myself by a hand on the whitewashed wall, now by a touch on a column wet
with the storm. From all the eaves the rain was dripping on to the
pebbles at the foot of the arcade: a pigeon, startled from the capital
where it was sleeping, beat its way into the cloister close. Still the
white thing drifted before me to the farther side of the court, then
along the cloister at right angles, and paused before one of the many
doorways that led to the cells.
A sudden blaze of fierce lightning, the last now of the fleeting trail
of storm, leaped around us, and in the vivid light I saw the white face
turned again with the look of overwhelming desire, of beseeching pathos,
that had choked my throat with an involuntary sob when first I saw
Sister Maddelena. In the brief interval that ensued after the flash, and
before the roaring thunder burst like the crash of battle over the
trembling convent, I heard again the sorrowful words, "I cannot sleep,"
come from the impenetrable darkness. And when the lightning came again,
the white figure was gone.
I wandered around the courtyard, searching in vain for Sister Maddelena,
even until the moonlight broke through the torn and sweeping fringes of
the storm. I tried the door where the white figure vanished: it was
locked; but I had found what I sought, and, carefully noting its
location, went back to my room, but not to sleep.
In the morning the Cavaliere asked Rendel and me which of us had seen
the ghost, and I told him my story; then I asked him to grant me
permission to sift the thing to the bottom; and he courteously gave the
whole matter into my charge, promising that he would consent to
anything.
I could hardly wait to finish breakfast; but no sooner was this done
than, forgetting my morning pipe, I started with Rendel and the
Cavaliere to investigate.
"I am sure there is nothing in that cell," said Valguanera, when we came
in front of the door I had marked. "It is curious that you should have
chosen the door of the very cell that tradition assigns to Sister
Maddelena; but I have often examined that room myself, and I am sure
that there is no chance for anything to be concealed. In fact, I had the
floor taken up once, soon after I came here, knowing the room was that
of the mysterious Sister, and thinking that there, if anywhere, the
monastic crime would have taken place; still, we will go in, if you
like."
He unlocked the door, and we entered, one of us, at all events, with a
beating heart. The cell was very small, hardly eight feet square. There
certainly seemed no opportunity for concealing a body in the tiny
place; and although I sounded the floor and walls, all gave a solid,
heavy answer,--the unmistakable sound of masonry.
For the innocence of the floor the Cavaliere answered. He had, he said,
had it all removed, even to the curving surfaces of the vault below; yet
somewhere in this room the body of the murdered girl was concealed,--of
this I was certain. But where? There seemed no answer; and I was
compelled to give up the search for the moment, somewhat to the
amusement of Valguanera, who had watched curiously to see if I could
solve the mystery.
But I could not forget the subject, and toward noon started on another
tour of investigation. I procured the keys from the Cavaliere, and
examined the cells adjoining; they were apparently the same, each with
its window opposite the door, and nothing--Stay, were they the same? I
hastened into the suspected cell; it was as I thought: this cell, being
on the corner, could have had two windows, yet only one was visible, and
that to the left, at right angles with the doorway. Was it imagination?
As I sounded the wall opposite the door, where the other window should
be; I fancied that the sound was a trifle less solid and dull. I was
becoming excited. I dashed back to the cell on the right, and, forcing
open the little window, thrust my head out.
It was found at last! In the smooth surface of the yellow wall was a
rough space, following approximately the shape of the other cell
windows, not plastered like the rest of the wall, but showing the shapes
of bricks through its thick coatings of whitewash. I turned with a gasp
of excitement and satisfaction: yes, the embrasure of the wall was deep
enough; what a wall it was!--four feet at least, and the opening of the
window reached to the floor, though the window itself was hardly three
feet square. I felt absolutely certain that the secret was solved, and
called the Cavaliere and Rendel, too excited to give them an explanation
of my theories.
They must have thought me mad when I suddenly began scraping away at the
solid wall in front of the door; but in a few minutes they understood
what I was about, for under the coatings of paint and plaster appeared
the original bricks; and as my architectural knowledge had led me
rightly, the space I had cleared was directly over a vertical joint
between firm, workmanlike masonry on one hand, and rough amateurish work
on the other, bricks laid anyway, and without order or science.
Rendel seized a pick, and was about to assail the rude wall, when I
stopped him.
