Ewriting Format by Carl Peterson © 2001

Everybody knows Black Sam,
the old negro fisherman,
or,
as he is commonly called,
"Mud Sam," who has fished about the Sound
for the last half century.

It is now many years since Sam,
who was then as active a young negro as any in the province,
and worked on the farm of Killian Suydam on Long Island,
having finished his day's work at an early hour,
was fishing,
one still summer evening,
just about the neighborhood of Hell Gate.He was in a light skiff,
and being well acquainted
with the currents and eddies,
had shifted his station,
according
to the shifting of the tide,
from the Hen and Chickens
to the Hog's Back,
from the Hog's Back
to the Pot,
and from the Pot
to the Frying Pan;
but in the eagerness of his sport he did not see that the tide was rapidly ebbing,
until the roaring of the whirlpools and eddies warned him of his danger,
and he had some difficulty in shooting his skiff from among the rocks and breakers,
and getting
to the point of Blackwell's Island.[1] Here he cast anchor
for some time,
waiting the turn of the tide
to enable him
to return homeward.

As the night set in,
it grew blustering and gusty.

Dark clouds came bundling up in the west,
and now and then a growl of thunder or a flash of lightning told that a summer storm was at hand.

Sam pulled over,
therefore,
under the lee of Manhattan Island,
and,
coasting along,
came
to a snug nook,
just under a steep,
beetling rock,
where he fastened his skiff
to the root of a tree that shot out from a cleft,
and spread its broad branches like a canopy over the water.

The gust came scouring along,
the wind threw up the river in white surges,
the rain rattled among the leaves,
the thunder bellowed worse than that which is now bellowing,
the lightning seemed
to lick up the surges of the stream;
but Sam,
snugly sheltered under rock and tree,
lay crouching in his skiff,
rocking upon the billows until he fell asleep.

[1] A long,
narrow island in the East River,
between New York and Long Island City.

When he woke all was quiet.

The gust had passed away,
and only now and then a faint gleam of lightning in the east showed which way it had gone.

The night was dark and moonless,
and from the state of the tide Sam concluded it was near midnight.

He was on the point of making loose his skiff
to return homeward when he saw a light gleaming along the water from a distance,
which seemed rapidly approaching.

As it drew near he perceived it came from a lantern in the bow of a boat gliding along under shadow of the land.

It pulled up in a small cove close
to where he was.

A man jumped on shore,
and searching about
with the lantern,
exclaimed,
"This is the place--here's the iron ring."

The boat was then made fast,
and the man,
returning on board,
assisted his comrades in conveying something heavy on shore.

As the light gleamed among them,
Sam saw that they were five stout,
desperate-looking fellows,
in red woolen caps,

with a leader in a three-cornered hat,
and that some of them were armed
with dirks,
or long knives,
and pistols.

They talked low
to one another,
and occasionally in some outlandish tongue which he could not understand.On landing they made their way among the bushes,
taking turns
to relieve each other in lugging their burden up the rocky bank.

Sam's curiosity was now fully aroused,
so leaving his skiff he clambered silently up a ridge that overlooked their path.

They had stopped
to rest
for a moment,
and the leader was looking about among the bushes
with his lantern.

"Have you brought the spades?"

said one.

"They are here," replied another,
who had them on his shoulder.

"We must dig deep,
where there will be no risk of discovery," said a third.A cold chill ran through Sam's veins.

He fancied he saw before him a gang of murderers,
about
to bury their victim.

His knees smote together.

In his agitation he shook the branch of a tree
with which he was supporting himself as he looked over the edge of the cliff."

What's that?"

cried one of the gang.

"Some one stirs among the bushes!"
The lantern was held up in the direction of the noise.

One of the red-caps cocked a pistol,
and pointed it toward the very place where Sam was standing.

He stood motionless,
breathless,
expecting the next moment
to be his last.

Fortunately his dingy complexion was in his favor,
and made no glare among the leaves."

'Tis no one," said the man
with the lantern.

"What a plague!

you would not fire off your pistol and alarm the country!"
The pistol was uncocked,
the burden was resumed,
and the party slowly toiled along the bank.

Sam watched them as they went,
the light sending back fitful gleams through the dripping bushes,
and it was not till they were fairly out of sight that he ventured
to draw breath freely.

He now thought of getting back
to his boat,
and making his escape out of the reach of such dangerous neighbors;
but curiosity was all-powerful.

He hesitated,
and lingered,
and listened.

By and by he heard the strokes of spades.

"They are digging the grave!" said he
to himself,
and the cold sweat started upon his forehead.

Every stroke of a spade,
as it sounded through the silent groves,
went
to his heart.

It was evident there was as little noise made as possible;
everything had an air of terrible mystery and secrecy.

Sam had a great relish
for the horrible;
a tale of murder was a treat
for him,
and he was a constant attendant at executions.

He could not resist an impulse,
in spite of every danger,

to steal nearer
to the scene of mystery,
and overlook the midnight fellows at their work.

He crawled along cautiously,
therefore,
inch by inch,
stepping
with the utmost care among the dry leaves,
lest their rustling should betray him.

He came at length
to where a steep rock intervened between him and the gang,

for he saw the light of their lantern shining up against the branches of the trees on the other side.

Sam slowly and silently clambered up the surface of the rock,
and raising his head above its naked edge,
beheld the villains immediately below him,
and so near that though he dreaded discovery he dared not withdraw lest the least movement should be heard.

In this way he remained,

with his round black face peering above the edge of the rock,
like the sun just emerging above the edge of the horizon,
or the round- cheeked moon on the dial of a clock.The red-caps had nearly finished their work,
the grave was filled up,
and they were carefully replacing the turf.

This done they scattered dry leaves over the place.

"And now," said the leader,
"I defy the devil himself
to find it out."


"The murderers!" exclaimed Sam involuntarily.The whole gang started,
and looking up beheld the round black head of Sam just above them,
his white eyes strained half out of their orbits,
his white teeth chattering,
and his whole visage shining
with cold perspiration."

We're discovered!" cried one."

Down
with him!" cried another.Sam heard the cocking of a pistol,
but did not pause
for the report.

He scrambled over rock and stone,
through brush and brier,
rolled down banks like a hedgehog,
scrambled up others like a catamount.

In every direction he heard some one or other of the gang hemming him in.

At length he reached the rocky ridge along the river;
one of the red-caps was hard behind him.

A steep rock like a wall rose directly in his way;
it seemed
to cut off all retreat,
when fortunately he espied the strong,
cord-like branch of a grapevine reaching half way down it.

He sprang at it
with the force of a desperate man,
seized it
with both hands,
and,
being young and agile,
succeeded in swinging himself
to the summit of the cliff.

Here he stood in full relief against the sky,
when the red- cap cocked his pistol and fired.

The ball whistled by Sam's head.


with the lucky thought of a man in an emergency,
he uttered a yell,
fell
to the ground,
and detached at the same time a fragment of the rock,
which tumbled
with a loud splash in
to the river."

I've done his business," said the red-cap
to one or two of his comrades as they arrived panting.

"He'll tell no tales,
except
to the fishes in the river."


His pursuers now turned
to meet their companions.

Sam,
sliding silently down the surface of the rock,
let himself quietly in
to his skiff,
cast loose the fastening,
and abandoned himself
to the rapid current,
which in that place runs like a mill stream,
and soon swept him off from the neighborhood.

It was not,
however,
until he had drifted a great distance that he ventured
to ply his oars,
when he made his skiff dart like an arrow through the strait of Hell Gate,
never heeding the danger of Pot,
Frying Pan,
nor Hog's Back itself,
nor did he feel himself thoroughly secure until safely nestled in bed in the cockloft of the ancient farmhouse of the SuydaMs. Here the worthy Peechy Prauw paused
to take breath,
and
to take a sip of the gossip tankard that stood at his elbow.

His auditors remained
with open mouths and outstretched necks,
gaping like a nest of swallows
for an additional mouthful."

And is that all?"

exclaimed the half-pay officer."

That's all that belongs
to the story," said Peechy Prauw."

And did Sam never find out what was buried by the red-caps?"

said Wolfert eagerly,
whose mind was haunted by nothing but ingots and doubloons."

Not that I know of," said Peechy;
"he had no time
to spare from his work,
and,

to tell the truth,
he did not like
to run the risk of another race among the rocks.

Besides,
how should he recollect the spot where the grave had been digged?

everything would look so different by daylight.

And then,
where was the use of looking
for a dead body when there was no chance of hanging the murderers?"


"Aye,
but are you sure it was a dead body they buried?"

said Wolfert."


to be sure," cried Peechy Prauw exultingly.

"Does it not haunt in the neighborhood
to this very day?"


"Haunts!" exclaimed several of the party,
opening their eyes still wider,
and edging their chairs still closer."

Aye,
haunts," repeated Peechy;
"have none of you heard of Father Red-cap,
who haunts the old burned farmhouse in the woods,
on the border of the Sound,
near Hell Gate?"


"Oh,

to be sure,
I've heard tell of something of the kind,
but then I took it
for some old wives' fable."


"Old wives' fable or not," said Peechy Prauw,
"that farmhouse stands hard by the very spot.

It's been unoccupied time out of mind,
and stands in a lonely part of the coast,
but those who fish in the neighborhood have often heard strange noises there,
and lights have been seen about the wood at night,
and an old fellow in a red cap has been seen at the windows more than once,
which people take
to be the ghost of the body buried there.

Once upon a time three soldiers took shelter in the building
for the night,
and rummaged it from top
to bottom,
when they found old Father Red-cap astride of a cider barrel in the cellar,

with a jug in one hand and a goblet in the other.

He offered them a drink out of his goblet,
but just as one of the soldiers was putting it
to his mouth--whew!- -a flash of fire blazed through the cellar,
blinded every mother's son of them
for several minutes,
and when they recovered their eyesight,
jug,
goblet,
and Red-cap had vanished,
and nothing but the empty cider barrel remained."


Here the half-pay officer,
who was growing very muzzy and sleepy,
and nodding over his liquor,

with half-extinguished eye,
suddenly gleamed up like an expiring rush-light."

That's all fudge!" said he,
as Peechy finished his last story."

Well,
I don't vouch
for the truth of it myself," said Peechy Prauw,
"though all the world knows that there's something strange about that house and grounds;
but as
to the story of Mud Sam,
I believe it just as well as if it had happened
to myself."


The deep interest taken in this conversation by the company had made them unconscious of the uproar abroad among the elements,
when suddenly they were electrified by a tremendous clap of thunder.

A lumbering crash followed instantaneously,
shaking the building
to its very foundation.

All started from their seats,
imagining it the shock of an earthquake,
or that old Father Red-cap was coming among them in all his terrors.

They listened
for a moment,
but only heard the rain pelting against the windows and the wind howling among the trees.

The explosion was soon explained by the apparition of an old negro's bald head thrust in at the door,
his white goggle eyes contrasting
with his jetty poll,
which was wet
with rain,
and shone like a bottle.

In a jargon but half intelligible he announced that the kitchen chimney had been struck
with lightning.A sullen pause of the storm,
which now rose and sank in gusts,
produced a momentary stillness.

In this interval the report of a musket was heard,
and a long shout,
almost like a yell,
resounded from the shores.

Everyone crowded
to the window;
another musket shot was heard,
and another long shout,
mingled wildly
with a rising blast of wind.

It seemed as if the cry came up from the bosom of the waters,

for though incessant flashes of lightning spread a light about the shore,
no one was
to be seen.Suddenly the window of the room overhead was opened,
and a loud halloo uttered by the mysterious stranger.

Several hailings passed from one party
to the other,
but in a language which none of the company in the barroom could understand,
and presently they heard the window closed,
and a great noise overhead,
as if all the furniture were pulled and hauled about the room.

The negro servant was summoned,
and shortly afterwards was seen assisting the veteran
to lug the ponderous sea chest downstairs.The landlord was in amazement.

"What,
you are not going on the water in such a storm?"


"Storm!" said the other scornfully,
"do you call such a sputter of weather a storm?"


"You'll get drenched
to the skin;
you'll catch your death!" said Peechy Prauw affectionately."

Thunder and lightning!" exclaimed the veteran;
"don't preach about weather
to a man that has cruised in whirlwinds and tornadoes."


The obsequious Peechy was again struck dumb.

The voice from the water was heard once more in a tone of impatience;
the bystanders stared
with redoubled awe at this man of storms,
who seemed
to have come up out of the deep,
and
to be summoned back
to it again.

As,

with the assistance of the negro,
he slowly bore his ponderous sea chest toward the shore,
they eyed it
with a superstitious feeling,
half doubting whether he were not really about
to embark upon it and launch forth upon the wild waves.

They followed him at a distance
with a lantern."

Dowse[1] the light!" roared the hoarse voice from the water.

"No one wants light here!"
[1] Extinguish.

"Thunder and lightning!" exclaimed the veteran,
turning short upon them;
"back
to the house
with you!"
Wolfert and his companions shrank back in dismay.

Still their curiosity would not allow them entirely
to withdraw.

A long sheet of lightning now flickered across the waves,
and discovered a boat,
filled
with men,
just under a rocky point,
rising and sinking
with the heaving surges,
and swashing the waters at every heave.

It was
with difficulty held
to the rocks by a boat hook,

for the current rushed furiously round the point.

The veteran hoisted one end of the lumbering sea chest on the gunwale of the boat,
and seized the handle at the other end
to lift it in,
when the motion propelled the boat from the shore,
the chest slipped off from the gunwale,
and,
sinking in
to the waves,
pulled the veteran headlong after it.

A loud shriek was uttered by all on shore,
and a volley of execrations by those on board,
but boat and man were hurried away by the rushing swiftness of the tide.

A pitchy darkness succeeded.

Wolfert Webber,
indeed,
fancied that he distinguished a cry
for help,
and that he beheld the drowning man beckoning
for assistance;
but when the lightning again gleamed along the water all was void;
neither man nor boat was
to be seen,--nothing but the dashing and weltering of the waves as they hurried past.The company returned
to the tavern
to await the subsiding of the storm.

They resumed their seats and gazed on each other
with dismay.

The whole transaction had not occupied five minutes,
and not a dozen words had been spoken.

When they looked at the oaken chair they could scarcely realize the fact that the strange being who had so lately tenanted it,
full of life and Herculean vigor,
should already be a corpse.

There was the very glass he had just drunk from;
there lay the ashes from the pipe which he had smoked,
as it were,

with his last breath.

As the worthy burghers pondered on these things,
they felt a terrible conviction of the uncertainty of existence,
and each felt as if the ground on which he stood was rendered less stable by his awful example.As,
however,
the most of the company were possessed of that valuable philosophy which enables a man
to bear up
with fortitude against the misfortunes of his neighbors,
they soon managed
to console themselves
for the tragic end of the veteran.

The landlord was particularly happy that the poor dear man had paid his reckoning before he went,
and made a kind of farewell speech on the occasion."

He came," said he,
"in a storm,
and he went in a storm;
he came in the night,
and he went in the night;
he came nobody knows whence,
and he has gone nobody knows where.


for aught I know he has gone
to sea once more on his chest,
and may land
to bother some people on the other side of the world;
though it's a thousand pities," added he,
"if he has gone
to Davy Jones's[1] locker,
that he had not left his own locker[2] behind him."


[1] Davy Jones is the spirit of the sea,
or the sea devil,
and Davy Jones's locker is the bottom of the ocean;
hence,
"gone
to Davy Jones's locker" signifies "dead and buried in the sea."


[2] Chest.

"His locker!

St.

Nicholas preserve us!" cried Peechy Prauw.

"I'd not have had that sea chest in the house
for any money;
I'll warrant he'd come racketing after it at nights,
and making a haunted house of the inn.

And as
to his going
to sea in his chest,
I recollect what happened
to Skipper Onderdonk's ship on his voyage from Amsterdam."

The boatswain died during a storm,
so they wrapped him up in a sheet,
and put him in his own sea chest,
and threw him overboard;
but they neglected,
in their hurry-skurry,

to say prayers over him,
and the storm raged and roared louder than ever,
and they saw the dead man seated in his chest,

with his shroud
for a sail,
coming hard after the ship,
and the sea breaking before him in great sprays like fire;
and there they kept scudding day after day and night after night,
expecting every moment
to go
to wreck;
and every night they saw the dead boatswain in his sea chest trying
to get up
with them,
and they heard his whistle above the blasts of wind,
and he seemed
to send great seas,
mountain high,
after them that would have swamped the ship if they had not put up the deadlights.

And so it went on till they lost sight of him in the fogs off Newfoundland,
and supposed he had veered ship and stood
for Dead Man's Isle.[1] So much
for burying a man at sea without saying prayers over him."


[1] Probably Deadman's Point,
a small island near Deadman's Bay,
off the eastern coast of Newfoundland.

The thunder gust which had hither
to detained the company was now at an end.

The cuckoo clock in the hall told midnight;
everyone pressed
to depart,

for seldom was such a late hour of the night trespassed on by these quiet burghers.

As they sallied forth they found the heavens once more serene.

The storm which had lately obscured them had rolled away,
and lay piled up in fleecy masses on the horizon,
lighted up by the bright crescent of the moon,
which looked like a little silver lamp hung up in a palace of clouds.The dismal occurrence of the night,
and the dismal narrations they had made,
had left a superstitious feeling in every mind.

They cast a fearful glance at the spot where the buccaneer had disappeared,
almost expecting
to see him sailing on his chest in the cool moonshine.

The trembling rays glittered along the waters,
but all was placid,
and the current dimpled over the spot where he had gone down.

The party huddled together in a little crowd as they repaired homeward,
particularly when they passed a lonely field where a man had been murdered,
and even the sexton,
who had
to complete his journey alone,
though accustomed,
one would think,

to ghosts and goblins,
went a long way round rather than pass by his own churchyard.Wolfert Webber had now carried home a fresh stock of stories and notions
to ruminate upon.

These accounts of pots of money and Spanish treasures,
buried here and there and everywhere about the rocks and bays of these wild shores,
made him almost dizzy.

"Blessed St.

Nicholas!" ejaculated he,
half aloud,
"is it not possible
to come upon one of these golden hoards,
and
to make oneself rich in a twinkling?

How hard that I must go on,
delving and delving,
day in and day out,
merely
to make a morsel of bread,
when one lucky stroke of a spade might enable me
to ride in my carriage
for the rest of my life!"
As he turned over in his thoughts all that had been told of the singular adventure of the negro fisherman,
his imagination gave a totally different complexion[1]
to the tale.

He saw in the gang of red-caps nothing but a crew of pirates burying their spoils,
and his cupidity was once more awakened by the possibility of at length getting on the traces of some of this lurking wealth.

Indeed,
his infected fancy tinged everything
with gold.

He felt like the greedy inhabitant of Bagdad when his eyes had been greased
with the magic ointment of the dervish,
that gave him
to see all the treasures of the earth.[2] Caskets of buried jewels,
chests of ingots,
and barrels of outlandish coins seemed
to court him from their concealments,
and supplicate him
to relieve them from their untimely graves.

[1] Aspect.[2] See Story of the Blind Man,
Baba Abdalla,
in Arabian Nights' Entertainment.

An inhabitant of Bagdad,
Asiatic Turkey,
meets
with a dervish,
or Turkish monk,
who presents him
with a vast treasure and
with a box of magic ointment,
which,
applied
to the left eye,
enables one
to see the treasures in the bosom of the earth,
but on touching the right eye,
causes blindness.

Having applied it
to the left eye
with the result predicted,
he uses it on his right eye,
in the hope that still greater treasures may be revealed,
and immediately becomes blind.

On making private inquiries about the grounds said
to be haunted by Feather Red-cap,
he was more and more confirmed in his surmise.

He learned that the place had several times been visited by experienced money diggers who had heard Black Sam's story,
though none of them had met
with success.

On the contrary,
they had always been dogged
with ill luck of some kind or other,
in consequence,
as Wolfert concluded,
of not going
to work at the proper time and
with the proper ceremonials.

The last attempt had been made by Cobus Quackenbos,
who dug
for a whole night,
and met
with incredible difficulty,

for as fast as he threw one shovelful of earth out of the hole,
two were thrown in by invisible hands.

He succeeded so far,
however,
as
to uncover an iron chest,
when there was a terrible roaring,
ramping,
and raging of uncouth figures about the hole,
and at length a shower of blows,
dealt by invisible cudgels,
fairly belabored him off of the forbidden ground.

This Cobus Quackenbos had declared on his deathbed,
so that there could not be any doubt of it.

He was a man that had devoted many years of his life
to money digging,
and it was thought would have ultimately succeeded had he not died recently of a brain fever in the almshouse.Wolfert Webber was now in a worry of trepidation and impatience,
fearful lest some rival adventurer should get a scent of the buried gold.

He determined privately
to seek out the black fisherman,
and get him
to serve as guide
to the place where he had witnessed the mysterious scene of interment.

Sam was easily found,

for he was one of those old habitual beings that live about a neighborhood until they wear themselves a place in the public mind,
and become,
in a manner,
public characters.

There was not an unlucky urchin about town that did not know Sam the fisherman,
and think that he had a right
to play his tricks upon the old negro.

Sam had led an amphibious life
for more than half a century,
about the shores of the bay and the fishing grounds of the Sound.

He passed the greater part of his time on and in the water,
particularly about Hell Gate,
and might have been taken,
in bad weather,

for one of the hobgoblins that used
to haunt that strait.

There would he be seen,
at all times and in all weathers,
sometimes in his skiff,
anchored among the eddies,
or prowling like a shark about some wreck,
where the fish are supposed
to be most abundant;
sometimes seated on a rock from hour
to hour,
looking,
in the mist and drizzle,
like a solitary heron watching
for its prey.

