the bright sunshine, with hundreds of men cheering and fighting beside
them, but the man who has the real courage, is the one who, on a dark
night like this, dares to walk by himself into a lonely graveyard, and
sit on a newly made grave.” It was the host who had spoken, but as he
had had the reputation at college of being afraid of the dark, there
was a general laugh at his expense.
“That,” said one of the other young men, who was a doctor, and so
accustomed to gruesome sights, “doesn’t require much courage, and
besides,” he added, looking at the deep snowbanks outside, “one
couldn’t very well sit on a newly made grave to-night, for the ground
is frozen solid, and there are snow-drifts two feet deep. However,
there are several bodies in the vault over in the cemetery yonder, and
I am willing to wager that no one here dares walk over and knock three
times on the iron door.”
“It seems to me,” answered Captain Van Patten, carelessly, “that you
civilians have a very primitive idea of courage. If you will make a
wager that would tempt a man to leave this most delicious punch, and
such delightful company, I will venture to go over and bring back a
souvenir from your terrible tomb. Churchill, our host here, as nearest
resident to the village graveyard, is no doubt supplied with a key
to the tomb.” He looked inquiringly at the young civil engineer, who
nodded. “Well, as I remarked before, for a sufficient wager I will
agree to bring back to you one of the bats which probably haunt the
place.”
The doctor, somewhat nettled at the bantering tone of the captain,
rose as if to make what he was about to say more impressive, and said,
slowly, “In that tomb there was placed this afternoon the body of
Andrew Phelps, who died in church last Sunday from heart failure. The
clothes of the corpse included a black frock suit and a black silk tie.
I know these things, because the village undertaker was away, and I
was called in to assist in preparing the body for burial. I will wager
this gentleman, who seems not to be afraid,” he added sarcastically,
“one hundred dollars that he does not dare, at twelve o’clock to-night,
leave this courageous company, unlock the tomb, force open the coffin,
and bring back to this room within the hour that same black neckcloth.”
“Taken,” answered the captain promptly; and drawing a check-book from
his pocket, he wrote a check for the amount. “And now,” he continued,
“as I see the clock indicates 11.30, I shall have to request as quickly
as possible the loan of a hammer and screw-driver.”
They brought him the necessary tools, he wrapped himself in his great
coat, and left the house whistling nonchalantly.
“I didn’t tell him which was the squire’s coffin,” said the doctor
after Van Patten had left. “It might give even his iron nerves a shock
if he opened the coffin in which they buried the remains of the tramp
who was run over on the Central last week, and was picked up in pieces
in a basket,--all except the head, which was never found.”
Van Patten trudged along through the snow toward the tomb. He wasn’t a
timid young man in any sense of the word, and the present excursion was
nothing but a little adventure, which he could work up with frequent
tellings into a good after-dinner story. “Rather a nasty night,” he
muttered to himself, as he turned in at the cemetery gate. There was
not a star in sight, and the sky was full of great threatening black
clouds, which probably meant snow before morning.
He unlocked the tomb, and stepped inside, but it was some time before
he could make out in the inky darkness where what he was seeking lay.
There were three wooden boxes resting on iron bars set into the cement
wall. All were of about the same length, and there was nothing by which
to distinguish one from the other, as he felt them over.
“It’s a wonder he wouldn’t have told me there was a party of them here.
How’s a man to know who’s who?” said the captain to himself, and he
gave a slight shiver. “Well, here goes for luck, anyway,” and he began
to unscrew the lid from the nearest coffin box.
After some ten minutes’ work he had the wooden cover off, and tried to
pry the coffin open. The thing gave way at last, and he thrust his hand
in and groped about the neck of the body, feeling for the tie. His hand
met only a mass of lace and ribbons, and to his dismay he discovered
that the corpse was that of a woman.
He hurriedly replaced the cover, screwed on the lid again, and wiped
the sweat from his brow. There was not a sound in the vault save a
thud now and then, when a piece of the ceiling, loosened by frost,
fell to the floor, or struck on one of the wooden boxes. The humor of
the situation was all gone now, and he was trembling as he began work
on the second box. Every few minutes his shaking hands slipped, and
the screw-driver would jam against the box with a dull, echoing thud.
In his feverish haste he tried to turn the heavy screws with his bare
fingers; but the rough edges cut him cruelly, and the box was soon
splashed with blood. He did not feel the pain, however, and only worked
the faster.
