatever he might think as to the phantom steps which followed him,

there could be no possible illusion about the letters he had received;

and, to say the least, their immediate sequence upon the mysterious

sounds which had haunted him, was an odd coincidence.

The whole circumstance was, in his own mind, vaguely and instinctively

connected with certain passages in his past life, which, of all others,

he hated to remember.

It happened, however, that in addition to his own approaching nuptials,

Captain Barton had just then—fortunately, perhaps, for himself—some

business of an engrossing kind connected with the adjustment of a large

and long-litigated claim upon certain properties.

The hurry and excitement of business had its natural effect in gradually

dispelling the gloom which had for a time occasionally oppressed him,

and in a little while his spirits had entirely recovered their

accustomed tone.

During all this time, however, he was, now and then, dismayed by

indistinct and half-heard repetitions of the same annoyance, and that in

lonely places, in the day-time as well as after nightfall. These

renewals of the strange impressions from which he had suffered so much,

were, however, desultory and faint, insomuch that often he really could

not, to his own satisfaction, distinguish between them and the mere

suggestions of an excited imagination.

One evening he walked down to the House of Commons with a Member, an

acquaintance of his and mine. This was one of the few occasions upon

which I have been in company with Captain Barton. As we walked down

together, I observed that he became absent and silent, and to a degree

that seemed to argue the pressure of some urgent and absorbing anxiety.

I afterwards learned that during the whole of our walk, he had heard the

well-known footsteps tracking him as we proceeded.

This, however, was the last time he suffered from this phase of the

persecution, of which he was already the anxious victim. A new and a

very different one was about to be presented.

CHAPTER III.

AN ADVERTISEMENT.

Of the new series of impressions which were afterwards gradually to work

out his destiny, I that evening witnessed the first; and but for its

relation to the train of events which followed, the incident would

scarcely have been now remembered by me.

As we were walking in at the passage from College-Green, a man, of whom

I remember only that he was short in stature, looked like a foreigner,

and wore a kind of fur travelling-cap, walked very rapidly, and as if

under fierce excitement, directly towards us, muttering to himself, fast

and vehemently the while.

This odd-looking person walked straight toward Barton, who was foremost

of the three, and halted, regarding him for a moment or two with a look

of maniacal menace and fury; and then turning about as abruptly, he

walked before us at the same agitated pace, and disappeared at a side

passage. I do distinctly remember being a good deal shocked at the

countenance and bearing of this man, which indeed irresistibly impressed

me with an undefined sense of danger, such as I have never felt before

or since from the presence of anything human; but these sensations were,

on my part, far from amounting to anything so disconcerting as to flurry

or excite me—I had seen only a singularly evil countenance, agitated,

as it seemed, with the excitement of madness.

I was absolutely astonished, however, at the effect of this apparition

upon Captain Barton. I knew him to be a man of proud courage and

coolness in real danger—a circumstance which made his conduct upon this

occasion the more conspicuously odd. He recoiled a step or two as the

stranger advanced, and clutched my arm in silence, with what seemed to

be a spasm of agony or terror! and then, as the figure disappeared,

shoving me roughly back, he followed it for a few paces, stopped in

great disorder, and sat down upon a form. I never beheld a countenance

more ghastly and haggard.

“For God’s sake, Barton, what is the matter?” said ——, our companion,

really alarmed at his appearance. “You’re not hurt, are you?—or unwell?

What is it?”

“What did he say?—I did not hear it—what was it?” asked Barton, wholly

disregarding the question.

“Nonsense,” said ——, greatly surprised; “who cares what the fellow

said. You are unwell, Barton—decidedly unwell; let me call a coach.”

“Unwell! No—not unwell,” he said, evidently making an effort to recover

his self-possession; “but, to say the truth, I am fatigued—a little

over-worked—and perhaps over anxious. You know I have been in chancery,

and the winding up of a suit is always a nervous affair. I have felt

uncomfortable all this evening; but I am better now. Come, come—shall

we go on?”

“No, no. Take my advice, Barton, and go home; you really do need rest!

you are looking quite ill. I really do insist on your allowing me to see

you home,” replied his friend.

I seconded ——’s advice, the more readily as it was obvious that Barton

was not himself disinclined to be persuaded. He left us, declining our

offered escort. I was not sufficiently intimate with —— to discuss the

scene we had both just witnessed. I was, however, convinced from his

manner in the few common-place comments and regrets we exchanged, that

he was just as little satisfied as I with the extempore plea of illness

with which he had accounted for the strange exhibition, and that we were

both agreed in suspecting some lurking mystery in the matter.

I called next day at Barton’s lodgings, to enquire for him, and learned

from the servant that he had not left his room since his return the

night before; but that he was not seriously indisposed, and hoped to be

out in a few days. That evening he sent for Dr. R——, then in large and

fashionable practice in Dublin, and their interview was, it is said, an

odd one.

He entered into a detail of his own symptoms in an abstracted and

desultory way which seemed to argue a strange want of interest in his

own cure, and, at all events, made it manifest that there was some topic

engaging his mind of more engrossing importance than his present

ailment. He complained of occasional palpitations and headache.

Doctor R——, asked him among other questions, whether there was any

irritating circumstance or anxiety then occupying his thoughts. This he

denied quickly and almost peevishly; and the physician thereupon

declared his opinion, that there was nothing amiss except some slight

derangement of the digestion, for which he accordingly wrote a

prescription, and was about to withdraw, when Mr. Barton, with the air

of a man who recollects a topic which had nearly escaped him, recalled

him.

“I beg your pardon, Doctor, but I really almost forgot; will you permit

me to ask you two or three medical questions—rather odd ones, perhaps,

but a wager depends upon their solution, you will, I hope, excuse my

unreasonableness.”

The physician readily undertook to satisfy the inquirer.