He was well acquainted
with every hole and corner of the Sound,
from the Wallabout[1]
to Hell Gate,
and from Hell Gate un
to the Devil's Stepping-Stones;
and it was even affirmed that he knew all the fish in the river by their Christian names.

[1] A bay of the East River,
on which the Brooklyn Navy Yard is situated.

Wolfert found him at his cabin,
which was not much larger than a tolerable dog house.

It was rudely constructed of fragments of wrecks and driftwood,
and built on the rocky shore at the foot of the old fort,
just about what at present forms the point of the Battery.[1] A "very ancient and fishlike smell"[2] pervaded the place.

Oars,
paddles,
and fishing rods were leaning against the wall of the fort,
a net was spread on the sand
to dry,
a skiff was drawn up on the beach,
and at the door of his cabin was Mud Sam himself,
indulging in the true negro luxury of sleeping in the sunshine.

[1] The southern extremity of New York City.[2] See Shakespeare's The Tempest,
act ii.,
sc.

2.

Many years had passed away since the time of Sam's youthful adventure,
and the snows of many a winter had grizzled the knotty wool upon his head.

He perfectly recollected the circumstances,
however,

for he had often been called upon
to relate them,
though in his version of the story he differed in many points from Peechy Prauw,
as is not infrequently the case
with authentic historians.

As
to the subsequent researches of money diggers,
Sam knew nothing about them;
they were matters quite out of his line;
neither did the cautious Wolfert care
to disturb his thoughts on that point.

His only wish was
to secure the old fisherman as a pilot
to the spot,
and this was readily effected.

The long time that had intervened since his nocturnal adventure had effaced all Sam's awe of the place,
and the promise of a trifling reward roused him at once from his sleep and his sunshine.The tide was adverse
to making the expedition by water,
and Wolfert was too impatient
to get
to the land of promise
to wait
for its turning;
they set off,
therefore,
by land.

A walk of four or five miles brought them
to the edge of a wood,
which at that time covered the greater part of the eastern side of the island.

It was just beyond the pleasant region of Bloomen-dael.[1] Here they struck in
to a long lane,
straggling among trees and bushes very much overgrown
with weeds and mullein stalks,
as if but seldom used,
and so completely overshadowed as
to enjoy but a kind of twilight.

Wild vines entangled the trees and flaunted in their faces;
brambles and briers caught their clothes as they passed;
the garter snake glided across their path;
the spotted toad hopped and waddled before them;
and the restless catbird mewed at them from every thicket.

Had Wolfert Webber been deeply read in romantic legend he might have fancied himself entering upon forbidden,
enchanted ground,
or that these were some of the guardians set
to keep watch upon buried treasure.

As it was,
the loneliness of the place,
and the wild stories connected
with it,
had their effect upon his mind.

[1] At the time this story was written Bloomen-dael (Flowery Valley) was a village four miles from New York.

It is now that part of New York known as Bloomingdale,
on the west side,
between about Seventieth and One Hundredth Streets.

On reaching the lower end of the lane they found themselves near the shore of the Sound,
in a kind of amphitheater surrounded by forest trees.

The area had once been a grass plot,
but was now shagged
with briers and rank weeds.

At one end,
and just on the river bank,
was a ruined building,
little better than a heap of rubbish,

with a stack of chimneys rising like a solitary tower out of the center.

The current of the Sound rushed along just below it,

with wildly grown trees drooping their branches in
to its waves.Wolfert had not a doubt that this was the haunted house of Father Red-cap,
and called
to mind the story of Peechy Prauw.

The evening was approaching,
and the light,
falling dubiously among the woody places,
gave a melancholy tone
to the scene well calculated
to foster any lurking feeling of awe or superstition.

The night hawk,
wheeling about in the highest regions of the air,
emitted his peevish,
boding cry.

The woodpecker gave a lonely tap now and then on some hollow tree,
and the firebird[1] streamed by them
with his deep red plumage.

[1] Orchard oriole.

They now came
to an inclosure that had once been a garden.

It extended along the foot of a rocky ridge,
but was little better than a wilderness of weeds,

with here and there a matted rosebush,
or a peach or plum tree,
grown wild and ragged,
and covered
with moss.

At the lower end of the garden they passed a kind of vault in the side of a bank,
facing the water.

It had the look of a root house.[1] The door,
though decayed,
was still strong,
and appeared
to have been recently patched up.

Wolfert pushed it open.

It gave a harsh grating upon its hinges,
and striking against something like a box,
a rattling sound ensued,
and a skull rolled on the floor.

Wolfert drew back shuddering,
but was reassured on being informed by the negro that this was a family vault,
belonging
to one of the old Dutch families that owned this estate,
an assertion corroborated by the sight of coffins of various sizes piled within.

Sam had been familiar
with all these scenes when a boy,
and now knew that he could not be far from the place of which they were in quest.

[1] "Root house," i.e.,
a house
for storing up potatoes,
turnips,
or other roots
for the winter feed of cattle.

They now made their way
to the water's edge,
scrambling along ledges of rocks that overhung the waves,
and obliged often
to hold by shrubs and grapevines
to avoid slipping in
to the deep and hurried stream.

At length they came
to a small cove,
or rather indent of the shore.

It was protected by steep rocks,
and overshadowed by a thick copse of oaks and chestnuts,
so as
to be sheltered and almost concealed.

The beach shelved gradually within the cove,
but,
the current swept deep and black and rapid along its jutting points.

The negro paused,
raised his remnant of a hat,
and scratched his grizzled poll
for a moment,
as he regarded this nook;
then suddenly clapping his hands,
he stepped exultingly forward,
and pointed
to a large iron ring,
stapled firmly in the rock,
just where a broad shelf of stone furnished a commodious landing place.

It was the very spot where the red-caps had landed.

Years had changed the more perishable features of the scene;
but rock and iron yield slowly
to the influence of time.

On looking more closely Wolfert remarked three crosses cut in the rock just above the ring,
which had no doubt some mysterious signification.

Old Sam now readily recognized the overhanging rock under which his skiff had been sheltered during the thunder gust.


to follow up the course which the midnight gang had taken,
however,
was a harder task.

His mind had been so much taken up on that eventful occasion by the persons of the drama as
to pay but little attention
to the scenes,
and these places looked so different by night and day.

After wandering about
for some time,
however,
they came
to an opening among the trees which Sam thought resembled the place.

There was a ledge of rock of moderate height,
like a wall,
on one side,
which he thought might be the very ridge whence he had overlooked the diggers.

Wolfert examined it narrowly,
and at length discovered three crosses similar
to those on the above ring,
cut deeply in
to the face of the rock,
but nearly obliterated by moss that had grown over them.

His heart leaped
with joy,

for he doubted not they were the private marks of the buccaneers.

All now that remained was
to ascertain the precise spot where the treasure lay buried,

for otherwise he might dig at random in the neighborhood of the crosses,
without coming upon the spoils,
and he had already had enough of such profitless labor.

Here,
however,
the old negro was perfectly at a loss,
and indeed perplexed him by a variety of opinions,

for his recollections were all confused.

Sometimes he declared it must have been at the foot of a mulberry tree hard by;
then beside a great white stone;
then under a small green knoll,
a short distance from the ledge of rocks,
until at length Wolfert became as bewildered as himself.The shadows of evening were now spreading themselves over the woods,
and rock and tree began
to mingle together.

It was evidently too late
to attempt anything further at present,
and,
indeed,
Wolfert had come unprovided
with implements
to prosecute his researches.

Satisfied,
therefore,

with having ascertained the place,
he took note of all its landmarks,
that he might recognize it again,
and set out on his return homeward,
resolved
to prosecute this golden enterprise without delay.The leading anxiety which had hither
to absorbed every feeling being now in some measure appeased,
fancy began
to wander,
and
to conjure up a thousand shapes and chimeras as he returned through this haunted region.

Pirates hanging in chains seemed
to swing from every tree,
and he almost expected
to see some Spanish don,

with his throat cut from ear
to ear,
rising slowly out of the ground,
and shaking the ghost of a money bag.Their way back lay through the desolate garden,
and Wolfert's nerves had arrived at so sensitive a state that the flitting of a bird,
the rustling of a leaf,
or the falling of a nut was enough
to startle him.

As they entered the confines of the garden,
they caught sight of a figure at a distance advancing slowly up one of the walks,
and bending under the weight of a burden.

They paused and regarded him attentively.

He wore what appeared
to be a woolen cap,
and,
still more alarming,
of a most sanguinary red.The figure moved slowly on,
ascended the bank,
and stopped at the very door of the sepulchral vault.

Just before entering it he looked around.

What was the affright of Wolfert when he recognized the grisly visage of the drowned buccaneer!

He uttered an ejaculation of horror.

The figure slowly raised his iron fist and shook it
with a terrible menace.

Wolfert did not pause
to see any more,
but hurried off as fast as his legs could carry him,
nor was Sam slow in following at his heels,
having all his ancient terrors revived.

Away,
then,
did they scramble through bush and brake,
horribly frightened at every bramble that tugged at their skirts,
nor did they pause
to breathe until they had blundered their way through this perilous wood,
and fairly reached the highroad
to the city.Several days elapsed before Wolfert could summon courage enough
to prosecute the enterprise,
so much had he been dismayed by the apparition,
whether living or dead,
of the grisly buccaneer.

In the meantime,
what a conflict of mind did he suffer!

He neglected all his concerns,
was moody and restless all day,
lost his appetite,
wandered in his thoughts and words,
and committed a thousand blunders.

His rest was broken,
and when he fell asleep the nightmare,
in shape of a huge money bag,
sat squatted upon his breast.

He babbled about incalculable sums,
fancied himself engaged in money digging,
threw the bedclothes right and left,
in the idea that he was shoveling away the dirt,
groped under the bed in quest of the treasure,
and lugged forth,
as he supposed,
an inestimable pot of gold.Dame Webber and her daughter were in despair at what they conceived a returning touch of insanity.

There are two family oracles,
one or other of which Dutch housewives consult in all cases of great doubt and perplexity,--the dominie and the doctor.

In the present instance they repaired
to the doctor.

There was at that time a little dark,
moldy man of medicine,
famous among the old wives of the Manhattoes
for his skill,
not only in the healing art,
but in all matters of strange and mysterious nature.

His name was Dr. Knipperhausen,
but he was more commonly known by the appellation of the "High German Doctor."

[1]
to him did the poor women repair
for counsel and assistance touching the mental vagaries of Wolfert Webber.

[1] The same,
no doubt,
of whom mention is made in the history of Dolph Heyliger.

They found the doctor seated in his little study,
clad in his dark camlet[1] robe of knowledge,

with his black velvet cap,
after the manner of Boerhaave,[2] Van Helmont,[3] and other medical sages,
a pair of green spectacles set in black horn upon his clubbed nose,
and poring over a German folio that reflected back the darkness of his physiognomy.

The doctor listened
to their statement of the symptoms of Wolfert's malady
with profound attention,
but when they came
to mention his raving about buried money the little man pricked up his ears.

Alas,
poor women!

they little knew the aid they had called in.

[1] A fabric made of goat's hair and silk,
or wool and cotton.[2] Hermann Boerhaave (1668-1738),
a celebrated Dutch physician and philosopher.[3] Jan Baptista Van Helmont (1577-1644),
a celebrated Flemish physician and chemist.

Dr. Knipperhausen had been half his life engaged in seeking the short cuts
to fortune,
in quest of which so many a long lifetime is wasted.

He had passed some years of his youth among the Harz[1] mountains of Germany,
and had derived much valuable instruction from the miners touching the mode of seeking treasure buried in the earth.

He had prosecuted his studies,
also,
under a traveling sage who united the mysteries of medicine
with magic and legerdemain.

His mind,
therefore,
had become stored
with all kinds of mystic lore;
he had dabbled a little in astrology,
alchemy,
divination;[2] knew how
to detect stolen money,
and
to tell where springs of water lay hidden;
in a word,
by the dark nature of his knowledge he had acquired the name of the "High German Doctor," which is pretty nearly equivalent
to that of necromancer.

The doctor had often heard rumors of treasure being buried in various parts of the island,
and had long been anxious
to get on the traces of it.

No sooner were Wolfert's waking and sleeping vagaries confided
to him than he beheld in them the confirmed symptoms of a case of money digging,
and lost no time in probing it
to the bottom.

Wolfert had long been sorely oppressed in mind by the golden secret,
and as a family physician is a kind of father confessor,
he was glad of any opportunity of unburdening himself.

So far from curing,
the doctor caught the malady from his patient.

The circumstances unfolded
to him awakened all his cupidity;
he had not a doubt of money being buried somewhere in the neighborhood of the mysterious crosses,
and offered
to join Wolfert in the search.

He informed him that much secrecy and caution must be observed in enterprises of the kind;
that money is only
to be dug
for at night,

with certain forms and ceremonies and burning of drugs,
the repeating of mystic words,
and,
above all,
that the seekers must first be provided
with a divining rod,[3] which had the wonderful property of pointing
to the very spot on the surface of the earth under which treasure lay hidden.

As the doctor had given much of his mind
to these matters he charged himself
with all the necessary preparations,
and,
as the quarter of the moon was propitious,
he undertook
to have the divining rod ready by a certain night.

[1] A mountain chain in northwestern Germany,
between the Elbe and the Weser.[2] Astrology,
alchemy,
and divination were three imaginary arts.

The first pretended
to judge of the influence of the stars on human affairs,
and
to foretell events by their positions and aspects;
the second aimed
to transmute the baser metals in
to gold,
and
to find a universal remedy
for diseases;
while the third dealt
with the discovery of secret or future events by preternatural means.[3] A divining rod is a rod used by those who pretend
to discover water or metals underground.

It is commonly made of witch hazel,

with forked branches.

Wolfert's heart leaped
with joy at having met
with so learned and able a coadjutor.

Everything went on secretly but swimmingly.

The doctor had many consultations
with his patient,
and the good women of the household lauded the comforting effect of his visits.

In the meantime the wonderful divining rod,
that great key
to nature's secrets,
was duly prepared.

The doctor had thumbed over all his books of knowledge
for the occasion,
and the black fisherman was engaged
to take them in his skiff
to the scene of enterprise,

to work
with spade and pickax in unearthing the treasure,
and
to freight his bark
with the weighty spoils they were certain of finding.At length the appointed night arrived
for this perilous undertaking.

Before Wolfert left his home he counseled his wife and daughter
to go
to bed,
and feel no alarm if he should not return during the night.

Like reasonable women,
on being told not
to feel alarm they fell immediately in
to a panic.

They saw at once by his manner that something unusual was in agitation;
all their fears about the unsettled state of his mind were revived
with tenfold force;
they hung about him,
entreating him not
to expose himself
to the night air,
but all in vain.

When once Wolfert was mounted on his hobby,[1] it was no easy manner
to get him out of the saddle.

It was a clear,
starlight night when he issued out of the portal of the Webber palace.

He wore a large flapped hat,
tied under the chin
with a handkerchief of his daughter's,

to secure him from the night damp,
while Dame Webber threw her long red cloak about his shoulders,
and fastened it round his neck.

[1] Hobby,
or hobbyhorse,
a favorite theme of thought;
hence,
"
to mount a hobby" is
to follow a favorite pursuit.

The doctor had been no less carefully armed and accoutered by his housekeeper,
the vigilant Frau Ilsy,
and sallied forth in his camlet robe by way of surcoat,[1] his black velvet cap under his cocked hat,
a thick clasped book under his arm,
a basket of drugs and dried herbs in one hand,
and in the other the miraculous rod of divination.

[1] Overcoat.

The great church clock struck ten as Wolfert and the doctor passed by the churchyard,
and the watchman bawled in hoarse voice a long and doleful "All's well!" A deep sleep had already fallen upon this primitive little burgh;
nothing disturbed this awful silence excepting now and then the bark of some profligate,
night-walking dog,
or the serenade of some romantic cat.

It is true Wolfert fancied more than once that he heard the sound of a stealthy footfall at a distance behind them;
but it might have been merely the echo of their own steps along the quiet streets.

He thought also at one time that he saw a tall figure skulking after them,
stopping when they stopped and moving on as they proceeded;
but the dim and uncertain lamplight threw such vague gleams and shadows that this might all have been mere fancy.They found the old fisherman waiting
for them,
smoking his pipe in the stern of the skiff,
which was moored just in front of his little cabin.

A pickax and spade were lying in the bottom of the boat,

with a dark lantern,
and a stone bottle of good Dutch courage,[1] in which honest Sam no doubt put even more faith than Dr. Knipperhausen in his drugs.

[1] Dutch courage is courage that results from indulgence in Dutch gin or Hollands;
here applied
to the gin itself.

Thus,
then,
did these three worthies embark in their cockleshell of a skiff upon this nocturnal expedition,

with a wisdom and valor equaled only by the three wise men of Gotham,[1] who adventured
to sea in a bowl.

The tide was rising and running rapidly up the Sound.

The current bore them along,
almost without the aid of an oar.

The profile of the town lay all in shadow.

Here and there a light feebly glimmered from some sick chamber,
or from the cabin window of some vessel at anchor in the stream.

Not a cloud obscured the deep,
starry firmament,
the lights of which wavered on the surface of the placid river,
and a shooting meteor,
streaking its pale course in the very direction they were taking,
was interpreted by the doctor in
to a most propitious omen.

[1] "Three wise men of Gotham,
They went
to sea in a bowl-- And if the bowl had been stronger,
My tale had been longer."

Mother Goose Melody.

[1] Gotham was a village proverbial
for the blundering simplicity of its inhabitants.

At first the name referred
to an English village.

Irving applied it
to New York City.

In a little while they glided by the point of Corlear's Hook,

with the rural inn which had been the scene of such night adventures.

The family had retired
to rest,
and the house was dark and still.

Wolfert felt a chill pass over him as they passed the point where the buccaneer had disappeared.

He pointed it out
to Dr. Knipperhausen.

While regarding it they thought they saw a boat actually lurking at the very place;
but the shore cast such a shadow over the border of the water that they could discern nothing distinctly.

They had not proceeded far when they heard the low sounds of distant oars,
as if cautiously pulled.

Sam plied his oars
with redoubled vigor,
and knowing all the eddies and currents of the stream,
soon left their followers,
if such they were,
far astern.

In a little while they stretched across Turtle Bay and Kip's Bay,[1] then shrouded themselves in the deep shadows of the Manhattan shore,
and glided swiftly along,
secure from observation.

At length the negro shot his skiff in
to a little cove,
darkly embowered by trees,
and made it fast
to the well-known iron ring.

They now landed,
and lighting the lantern gathered their various implements and proceeded slowly through the bushes.

Every sound startled them,
even that of their own footsteps among the dry leaves,
and the hooting of a screech owl,
from the shattered chimney of the neighboring ruin,
made their blood run cold.

[1] A small bay in the East River below Corlear's Hook.

In spite of all Wolfert's caution in taking note of the landmarks,
it was some time before they could find the open place among the trees,
where the treasure was supposed
to be buried.

At length they came
to the ledge of rock,
and on examining its surface by the aid of the lantern,
Wolfert recognized the three mystic crosses.

Their hearts beat quick,

for the momentous trial was at hand that was
to determine their hopes.The lantern was now held by Wolfert Webber,
while the doctor produced the divining rod.

It was a forked twig,
one end of which was grasped firmly in each hand,
while the center,
forming the stem,
pointed perpendicularly upward.

The doctor moved his wand about,
within a certain distance of the earth,
from place
to place,
but
for some time without any effect,
while Wolfert kept the light of the lantern turned full upon it,
and watched it
with the most breathless interest.

At length the rod began slowly
to turn.

The doctor grasped it
with greater earnestness,
his hands trembling
with the agitation of his mind.

The wand continued
to turn gradually,
until at length the stem had reversed its position,
and pointed perpendicularly downward,
and remained pointing
to one spot as fixedly as the needle
to the pole."

This is the spot!" said the doctor,
in an almost inaudible tone.Wolfert's heart was in his throat."

Shall I dig?"

said the negro,
grasping the spade."

Pots tausend,[1] no!" replied the little doctor hastily.

He now ordered his companions
to keep close by him,
and
to maintain the most inflexible silence;
that certain precautions must be taken and ceremonies used
to prevent the evil spirits which kept about buried treasure from doing them any harm.

He then drew a circle about the place,
enough
to include the whole party.

He next gathered dry twigs and leaves and made a fire,
upon which he threw certain drugs and dried herbs which he had brought in his basket.

A thick smoke rose,
diffusing a potent odor savoring marvelously of brimstone and asafetida,
which,
however grateful it might be
to the olfactory nerves of spirits,
nearly strangled poor Wolfert,
and produced a fit of coughing and wheezing that made the whole grove resound.

Dr. Knipperhausen then unclasped the volume which he had brought under his arm,
which was printed in red and black characters in German text.

While Wolfert held the lantern,
the doctor,
by the aid of his spectacles,
read off several forms of conjuration in Latin and German.

He then ordered Sam
to seize the pickax and proceed
to work.

The close-bound soil gave obstinate signs of not having been disturbed
for many a year.

After having picked his way through the surface,
Sam came
to a bed of sand and gravel,
which he threw briskly
to right and left
with the spade.

[1] A German exclamation of anger,
equivalent
to the English "zounds!"
"Hark!" said Wolfert,
who fancied he heard a trampling among the dry leaves and a rustling through the bushes.

Sam paused
for a moment,
and they listened.

No footstep was near.

The bat flitted by them in silence;
a bird,
roused from its roost by the light which glared up among the trees,
flew circling about the flame.

In the profound stillness of the woodland they could distinguish the current rippling along the rocky shore,
and the distant murmuring and roaring of Hell Gate.The negro continued his labors,
and had already digged a considerable hole.

The doctor stood on the edge,
reading formulae every now and then from his black-letter volume,
or throwing more drugs and herbs upon the fire,
while Wolfert bent anxiously over the pit,
watching every stroke of the spade.

