Dreams--What age, or what country of the world has not felt and
acknowledged the mystery of their origin and end? I have thought not a
little upon the subject, seeing it is one which has been often forced
upon my attention, and sometimes strangely enough; and yet I have never
arrived at any thing which at all appeared a satisfactory conclusion. It
does appear that a mental phenomenon so extraordinary cannot be wholly
without its use. We know, indeed, that in the olden times it has been
made the organ of communication between the Deity and his creatures; and
when, as I have seen, a dream produces upon a mind, to all appearance
hopelessly reprobate and depraved, an effect so powerful and so lasting
as to break down the inveterate habits, and to reform the life of an
abandoned sinner. We see in the result, in the reformation of morals,
which appeared incorrigible in the reclamation of a human soul which
seemed to be irretrievably lost, something more than could be produced by
a mere chimaera of the slumbering fancy, something more than could arise
from the capricious images of a terrified imagination; but once
prevented, we behold in all these things, in the tremendous and
mysterious results, the operation of the hand of God. And while Reason
rejects as absurd the superstition which will read a prophecy in every
dream, she may, without violence to herself, recognize, even in the
wildest and most incongruous of the wanderings of a slumbering intellect,
the evidences and the fragments of a language which may be spoken, which
_has_ been spoken to terrify, to warn, and to command. We have reason to
believe too, by the promptness of action, which in the age of the
prophets, followed all intimations of this kind, and by the strength of
conviction and strange permanence of the effects resulting from certain
dreams in latter times, which effects ourselves may have witnessed, that
when this medium of communication has been employed by the Deity, the
evidences of his presence have been unequivocal. My thoughts were
directed to this subject, in a manner to leave a lasting impression upon
my mind, by the events which I shall now relate, the statement of which,
however extraordinary, is nevertheless _accurately correct_.
About the year l7-- having been appointed to the living of C----h, I
rented a small house in the town, which bears the same name: one morning,
in the month of November, I was awakened before my usual time, by my
servant, who bustled into my bedroom for the purpose of announcing a sick
call. As the Catholic Church holds her last rites to be totally
indispensable to the safety of the departing sinner, no conscientious
clergyman can afford a moment's unnecessary delay, and in little more
than five minutes I stood ready cloaked and booted for the road in the
small front parlour, in which the messenger, who was to act as my guide,
awaited my coming. I found a poor little girl crying piteously near the
door, and after some slight difficulty I ascertained that her father was
either dead, or just dying.
"And what may be your father's name, my poor child?" said I. She held
down her head, as if ashamed. I repeated the question, and the wretched
little creature burst into floods of tears, still more bitter than she
had shed before. At length, almost provoked by conduct which appeared to
me so unreasonable, I began to lose patience, spite of the pity which I
could not help feeling towards her, and I said rather harshly, "If you
will not tell me the name of the person to whom you would lead me, your
silence can arise from no good motive, and I might be justified in
refusing to go with you at all."
"Oh! don't say that, don't say that," cried she. "Oh! sir, it was that I
was afeard of when I would not tell you--I was afeard when you heard his
name you would not come with me; but it is no use hidin' it now--it's Pat
Connell, the carpenter, your honour."
She looked in my face with the most earnest anxiety, as if her very
existence depended upon what she should read there; but I relieved her at
once. The name, indeed, was most unpleasantly familiar to me; but,
however fruitless my visits and advice might have been at another time,
the present was too fearful an occasion to suffer my doubts of their
utility as my reluctance to re-attempting what appeared a hopeless task
to weigh even against the lightest chance, that a consciousness of his
imminent danger might produce in him a more docile and tractable
disposition. Accordingly I told the child to lead the way, and followed
her in silence. She hurried rapidly through the long narrow street which
forms the great thoroughfare of the town. The darkness of the hour,
rendered still deeper by the close approach of the old fashioned houses,
which lowered in tall obscurity on either side of the way; the damp
dreary chill which renders the advance of morning peculiarly cheerless,
combined with the object of my walk, to visit the death-bed of a
presumptuous sinner, to endeavour, almost against my own conviction, to
infuse a hope into the heart of a dying reprobate--a drunkard, but too
probably perishing under the consequences of some mad fit of
intoxication; all these circumstances united served to enhance the gloom
and solemnity of my feelings, as I silently followed my little guide, who
with quick steps traversed the uneven pavement of the main street. After
a walk of about five minutes she turned off into a narrow lane, of that
obscure and comfortless class which are to be found in almost all small
old fashioned towns, chill without ventilation, reeking with all manner
of offensive effluviae, dingy, smoky, sickly and pent-up buildings,
frequently not only in a wretched but in a dangerous condition.