"Let us be careful," I said; "who knows what we may find?" So we set to
work digging out the mortar around a brick at about the level of our
eyes.
How hard the mortar had become! But a brick yielded at last, and with
trembling fingers I detached it. Darkness within, yet beyond question
there was a cavity there, not a solid wall; and with infinite care we
removed another brick. Still the hole was too small to admit enough
light from the dimly illuminated cell. With a chisel we pried at the
sides of a large block of masonry, perhaps eight bricks in size. It
moved, and we softly slid it from its bed.
Valguanera, who was standing watching us as we lowered the bricks to the
floor, gave a sudden cry, a cry like that of a frightened
woman,--terrible, coming from him. Yet there was cause.
Framed by the ragged opening of the bricks, hardly seen in the dim
light, was a face, an ivory image, more beautiful than any antique bust,
but drawn and distorted by unspeakable agony: the lovely mouth half
open, as though gasping for breath; the eyes cast upward; and below,
slim chiselled hands crossed on the breast, but clutching the folds of
the white Carmelite habit, torture and agony visible in every tense
muscle, fighting against the determination of the rigid pose.
We stood there breathless, staring at the pitiful sight, fascinated,
bewitched. So this was the secret. With fiendish ingenuity, the rigid
ecclesiastics had blocked up the window, then forced the beautiful
creature to stand in the alcove, while with remorseless hands and iron
hearts they had shut her into a living tomb. I had read of such things
in romance; but to find the verity here, before my eyes--
Steps came down the cloister, and with a simultaneous thought we sprang
to the door and closed it behind us. The room was sacred; that awful
sight was not for curious eyes. The gardener was coming to ask some
trivial question of Valguanera. The Cavaliere cut him short. "Pietro, go
down to Parco and ask Padre Stefano to come here at once." (I thanked
him with a glance.) "Stay!" He turned to me: "Signore, it is already two
o'clock and too late for mass, is it not?"
I nodded.
Valguanera thought a moment, then he said, "Bring two horses; the Signor
Americano will go with you,--do you understand?" Then, turning to me,
"You will go, will you not? I think you can explain matters to Padre
Stefano better than I."
"Of course I will go, more than gladly." So it happened that after a
hasty luncheon I wound down the mountain to Parco, found Padre Stefano,
explained my errand to him, found him intensely eager and sympathetic,
and by five o'clock had him back at the convent with all that was
necessary for the resting of the soul of the dead girl.
In the warm twilight, with the last light of the sunset pouring into the
little cell through the window where almost a century ago Rosalia had
for the last time said farewell to her lover, we gathered together to
speed her tortured soul on its journey, so long delayed. Nothing was
omitted; all the needful offices of the Church were said by Padre
Stefano, while the light in the window died away, and the flickering
flames of the candles carried by two of the acolytes from San Francesco
threw fitful flashes of pallid light into the dark recess where the
white face had prayed to Heaven for a hundred years.
Finally, the Padre took the asperge from the hands of one of the
acolytes, and with a sign of the cross in benediction while he chanted
the _Asperges_, gently sprinkled the holy water on the upturned face.
Instantly the whole vision crumbled to dust, the face was gone, and
where once the candlelight had flickered on the perfect semblance of the
girl dead so very long, it now fell only on the rough bricks which
closed the window, bricks laid with frozen hearts by pitiless hands.
But our task was not done yet. It had been arranged that Padre Stefano
should remain at the convent all night, and that as soon as midnight
made it possible he should say the first mass for the repose of the
girl's soul. We sat on the terrace talking over the strange events of
the last crowded hours, and I noted with satisfaction that the Cavaliere
no longer spoke of the Church with that hardness, which had hurt me so
often. It is true that the Padre was with us nearly all the time; but
not only was Valguanera courteous, he was almost sympathetic; and I
wondered if it might not prove that more than one soul benefited by the
untoward events of the day.
With the aid of the astonished and delighted servants, and no little
help as well from Signora Valguanera, I fitted up the long cold Altar in
the chapel, and by midnight we had the gloomy sanctuary beautiful with
flowers and candles. It was a curiously solemn service, in the first
hour of the new day, in the midst of blazing candles and the thick
incense, the odour of the opening orange-blooms drifting up in the fresh
morning air, and mingling with the incense smoke and the perfume of
flowers within. Many prayers were said that night for the soul of the
dead girl, and I think many afterward; for after the benediction I
remained for a little time in my place, and when I rose from my knees
and went toward the chapel door, I saw a figure kneeling still, and,
with a start, recognized the form of the Cavaliere. I smiled with quiet
satisfaction and gratitude, and went away softly, content with the chain
of events that now seemed finished.
