Maria was not sufficiently well to visit him: she was too rapidly sinking
into an early grave, and even the physician himself appeared desirous of
preparing her parents for the worst, while she, full of the symptomatic
prospectiveness of disease, still talked anticipatingly of future
happiness, when Frederick would be sufficiently re-established to visit
her.
At length, however, the doctors suggested a change of air—a suggestion
instantly attended to, but, alas! too late; the weakness of the poor girl
was such, that upon a trial of her strength it was found inexpedient to
attempt her removal.
In this terrible state, separated from him whose all she was, did the
exemplary patient linger, and life seemed flickering in her flushing
cheek; and her eye was sunken, and her parched lip quivered with pain.
It was at length agreed, that on the following day Frederick Langdale
might be permitted to visit her;—his varied fractures were reduced, and
the wound on the head had assumed a favourable appearance. The carriage
was ordered to convey him to the Hardings at one, and the physicians
advised by all means that Maria should be apprized of and prepared for
the meeting the day previous to its taking place. Those who are parents,
and those alone, will be able to understand the tender solicitude, the
wary caution with which both her father and mother proceeded in a
disclosure, so important as the medical men thought to her recovery—so
careful that the coming joy should be imparted gradually to their
suffering child, and that all the mischiefs resulting from an abrupt
announcement should be avoided.
They sat down by her—spoke of Frederick—Maria joined in the
conversation—raised herself in her bed—by degrees, hope was excited that
she might soon again see him—this hope was gradually improved into
certainty—the period at which it might occur spoken of—that period again
progressively diminished: the anxious girl caught the whole truth—she
knew it—she was conscious that she would behold him on the morrow—she
burst into a flood of tears and sank down upon her pillow.
At that moment the bright sun, which was shining in all its splendour,
beamed into the room, and fell strongly upon her flushed countenance.
‘Draw down the blind, my love,’ said Mrs. Harding to her husband.
Harding rose and proceeded to the window.
A shriek of horror burst from him—‘She is there!’ exclaimed the agitated
man.
‘Who?’ cried his astonished wife.
‘She—she—the horrid she!’
Mrs. Harding ran to the window and beheld, standing on the opposite side
of the street, with her eyes fixed attentively on the house—MARTHA, THE
GIPSY.
‘Draw down the blind, my love, and come away; pray come away,’ said Mrs.
Harding.
Harding drew down the blind.
‘What evil is at hand? What misery is impending?’ sobbed Harding.
A loud scream from his wife, who had returned to the bedside, was the
horrid answer to his painful question.
Maria was dead!
Twice of the thrice he had seen this dreadful fiend in human shape; each
visitation was (as she had foretold) to surpass the preceding ones in its
importance of horror.—What could surpass this?
There, before the afflicted parents, lay their innocent child stretched
in the still sleep of death; neither of them believed it true—it seemed
like a dreadful dream. Harding was bewildered, and turned from the
corpse of his beloved to the window he had just left.—Martha was gone—and
he heard her singing a wild and joyous air at the other end of the
street.
The servants were summoned—medical aid was called in—but it was all too
late! and the wretched parents were doomed to mourn their loved, their
lost Maria! George, her fond and affectionate brother, who was at
Oxford, hastened from all the academic honours which were awaiting him,
to follow to the grave his beloved sister.
The effect upon Frederick Langdale was most dreadful: it was supposed he
would never recover from a shock so great, and at the moment so
unexpected; for, although the delicacy of her constitution was a
perpetual source of uneasiness and solicitude, still the immediate
symptoms had taken rather a favourable turn during the last few days of
her life, and had re-invigorated the hopes which those who so dearly
loved her entertained of her eventual recovery. Of this distressed young
man I never indeed heard anything, till about three years after, when I
saw it announced in the papers that he was just married to the only
daughter of a rich west-country baronet, which event, if wanted to work
another proverb here, would afford me a most admirable opportunity of
doing so.
The death of poor Maria, and the dread which her father entertained of
the third visitation of Martha, made a complete change in the affairs of
the family. By the exertion of powerful interest, he obtained an
appointment for his son to act as his deputy in the office which he held,
and having achieved this desired object, resolved on leaving England for
a time, and quitting a neighbourhood in which he must be perpetually
exposed to the danger which he was now perfectly convinced was
inseparable from his next interview with the weird woman.