Anyone witnessing the scene thus lighted up by fire,
lantern,
and the reflection of Wolfert's red mantle,
might have mistaken the little doctor
for some foul magician,
busied in his incantations,
and the grizzly- headed negro
for some swart goblin obedient
to his commands.At length the spade of the fisherman struck upon something that sounded hollow.

The sound vibrated
to Wolfert's heart.

He struck his spade again."

'Tis a chest," said Sam."

Full of gold,
I'll warrant it!" cried Wolfert,
clasping his hands
with rapture.Scarcely had he uttered the words when a sound from above caught his ear.

He cast up his eyes,
and lo!

by the expiring light of the fire he beheld,
just over the disk of the rock,
what appeared
to be the grim visage of the drowned buccaneer,
grinning hideously down upon him.Wolfert gave a loud cry and let fall the lantern.

His panic communicated itself
to his companions.

The negro leaped out of the hole,
the doctor dropped his book and basket,
and began
to pray in German.

All was horror and confusion.

The fire was scattered about,
the lantern extinguished.

In their hurry-scurry[1] they ran against and confounded one another.

They fancied a legion of hobgoblins let loose upon them,
and that they saw,
by the fitful gleams of the scattered embers,
strange figures,
in red caps,
gibbering and ramping around them.

The doctor ran one way,
the negro another,
and Wolfert made
for the water side.

As he plunged struggling onward through brush and brake,
he heard the tread of some one in pursuit.

He scrambled frantically forward.

The footsteps gained upon him.

He felt himself grasped by his cloak,
when suddenly his pursuer was attacked in turn;
a fierce fight and struggle ensued,
a pistol was discharged that lit up rock and bush
for a second,
and showed two figures grappling together;
all was then darker than ever.

The contest continued,
the combatants clinched each other,
and panted and groaned,
and rolled among the rocks.

There was snarling and growling as of a cur,
mingled
with curses,
in which Wolfert fancied he could recognize the voice of the buccaneer.

He would fain have fled,
but he was on the brink of a precipice,
and could go no farther.

[1] A swift,
disorderly movement.

Again the parties were on their feet,
again there was a tugging and struggling,
as if strength alone could decide the combat,
until one was precipitated from the brow of the cliff,
and sent headlong in
to the deep stream that whirled below.

Wolfert heard the plunge,
and a kind of strangling,
bubbling murmur,
but the darkness of the night hid everything from him,
and the swiftness of the current swept everything instantly out of hearing.

One of the combatants was disposed of,
but whether friend or foe Wolfert could not tell,
nor whether they might not both be foes.

He heard the survivor approach,
and his terror revived.

He saw,
where the profile of the rocks rose against the horizon,
a human form advancing.

He could not be mistaken;
it must be the buccaneer.

Whither should he fly?- -a precipice was on one side,
a murderer on the other.

The enemy approached--he was close at hand.

Wolfert attempted
to let himself down the face of the cliff.

His cloak caught in a thorn that grew on the edge.

He was jerked from off his feet,
and held dangling in the air,
half choked by the string
with which his careful wife had fastened the garment around his neck.

Wolfert thought his last moment was arrived;
already had he committed his soul
to St.

Nicholas,
when the string broke,
and he tumbled down the bank,
bumping from rock
to rock and bush
to bush,
and leaving the red cloak fluttering like a bloody banner in the air.It was a long while before Wolfert came
to himself.

When he opened his eyes,
the ruddy streaks of morning were already shooting up the sky.

He found himself grievously battered,
and lying in the bottom of a boat.

He attempted
to sit up,
but was too sore and stiff
to move.

A voice requested him in a friendly accents
to lie still.

He turned his eyes toward the speaker;
it was Dirk Waldron.

He had dogged the party,
at the earnest request of Dame Webber and her daughter,
who,

with the laudable curiosity of their sex,
had pried in
to the secret consultations of Wolfert and the doctor.

Dirk had been completely distanced in following the light skiff of the fisherman,
and had just come in time
to rescue the poor money digger from his pursuer.Thus ended this perilous enterprise.

The doctor and Black Sam severally found their way back
to the Manhattoes,
each having some dreadful tale of peril
to relate.

As
to poor Wolfert,
instead of returning in triumph,
laden
with bags of gold,
he was borne home on a shutter,
followed by a rabble-rout[1] of curious urchins.

His wife and daughter saw the dismal pageant from a distance,
and alarmed the neighborhood
with their cries;
they thought the poor man had suddenly settled the great debt of nature in one of his wayward moods.

Finding him,
however,
still living,
they had him speedily
to bed,
and a jury of old matrons of the neighborhood assembled
to determine how he should be doctored.

The whole town was in a buzz
with the story of the money diggers.

Many repaired
to the scene of the previous night's adventures;
but though they found the very place of the digging,
they discovered nothing that compensated them
for their trouble.

Some say they found the fragments of an oaken chest,
and an iron pot lid,
which savored strongly of hidden money,
and that in the old family vault there were traces of bales and boxes;
but this is all very dubious.

[1] A noisy throng.

In fact,
the secret of all this story has never
to this day been discovered.

Whether any treasure were ever actually buried at that place;
whether,
if so,
it were carried off at night by those who had buried it;
or whether it still remains there under the guardianship of gnomes and spirits until it shall be properly sought for,
is all matter of conjecture.


for my part,
I incline
to the latter opinion,
and make no doubt that great sums lie buried,
both there and in other parts of this island and its neighborhood,
ever since the times of the buccaneers and the Dutch colonists;
and I would earnestly recommend the search after them
to such of my fellow citizens as are not engaged in any other speculations.There were many conjectures formed,
also,
as
to who and what was the strange man of the seas,
who had domineered over the little fraternity at Corlear's Hook
for a time,
disappeared so strangely,
and reappeared so fearfully.

Some supposed him a smuggler stationed at that place
to assist his comrades in landing their goods among the rocky coves of the island.

Others,
that he was one of the ancient comrades of Kidd or Bradish,
returned
to convey away treasures formerly hidden in the vicinity.

The only circumstance that throws anything like a vague light on this mysterious matter is a report which prevailed of a strange,
foreign-built shallop,

with much the look of a picaroon,[1] having been seen hovering about the Sound
for several days without landing or reporting herself,
though boats were seen going
to and from her at night;
and that she was seen standing out of the mouth of the harbor,
in the gray of the dawn,
after the catastrophe of the money diggers.

[1] A piratical vessel.

I must not omit
to mention another report,
also,
which I confess is rather apocryphal,
of the buccaneer who is supposed
to have been drowned,
being seen before daybreak,

with a lantern in his hand,
seated astride of his great sea chest,
and sailing through Hell Gate,
which just then began
to roar and bellow
with redoubled fury.While all the gossip world was thus filled
with talk and rumor,
poor Wolfert lay sick and sorrowfully in his bed,
bruised in body and sorely beaten down in mind.

His wife and daughter did all they could
to bind up his wounds,
both corporal and spiritual.

The good old dame never stirred from his bedside,
where she sat knitting from morning till night,
while his daughter busied herself about him
with the fondest care.

Nor did they lack assistance from abroad.

Whatever may be said of the desertion of friends in distress,
they had no complaint of the kind
to make.

Not an old wife of the neighborhood but abandoned her work
to crowd
to the mansion of Wolfert Webber,

to inquire after his health and the particulars of his story.

Not one came,
moreover,
without her little pipkin of pennyroyal,
sage,
balm,
or other herb tea,
delighted at an opportunity of signalizing her kindness and her doctorship.

What drenchings did not the poor Wolfert undergo,
and all in vain!

It was a moving sight
to behold him wasting away day by day,
growing thinner and thinner and ghastlier and ghastlier,
and staring
with rueful visage from under an old patchwork counterpane,
upon the jury of matrons kindly assembled
to sigh and groan and look unhappy around him.Dirk Waldron was the only being that seemed
to shed a ray of sunshine in
to this house of mourning.

He came in
with cheery look and manly spirit,
and tried
to reanimate the expiring heart of the poor money digger,
but it was all in vain.

Wolfert was completely done over.[1] If anything was wanting
to complete his despair,
it was a notice,
served upon him in the midst of his distress,
that the corporation was about
to run a new street through the very center of his cabbage garden.

He now saw nothing before him but poverty and ruin;
his last reliance,
the garden of his forefathers,
was
to be laid waste,
and what then was
to become of his poor wife and child?
[1] Exhausted.

His eyes filled
with tears as they followed the dutiful Amy out of the room one morning.

Dirk Waldron was seated beside him;
Wolfert grasped his hand,
pointed after his daughter,
and
for the first time since his illness broke the silence he had maintained."

I am going!" said he,
shaking his head feebly,
"and when I am gone,
my poor daughter--"
"Leave her
to me,
father!" said Dirk manfully;
"I'll take care of her!"
Wolfert looked up in the face of the cheery,
strapping youngster,
and saw there was none better able
to take care of a woman."

Enough," said he,
"she is yours!

And now fetch me a lawyer--let me make my will and die."


The lawyer was brought,--a dapper,
bustling,
round-headed little man,
Roorback (or Rollebuck,
as it was pronounced) by name.

At the sight of him the women broke in
to loud lamentations,

for they looked upon the signing of a will as the signing of a death warrant.

Wolfert made a feeble motion
for them
to be silent.

Poor Amy buried her face and her grief in the bed curtain.

Dame Webber resumed her knitting
to hide her distress,
which betrayed itself,
however,
in a pellucid tear,
which trickled silently down,
and hung at the end of her peaked nose;
while the cat,
the only unconcerned member of the family,
played
with the good dame's ball of worsted as it rolled about the floor.Wolfert lay on his back,
his nightcap drawn over his forehead,
his eyes closed,
his whole visage the picture of death.

He begged the lawyer
to be brief,

for he felt his end approaching,
and that he had no time
to lose.

The lawyer nibbed[1] his pen,
spread out his paper,
and prepared
to write.

[1] In Irving's time,
quills were made in
to pens by pointing or "nibbing" their ends.

"I give and bequeath," said Wolfert faintly,
"my small farm--"
"What!

all?"

exclaimed the lawyer.Wolfert half opened his eyes and looked upon the lawyer."

Yes,
all," said he."

What!

all that great patch of land
with cabbages and sunflowers,
which the corporation is just going
to run a main street through?"


"The same," said Wolfert,

with a heavy sigh,
and sinking back upon his pillow."

I wish him joy that inherits it!" said the little lawyer,
chuckling and rubbing his hands involuntarily."

What do you mean?"

said Wolfert,
again opening his eyes."

That he'll be one of the richest men in the place," cried little Rollebuck.The expiring Wolfert seemed
to step back from the threshold of existence;
his eyes again lighted up;
he raised himself in his bed,
shoved back his red worsted nightcap,
and stared broadly at the lawyer."

You don't say so!" exclaimed he."

Faith but I do!" rejoined the other.

"Why,
when that great field and that huge meadow come
to be laid out in streets and cut up in
to snug building lots,--why,
whoever owns it need not pull off his hat
to the patroon!"
"Say you so?"

cried Wolfert,
half thrusting one leg out of bed;
"why,
then,
I think I'll not make my will yet."



to the surprise of everybody the dying man actually recovered.

The vital spark,
which had glimmered faintly in the socket,
received fresh fuel from the oil of gladness which the little lawyer poured in
to his soul.

It once more burned up in
to a flame.Give physic
to the heart,
ye who would revive the body of a spirit- broken man!

In a few days Wolfert left his room;
in a few days more his table was covered
with deeds,
plans of streets and building lots.

Little Rollebuck was constantly
with him,
his right hand man and adviser,
and instead of making his will assisted in the more agreeable task of making his fortune.

In fact Wolfert Webber was one of those worthy Dutch burghers of the Manhattoes whose fortunes have been made,
in a manner,
in spite of themselves;
who have tenaciously held on
to their hereditary acres,
raising turnips and cabbages about the skirts of the city,
hardly able
to make both ends meet,
until the corporation has cruelly driven streets through their abodes,
and they have suddenly awakened out of their lethargy,
and,

to their astonishment,
found themselves rich men.Before many months had elapsed a great,
bustling street passed through the very center of the Webber garden,
just where Wolfert had dreamed of finding a treasure.

His golden dream was accomplished;
he did,
indeed,
find an unlooked-
for source of wealth,
for,
when his paternal lands were distributed in
to building lots and rented out
to safe tenants,
instead of producing a paltry crop of cabbages they returned him an abundant crop of rent,
insomuch that on quarter day it was a goodly sight
to see his tenants knocking at the door from morning till night,
each
with a little round-bellied bag of money,
a golden produce of the soil.The ancient mansion of his forefathers was still kept up,
but,
instead of being a little yellow-fronted Dutch house in a garden,
it now stood boldly in the midst of a street,
the grand home of the neighborhood;

for Wolfert enlarged it
with a wing on each side,
and a cupola or tea room on top,
where he might climb up and smoke his pipe in hot weather,
and in the course of time the whole mansion was overrun by the chubby-faced progeny of Amy Webber and Dirk Waldron.As Wolfert waxed old and rich and corpulent he also set up a great gingerbread-colored carriage,
drawn by a pair of black Flanders mares
with tails that swept the ground;
and
to commemorate the origin of his greatness he had
for his crest a full-blown cabbage painted on the panels,

with the pithy motto,
ALLES KOPF,
that is
to say,
ALL HEAD,
meaning thereby that he had risen by sheer head work.
to fill the measure of his greatness,
in the fullness of time the renowned Ramm Rapelye slept
with his fathers,
and Wolfert Webber succeeded
to the leather-bottomed armchair in the inn parlor at Corlear's Hook;
where he long reigned,
greatly honored and respected,
insomuch that he was never known
to tell a story without its being believed,
nor
to utter a joke without its being laughed at.


Introduction
to "Wieland's Madness," from "Wieland,
or The Transformation."


From Virtue's blissful paths away The double-tongued are sure
to stray;
Good is a forth-right journey still.

And mazy paths but lead
to ill.

"WIELAND" is the first American novel.

It appeared in 1798;
its author was soon recognized as the earliest American novelist;
and he remained the greatest,
until Fenimore Cooper brought forth his Leather-stocking Tales,
a quarter of a century later.Although modern sophistication easily points out flaws in Charles Brockden Brown's story-structure,
and reproves him
for improbability,
morbidness,
and a style often too elevated,
yet his work lives.

His downright originality is worthy of Cooper himself,
and his weird imaginations and horribly sustained scenes of terror have been surpassed by few writers save Edgar Allan Poe.


Charles Brockden Brown
FIRST PART
I
Wieland's Madness
[As the story opens,
the narratress,
Clara Wieland,
is entering upon the happy realization of her love
for Henry Pleyel,
closest friend of her brother "Wieland."


Their woodland home,
Mettingen,
on the banks of the then remote Schuylkill,
is the abode of music,
letters and thorough culture.

The peace of high thinking and simple outdoor life hovers over all.]
One sunny afternoon I was standing in the door of my house,
when I marked a person passing close
to the edge of the bank that was in front.

His pace was a careless and lingering one,
and had none of that gracefulness and ease which distinguish a person
with certain advantages of education from a clown.

His gait was rustic and awkward.

His form was ungainly and disproportioned.

Shoulders broad and square,
breast sunken,
his head drooping,
his body of uniform breadth,
supported by long and lank legs,
were the ingredients of his frame.

His garb was not ill adapted
to such a figure.

A slouched hat,
tarnished by the weather,
a coat of thick gray cloth,
cut and wrought,
as it seemed,
by a country tailor,
blue worsted stockings,
and shoes fastened by thongs and deeply discolored by dust,
which brush had never disturbed,
constituted his dress.There was nothing remarkable in these appearances:

they were frequently
to be met
with on the road and in the harvest-field.

I cannot tell why I gazed upon them,
on this occasion,

with more than ordinary attention,
unless it were that such figures were seldom seen by me except on the road or field.

This lawn was only traversed by men whose views were directed
to the pleasures of the walk or the grandeur of the scenery.He passed slowly along,
frequently pausing,
as if
to examine the prospect more deliberately,
but never turning his eye toward the house,
so as
to allow me a view of his countenance.

Presently he entered a copse at a small distance,
and disappeared.

My eye followed him while he remained in sight.

If his image remained
for any duration in my fancy after his departure,
it was because no other object occurred sufficient
to expel it.I continued in the same spot
for half an hour,
vaguely,
and by fits,
contemplating the image of this wanderer,
and drawing from outward appearances those inferences,

with respect
to the intellectual history of this person,
which experience affords us.

I reflected on the alliance which commonly subsists between ignorance and the practice of agriculture,
and indulged myself in airy speculations as
to the influence of progressive knowledge in dissolving this alliance and embodying the dreams of the poets.

I asked why the plow and the hoe might not become the trade of every human being,
and how this trade might be made conducive to,
or at least consistent with,
the acquisition of wisdom and eloquence.Weary
with these reflections,
I returned
to the kitchen
to perform some household office.

I had usually but one servant,
and she was a girl about my own age.

I was busy near the chimney,
and she was employed near the door of the apartment,
when some one knocked.

The door was opened by her,
and she was immediately addressed with,
"Prythee,
good girl,
canst thou supply a thirsty man
with a glass of buttermilk?"

She answered that there was none in the house.

"Aye,
but there is some in the dairy yonder.

Thou knowest as well as I,
though Hermes never taught thee,
that,
though every dairy be a house,
every house is not a dairy."


to this speech,
though she understood only a part of it,
she replied by repeating her assurances that she had none
to give.

"Well,
then," rejoined the stranger,
"
for charity's sweet sake,
hand me forth a cup of cold water."

The girl said she would go
to the spring and fetch it.

"Nay,
give me the cup,
and suffer me
to help myself.

Neither manacled nor lame,
I should merit burial in the maw of carrion crows if I laid this task upon thee."

She gave him the cup,
and he turned
to go
to the spring.I listened
to this dialogue in silence.

The words uttered by the person without affected me as somewhat singular;
but what chiefly rendered them remarkable was the tone that accompanied them.

It was wholly new.

My brother's voice and Pleyel's were musical and energetic.

I had fondly imagined that,
in this respect,
they were surpassed by none.

Now my mistake was detected.

I cannot pretend
to communicate the impression that was made upon me by these accents,
or
to depict the degree in which force and sweetness were blended in them.

They were articulated
with a distinctness that was unexampled in my experience.

But this was not all.

The voice was not only mellifluent and clear,
but the emphasis was so just,
and the modulation so impassioned,
that it seemed as if a heart of stone could not fail of being moved by it.

It imparted
to me an emotion altogether involuntary and uncontrollable.

When he uttered the words,
"
for charity's sweet sake," I dropped the cloth that I held in my hand;
my heart overflowed
with sympathy and my eyes
with unbidden tears.This description will appear
to you trifling or incredible.

The importance of these circumstances will be manifested in the sequel.

The manner in which I was affected on this occasion was,

to my own apprehension,
a subject of astonishment.

The tones were indeed such as I never heard before;
but that they should in an instant,
as it were,
dissolve me in tears,
will not easily be believed by others,
and can scarcely be comprehended by myself.It will be readily supposed that I was somewhat inquisitive as
to the person and demeanor of our visitant.

After a moment's pause,
I stepped
to the door and looked after him.

Judge my surprise when I beheld the selfsame figure that had appeared a half-hour before upon the bank.

My fancy had conjured up a very different image.

A form and attitude and garb were instantly created worthy
to accompany such elocution;
but this person was,
in all visible respects,
the reverse of this phantom.

Strange as it may seem,
I could not speedily reconcile myself
to this disappointment.

Instead of returning
to my employment,
I threw myself in a chair that was placed opposite the door,
and sunk in
to a fit of musing.My attention was in a few minutes recalled by the stranger,
who returned
with the empty cup in his hand.

I had not thought of the circumstance,
or should certainly have chosen a different seat.

He no sooner showed himself,
than a confused sense of impropriety,
added
to the suddenness of the interview,

for which,
not having foreseen it,
I had made no preparation,
threw me in
to a state of the most painful embarrassment.

He brought
with him a placid brow;
but no sooner had he cast his eyes upon me than his face was as glowingly suffused as my own.

He placed the cup upon the bench,
stammered out thanks,
and retired.It was some time before I could recover my wonted composure.

I had snatched a view of the stranger's countenance.

The impression that it made was vivid and indelible.

His cheeks were pallid and lank,
his eyes sunken,
his forehead overshadowed by coarse straggling hairs,
his teeth large and irregular,
though sound and brilliantly white,
and his chin discolored by a tetter.

His skin was of coarse grain and sallow hue.

Every feature was wide of beauty,
and the outline of his face reminded you of an inverted cone.And yet his forehead,
so far as shaggy locks would allow it
to be seen,
his eyes lustrously black,
and possessing,
in the midst of haggardness,
a radiance inexpressibly serene and potent,
and something in the rest of his features which it would be in vain
to describe,
but which served
to betoken a mind of the highest order,
were essential ingredients in the portrait.

This,
in the effects which immediately flowed from it,
I count among the most extraordinary incidents of my life.

This face,
seen
for a moment,
continued
for hours
to occupy my fancy,

to the exclusion of almost every other image.

I had proposed
to spend the evening
with my brother;
but I could not resist the inclination of forming a sketch upon paper of this memorable visage.

Whether my hand was aided by any peculiar inspiration,
or I was deceived by my own fond conceptions,
this portrait,
though hastily executed,
appeared unexceptionable
to my own taste.I placed it at all distances and in all lights;
my eyes were riveted upon it.

Half the night passed away in wakefulness and in contemplation of this picture.

So flexible,
and yet so stubborn,
is the human mind!

So obedient
to impulses the most transient and brief,
and yet so unalterably observant of the direction which is given
to it!

