Fearing, however, that the train of thought into which I fell might
unsteady my nerves, I fully determined to keep my mind in a fit state to
cope with whatever of marvelous the advancing night might bring forth.
I roused myself; laid the letters on the table; stirred up the fire,
which was still bright and cheering; and opened my volume of Macaulay.
I read quietly enough till about half past eleven. I then threw myself
dressed upon the bed, and told my servant he might retire to his own
room, but must keep himself awake. I bade him leave open the door between
the two rooms. Thus alone, I kept two candles burning on the table by
my bed head. I placed my watch beside the weapons, and calmly resumed
my Macaulay. Opposite to me the fire burned clear; and on the hearth
rug, seemingly asleep, lay the dog. In about twenty minutes I felt an
exceedingly cold air pass by my cheek, like a sudden draught. I fancied
the door to my right, communicating with the landing place, must have
got open; but no,—it was closed. I then turned my glance to my left, and
saw the flame of the candles violently swayed as by a wind. At the same
moment the watch beside the revolver softly slid from the table,—softly,
softly; no visible hand,—it was gone. I sprang up, seizing the revolver
with the one hand, the dagger with the other; I was not willing that my
weapons should share the fate of the watch. Thus armed, I looked round
the floor,—no sign of the watch. Three slow, loud, distinct knocks were
now heard at the bed head: my servant called out, “Is that you, sir?”
“No; be on your guard.”
The dog now roused himself and sat on his haunches, his ears moving
quickly backward and forward. He kept his eyes fixed on me with a look
so strange that he concentered all my attention on himself. Slowly he
rose up, all his hair bristling, and stood perfectly rigid, and with the
same wild stare. I had no time, however, to examine the dog. Presently
my servant emerged from his room; and if ever I saw horror in the human
face, it was then. I should not have recognized him had we met in the
street, so altered was every lineament. He passed by me quickly, saying,
in a whisper that seemed scarcely to come from his lips, “Run, run! it
is after me!” He gained the door to the landing, pulled it open, and
rushed forth. I followed him into the landing involuntarily, calling him
to stop; but, without heeding me, he bounded down the stairs, clinging
to the balusters, and taking several steps at a time. I heard, where I
stood, the street door open,—heard it again clap to. I was left alone in
the haunted house.
It was but for a moment that I remained undecided whether or not to
follow my servant; pride and curiosity alike forbade so dastardly a
flight. I reëntered my room, closing the door after me, and proceeded
cautiously into the interior chamber. I encountered nothing to justify my
servant’s terror. I again carefully examined the walls, to see if there
were any concealed door. I could find no trace of one,—not even a seam
in the dull-brown paper with which the room was hung. How, then, had the
THING, whatever it was, which had so scared him, obtained ingress except
through my own chamber?
I returned to my room, shut and locked the door that opened upon the
interior one, and stood on the hearth, expectant and prepared. I now
perceived that the dog had slunk into an angle of the wall, and was
pressing himself close against it, as if literally striving to force his
way into it. I approached the animal and spoke to it; the poor brute
was evidently beside itself with terror. It showed all its teeth, the
slaver dropping from its jaws, and would certainly have bitten me if I
had touched it. It did not seem to recognize me. Whoever has seen at
the Zoological Gardens a rabbit, fascinated by a serpent, cowering in
a corner, may form some idea of the anguish which the dog exhibited.
Finding all efforts to soothe the animal in vain, and fearing that his
bite might be as venomous in that state as in the madness of hydrophobia,
I left him alone, placed my weapons on the table beside the fire, seated
myself, and recommenced my Macaulay.
Perhaps, in order not to appear seeking credit for a courage, or rather a
coolness, which the reader may conceive I exaggerate, I may be pardoned
if I pause to indulge in one or two egotistical remarks.
As I hold presence of mind, or what is called courage, to be precisely
proportioned to familiarity with the circumstances that lead to it,
so I should say that I had been long sufficiently familiar with all
experiments that appertain to the marvelous. I had witnessed many very
extraordinary phenomena in various parts of the world,—phenomena that
would be either totally disbelieved if I stated them, or ascribed to
supernatural agencies. Now, my theory is that the supernatural is the
impossible, and that what is called supernatural is only a something in
the laws of Nature of which we have been hitherto ignorant. Therefore,
if a ghost rise before me, I have not the right to say, “So, then, the
supernatural is possible;” but rather, “So, then, the apparition of a
ghost is, contrary to received opinion, within the laws of Nature,—that
is, not supernatural.”