George, of course, thus checked in his classical pursuits, left Oxford,
and at the early age of nineteen commenced active official life, not
certainly in the particular department which his mother had selected for
his _debût_; and it was somewhat observable, that the Langdales, after
the death of Maria, not only abstained from frequent intercourse with the
Hardings during their stay in England, but that the mighty professions of
the purse-proud citizen dwindled by degrees into an absolute
forgetfulness of any promise, even conditional, to exert an interest for
their son.
Seeing this, Mr. Harding felt that he should act prudentially, by
endeavouring to place his son where in the course of time, he might
perhaps attain to that situation, from whose honourable revenue he could
live like a gentleman, and ‘settle comfortably.’
All the arrangements which the kind father had proposed, being made, the
mourning couple proceeded on a lengthened tour of the continent; and it
was evident that his spirits mended rapidly, when he felt conscious that
his liability to encounter Martha had decreased. The sorrow of mourning
was soothed and softened in the common course of nature, and the quiet
domesticated couple sat themselves down at Lausanne, ‘the world
forgetting, by the world forgot,’ except by their excellent and exemplary
son, whose good qualities, it seems, had captivated a remarkable pretty
girl, a neighbour of his, whose mother seemed to be equally charmed with
the goodness of his income.
There appeared, strange to say, in this love affair, no difficulties to
be surmounted, no obstacles to be overcome; and the consent of the
Hardings (requested in a letter, which also begged them to be present at
the ceremony, if they were willing it should take place,) was presently
obtained by George; and at the close of the second year, which had passed
since their departure, the parents and son were again assembled in that
house, the sight of which recalled to their recollection their unhappy
daughter, and her melancholy fate, and which was still associated most
painfully in the mind of Mr. Harding with the hated Gipsy.
The charm, however, had, no doubt, been broken. In the two past years,
Martha was probably either dead or gone from the neighbourhood. Gypsies
were a wandering tribe—and why should she be an exception to a general
rule?—and thus Mrs. Harding checked the rising apprehensions and renewed
uneasiness of her husband; and so well did she succeed, that when the
wedding-day came, and the bells rang, and the favours fluttered in the
air, his countenance was lighted up with smiles, and he kissed the
glowing cheek of his new daughter-in-law with warmth, and something like
happiness.
The wedding took place at that season of the year when friends and
families meet jovially and harmoniously, when all little bickerings are
forgotten, and when, by a general feeling founded upon religion, and
perpetuated by the memory of the blessings granted to the world by the
Almighty, an universal amnesty is proclaimed; when the cheerful fire, and
teeming board, announce that Christmas is come, and mirth and gratulation
are the order of the day.
It unfortunately happened, however, that to the account of Miss
Wilkinson’s marriage with George Harding, I am not permitted, in truth,
to add, that they left town in a travelling carriage and four, to spend
the honeymoon. Three or four days permitted absence from his office,
alone, were devoted to the celebration of the nuptials, and it was agreed
that the whole party, together with the younger branches of the
Wilkinson’s, their cousins and second cousins, etc., should meet on
twelfth-night to celebrate, in a juvenile party, the return of the bride
and bridegroom to their home.
When the night came, it was delightful to see the happy faces of the
smiling youngsters: it was a pleasure to behold them pleased—a
participation in which, since the highest amongst us, and the most
accomplished prince in Europe, annually evinces the gratification he
feels in such sights, I am by no means disposed to disclaim. And merry
was the jest, and gaily did the evening pass; and Mr. Harding, surrounded
by his youthful guests, smiled, and for a season forgot his care; yet, as
he glanced around the room, he could not suppress a sigh, when he
recollected, that in that very room his darling Maria had entertained her
little parties on the anniversary of the same day in former years.
Supper was announced early, and the gay throng bounded down stairs to the
parlour, where an abundance of the luxuries of middle life crowded the
board. In the centre appeared the great object of the feast—a huge
twelfth-cake; and gilded kings and queens stood lingering over circles of
scarlet sweet-meats, and hearts of sugar lay enshrined with warlike
trophies of the same material.