How little did I then foresee the termination of that chain of which this may be regarded as the first link!
Next day arose in darkness and storm.

Torrents of rain fell during the whole day,
attended
with incessant thunder,
which reverberated in stunning echoes from the opposite declivity.

The inclemency of the air would not allow me
to walk out.

I had,
indeed,
no inclination
to leave my apartment.

I betook myself
to the contemplation of this portrait,
whose attractions time had rather enhanced than diminished.

I laid aside my usual occupations,
and,
seating myself at a window,
consumed the day in alternately looking out upon the storm and gazing at the picture which lay upon a table before me.

You will perhaps deem this conduct somewhat singular,
and ascribe it
to certain peculiarities of temper.

I am not aware of any such peculiarities.

I can account
for my devotion
to this image no otherwise than by supposing that its properties were rare and prodigious.

Perhaps you will suspect that such were the first inroads of a passion incident
to every female heart,
and which frequently gains a footing by means even more slight and more improbable than these.

I shall not controvert the reasonableness of the suspicion,
but leave you at liberty
to draw from my narrative what conclusions you please.Night at length returned,
and the storm ceased.

The air was once more clear and calm,
and bore an affecting contrast
to that uproar of the elements by which it had been preceded.

I spent the darksome hours,
as I spent the day,
contemplative and seated at the window.

Why was my mind absorbed in thoughts ominous and dreary?

Why did my bosom heave
with sighs and my eyes overflow
with tears?

Was the tempest that had just passed a signal of the ruin which impended over me?

My soul fondly dwelt upon the images of my brother and his children;
yet they only increased the mournfulness of my contemplations.

The smiles of the charming babes were as bland as formerly.

The same dignity sat on the brow of their father,
and yet I thought of them
with anguish.

Something whispered that the happiness we at present enjoyed was set on mutable foundations.

Death must happen
to all.

Whether our felicity was
to be subverted by it to-morrow,
or whether it was ordained that we should lay down our heads full of years and of honor,
was a question that no human being could solve.

At other times these ideas seldom intruded.

I either forbore
to reflect upon the destiny that is reserved
for all men,
or the reflection was mixed up
with images that disrobed it of terror;
but now the uncertainty of life occurred
to me without any of its usual and alleviating accompaniments.

I said
to myself,
We must die.

Sooner or later,
we must disappear forever from the face of the earth.

Whatever be the links that hold us
to life,
they must be broken.

This scene of existence is,
in all its parts,
calamitous.

The greater number is oppressed
with immediate evils,
and those the tide of whose fortunes is full,
how small is their portion of enjoyment,
since they know that it will terminate!

for some time I indulged myself,
without reluctance,
in these gloomy thoughts;
but at length the delection which they produced became insupportably painful.

I endeavored
to dissipate it
with music.

I had all my grandfather's melody as well as poetry by rote.

I now lighted by chance on a ballad which commemorated the fate of a German cavalier who fell at the siege of Nice under Godfrey of Bouillon.

My choice was unfortunate;

for the scenes of violence and carnage which were here wildly but forcibly portrayed only suggested
to my thoughts a new topic in the horrors of war.I sought refuge,
but ineffectually,
in sleep.

My mind was thronged by vivid but confused images,
and no effort that I made was sufficient
to drive them away.

In this situation I heard the clock,
which hung in the room,
give the signal
for twelve.

It was the same instrument which formerly hung in my father's chamber,
and which,
on account of its being his workmanship,
was regarded by everyone of our family
with veneration.

It had fallen
to me in the division of his property,
and was placed in this asylum.

The sound awakened a series of reflections respecting his death.

I was not allowed
to pursue them;

for scarcely had the vibrations ceased,
when my attention was attracted by a whisper,
which,
at first,
appeared
to proceed from lips that were laid close
to my ear.No wonder that a circumstance like this startled me.

In the first impulse of my terror,
I uttered a slight scream and shrunk
to the opposite side of the bed.

In a moment,
however,
I recovered from my trepidation.

I was habitually indifferent
to all the causes of fear by which the majority are afflicted.

I entertained no apprehension of either ghosts or robbers.

Our security had never been molested by either,
and I made use of no means
to prevent or counterwork their machinations.

My tranquillity on this occasion was quickly retrieved.

The whisper evidently proceeded from one who was posted at my bedside.

The first idea that suggested itself was that it was uttered by the girl who lived
with me as a servant.

Perhaps somewhat had alarmed her,
or she was sick,
and had come
to request my assistance.

By whispering in my ear she intended
to rouse without alarming me.Full of this persuasion,
I called,
"Judith,
is it you?

What do you want?

Is there anything the matter
with you?"

No answer was returned.

I repeated my inquiry,
but equally in vain.

Cloudy as was the atmosphere,
and curtained as my bed was,
nothing was visible.

I withdrew the curtain,
and,
leaning my head on my elbow,
I listened
with the deepest attention
to catch some new sound.

Meanwhile,
I ran over in my thoughts every circumstance that could assist my conjectures.My habitation was a wooden edifice,
consisting of two stories.

In each story were two rooms,
separated by an entry,
or middle passage,

with which they communicated by opposite doors.

The passage on the lower story had doors at the two ends,
and a staircase.

Windows answered
to the doors on the upper story.

Annexed
to this,
on the eastern side,
were wings,
divided in like manner in
to an upper and lower room;
one of them comprised a kitchen,
and chamber above it
for the servant,
and communicated on both stories
with the parlor adjoining it below and the chamber adjoining it above.

The opposite wing is of smaller dimensions,
the rooms not being above eight feet square.

The lower of these was used as a depository of household implements;
the upper was a closet in which I deposited my books and papers.

They had but one inlet,
which was from the room adjoining.

There was no window in the lower one,
and in the upper a small aperture which communicated light and air,
but would scarcely admit the body.

The door which led in
to this was close
to my bed head,
and was always locked but when I myself was within.

The avenues below were accustomed
to be closed and bolted at nights.The maid was my only companion;
and she could not reach my chamber without previously passing through the opposite chamber and the middle passage,
of which,
however,
the doors were usually unfastened.

If she had occasioned this noise,
she would have answered my repeated calls.

No other conclusion,
therefore,
was left me,
but that I had mistaken the sounds,
and that my imagination had transformed some casual noise in
to the voice of a human creature.

Satisfied
with this solution,
I was preparing
to relinquish my listening attitude,
when my ear was again saluted
with a new and yet louder whispering.

It appeared,
as before,

to issue from lips that touched my pillow.

A second effort of attention,
however,
clearly showed me that the sounds issued from within the closet,
the door of which was not more than eight inches from my pillow.This second interruption occasioned a shock less vehement than the former.

I started,
but gave no audible token of alarm.

I was so much mistress of my feelings as
to continue listening
to what should be said.

The whisper was distinct,
hoarse,
and uttered so as
to show that the speaker was desirous of being heard by some one near,
but,
at the same time,
studious
to avoid being overheard by any other:--
"Stop!

stop,
I say,
madman as you are!

there are better means than that.

Curse upon your rashness!

There is no need
to shoot."


Such were the words uttered,
in a tone of eagerness and anger,
within so small a distance of my pillow.

What construction could I put upon them?

My heart began
to palpitate
with dread of some unknown danger.

Presently,
another voice,
but equally near me,
was heard whispering in answer,
"Why not?

I will draw a trigger in this business;
but perdition be my lot if I do more!"
to this the first voice returned,
in a tone which rage had heightened in a small degree above a whisper,
"Coward!

stand aside,
and see me do it.

I will grasp her throat;
I will do her business in an instant;
she shall not have time so much as
to groan."

What wonder that I was petrified by sounds so dreadful!

Murderers lurked in my closet.

They were planning the means of my destruction.

One resolved
to shoot,
and the other menaced suffocation.

Their means being chosen,
they would forth
with break the door.

Flight instantly suggested itself as most eligible in circumstances so perilous.

I deliberated not a moment;
but,
fear adding wings
to my speed,
I leaped out of bed,
and,
scantily robed as I was,
rushed out of the chamber,
downstairs,
and in
to the open air.

I can hardly recollect the process of turning keys and withdrawing bolts.

My terrors urged me forward
with almost a mechanical impulse.

I stopped not till I reached my brother's door.

I had not gained the threshold,
when,
exhausted by the violence of my emotions and by my speed,
I sunk down in a fit.How long I remained in this situation I know not.

When I recovered,
I found myself stretched on a bed,
surrounded by my sister and her female servants.

I was astonished at the scene before me,
but gradually recovered the recollection of what had happened.

I answered their importunate inquiries as well as I was able.

My brother and Pleyel,
whom the storm of the preceding day chanced
to detain here,
informing themselves of every particular,
proceeded
with lights and weapons
to my deserted habitation.

They entered my chamber and my closet,
and found everything in its proper place and customary order.

The door of the closet was locked,
and appeared not
to have been opened in my absence.

They went
to Judith's apartment.

They found her asleep and in safety.

Pleyel's caution induced him
to forbear alarming the girl;
and,
finding her wholly ignorant of what had passed,
they directed her
to return
to her chamber.

They then fastened the doors and returned.My friends were disposed
to regard this transaction as a dream.

That persons should be actually immured in this closet,

to which,
in the circumstances of the time,
access from without or within was apparently impossible,
they could not seriously believe.

That any human beings had intended murder,
unless it were
to cover a scheme of pillage,
was incredible;
but that no such design had been formed was evident from the security in which the furniture of the house and the closet remained.I revolved every incident and expression that had occurred.

My senses assured me of the truth of them;
and yet their abruptness and improbability made me,
in my turn,
somewhat incredulous.

The adventure had made a deep impression on my fancy;
and it was not till after a week's abode at my brother's that I resolved
to resume the possession of my own dwelling.There was another circumstance that enhanced the mysteriousness of this event.

After my recovery,
it was obvious
to inquire by what means the attention of the family had been drawn
to my situation.

I had fallen before I had reached the threshold or was able
to give any signal.

My brother related that,
while this was transacting in my chamber,
he himself was awake,
in consequence of some slight indisposition,
and lay,
according
to his custom,
musing on some favorite topic.

Suddenly the silence,
which was remarkably profound,
was broken by a voice of most piercing shrillness,
that seemed
to be uttered by one in the hall below his chamber.

"Awake!

arise!" it exclaimed;
"hasten
to succor one that is dying at your door!"
This summons was effectual.

There was no one in the house who was not roused by it.

Pleyel was the first
to obey,
and my brother overtook him before he reached the hall.

What was the general astonishment when your friend was discovered stretched upon the grass before the door,
pale,
ghastly,
and
with every mark of death!
But how was I
to regard this midnight conversation?

Hoarse and manlike voices conferring on the means of death,
so near my bed,
and at such an hour!

How had my ancient security vanished!

That dwelling which had hither
to been an inviolate asylum was now beset
with danger
to my life.

That solitude formerly so dear
to me could no longer be endured.

Pleyel,
who had consented
to reside
with us during the months of spring,
lodged in the vacant chamber,
in order
to quiet my alarMs. He treated my fears
with ridicule,
and in a short time very slight traces of them remained;
but,
as it was wholly indifferent
to him whether his nights were passed at my house or at my brother's,
this arrangement gave general satisfaction.

II
I will enumerate the various inquiries and conjectures which these incidents occasioned.

After all our efforts,
we came no nearer
to dispelling the mist in which they were involved;
and time,
instead of facilitating a solution,
only accumulated our doubts.In the midst of thoughts excited by these events,
I was not unmindful of my interview
with the stranger.

I related the particulars,
and showed the portrait
to my friends.

Pleyel recollected
to have met
with a figure resembling my description in the city;
but neither his face or garb made the same impression upon him that it made upon me.

It was a hint
to rally me upon my prepossessions,
and
to amuse us
with a thousand ludicrous anecdotes which he had collected in his travels.

He made no scruple
to charge me
with being in love;
and threatened
to inform the swain,
when he met him,
of his good fortune.Pleyel's temper made him susceptible of no durable impressions.

His conversation was occasionally visited by gleams of his ancient vivacity;
but,
though his impetuosity was sometimes inconvenient,
there was nothing
to dread from his malice.

I had no fear that my character or dignity would suffer in his hands,
and was not heartily displeased when he declared his intention of profiting by his first meeting
with the stranger
to introduce him
to our acquaintance.Some weeks after this I had spent a toilsome day,
and,
as the sun declined,
found myself disposed
to seek relief in a walk.

The river bank is,
at this part of it and
for some considerable space upward,
so rugged and steep as not
to be easily descended.

In a recess of this declivity,
near the southern verge of my little demesne,
was placed a slight building,

with seats and lattices.

From a crevice of the rock
to which this edifice was attached there burst forth a stream of the purest water,
which,
leaping from ledge
to ledge
for the space of sixty feet,
produced a freshness in the air,
and a murmur,
the most delicious and soothing imaginable.

These,
added
to the odors of the cedars which embowered it,
and of the honeysuckle which clustered among the lattices,
rendered this my favorite retreat in summer.On this occasion I repaired hither.

My spirits drooped through the fatigue of long attention,
and I threw myself upon a bench,
in a state,
both mentally and personally,
of the utmost supineness.

The lulling sounds of the waterfall,
the fragrance,
and the dusk,
combined
to becalm my spirits,
and,
in a short time,

to sink me in
to sleep.

Either the uneasiness of my posture,
or some slight indisposition,
molested my repose
with dreams of no cheerful hue.

After various incoherences had taken their turn
to occupy my fancy,
I at length imagined myself walking,
in the evening twilight,

to my brother's habitation.

A pit,
methought,
had been dug in the path I had taken,
of which I was not aware.

As I carelessly pursued my walk,
I thought I saw my brother standing at some distance before me,
beckoning and calling me
to make haste.

He stood on the opposite edge of the gulf.

I mended my pace,
and one step more would have plunged me in
to this abyss,
had not some one from behind caught suddenly my arm,
and exclaimed,
in a voice of eagerness and terror,
"Hold!

hold!"
The sound broke my sleep,
and I found myself,
at the next moment,
standing on my feet,
and surrounded by the deepest darkness.

Images so terrific and forcible disabled me
for a time from distinguishing between sleep and wakefulness,
and withheld from me the knowledge of my actual condition.

My first panic was succeeded by the perturbations of surprise
to find myself alone in the open air and immersed in so deep a gloom.

I slowly recollected the incidents of the afternoon,
and how I came hither.

I could not estimate the time,
but saw the propriety of returning
with speed
to the house.

My faculties were still too confused,
and the darkness too intense,

to allow me immediately
to find my way up the steep.

I sat down,
therefore,

to recover myself,
and
to reflect upon my situation.This was no sooner done,
than a low voice was heard from behind the lattice,
on the side where I sat.

Between the rock and the lattice was a chasm not wide enough
to admit a human body;
yet in this chasm he that spoke appeared
to be stationed.

"Attend!

attend!

but be not terrified."


I started,
and exclaimed,
"Good heavens!

what is that?

Who are you?"


"A friend;
one come not
to injure but
to save you:

fear nothing."


This voice was immediately recognized
to be the same
with one of those which I had heard in the closet;
it was the voice of him who had proposed
to shoot rather than
to strangle his victim.

My terror made me at once mute and motionless.

He continued,
"I leagued
to murder you.

I repent.

Mark my bidding,
and be safe.

Avoid this spot.

The snares of death encompass it.

Elsewhere danger will be distant;
but this spot,
shun it as you value your life.

Mark me further:

profit by this warning,
but divulge it not.

If a syllable of what has passed escape you,
your doom is sealed.

Remember your father,
and be faithful."


Here the accents ceased,
and left me overwhelmed
with dismay.

I was fraught
with the persuasion that during every moment I remained here my life was endangered;
but I could not take a step without hazard of falling
to the bottom of the precipice.

The path leading
to the summit was short,
but rugged and intricate.

Even starlight was excluded by the umbrage,
and not the faintest gleam was afforded
to guide my steps.

What should I do?


to depart or remain was equally and eminently perilous.In this state of uncertainty,
I perceived a ray flit across the gloom and disappear.

Another succeeded,
which was stronger,
and remained
for a passing moment.

It glittered on the shrubs that were scattered at the entrance,
and gleam continued
to succeed gleam
for a few seconds,
till they finally gave place
to unintermitted darkness.The first visitings of this light called up a train of horrors in my mind;
destruction impended over this spot;
the voice which I had lately heard had warned me
to retire,
and had menaced me
with the fate of my father if I refused.

I was desirous,
but unable
to obey;
these gleams were such as preluded the stroke by which he fell;
the hour,
perhaps,
was the same.

I shuddered as if I had beheld suspended over me the exterminating sword.Presently a new and stronger illumination burst through the lattice on the right hand,
and a voice from the edge of the precipice above called out my name.

It was Pleyel.

Joyfully did I recognize his accents;
but such was the tumult of my thoughts that I had not power
to answer him till he had frequently repeated his summons.

I hurried at length from the fatal spot,
and,
directed by the lantern which he bore,
ascended the hill.Pale and breathless,
it was
with difficulty I could support myself.

He anxiously inquired in
to the cause of my affright and the motive of my unusual absence.

He had returned from my brother's at a late hour,
and was informed by Judith that I had walked out before sunset and had not yet returned.

This intelligence was somewhat alarming.

He waited some time;
but,
my absence continuing,
he had set out in search of me.

He had explored the neighborhood
with the utmost care,
but,
receiving no tidings of me,
he was preparing
to acquaint my brother
with this circumstance,
when he recollected the summer-house on the bank,
and conceived it possible that some accident had detained me there.

He again inquired in
to the cause of this detention,
and of that confusion and dismay which my looks testified.I told him that I had strolled hither in the afternoon,
that sleep had overtaken me as I sat,
and that I had awakened a few minutes before his arrival.

I could tell him no more.

In the present impetuosity of my thoughts,
I was almost dubious whether the pit in
to which my brother had endeavored
to entice me,
and the voice that talked through the lattice,
were not parts of the same dream.

I remembered,
likewise,
the charge of secrecy,
and the penalty denounced if I should rashly divulge what I had heard.


for these reasons I was silent on that subject,
and,
shutting myself in my chamber,
delivered myself up
to contemplation.What I have related will,
no doubt,
appear
to you a fable.

You will believe that calamity has subverted my reason,
and that I am amusing you
with the chimeras of my brain instead of facts that have really happened.

I shall not be surprised or offended if these be your suspicions.

I know not,
indeed,
how you can deny them admission.

For,
if
to me,
the immediate witness,
they were fertile of perplexity and doubt,
how must they affect another
to whom they are recommended only by my testimony?

It was only by subsequent events that I was fully and incontestably assured of the veracity of my senses.Meanwhile,
what was I
to think?

I had been assured that a design had been formed against my life.

The ruffians had leagued
to murder me.

Whom had I offended?

Who was there,

with whom I had ever maintained intercourse,
who was capable of harboring such atrocious purposes?
My temper was the reverse of cruel and imperious.

My heart was touched
with sympathy
for the children of misfortune.

But this sympathy was not a barren sentiment.

My purse,
scanty as it was,
was ever open,
and my hands ever active,

to relieve distress.

Many were the wretches whom my personal exertions had extricated from want and disease,
and who rewarded me
with their gratitude.

There was no face which lowered at my approach,
and no lips which uttered imprecations in my hearing.

On the contrary,
there was none,
over whose fate I had exerted any influence or
to whom I was known by reputation,
who did not greet me
with smiles and dismiss me
with proofs of veneration:

yet did not my senses assure me that a plot was laid against my life?
I am not destitute of courage.

I have shown myself deliberative and calm in the midst of peril.

I have hazarded my own life
for the preservation of another;
but now was I confused and panic- struck.

I have not lived so as
to fear death;
yet
to perish by an unseen and secret stroke,

to be mangled by the knife of an assassin,
was a thought at which I shuddered:

what had I done
to deserve
to be made the victim of malignant passions?
But soft!

was I not assured that my life was safe in all places but one?

And why was the treason limited
to take effect in this spot?

I was everywhere equally defenseless.

My house and chamber were at all times accessible.

Danger still impended over me;
the bloody purpose was still entertained,
but the hand that was
to execute it was powerless in all places but one!
Here I had remained
for the last four or five hours,
without the means of resistance or defense;
yet I had not been attacked.

A human being was at hand,
who was conscious of my presence,
and warned me hereafter
to avoid this retreat.

His voice was not absolutely new,
but had I never heard it but once before?

But why did he prohibit me from relating this incident
to others,
and what species of death will be awarded if I disobey?
Such were the reflections that haunted me during the night,
and which effectually deprived me of sleep.

Next morning,
at breakfast,
Pleyel related an event which my disappearance had hindered him from mentioning the night before.

Early the preceding morning,
his occasions called him
to the city:

he had stepped in
to a coffee-house
to while away an hour;
here he had met a person whose appearance instantly bespoke him
to be the same whose hasty visit I have mentioned,
and whose extraordinary visage and tones had so powerfully affected me.

On an attentive survey,
however,
he proved,
likewise,

to be one
with whom my friend had had some intercourse in Europe.

This authorized the liberty of accosting him,
and after some conversation,
mindful,
as Pleyel said,
of the footing which this stranger had gained in my heart,
he had ventured
to invite him
to Mettingen.

The invitation had been cheerfully accepted,
and a visit promised on the afternoon of the next day.This information excited no sober emotions in my breast.

I was,
of course,
eager
to be informed as
to the circumstances of their ancient intercourse.

When and where had they met?

What knew he of the life and character of this man?
In answer
to my inquiries,
he informed me that,
three years before,
he was a traveler in Spain.

He had made an excursion from Valencia
to Murviedro,

with a view
to inspect the remains of Roman magnificence scattered in the environs of that town.