Now, in all that I had hitherto witnessed, and indeed in all the wonders
which the amateurs of mystery in our age record as facts, a material
living agency is always required. On the Continent you will find still
magicians who assert that they can raise spirits. Assume for the moment
that they assert truly, still the living material form of the magician is
present; and he is the material agency by which, from some constitutional
peculiarities, certain strange phenomena are represented to your natural
senses.
Accept, again, as truthful, the tales of spirit manifestation in
America,—musical or other sounds; writings on paper, produced by no
discernible hand; articles of furniture moved without apparent human
agency; or the actual sight and touch of hands, to which no bodies
seem to belong,—still there must be found the MEDIUM, or living being,
with constitutional peculiarities capable of obtaining these signs. In
fine, in all such marvels, supposing even that there is no imposture,
there must be a human being like ourselves by whom, or through whom,
the effects presented to human beings are produced. It is so with the
now familiar phenomena of mesmerism or electro-biology; the mind of the
person operated on is affected through a material living agent. Nor,
supposing it true that a mesmerized patient can respond to the will or
passes of a mesmerizer a hundred miles distant, is the response less
occasioned by a material being; if may be through a material fluid—call
it Electric, call it Odic, call it what you will—which has the power
of traversing space and passing obstacles, that the material effect
is communicated from one to the other. Hence, all that I had hitherto
witnessed, or expected to witness, in this strange house, I believe to
be occasioned through some agency or medium as mortal as myself; and
this idea necessarily prevented the awe with which those who regard
as supernatural things that are not within the ordinary operations of
Nature, might have been impressed by the adventures of that memorable
night.
As, then, it was my conjecture that all that was presented, or would be
presented to my senses, must originate in some human being gifted by
constitution with the power so to present them, and having some motive
so to do, I felt an interest in my theory which, in its way, was rather
philosophical than superstitious. And I can sincerely say that I was in
as tranquil a temper for observation as any practical experimentalist
could be in awaiting the effects of some rare, though perhaps perilous,
chemical combination. Of course, the more I kept my mind detached from
fancy, the more the temper fitted for observation would be obtained; and
I therefore riveted eye and thought on the strong daylight sense in the
page of my Macaulay.
I now became aware that something interposed between the page and the
light,—the page was overshadowed. I looked up, and I saw what I shall
find it very difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe.
It was a Darkness shaping itself forth from the air in very undefined
outline. I cannot say it was of a human form, and yet it had more
resemblance to a human form, or rather shadow, than to anything else. As
it stood, wholly apart and distinct from the air and the light around it,
its dimensions seemed gigantic, the summit nearly touching the ceiling.
While I gazed, a feeling of intense cold seized me. An iceberg before me
could not more have chilled me; nor could the cold of an iceberg have
been more purely physical. I feel convinced that it was not the cold
caused by fear. As I continued to gaze, I thought—but this I cannot say
with precision—that I distinguished two eyes looking down on me from the
height. One moment I fancied that I distinguished them clearly, the next
they seemed gone; but still two rays of a pale-blue light frequently shot
through the darkness, as from the height on which I half believed, half
doubted, that I had encountered the eyes.
I strove to speak,—my voice utterly failed me; I could only think
to myself, “Is this fear? It is _not_ fear!” I strove to rise,—in
vain; I felt as if weighed down by an irresistible force. Indeed,
my impression was that of an immense and overwhelming Power opposed
to my volition,—that sense of utter inadequacy to cope with a force
beyond man’s, which one may feel _physically_ in a storm at sea, in a
conflagration, or when confronting some terrible wild beast, or rather,
perhaps, the shark of the ocean, I felt _morally_. Opposed to my will was
another will, as far superior to its strength as storm, fire, and shark
are superior in material force to the force of man.