Barton seemed to have some difficulty about opening the proposed

interrogatories, for he was silent for a minute, then walked to his

book-case, and returned as he had gone; at last he sat down and said—

“You’ll think them very childish questions, but I can’t recover my wager

without a decision; so I must put them. I want to know first about

lock-jaw. If a man actually has had that complaint, and appears to have

died of it—so much so, that a physician of average skill pronounces him

actually dead—may he, after all, recover?”

The physician smiled, and shook his head.

“But—but a blunder may be made,” resumed Barton. “Suppose an ignorant

pretender to medical skill; may _he_ be so deceived by any stage of the

complaint, as to mistake what is only a part of the progress of the

disease, for death itself?”

“No one who had ever seen death,” answered he, “could mistake it in a

case of lock-jaw.”

Barton mused for a few minutes. “I am going to ask you a question,

perhaps, still more childish; but first, tell me, are the regulations of

foreign hospitals, such as that of, let us say, Naples, very lax and

bungling. May not all kinds of blunders and slips occur in their entries

of names, and soforth?”

Doctor R—— professed his incompetence to answer that query.

“Well, then, Doctor, here is the last of my questions. You will,

probably, laugh at it; but it must out, nevertheless. Is there any

disease, in all the range of human maladies, which would have the effect

of perceptibly contracting the stature, and the whole frame—causing the

man to shrink in all his proportions, and yet to preserve his exact

resemblance to himself in every particular—with the one exception, his

height and bulk; any disease, mark—no matter how rare—how little

believed in, generally—which could possibly result in producing such an

effect?”

The physician replied with a smile, and a very decided negative.

“Tell me, then,” said Barton, abruptly, “if a man be in reasonable fear

of assault from a lunatic who is at large, can he not procure a warrant

for his arrest and detention?”

“Really that is more a lawyer’s question than one in my way,” replied

Dr. R——: “but I believe, on applying to a magistrate, such a course

would be directed.”

The physician then took his leave; but, just as he reached the

hall-door, remembered that he had left his cane up stairs, and returned.

His reappearance was awkward, for a piece of paper, which he recognised

as his own prescription, was slowly burning upon the fire, and Barton

sitting close by with an expression of settled gloom and dismay.

Doctor R—— had too much tact to observe what presented itself; but he

had seen quite enough to assure him that the mind, and not the body, of

Captain Barton was in reality the seat of suffering.

A few days afterwards, the following advertisement appeared in the

Dublin newspapers.

“If Sylvester Yelland, formerly a foremast-man on board his Majesty’s

frigate Dolphin, or his nearest of kin, will apply to Mr. Hubert Smith,

attorney, at his office, Dame Street, he or they may hear of something

greatly to his or their advantage. Admission may be had at any hour up

to twelve o’clock at night, should parties desire to avoid observation;

and the strictest secrecy, as to all communications intended to be

confidential, shall be honourably observed.”

The Dolphin, as I have mentioned, was the vessel which Captain Barton

had commanded; and this circumstance, connected with the extraordinary

exertions made by the circulation of hand-bills, &c., as well as by

repeated advertisements, to secure for this strange notice the utmost

possible publicity, suggested to Dr. R—— the idea that Captain

Barton’s extreme uneasiness was somehow connected with the individual to

whom the advertisement was addressed, and he himself the author of it.

This, however, it is needless to add, was no more than a conjecture. No

information whatsoever, as to the real purpose of the advertisement was

divulged by the agent, nor yet any hint as to who his employer might

be.

CHAPTER IV.

HE TALKS WITH A CLERGYMAN.

Mr. Barton, although he had latterly begun to earn for himself the

character of an hypochondriac, was yet very far from deserving it.

Though by no means lively, he had yet, naturally, what are termed “even

spirits,” and was not subject to undue depressions.

He soon, therefore, began to return to his former habits; and one of the

earliest symptoms of this healthier tone of spirits was, his appearing

at a grand dinner of the Freemasons, of which worthy fraternity he was

himself a brother. Barton, who had been at first gloomy and abstracted,

drank much more freely than was his wont—possibly with the purpose of

dispelling his own secret anxieties—and under the influence of good

wine, and pleasant company, became gradually (unlike himself) talkative,

and even noisy.

It was under this unwonted excitement that he left his company at about

half-past ten o’clock; and, as conviviality is a strong incentive to

gallantry, it occurred to him to proceed forthwith to Lady L——’s and

pass the remainder of the evening with her and his destined bride.

Accordingly, he was soon at —— street, and chatting gaily with the

ladies. It is not to be supposed that Captain Barton had exceeded the

limits which propriety prescribes to good fellowship—he had merely

taken enough wine to raise his spirits, without, however, in the least

degree unsteadying his mind, or affecting his manners.

With this undue elevation of spirits had supervened an entire oblivion

or contempt of those undefined apprehensions which had for so long

weighed upon his mind, and to a certain extent estranged him from

society; but as the night wore away, and his artificial gaiety began to

flag, these painful feelings gradually intruded themselves again, and he

grew abstracted and anxious as heretofore.

He took his leave at length, with an unpleasant foreboding of some

coming mischief, and with a mind haunted with a thousand mysterious

apprehensions, such as, even while he acutely felt their pressure, he,

nevertheless, inwardly strove, or affected to contemn.

It was this proud defiance of what he regarded as his own weakness,

which prompted him upon the present occasion to that course which

brought about the adventure I am now about to relate.

Mr. Barton might have easily called a coach, but he was conscious that

his strong inclination to do so proceeded from no cause other than what

he desperately persisted in representing to himself to be his own

superstitious tremors.