He loosened, but did not wholly remove the lid of the box, and then
reached down to pry off the coffin cover; but he found that it was
not fastened. He thrust his hand in, and felt again for the throat;
but, to his horror, _there was no throat there_. He passed his hand up
higher, and felt for the face, and there was only a little bunch of
frozen flowers. “You’re losing your head, Pat,” he said to himself; but
his voice was hollow, and echoed strangely in that gruesome, shut-in
place. He reached farther down and felt along the arm. He gave a little
pull on the hand, and it came off at the wrist. Thoroughly unmanned,
he threw the thing on the floor, and ran shrieking from the tomb. Once
outside again, the cold air brought him back to himself a little, but
he could feel the touch of those icy fingers on his trembling hand. He
was partly dazed, and could not reason rightly. The long strain had
been too much for him, but one thought remained uppermost in his mind;
he must get that black silk neck cloth from the man whose coffin still
remained unopened.
He forced himself back into the tomb, but his heart fluttered
strangely, as he knelt beside the last box. He did not stop to remove
the screws, but drove the hammer under the cover, and twisted and
wrenched the boards off furiously. The coffin lid withstood his efforts
for some time, for the fastenings were strong; but at last they, too,
gave way. He reached down for the throat again, dreading lest he should
find some new horror. His hand touched a moist face, and the man in the
coffin stirred and groaned.
“Lie still, damn you!” he shrieked, and seized the man brutally by
the throat. A hand cold and clammy clutched his feebly. “Let go!”
he screamed with another curse, and struck the face angrily with his
hand. He tore the neckcloth, collar and all, from the man’s throat, and
started to turn away, when a low voice came from the coffin. With a
laugh that was not nice to hear, Van Patten staggered across the vault.
As he neared the door his head struck against one of the iron coffin
supports and he fell heavily to the ground.
* * * * *
Van Patten’s three friends sat around the table in the country house,
anxiously waiting for the return of the captain. The wager was lost to
Van Patten, for it was nearly two hours since he left the house, and
the men were about to start out in search of him, when the front door
opened and someone staggered into the lighted room from the hall. But
the white-faced man who lurched toward them, with clothes torn and
covered with blood, was not the captain, but Andrew Phelps. He talked
wildly and incoherently; but they gathered from his ravings that he had
been rescued from a living grave by someone who had immediately set
upon him like a madman.
Leaving the doctor with him, the other two men started out in search
of the missing captain. They did not find him on the road leading to
the cemetery; but when they neared the vault they found the door half
opened, while the sound of maniacal singing came out through the
night. They pushed the door wide open, and there by the dim light of
the lanterns a strange sight shocked their gaze.
Two of the coffins were broken open. One was empty; but partially in
the other and partly scattered about the tomb, as if thrown as a child
tosses its playthings, were some ghastly things, the sight of which
made young Churchill sick and faint. On the edge of the coffin in which
the body of the tramp had been placed sat Van Patten; but he did not
look up as they entered. They brought the light close to his face, but
he only leered vacantly at them and continued singing.
In one hand he held something on which he was trying to fit his fur
glove, and at his feet lay a torn black neckcloth.
THE STORY THE DOCTOR TOLD.
THE STORY THE DOCTOR TOLD.
To begin with, let me say that I am not a story-teller, neither can I
make fine phrases nor coin strange words which shall delight the ear.
I am only a country doctor, getting well along in years, and I write
this tale only because I promised Richard Crew so to do, as I held his
feverish hand while he lay and tossed in pain, and prayed for a death
that would not come.
So without further excuse or apology, let me begin. Richard Crew was
the only son of Sir Davies Crew, distinguished as artist, soldier,
and scholar. His mother, Anne Sargent, was the fairest Englishwoman
it has ever been my privilege to know. Of money there was a plenty on
both sides; so when the young lad Richard reached his eighteenth year,
and under his father’s careful teaching showed a decided taste for
painting, he was sent forthwith to Paris and placed under the best
master that gold could procure.
As family physician of the Crews, I was somewhat of a privileged
character at Redfern, as the old estate was called, and many an evening
have I spent with old Sir Davies playing chess, or listening to his
tales of a life full of strange experiences. It was I who helped young
Richard to first blink his large blue eyes on this world, and who
attended him through his trials of teething, measles, and all the other
evils to which childhood is heir. It was my hand also which reverently
closed the eyes of Lady Anne after a short illness, the very year that
Richard went to Paris.
Sir Davies never recovered from the shock of his wife’s death, and
what with brooding over her loss, shutting himself up in his room, and
neglecting the exercise that a man of his physique always requires, I
was deeply grieved but not surprised when Bingham, the head butler,
came down to the house one evening to inform me that Sir Davies had
died in an apoplectic fit during dinner.
It is a bad thing for most boys who are about to come of age to fall
heir to a lot of money, but when that boy is a student in the Latin
Quarter of Paris, is fair to look upon, popular with his set, and
generous to a fault, the result can be imagined.