And now, as this impression grew on me,—now came, at last, horror, horror
to a degree that no words can convey. Still I retained pride, if not
courage; and in my own mind I said, “This is horror; but it is not fear;
unless I fear I cannot be harmed; my reason rejects this thing; it is
an illusion,—I do not fear.” With a violent effort I succeeded at last
in stretching out my hand toward the weapon on the table; as I did so,
on the arm and shoulder I received a strange shock, and my arm fell to
my side powerless. And now, to add to my horror, the light began slowly
to wane from the candles,—they were not, as it were, extinguished, but
their flame seemed very gradually withdrawn; it was the same with the
fire,—the light was extracted from the fuel; in a few minutes the room
was in utter darkness. The dread that came over me, to be thus in the
dark with that dark Thing, whose power was so intensely felt, brought a
reaction of nerve. In fact, terror had reached that climax, that either
my senses must have deserted me, or I must have burst through the spell.
I did burst through it. I found voice, though the voice was a shriek. I
remember that I broke forth with words like these, “I do not fear, my
soul does not fear”; and at the same time I found strength to rise. Still
in that profound gloom I rushed to one of the windows; tore aside the
curtain; flung open the shutters; my first thought was—LIGHT. And when I
saw the moon high, clear, and calm, I felt a joy that almost compensated
for the previous terror. There was the moon, there was also the light
from the gas lamps in the deserted slumberous street. I turned to look
back into the room; the moon penetrated its shadow very palely and
partially—but still there was light. The dark Thing, whatever it might
be, was gone,—except that I could yet see a dim shadow, which seemed the
shadow of that shade, against the opposite wall.
My eye now rested on the table, and from under the table (which was
without cloth or cover,—an old mahogany round table) there rose a hand,
visible as far as the wrist. It was a hand, seemingly, as much of flesh
and blood as my own, but the hand of an aged person, lean, wrinkled,
small too,—a woman’s hand. That hand very softly closed on the two
letters that lay on the table; hand and letters both vanished. There then
came the same three loud, measured knocks I had heard at the bed head
before this extraordinary drama had commenced.
As those sounds slowly ceased, I felt the whole room vibrate sensibly;
and at the far end there rose, as from the floor, sparks or globules
like bubbles of light, many colored,—green, yellow, fire-red, azure. Up
and down, to and fro, hither, thither as tiny Will-o’-the-Wisps, the
sparks moved, slow or swift, each at its own caprice. A chair (as in
the drawing-room below) was now advanced from the wall without apparent
agency, and placed at the opposite side of the table. Suddenly, as forth
from the chair, there grew a shape,—a woman’s shape. It was distinct as a
shape of life,—ghastly as a shape of death. The face was that of youth,
with a strange, mournful beauty; the throat and shoulders were bare, the
rest of the form in a loose robe of cloudy white. It began sleeking
its long, yellow hair, which fell over its shoulders; its eyes were
not turned toward me, but to the door; it seemed listening, watching,
waiting. The shadow of the shade in the background grew darker; and
again I thought I beheld the eyes gleaming out from the summit of the
shadow,—eyes fixed upon that shape.
As if from the door, though it did not open, there grew out another
shape, equally distinct, equally ghastly,—a man’s shape, a young man’s.
It was in the dress of the last century, or rather in a likeness of
such dress (for both the male shape and the female, though defined,
were evidently unsubstantial, impalpable,—simulacra, phantasms); and
there was something incongruous, grotesque, yet fearful, in the contrast
between the elaborate finery, the courtly precision of that old-fashioned
garb, with its ruffles and lace and buckles, and the corpselike aspect
and ghostlike stillness of the flitting wearer. Just as the male shape
approached the female, the dark Shadow started from the wall, all three
for a moment wrapped in darkness. When the pale light returned, the two
phantoms were as if in the grasp of the Shadow that towered between them;
and there was blood stain on the breast of the female; and the phantom
male was leaning on its phantom sword, and blood seemed trickling fast
from the ruffles from the lace; and the darkness of the intermediate
Shadow swallowed them up,—they were gone. And again the bubbles of light
shot, and sailed, and undulated, growing thicker and thicker and more
wildly confused in their movements.