He might also have returned home by a _route_ different from that

against which he had been warned by his mysterious correspondent; but

for the same reason he dismissed this idea also, and with a dogged and

half desperate resolution to force matters to a crisis of some kind, if

there were any reality in the causes of his former suffering, and if

not, satisfactorily to bring their delusiveness to the proof, he

determined to follow precisely the course which he had trodden upon the

night so painfully memorable in his own mind as that on which his

strange persecution commenced. Though, sooth to say, the pilot who for

the first time steers his vessel under the muzzles of a hostile battery,

never felt his resolution more severely tasked than did Captain Barton

as he breathlessly pursued this solitary path—a path which, spite of

every effort of scepticism and reason, he felt to be infested by some

(as respected _him_) malignant being.

He pursued his way steadily and rapidly, scarcely breathing from

intensity of suspense; he, however, was troubled by no renewal of the

dreaded footsteps, and was beginning to feel a return of confidence, as

more than three-fourths of the way being accomplished with impunity, he

approached the long line of twinkling oil lamps which indicated the

frequented streets.

This feeling of self-congratulation was, however, but momentary. The

report of a musket at some hundred yards behind him, and the whistle of

a bullet close to his head, disagreeably and startlingly dispelled it.

His first impulse was to retrace his steps in pursuit of the assassin;

but the road on either side was, as we have said, embarrassed by the

foundations of a street, beyond which extended waste fields, full of

rubbish and neglected lime and brick-kilns, and all now as utterly

silent as though no sound had ever disturbed their dark and unsightly

solitude. The futility of, single-handed, attempting, under such

circumstances, a search for the murderer, was apparent, especially as no

sound, either of retreating steps or any other kind, was audible to

direct his pursuit.

With the tumultuous sensations of one whose life has just been exposed

to a murderous attempt, and whose escape has been the narrowest

possible, Captain Barton turned again; and without, however, quickening

his pace actually to a run, hurriedly pursued his way.

He had turned, as I have said, after a pause of a few seconds, and had

just commenced his rapid retreat, when on a sudden he met the

well-remembered little man in the fur cap. The encounter was but

momentary. The figure was walking at the same exaggerated pace, and with

the same strange air of menace as before; and as it passed him, he

thought he heard it say, in a furious whisper, “Still alive—still

alive!”

The state of Mr. Barton’s spirits began now to work a corresponding

alteration in his health and looks, and to such a degree that it was

impossible that the change should escape general remark.

For some reasons, known but to himself, he took no step whatsoever to

bring the attempt upon his life, which he had so narrowly escaped, under

the notice of the authorities; on the contrary, he kept it jealously to

himself; and it was not for many weeks after the occurrence that he

mentioned it, and then in strict confidence, to a gentleman, whom the

torments of his mind at last compelled him to consult.

Spite of his blue devils, however, poor Barton, having no satisfactory

reason to render to the public for any undue remissness in the

attentions exacted by the relation subsisting between him and Miss

Montague was obliged to exert himself, and present to the world a

confident and cheerful bearing.

The true source of his sufferings, and every circumstance connected with

them, he guarded with a reserve so jealous, that it seemed dictated by

at least a suspicion that the origin of his strange persecution was

known to himself, and that it was of a nature which, upon his own

account, he could not or dared not disclose.

The mind thus turned in upon itself, and constantly occupied with a

haunting anxiety which it dared not reveal or confide to any human

breast, became daily more excited, and, of course, more vividly

impressible, by a system of attack which operated through the nervous

system; and in this state he was destined to sustain, with increasing

frequency, the stealthy visitations of that apparition which from the

first had seemed to possess so terrible a hold upon his imagination.

* * * * *

It was about this time that Captain Barton called upon the then

celebrated preacher, Dr. ——, with whom he had a slight acquaintance,

and an extraordinary conversation ensued.

The divine was seated in his chambers in college, surrounded with works

upon his favourite pursuit, and deep in theology, when Barton was

announced.

There was something at once embarrassed and excited in his manner,

which, along with his wan and haggard countenance, impressed the student

with the unpleasant consciousness that his visitor must have recently

suffered terribly indeed, to account for an alteration so

striking—almost shocking.

After the usual interchange of polite greeting, and a few common-place

remarks, Captain Barton, who obviously perceived the surprise which his

visit had excited, and which Doctor —— was unable wholly to conceal,

interrupted a brief pause by remarking—

“This is a strange call, Doctor ——, perhaps scarcely warranted by an

acquaintance so slight as mine with you. I should not under ordinary

circumstances have ventured to disturb you; but my visit is neither an

idle nor impertinent intrusion. I am sure you will not so account it,

when I tell you how afflicted I am.”

Doctor —— interrupted him with assurances such as good breeding

suggested, and Barton resumed—

“I am come to task your patience by asking your advice. When I say your

patience, I might, indeed, say more; I might have said your

humanity—your compassion; for I have been and am a great sufferer.”

“My dear sir,” replied the churchman, “it will, indeed, afford me

infinite gratification if I can give you comfort in any distress of

mind; but—you know——”

“I know what you would say,” resumed Barton, quickly; “I am an

unbeliever, and, therefore, incapable of deriving help from religion;

but don’t take that for granted. At least you must not assume that,

however unsettled my convictions may be, I do not feel a deep—a very

deep—interest in the subject. Circumstances have lately forced it upon

my attention, in such a way as to compel me to review the whole

question in a more candid and teachable spirit, I believe, than I ever

studied it in before.”

“Your difficulties, I take it for granted, refer to the evidences of

revelation,” suggested the clergyman.

“Why—no—not altogether; in fact I am ashamed to say I have not

considered even my objections sufficiently to state them connectedly;

but—but there is one subject on which I feel a peculiar interest.”

He paused again, and Doctor —— pressed him to proceed.