The next day the alcove was again walled up, for the precious dust could
not be gathered together for transportation to consecrated ground; so I
went down to the little cemetery at Parco for a basket of earth, which
we cast in over the ashes of Sister Maddelena.
By and by, when Rendel and I went away, with great regret, Valguanera
came down to Palermo with us; and the last act that we performed in
Sicily was assisting him to order a tablet of marble, whereon was
carved this simple inscription:--
HERE LIES THE BODY OF
ROSALIA DI CASTIGLIONI,
CALLED
SISTER MADDELENA.
HER SOUL
IS WITH HIM WHO GAVE IT.
To this I added in thought:--
"Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone."
VII
THRAWN JANET
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
The Reverend Murdoch Soulis was long minister of the moorland parish of
Balweary, in the vale of Dule. A severe, bleak-faced old man, dreadful
to his hearers, he dwelt in the last years of his life, without relative
or servant or any human company, in the small and lonely manse under the
Hanging Shaw. In spite of the iron composure of his features, his eye
was wild, scared, and uncertain; and when he dwelt, in private
admonitions, on the future of the impenitent, it seemed as if his eye
pierced through the storms of time to the terrors of eternity. Many
young persons, coming to prepare themselves against the season of the
Holy Communion, were dreadfully affected by his talk. He had a sermon on
1st Peter, v. and 8th, "The devil as a roaring lion," on the Sunday
after every seventeenth of August, and he was accustomed to surpass
himself upon that text both by the appalling nature of the matter and
the terror of his bearing in the pulpit. The children were frightened
into fits, and the old looked more than usually oracular, and were, all
that day, full of those hints that Hamlet deprecated. The manse itself,
where it stood by the water of Dule among some thick trees, with the
Shaw overhanging it on the one side, and on the other many cold, moorish
hill-tops rising toward the sky, had begun, at a very early period of
Mr. Soulis's ministry, to be avoided in the dusk hours by all who valued
themselves upon their prudence; and guidmen sitting at the clachan
alehouse shook their heads together at the thought of passing late by
that uncanny neighbourhood. There was one spot, to be more particular,
which was regarded with especial awe. The manse stood between the
highroad and the water of Dule with a gable to each; its back was toward
the kirktown of Balweary, nearly half a mile away; in front of it, a
bare garden, hedged with thorn, occupied the land between the river and
the road. The house was two stories high, with two large rooms on each.
It opened not directly on the garden, but on a causewayed path, or
passage, giving on the road on the one hand, and closed on the other by
the tall willows and elders that bordered on the stream. And it was this
strip of causeway that enjoyed among the young parishioners of Balweary
so infamous a reputation. The minister walked there often after dark,
sometimes groaning aloud in the instancy of his unspoken prayers; and
when he was from home, and the manse door was locked, the more daring
schoolboys ventured, with beating hearts, to "follow my leader" across
that legendary spot.
This atmosphere of terror, surrounding, as it did, a man of God of
spotless character and orthodoxy, was a common cause of wonder and
subject of inquiry among the few strangers who were led by chance or
business into that unknown, outlying country. But many even of the
people of the parish were ignorant of the strange events which had
marked the first year of Mr. Soulis's ministrations; and among those who
were better informed, some were naturally reticent, and others shy of
that particular topic. Now and again, only, one of the older folk would
warm into courage over his third tumbler, and recount the cause of the
minister's strange and solitary life.