The closet door to the right of the fireplace now opened, and from the
aperture there came the form of an aged woman. In her hand she held
letters,—the very letters over which I had seen _the_ Hand close; and
behind her I heard a footstep. She turned round as if to listen, and then
she opened the letters and seemed to read; and over her shoulder I saw a
livid face, the face as of a man long drowned,—bloated, bleached, seaweed
tangled in its dripping hair; and at her feet lay a form as of a corpse;
and beside the corpse there cowered a child, a miserable, squalid child,
with famine in its cheeks and fear in its eyes. And as I looked in the
old woman’s face, the wrinkles and lines vanished, and it became a face
of youth,—hard-eyed, stony, but still youth; and the Shadow darted forth,
and darkened over these phantoms as it had darkened over the last.
Nothing now was left but the Shadow, and on that my eyes were intently
fixed, till again eyes grew out of the Shadow,—malignant, serpent eyes.
And the bubbles of light again rose and fell, and in their disordered,
irregular, turbulent maze, mingled with the wan moonlight. And now from
these globules themselves, as from the shell of an egg, monstrous things
burst out; the air grew filled with them: larvæ so bloodless and so
hideous that I can in no way describe them except to remind the reader of
the swarming life which the solar microscope brings before his eyes in
a drop of water,—things transparent, supple, agile, chasing each other,
devouring each other; forms like naught ever beheld by the naked eye.
As the shapes were without symmetry, so their movements were without
order. In their very vagrancies there was no sport; they came round
me and round, thicker and faster and swifter, swarming over my head,
crawling over my right arm, which was outstretched in involuntary command
against all evil beings. Sometimes I felt myself touched, but not by
them; invisible hands touched me. Once I felt the clutch as of cold, soft
fingers at my throat. I was still equally conscious that if I gave way to
fear I should be in bodily peril; and I concentered all my faculties in
the single focus of resisting stubborn will. And I turned my sight from
the Shadow; above all, from those strange serpent eyes,—eyes that had now
become distinctly visible. For there, though in naught else around me, I
was aware that there was a WILL, and a will of intense, creative, working
evil, which might crush down my own.
The pale atmosphere in the room began now to redden as if in the air
of some near conflagration. The larvæ grew lurid as things that live
in fire. Again the room vibrated; again were heard the three measured
knocks; and again all things were swallowed up in the darkness of the
dark Shadow, as if out of that darkness all had come, into that darkness
all returned.
As the gloom receded, the Shadow was wholly gone. Slowly, as it had been
withdrawn, the flame grew again into the candles on the table, again into
the fuel in the grate. The whole room came once more calmly, healthfully
into sight.
The two doors were still closed, the door communicating with the
servant’s room still locked. In the corner of the wall, into which he had
so convulsively niched himself, lay the dog. I called to him—no movement;
I approached—the animal was dead; his eyes protruded; his tongue out of
his mouth; the froth gathered round his jaws. I took him in my arms;
I brought him to the fire. I felt acute grief for the loss of my poor
favorite—acute self-reproach; I accused myself of his death; I imagined
he had died of fright. But what was my surprise on finding that his neck
was actually broken. Had this been done in the dark? Must it not have
been by a hand human as mine; must there not have been a human agency all
the while in that room? Good cause to suspect it. I cannot tell. I cannot
do more than state the fact fairly; the reader may draw his own inference.
Another surprising circumstance—my watch was restored to the table from
which it had been so mysteriously withdrawn; but it had stopped at the
very moment it was so withdrawn, nor, despite all the skill of the
watchmaker, has it ever gone since—that is, it will go in a strange,
erratic way for a few hours, and then come to a dead stop; it is
worthless.