While traversing the site of the theater of old Saguntum,
he alighted upon this man,
seated on a stone,
and deeply engaged in perusing the work of the deacon Marti.

A short conversation ensued,
which proved the stranger
to be English.

They returned
to Valencia together.His garb,
aspect,
and deportment were wholly Spanish.

A residence of three years in the country,
indefatigable attention
to the language,
and a studious conformity
with the customs of the people,
had made him indistinguishable from a native when he chose
to assume that character.

Pleyel found him
to be connected,
on the footing of friendship and respect,

with many eminent merchants in that city.

He had embraced the Catholic religion,
and adopted a Spanish name instead of his own,
which was CARWIN,
and devoted himself
to the literature and religion of his new country.

He pursued no profession,
but subsisted on remittances from England.While Pleyel remained in Valencia,
Carwin betrayed no aversion
to intercourse,
and the former found no small attractions in the society of this new acquaintance,
On general topics he was highly intelligent and communicative.

He had visited every corner of Spain,
and could furnish the most accurate details respecting its ancient and present state.

On topics of religion and of his own history,
previous
to his TRANSFORMATION in
to a Spaniard,
he was invariably silent.

You could merely gather from his discourse that he was English,
and that he was well acquainted
with the neighboring countries.His character excited considerable curiosity in the observer.

It was not easy
to reconcile his conversion
to the Romish faith
with those proofs of knowledge and capacity that were exhibited by him on different occasions.

A suspicion was sometimes admitted that his belief was counterfeited
for some political purpose.

The most careful observation,
however,
produced no discovery.

His manners were at all times harmless and inartificial,
and his habits those of a lover of contemplation and seclusion.

He appeared
to have contracted an affection
for Pleyel,
who was not slow
to return it.My friend,
after a month's residence in this city,
returned in
to France,
and,
since that period,
had heard nothing concerning Carwin till his appearance at Mettingen.On this occasion Carwin had received Pleyel's greeting
with a certain distance and solemnity
to which the latter had not been accustomed.

He had waived noticing the inquiries of Pleyel respecting his desertion of Spain,
in which he had formerly declared that it was his purpose
to spend his life.

He had assiduously diverted the attention of the latter
to indifferent topics,
but was still,
on every theme,
as eloquent and judicious as formerly.

Why he had assumed the garb of a rustic Pleyel was unable
to conjecture.

Perhaps it might be poverty;
perhaps he was swayed by motives which it was his interest
to conceal,
but which were connected
with consequences of the utmost moment.Such was the sum of my friend's information.

I was not sorry
to be left alone during the greater part of this day.

Every employment was irksome which did not leave me at liberty
to meditate.

I had now a new subject on which
to exercise my thoughts.

Before evening I should be ushered in
to his presence,
and listen
to those tones whose magical and thrilling power I had already experienced.

But
with what new images would he then be accompanied?
Carwin was an adherent
to the Romish faith,
yet was an Englishman by birth,
and,
perhaps,
a Protestant by education.

He had adopted Spain
for his country,
and had intimated a design
to spend his days there,
yet now was an inhabitant of this district,
and disguised by the habiliments of a clown!

What could have obliterated the impressions of his youth and made him abjure his religion and his country?

What subsequent events had introduced so total a change in his plans?

In withdrawing from Spain,
had he reverted
to the religion of his ancestors?

or was it true that his former conversion was deceitful,
and that his conduct had been swayed by motives which it was prudent
to conceal?
Hours were consumed in revolving these ideas.

My meditations were intense;
and,
when the series was broken,
I began
to reflect
with astonishment on my situation.

From the death of my parents till the commencement of this year my life had been serene and blissful beyond the ordinary portion of humanity;
but now my bosom was corroded by anxiety.

I was visited by dread of unknown dangers,
and the future was a scene over which clouds rolled and thunders muttered.

I compared the cause
with the effect,
and they seemed disproportioned
to each other.

All unaware,
and in a manner which I had no power
to explain,
I was pushed from my immovable and lofty station and cast upon a sea of troubles.I determined
to be my brother's visitant on this evening;
yet my resolves were not unattended
with wavering and reluctance.

Pleyel's insinuations that I was in love affected in no degree my belief;
yet the consciousness that this was the opinion of one who would probably be present at our introduction
to each other would excite all that confusion which the passion itself is apt
to produce.

This would confirm him in his error and call forth new railleries.

His mirth,
when exerted upon this topic,
was the source of the bitterest vexation.

Had he been aware of its influence upon my happiness,
his temper would not have allowed him
to persist;
but this influence it was my chief endeavor
to conceal.

That the belief of my having bestowed my heart upon another produced in my friend none but ludicrous sensations was the true cause of my distress;
but if this had been discovered by him my distress would have been unspeakably aggravated.

III
As soon as evening arrived,
I performed my visit.

Carwin made one of the company in
to which I was ushered.

Appearances were the same as when I before beheld him.

His garb was equally negligent and rustic.

I gazed upon his countenance
with new curiosity.

My situation was such as
to enable me
to bestow upon it a deliberate examination.

Viewed at more leisure,
it lost none of its wonderful properties.

I could not deny my homage
to the intelligence expressed in it,
but was wholly uncertain whether he were an object
to be dreaded or adored,
and whether his powers had been exerted
to evil or
to good.He was sparing in discourse;
but whatever he said was pregnant
with meaning,
and uttered
with rectitude of articulation and force of emphasis of which I had entertained no conception previously
to my knowledge of him.

Notwithstanding the uncouthness of his garb,
his manners were not unpolished.

All topics were handled by him
with skill,
and without pedantry or affectation.

He uttered no sentiment calculated
to produce a disadvantageous impression;
on the contrary,
his observations denoted a mind alive
to every generous and heroic feeling.

They were introduced without parade,
and accompanied
with that degree of earnestness which indicates sincerity.He parted from us not till late,
refusing an invitation
to spend the night here,
but readily consented
to repeat his visit.

His visits were frequently repeated.

Each day introduced us
to a more intimate acquaintance
with his sentiments,
but left us wholly in the dark concerning that about which we were most inquisitive.

He studiously avoided all mention of his past or present situation.

Even the place of his abode in the city he concealed from us.Our sphere in this respect being somewhat limited,
and the intellectual endowments of this man being indisputably great,
his deportment was more diligently marked and copiously commented on by us than you,
perhaps,
will think the circumstances warranted.

Not a gesture,
or glance,
or accent,
that was not,
in our private assemblies,
discussed,
and inferences deduced from it.

It may well be thought that he modeled his behavior by an uncommon standard,
when,

with all our opportunities and accuracy of observation,
we were able
for a long time
to gather no satisfactory information.

He afforded us no ground on which
to build even a plausible conjecture.There is a degree of familiarity which takes place between constant associates,
that justifies the negligence of many rules of which,
in an earlier period of their intercourse,
politeness requires the exact observance.

Inquiries in
to our condition are allowable when they are prompted by a disinterested concern
for our welfare;
and this solicitude is not only pardonable,
but may justly be demanded from those who choose us
for their companions.

This state of things was more slow
to arrive at on this occasion than on most others,
on account of the gravity and loftiness of this man's behavior.Pleyel,
however,
began at length
to employ regular means
for this end.

He occasionally alluded
to the circumstances in which they had formerly met,
and remarked the incongruousness between the religion and habits of a Spaniard
with those of a native of Britain.

He expressed his astonishment at meeting our guest in this corner of the globe,
especially as,
when they parted in Spain,
he was taught
to believe that Carwin should never leave that country.

He insinuated that a change so great must have been prompted by motives of a singular and momentous kind.No answer,
or an answer wide of the purpose,
was generally made
to these insinuations.

Britons and Spaniards,
he said,
are votaries of the same Deity,
and square their faith by the same precepts;
their ideas are drawn from the same fountains of literature,
and they speak dialects of the same tongue;
their government and laws have more resemblances than differences;
they were formerly provinces of the same civil,
and,
till lately,
of the same religious,
empire.As
to the motives which induce men
to change the place of their abode,
these must unavoidably be fleeting and mutable.

If not bound
to one spot by conjugal or parental ties,
or by the nature of that employment
to which we are indebted
for subsistence,
the inducements
to change are far more numerous and powerful than opposite inducements.He spoke as if desirous of showing that he was not aware of the tendency of Pleyel's remarks;
yet certain tokens were apparent that proved him by no means wanting in penetration.

These tokens were
to be read in his countenance,
and not in his words.

When anything was said indicating curiosity in us,
the gloom of his countenance was deepened,
his eyes sunk
to the ground,
and his wonted air was not resumed without visible struggle.

Hence,
it was obvious
to infer that some incidents of his life were reflected on by him
with regret;
and that,
since these incidents were carefully concealed,
and even that regret which flowed from them laboriously stifled,
they had not been merely disastrous.

The secrecy that was observed appeared not designed
to provoke or baffle the inquisitive,
but was prompted by the shame or by the prudence of guilt.These ideas,
which were adopted by Pleyel and my brother as well as myself,
hindered us from employing more direct means
for accomplishing our wishes.

Questions might have been put in such terms that no room should be left
for the pretense of misapprehension;
and,
if modesty merely had been the obstacle,
such questions would not have been wanting;
but we considered that,
if the disclosure were productive of pain or disgrace,
it was inhuman
to extort it.Amidst the various topics that were discussed in his presence,
allusions were,
of course,
made
to the inexplicable events that had lately happened.

At those times the words and looks of this man were objects of my particular attention.

The subject was extraordinary;
and anyone whose experience or reflections could throw any light upon it was entitled
to my gratitude.

As this man was enlightened by reading and travel,
I listened
with eagerness
to the remarks which he should make.At first I entertained a kind of apprehension that the tale would be heard by him
with incredulity and secret ridicule.

I had formerly heard stories that resembled this in some of their mysterious circumstances;
but they were commonly heard by me
with contempt.

I was doubtful whether the same impression would not now be made on the mind of our guest;
but I was mistaken in my fears.He heard them
with seriousness,
and without any marks either of surprise or incredulity.

He pursued
with visible pleasure that kind of disquisition which was naturally suggested by them.

His fancy was eminently vigorous and prolific;
and,
if he did not persuade us that human beings are sometimes admitted
to a sensible intercourse
with the Author of nature,
he at least won over our inclination
to the cause.

He merely deduced,
from his own reasonings,
that such intercourse was probable,
but confessed that,
though he was acquainted
with many instances somewhat similar
to those which had been related by us,
none of them were perfectly exempted from the suspicion of human agency.On being requested
to relate these instances,
he amused us
with many curious details.

His narratives were constructed
with so much skill,
and rehearsed
with so much energy,
that all the effects of a dramatic exhibition were frequently produced by them.

Those that were most coherent and most minute,
and,
of consequence,
least entitled
to credit,
were yet rendered probable by the exquisite art of this rhetorician.


for every difficulty that was suggested a ready and plausible solution was furnished.

Mysterious voices had always a share in producing the catastrophe;
but they were always
to be explained on some known principles,
either as reflected in
to a focus or communicated through a tube.

I could not but remark that his narratives,
however complex or marvelous,
contained no instance sufficiently parallel
to those that had befallen ourselves,
and in which the solution was applicable
to our own case.My brother was a much more sanguine reasoner than our guest.

Even in some of the facts which were related by Carwin,
he maintained the probability of celestial interference,
when the latter was disposed
to deny it,
and had found,
as he imagined,
footsteps of a human agent.

Pleyel was by no means equally credulous.

He scrupled not
to deny faith
to any testimony but that of his senses,
and allowed the facts which had lately been supported by this testimony not
to mold his belief,
but merely
to give birth
to doubts.It was soon observed that Carwin adopted,
in some degree,
a similar distinction.

A tale of this kind,
related by others,
he would believe,
provided it was explicable upon known principles;
but that such notices were actually communicated by beings of a higher order he would believe only when his own ears were assailed in a manner which could not be otherwise accounted for.

Civility forbade him
to contradict my brother or myself,
but his understanding refused
to acquiesce in our testimony.

Besides,
he was disposed
to question whether the voices were not really uttered by human organs.

On this supposition he was desired
to explain how the effect was produced.He answered that the cry
for help,
heard in the hall on the night of my adventure,
was
to be ascribed
to a human creature,
who actually stood in the hall when he uttered it.

It was of no moment,
he said,
that we could not explain by what motives he that made the signal was led hither.

How imperfectly acquainted were we
with the condition and designs of the beings that surrounded us!

The city was near at hand,
and thousands might there exist whose powers and purposes might easily explain whatever was mysterious in this transaction.

As
to the closet dialogue,
he was obliged
to adopt one of two suppositions,
and affirm either that it was fashioned in my own fancy,
or that it actually took place between two persons in the closet.Such was Carwin's mode of explaining these appearances.

It is such,
perhaps,
as would commend itself as most plausible
to the most sagacious minds;
but it was insufficient
to impart conviction
to us.

As
to the treason that was meditated against me,
it was doubtless just
to conclude that it was either real or imaginary;
but that it was real was attested by the mysterious warning in the summer-house,
the secret of which I had hither
to locked up in my own breast.A month passed away in this kind of intercourse.

As
to Carwin,
our ignorance was in no degree enlightened respecting his genuine character and views.

Appearances were uniform.

No man possessed a larger store of knowledge,
or a greater degree of skill in the communication of it
to others;
hence he was regarded as an inestimable addition
to our society.

Considering the distance of my brother's house from the city,
he was frequently prevailed upon
to pass the night where he spent the evening.

Two days seldom elapsed without a visit from him;
hence he was regarded as a kind of inmate of the house.

He entered and departed without ceremony.

When he arrived he received an unaffected welcome,
and when he chose
to retire no importunities were used
to induce him
to remain.Carwin never parted
with his gravity.

The inscrutableness of his character,
and the uncertainty whether his fellowship tended
to good or
to evil,
were seldom absent from our minds.

This circumstance powerfully contributed
to sadden us.My heart was the seat of growing disquietudes.

This change in one who had formerly been characterized by all the exuberances of soul could not fail
to be remarked by my friends.

My brother was always a pattern of solemnity.

My sister was clay,
molded by the circumstances in which she happened
to be placed.

There was but one whose deportment remains
to be described as being of importance
to our happiness.

Had Pleyel likewise dismissed his vivacity?
He was as whimsical and jestful as ever,
but he was not happy.

The truth in this respect was of too much importance
to me not
to make me a vigilant observer.

His mirth was easily perceived
to be the fruit of exertion.

When his thoughts wandered from the company,
an air of dissatisfaction and impatience stole across his features.

Even the punctuality and frequency of his visits were somewhat lessened.

It may be supposed that my own uneasiness was heightened by these tokens;
but,
strange as it may seem,
I found,
in the present state of my mind,
no relief but in the persuasion that Pleyel was unhappy.That unhappiness,
indeed,
depended
for its value in my eyes on the cause that produced it.

There was but one source whence it could flow.

A nameless ecstasy thrilled through my frame when any new proof occurred that the ambiguousness of my behavior was the cause.

IV
My brother had received a new book from Germany.

It was a tragedy,
and the first attempt of a Saxon poet of whom my brother had been taught
to entertain the highest expectations.

The exploits of Zisca,
the Bohemian hero,
were woven in
to a dramatic series and connection.

According
to German custom,
it was minute and diffuse,
and dictated by an adventurous and lawless fancy.

It was a chain of audacious acts and unheard-of disasters.

The moated fortress and the thicket,
the ambush and the battle,
and the conflict of headlong passions,
were portrayed in wild numbers and
with terrific energy.

An afternoon was set apart
to rehearse this performance.

The language was familiar
to all of us but Carwin,
whose company,
therefore,
was tacitly dispensed with.The morning previous
to this intended rehearsal I spent at home.

My mind was occupied
with reflections relative
to my own situation.

The sentiment which lived
with chief energy in my heart was connected
with the image of Pleyel.

In the midst of my anguish,
I had not been destitute of consolation.

His late deportment had given spring
to my hopes.

Was not the hour at hand which should render me the happiest of human creatures?

He suspected that I looked
with favorable eyes upon Carwin.

Hence arose disquietudes which he struggled in vain
to conceal.

He loved me,
but was hopeless that his love would be compensated.

Is it not time,
said I,

to rectify this error?

But by what means is this
to be effected?

It can only be done by a change of deportment in me;
but how must I demean myself
for this purpose?
I must not speak.

Neither eyes nor lips must impart the information.

He must not be assured that my heart is his,
previous
to the tender of his own;
but he must be convinced that it has not been given
to another;
he must be supplied
with space whereon
to build a doubt as
to the true state of my affections;
he must be prompted
to avow himself.

The line of delicate propriety,--how hard it is not
to fall short,
and not
to overleap it!
This afternoon we shall meet.

.

.

.

We shall not separate till late.

It will be his province
to accompany me home.

The airy expanse is without a speck.

This breeze is usually steadfast,
and its promise of a bland and cloudless evening may be trusted.

The moon will rise at eleven,
and at that hour we shall wind along this bank.

Possibly that hour may decide my fate.

If suitable encouragement be given,
Pleyel will reveal his soul
to me;
and I,
ere I reach this threshold,
will be made the happiest of beings.And is this good
to be mine?

Add wings
to thy speed,
sweet evening;
and thou,
moon,
I charge thee,
shroud thy beams at the moment when my Pleyel whispers love.

I would not
for the world that the burning blushes and the mounting raptures of that moment should be visible.But what encouragement is wanting?

I must be regardful of insurmountable limits.

Yet,
when minds are imbued
with a genuine sympathy,
are not words and looks superfluous?

Are not motion and touch sufficient
to impart feelings such as mine?

Has he not eyed me at moments when the pressure of his hand has thrown me in
to tumults,
and was it impossible that he mistook the impetuosities of love
for the eloquence of indignation?
But the hastening evening will decide.

Would it were come!

And yet I shudder at its near approach.

An interview that must thus terminate is surely
to be wished
for by me;
and yet it is not without its terrors.

Would
to heaven it were come and gone!
I feel no reluctance,
my friends,

to be thus explicit.

Time was,
when these emotions would be hidden
with immeasurable solicitude from every human eye.

Alas!

these airy and fleeting impulses of shame are gone.

My scruples were preposterous and criminal.

They are bred in all hearts by a perverse and vicious education,
and they would still have maintained their place in my heart,
had not my portion been set in misery.

My errors have taught me thus much wisdom:--that those sentiments which we ought not
to disclose it is criminal
to harbor.It was proposed
to begin the rehearsal at four o'clock.

I counted the minutes as they passed;
their flight was at once too rapid and too slow:

my sensations were of an excruciating kind;
I could taste no food,
nor apply
to any task,
nor enjoy a moment's repose;
when the hour arrived I hastened
to my brother's.Pleyel was not there.

He had not yet come.

On ordinary occasions he was eminent
for punctuality.

He had testified great eagerness
to share in the pleasures of this rehearsal.

He was
to divide the task
with my brother,
and in tasks like these he always engaged
with peculiar zeal.

His elocution was less sweet than sonorous,
and,
therefore,
better adapted than the mellifluences of his friend
to the outrageous vehemence of this drama.What could detain him?

Perhaps he lingered through forgetfulness.

Yet this was incredible.

Never had his memory been known
to fail upon even more trivial occasions.

Not less impossible was it that the scheme had lost its attractions,
and that he stayed because his coming would afford him no gratification.

But why should we expect him
to adhere
to the minute?
A half-hour elapsed,
but Pleyel was still at a distance.

Perhaps he had misunderstood the hour which had been proposed.

Perhaps he had conceived that to-morrow,
and not to-day,
had been selected
for this purpose;
but no.

A review of preceding circumstances demonstrated that such misapprehension was impossible;

for he had himself proposed this day,
and this hour.

This day his attention would not otherwise be occupied;
but to-morrow an indispensable engagement was foreseen,
by which all his time would be engrossed;
his detention,
therefore,
must be owing
to some unforeseen and extraordinary event.

Our conjectures were vague,
tumultuous,
and sometimes fearful.

His sickness and his death might possibly have detained him.Tortured
with suspense,
we sat gazing at each other,
and at the path which led from the road.

Every horseman that passed was,

for a moment,
imagined
to be him.

Hour succeeded hour,
and the sun,
gradually declining,
at length disappeared.

Every signal of his coming proved fallacious,
and our hopes were at length dismissed.

His absence affected my friends in no insupportable degree.

They should be obliged,
they said,

to defer this undertaking till the morrow;
and perhaps their impatient curiosity would compel them
to dispense entirely
with his presence.

No doubt some harmless occurrence had diverted him from his purpose;
and they trusted that they should receive a satisfactory account of him in the morning.It may be supposed that this disappointment affected me in a very different manner.

I turned aside my head
to conceal my tears.

I fled in
to solitude,

to give vent
to my reproaches without interruption or restraint.

My heart was ready
to burst
with indignation and grief.

Pleyel was not the only object of my keen but unjust upbraiding.

Deeply did I execrate my own folly.

Thus fallen in
to ruins was the gay fabric which I had reared!

Thus had my golden vision melted in
to air!
How fondly did I dream that Pleyel was a lover!

If he were,
would he have suffered any obstacle
to hinder his coming?

"Blind and infatuated man!" I exclaimed.

"Thou sportest
with happiness.

The good that is offered thee thou hast the insolence and folly
to refuse.

Well,
I will henceforth intrust my felicity
to no one's keeping but my own."


The first agonies of this disappointment would not allow me
to be reasonable or just.

Every ground on which I had built the persuasion that Pleyel was not unimpressed in my favor appeared
to vanish.

It seemed as if I had been misled in
to this opinion by the most palpable illusions.I made some trifling excuse,
and returned,
much earlier than I expected,

to my own house.

I retired early
to my chamber,
without designing
to sleep.

I placed myself at a window,
and gave the reins
to reflection.The hateful and degrading impulses which had lately controlled me were,
in some degree,
removed.

