THE PHANTOM IS TRACKED
As the doctor made this motion, the figure in white crossed the hall
swiftly, and stood at the study door. It looked portentously tall, and
was covered with a white drapery, a corner of which hung over its face.
It entered the room, unlocked William Maubray’s desk from which it took
some papers; then locked the desk, carrying away which, it left the
room.
“Follow, with the light,” whispered the doctor, himself pursuing on
tiptoe.
Barefoot, the figure walked towards the kitchen, then turning to the
left, it mounted the back stair; the doctor following pretty closely,
and Tom with his candle in the rear.
On a peg in the gallery opposite to the door of William Maubray’s
bed-room, hung an old dressing-gown of his, into the pocket of which the
apparition slipped the papers it had taken from his desk. Then it opened
William’s door, as easily as if he had not locked it upon the inside.
The doctor and Tom followed, and saw the figure approach the bed and
place the desk very neatly under the bolster, then return to the door,
and shut and lock it on the inside. Then the figure marched in a stately
way to the far side of the bed, drew both curtains, and stood at the
bedside, like a ghost, for about a minute; after which it walked in the
same stately way to the door, unlocked it, and walked forth again upon
the gallery; the doctor still following, and Tom behind, bearing the
light. Down the stairs it glided, and halted on the lobby, where it
seemed to look from the window fixedly.
“Come along,” said the doctor to Tom; and down the stairs he went,
followed by the torch-bearer, and, on reaching the lobby, he clapped the
apparition on the back, and shook it lustily by the arm.
With the sort of gasp and sob which accompany sudden immersion in cold
water, William Maubray, for the ghost was he, awakened, dropped the
coverlet, which formed his drapery, on the floor, and stood the picture
of bewilderment and horror, in his night-shirt, staring at his friends
and repeating—“Lord have mercy on us!”
“It’s only Tom and I. Shake yourself up a bit, man. Doctor Drake—here we
are—all old friends.”
And the doctor spoke very cheerily, and all sorts of encouraging
speeches; but it was long before William got out of his horror, and even
then he seemed for a good while on the point of fainting.
“I’ll never be myself again,” groaned William, in his night-shirt,
seating himself, half dead, upon the lobby table.
Tom stood by, holding the candle aloft, and staring in his face and
praying in short sentences, with awful unction; while the doctor kept
all the time laughing and patting William on the shoulder and repeating,
“Nonsense!—nonsense!—nonsense!”
When William had got again into his room, and had some clothes on, he
broke again into talk:
“Somnambulism!—walk in my sleep. I could not have believed it possible.
I—I never perceived the slightest tendency—I—the only thing was that
catching my own wrist in my sleep and thinking it was another person who
held me; but—but actually walking in my sleep, isn’t it frightful?”
“I don’t think you’ll ever do it again—ha, ha, ha!” said the doctor.
“And why not?” asked William.
“The fright of being wakened as you were, cures it. That’s the reason I
shook you out of your doldrum,” chuckled the doctor.
“I’m frightened—frightened out of my wits.”
“Glad of it,” said the doctor. “Be the less likely to do it again.”
“Do you think I—I’m really cured?” asked William.
“Yes, I do; but you must change your habits a bit. You’ve let yourself
get into a dyspeptic, nervous state, and keep working your brain over
things too much. You’ll be quite well in a week or two; and I really do
think you’re cured of this trick. They seldom do it again—hardly
ever—after the shock of being wakened. I’ve met half a dozen
cases—always cured.”
The doctor stayed with him the greater part of that night, which they
spent so cheerfully that Drake’s articulation became indistinct, though
his learning and philosophy, as usual, shone resplendent.
It was not till he was alone, and the bright morning sun shone round
him, that William Maubray quite apprehended the relief his spirits had
experienced. For several days he had lived in an odious dream. It was
now all cleared up, and his awful suspicions gone.
As he turned from the parlour window to the breakfast table, the old
Bible lying on the little book-shelf caught his eye. He took it down,
and laid it beside him on the table. Poor Aunt Dinah had kept it by her
during her illness, preferring it to any other.
“I’ll read a chapter every day—by Jove, I will,” resolved William, in
the grateful sense of his deliverance. “It’s only decent—it’s only the
old custom. It may make me good some day, and hit or miss, it never did
any man harm.”
So he turned over the leaves, and lighted on an open sheet of note
paper. It was written over in poor Miss Perfect’s hand, with a
perceptible tremble; and he read the following lines, bearing date only
two days before her death:—
“DEAR WILLIE,
“To-day I am not quite so, but trust to be better; and wish you to
know, that having convers much with doctor, my friend, the rector, I
make for future the Bible my only guide, and you are not to mind
what I said about waiting five—only do all things—things—with
prayer, and marry whenever you see good, seeking first God’s
blessing by pra⸺.
“So, lest anything should happen, to remove from your mind all
anxiet, writes
“Your poor old fond
“AUNTIE.”
Thus ended the note, which William, with a strange mixture of feelings,
kissed again and again, with a heart at once saddened and immensely
relieved.
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