Nothing more chanced for the rest of the night. Nor, indeed, had I long
to wait before the dawn broke. Not till it was broad daylight did I quit
the haunted house. Before I did so, I revisited the little blind room
in which my servant and myself had been for a time imprisoned. I had a
strong impression—for which I could not account—that from that room had
originated the mechanism of the phenomena, if I may use the term, which
had been experienced in my chamber. And though I entered it now in the
clear day, with the sun peering through the filmy window, I still felt,
as I stood on its floors, the creep of the horror which I had first
there experienced the night before, and which had been so aggravated by
what had passed in my own chamber. I could not, indeed, bear to stay
more than half a minute within those walls. I descended the stairs, and
again I heard the footfall before me; and when I opened the street door,
I thought I could distinguish a very low laugh. I gained my own home,
expecting to find my runaway servant there; but he had not presented
himself, nor did I hear more of him for three days, when I received a
letter from him, dated from Liverpool to this effect:
“Honored Sir:—I humbly entreat your pardon, though I can scarcely hope
that you will think that I deserve it, unless—which Heaven forbid!—you
saw what I did. I feel that it will be years before I can recover
myself; and as to being fit for service, it is out of the question. I
am therefore going to my brother-in-law at Melbourne. The ship sails
tomorrow. Perhaps the long voyage may set me up. I do nothing now but
start and tremble, and fancy IT is behind me. I humbly beg you, honored
sir, to order my clothes, and whatever wages are due me, to be sent to my
mother’s, at Walworth.—John knows her address.”
The letter ended with additional apologies, somewhat incoherent and
explanatory details as to effects that had been under the writer’s charge.
This flight may perhaps warrant a suspicion that the man wished to go
to Australia, and had been somehow or other fraudulently mixed up with
the events of the night. I say nothing in refutation of that conjecture;
rather, I suggest it as one that would seem to many persons the most
probable solution of improbable occurrences. My belief in my own theory
remained unshaken. I returned in the evening to the house, to bring away
in a hack cab the things I had left there, with my poor dog’s body. In
this task I was not disturbed, nor did any incident worth note befall
me, except that still, on ascending and descending the stairs, I heard
the same footfalls in advance. On leaving the house, I went to Mr. J⸺’s.
He was at home. I returned him the keys, told him that my curiosity was
sufficiently gratified, and was about to relate quickly what had passed,
when he stopped me, and said, though with much politeness, that he had no
longer any interest in a mystery which none had ever solved.
I determined at least to tell him of the two letters I had read, as well
as of the extraordinary manner in which they had disappeared; and I then
inquired if he thought they had been addressed to the woman who had died
in the house, and if there were anything in her early history which could
possibly confirm the dark suspicions to which the letters gave rise. Mr.
J⸺ seemed startled, and, after musing a few moments, answered, “I am but
little acquainted with the woman’s earlier history, except as I before
told you, that her family were known to mine. But you revive some vague
reminiscences to her prejudice. I will make inquiries, and inform you of
their result. Still, even if we could admit the popular superstition that
a person who had been either the perpetrator or the victim of dark crimes
in life could revisit, as a restless spirit, the scene in which those
crimes had been committed, I should observe that the house was infested
by strange sights and sounds before the old woman died—you smile—what
would you say?”
“I would say this, that I am convinced, if we could get to the bottom of
these mysteries, we should find a living human agency.”
“What! you believe it is all an imposture? For what object?”
“Not an imposture in the ordinary sense of the word. If suddenly I were
to sink into a deep sleep, from which you could not awake me, but in that
sleep could answer questions with an accuracy which I could not pretend
to when awake,—tell you what money you had in your pocket, nay, describe
your very thoughts,—it is not necessarily an imposture, any more than it
is necessarily supernatural. I should be, unconsciously to myself, under
a mesmeric influence, conveyed to me from a distance by a human being who
had acquired power over me my previous _rapport_.”
“But if a mesmerizer could so affect another living being, can you
suppose that a mesmerizer could also affect inanimate objects: move
chairs,—open and shut doors?
“Or impress our senses with the belief in such effects,—we never having
been _en rapport_ with the person acting on us? No. What is commonly
called mesmerism could not do this; but there may be a power akin to
mesmerism, and superior to it,—the power that in the old days was called
Magic. That such a power may extend to all inanimate objects of matter, I
do not say; but if so, it would not be against Nature,—it would be only a
rare power in Nature which might be given to constitutions with certain
peculiarities, and cultivated by practice to an extraordinary degree.