"Your father has changed his abode since I last visited him, and, I am
afraid, much for the worse," said I.
"Indeed he has, sir, but we must not complain," replied she; "we have to
thank God that we have lodging and food, though it's poor enough, it is,
your honour."
Poor child! thought I, how many an older head might learn wisdom from
thee--how many a luxurious philosopher, who is skilled to preach but not
to suffer, might not thy patient words put to the blush! The manner and
language of this child were alike above her years and station; and,
indeed, in all cases in which the cares and sorrows of life have
anticipated their usual date, and have fallen, as they sometimes do, with
melancholy prematurity to the lot of childhood, I have observed the
result to have proved uniformly the same. A young mind, to which joy and
indulgence have been strangers, and to which suffering and self-denial
have been familiarised from the first, acquires a solidity and an
elevation which no other discipline could have bestowed, and which, in
the present case, communicated a striking but mournful peculiarity to the
manners, even to the voice of the child. We paused before a narrow, crazy
door, which she opened by means of a latch, and we forthwith began to
ascend the steep and broken stairs, which led upwards to the sick man's
room. As we mounted flight after flight towards the garret floor, I heard
more and more distinctly the hurried talking of many voices. I could also
distinguish the low sobbing of a female. On arriving upon the uppermost
lobby, these sounds became fully audible.
"This way, your honor," said my little conductress, at the same time
pushing open a door of patched and half rotten plank, she admitted me
into the squalid chamber of death and misery. But one candle, held in the
fingers of a scared and haggard-looking child, was burning in the room,
and that so dim that all was twilight or darkness except within its
immediate influence. The general obscurity, however, served to throw into
prominent and startling relief the death-bed and its occupant. The light
was nearly approximated to, and fell with horrible clearness upon, the
blue and swollen features of the drunkard. I did not think it possible
that a human countenance could look so terrific. The lips were black and
drawn apart--the teeth were firmly set--the eyes a little unclosed, and
nothing but the whites appearing--every feature was fixed and livid, and
the whole face wore a ghastly and rigid expression of despairing terror
such as I never saw equalled; his hands were crossed upon his breast, and
firmly clenched, while, as if to add to the corpse-like effect of the
whole, some white cloths, dipped in water, were wound about the forehead
and temples. As soon as I could remove my eyes from this horrible
spectacle, I observed my friend Dr. D----, one of the most humane of a
humane profession, standing by the bedside. He had been attempting, but
unsuccessfully, to bleed the patient, and had now applied his finger to
the pulse.
"Is there any hope?" I inquired in a whisper.
A shake of the head was the reply. There was a pause while he continued
to hold the wrist; but he waited in vain for the throb of life, it was
not there, and when he let go the hand it fell stiffly back into its
former position upon the other.
"The man is dead," said the physician, as he turned from the bed where
the terrible figure lay.
Dead! thought I, scarcely venturing to look upon the tremendous and
revolting spectacle--dead! without an hour for repentance, even a
moment for reflection--dead! without the rites which even the best
should have. Is there a hope for him? The glaring eyeball, the grinning
mouth, the distorted brow--that unutterable look in which a painter
would have sought to embody the fixed despair of the nethermost
hell--these were my answer.
The poor wife sat at a little distance, crying as if her heart would
break--the younger children clustered round the bed, looking, with
wondering curiosity, upon the form of death, never seen before. When the
first tumult of uncontrollable sorrow had passed away, availing myself of
the solemnity and impressiveness of the scene, I desired the
heart-stricken family to accompany me in prayer, and all knelt down,
while I solemnly and fervently repeated some of those prayers which
appeared most applicable to the occasion. I employed myself thus in a
manner which, I trusted, was not unprofitable, at least to the living,
for about ten minutes, and having accomplished my task, I was the first
to arise. I looked upon the poor, sobbing, helpless creatures who knelt
so humbly around me, and my heart bled for them. With a natural
transition, I turned my eyes from them to the bed in which the body lay,
and, great God! what was the revulsion, the horror which I experienced on
seeing the corpse-like, terrific thing seated half upright before me--the
white cloths, which had been wound about the head, had now partly slipped
from their position, and were hanging in grotesque festoons about the
face and shoulders, while the distorted eyes leered from amid them--
"A sight to dream of, not to tell."