New dejection succeeded,
but was now produced by contemplating my late behavior.

Surely that passion is worthy
to be abhorred which obscures our understanding and urges us
to the commission of injustice.

What right had I
to expect his attendance?

Had I not demeaned myself like one indifferent
to his happiness,
and as having bestowed my regards upon another?

His absence might be prompted by the love which I considered his absence as a proof that he wanted.

He came not because the sight of me,
the spectacle of my coldness or aversion,
contributed
to his despair.

Why should I prolong,
by hypocrisy or silence,
his misery as well as my own?

Why not deal
with him explicitly,
and assure him of the truth?
You will hardly believe that,
in obedience
to this suggestion,
I rose
for the purpose of ordering a light,
that I might instantly make this confession in a letter.

A second thought showed me the rashness of this scheme,
and I wondered by what infirmity of mind I could be betrayed in
to a momentary approbation of it.

I saw
with the utmost clearness that a confession like that would be the most remediless and unpardonable outrage upon the dignity of my sex,
and utterly unworthy of that passion which controlled me.I resumed my seat and my musing.


to account
for the absence of Pleyel became once more the scope of my conjectures.

How many incidents might occur
to raise an insuperable impediment in his way!

When I was a child,
a scheme of pleasure,
in which he and his sister were parties,
had been in like manner frustrated by his absence;
but his absence,
in that instance,
had been occasioned by his falling from a boat in
to the river,
in consequence of which he had run the most imminent hazard of being drowned.

Here was a second disappointment endured by the same persons,
and produced by his failure.

Might it not originate in the same cause?

Had he not designed
to cross the river that morning
to make some necessary purchases in New Jersey?

He had preconcerted
to return
to his own house
to dinner but perhaps some disaster had befallen him.

Experience had taught me the insecurity of a canoe,
and that was the only kind of boat which Pleyel used;
I was,
likewise,
actuated by an hereditary dread of water.

These circumstances combined
to bestow considerable plausibility on this conjecture;
but the consternation
with which I began
to be seized was allayed by reflecting that,
if this disaster had happened,
my brother would have received the speediest information of it.

The consolation which this idea imparted was ravished from me by a new thought.

This disaster might have happened,
and his family not be apprised of it.

The first intelligence of his fate may be communicated by the livid corpse which the tide may cast,
many days hence,
upon the shore.Thus was I distressed by opposite conjectures;
thus was I tormented by phantoms of my own creation.

It was not always thus.

I can ascertain the date when my mind became the victim of this imbecility;
perhaps it was coeval
with the inroad of a fatal passion,--a passion that will never rank me in the number of its eulogists;
it was alone sufficient
to the extermination of my peace;
it was itself a plenteous source of calamity,
and needed not the concurrence of other evils
to take away the attractions of existence and dig
for me an untimely grave.The state of my mind naturally introduced a train of reflections upon the dangers and cares which inevitably beset a human being.

By no violent transition was I led
to ponder on the turbulent life and mysterious end of my father.

I cherished
with the utmost veneration the memory of this man,
and every relic connected
with his fate was preserved
with the most scrupulous care.

Among these was
to be numbered a manuscript containing memoirs of his own life.

The narrative was by no means recommended by its eloquence;
but neither did all its value flow from my relationship
to the author.

Its style had an unaffected and picturesque simplicity.

The great variety and circumstantial display of the incidents,
together
with their intrinsic importance as descriptive of human manners and passions,
made it the most useful book in my collection.

It was late:

but,
being sensible of no inclination
to sleep,
I resolved
to betake myself
to the perusal of it.
to do this,
it was requisite
to procure a light.

The girl had long since retired
to her chamber:

it was therefore proper
to wait upon myself.

A lamp,
and the means of lighting it,
were only
to be found in the kitchen.

Thither I resolved forth
with
to repair;
but the light was of use merely
to enable me
to read the book.

I knew the shelf and the spot where it stood.

Whether I took down the book,
or prepared the lamp in the first place,
appeared
to be a matter of no moment.

The latter was preferred,
and,
leaving my seat,
I approached the closet in which,
as I mentioned formerly,
my books and papers were deposited.Suddenly the remembrance of what had lately passed in this closet occurred.

Whether midnight was approaching,
or had passed,
I knew not.

I was,
as then,
alone and defenseless.

The wind was in that direction in which,
aided by the deathlike repose of nature,
it brought
to me the murmur of the waterfall.

This was mingled
with that solemn and enchanting sound which a breeze produces among the leaves of pines.

The words of that mysterious dialogue,
their fearful import,
and the wild excess
to which I was transported by my terrors,
filled my imagination anew.

My steps faltered,
and I stood a moment
to recover myself.I prevailed on myself at length
to move toward the closet.

I touched the lock,
but my fingers were powerless;
I was visited afresh by unconquerable apprehensions.

A sort of belief darted in
to my mind that some being was concealed within whose purposes were evil.

I began
to contend
with those fears,
when it occurred
to me that I might,
without impropriety,
go
for a lamp previously
to opening the closet.

I receded a few steps;
but before I reached the chamber door my thoughts took a new direction.

Motion seemed
to produce a mechanical influence upon me.

I was ashamed of my weakness.

Besides,
what aid could be afforded me by a lamp?
My fears had pictured
to themselves no precise object.

It would be difficult
to depict in words the ingredients and hues of that phantom which haunted me.

A hand invisible and of preternatural strength,
lifted by human passions,
and selecting my life
for its aim,
were parts of this terrific image.

All places were alike accessible
to this foe;
or,
if his empire were restricted by local bounds,
those bounds were utterly inscrutable by me.

But had I not been told,
by some one in league
with this enemy,
that every place but the recess in the bank was exempt from danger?
I returned
to the closet,
and once more put my hand upon the lock.

Oh,
may my ears lose their sensibility ere they be again assailed by a shriek so terrible!

Not merely my understanding was subdued by the sound;
it acted on my nerves like an edge of steel.

It appeared
to cut asunder the fibers of my brain and rack every joint
with agony.The cry,
loud and piercing as it was,
was nevertheless human.

No articulation was ever more distinct.

The breath which accompanied it did not fan my hair,
yet did every circumstance combine
to persuade me that the lips which uttered it touched my very shoulder."

Hold!

hold!" were the words of this tremendous prohibition,
in whose tone the whole soul seemed
to be wrapped up,
and every energy converted in
to eagerness and terror.Shuddering,
I dashed myself against the wall,
and,
by the same involuntary impulse,
turned my face backward
to examine the mysterious monitor.

The moonlight streamed in
to each window,
and every corner of the room was conspicuous,
and yet I beheld nothing!
The interval was too brief
to be artificially measured,
between the utterance of these words and my scrutiny directed
to the quarter whence they came.

Yet,
if a human being had been there,
could he fail
to have been visible?

Which of my senses was the prey of a fatal illusion?

The shock which the sound produced was still felt in every part of my frame.

The sound,
therefore,
could not but be a genuine commotion.

But that I had heard it was not more true than that the being who uttered it was stationed at my right ear;
yet my attendant was invisible.I cannot describe the state of my thoughts at that moment.

Surprise had mastered my faculties.

My frame shook,
and the vital current was congealed.

I was conscious only of the vehemence of my sensations.

This condition could not be lasting.

Like a tide,
which suddenly mounts
to an overwhelming height and then gradually subsides,
my confusion slowly gave place
to order,
and my tumults
to a calm.

I was able
to deliberate and move.

I resumed my feet,
and advanced in
to the midst of the room.

Upward,
and behind,
and on each side,
I threw penetrating glances.

I was not satisfied
with one examination.

He that hither
to refused
to be seen might change his purpose,
and on the next survey be clearly distinguishable.Solitude imposes least restraint upon the fancy.

Dark is less fertile of images than the feeble luster of the moon.

I was alone,
and the walls were checkered by shadowy forMs. As the moon passed behind a cloud and emerged,
these shadows seemed
to be endowed
with life,
and
to move.

The apartment was open
to the breeze,
and the curtain was occasionally blown from its ordinary position.

This motion was not unaccompanied
with sound.

I failed not
to snatch a look and
to listen when this motion and this sound occurred.

My belief that my monitor was posted near was strong,
and instantly converted these appearances
to tokens of his presence;
and yet I could discern nothing.When my thoughts were at length permitted
to revert
to the past,
the first idea that occurred was the resemblance between the words of the voice which I had just heard and those which had terminated my dream in the summer-house.

There are means by which we are able
to distinguish a substance from a shadow,
a reality from the phantom of a dream.

The pit,
my brother beckoning me forward,
the seizure of my arm,
and the voice behind,
were surely imaginary.

That these incidents were fashioned in my sleep is supported by the same indubitable evidence that compels me
to believe myself awake at present;
yet the words and the voice were the same.

Then,
by some inexplicable contrivance,
I was aware of the danger,
while my actions and sensations were those of one wholly unacquainted
with it.

Now,
was it not equally true that my actions and persuasions were at war?

Had not the belief that evil lurked in the closet gained admittance,
and had not my actions betokened an unwarrantable security?


to obviate the effects of my infatuation,
the same means had been used.In my dream,
he that tempted me
to my destruction was my brother.

Death was ambushed in my path.

From what evil was I now rescued?

What minister or implement of ill was shut up in this recess?

Who was it whose suffocating grasp I was
to feel should I dare
to enter it?

What monstrous conception is this?

My brother?
No;
protection,
and not injury,
is his province.

Strange and terrible chimera!

Yet it would not be suddenly dismissed.

It was surely no vulgar agency that gave this form
to my fears.

He
to whom all parts of time are equally present,
whom no contingency approaches,
was the author of that spell which now seized upon me.

Life was dear
to me.

No consideration was present that enjoined me
to relinquish it.

Sacred duty combined
with every spontaneous sentiment
to endear
to me my being.

Should I not shudder when my being was endangered?

But what emotion should possess me when the arm lifted against me was Wieland's?
Ideas exist in our minds that can be accounted
for by no established laws.

Why did I dream that my brother was my foe?

Why but because an omen of my fate was ordained
to be communicated?

Yet what salutary end did it serve?

Did it arm me
with caution
to elude or fortitude
to bear the evils
to which I was reserved?

My present thoughts were,
no doubt,
indebted
for their hue
to the similitude existing between these incidents and those of my dream.

Surely it was frenzy that dictated my deed.

That a ruffian was hidden in the closet was an idea the genuine tendency of which was
to urge me
to flight.

Such had been the effect formerly produced.

Had my mind been simply occupied
with this thought at present,
no doubt the same impulse would have been experienced;
but now it was my brother whom I was irresistibly persuaded
to regard as the contriver of that ill of which I had been forewarned.

This persuasion did not extenuate my fears or my danger.

Why then did I again approach the closet and withdraw the bolt?

My resolution was instantly conceived,
and executed without faltering.The door was formed of light materials.

The lock,
of simple structure,
easily forewent its hold.

It opened in
to the room,
and commonly moved upon its hinges,
after being unfastened,
without any effort of mine.

This effort,
however,
was bestowed upon the present occasion.

It was my purpose
to open it
with quickness;
but the exertion which I made was ineffectual.

It refused
to open.At another time,
this circumstance would not have looked
with a face of mystery.

I should have supposed some casual obstruction and repeated my efforts
to surmount it.

But now my mind was accessible
to no conjecture but one.

The door was hindered from opening by human force.

Surely,
here was a new cause
for affright.

This was confirmation proper
to decide my conduct.

Now was all ground of hesitation taken away.

What could be supposed but that I deserted the chamber and the house?

that I at least endeavored no longer
to withdraw the door?
Have I not said that my actions were dictated by frenzy?

My reason had forborne,

for a time,

to suggest or
to sway my resolves.

I reiterated my endeavors.

I exerted all my force
to overcome the obstacle,
but in vain.

The strength that was exerted
to keep it shut was superior
to mine.A casual observer might,
perhaps,
applaud the audaciousness of this conduct.

Whence,
but from a habitual defiance of danger,
could my perseverance arise?

I have already assigned,
as distinctly as I am able,
the cause of it.

The frantic conception that my brother was within,
that the resistance made
to my design was exerted by him,
had rooted itself in my mind.

You will comprehend the height of this infatuation,
when I tell you that,
finding all my exertions vain,
I betook myself
to exclamations.

Surely I was utterly bereft of understanding.Now I had arrived at the crisis of my fate.

"Oh,
hinder not the door
to open," I exclaimed,
in a tone that had less of fear than of grief in it.

"I know you well.

Come forth,
but harm me not.

I beseech you,
come forth."


I had taken my hand from the lock and removed
to a small distance from the door.

I had scarcely uttered these words,
when the door swung upon its hinges and displayed
to my view the interior of the closet.

Whoever was within was shrouded in darkness.

A few seconds passed without interruption of the silence.

I knew not what
to expect or
to fear.

My eyes would not stray from the recess.

Presently,
a deep sigh was heard.

The quarter from which it came heightened the eagerness of my gaze.

Some one approached from the farther end.

I quickly perceived the outlines of a human figure.

Its steps were irresolute and slow.

I recoiled as it advanced.By coming at length within the verge of the room,
his form was clearly distinguishable.

I had prefigured
to myself a very different personage.

The face that presented itself was the last that I should desire
to meet at an hour and in a place like this.

My wonder was stifled by my fears.

Assassins had lurked in this recess.

Some divine voice warned me of danger that at this moment awaited me.

I had spurned the intimation,
and challenged my adversary.I recalled the mysterious countenance and dubious character of Carwin.

What motive but atrocious ones could guide his steps hither?

I was alone.

My habit suited the hour,
and the place,
and the warmth of the season.

All succor was remote.

He had placed himself between me and the door.

My frame shook
with the vehemence of my apprehensions.Yet I was not wholly lost
to myself;
I vigilantly marked his demeanor.

His looks were grave,
but not without perturbation.

What species of inquietude it betrayed the light was not strong enough
to enable me
to discover.

He stood still;
but his eyes wandered from one object
to another.

When these powerful organs were fixed upon me,
I shrunk in
to myself.

At length he broke silence.

Earnestness,
and not embarrassment,
was in his tone.

He advanced close
to me while he spoke:--
"What voice was that which lately addressed you?"


He paused
for an answer;
but,
observing my trepidation,
he resumed,

with undiminished solemnity,
"Be not terrified.

Whoever he was,
he has done you an important service.

I need not ask you if it were the voice of a companion.

That sound was beyond the compass of human organs.

The knowledge that enabled him
to tell you who was in the closet was obtained by incomprehensible means."

You knew that Carwin was there.

Were you not apprised of his intents?

The same power could impart the one as well as the other.

Yet,
knowing these,
you persisted.

Audacious girl!

But perhaps you confided in his guardianship.

Your confidence was just.


with succor like this at hand you may safely defy me."

He is my eternal foe;
the baffler of my best-concerted schemes.

Twice have you been saved by his accursed interposition.

But
for him I should long ere now have borne away the spoils of your honor."


He looked at me
with greater steadfastness than before.

I became every moment more anxious
for my safety.

It was
with difficulty I stammered out an entreaty that he would instantly depart,
or suffer me
to do so.

He paid no regard
to my request,
but proceeded in a more impassioned manner:--
"What is it you fear?

Have I not told you you are safe?

Has not one in whom you more reasonably place trust assured you of it?

Even if I execute my purpose,
what injury is done?

Your prejudices will call it by that name,
but it merits it not."

I was impelled by a sentiment that does you honor;
a sentiment that would sanctify my deed;
but,
whatever it be,
you are safe.

Be this chimera still worshiped;
I will do nothing
to pollute it."

There he stopped.The accents and gestures of this man left me drained of all courage.

Surely,
on no other occasion should I have been thus pusillanimous.

My state I regarded as a hopeless one.

I was wholly at the mercy of this being.

Whichever way I turned my eyes,
I saw no avenue by which I might escape.

The resources of my personal strength,
my ingenuity,
and my eloquence,
I estimated at nothing.

The dignity of virtue and the force of truth I had been accustomed
to celebrate,
and had frequently vaunted of the conquests which I should make
with their assistance.I used
to suppose that certain evils could never befall a being in possession of a sound mind;
that true virtue supplies us
with energy which vice can never resist;
that it was always in our power
to obstruct,
by his own death,
the designs of an enemy who aimed at less than our life.

How was it that a sentiment like despair had now invaded me,
and that I trusted
to the protection of chance,
or
to the pity of my persecutor?
His words imparted some notion of the injury which he had meditated.

He talked of obstacles that had risen in his way.

He had relinquished his design.

These sources supplied me
with slender consolation.

There was no security but in his absence.

When I looked at myself,
when I reflected on the hour and the place,
I was overpowered by horror and dejection.He was silent,
museful,
and inattentive
to my situation,
yet made no motion
to depart.

I was silent in my turn.

What could I say?

I was confident that reason in this contest would be impotent.

I must owe my safety
to his own suggestions.

Whatever purpose brought him hither,
he had changed it.

Why then did he remain?

His resolutions might fluctuate,
and the pause of a few minutes restore
to him his first resolutions.Yet was not this the man whom we had treated
with unwearied kindness?

whose society was endeared
to us by his intellectual elevation and accomplishments?

who had a thousand times expatiated on the usefulness and beauty of virtue?

Why should such a one be dreaded?

If I could have forgotten the circumstances in which our interview had taken place,
I might have treated his words as jests.

Presently,
he resumed:--
"Fear me not:

the space that severs us is small,
and all visible succor is distant.

You believe yourself completely in my power;
that you stand upon the brink of ruin.

Such are your groundless fears.

I cannot lift a finger
to hurt you.

Easier would it be
to stop the moon in her course than
to injure you.

The power that protects you would crumble my sinews and reduce me
to a heap of ashes in a moment,
if I were
to harbor a thought hostile
to your safety."

Thus are appearances at length solved.

Little did I expect that they originated hence.

What a portion is assigned
to you!

Scanned by the eyes of this intelligence,
your path will be without pits
to swallow or snares
to entangle you.

Environed by the arms of this protection,
all artifices will be frustrated and all malice repelled."


Here succeeded a new pause.

I was still observant of every gesture and look.

The tranquil solemnity that had lately possessed his countenance gave way
to a new expression.

All now was trepidation and anxiety."

I must be gone," said he,
in a faltering accent.

"Why do I linger here?

I will not ask your forgiveness.

I see that your terrors are invincible.

Your pardon will be extorted by fear,
and not dictated by compassion.

I must fly from you forever.

He that could plot against your honor must expect from you and your friends persecution and death.

I must doom myself
to endless exile."


Saying this,
he hastily left the room.

I listened while he descended the stairs,
and,
unbolting the outer door,
went forth.

I did not follow him
with my eyes,
as the moonlight would have enabled me
to do.

Relieved by his absence,
and exhausted by the conflict of my fears,
I threw myself on a chair,
and resigned myself
to those bewildering ideas which incidents like these could not fail
to produce.

V
Order could not readily be introduced in
to my thoughts.

The voice still rung in my ears.

Every accent that was uttered by Carwin was fresh in my remembrance.

His unwelcome approach,
the recognition of his person,
his hasty departure,
produced a complex impression on my mind which no words can delineate.

I strove
to give a slower motion
to my thoughts,
and
to regulate a confusion which became painful;
but my efforts were nugatory.

I covered my eyes
with my hand,
and sat,
I know not how long,
without power
to arrange or utter my conceptions.I had remained
for hours,
as I believed,
in absolute solitude.

No thought of personal danger had molested my tranquillity.

I had made no preparation
for defense.

What was it that suggested the design of perusing my father's manuscript?

If,
instead of this,
I had retired
to bed and
to sleep,

to what fate might I not have been reserved.

The ruffian,
who must almost have suppressed his breathings
to screen himself from discovery,
would have noticed this signal,
and I should have awakened only
to perish
with affright,
and
to abhor myself.

Could I have remained unconscious of my danger?

Could I have tranquilly slept in the midst of so deadly a snare?
And who was he that threatened
to destroy me?

By what means could he hide himself in this closet?

Surely he is gifted
with supernatural power.

Such is the enemy of whose attempts I was forewarned.

Daily I had seen him and conversed
with him.

Nothing could be discerned through the impenetrable veil of his duplicity.

When busied in conjectures as
to the author of the evil that was threatened,
my mind did not light
for a moment upon his image.

Yet has he not avowed himself my enemy?

Why should he be here if he had not meditated evil?
He confesses that this has been his second attempt.

What was the scene of his former conspiracy?

Was it not he whose whispers betrayed him?

Am I deceived?

or was there not a faint resemblance between the voice of this man and that which talked of grasping my throat and extinguishing my life in a moment?

Then he had a colleague in his crime;
now he is alone.

Then death was the scope of his thoughts;
now an injury unspeakably more dreadful.

How thankful should I be
to the power that has interposed
to save me!
That power is invisible.

It is subject
to the cognizance of one of my senses.

What are the means that will inform me of what nature it is?

He has set himself
to counter-work the machinations of this man,
who had menaced destruction
to all that is dear
to me,
and whose coming had surmounted every human impediment.

There was none
to rescue me from his grasp.

My rashness even hastened the completion of his scheme,
and precluded him from the benefits of deliberation.

I had robbed him of the power
to repent and forbear.

Had I been apprised of the danger,
I should have regarded my conduct as the means of rendering my escape from it impossible.

Such,
likewise,
seem
to have been the fears of my invisible protector.

Else why that startling entreaty
to refrain from opening the closet?

By what inexplicable infatuation was I compelled
to proceed?
"Surely," said I,
"there is omnipotence in the cause that changed the views of a man like Carwin.

The divinity that shielded me from his attempts will take suitable care of my future safety.

Thus
to yield
to my fears is
to deserve that they should be real."


Scarcely had I uttered these words,
when my attention was startled by the sound of footsteps.