For the next three years I saw very little of Richard. He came to
Redfern only occasionally in the summer, and then he was always
accompanied by a gay crowd of his Paris associates; artists like
himself, scribblers for some Paris sheet, and the hangers-on invariably
to be found in the train of the rich young man. These visits to his
old home became rarer and rarer, for which the country people around
were very glad, for they had developed into little better than riotous
orgies; when nights, for weeks at a time, were spent in carousals, and
the days in resting up only for another night.
Exercising what I considered my right as an old friend of the family, I
called one morning at Redfern to remonstrate with the boy, but I came
away sorry that I had made the attempt. It was hard to imagine that the
dissipated young wreck, with trembling hands and swollen, bloodshot
eyes, was the same lad whom I saw the morning of his journey to Paris,
as he whirled by on the coach and waved his cap to me in farewell.
It was the same sad, old story; wine, women, and song, and then more
wine and more women, and for seven long years the son of my dear old
friend lived the life that is worse than death, and then came back to
Redfern with the seal of sin upon his brow.
Only once did I see him that summer after my morning call. Then I was
called up at two in the morning by a young man in Austrian uniform,
who, half drunk himself, begged me in a maudlin way to come up to the
house, for young Crew was down with the “jumps,” as he called it. I
went with him of course, and found Richard in the old banquet room with
a motley crowd of men and women bending over him, as he lay stretched
out on the couch.
I have seen many men in my life who have drunk too much, and are
tasting that bitter after draught by which an abused system avenges
itself, and I looked to find a far different sight from that which
met my eyes as they made room for me about the couch. In the white
drawn face before me there was nothing but fear, not ordinary healthy
fear such as every man at times experiences, but a kind of speechless
horror; and his eyes, as they turned toward me, had in them the
fathomless misery of a lost soul.
His lips moved, and I heard him pleading faintly with somebody
or something to go away and leave him for a little while; but as
entreaties did no good he tried to bribe the thing, and offered a
thousand, ten thousand pounds to be left in peace. Then, as nothing
seemed to avail, his voice rose to a frenzied scream, and he cursed the
thing that haunted him, the God that made him, yes, and the mother who
bore him.
At last, worn out and exhausted, he sank back to the floor, and I
succeeded in getting him into a fitful sleep, while that crowd of
tawdry, painted women and drunken men crept past him out of the
room, with all the laughter gone from their faces.
[Illustration: “The next day I was surprised by a visit from the young
man.” (See page 167.)]
The next day I was surprised by a visit from the young man, who, as
might be expected of one in his position, was thoroughly frightened.
I explained to him, as a man of medicine, just what his condition the
night before meant, and he promised solemnly, and of his own accord,
not to touch anything more for a year. Then he told me what he had
seen the night before; for, strange to say, he remembered perfectly
all he had been through. As he lay there, he said, he could see across
the room, slowly forming itself out of nothing, and yet having a
frightful form, some hideous thing which, neither man nor beast, and
yet resembling both, approached slowly, grinning at him. He could not
describe it more definitely, for he had not learned to know it as he
afterwards did. All that I could find out was that it was a great
flabby creature that waddled as it walked; and though it had a face, it
was not like anything he had ever seen.
As regards this pledge to me, I think he kept it, for I heard
indirectly from him several times during the year, and the report was
always good. He was back again in Paris, but had given up all his old
companions, and was working faithfully. That year one of his pictures
received a prize in the salon, and he was prophesied a great future.
I was away during the next year and a half, looking up interests
of mine in America, and heard little that was going on among my own
people. On the evening of my return to our village, therefore, I was
surprised to see the big house at Redfern gaily illuminated, and was
told by the servants that there had been bad doings up on the hill for
many a day. The temptation of the old life had been too strong; he had
gathered his all too willing crowd of former associates around him,
and was “celebrating” with all the pent up passion of a _roué_ who has
walked in the narrow path for nearly a year.
He was sick with his old trouble twice that month, and both times for
old friendship’s sake I did what I could for him; but I saw there must
come an end before many months. But such an end!
I was surprised one day to hear the servants talking in the next room,
for they said that all the crowd at Redfern had left for the city that
morning, with the exception of Master Richard, who was shut up in his
room working all day like mad on some picture, and drinking furiously
at night.
The end of it all came one night two weeks later, about ten o’clock
in the evening, when one of the maids came down to my house, white
and trembling, to tell me that “Master Richard was down with the
horrors again, worse than ever, and would I please come up as quick as
possible.” I hurried on a hat and coat, and followed her up the hill.
As we turned in at the little gate in the garden I was startled by a
shriek so terrible that I turned to the trembling maid questioningly.
“That’s the way he’s been at it for an hour, sir,” she whispered, and
her teeth chattered as she spoke, though the night was not cold.