Many and deep were the wounds the mighty heap received, and every guest
watched with a deep anxiety the coming portion, relatively to the
glittering splendour with which its frosted surface was adorned.
Character cards, illustrated with pithy mottoes, and smart sayings, were
distributed; and by one of those little frauds which, in such societies,
are always tolerated, Mr. Harding was announced as king, and the new
bride as queen; and there was such charming joking, and such harmless
merriment abounding, that he looked to his wife with an expression of
content, which she had often, but vainly, sought to find upon his
countenance, since the death of his dear child.
Supper concluded, the clock struck twelve, and the elders looked as if it
were time for the young ones to depart. One half-hour’s grace was begged
for by the ‘King,’ and granted; and Mrs. George Harding on this night was
to sing them a song about ‘poor old maidens’—an ancient quaintness,
which, by custom and usage ever since she was a little child, she had
annually ‘performed’ upon this anniversary; and, accordingly, the promise
being claimed, silence was obtained, and she, with all that show of
tucker-heaving diffidence which is so becoming in a pretty plump
downy-cheeked girl, prepared to commence the venerable chaunt, when a
noise resembling that produceable by the falling of an eight-and-forty
pound shot, echoed through the house. It appeared to descend from the
very top of the building, down each flight of stairs rapidly and
violently. It passed the room in which they were sitting, and rolled its
impetuous course downwards to the basement. As it seemed to leave the
hall, the parlour door was forced open, as if by a rude gust of wind, and
stood ajar.
All the children were in a moment on their feet, huddled close to their
respective mothers in groups. Mrs. Harding rose and rang the bell to
inquire the meaning of the uproar. Her daughter-in-law, pale as ashes,
looked at George; but there was one of the party who moved not, who
stirred not; it was the elder Harding, whose eyes first fixed steadfastly
on the half-opened door, slowly followed the course of the wall of the
apartment to the fire-place;—there they rested.
When the servants came, they said they had heard the noise, but thought
it proceeded from above. Harding looked at his wife; and then turning to
the servant, observed carelessly, that it must have been some noise in
the street, and desiring him to withdraw, entreated the bride to pursue
her song. She did; but the children had been too much alarmed to enjoy
it, and the noise had in its character something so strange and so
unearthly, that even the elders of the party, although bound not to admit
anything like apprehension before their offspring, felt extremely well
pleased when they found themselves at home.
When the guests were gone, and George’s wife lighted her candle to retire
to rest, her father-in-law kissed her affectionately, and prayed God to
bless her. He then took a kind leave of his son, and putting up a
fervent prayer for his happiness, pressed him to his heart, and bade him
adieu with an earnestness which, under the common-place circumstance of a
temporary separation, was inexplicable to the young man.
When Harding reached his bed-room, he spoke to his wife, and entreated
her to prepare her mind for some great calamity.
‘What it is to be,’ said Harding, ‘where the blow is to fall I know not;
but it is over us this night!’
‘My life!’ exclaimed Mrs. Harding, ‘what new fancy is this?’
‘Eliza, love!’ answered her husband, in a tone of unspeakable agony, ‘I
have seen her for the third and last time.’
‘Who?’
‘MARTHA, THE GIPSY.’
‘Impossible,’ said Mrs. Harding, ‘you have not left the house to-day.’
‘True, my beloved,’ replied the husband; ‘but I have seen her. When that
tremendous noise was heard at supper, as the door was supernaturally
opened, I saw her. She fixed those dreadful eyes of her’s upon me; she
proceeded to the fire-place, and stood in the midst of the children, and
there she remained till the servant came in.’
‘My dearest husband,’ said Mrs. Harding, ‘this is but a disorder of the
imagination!’
‘Be it what it may,’ said he, ‘I have seen her. Human or
superhuman—natural or supernatural—there she was. I shall not strive to
argue upon a point where I am likely to meet with little credit: all I
ask is, pray fervently, have faith, and we will hope the misfortune,
whatever it is, may be averted.’
He kissed his wife’s cheek tenderly, and after a fitful feverish hour or
two fell into a slumber.
From that slumber never awoke he more.—He was found dead in his bed in
the morning.