That such a power might extend over the dead,—that is, over certain
thoughts and memories that the dead may still retain,—and compel, not
that which ought properly to be called the SOUL, and which is far beyond
human reach, but rather a phantom of what has been most earth-stained
on earth, to make itself apparent to our senses, is a very ancient
though obsolete theory upon which I will hazard no opinion. But I do not
conceive the power would be supernatural. Let me illustrate what I mean
from an experiment which Paracelsus describes as not difficult, and which
the author of the ‘Curiosities of Literature’ cites as credible: A flower
perishes; you burn it. Whatever were the elements of that flower while it
lived are gone, dispersed, you know not whither; you can never discover
nor re-collect them. But you can, by chemistry, out of the burned dust of
that flower, raise a spectrum of the flower, just as it seemed in life.
It may be the same with the human being. The soul has as much escaped you
as the essence or elements of the flower. Still you may make a spectrum
of it. And this phantom, though in the popular superstition it is held to
be the soul of the departed, must not be confounded with the true soul;
it is but the eidolon of the dead form. Hence, like the best-attested
stories of ghosts or spirits, the thing that most strikes us is the
absence of what we hold to be soul,—that is, of superior emancipated
intelligence. These apparitions come for little or no object,—they seldom
speak when they do come; if they speak, they utter no ideas above those
of an ordinary person on earth. American spirit seers have published
volumes of communications, in prose and verse, which they assert to
be given in the names of the most illustrious dead: Shakespeare,
Bacon,—Heaven knows whom. Those communications, taking the best, are
certainly not a whit of higher order than would be communications from
living persons of fair talent and education; they are wondrously inferior
to what Bacon, Shakespeare, and Plato said and wrote when on earth. Nor,
what is more noticeable, do they ever contain an idea that was not on the
earth before. Wonderful, therefore, as such phenomena may be (granting
them to be truthful), I see much that philosophy may question, nothing
that it is incumbent on philosophy to deny,—namely, nothing supernatural.
They are but ideas conveyed somehow or other (we have not yet discovered
the means) from one mortal brain to another. Whether, in so doing,
tables walk of their own accord, or fiendlike shapes appear in a magic
circle, or bodiless hands rise and remove material objects, or a Thing
of Darkness, such as presented itself to me, freeze our blood,—still am
I persuaded that these are but agencies conveyed, as by electric wires,
to my own brain from the brain of another. In some constitutions there
is a natural chemistry, and those constitutions may produce chemic
wonders,—in others a natural fluid, call it electricity, and these may
produce electric wonders. But the wonders differ from Normal Science in
this,—they are alike objectless, purposeless, puerile, frivolous. They
lead on to no grand results; and therefore the world does not heed,
and true sages have not cultivated them. But sure I am, that of all I
saw or heard, a man, human as myself, was the remote originator; and
I believe unconsciously to himself as to the exact effects produced,
for this reason: no two persons, you say, have ever told you that they
experienced exactly the same thing. Well, observe, no two persons ever
experience exactly the same dream. If this were an ordinary imposture,
the machinery would be arranged for results that would but little vary;
if it were a supernatural agency permitted by the Almighty, it would
surely be for some definite end. These phenomena belong to neither class;
my persuasion is, that they originate in some brain now far distant; that
that brain had no distinct volition in anything that occurred; that what
does occur reflects but its devious, motley, ever-shifting, half-formed
thoughts; in short that it has been but the dreams of such a brain put
into action and invested with a semisubstance. That this brain is of
immense power, that it can set matter into movement, that it is malignant
and destructive, I believe; some material force must have killed my dog;
the same force might, for aught I know, have sufficed to kill myself, had
I been as subjugated by terror as the dog,—had my intellect or my spirit
given me no countervailing resistance in my will.”
“It killed your dog,—that is fearful! Indeed it is strange that no animal
can be induced to stay in that house; not even a cat. Rats and mice are
never found in it.”
“The instincts of the brute creation detect influences deadly to their
existence. Man’s reason has a sense less subtle, because it has a
resisting power more supreme. But enough; do you comprehend my theory?”
“Yes, though imperfectly,—and I accept any crotchet (pardon the word),
however odd rather than embrace at once the notion of ghosts and
hobgoblins we imbibed in our nurseries. Still, to my unfortunate house,
the evil is the same. What on earth can I do with the house?”