“The fact is,” said Barton, “whatever may be my uncertainty as to the

authenticity of what we are taught to call revelation, of one fact I am

deeply and horribly convinced, that there does exist beyond this a

spiritual world—a system whose workings are generally in mercy hidden

from us—a system which may be, and which is sometimes, partially and

terribly revealed. I am sure—I _know_,” continued Barton, with

increasing excitement, “that there is a God—a dreadful God—and that

retribution follows guilt, in ways the most mysterious and

stupendous—by agencies the most inexplicable and terrific;—there is a

spiritual system—great God, how I have been convinced!—a system

malignant, and implacable, and omnipotent, under whose persecutions I

am, and have been, suffering the torments of the damned!—yes,

sir—yes—the fires and frenzy of hell!”

As Barton spoke, his agitation became so vehement that the Divine was

shocked, and even alarmed. The wild and excited rapidity with which he

spoke, and, above all, the indefinable horror, that stamped his

features, afforded a contrast to his ordinary cool and unimpassioned

self-possession striking and painful in the last degree.

CHAPTER V.

MR. BARTON STATES HIS CASE.

“My dear sir,” said Doctor ——, after a brief pause, “I fear you have

been very unhappy, indeed; but I venture to predict that the depression

under which you labour will be found to originate in purely physical

causes, and that with a change of air, and the aid of a few tonics, your

spirits will return, and the tone of your mind be once more cheerful and

tranquil as heretofore. There was, after all, more truth than we are

quite willing to admit in the classic theories which assigned the undue

predominance of any one affection of the mind, to the undue action or

torpidity of one or other of our bodily organs. Believe me, that a

little attention to diet, exercise, and the other essentials of health,

under competent direction, will make you as much yourself as you can

wish.”

“Doctor ——” said Barton, with something like a shudder, “I _cannot_

delude myself with such a hope. I have no hope to cling to but one, and

that is, that by some other spiritual agency more potent than that which

tortures me, _it_ may be combated, and I delivered. If this may not be,

I am lost—now and for ever lost.”

“But, Mr. Barton, you must remember,” urged his companion, “that others

have suffered as you have done, and——”

“No, no, no,” interrupted he, with irritability—“no, sir, I am not a

credulous—far from a superstitious man. I have been, perhaps, too much

the reverse—too sceptical, too slow of belief; but unless I were one

whom no amount of evidence could convince, unless I were to contemn the

repeated, the _perpetual_ evidence of my own senses, I am now—now at

last constrained to believe—I have no escape from the conviction—the

overwhelming certainty—that I am haunted and dogged, go where I may,

by—by a DEMON!”

There was a preternatural energy of horror in Barton’s face, as, with

its damp and death-like lineaments turned towards his companion, he thus

delivered himself.

“God help you, my poor friend,” said Dr. ——, much shocked, “God help

you; for, indeed, you _are_ a sufferer, however your sufferings may have

been caused.”

“Ay, ay, God help me,” echoed Barton, sternly; “but _will_ he help

me—will he help me?”

“Pray to him—pray in an humble and trusting spirit,” said he.

“Pray, pray,” echoed he again; “I can’t pray—I could as easily move a

mountain by an effort of my will. I have not belief enough to pray;

there is something within me that will not pray. You prescribe

impossibilities—literal impossibilities.”

“You will not find it so, if you will but try,” said Doctor ——.

“Try! I _have_ tried, and the attempt only fills me with confusion; and,

sometimes, terror; I have tried in vain, and more than in vain. The

awful, unutterable idea of eternity and infinity oppresses and maddens

my brain whenever my mind approaches the contemplation of the Creator; I

recoil from the effort scared. I tell you, Doctor ——, if I am to be

saved, it must be by other means. The idea of an eternal Creator is to

me intolerable—my mind cannot support it.”

“Say, then, my dear sir,” urged he, “say how you would have me serve

you—what you would learn of me—what I can do or say to relieve you?”

“Listen to me first,” replied Captain Barton, with a subdued air, and an

effort to suppress his excitement, “listen to me while I detail the

circumstances of the persecution under which my life has become all but

intolerable—a persecution which has made me fear _death_ and the world

beyond the grave as much as I have grown to hate existence.”

Barton then proceeded to relate the circumstances which I have already

detailed, and then continued:

“This has now become habitual—an accustomed thing. I do not mean the

actual seeing him in the flesh—thank God, _that_ at least is not

permitted daily. Thank God, from the ineffable horrors of that

visitation I have been mercifully allowed intervals of repose, though

none of security; but from the consciousness that a malignant spirit is

following and watching me wherever I go, I have never, for a single

instant, a temporary respite. I am pursued with blasphemies, cries of

despair and appalling hatred. I hear those dreadful sounds called after

me as I turn the corners of the streets; they come in the night-time,

while I sit in my chamber alone; they haunt me everywhere, charging me

with hideous crimes, and—great God!—threatening me with coming

vengeance and eternal misery. Hush! do you hear _that_?” he cried with a

horrible smile of triumph; “there, there, will that convince you?”

The clergyman felt a chill of horror steal over him, while, during the

wail of a sudden gust of wind, he heard, or fancied he heard, the half

articulate sounds of rage and derision mingling in the sough.

“Well, what do you think of _that_?” at length Barton cried, drawing a

long breath through his teeth.

“I heard the wind,” said Doctor ——.

“What should I think of it—what is there remarkable about it?”

“The prince of the powers of the air,” muttered Barton, with a shudder.

“Tut, tut! my dear sir,” said the student, with an effort to reassure

himself; for though it was broad daylight, there was nevertheless

something disagreeably contagious in the nervous excitement under which

his visitor so miserably suffered. “You must not give way to those wild

fancies; you must resist these impulses of the imagination.”

“Ay, ay; ‘resist the devil and he will flee from thee,’” said Barton, in

the same tone; “but _how_ resist him? ay, there it is—there is the rub.

What—_what_ am I to do? what _can_ I do?”

“My dear sir, this _is_ fancy,” said the man of folios; “you are your

own tormentor.”