I stood actually rivetted to the spot. The figure nodded its head and
lifted its arm, I thought with a menacing gesture. A thousand confused
and horrible thoughts at once rushed upon my mind. I had often read that
the body of a presumptuous sinner, who, during life, had been the willing
creature of every satanic impulse, after the human tenant had deserted
it, had been known to become the horrible sport of demoniac possession. I
was roused from the stupefaction of terror in which I stood, by the
piercing scream of the mother, who now, for the first time, perceived the
change which had taken place. She rushed towards the bed, but, stunned by
the shock and overcome by the conflict of violent emotions, before she
reached it, she fell prostrate upon the floor. I am perfectly convinced
that had I not been startled from the torpidity of horror in which I was
bound, by some powerful and arousing stimulant, I should have gazed upon
this unearthly apparition until I had fairly lost my senses. As it was,
however, the spell was broken, superstition gave way to reason: the man
whom all believed to have been actually dead, was living! Dr. D---- was
instantly standing by the bedside, and, upon examination, he found that a
sudden and copious flow of blood had taken place from the wound which the
lancet had left, and this, no doubt, had effected his sudden and almost
preternatural restoration to an existence from which all thought he had
been for ever removed. The man was still speechless, but he seemed to
understand the physician when he forbid his repeating the painful and
fruitless attempts which he made to articulate, and he at once resigned
himself quietly into his hands.
I left the patient with leeches upon his temples, and bleeding
freely--apparently with little of the drowsiness which accompanies
apoplexy; indeed, Dr. D---- told me that he had never before witnessed a
seizure which seemed to combine the symptoms of so many kinds, and yet
which belonged to none of the recognized classes; it certainly was not
apoplexy, catalepsy, _nor delirium tremens_, and yet it seemed, in some
degree, to partake of the properties of all--it was strange, but stranger
things are coming.
During two or three days Dr. D---- would not allow his patient to
converse in a manner which could excite or exhaust him, with any one; he
suffered him merely, as briefly as possible, to express his immediate
wants, and it was not until the fourth day after my early visit, the
particulars of which I have just detailed, that it was thought expedient
that I should see him, and then only because it appeared that his extreme
importunity and impatience were likely to retard his recovery more than
the mere exhaustion attendant upon a short conversation could possibly
do; perhaps, too, my friend entertained some hope that if by holy
confession his patient's bosom were eased of the perilous stuff, which no
doubt, oppressed it, his recovery would be more assured and rapid. It
was, then, as I have said, upon the fourth day after my first
professional call, that I found myself once more in the dreary chamber of
want and sickness. The man was in bed, and appeared low and restless. On
my entering the room he raised himself in the bed, and muttered twice or
thrice--"Thank God! thank God." I signed to those of his family who stood
by, to leave the room, and took a chair beside the bed. So soon as we
were alone, he said, rather doggedly--"There's no use now in telling me
of the sinfulness of bad ways--I know it all--I know where they lead
to--I seen everything about it with my own eyesight, as plain as I see
you." He rolled himself in the bed, as if to hide his face in the
clothes, and then suddenly raising himself, he exclaimed with startling
vehemence--"Look, sir, there is no use in mincing the matter; I'm blasted
with the fires of hell; I have been in hell; what do you think of
that?--in hell--I'm lost for ever--I have not a chance--I am damned
already--damned--damned--." The end of this sentence he actually
shouted; his vehemence was perfectly terrific; he threw himself back, and
laughed, and sobbed hysterically. I poured some water into a tea-cup, and
gave it to him. After he had swallowed it, I told him if he had anything
to communicate, to do so as briefly as he could, and in a manner as
little agitating to himself as possible; threatening at the same time,
though I had no intention of doing so, to leave him at once, in case he
again gave way to such passionate excitement. "It's only foolishness," he
continued, "for me to try to thank you for coming to such a villain as
myself at all; it's no use for me to wish good to you, or to bless you;
for such as me has no blessings to give." I told him that I had but done
my duty, and urged him to proceed to the matter which weighed upon his
mind; he then spoke nearly as follows:--"I came in drunk on Friday night
last, and got to my bed here, I don't remember how; sometime in the
night, it seemed to me, I wakened, and feeling unasy in myself, I got up
out of the bed. I wanted the fresh air, but I would not make a noise to
open the window, for fear I'd waken the crathurs. It was very dark, and
throublesome to find the door; but at last I did get it, and I groped my
way out, and went down as asy as I could. I felt quite sober, and I
counted the steps one after another, as I was going down, that I might
not stumble at the bottom. When I came to the first landing-place, God be
about us always! the floor of it sunk under me, and I went down, down,
down, till the senses almost left me. I do not know how long I was
falling, but it seemed to me a great while. When I came rightly to myself
at last, I was sitting at a great table, near the top of it; and I could