She left me at the door of his room and I went in alone. At first I
could see nothing, for the light was turned down; but from the bed
there came a low, moaning noise. Then, suddenly, the clothes were
thrown aside, and, God help me, I saw a face the like of which I pray
I may never see again. I have doctored many men in my time, and I have
seen some sights that are not nice to think about; but never have I
seen such nameless horror, such uncontrollable fear, as looked at me
from the eyes of that man.
He stood there for a minute gibbering and making strange noises like
a beast; and then jumping from the bed, he ran to a piece of canvas
standing against the wall and covered by a thick drapery. He pulled
the cover aside a little way and peeped fearfully behind. Then, in a
very paroxysm of terror, he ran shrieking and screaming to the bed.
He buried himself under the clothes, and I could hear him sobbing
and moaning again as when I first came in. There is to me something
inexpressibly pitiful in the sight of a man in tears, and yet I had to
stay there for three mortal hours and watch that man. Always the same
program,--the look behind the drapery, and then that horrible fright,
which in a few minutes was followed by another look.
Toward two in the morning he quieted down suddenly, and I went and sat
by the bedside trying to soothe him to sleep; but he wanted to talk.
“I am almost done for, doctor,” he whispered; “but I have finished it,
and it has finished me. I have lived a bad life, a very bad life, but
on the canvas behind that drapery is the thing God sent me to avenge
my wasted life; and when I am gone and you see what it is that I have
lived with for the last two years, you will believe me when I say that
I do not fear the terrors of any hell hereafter.”
He broke off suddenly and glanced fearfully about the room, but as if
reassured by the pressure of my hand, he continued,--
“I lived straight, for over a year, after the pledge I made you, the
night of my first trouble. I left all the old companions, and worked
hard. You saw the notice of my picture?” he asked eagerly, and I
nodded.
“During that year I met a woman who was the very type of all that is
pure and innocent, and I even dared to think that sometime, after I
had lived down my frightful past, I might make her my wife. But one
day as I was straining my eyes to catch the last light of the fading
afternoon, I chanced to glance over the canvas, and, my God, there
creeping out of the darkness, was that hideous thing. I was unconscious
for several hours, but when I came to myself I consulted the best
physician in Paris, and was under his care for over a month, but it was
of no use. Since that day it has followed me everywhere, day and night.
I tried to drown it in drink, and it only came the oftener. Then I sent
the crowd home, and resolved to paint a likeness of the thing, to have
always with me, so as to accustom myself to it, but it was too awful.”
His voice trailed off into a shuddering whisper.
I tried to turn his thoughts to pleasant things, and at last he began
to talk of his childhood, and how he used to ride about the country in
the little pony chaise with his mother, and the children of the village
called him “young Master Dick.” Then, even as I watched him, I saw
creeping into his face again that nameless horror. The pupils of his
eyes grew larger and larger till you could scarcely see the blue. The
sweat of fear started from his forehead in huge drops; and in less time
than it takes to tell it he was again a madman.
He jumped to his feet and stood there for a minute, his knees knocking
drunkenly together, and his teeth rattling like a pair of castanets,
while his eyes stared straight ahead of him at the bare wall, and then
he started for the picture again. But he never reached it. God in his
mercy spared him the agony of that last look, and he fell forward, one
hand clutching the drapery, which went down with him to the floor and
left me staring at the thing it had covered.
I looked, and something dragged me nearer, for painted on the canvas
I saw an evil, formless thing which made my blood run cold. It might
have been a man, for it stood upon two feet, and had arms and a head,
and yet, thank God, it was no man. Or it might have been a devil, for
if ever an imp of hell looked down from canvas it must have had a face
like that. Yet there were no definite outlines to it. When you tried to
place a certain contour it faded off into the somber background, and
all that remained was the head, a great flabby thing without any nose
which looked down at you and grinned horribly.
If that was the demon which had haunted Richard Crew’s fevered and
disordered brain for two long years, I thanked my God that I was not a
drinking man. I looked again and could not turn my eyes away. Then, as
I looked, I felt that indescribable, sickening fear coming over me that
I had read in the dead man’s eyes.
The grinning thing seemed to be moving slowly. I could see the rocking
motion of the body as it waddled toward me.
By a mighty effort of the will I tore myself from the spot, and seizing
a French dueling sword that hung on the wall, I hacked and cut that
leering face till only an empty frame remained, with a few clinging
shreds of tattered canvas.
[Illustration: FINIS]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Copyright by S. S. McClure & Co.
[2] Copyright by F. A. Munsey.
[3] Copyright by F. A. Munsey & Co.
[4] Copyright, 1901, by the Shortstory Publishing Co.
[5] Copyright by E. B. Terhune.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
End of Project Gutenberg's Welsh Rarebit Tales, by Harle Oren Cummins