“No, no, sir—fancy has no part in it,” answered Barton, somewhat

sternly. “Fancy! was it that made you, as well as me, hear, but this

moment, those accents of hell? Fancy, indeed! No, no.”

“But you have seen this person frequently,” said the ecclesiastic; “why

have you not accosted or secured him? Is it not a little precipitate, to

say no more, to assume, as you have done, the existence of preternatural

agency, when, after all, everything may be easily accountable, if only

proper means were taken to sift the matter.”

“There are circumstances connected with this—this _appearance_,” said

Barton, “which it is needless to disclose, but which to _me_ are proof

of its horrible nature. I know that the being that follows me is not

human—I say I know this; I could prove it to your own conviction.” He

paused for a minute, and then added, “And as to accosting it, I dare

not, I could not; when I see it I am powerless; I stand in the gaze of

death, in the triumphant presence of infernal power and malignity. My

strength, and faculties, and memory, all forsake me. O God, I fear, sir,

you know not what you speak of. Mercy, mercy; heaven have pity on me!”

He leaned his elbow on the table, and passed his hand across his eyes,

as if to exclude some image of horror, muttering the last words of the

sentence he had just concluded, again and again.

“Doctor ——,” he said, abruptly raising himself, and looking full upon

the clergyman with an imploring eye, “I know you will do for me whatever

may be done. You know now fully the circumstances and the nature of my

affliction. I tell you I cannot help myself; I cannot hope to escape; I

am utterly passive. I conjure you, then, to weigh my case well, and if

anything may be done for me by vicarious supplication—by the

intercession of the good—or by any aid or influence whatsoever, I

implore of you, I adjure you in the name of the Most High, give me the

benefit of that influence—deliver me from the body of this death.

Strive for me, pity me; I know you will; you cannot refuse this; it is

the purpose and object of my visit. Send me away with some hope, however

little, some faint hope of ultimate deliverance, and I will nerve myself

to endure, from hour to hour, the hideous dream into which my existence

has been transformed.”

Doctor —— assured him that all he could do was to pray earnestly for

him, and that so much he would not fail to do. They parted with a

hurried and melancholy valediction. Barton hastened to the carriage that

awaited him at the door, drew down the blinds, and drove away, while

Doctor —— returned to his chamber, to ruminate at leisure upon the

strange interview which had just interrupted his studies.

CHAPTER VI.

SEEN AGAIN.

It was not to be expected that Captain Barton’s changed and eccentric

habits should long escape remark and discussion. Various were the

theories suggested to account for it. Some attributed the alteration to

the pressure of secret pecuniary embarrassments; others to a repugnance

to fulfil an engagement into which he was presumed to have too

precipitately entered; and others, again, to the supposed incipiency of

mental disease, which latter, indeed, was the most plausible as well as

the most generally, received, of the hypotheses circulated in the gossip

of the day.

From the very commencement of this change, at first so gradual in its

advances, Miss Montague had of course been aware of it. The intimacy

involved in their peculiar relation, as well as the near interest which

it inspired afforded, in her case, a like opportunity and motive for the

successful exercise of that keen and penetrating observation peculiar to

her sex.

His visits became, at length, so interrupted, and his manner, while they

lasted, so abstracted, strange, and agitated, that Lady L——, after

hinting her anxiety and her suspicions more than once, at length

distinctly stated her anxiety, and pressed for an explanation.

The explanation was given, and although its nature at first relieved the

worst solicitudes of the old lady and her niece, yet the circumstances

which attended it, and the really dreadful consequences which it

obviously indicated, as regarded the spirits, and indeed the reason of

the now wretched man, who made the strange declaration, were enough,

upon little reflection, to fill their minds with perturbation and alarm.

General Montague, the young lady’s father, at length arrived. He had

himself slightly known Barton, some ten or twelve years previously, and

being aware of his fortune and connexions, was disposed to regard him as

an unexceptionable and indeed a most desirable match for his daughter.

He laughed at the story of Barton’s supernatural visitations, and lost

no time in calling upon his intended son-in-law.

“My dear Barton,” he continued, gaily, after a little conversation, “my

sister tells me that you are a victim to blue devils, in quite a new and

original shape.”

Barton changed countenance, and sighed profoundly.

“Come, come; I protest this will never do,” continued the General; “you

are more like a man on his way to the gallows than to the altar. These

devils have made quite a saint of you.”

Barton made an effort to change the conversation.

“No, no, it won’t do,” said his visitor laughing; “I am resolved to say

what I have to say upon this magnificent mock mystery of yours. You must

not be angry, but really it is too bad to see you at your time of life,

absolutely frightened into good behaviour, like a naughty child by a

bugaboo, and as far as I can learn, a very contemptible one. Seriously,

I have been a good deal annoyed at what they tell me; but at the same

time thoroughly convinced that there is nothing in the matter that may

not cleared up, with a little attention and management, within a week at

furthest.”

“Ah, General, you do not know—” he began.

“Yes, but I do know quite enough to warrant my confidence,” interrupted

the soldier, “don’t I know that all your annoyance proceeds from the

occasional appearance of a certain little man in a cap and great-coat,

with a red vest and a bad face, who follows you about, and pops upon you

at corners of lanes, and throws you into ague fits. Now, my dear fellow,

I’ll make it my business to catch this mischievous little mountebank,

and either beat him to a jelly with my own hands, or have him whipped

through the town, at the cart’s-tail, before a month passes.”

“If _you_ knew what _I_ knew,” said Barton, with gloomy agitation, “you

would speak very differently. Don’t imagine that I am so weak as to

assume, without proof the most overwhelming, the conclusion to which I

have been forced—the proofs are here, locked up here.” As he spoke he

tapped upon his breast, and with an anxious sigh continued to walk up

and down the room.

“Well, well, Barton,” said his visitor, “I’ll wager a rump and a dozen I

collar the ghost, and convince even you before many days are over.”

