helplessness of undisguised terror upon his death-bed, to the proud
composure with which he had taken the field that morning. I had always
before thought of death as of a quiet sleep stealing gradually upon
exhausted nature, made welcome by suffering, or, at least, softened by
resignation; I had never before stood by the side of one upon whom the
hand of death had been thus suddenly laid; I had never seen the tyrant
arrayed in his terror till then. Never before or since have I seen
horror so intensely depicted. It seemed actually as if O'Connor's mind
had been unsettled by the shock; the few words he uttered were marked
with all the incoherence of distraction; but it was not words that
marked his despair most strongly, the appalling and heart-sickening
groans that came from the terror-stricken and dying man must haunt me
while I live; the expression, too, of hopeless, imploring agony with
which he turned his eyes from object to object, I can never forget. At
length, appearing suddenly to recollect himself, he said, with startling
alertness, but in a voice so altered that I scarce could recognise the
tones:
'Purcell, Purcell, go and tell my poor mother; she must know all, and
then, quick, quick, quick, call your uncle, bring him here; I must have
a chance.' He made a violent but fruitless effort to rise, and after
a slight pause continued, with deep and urgent solemnity: 'Doctor, how
long shall I live? Don't flatter me. Compliments at a death-bed are out
of place; doctor, for God's sake, as you would not have my soul perish
with my body, do not mock a dying man; have I an hour to live?'
'Certainly,' replied the surgeon; 'if you will but endeavour to keep
yourself tranquil; otherwise I cannot answer for a moment.'
'Well, doctor,' said the patient, 'I will obey you; now, Purcell, my
first and dearest friend, will you inform my poor mother of--of what you
see, and return with your uncle; I know you will.'
I took the dear fellow's hand and kissed it, it was the only answer
I could give, and left the room. I asked the first female servant I
chanced to meet, if her mistress were yet up, and was answered in the
affirmative. Without giving myself time to hesitate, I requested her
to lead me to her lady's room, which she accordingly did; she entered
first, I supposed to announce my name, and I followed closely; the poor
mother said something, and held out her hands to welcome me; I strove
for words; I could not speak, but nature found expression; I threw
myself at her feet and covered her hands with kisses and tears. My
manner was enough; with a quickness almost preternatural she understood
it all; she simply said the words: 'O'Connor is killed;' she uttered no
more.
How I left the room I know not; I rode madly to my uncle's residence,
and brought him back with me--all the rest is a blank. I remember
standing by O'Connor's bedside, and kissing the cold pallid forehead
again and again; I remember the pale serenity of the beautiful features;
I remember that I looked upon the dead face of my friend, and I remember
no more.
For many months I lay writhing and raving in the frenzy of brain fever;
a hundred times I stood tottering at the brink of death, and long
after my restoration to bodily health was assured, it appeared doubtful
whether I should ever be restored to reason. But God dealt very
mercifully with me; His mighty hand rescued me from death and from
madness when one or other appeared inevitable. As soon as I was
permitted pen and ink, I wrote to the bereaved mother in a tone
bordering upon frenzy. I accused myself of having made her childless; I
called myself a murderer; I believed myself accursed; I could not find
terms strong enough to express my abhorrence of my own conduct. But,
oh! what an answer I received, so mild, so sweet, from the
desolate, childless mother! its words spoke all that is beautiful in
Christianity--it was forgiveness--it was resignation. I am convinced
that to that letter, operating as it did upon a mind already
predisposed, is owing my final determination to devote myself to that
profession in which, for more than half a century, I have been a humble
minister.
Years roll away, and we count them not as they pass, but their influence
is not the less certain that it is silent; the deepest wounds are
gradually healed, the keenest griefs are mitigated, and we, in
character, feelings, tastes, and pursuits, become such altered beings,
that but for some few indelible marks which past events must leave
behind them, which time may soften, but can never efface; our very
identity would be dubious. Who has not felt all this at one time or
other? Who has not mournfully felt it? This trite, but natural train of
reflection filled my mind as I approached the domain of Castle Connor
some ten years after the occurrence of the events above narrated.
Everything looked the same as when I had left it; the old trees stood
as graceful and as grand as ever; no plough had violated the soft green
sward; no utilitarian hand had constrained the wanderings of the clear
and sportive stream, or disturbed the lichen-covered rocks through
which it gushed, or the wild coppice that over-shadowed its sequestered
nooks--but the eye that looked upon these things was altered, and memory
was busy with other days, shrouding in sadness every beauty that met my
sight.