“I will tell you what I would do. I am convinced from my own internal
feelings that the small, unfurnished room at right angles to the door of
the bedroom which I occupied, forms a starting point or receptacle for
the influences which haunt the house; and I strongly advise you to have
the walls open, the floor removed,—nay, the whole room pulled down. I
observe that it is detached from the body of the house, built over the
small backyard, and could be removed without injury to the rest of the
building.”
“And you think, if I did that——”
“You would cut off the telegraph wires. Try it. I am so persuaded that I
am right, that I will pay half the expense if you will allow me to direct
the operations.”
“Nay, I am well able to afford the cost; for the rest allow me to write
to you.”
About ten days after I received a letter from Mr. J⸺, telling me that
he had visited the house since I had seen him; that he had found the
two letters I had described, replaced in the drawer from which I had
taken them; that he had read them with misgivings like my own; that he
had instituted a cautious inquiry about the woman to whom I rightly
conjectured they had been written. It seemed that thirty-six years ago
(a year before the date of the letters) she had married, against the wish
of her relations, an American of very suspicious character; in fact,
he was generally believed to have been a pirate. She herself was the
daughter of very respectable tradespeople, and had served in the capacity
of a nursery governess before her marriage. She had a brother, a widower,
who was considered wealthy, and who had one child of about six years old.
A month after the marriage the body of this brother was found in the
Thames, near London Bridge; there seemed some marks of violence about his
throat, but they were not deemed sufficient to warrant the inquest in any
other verdict than that of “found drowned.”
The American and his wife took charge of the little boy, the deceased
brother having by his will left his sister the guardian of his only
child,—and in event of the child’s death the sister inherited. The child
died about six months afterwards,—it was supposed to have been neglected
and ill-treated. The neighbors deposed to have heard it shriek at night.
The surgeon who had examined it after death said that it was emaciated as
if from want of nourishment, and the body was covered with livid bruises.
It seemed that one winter night the child had sought to escape; crept out
into the back yard; tried to scale the wall; fallen back exhausted; and
been found at morning on the stones in a dying state. But though there
was some evidence of cruelty, there was none of murder; and the aunt and
her husband had sought to palliate cruelty by alleging the exceeding
stubbornness and perversity of the child, who was declared to be
half-witted. Be that as it may, at the orphan’s death the aunt inherited
her brother’s fortune. Before the first wedded year was out, the American
quitted England abruptly, and never returned to it. He obtained a
cruising vessel, which was lost in the Atlantic two years afterwards. The
widow was left in affluence, but reverses of various kinds had befallen
her: a bank broke; an investment failed; she went into a small business
and became insolvent; then she entered into service, sinking lower and
lower, from housekeeper down to maid-of-all-work,—never long retaining
a place, though nothing decided against her character was ever alleged.
She was considered sober, honest, and peculiarly quiet in her ways; still
nothing prospered with her. And so she had dropped into the workhouse,
from which Mr. J⸺ had taken her, to be placed in charge of the very house
which she had rented as mistress in the first year of her wedded life.
Mr. J⸺ added that he had passed an hour alone in the unfurnished room
which I had urged him to destroy, and that his impressions of dread while
there were so great, though he had neither heard nor seen anything, that
he was eager to have the walls bared and the floors removed as I had
suggested. He had engaged persons for the work, and would commence any
day I would name.
The day was accordingly fixed. I repaired to the haunted house,—we went
into the blind, dreary room, took up the skirting, and then the floors.
Under the rafters, covered with rubbish, was found a trapdoor, quite
large enough to admit a man. It was closely nailed down, with clamps and
rivets of iron. On removing these we descended into a room below, the
existence of which had never been suspected. In this room there had been
a window and a flue, but they had been bricked over, evidently for many
years. By the help of candles we examined this place; it still retained
some moldering furniture,—three chairs, an oak settle, a table,—all of
the fashion of about eighty years ago. There was a chest of drawers
against the wall, in which we found, half rotted away, old-fashioned
articles of a man’s dress, such as might have been worn eighty or a
hundred years ago by a gentleman of some rank; costly steel buckles and
buttons, like those yet worn in court dresses, a handsome court sword; in
a waistcoat which had once been rich with gold lace, but which was now
blackened and foul with damp, we found five guineas, a few silver coins,
and an ivory ticket, probably for some place of entertainment long since
passed away. But our main discovery was in a kind of iron safe fixed to
the wall, the lock of which it cost us much trouble to get picked.