* * * * *
Fifty years syne, when Mr. Soulis cam' first into Ba'weary, he was still
a young man--a callant, the folk said--fu' o' book learnin' and grand at
the exposition, but, as was natural in sae young a man, wi' nae leevin'
experience in religion. The younger sort were greatly taken wi' his
gifts and his gab; but auld, concerned, serious men and women were moved
even to prayer for the young man, whom they took to be a self-deceiver,
and the parish that was like to be sae ill-supplied. It was before the
days o' the moderates--weary fa' them; but ill things are like
guid--they baith come bit by bit, a pickle at a time; and there were
folk even then that said the Lord had left the college professors to
their ain devices an' the lads that went to study wi' them wad hae done
mair and better sittin' in a peat-bog, like their forbears of the
persecution, wi' a Bible under their oxter and a speerit o' prayer in
their heart. There was nae doubt, onyway, but that Mr. Soulis had been
ower lang at the college. He was careful and troubled for mony things
besides the ae thing needful. He had a feck o' books wi' him--mair than
had ever been seen before in a' that presbytery; and a sair wark the
carrier had wi' them, for they were a' like to have smoored in the
Deil's Hag between this and Kilmackerlie. They were books o' divinity,
to be sure, or so they ca'd them; but the serious were o' opinion there
was little service for sae mony, when the hail o' God's Word would gang
in the neuk of a plaid. Then he wad sit half the day and half the nicht
forbye, which was scant decent--writin' nae less; and first, they were
feared he wad read his sermons; and syne it proved he was writin' a book
himsel', which was surely no fittin' for ane of his years and sma'
experience.
Onyway it behoved him to get an auld, decent wife to keep the manse for
him an' see to his bit denners; and he was recommended to an auld
limmer--Janet M'Clour, they ca'ed her--and sae far left to himsel' as to
be ower persuaded. There was mony advised him to the contrar, for Janet
was mair than suspeckit by the best folk in Ba'weary. Lang or that, she
had had a wean to a dragoon; she hadnae come forrit[2] for maybe thretty
year; and bairns had seen her mumblin' to hersel' up on Key's Loan in
the gloamin', whilk was an unco time an' place for a God-fearin' woman.
Howsoever, it was the laird himsel' that had first tauld the minister o'
Janet; and in thae days he wad have gane a far gate to pleesure the
laird. When folk tauld him that Janet was sib to the deil, it was a'
superstition by his way of it; an' when they cast up the Bible to him
an' the witch of Endor, he wad threep it doun their thrapples that thir
days were a' gane by, and the deil was mercifully restrained.
[2] To come forrit--to offer oneself as a communicant.
Weel, when it got about the clachan that Janet M'Clour was to be servant
at the manse, the folk were fair mad wi' her an' him thegether; and some
o' the guidwives had nae better to dae than get round her door cheeks
and chairge her wi' a' that was ken't again her, frae the sodger's bairn
to John Tamson's twa kye. She was nae great speaker; folk usually let
her gang her ain gate, an' she let them gang theirs, wi' neither
Fair-gui-deen nor Fair-guid-day; but when she buckled to, she had a
tongue to deave the miller. Up she got, an' there wasnae an auld story
in Ba'weary but she gart somebody lowp for it that day; they couldnae
say ae thing but she could say twa to it; till, at the hinder end, the
guidwives up and claught hand of her, and clawed the coats aff her back,
and pu'd her doun the clachan to the water o' Dule, to see if she were a
witch or no, soum or droun. The carline skirled till ye could hear her
at the Hangin' Shaw, and she focht like ten; there was mony a guidwife
bure the mark of her neist day an' mony a lang day after; and just in
the hettest o' the collieshangie, wha suld come up (for his sins) but
the new minister.
"Women," said he (and he had a grand voice), "I charge you in the Lord's
name to let her go."
Janet ran to him--she was fair wud wi' terror--an' clang to him, an'
prayed him, for Christ's sake, save her frae the cummers; an' they, for
their part, tauld him a' that was ken't, and maybe mair.
"Woman," says he to Janet, "is this true?"
"As the Lord sees me," says she, "as the Lord made me, no a word o't.
Forbye the bairn," says she, "I've been a decent woman a' my days."
"Will you," says Mr. Soulis, "in the name of God, and before me, His
unworthy minister, renounce the devil and his works?"
Weel, it wad appear that when he askit that, she gave a girn that fairly
frichtit them that saw her, an' they could hear her teeth play dirl
thegether in her chafts; but there was naething for it but the ae way or
the ither; an' Janet lifted up her hand and renounced the deil before
them a'.
"And now," says Mr. Soulis to the guidwives, "home with ye, one and all,
and pray to God for His forgiveness."
And he gied Janet his arm, though she had little on her but a sark, and
took her up the clachan to her ain door like a leddy of the land; an'
her scrieghin, and laughin' as was a scandal to be heard.