They denoted some one stepping in
to the piazza in front of my house.

My new-born confidence was extinguished in a moment.

Carwin,
I thought,
had repented his departure,
and was hastily returning.

The possibility that his return was prompted by intentions consistent
with my safety found no place in my mind.

Images of violation and murder assailed me anew,
and the terrors which succeeded almost incapacitated me from taking any measures
for my defense.

It was an impulse of which I was scarcely conscious that made me fasten the lock and draw the bolts of my chamber door.

Having done this,
I threw myself on a seat;

for I trembled
to a degree which disabled me from standing,
and my soul was so perfectly absorbed in the act of listening,
that almost the vital motions were stopped.The door below creaked on its hinges.

It was not again thrust to,
but appeared
to remain open.

Footsteps entered,
traversed the entry,
and began
to mount the stairs.

How I detested the folly of not pursuing the man when he withdrew,
and bolting after him the outer door!

Might he not conceive this omission
to be a proof that my angel had deserted me,
and be thereby fortified in guilt?
Every step on the stairs which brought him nearer
to my chamber added vigor
to my desperation.

The evil
with which I was menaced was
to be at any rate eluded.

How little did I preconceive the conduct which,
in an exigence like this,
I should be prone
to adopt!

You will suppose that deliberation and despair would have suggested the same course of action,
and that I should have unhesitatingly resorted
to the best means of personal defense within my power.

A penknife lay open upon my table.

I remembered that it was there,
and seized it.


for what purpose you will scarcely inquire.

It will be immediately supposed that I meant it
for my last refuge,
and that,
if all other means should fail,
I should plunge it in
to the heart of my ravisher.I have lost all faith in the steadfastness of human resolves.

It was thus that in periods of calm I had determined
to act.

No cowardice had been held by me in greater abhorrence than that which prompted an injured female
to destroy,
not her injurer ere the injury was perpetrated,
but herself when it was without remedy.

Yet now this penknife appeared
to me of no other use than
to baffle my assailant and prevent the crime by destroying myself.


to deliberate at such a time was impossible;
but,
among the tumultuous suggestions of the moment,
I do not recollect that it once occurred
to me
to use it as an instrument of direct defense.The steps had now reached the second floor.

Every footfall accelerated the completion without augmenting the certainty of evil.

The consciousness that the door was fast,
now that nothing but that was interposed between me and danger,
was a source of some consolation.

I cast my eye toward the window.

This,
likewise,
was a new suggestion.

If the door should give way,
it was my sudden resolution
to throw myself from the window.

Its height from the ground,
which was covered beneath by a brick pavement,
would insure my destruction;
but I thought not of that.When opposite
to my door the footsteps ceased.

Was he listening whether my fears were allayed and my caution were asleep?

Did he hope
to take me by surprise?

Yet,
if so,
why did he allow so many noisy signals
to betray his approach?

Presently the steps were again heard
to approach the door.

A hand was laid upon the lock,
and the latch pulled back.

Did he imagine it possible that I should fail
to secure the door?

A slight effort was made
to push it open,
as if,
all bolts being withdrawn,
a slight effort only was required.I no sooner perceived this than I moved swiftly toward the window.

Carwin's frame might be said
to be all muscle.

His strength and activity had appeared,
in various instances,

to be prodigious.

A slight exertion of his force would demolish the door.

Would not that exertion be made?

Too surely it would;
but,
at the same moment that this obstacle should yield and he should enter the apartment,
my determination was formed
to leap from the window.

My senses were still bound
to this object.

I gazed at the door in momentary expectation that the assault would be made.

The pause continued.

The person without was irresolute and motionless.Suddenly it occurred
to me that Carwin might conceive me
to have fled.

That I had not betaken myself
to flight was,
indeed,
the least probable of all conclusions.

In this persuasion he must have been confirmed on finding the lower door unfastened and the chamber door locked.

Was it not wise
to foster this persuasion?

Should I maintain deep silence,
this,
in addition
to other circumstances,
might encourage the belief,
and he would once more depart.

Every new reflection added plausibility
to this reasoning.

It was presently more strongly enforced when I noticed footsteps withdrawing from the door.

The blood once more flowed back
to my heart,
and a dawn of exultation began
to rise;
but my joy was short-lived.

Instead of descending the stairs,
he passed
to the door of the opposite chamber,
opened it,
and,
having entered,
shut it after him
with a violence that shook the house.How was I
to interpret this circumstance?


for what end could he have entered this chamber?

Did the violence
with which he closed the door testify the depth of his vexation?

This room was usually occupied by Pleyel.

Was Carwin aware of his absence on this night?

Could he be suspected of a design so sordid as pillage?

If this were his view,
there were no means in my power
to frustrate it.

It behooved me
to seize the first opportunity
to escape;
but,
if my escape were supposed by my enemy
to have been already effected,
no asylum was more secure than the present.

How could my passage from the house be accomplished without noises that might incite him
to pursue me?
Utterly at a loss
to account
for his going in
to Pleyel's chamber,
I waited in instant expectation of hearing him come forth.

All,
however,
was profoundly still.

I listened in vain
for a considerable period
to catch the sound of the door when it should again be opened.

There was no other avenue by which he could escape,
but a door which led in
to the girl's chamber.

Would any evil from this quarter befall the girl?
Hence arose a new train of apprehensions.

They merely added
to the turbulence and agony of my reflections.

Whatever evil impended over her,
I had no power
to avert it.

Seclusion and silence were the only means of saving myself from the perils of this fatal night.

What solemn vows did I put up,
that,
if I should once more behold the light of day,
I would never trust myself again within the threshold of this dwelling!
Minute lingered after minute,
but no token was given that Carwin had returned
to the passage.

What,
I again asked,
could detain him in this room?

Was it possible that he had returned,
and glided unperceived away?

I was speedily aware of the difficulty that attended an enterprise like this;
and yet,
as if by that means I were capable of gaining any information on that head,
I cast anxious looks from the window.The object that first attracted my attention was a human figure standing on the edge of the bank.

Perhaps my penetration was assisted by my hopes.

Be that as it will,
the figure of Carwin was clearly distinguishable.

From the obscurity of my station,
it was impossible that I should be discerned by him;
and yet he scarcely suffered me
to catch a glimpse of him.

He turned and went down the steep,
which in this part was not difficult
to be scaled.My conjecture,
then,
had been right.

Carwin has softly opened the door,
descended the stairs,
and issued forth.

That I should not have overheard his steps was only less incredible than that my eyes had deceived me.

But what was now
to be done?

The house was at length delivered from this detested inmate.

By one avenue might he again reenter.

Was it not wise
to bar the lower door?

Perhaps he had gone out by the kitchen door.


for this end,
he must have passed through Judith's chamber.

These entrances being closed and bolted,
as great security was gained as was compatible
with my lonely condition.The propriety of these measures was too manifest not
to make me struggle successfully
with my fears.

Yet I opened my own door
with the utmost caution,
and descended as if I were afraid that Carwin had been still immured in Pleyel's chamber.

The outer door was ajar.

I shut it
with trembling eagerness,
and drew every bolt that appended
to it.

I then passed
with light and less cautious steps through the parlor,
but was surprised
to discover that the kitchen door was secure.

I was compelled
to acquiesce in the first conjecture that Carwin had escaped through the entry.My heart was now somewhat eased of the load of apprehension.

I returned once more
to my chamber,
the door of which I was careful
to lock.

It was no time
to think of repose.

The moonlight began already
to fade before the light of the day.

The approach of morning was betokened by the usual signals.

I mused upon the events of this night,
and determined
to take up my abode henceforth at my brother's.

Whether I should inform him of what had happened was a question which seemed
to demand some consideration.

My safety unquestionably required that I should abandon my present habitation.As my thoughts began
to flow
with fewer impediments,
the image of Pleyel,
and the dubiousness of his condition,
again recurred
to me.

I again ran over the possible causes of his absence on the preceding day.

My mind was attuned
to melancholy.

I dwelt,

with an obstinacy
for which I could not account,
on the idea of his death.

I painted
to myself his struggles
with the billows,
and his last appearance.

I imagined myself a midnight wanderer on the shore,
and
to have stumbled on his corpse,
which the tide had cast up.

These dreary images affected me even
to tears.

I endeavored not
to restrain them.

They imparted a relief which I had not anticipated.

The more copiously they flowed,
the more did my general sensations appear
to subside in
to calm,
and a certain restlessness give way
to repose.Perhaps,
relieved by this effusion,
the slumber so much wanted might have stolen on my senses,
had there been no new cause of alarm.

VI
I was aroused from this stupor by sounds that evidently arose in the next chamber.

Was it possible that I had been mistaken in the figure which I had seen on the bank?

or had Carwin,
by some inscrutable means,
penetrated once more in
to this chamber?

The opposite door opened;
footsteps came forth,
and the person,
advancing
to mine,
knocked.So unexpected an incident robbed me of all presence of mind,
and,
starting up,
I involuntarily exclaimed,
"Who is there?"

An answer was immediately given.

The voice,

to my inexpressible astonishment,
was Pleyel's."

It is I.

Have you risen?

If you have not,
make haste;
I want three minutes' conversation
with you in the parlor.

I will wait
for you there."

Saying this,
he retired from the door.Should I confide in the testimony of my ears?

If that were true,
it was Pleyel that had been hither
to immured in the opposite chamber;
he whom my rueful fancy had depicted in so many ruinous and ghastly shapes;
he whose footsteps had been listened
to
with such inquietude!

What is man,
that knowledge is so sparingly conferred upon him!

that his heart should be wrung
with distress,
and his frame be exanimated
with fear,
though his safety be encompassed
with impregnable walls!

What are the bounds of human imbecility!

He that warned me of the presence of my foe refused the intimation by which so many racking fears would have been precluded.Yet who would have imagined the arrival of Pleyel at such an hour?

His tone was desponding and anxious.

Why this unseasonable summons?

and why this hasty departure?

Some tidings he,
perhaps,
bears of mysterious and unwelcome import.My impatience would not allow me
to consume much time in deliberation;
I hastened down.

Pleyel I found standing at a window,

with eyes cast down as in meditation,
and arms folded on his breast.

Every line in his countenance was pregnant
with sorrow.


to this was added a certain wanness and air of fatigue.

The last time I had seen him appearances had been the reverse of these.

I was startled at the change.

The first impulse was
to question him as
to the cause.

This impulse was supplanted by some degree of confusion,
flowing from a consciousness that love had too large,
and,
as it might prove,
a perceptible,
share in creating this impulse.

I was silent.Presently be raised his eyes and fixed them upon me.

I read in them an anguish altogether ineffable.

Never had I witnessed a like demeanor in Pleyel.

Never,
indeed,
had I observed a human countenance in which grief was more legibly inscribed.

He seemed struggling
for utterance;
but,
his struggles being fruitless,
he shook his head and turned away from me.My impatience would not allow me
to be longer silent.

"What," said I,
"
for heaven's sake,
my friend,--what is the matter?"


He started at the sound of my voice.

His looks,

for a moment,
became convulsed
with an emotion very different from grief.

His accents were broken
with rage:--
"The matter!

O wretch!--thus exquisitely fashioned,--on whom nature seemed
to have exhausted all her graces;

with charms so awful and so pure!

how art thou fallen!

From what height fallen!

A ruin so complete,--so unheard of!"
His words were again choked by emotion.

Grief and pity were again mingled in his features.

He resumed,
in a tone half suffocated by sobs:--
"But why should I upbraid thee?

Could I restore
to thee what thou hast lost,
efface this cursed stain,
snatch thee from the jaws of this fiend,
I would do it.

Yet what will avail my efforts?

I have not arms
with which
to contend
with so consummate,
so frightful a depravity."

Evidence less than this would only have excited resentment and scorn.

The wretch who should have breathed a suspicion injurious
to thy honor would have been regarded without anger:

not hatred or envy could have prompted him;
it would merely be an argument of madness.

That my eyes,
that my ears,
should bear witness
to thy fall!

By no other way could detestable conviction be imparted."

Why do I summon thee
to this conference?

Why expose myself
to thy derision?

Here admonition and entreaty are vain.

Thou knowest him already
for a murderer and thief.

I thought
to have been the first
to disclose
to thee his infamy;

to have warned thee of the pit
to which thou art hastening;
but thy eyes are open in vain.

Oh,
foul and insupportable disgrace!
"There is but one path.

I know you will disappear together.

In thy ruin,
how will the felicity and honor of multitudes be involved!

But it must come.

This scene shall not be blotted by his presence.

No doubt thou wilt shortly see thy detested paramour.

This scene will be again polluted by a midnight assignation.

Inform him of his dangers;
tell him that his crimes are known;
let him fly far and instantly from this spot,
if he desires
to avoid the fate which menaced him in Ireland."

And wilt thou not stay behind?

But shame upon my weakness!

I know not what I would say.

I have done what I purposed.


to stay longer,

to expostulate,

to beseech,

to enumerate the consequences of thy act,--what end can it serve but
to blazon thy infamy and embitter our woes?

And yet,
oh,
think--think ere it be too late-- on the distresses which thy flight will entail upon us;
on the base,
groveling,
and atrocious character of the wretch
to whom thou hast sold thy honor.

But what is this?

Is not thy effrontery impenetrable and thy heart thoroughly cankered?

Oh,
most specious and most profligate of women!"
Saying this,
he rushed out of the house.

I saw him in a few moments hurrying along the path which led
to my brother's.

I had no power
to prevent his going,
or
to recall or
to follow him.

The accents I had heard were calculated
to confound and bewilder.

I looked around me,

to assure myself that the scene was real.

I moved,
that I might banish the doubt that I was awake.

Such enormous imputations from the mouth of Pleyel!


to be stigmatized
with the names of wanton and profligate!


to be charged
with the sacrifice of honor!


with midnight meetings
with a wretch known
to be a murderer and thief!


with an intention
to fly in his company!
What I had heard was surely the dictate of frenzy,
or it was built upon some fatal,
some incomprehensible mistake.

After the horrors of the night,
after undergoing perils so imminent from this man,

to be summoned
to an interview like this!--
to find Pleyel fraught
with a belief that,
instead of having chosen death as a refuge from the violence of this man,
I had hugged his baseness
to my heart,
had sacrificed
for him my purity,
my spotless name,
my friendships,
and my fortune!

That even madness could engender accusations like these was not
to be believed.What evidence could possibly suggest conceptions so wild?

After the unlooked-
for interview
with Carwin in my chamber,
he retired.

Could Pleyel have observed his exit?

It was not long after that Pleyel himself entered.

Did he build on this incident his odious conclusions?

Could the long series of my actions and sentiments grant me no exemption from suspicions so foul?

Was it not more rational
to infer that Carwin's designs had been illicit?

that my life had been endangered by the fury of one whom,
by some means,
he had discovered
to be an assassin and robber?

that my honor had been assailed,
not by blandishments,
but by violence?
He has judged me without hearing.

He has drawn from dubious appearances conclusions the most improbable and unjust.

He has loaded me
with all outrageous epithets.

He has ranked me
with prostitutes and thieves.

I cannot pardon thee,
Pleyel,

for this injustice.

Thy understanding must be hurt.

If it be not,--if thy conduct was sober and deliberate,--I can never forgive an outrage so unmanly and so gross.These thoughts gradually gave place
to others.

Pleyel was possessed by some momentary frenzy;
appearances had led him in
to palpable errors.

Whence could his sagacity have contracted this blindness?

Was it not love?

Previously assured of my affection
for Carwin,
distracted
with grief and jealousy,
and impelled hither at that late hour by some unknown instigation,
his imagination transformed shadows in
to monsters,
and plunged him in
to these deplorable errors.This idea was not unattended
with consolation.

My soul was divided between indignation at his injustice and delight on account of the source from which I conceived it
to spring.


for a long time they would allow admission
to no other thoughts.

Surprise is an emotion that enfeebles,
not invigorates.

All my meditations were accompanied
with wonder.

I rambled
with vagueness,
or clung
to one image
with an obstinacy which sufficiently testified the maddening influence of late transactions.Gradually I proceeded
to reflect upon the consequences of Pleyel's mistake,
and on the measures I should take
to guard myself against future injury from Carwin.

Should I suffer this mistake
to be detected by time?

When his passion should subside,
would he not perceive the flagrancy of his injustice and hasten
to atone
for it?

Did it not become my character
to testify resentment
for language and treatment so opprobrious?

Wrapped up in the consciousness of innocence,
and confiding in the influence of time and reflection
to confute so groundless a charge,
it was my province
to be passive and silent.As
to the violences meditated by Carwin,
and the means of eluding them,
the path
to be taken by me was obvious.

I resolved
to tell the tale
to my brother and regulate myself by his advice.


for this end,
when the morning was somewhat advanced,
I took the way
to his house.

My sister was engaged in her customary occupations.

As soon as I appeared,
she remarked a change in my looks.

I was not willing
to alarm her by the information which I had
to communicate.

Her health was in that condition which rendered a disastrous tale particularly unsuitable.

I forbore a direct answer
to her inquiries,
and inquired,
in my turn,

for Wieland."

Why," said she,
"I suspect something mysterious and unpleasant has happened this morning.

Scarcely had we risen when Pleyel dropped among us.

What could have prompted him
to make us so early and so unseasonable a visit I cannot tell.


to judge from the disorder of his dress,
and his countenance,
something of an extraordinary nature has occurred.

He permitted me merely
to know that he had slept none,
nor even undressed,
during the past night.

He took your brother
to walk
with him.

Some topic must have deeply engaged them,

for Wieland did not return till the breakfast hour was passed,
and returned alone.

His disturbance was excessive;
but he would not listen
to my importunities,
or tell me what had happened.

I gathered,
from hints which he let fall,
that your situation was in some way the cause;
yet he assured me that you were at your own house,
alive,
in good health,
and in perfect safety.

He scarcely ate a morsel,
and immediately after breakfast went out again.

He would not inform me whither he was going,
but mentioned that he probably might not return before night."


I was equally astonished and alarmed by this information.

Pleyel had told his tale
to my brother,
and had,
by a plausible and exaggerated picture,
instilled in
to him unfavorable thoughts of me.

Yet would not the more correct judgment of Wieland perceive and expose the fallacy of his conclusions?

Perhaps his uneasiness might arise from some insight in
to the character of Carwin,
and from apprehensions
for my safety.

The appearances by which Pleyel had been misled might induce him likewise
to believe that I entertained an indiscreet though not dishonorable affection
for Carwin.

Such were the conjectures rapidly formed.

I was inexpressibly anxious
to change them in
to certainty.


for this end an interview
with my brother was desirable.

He was gone no one knew whither,
and was not expected speedily
to return.

I had no clew by which
to trace his footsteps.My anxieties could not be concealed from my sister.

They heightened her solicitude
to be acquainted
with the cause.

There were many reasons persuading me
to silence;
at least,
till I had seen my brother,
it would be an act of inexcusable temerity
to unfold what had lately passed.

No other expedient
for eluding her importunities occurred
to me but that of returning
to my own house.

I recollected my determination
to become a tenant of this roof.

I mentioned it
to her.

She joyfully acceded
to this proposal,
and suffered me
with less reluctance
to depart when I told her that it was
with a view
to collect and send
to my new dwelling what articles would be immediately useful
to me.Once more I returned
to the house which had been the scene of so much turbulence and danger.

I was at no great distance from it when I observed my brother coming out.

On seeing me he stopped,
and,
after ascertaining,
as it seemed,
which way I was going,
he returned in
to the house before me.

I sincerely rejoiced at this event,
and I hastened
to set things,
if possible,
on their right footing.His brow was by no means expressive of those vehement emotions
with which Pleyel had been agitated.

I drew a favorable omen from this circumstance.

Without delay I began the conversation."

I have been
to look
for you," said I,
"but was told by Catharine that Pleyel had engaged you on some important and disagreeable affair.

Before his interview
with you he spent a few minutes
with me.

These minutes he employed in upbraiding me
for crimes and intentions
with which I am by no means chargeable.

I believe him
to have taken up his opinions on very insufficient grounds.

His behavior was in the highest degree precipitate and unjust,
and,
until I receive some atonement,
I shall treat him,
in my turn,

with that contempt which he justly merits;
meanwhile,
I am fearful that he has prejudiced my brother against me.

That is an evil which I most anxiously deprecate,
and which I shall indeed exert myself
to remove.

Has he made me the subject of this morning's conversation?"


My brother's countenance testified no surprise at my address.

The benignity of his looks was nowise diminished."

It is true," said he,
"your conduct was the subject of our discourse.

I am your friend as well as your brother.

There is no human being whom I love
with more tenderness and whose welfare is nearer my heart.

Judge,
then,

with what emotions I listened
to Pleyel's story.

I expect and desire you
to vindicate yourself from aspersions so foul,
if vindication be possible."


The tone
with which he uttered the last words affected me deeply.

"If vindication be possible!" repeated I.

"From what you know,
do you deem a formal vindication necessary?

Can you harbor
for a moment the belief of my guilt?"


He shook his head
with an air of acute anguish.

"I have struggled," said he,
"
to dismiss that belief.

You speak before a judge who will profit by any pretense
to acquit you who is ready
to question his own senses when they plead against you."


These words incited a new set of thoughts in my mind.

I began
to suspect that Pleyel had built his accusations on some foundation unknown
to me.

"I may be a stranger
to the grounds of your belief.

Pleyel loaded me
with indecent and virulent invectives,
but he withheld from me the facts that generated his suspicions.

Events took place last night of which some of the circumstances were of an ambiguous nature.

I conceived that these might possibly have fallen under his cognizance,
and that,
viewed through the mists of prejudice and passion,
they supplied a pretense
for his conduct,
but believed that your more unbiased judgment would estimate them at their just value.

Perhaps his tale has been different from what I suspect it
to be.

Listen,
then,

to my narrative.