In this safe were three shelves and two small drawers. Ranged on the
shelves were several small bottles of crystal, hermetically stopped. They
contained colorless, volatile essences, of the nature of which I shall
only say that they were not poisons,—phosphor and ammonia entered into
some of them. There were also some very curious glass tubes, and a small
pointed rod of iron, with a large lump of rock crystal, and another of
amber,—also a loadstone of great power.
In one of the drawers we found a miniature portrait set in gold, and
retaining the freshness of its colors most remarkably, considering the
length of time it had probably been there. The portrait was that of a
man who might be somewhat advanced in middle life, perhaps forty-seven
or forty-eight. It was a remarkable face,—a most impressive face. If
you could fancy some mighty serpent transformed into man, preserving in
the human lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better idea
of that countenance than long descriptions can convey: the width and
flatness of frontal; the tapering elegance of contour disguising the
strength of the deadly jaw; the long, large terrible eyes, glittering and
green as the emerald,—and withal a certain ruthless calm, as if from the
consciousness of an immense power.
Mechanically I turned round the miniature to examine the back of it,
and on the back was engraved a pentacle; in the middle of the pentacle
a ladder, and the third step of the ladder was formed by the date 1765.
Examining still more minutely, I detected a spring; this, on being
pressed, opened the back of the miniature as a lid. Withinside the lid
were engraved, “Marianna to thee. Be faithful in life and in death to ⸺.”
Here follows a name that I will not mention, but it was not unfamiliar to
me. I had heard it spoken of by old men in my childhood as the name borne
by a dazzling charlatan who had made a great sensation in London for a
year or so, and had fled the country on the charge of a double murder
within his own house,—that of his mistress and his rival. I said nothing
of this to Mr. J⸺, to whom reluctantly I resigned the miniature.
We had found no difficulty in opening the first drawer within the iron
safe; we found great difficulty in opening the second: it was not locked,
but it resisted all efforts, till we inserted in the chinks the edge
of a chisel. When we had thus drawn it forth, we found a very singular
apparatus in the nicest order. Upon a small, thin book, or rather
tablet, was placed a saucer of crystal; this saucer was filled with a
clear liquid,—on that liquid floated a kind of compass, with a needle
shifting rapidly round; but instead of the usual points of a compass
were seven strange characters, not very unlike those used by astrologers
to denote the planets. A peculiar but not strong nor displeasing odor
came from this drawer, which was lined with a wood that we afterwards
discovered to be hazel. Whatever the cause of this odor, it produced
a material effect on the nerves. We all felt it, even the two workmen
who were in the room,—a creeping, tingling sensation from the tips of
the fingers to the roots of the hair. Impatient to examine the tablet,
I removed the saucer. As I did so the needle of the compass went round
and round with exceeding swiftness, and I felt a shock that ran through
my whole frame, so that I dropped the saucer on the floor. The liquid
was spilled; the saucer was broken; the compass rolled to the end of the
room, and at that instant the walls shook to and fro, as if a giant had
swayed and rocked them.
The two workmen were so frightened that they ran up the ladder by
which we had descended from the trapdoor; but seeing that nothing more
happened, they were easily induced to return.
Meanwhile I had opened the tablet; it was bound in plain red leather,
with a silver clasp; it contained but one sheet of thick vellum, and on
that sheet were inscribed, within a double pentacle, words in old monkish
Latin, which are literally to be translated thus: “On all that it can
reach within these walls, sentient or inanimate, living or dead, as moves
the needle, so works my will! Accursed be the house, and restless be the
dwellers therein.”
We found no more. Mr. J⸺ burned the tablet and its anathema. He razed to
the foundations the part of the building containing the secret room with
the chamber over it. He had then the courage to inhabit the house himself
for a month, and a quieter, better-conditioned house could not be found
in all London. Subsequently he let it to advantage, and his tenant has
made no complaints.