There were mony grave folk lang ower their prayers that nicht; but when
the morn cam' there was sic a fear fell upon a' Ba'weary that the bairns
hid theirsels, and even the men folk stood and keekit frae their doors.
For there was Janet comin' doun the clachan--her or her likeness, nane
could tell--wi' her neck thrawn, and her held on ae side, like a body
that has been hangit, and a grin on her face like an unstreakit corp. By
an' by they got used wi' it, and even speered at her to ken what was
wrang; but frae that day forth she couldnae speak like a Christian
woman, but slavered and played click wi' her teeth like a pair o'
shears; and frae that day forth the name o' God cam' never on her lips.
Whiles she wad try to say it, but it michtnae be. Them that kenned best
said least; but they never gied that Thing the name o' Janet M'Clour;
for the auld Janet, by their way o't, was in muckle hell that day. But
the minister was neither to haud nor to bind; he preached about naething
but the folk's cruelty that had gi'en her a stroke of the palsy; he
skelpt the bairns that meddled her; and he had her up to the manse that
same nicht, and dwalled there a' his lane wi' her under the Hangin'
Shaw.
Weel, time gaed by: and the idler sort commenced to think mair lichtly
o' that black business. The minister was weel thocht o'; he was aye late
at the writing, folk wad see his can'le doon by the Dule water after
twal' at e'en; and he seemed pleased wi' himsel' and upsitten as at
first, though a' body could see that he was dwining. As for Janet she
cam' an' she gaed; if she didnae speak muckle afore, it was reason she
should speak less then; she meddled naebody; but she was an eldritch
thing to see, an' nane wad hae mistrysted wi' her for Ba'weary glebe.
About the end o' July there cam' a spell o' weather, the like o't never
was in that countryside; it was lown an' het an' heartless; the herds
couldnae win up the Black Hill, the bairns were ower weariet to play;
an' yet it was gousty too, wi' claps o' het wund that rummled in the
glens, and bits o' shouers that slockened naething. We aye thocht it but
to thun'er on the morn; but the morn cam', an' the morn's morning, and
it was aye the same uncanny weather, sair on folks and bestial. Of a'
that were the waur, nane suffered like Mr. Soulis; he could neither
sleep nor eat, he tauld his elders; an' when he wasnae writin' at his
weary book, he wad be stravaguin' ower a' the countryside like a man
possessed, when a' body else was blythe to keep caller ben the house.
Abune Hangin' Shaw, in the bield o' the Black Hill, there's a bit
enclosed grund wi' an iron yett; and it seems, in the auld days, that
was the kirkyaird o' Ba'weary, and consecrated by the Papists before the
blessed licht shone upon the kingdom. It was a great howff, o' Mr.
Soulis's onyway; there he would sit an' consider his sermons; and inded
it's a bieldy bit. Weel, as he cam' ower the wast end o' the Black Hill,
ae day, he saw first twa, an' syne fower, an' syne seeven corbie craws
fleein' round an' round abune the auld kirkyaird. They flew laigh and
heavy, an' squawked to ither as they gaed; and it was clear to Mr.
Soulis that something had put them frae their ordinar. He wasnae easy
fleyed, an' gaed straucht up to the wa's; and what suld he find there
but a man, or the appearance of a man, sittin' in the inside upon a
grave. He was of a great stature, an' black as hell, and his e'en were
singular to see.[3] Mr. Soulis had heard tell o' black men mony's the
time; but there was something unco about this black man that daunted
him. Het as he was, he took a kind o' cauld grue in the marrow o' his
banes; but up he spak for a' that; an' says he: "My friend, are you a
stranger in this place?" The black man answered never a word; he got
upon his feet, an' begude to hirsle to the wa' on the far side; but he
aye lookit at the minister; an' the minister stood an' lookit back; till
a' in a meenute the black man was ower the wa' an' runnin' for the bield
o' the trees. Mr. Soulis, he hardly kenned why, ran after him; but he
was sair forjaskit wi' his walk an' the het, unhalsome weather; and rin
as he likit, he got nae mair than a glisk o' the black man amang the
birks, till he won doun to the foot o' the hillside, an' there he saw
him ance mair, gaun, hap, step, an' lowp, ower Dule water to the manse.
[3] It was a common belief in Scotland that the devil appeared as a
black man. This appears in several witch trials and I think in Law's
_Memorials_, that delightful storehouse of the quaint and grisly.