‘Whether the force of imagination, coupled with the unexpected noise,
produced such an alarm as to rob him of life, I know not,’ said my
communicant; ‘but he was dead.’
The story was told me by my friend Ellis in walking from the City to
Harley-street late one evening; and when we came to this part of the
history we were in Bedford-square, at the dark and dreary corner of it
where Caroline-street joins it.
‘And there,’ said Ellis, pointing downward, ‘is the street where the
circumstance occurred.’
‘Come, come,’ said I, ‘you tell the story well, but I suppose you do not
expect it to be received as gospel.’
‘Faith,’ said he, ‘I know so much of it that I was one of the
twelfth-night party, and heard the noise.’
‘But you did not see the spectre?’ cried I.
‘No,’ replied Ellis, ‘I certainly did not.’
‘Nor anybody else,’ said I, ‘I’ll be sworn.’—A quick footstep was just
then heard behind us.—I turned half round to let the person pass, and saw
a woman enveloped in a red cloak, whose sparkling black eyes, shone upon
by the dim lustre of a lamp above her head, dazzled me.—I was
startled—‘Pray remember old MARTHA, THE GIPSY,’ said the hag.
It was like a thunder-stroke.—I instantly slipped my hand into my pocket,
and hastily gave her three from a five-shilling piece.
‘Thanks, my bonny one,’ said the woman, and setting up a shout of
contemptuous laughter she bounded down Caroline-street towards
Russell-street, singing, or rather yelling a wild air.
Ellis did not speak during this scene—he pressed my arm tightly, and we
quickened our pace. We said nothing to each other till we turned into
Bedford-street, and the lights and passengers of Tottenham-court-road
re-assured us.
‘What do you think of _that_?’ said Ellis to me.
‘_Seeing is believing_,’ was my reply.
I have never passed that dark corner of Bedford-square in the evening
since.
REMARKABLE FULFILMENT OF A PREDICTION.
A certain German author relates the following:
In my younger days, there was a dinner given in the _Florenburg
Westphalen_, where I was born, on the occasion of a baptism to which a
clergyman was invited. During dinner, the conversation turned upon the
gravedigger of the place, who was well known on account of his
second-sight; for, as often as he saw a corpse, he was always telling
that there would be a funeral from such and such a house. Now, as the
event invariably took place, the inhabitants of the house he indicated
were placed by the man’s tale in the greatest anxiety.
This man’s prophecying was an abomination to the clergyman. He therefore
forbade him, but all to no purpose; for the poor dolt, although he was a
drunkard, and a man of low and vulgar sentiments, believed firmly that it
was a prophetic gift of God, and that he must make it known, in order
that the people might still repent. At length the clergyman gave him
notice that, if he announced one funeral more, he should be deprived of
his place, and expelled from the village. This availed—the gravedigger
was silent from that time forward. Half a year afterward, in the autumn
of 1745, the gravedigger came to the clergyman, and said to him: ‘Sir,
you have forbidden me to announce any more funerals, and I have not done
so since, nor will I do it any more; but I must tell you something that
is particularly remarkable, that you may see that my second sight is
really true. In a few weeks a corpse will be brought up the meadow,
which will be drawn on a sledge by an ox.’ The clergyman seemingly paid
no attention to this, but listened to it with indifference, and replied:
‘Only go about your business, and leave off such superstitious follies.
It is sinful to have anything to do with them.’
Some weeks after a strong body of Austrian troops passed through the
village on their way to the Netherlands. While resting there a day, the
snow fell nearly three feet deep. At the same time, a woman died in
another village of the same parish. The military took away all the
horses out of the country to drag the waggons. Meanwhile the corpse lay
there, no horses came back; the body began to putrify; they were,
therefore, compelled to make a virtue of necessity—to place the corpse
upon a sledge, and harness an ox to it.
In the meantime the clergyman, and the teacher with his scholars,
proceeded to the village to meet the corpse; and, as the funeral came
along the meadow in this array, the gravedigger came up to the clergyman,
pulled him by the gown, pointed with his finger toward the sledge, and
said not a word.
Such was the tale as related by the clergyman. I was well acquainted
with the good man, and he was incapable of telling an untruth, much less
in a matter which contradicted all his principles.
