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 my companion 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 familiarized 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 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 fell with horrible clearness upon the blue and swollen features of
the drunkard. I did not think it possible that a human countenance could
look so terrific. The lips were black and drawn apart; the teeth were
firmly set; the eyes a little unclosed, and nothing but the whites
appearing. Every feature was fixed and livid, and the whole face wore a
ghastly and rigid expression of despairing terror such as I never saw
equalled. His hands were crossed upon his breast, and firmly clenched;
while, as if to add to the corpse-like effect of the whole, some white
cloths, dipped in water, were wound about the forehead and temples.
As soon as I could remove my eyes from this horrible spectacle, I
observed my friend Dr. D----, one of the most humane of a humane
profession, standing by the bedside. He had been attempting, but
unsuccessfully, to bleed the patient, and had now applied his finger to
the pulse.
"Is there any hope?" I inquired in a whisper.
A shake of the head was the reply. There was a pause, while he continued
to hold the wrist; but he waited in vain for the throb of life--it was
not there: and when he let go the hand, it fell stiffly back into its
former position upon the other.
"The man is dead," said the physician, as he turned from the bed where
the terrible figure lay.
Dead! thought I, scarcely venturing to look upon the tremendous and
revolting spectacle. Dead! without an hour for repentance, even a moment
for reflection. Dead! without the rites which even the best should have.
Was 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, had been known, after the
human tenant had deserted it, to become the horrible sport of demoniac
possession.
I was roused 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 forbade his repeating
the painful and fruitless attempts which he made to articulate, and he
at once resigned himself quietly into his hands.
I left the patient with leeches upon his temples, and bleeding freely,
apparently with little of the drowsiness which accompanies apoplexy.
Indeed, Dr. D---- told me that he had never before witnessed a seizure
which seemed to combine the symptoms of so many kinds, and yet which
belonged to none of the recognized classes; it certainly was not
apoplexy, catalepsy, nor _delirium tremens_, and yet it seemed, in some
degree, to partake of the properties of all. It was strange, but
stranger things are coming.
During two or three days Dr. D---- would not allow his patient to
converse in a manner which could excite or exhaust him, with 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 have seen everything about it with my
own eyesight, as plain as I see you." He rolled himself in the bed, as
if to hide his face in the clothes; and then suddenly raising himself,
he exclaimed with startling vehemence, "Look, sir! there is no use in
mincing the matter: I'm blasted with the fires of hell; I have been in
hell. What do you think of that? In hell--I'm lost for ever--I have not
a chance. I am damned already--damned--damned!"
The end of this sentence he actually shouted. His vehemence was
perfectly terrific; he threw himself back, and laughed, and sobbed
hysterically. I poured some water into a tea-cup, and gave it to him.
After he had swallowed it, I told him if he had anything to communicate,
to do so as briefly as he could, and in a manner as little agitating to
himself as possible; threatening at the same time, though I had no
intention of doing so, to leave him at once in case he again gave way to
such passionate excitement.
"It's only foolishness," he continued, "for me to try to thank you for
coming to such a villain as myself at all. It's no use for me to wish
good to you, or to bless you; for such as me has no blessings to give."
I told him that I had but done my duty, and urged him to proceed to the
matter which weighed upon his mind. He then spoke nearly as follows:--
"I came in drunk on Friday night last, and got to my bed here; I don't
remember how. Sometime in the night it seemed to me I wakened, and
feeling unasy in myself, I got up out of the bed. I wanted the fresh
air; but I would not make a noise to open the window, for fear I'd waken
the crathurs. It was very dark and throublesome to find the door; but at
last I did get it, and I groped my way out, and went down as asy as I
could. I felt quite sober, and I counted the steps one after another, as
I was going down, that I might not stumble at the bottom.
"When I came to the first landing-place--God be about us always!--the
floor of it sunk under me, and I went down--down--down, till the senses
almost left me. I do not know how long I was falling, but it seemed to
me a great while. When I came rightly to myself at last, I was sitting
near the top of a great table; and I could not see the end of it, if it
had any, it was so far off. And there was men beyond reckoning sitting
down all along by it, at each side, as far as I could see at all. I did
not know at first was it in the open air; but there was a close
smothering feel in it that was not natural. And there was a kind of
light that my eyesight never saw before, red and unsteady; and I did not
see for a long time where it was coming from, until I looked straight
up, and then I seen that it came from great balls of blood-coloured fire
that were rolling high overhead with a sort of rushing, trembling sound,
and I perceived that they shone on the ribs of a great roof of rock
that was arched overhead instead of the sky. When I seen this, scarce
knowing what I did, I got up, and I said, 'I have no right to be here; I
must go.' And the man that was sitting at my left hand only smiled, and
said, 'Sit down again; you can _never_ leave this place.' And his voice
was weaker than any child's voice I ever heerd; and when he was done
speaking he smiled again.