He was running on in the same strain when he was suddenly arrested, and

not a little shocked, by observing Barton, who had approached the

window, stagger slowly back, like one who had received a stunning blow;

his arm extended toward the street—his face and his very lips white as

ashes—while he muttered, “There—by heaven!—there—there!”

General Montague started mechanically to his feet, and from the window

of the drawing-room, saw a figure corresponding as well as his hurry

would permit him to discern, with the description of the person, whose

appearance so persistently disturbed the repose of his friend.

The figure was just turning from the rails of the area upon which it had

been leaning, and, without waiting to see more, the old gentleman

snatched his cane and hat, and rushed down the stairs and into the

street, in the furious hope of securing the person, and punishing the

audacity of the mysterious stranger.

He looked round him, but in vain, for any trace of the person he had

himself distinctly seen. He ran breathlessly to the nearest corner,

expecting to see from thence the retiring figure, but no such form was

visible. Back and forward, from crossing to crossing, he ran, at fault,

and it was not until the curious gaze and laughing countenances of the

passers-by reminded him of the absurdity of his pursuit, that he

checked his hurried pace, lowered his walking cane from the menacing

altitude which he had mechanically given it, adjusted his hat, and

walked composedly back again, inwardly vexed and flurried. He found

Barton pale and trembling in every joint; they both remained silent,

though under emotions very different. At last Barton whispered, “You saw

it?”

“_It!_—him—some one—you mean—to be sure I did,” replied Montague,

testily. “But where is the good or the harm of seeing him? The fellow

runs like a lamp-lighter. I wanted to _catch_ him, but he had stole away

before I could reach the hall-door. However, it is no great matter; next

time, I dare say, I’ll do better; and egad, if I once come within reach

of him, I’ll introduce his shoulders to the weight of my cane.”

Notwithstanding General Montague’s undertakings and exhortations,

however, Barton continued to suffer from the self-same unexplained

cause; go how, when, or where he would, he was still constantly dogged

or confronted by the being who had established over him so horrible an

influence.

Nowhere and at no time was he secure against the odious appearance which

haunted him with such diabolic perseverance.

His depression, misery, and excitement became more settled and alarming

every day, and the mental agonies that ceaselessly preyed upon him,

began at last so sensibly to affect his health, that Lady L—— and

General Montague succeeded, without, indeed, much difficulty, in

persuading him to try a short tour on the Continent, in the hope that an

entire change of scene would, at all events, have the effect of breaking

through the influences of local association, which the more sceptical of

his friends assumed to be by no means inoperative in suggesting and

perpetuating what they conceived to be a mere form of nervous illusion.

General Montague indeed was persuaded that the figure which haunted his

intended son-in-law was by no means the creation of his imagination,

but, on the contrary, a substantial form of flesh and blood, animated by

a resolution, perhaps with some murderous object in perspective, to

watch and follow the unfortunate gentleman.

Even this hypothesis was not a very pleasant one; yet it was plain that

if Barton could ever be convinced that there was nothing preternatural

in the phenomenon which he had hitherto regarded in that light, the

affair would lose all its terrors in his eyes, and wholly cease to

exercise upon his health and spirits the baleful influence which it had

hitherto done. He therefore reasoned, that if the annoyance were

actually escaped by mere locomotion and change of scene, it obviously

could not have originated in any supernatural agency.

CHAPTER VII.

FLIGHT.

Yielding to their persuasions, Barton left Dublin for England,

accompanied by General Montague. They posted rapidly to London, and

thence to Dover, whence they took the packet with a fair wind for

Calais. The General’s confidence in the result of the expedition on

Barton’s spirits had risen day by day, since their departure from the

shores of Ireland; for to the inexpressible relief and delight of the

latter, he had not since then, so much as even once fancied a repetition

of those impressions which had, when at home, drawn him gradually down

to the very depths of despair.

This exemption from what he had begun to regard as the inevitable

condition of his existence, and the sense of security which began to

pervade his mind, were inexpressibly delightful; and in the exultation

of what he considered his deliverance, he indulged in a thousand happy

anticipations for a future into which so lately he had hardly dared to

look; and in short, both he and his companion secretly congratulated

themselves upon the termination of that persecution which had been to

its immediate victim a source of such unspeakable agony.

It was a beautiful day, and a crowd of idlers stood upon the jetty to

receive the packet, and enjoy the bustle of the new arrivals. Montague

walked a few paces in advance of his friend, and as he made his way

through the crowd, a little man touched his arm, and said to him, in a

broad provincial _patois_—

“Monsieur is walking too fast; he will lose his sick comrade in the

throng, for, by my faith, the poor gentleman seems to be fainting.”

Montague turned quickly, and observed that Barton did indeed look deadly

pale. He hastened to his side.

“My dear fellow, are you ill?” he asked anxiously.

The question was unheeded and twice, repeated, ere Barton stammered—

“I saw him—by——, I saw him!”

“_Him!_—the wretch—who—where now?—where is he?” cried Montague,

looking around him.

“I saw him—but he is gone,” repeated Barton, faintly.

“But where—where? For God’s sake speak,” urged Montague, vehemently.

“It is but this moment—_here_,” said he.

“But what did he look like—what had he on—what did he wear—quick,

quick,” urged his excited companion, ready to dart among the crowd and

collar the delinquent on the spot.

“He touched your arm—he spoke to you—he pointed to me. God be merciful

to me, there is no escape,” said Barton, in the low, subdued tones of

despair.

Montague had already bustled away in all the flurry of mingled hope and

rage; but though the singular _personnel_ of the stranger who had

accosted him was vividly impressed upon his recollection, he failed to

discover among the crowd even the slightest resemblance to him.

After a fruitless search, in which he enlisted the services of several

of the by-standers, who aided all the more zealously, as they believed

he had been robbed, he at length, out of breath and baffled, gave over

the attempt.