PROVIDENTIAL FOREBODING.
IN the ‘Museum of Wonders,’ Vol. II., page 153, there is a striking
presentiment related, which Madame de Beaumont received from the lips of
a credible person. This individual had a friend in the country, who,
being unmarried, committed his domestic concerns to the care of an
housekeeper who had been with him for many years. When his birthday
arrived, he made many preparations for celebrating it, and told his
housekeeper in the morning to clean out a certain arbour in the garden,
which he named, because, as the weather was fine, he intended to pass the
day in it with his guests. She seeming quite amazed at this, told and
entreated him to receive his guests in a room, for she had last night in
her dream a presentiment that the arbour would that day be struck by
lightning. He laughed at the assertion, as there was no appearance of a
storm coming on that day, and he told her not to mind her foolish dream,
and to prepare the arbour for the reception of his guests. She did as
she was ordered, the guests arrived, and as the day was fine, made
themselves merry. But in the meantime clouds gathered in the distant
horizon and were at last powerfully driven to that place by the wind.
The company were so intent on their entertainment that they did not in
the least observe it: but scarcely was the housekeeper aware that the
storm was approaching, than she begged her master to leave the arbour
with his company, for she could not divest herself at all of the idea of
the lightning striking it. At first they would not listen, but at last,
when she continued her entreaties and the thunder commenced to approach
with great violence, they suffered themselves to be induced to leave the
arbour. Hardly had they reached the room when they heard a heavy crash
of thunder, and the quick following lightning struck the arbour and
dashed everything that had been left in it to pieces.
WONDERFUL PRESENTIMENT.
Madame Beaumont relates the following:
My whole family still remember an accident from which my father was
preserved by a presentiment of danger. On one occasion, he agreed with a
party to sail to Port St. Osmer. When it was time to go on board, an
aunt of my father’s, who was deaf and dumb, uttered a kind of howl,
placed herself at the door, blocked up the way with her arms, struck her
hands together, and gave him, by signs, to understand that she conjured
him to stay at home. My father, who had promised himself much pleasure
from this excursion, only laughed at her entreaties; but the lady fell at
his feet, and manifested such signs of poignant grief, that he at length
determined to yield to her entreaties, and postponed his excursion to
Port St. Osmer until some other day.
He therefore endeavoured to detain the rest also; but they laughed at him
for being so easily persuaded, and set sail. Scarcely had the vessel
proceeded half the distance, before those on board of it had the greatest
reason to repent that they had not followed his advice. Some serious
accidents happened to the vessel, so that it broke to pieces; several
lost their lives, and those who saved themselves by swimming were so much
terrified at their narrow escape, that they, with difficulty, got the
better of it.
By some written statements the dumb afterwards made, it was shown that,
in the night preceding, she had an awful and life-like dream, in which it
seemed that the excursion-boat, which would set sail on the following day
for Port St. Osmer, would be wrecked; and that most of the persons on
board would either get drowned or barely escape. The warning angel found
that he could influence no one more effectually than the deaf and dumb
aunt; he therefore selected her for the execution of his commission. My
father, all his life, was profoundly thankful, both to her and the
guardian angel, for this providential warning and foreboding.
* * * * *
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PRINTED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS.
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NOTES.
{7} Or acknowledgment, which, by the tenure of some estates, is given
to every new lord of a manor.
{10} The term used in this country for a lane.
{16} A few years ago, (since the above was written) Mr. E of O—, was
killed by a fall from his horse, at his own gate, as he was returning
from hunting.
{32a} The Duke of Buckingham (favourite of James and Charles I. who was
beheaded) assassinated by J. Felton.
{32b} The Scots, who sold their King, Charles I. for a large sum of
money, to the English rebels.
{32c} Supposed to have been the Marquis of Montrose.
{33a} Supposed to have been Oliver Cromwell, at whose death the greatest
storm of wind happened that had been known in England.
{33b} The plague and fire of London were here plainly foretold.
{33c} The Great Yellow Fruit, supposed to have been the Prince of
Orange, King William III.
{34} This was said in the book whence the PREDICTIONS were extracted, to
mean oppression of the poor.