not see the end of it, if it had any, it was so far off; and there was
men beyond reckoning, sitting down, all along by it, at each side, as far
as I could see at all. I did not know at first was it in the open air;
but there was a close smothering feel in it, that was not natural, and
there was a kind of light that my eyesight never saw before, red and
unsteady, and I did not see for a long time where it was coming from,
until I looked straight up, and then I seen that it came from great balls
of blood-coloured fire, that were rolling high over head with a sort of
rushing, trembling sound, and I perceived that they shone on the ribs of
a great roof of rock that was arched overhead instead of the sky. When I
seen this, scarce knowing what I did, I got up, and I said, 'I have no
right to be here; I must go,' and the man that was sitting at my left
hand, only smiled, and said, 'sit down again, you can _never_ leave this
place,' and his voice was weaker than any child's voice I ever heerd, and
when he was done speaking he smiled again. Then I spoke out very loud and
bold, and I said--'in the name of God, let me out of this bad place.' And
there was a great man, that I did not see before, sitting at the end of
the table that I was near, and he was taller than twelve men, and his
face was very proud and terrible to look at, and he stood up and
stretched out his hand before him, and when he stood up, all that was
there, great and small, bowed down with a sighing sound, and a dread came
on my heart, and he looked at me, and I could not speak. I felt I was his
own, to do what he liked with, for I knew at once who he was, and he
said, 'if you promise to return, you may depart for a season'; and the
voice he spoke with was terrible and mournful, and the echoes of it went
rolling and swelling down the endless cave, and mixing with the trembling
of the fire overhead; so that, when he sate down, there was a sound after
him, all through the place like the roaring of a furnace, and I said,
with all the strength I had, 'I promise to come back; in God's name let
me go,' and with that I lost the sight and the hearing of all that was
there, and when my senses came to me again, I was sitting in the bed with
the blood all over me, and you and the rest praying around the room."
Here he paused and wiped away the chill drops of horror which hung upon
his forehead.
I remained silent for some moments. The vision which he had just
described struck my imagination not a little, for this was long before
Vathek and the "Hall of Iblis" had delighted the world; and the
description which he gave had, as I received it, all the attractions of
novelty beside the impressiveness which always belongs to the narration
of an _eye-witness_, whether in the body or in the spirit, of the scenes
which he describes. There was something, too, in the stern horror with
which the man related these things, and in the incongruity of his
description, with the vulgarly received notions of the great place of
punishment, and of its presiding spirit, which struck my mind with awe,
almost with fear. At length he said, with an expression of horrible,
imploring earnestness, which I shall never forget--"Well, sir, is there
any hope; is there any chance at all? or, is my soul pledged and promised
away for ever? is it gone out of my power? must I go back to the place?"
In answering him I had no easy task to perform; for however clear might
be my internal conviction of the groundlessness of his fears, and however
strong my scepticism respecting the reality of what he had described, I
nevertheless felt that his impression to the contrary, and his humility
and terror resulting from it, might be made available as no mean engines
in the work of his conversion from profligacy, and of his restoration to
decent habits, and to religious feeling. I therefore told him that he was
to regard his dream rather in the light of a warning than in that of a
prophecy; that our salvation depended not upon the word or deed of a
moment, but upon the habits of a life; that, in fine, if he at once
discarded his idle companions and evil habits, and firmly adhered to a
sober, industrious, and religious course of life, the powers of darkness
might claim his soul in vain, for that there were higher and firmer
pledges than human tongue could utter, which promised salvation to him
who should repent and lead a new life.
I left him much comforted, and with a promise to return upon the next
day. I did so, and found him much more cheerful, and without any remains
of the dogged sullenness which I suppose had arisen from his despair.
His promises of amendment were given in that tone of deliberate
earnestness, which belongs to deep and solemn determination; and it was
with no small delight that I observed, after repeated visits, that his
good resolutions, so far from failing, did but gather strength by time;
and when I saw that man shake off the idle and debauched companions,
whose society had for years formed alike his amusement and his ruin, and
revive his long discarded habits of industry and sobriety, I said within
myself, there is something more in all this than the operation of an
idle dream. One day, sometime after his perfect restoration to health, I
was surprised on ascending the stairs, for the purpose of visiting this
man, to find him busily employed in nailing down some planks upon the
landing place, through which, at the commencement of his mysterious
vision, it seemed to him that he had sunk. I perceived at once that he
was strengthening the floor with a view to securing himself against such
a catastrophe, and could scarcely forbear a smile as I bid "God bless
his work."