“Ah, my friend, it won’t do,” said Barton, with the faint voice and

bewildered, ghastly look of one who had been stunned by some mortal

shock; “there is no use in contending; whatever it is, the dreadful

association between me and it, is now established—I shall never

escape—never!”

“Nonsense, nonsense, my dear Barton; don’t talk so,” said Montague with

something at once of irritation and dismay; “you must not, I say; we’ll

jockey the scoundrel yet; never mind, I say—never mind.”

It was, however, but labour lost to endeavour henceforward to inspire

Barton with one ray of hope; he became desponding.

This intangible, and, as it seemed, utterly inadequate influence was

fast destroying his energies of intellect, character, and health. His

first object was now to return to Ireland, there, as he believed, and

now almost hoped, speedily to die.

To Ireland accordingly he came and one of the first faces he saw upon

the shore, was again that of his implacable and dreaded attendant.

Barton seemed at last to have lost not only all enjoyment and every hope

in existence, but all independence of will besides. He now submitted

himself passively to the management of the friends most nearly

interested in his welfare.

With the apathy of entire despair, he implicitly assented to whatever

measures they suggested and advised; and as a last resource, it was

determined to remove him to a house of Lady L——’s, in the

neighbourhood of Clontarf, where, with the advice of his medical

attendant, who persisted in his opinion that the whole train of

consequences resulted merely from some nervous derangement, it was

resolved that he was to confine himself, strictly to the house, and to

make use only of those apartments which commanded a view of an enclosed

yard, the gates of which were to be kept jealously locked.

Those precautions would certainly secure him against the casual

appearance of any living form, that his excited imagination might

possibly confound with the spectre which, as it was contended, his fancy

recognised in every figure that bore even a distant or general

resemblance to the peculiarities with which his fancy had at first

invested it.

A month or six weeks’ absolute seclusion under these conditions, it was

hoped might, by interrupting the series of these terrible impressions,

gradually dispel the predisposing apprehensions, and the associations

which had confirmed the supposed disease, and rendered recovery

hopeless.

Cheerful society and that of his friends was to be constantly supplied,

and on the whole, very sanguine expectations were indulged in, that

under the treatment thus detailed, the obstinate hypochondria of the

patient might at length give way.

Accompanied, therefore, by Lady L——, General Montague and his

daughter—his own affianced bride—poor Barton—himself never daring to

cherish a hope of his ultimate emancipation from the horrors under which

his life was literally wasting away—took possession of the apartments,

whose situation protected him against the intrusions, from which he

shrank with such unutterable terror.

After a little time, a steady persistence in this system began to

manifest its results, in a very marked though gradual improvement, alike

in the health and spirits of the invalid. Not, indeed, that anything at

all approaching complete recovery was yet discernible. On the contrary,

to those who had not seen him since the commencement of his strange

sufferings, such an alteration would have been apparent as might well

have shocked them.

The improvement, however, such as it was, was welcomed with gratitude

and delight, especially by the young lady, whom her attachment to him,

as well as her now singularly painful position, consequent on his

protracted illness, rendered an object scarcely one degree less to be

commiserated than himself.

A week passed—a fortnight—a month—and yet there had been no

recurrence of the hated visitation. The treatment had, so far forth,

been followed by complete success. The chain of associations was broken.

The constant pressure upon the overtasked spirits had been removed, and,

under these comparatively favourable circumstances, the sense of social

community with the world about him, and something of human interest, if

not of enjoyment, began to reanimate him.

It was about this time that Lady L—— who, like most old ladies of the

day, was deep in family receipts, and a great pretender to medical

science, dispatched her own maid to the kitchen garden, with a list of

herbs, which were there to be carefully culled, and brought back to her

housekeeper for the purpose stated. The handmaiden, however, returned

with her task scarce half completed, and a good deal flurried and

alarmed. Her mode of accounting for her precipitate retreat and evident

agitation was odd, and, to the old lady, startling.

CHAPTER VIII.

SOFTENED.

It appeared that she had repaired to the kitchen garden, pursuant to her

mistress’s directions, and had there begun to make the specified

election among the rank and neglected herbs which crowded one corner of

the enclosure, and while engaged in this pleasant labour, she carelessly

sang a fragment of an old song, as she said, “to keep herself company.”

She was, however, interrupted by an ill-natured laugh; and, looking up,

she saw through the old thorn hedge, which surrounded the garden, a

singularly ill-looking little man, whose countenance wore the stamp of

menace and malignity, standing close to her, at the other side of the

hawthorn screen.

She described herself as utterly unable to move or speak, while he

charged her with a message for Captain Barton; the substance of which

she distinctly remembered to have been to the effect, that he, Captain

Barton, must come abroad as usual, and show himself to his friends, out

of doors, or else prepare for a visit in his own chamber.

On concluding this brief message, the stranger had, with a threatening

air, got down into the outer ditch, and, seizing the hawthorn stems in

his hands, seemed on the point of climbing through the fence—a feat

which might have been accomplished without much difficulty.

Without, of course, awaiting this result, the girl—throwing down her

treasures of thyme and rosemary—had turned and run, with the swiftness

of terror, to the house. Lady L—— commanded her, on pain of instant

dismissal, to observe an absolute silence respecting all that passed of

the incident which related to Captain Barton; and, at the same time,

directed instant search to be made by her men, in the garden and the

fields adjacent. This measure, however, was as usual, unsuccessful, and,

filled with undefinable misgivings, Lady L—— communicated the incident

to her brother. The story, however, until long afterwards, went no

further, and, of course, it was jealously guarded from Barton, who

continued to amend, though slowly.