"Then I spoke out very loud and bold, and I said, 'In the name of God,
let me out of this bad place.' And there was a great man that I did not
see before, sitting at the end of the table that I was near; and he was
taller than twelve men, and his face was very proud and terrible to look
at. And he stood up and stretched out his hand before him; and when he
stood up, all that was there, great and small, bowed down with a sighing
sound; and a dread came on my heart, and he looked at me, and I could
not speak. I felt I was his own, to do what he liked with, for I knew at
once who he was; and he said, 'If you promise to return, you may depart
for a season;' and the voice he spoke with was terrible and mournful,
and the echoes of it went rolling and swelling down the endless cave,
and mixing with the trembling of the fire overhead; so that when he sat
down there was a sound after him, all through the place, like the
roaring of a furnace. And I said, with all the strength I had, 'I
promise to come back--in God's name let me go!'
"And with that I lost the sight and the hearing of all that was there,
and when my senses came to me again, I was sitting in the bed with the
blood all over me, and you and the rest praying around the room."
Here he paused, and wiped away the chill drops which hung upon his
forehead.
I remained silent for some moments. The vision which he had just
described struck my imagination not a little, for this was long before
Vathek and the "Hall of Eblis" had delighted the world; and the
description which he gave had, as I received it, all the attractions of
novelty beside the impressiveness which always belongs to the narration
of an _eye-witness_, whether in the body or in the spirit, of the scenes
which he describes. There was something, too, in the stern horror with
which the man related these things, and in the incongruity of his
description with the vulgarly received notions of the great place of
punishment, and of its presiding spirit, which struck my mind with awe,
almost with fear. At length he said, with an expression of horrible,
imploring earnestness, which I shall never forget,--
"Well, sir, is there any hope; is there any chance at all? or is my soul
pledged and promised away for ever? is it gone out of my power? must I
go back to the place?"
In answering him, I had no easy task to perform; for however clear
might be my internal conviction of the groundlessness of his fears, and
however strong my scepticism respecting the reality of what he had
described, I nevertheless felt that his impression to the contrary, and
his humility and terror resulting from it, might be made available as no
mean engines in the work of his conversion from profligacy, and of his
restoration to decent habits and to religious feeling.
I therefore told him that he was to regard his dream rather in the light
of a warning than in that of a prophecy; that our salvation depended not
upon the word or deed of a moment, but upon the habits of a life; that,
in fine, if he at once discarded his idle companions and evil habits,
and firmly adhered to a sober, industrious, and religious course of
life, the powers of darkness might claim his soul in vain, for that
there were higher and firmer pledges than human tongue could utter,
which promised salvation to him who should repent and lead a new life.
I left him much comforted, and with a promise to return upon the next
day. I did so, and found him much more cheerful, and without any remains
of the dogged sullenness which I suppose had arisen from his despair.
His promises of amendment were given in that tone of deliberate
earnestness which belongs to deep and solemn determination; and it was
with no small delight that I observed, after repeated visits, that his
good resolutions, so far from failing, did but gather strength by time;
and when I saw that man shake off the idle and debauched companions
whose society had for years formed alike his amusement and his ruin, and
revive his long-discarded habits of industry and sobriety, I said within
myself, There is something more in all this than the operation of an
idle dream.
One day, some time after his perfect restoration to health, I was
surprised, on ascending the stairs for the purpose of visiting this
man, to find him busily employed in nailing down some planks upon the
landing-place, through which, at the commencement of his mysterious
vision, it seemed to him that he had sunk. I perceived at once that he
was strengthening the floor with a view to securing himself against such
a catastrophe, and could scarcely forbear a smile as I bid "God bless
his work."
He perceived my thoughts, I suppose, for he immediately said:
"I can never pass over that floor without trembling. I'd leave this
house if I could, but I can't find another lodging in the town so cheap,
and I'll not take a better till I've paid off all my debts, please God;
but I could not be asy in my mind till I made it as safe as I could.
You'll hardly believe me, your honour, that while I'm working, maybe a
mile away, my heart is in a flutter the whole way back, with the bare
thoughts of the two little steps I have to walk upon this bit of a
floor. So it's no wonder, sir, I'd thry to make it sound and firm with
any idle timber I have."
I applauded his resolution to pay off his debts, and the steadiness with
which he perused his plans of conscientious economy, and passed on.
Many months elapsed, and still there appeared no alteration in his
resolutions of amendment. He was a good workman, and with his better
habits he recovered his former extensive and profitable employment.
Everything seemed to promise comfort and respectability. I have little
more to add, and that shall be told quickly. I had one evening met Pat
Connell, as he returned from his work, and as usual, after a mutual, and
on his side respectful salutation, I spoke a few words of encouragement
and approval. I left him industrious, active, healthy--when next I saw
him, not three days after, he was a corpse.
The circumstances which marked the event of his death were somewhat
strange--I might say fearful. The unfortunate man had accidentally met
an old friend just returned, after a long absence; and in a moment of
excitement, forgetting everything in the warmth of his joy, he yielded
to his urgent invitation to accompany him into a public house, which lay
close by the spot where the encounter had taken place. Connell, however,
previously to entering the room, had announced his determination to take
nothing more than the strictest temperance would warrant.