As I approached the castle my emotions became so acutely painful that
I had almost returned the way I came, without accomplishing the purpose
for which I had gone thus far; and nothing but the conviction that my
having been in the neighbourhood of Castle Connor without visiting its
desolate mistress would render me justly liable to the severest censure,
could overcome my reluctance to encountering the heavy task which was
before me. I recognised the old servant who opened the door, but he did
not know me. I was completely changed; suffering of body and mind had
altered me in feature and in bearing, as much as in character. I asked
the man whether his mistress ever saw visitors. He answered:
'But seldom; perhaps, however, if she knew that an old friend wished to
see her for a few minutes, she would gratify him so far.'
At the same time I placed my card in his hand, and requested him to
deliver it to his mistress. He returned in a few moments, saying that
his lady would be happy to see me in the parlour, and I accordingly
followed him to the door, which he opened. I entered the room, and was
in a moment at the side of my early friend and benefactress. I was too
much agitated to speak; I could only hold the hands which she gave me,
while, spite of every effort, the tears flowed fast and bitterly.
'It was kind, very, very kind of you to come to see me,' she said,
with far more composure than I could have commanded; 'I see it is very
painful to you.'
I endeavoured to compose myself, and for a little time we remained
silent; she was the first to speak:
'You will be surprised, Mr. Purcell, when you observe the calmness with
which I can speak of him who was dearest to me, who is gone; but my
thoughts are always with him, and the recollections of his love'--her
voice faltered a little--'and the hope of meeting him hereafter enables
me to bear existence.'
I said I know not what; something about resignation, I believe.
'I hope I am resigned; God made me more: so,' she said. 'Oh, Mr.
Purcell, I have often thought I loved my lost child TOO well. It was
natural--he was my only child--he was----' She could not proceed for a
few moments: 'It was very natural that I should love him as I did; but
it may have been sinful; I have often thought so. I doated upon him--I
idolised him--I thought too little of other holier affections; and God
may have taken him from me, only to teach me, by this severe lesson,
that I owed to heaven a larger share of my heart than to anything
earthly. I cannot think of him now without more solemn feelings than if
he were with me. There is something holy in our thoughts of the dead; I
feel it so.' After a pause, she continued--'Mr. Purcell, do you remember
his features well? they were very beautiful.' I assured her that I did.
'Then you can tell me if you think this a faithful likeness.' She took
from a drawer a case in which lay a miniature. I took it reverently from
her hands; it was indeed very like--touchingly like. I told her so; and
she seemed gratified.
As the evening was wearing fast, and I had far to go, I hastened to
terminate my visit, as I had intended, by placing in her hand a letter
from her son to me, written during his sojourn upon the Continent. I
requested her to keep it; it was one in which he spoke much of her, and
in terms of the tenderest affection. As she read its contents the heavy
tears gathered in her eyes, and fell, one by one, upon the page; she
wiped them away, but they still flowed fast and silently. It was in
vain that she tried to read it; her eyes were filled with tears: so she
folded the letter, and placed it in her bosom. I rose to depart, and she
also rose.
'I will not ask you to delay your departure,' said she; 'your visit here
must have been a painful one to you. I cannot find words to thank you
for the letter as I would wish, or for all your kindness. It has given
me a pleasure greater than I thought could have fallen to the lot of a
creature so very desolate as I am; may God bless you for it!' And thus
we parted; I never saw Castle Connor or its solitary inmate more.
THE DRUNKARD'S DREAM.
Being a Fourth Extract from the Legacy of the late F. Purcell, P. P. of
Drumcoolagh.
'All this HE told with some confusion and
Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams
Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand
To expound their vain and visionary gleams,
I've known some odd ones which seemed really planned
Prophetically, as that which one deems
"A strange coincidence," to use a phrase
By which such things are settled nowadays.'
BYRON.
Dreams! What age, or what country of the world, has not 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 anything 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 chimera of the slumbering fancy, something more than could
arise from the capricious images of a terrified imagination; but once
presented, we behold in all these things, and in their 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, recognise, 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 we 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 17--, 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 or 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 is to be found in almost all
small oldfashioned towns, chill, without ventilation, reeking with all
manner of offensive effluviae, and lined by 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 honour,' 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 I 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 riveted 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 recognised 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 anyone;
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 to meet me 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 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.