He perceived my thoughts, I suppose, for he immediately said,
"I can never pass over that floor without trembling. I'd leave this
house if I could, but I can't find another lodging in the town so cheap,
and I'll not take a better till I've paid off all my debts, please God;
but I could not be asy in my mind till I made it as safe as I could.
You'll hardly believe me, your honor, that while I'm working, maybe a
mile away, my heart is in a flutter the whole way back, with the bare
thoughts of the two little steps I have to walk upon this bit of a
floor. So it's no wonder, sir, I'd thry to make it sound and firm with
any idle timber I have."
I applauded his resolution to pay off his debts, and the steadiness with
which he pursued his plans of conscientious economy, and passed on.
Many months elapsed, and still there appeared no alteration in his
resolutions of amendment. He was a good workman, and with his better
habits he recovered his former extensive and profitable employment. Every
thing seemed to promise comfort and respectability. I have little more to
add, and that shall be told quickly. I had one evening met Pat Connell,
as he returned from his work, and as usual, after a mutual, and on his
side respectful salutation, I spoke a few words of encouragement and
approval. I left him industrious, active, healthy--when next I saw him,
not three days after, he was a corpse. The circumstances which marked the
event of his death were somewhat strange--I might say fearful. The
unfortunate man had accidentally met an early friend, just returned,
after a long absence, and in a moment of excitement, forgetting
everything in the warmth of his joy, he yielded to his urgent invitation
to accompany him into a public house, which lay close by the spot where
the encounter had taken place. Connell, however, previously to entering
the room, had announced his determination to take nothing more than the
strictest temperance would warrant. But oh! who can describe the
inveterate tenacity with which a drunkard's habits cling to him through
life. He may repent--he may reform--he may look with actual abhorrence
upon his past profligacy; but amid all this reformation and compunction,
who can tell the moment in which the base and ruinous propensity may not
recur, triumphing over resolution, remorse, shame, everything, and
prostrating its victim once more in all that is destructive and revolting
in that fatal vice.
The wretched man left the place in a state of utter intoxication. He was
brought home nearly insensible, and placed in his bed, where he lay in
the deep calm lethargy of drunkenness. The younger part of the family
retired to rest much after their usual hour; but the poor wife remained
up sitting by the fire, too much grieved and shocked at the recurrence of
what she had so little expected, to settle to rest; fatigue, however, at
length overcame her, and she sunk gradually into an uneasy slumber. She
could not tell how long she had remained in this state, when she
awakened, and immediately on opening her eyes, she perceived by the faint
red light of the smouldering turf embers, two persons, one of whom she
recognized as her husband noiselessly gliding out of the room.
"Pat, darling, where are you going?" said she. There was no answer--the
door closed after them; but in a moment she was startled and terrified by
a loud and heavy crash, as if some ponderous body had been hurled down
the stair. Much alarmed, she started up, and going to the head of the
staircase, she called repeatedly upon her husband, but in vain. She
returned to the room, and with the assistance of her daughter, whom I had
occasion to mention before, she succeeded in finding and lighting a
candle, with which she hurried again to the head of the staircase. At the
bottom lay what seemed to be a bundle of clothes, heaped together,
motionless, lifeless--it was her husband. In going down the stairs, for
what purpose can never now be known, he had fallen helplessly and
violently to the bottom, and coming head foremost, the spine at the neck
had been dislocated by the shock, and instant death must have ensued. The
body lay upon that landing-place to which his dream had referred. It is
scarcely worth endeavouring to clear up a single point in a narrative
where all is mystery; yet I could not help suspecting that the second
figure which had been seen in the room by Connell's wife on the night of
his death, might have been no other than his own shadow. I suggested this
solution of the difficulty; but she told me that the unknown person had
been considerably in advance of the other, and on reaching the door, had
turned back as if to communicate something to his companion--it was then
a mystery. Was the dream verified?--whither had the disembodied spirit
sped?--who can say? We know not. But I left the house of death that day
in a state of horror which I could not describe. It seemed to me that I
was scarce awake. I heard and saw everything as if under the spell of a
nightmare. The coincidence was terrible.
* * * * *