But oh! who can describe the inveterate tenacity with which a drunkard's
habits cling to him through life? He may repent, he may reform, he may
look with actual abhorrence upon his past profligacy; but amid all this
reformation and compunction, who can tell the moment in which the base
and ruinous propensity may not recur, triumphing over resolution,
remorse, shame, everything, and prostrating its victim once more in all
that is destructive and revolting in that fatal vice?
The wretched man left the place in a state of utter intoxication. He was
brought home nearly insensible, and placed in his bed. The younger part
of the family retired to rest much after their usual hour; but the poor
wife remained up sitting by the fire, too much grieved and shocked at
the occurrence of what she had so little expected, to settle to rest.
Fatigue, however, at length overcame her, and she sank gradually into an
uneasy slumber. She could not tell how long she had remained in this
state; but when she awakened, and immediately on opening her eyes, she
perceived by the faint red light of the smouldering turf embers, two
persons, one of whom she recognized as her husband, noiselessly gliding
out of the room.
"Pat, darling, where are you going?" said she.
There was no answer--the door closed after them; but in a moment she was
startled and terrified by a loud and heavy crash, as if some ponderous
body had been hurled down the stair.
[Illustration: NOISELESSLY GLIDING OUT OF THE ROOM.]
Much alarmed, she started up, and going to the head of the staircase,
she called repeatedly upon her husband, but in vain.
She returned to the room, and with the assistance of her daughter, whom
I had occasion to mention before, she succeeded in finding and lighting
a candle, with which she hurried again to the head of the staircase.
At the bottom lay what seemed to be a bundle of clothes, heaped
together, motionless, lifeless--it was her husband. In going down
the stairs, for what purpose can never now be known, he had fallen
helplessly and violently to the bottom, and coming head foremost, the
spine of the neck had been dislocated by the shock, and instant death
must have ensued.
The body lay upon that landing-place to which his dream had referred.
It is scarcely worth endeavouring to clear up a single point in a
narrative where all is mystery; yet I could not help suspecting that the
second figure which had been seen in the room by Connell's wife on the
night of his death might have been no other than his own shadow.
I suggested this solution of the difficulty; but she told me that the
unknown person had been considerably in advance of her husband, and on
reaching the door, had turned back as if to communicate something to his
companion.
It was, then, a mystery.
[Illustration: AT THE FOOT OF THE STAIRS.]
Was the dream verified?--whither had the disembodied spirit sped? who
can say? We know not. But I left the house of death that day in a state
of horror which I could not describe. It seemed to me that I was scarce
awake. I heard and saw everything as if under the spell of a nightmare.
The coincidence was terrible.
[Illustration]
A Chapter in the history of a Tyrone Family
In the following narrative I have endeavoured to give as nearly as
possible the _ipsissima verba_ of the valued friend from whom I received
it, conscious that any aberration from _her_ mode of telling the tale of
her own life would at once impair its accuracy and its effect.
Would that, with her words, I could also bring before you her animated
gesture, the expressive countenance, the solemn and thrilling air and
accent with which she related the dark passages in her strange story;
and, above all, that I could communicate the impressive consciousness
that the narrator had seen with her own eyes, and personally acted in
the scenes which she described. These accompaniments, taken with the
additional circumstance that she who told the tale was one far too
deeply and sadly impressed with religious principle to misrepresent
or fabricate what she repeated as fact, gave to the tale a depth of
interest which the recording of the events themselves could hardly have
produced.
I became acquainted with the lady from whose lips I heard this narrative
nearly twenty years since, and the story struck my fancy so much that I
committed it to paper while it was still fresh in my mind; and should
its perusal afford you entertainment for a listless half hour, my labour
shall not have been bestowed in vain.
I find that I have taken the story down as she told it, in the first
person, and perhaps this is as it should be.
She began as follows:
My maiden name was Richardson, the designation of a family of some
distinction in the county of Tyrone. I was the younger of two daughters,
and we were the only children. There was a difference in our ages of
nearly six years, so that I did not, in my childhood, enjoy that close
companionship which sisterhood, in other circumstances, necessarily
involves; and while I was still a child, my sister was married.
The person upon whom she bestowed her hand was a Mr. Carew, a gentleman
of property and consideration in the north of England.
I remember well the eventful day of the wedding; the thronging
carriages, the noisy menials, the loud laughter, the merry faces, and
the gay dresses. Such sights were then new to me, and harmonized ill
with the sorrowful feelings with which I regarded the event which was to
separate me from a sister whose tenderness alone had hitherto more than
supplied all that I wanted in my mother's affection.
The day soon arrived which was to remove the happy couple from Ashtown
House. The carriage stood at the hall-door, and my poor sister kissed me
again and again, telling me that I should see her soon.
The carriage drove away, and I gazed after it until my eyes filled with
tears, and, returning slowly to my chamber, I wept more bitterly and, so
to speak, more desolately, than ever I had wept before.
My father had never seemed to love or to take an interest in me. He had
desired a son, and I think he never thoroughly forgave me my unfortunate
sex.