Barton now began to walk occasionally in the court-yard which I have

mentioned, and which being enclosed by a high wall, commanded no view

beyond its own extent. Here he, therefore, considered himself perfectly

secure: and, but for a careless violation of orders by one of the

grooms, he might have enjoyed, at least for some time longer, his

much-prized immunity. Opening upon the public road, this yard was

entered by a wooden gate, with a wicket in it, and was further defended

by an iron gate upon the outside. Strict orders had been given to keep

both carefully locked; but, spite of these, it had happened that one

day, as Barton was slowly pacing this narrow enclosure, in his

accustomed walk, and reaching the further extremity, was turning to

retrace his steps, he saw the boarded wicket ajar, and the face of his

tormentor immovably looking at him through the iron bars. For a few

seconds he stood riveted to the earth—breathless and bloodless—in the

fascination of that dreaded gaze, and then fell helplessly insensible,

upon the pavement.

There he was found a few minutes afterwards, and conveyed to his

room—the apartment which he was never afterwards to leave alive.

Henceforward a marked and unaccountable change was observable in the

tone of his mind. Captain Barton was now no longer the excited and

despairing man he had been before; a strange alteration had passed upon

him—an unearthly tranquillity reigned in his mind—it was the

anticipated stillness of the grave.

“Montague, my friend, this struggle is nearly ended now,” he said,

tranquilly, but with a look of fixed and fearful awe. “I have, at last,

some comfort from that world of spirits, from which my punishment has

come. I now know that my sufferings will soon be over.”

Montague pressed him to speak on.

“Yes,” said he, in a softened voice, “my punishment is nearly ended.

From sorrow, perhaps I shall never, in time or eternity, escape; but my

_agony_ is almost over. Comfort has been revealed to me, and what

remains of my allotted struggle I will bear with submission—even with

hope.”

“I am glad to hear you speak so tranquilly, my dear Barton,” said

Montague; “peace and cheer of mind are all you need to make you what you

were.”

“No, no—I never can be that,” said he mournfully. “I am no longer fit

for life. I am soon to die. I am to see him but once again, and then all

is ended.”

“He said so, then?” suggested Montague.

“_He?_—No, no: good tidings could scarcely come through him; and these

were good and welcome; and they came so solemnly and sweetly—with

unutterable love and melancholy, such as I could not—without saying

more than is needful, or fitting, of other long-past scenes and

persons—fully explain to you.” As Barton said this he shed tears.

“Come, come,” said Montague, mistaking the source of his emotions, “you

must not give way. What is it, after all, but a pack of dreams and

nonsense; or, at worst, the practices of a scheming rascal that enjoys

his power of playing upon your nerves, and loves to exert it—a sneaking

vagabond that owes you a grudge, and pays it off this way, not daring to

try a more manly one.”

“A grudge, indeed, he owes me—you say rightly,” said Barton, with a

sudden shudder; “a grudge as you call it. Oh, my God! when the justice

of Heaven permits the Evil one to carry out a scheme of vengeance—when

its execution is committed to the lost and terrible victim of sin, who

owes his own ruin to the man, the very man, whom he is commissioned to

pursue—then, indeed, the torments and terrors of hell are anticipated

on earth. But heaven has dealt mercifully with me—hope has opened to me

at last; and if death could come without the dreadful sight I am doomed

to see, I would gladly close my eyes this moment upon the world. But

though death is welcome, I shrink with an agony you cannot

understand—an actual frenzy of terror—from the last encounter with

that—that demon, who has drawn me thus to the verge of the chasm, and

who is himself to plunge me down. I am to see him again—once more—but

under circumstances unutterably more terrific than ever.”

As Barton thus spoke, he trembled so violently that Montague was really

alarmed at the extremity of his sudden agitation, and hastened to lead

him back to the topic which had before seemed to exert so tranquillizing

an effect upon his mind.

“It was not a dream,” he said, after a time; “I was in a different

state—I felt differently and strangely; and yet it was all as real, as

clear, and vivid, as what I now see and hear—it was a reality.”

“And what _did_ you see and hear?” urged his companion.

“When I wakened from the swoon I fell into on seeing _him_,” said

Barton, continuing as if he had not heard the question, “it was slowly,

very slowly—I was lying by the margin of a broad lake, with misty hills

all round, and a soft, melancholy, rose-coloured light illuminated it

all. It was unusually sad and lonely, and yet more beautiful than any

earthly scene. My head was leaning on the lap of a girl, and she was

singing a song, that told, I know not how—whether by words or

harmonies—of all my life—all that is past, and all that is still to

come; and with the song the old feelings that I thought had perished

within me came back, and tears flowed from my eyes—partly for the song

and its mysterious beauty, and partly for the unearthly sweetness of

her voice; and yet I knew the voice—oh! how well; and I was spell-bound

as I listened and looked at the solitary scene, without stirring, almost

without breathing—and, alas! alas! without turning my eyes toward the

face that I knew was near me, so sweetly powerful was the enchantment

that held me. And so, slowly, the song and scene grew fainter, and

fainter, to my senses, till all was dark and still again. And then I

awoke to this world, as you saw, comforted, for I knew that I was

forgiven much.” Barton wept again long and bitterly.

From this time, as we have said, the prevailing tone of his mind was one

of profound and tranquil melancholy. This, however, was not without its

interruptions. He was thoroughly impressed with the conviction that he

was to experience another and a final visitation, transcending in horror

all he had before experienced. From this anticipated and unknown agony,

he often shrank in such paroxysms of abject terror and distraction, as

filled the whole household with dismay and superstitious panic. Even

those among them who affected to discredit the theory of preternatural

agency, were often in their secret souls visited during the silence of

night with qualms and apprehensions, which they would not have readily

confessed; and none of them attempted to dissuade Barton from the

resolution on which he now systematically acted, of shutting himself up

in his own apartment. The window-blinds of this room were kept jealously

down; and his own man was seldom out of his presence, day or night, his

bed being placed in the same chamber.