If there be anything in his story inconsistent
with mine,
his story is false."


I then proceeded
to a circumstantial relation of the incidents of the last night.

Wieland listened
with deep attention.

Having finished,
"This," continued I,
"is the truth.

You see in what circumstances an interview took place between Carwin and me.

He remained
for hours in my closet,
and
for some minutes in my chamber.

He departed without haste or interruption.

If Pleyel marked him as he left the house,
(and it is not impossible that he did,) inferences injurious
to my character might suggest themselves
to him.

In admitting them,
he gave proofs of less discernment and less candor than I once ascribed
to him."


"His proofs," said Wieland,
after a considerable pause,
"are different.

That he should be deceived is not possible.

That he himself is not the deceiver could not be believed,
if his testimony were not inconsistent
with yours;
but the doubts which I entertained are now removed.

Your tale,
some parts of it,
is marvelous;
the voice which exclaimed against your rashness in approaching the closet,
your persisting,
notwithstanding that prohibition,
your belief that I was the ruffian,
and your subsequent conduct,
are believed by me,
because I have known you from childhood,
because a thousand instances have attested your veracity,
and because nothing less than my own hearing and vision would convince me,
in opposition
to her own assertions,
that my sister had fallen in
to wickedness like this."


I threw my arms around him and bathed his cheek
with my tears.

"That," said I,
"is spoken like my brother.

But what are the proofs?"


He replied,
"Pleyel informed me that,
in going
to your house,
his attention was attracted by two voices.

The persons speaking sat beneath the bank,
out of sight.

These persons,
judging by their voices,
were Carwin and you.

I will not repeat the dialogue.

If my sister was the female,
Pleyel was justified in concluding you
to be indeed one of the most profligate of women.

Hence his accusations of you,
and his efforts
to obtain my concurrence
to a plan by which an eternal separation should be brought about between my sister and this man."


I made Wieland repeat this recital.

Here indeed was a tale
to fill me
with terrible foreboding.

I had vainly thought that my safety could be sufficiently secured by doors and bars,
but this is a foe from whose grasp no power of divinity can save me!

His artifices will ever lay my fame and happiness at his mercy.

How shall I counterwork his plots or detect his coadjutor?

He has taught some vile and abandoned female
to mimic my voice.

Pleyel's ears were the witnesses of my dishonor.

This is the midnight assignation
to which he alluded.

Thus is the silence he maintained when attempting
to open the door of my chamber,
accounted for.

He supposed me absent,
and meant,
perhaps,
had my apartment been accessible,

to leave in it some accusing memorial.


SECOND PART
I
[As this part opens,
the unhappy Clara is describing her hurried return
to the same ill-fated abode at Mettingen.

Hence kind friends had borne her after the catastrophe of her brother Wieland's "transformation."

This was the crowning horror of all:

the morbid fanatic,
prepared by gloomy anticipations of some terrible sacrifice
to be demanded in the name of religion,
had found himself goaded
to blind fury,
by a mysterious compelling voice,

to yield up
to God the lives of his beloved wife and family;
and had done the awful deed!
Though chained in his madhouse,
he persists in his delusion;
insists that it still remains
for him
to sacrifice his sister Clara;
and twice breaks away in wild efforts
to find and destroy her.]
I took an irregular path which led me
to my own house.

All was vacant and forlorn.

A small enclosure near which the path led was the burying ground belonging
to the family.

This I was obliged
to pass.

Once I had intended
to enter it,
and ponder on the emblems and inscriptions which my uncle had caused
to be made on the tombs of Catharine and her children;
but now my heart faltered as I approached,
and I hastened forward that distance might conceal it from my view.When I approached the recess,
my heart again sunk.

I averted my eyes,
and left it behind me as quickly as possible.

Silence reigned through my habitation,
and a darkness which closed doors and shutters produced.

Every object was connected
with mine or my brother's history.

I passed the entry,
mounted the stair,
and unlocked the door of my chamber.

It was
with difficulty that I curbed my fancy and smothered my fears.

Slight movements and casual sounds were transformed in
to beckoning shadows and calling shapes.I proceeded
to the closet.

I opened and looked round it
with fearfulness.

All things were in their accustomed order.

I sought and found the manuscript where I was used
to deposit it.

This being secured,
there was nothing
to detain me;
yet I stood and contemplated awhile the furniture and walls of my chamber.

I remembered how long this apartment had been a sweet and tranquil asylum;
I compared its former state
with its present dreariness,
and reflected that I now beheld it
for the last time.Here it was that the incomprehensible behavior of Carwin was witnessed;
this the stage on which that enemy of man showed himself
for a moment unmasked.

Here the menaces of murder were wafted
to my ear;
and here these menaces were executed.These thoughts had a tendency
to take from me my self-command.

My feeble limbs refused
to support me,
and I sunk upon a chair.

Incoherent and half-articulate exclamations escaped my lips.

The name of Carwin was uttered and eternal woes--woes like that which his malice had entailed upon us--were heaped upon him.

I invoked all-seeing heaven
to drag
to light and punish this betrayer,
and accused its providence
for having thus long delayed the retribution that was due
to so enormous a guilt.I have said that the window shutters were closed.

A feeble light,
however,
found entrance through the crevices.

A small window illuminated the closet,
and,
the door being closed,
a dim ray streamed through the keyhole.

A kind of twilight was thus created,
sufficient
for the purposes of vision,
but,
at the same time,
involving all minuter objects in obscurity.This darkness suited the color of my thoughts.

I sickened at the remembrance of the past.

The prospect of the future excited my loathing.

I muttered,
in a low voice,
"Why should I live longer?

Why should I drag a miserable being?

All
for whom I ought
to live have perished.

Am I not myself hunted
to death?"


At that moment my despair suddenly became vigorous.

My nerves were no longer unstrung.

My powers,
that had long been deadened,
were revived.

My bosom swelled
with a sudden energy,
and the conviction darted through my mind,
that
to end my torments was,
at once,
practicable and wise.I knew how
to find way
to the recesses of life.

I could use a lancet
with some skill,
and could distinguish between vein and artery.

By piercing deep in
to the latter,
I should shun the evils which the future had in store
for me,
and take refuge from my woes in quiet death.I started on my feet,

for my feebleness was gone,
and hasted
to the closet.

A lancet and other small instruments were preserved in a case which I had deposited here.

Inattentive as I was
to foreign considerations,
my ears were still open
to any sound of mysterious import that should occur.

I thought I heard a step in the entry.

My purpose was suspended,
and I cast an eager glance at my chamber door,
which was open.

No one appeared,
unless the shadow which I discerned upon the floor was the outline of a man.

If it were,
I was authorized
to suspect that some one was posted close
to the entrance,
who possibly had overheard my exclamations.My teeth chattered,
and a wild confusion took the place of my momentary calm.

Thus it was when a terrific visage had disclosed itself on a former night.

Thus it was when the evil destiny of Wieland assumed the lineaments of something human.

What horrid apparition was preparing
to blast my sight?
Still I listened and gazed.

Not long,

for the shadow moved;
a foot,
unshapely and huge,
was thrust forward;
a form advanced from its concealment,
and stalked in
to the room.

It was Carwin!
While I had breath,
I shrieked.

While I had power over my muscles,
I motioned
with my hand that he should vanish.

My exertions could not last long:

I sunk in
to a fit.Oh that this grateful oblivion had lasted forever!

Too quickly I recovered my senses.

The power of distinct vision was no sooner restored
to me,
than this hateful form again presented itself,
and I once more relapsed.A second time,
untoward nature recalled me from the sleep of death.

I found myself stretched upon the bed.

When I had power
to look up,
I remembered only that I had cause
to fear.

My distempered fancy fashioned
to itself no distinguishable image.

I threw a languid glance round me:

once more my eyes lighted upon Carwin.He was seated on the floor,
his back rested against the wall;
his knees were drawn up,
and his face was buried in his hands.

That his station was at some distance,
that his attitude was not menacing,
that his ominous visage was concealed,
may account
for my now escaping a shock violent as those which were past.

I withdrew my eyes,
but was not again deserted by my senses.On perceiving that I had recovered my sensibility,
he lifted his head.

This motion attracted my attention.

His countenance was mild,
but sorrow and astonishment sat upon his features.

I averted my eyes and feebly exclaimed,
"Oh,
fly!--fly far and forever!--I cannot behold you and live!"
He did not rise upon his feet,
but clasped his hands,
and said,
in a tone of deprecation,
"I will fly.

I am become a fiend,
the sight of whom destroys.

Yet tell me my offense!

You have linked curses
with my name;
you ascribe
to me a malice monstrous and infernal.

I look around:

all is loneliness and desert!

This house and your brother's are solitary and dismantled!

You die away at the sight of me!

My fear whispers that some deed of horror has been perpetrated;
that I am the undesigning cause."


What language was this?

Had he not avowed himself a ravisher?

Had not this chamber witnessed his atrocious purposes?

I besought him
with new vehemence
to go.He lifted his eyes:--"Great heaven!

what have I done?

I think I know the extent of my offenses.

I have acted,
but my actions have possibly effected more than I designed.

This fear has brought me back from my retreat.

I come
to repair the evil of which my rashness was the cause,
and
to prevent more evil.

I come
to confess my errors."


"Wretch!" I cried,
when my suffocating emotions would permit me
to speak,
"the ghosts of my sister and her children,--do they not rise
to accuse thee?

Who was it that blasted the intellect of Wieland?

Who was it that urged him
to fury and guided him
to murder?

Who,
but thou and the devil,

with whom thou art confederated?"


At these words a new spirit pervaded his countenance.

His eyes once more appealed
to heaven.

"If I have memory--if I have being-- I am innocent.

I intended no ill;
but my folly,
indirectly and remotely,
may have caused it.

But what words are these?

Your brother lunatic!

His children dead!"
What should I infer from this deportment?

Was the ignorance which these words implied real or pretended?

Yet how could I imagine a mere human agency in these events?

But,
if the influence was preternatural or maniacal in my brother's case,
they must be equally so in my own.

Then I remembered that the voice exerted was
to save me from Carwin's attempts.

These ideas tended
to abate my abhorrence of this man,
and
to detect the absurdity of my accusations."

Alas!" said I,
"I have no one
to accuse.

Leave me
to my fate.

Fly from a scene stained
with cruelty,
devoted
to despair."


Carwin stood
for a time musing and mournful.

At length he said,
"What has happened?

I came
to expiate my crimes:

let me know them in their full extent.

I have horrible forebodings!

What has happened?"


I was silent;
but,
recollecting the intimation given by this man when he was detected in my closet,
which implied some knowledge of that power which interfered in my favor,
I eagerly inquired,
"What was that voice which called upon me
to hold when I attempted
to open the closet?

What face was that which I saw at the bottom of the stairs?

Answer me truly."


"I came
to confess the truth.

Your allusions are horrible and strange.

Perhaps I have but faint conceptions of the evils which my infatuation has produced;
but what remains I will perform.

It was MY VOICE that you heard!

It was MY FACE that you saw!"

for a moment I doubted whether my remembrance of events were not confused.

How could he be at once stationed at my shoulder and shut up in my closet?

How could he stand near me and yet be invisible?

But if Carwin's were the thrilling voice and the fiery image which I had heard and seen,
then was he the prompter of my brother,
and the author of these dismal outrages.Once more I averted my eyes and struggled
for speech:--"Begone!

thou man of mischief!

Remorseless and implacable miscreant,
begone!"
"I will obey," said he,
in a disconsolate voice;
"yet,
wretch as I am,
am I unworthy
to repair the evils that I have committed?

I came as a repentant criminal.

It is you whom I have injured,
and at your bar am I willing
to appear and confess and expiate my crimes.

I have deceived you;
I have sported
with your terrors;
I have plotted
to destroy your reputation.

I come now
to remove your terrors;

to set you beyond the reach of similar fears;

to rebuild your fame as far as I am able."

This is the amount of my guilt,
and this the fruit of my remorse.

Will you not hear me?

Listen
to my confession,
and then denounce punishment.

All I ask is a patient audience."


"What!" I replied;
"was not thine the voice that commanded my brother
to imbrue his hands in the blood of his children?--
to strangle that angel of sweetness,
his wife?

Has he not vowed my death,
and the death of Pleyel,
at thy bidding?

Hast thou not made him the butcher of his family?--changed him who was the glory of his species in
to worse than brute?--robbed him of reason and consigned the rest of his days
to fetters and stripes?"


Carwin's eyes glared and his limbs were petrified at this intelligence.

No words were requisite
to prove him guiltless of these enormities:

at the time,
however,
I was nearly insensible
to these exculpatory tokens.

He walked
to the farther end of the room,
and,
having recovered some degree of composure,
he spoke:--
"I am not this villain.

I have slain no one;
I have prompted none
to slay;
I have handled a tool of wonderful efficacy without malignant intentions,
but without caution.

Ample will be the punishment of my temerity,
if my conduct has contributed
to this evil."

He paused.I likewise was silent.

I struggled
to command myself so far as
to listen
to the tale which he should tell.

Observing this,
he continued:--
"You are not apprised of the existence of a power which I possess.

I know not by what name
to call it.[1] It enables me
to mimic exactly the voice of another,
and
to modify the sound so that it shall appear
to come from what quarter and be uttered at what distance I please."

I know not that everyone possesses this power.

Perhaps,
though a casual position of my organs in my youth showed me that I possessed it,
it is an art which may be taught
to all.

Would
to God I had died unknowing of the secret!

It has produced nothing but degradation and calamity."


[1] Biloquium,
or ventrilocution.

Sound is varied according
to the variations of direction and distance.

The art of the ventriloquist consists in modifying his voice according
to all these variations,
without changing his place.

See the work of the Abbe de la Chappelle,
in which are accurately recorded the performances of one of these artists,
and some ingenious though unsatisfactory speculations are given on the means by which the effects are produced.

This power is,
perhaps,
given by nature,
but is doubtless improvable,
if not acquirable,
by art.

It may,
possibly,
consist in an unusual flexibility or extension of the bottom of the tongue and the uvula.

That speech is producible by these alone must be granted,
since anatomists mention two instances of persons speaking without a tongue.

In one case the organ was originally wanting,
but its place was supplied by a small tubercle,
and the uvula was perfect.

In the other the tongue was destroyed by disease,
but probably a small part of it remained.This power is difficult
to explain,
but the fact is undeniable.

Experience shows that the human voice can imitate the voice of all men and of all inferior animals.

The sound of musical instruments,
and even noises from the contact of inanimate substances,
have been accurately imitated.

The mimicry of animals is notorious;
and Dr. Burney ("Musical Travels") mentions one who imitated a flute and violin,
so as
to deceive even his ears.


THIRD PART
I
[After Carwin's confession of his powers of ventriloquism all the mysteries are cleared up--save one.

The owner of the voice heard in Clara's chamber,
on the first night after the wanderer appeared at Mettingen;
the threatener on the edge of the precipice;
the spy in Clara's closet,
and would-be intruder;
the manipulator of the vile plot that destroyed her lover's confidence--all these hidden identities have materialized in the person of this one unhappy man.

But while confessing the prying disposition which led
to these sins,
in efforts
to protect himself from discovery,
Carwin still denies that Wieland's mad acts were perpetrated at his instigation.]
"I have uttered the truth.

This is the extent of my offenses.

You tell me a horrid tale of Wieland being led
to the destruction of his wife and children by some mysterious agent.

You charge me
with the guilt of this agency,
but I repeat that the amount of my guilt has been truly stated.

The perpetrator of Catharine's death was unknown
to me till now;
nay,
it is still unknown
to me."


At that moment,
the closing of a door in the kitchen was distinctly heard by us.

Carwin started and paused.

"There is some one coming.

I must not be found here by my enemies,
and need not,
since my purpose is answered."


I had drunk in,

with the most vehement attention,
every word that he had uttered.

I had no breath
to interrupt his tale by interrogations or comments.

The power that he spoke of was hither
to unknown
to me;
its existence was incredible;
it was susceptible of no direct proof.He owns that his were the voice and face which I heard and saw.

He attempts
to give a human explanation of these phantasms but it is enough that he owns himself
to be the agent:

his tale is a lie,
and his nature devilish.

As he deceived me,
he likewise deceived my brother,
and now do I behold the author of all our calamities!
Such were my thoughts when his pause allowed me
to think.

I should have bade him begone if the silence had not been interrupted;
but now I feared no more
for myself;
and the milkiness of my nature was curdled in
to hatred and rancor.

Some one was near,
and this enemy of God and man might possibly be brought
to justice.

I reflected not that the preternatural power which he had hither
to exerted would avail
to rescue him from any toils in which his feet might be entangled.

Meanwhile,
looks,
and not words,
of menace and abhorrence,
were all that I could bestow.He did not depart.

He seemed dubious whether by passing out of the house,
or by remaining somewhat longer where he was,
he should most endanger his safety.

His confusion increased when steps of one barefoot were heard upon the stairs.

He threw anxious glances sometimes at the closet,
sometimes at the window,
and sometimes at the chamber door;
yet he was detained by some inexplicable fascination.

He stood as if rooted
to the spot.As
to me,
my soul was bursting
with detestation and revenge.

I had no room
for surmises and fears respecting him that approached.

It was doubtless a human being,
and would befriend me so far as
to aid me in arresting this offender.The stranger quickly entered the room.

My eyes and the eyes of Carwin were at the same moment darted upon him.

A second glance was not needed
to inform us who he was.

His locks were tangled,
and fell confusedly over his forehead and ears.

His shirt was of coarse stuff,
and open at the neck and breast.

His coat was once of bright and fine texture,
but now torn and tarnished
with dust.

His feet,
his legs,
and his arms,
were bare.

His features were the seat of a wild and tranquil solemnity,
but his eyes bespoke inquietude and curiosity.He advanced
with a firm step,
and looking as in search of some one.

He saw me and stopped.

He bent his sight on the floor,
and,
clenching his hands,
appeared suddenly absorbed in meditation.

Such were the figure and deportment of Wieland!

Such,
in his fallen state,
were the aspect and guise of my brother!
Carwin did not fail
to recognize the visitant.

Care
for his own safety was apparently swallowed up in the amazement which this spectacle produced.

His station was conspicuous,
and he could not have escaped the roving glances of Wieland;
yet the latter seemed totally unconscious of his presence.Grief at this scene of ruin and blast was at first the only sentiment of which I was conscious.

A fearful stillness ensued.

At length Wieland,
lifting his hands,
which were locked in each other,

to his breast,
exclaimed,
"Father!

I thank thee.

This is thy guidance.

Hither thou hast led me,
that I might perform thy will.

Yet let me not err;
let me hear again thy messenger!"
He stood
for a minute as if listening;
but,
recovering from his attitude,
he continued,
"It is not needed.

Dastardly wretch!

thus eternally questioning the behests of thy Maker!

weak in resolution,
wayward in faith!"
He advanced
to me,
and,
after another pause,
resumed:--"Poor girl!

a dismal fate has set its mark upon thee.

Thy life is demanded as a sacrifice.

Prepare thee
to die.

Make not my office difficult by fruitless opposition.

Thy prayers might subdue stones;
but none but he who enjoined my purpose can shake it."


These words were a sufficient explication of the scene.

The nature of his frenzy,
as described by my uncle,
was remembered.

I,
who had sought death,
was now thrilled
with horror because it was near.

Death in this form,
death from the hand of a brother,
was thought upon
with indescribable repugnance.In a state thus verging upon madness,
my eye glanced upon Carwin.

His astonishment appeared
to have struck him motionless and dumb.

My life was in danger,
and my brother's hand was about
to be imbrued in my blood.

I firmly believed that Carwin's was the instigation.

I could rescue myself from this abhorred fate;
I could dissipate this tremendous illusion;
I could save my brother from the perpetration of new horrors,
by pointing out the devil who seduced him.


to hesitate a moment was
to perish.

These thoughts gave strength
to my limbs and energy
to my accents;
I started on my feet:--
"Oh,
brother!

spare me!

spare thyself!

There is thy betrayer.

He counterfeited the voice and face of an angel,

for the purpose of destroying thee and me.

He has this moment confessed it.

He is able
to speak where he is not.

He is leagued
with hell,
but will not avow it;
yet he confesses that the agency was his."


My brother turned slowly his eyes,
and fixed them upon Carwin.

Every joint in the frame of the latter trembled.

His complexion was paler than a ghost's.

His eye dared not meet that of Wieland,
but wandered
with an air of distraction from one space
to another."

Man," said my brother,
in a voice totally unlike that which he had used
to me,
"what art thou?

The charge has been made.

Answer it.

The visage--the voice--at the bottom of these stairs--at the hour of eleven--
to whom did they belong?


to thee?"


Twice did Carwin attempt
to speak,
but his words died away upon his lips.

My brother resumed,
in a tone of greater vehemence:--
"Thou falterest.

Faltering is ominous.

Say yes or no;
one word will suffice;
but beware of falsehood.

Was it a stratagem of hell
to overthrow my family?

Wast thou the agent?"


I now saw that the wrath which had been prepared
for me was
to be heaped upon another.

The tale that I heard from him,
and his present trepidations,
were abundant testimonies of his guilt.

But what if Wieland should be undeceived!

What if he shall find his act
to have proceeded not from a heavenly prompter,
but from human treachery!

Will not his rage mount in
to whirlwind?

Will not he tear limb from limb this devoted wretch?
Instinctively I recoiled from this image;
but it gave place
to another.

Carwin may be innocent,
but the impetuosity of his judge may misconstrue his answers in
to a confession of guilt.

Wieland knows not that mysterious voices and appearances were likewise witnessed by me.

Carwin may be ignorant of those which misled my brother.

Thus may his answers unwarily betray himself
to ruin.Such might be the consequences of my frantic precipitation,
and these it was necessary,
if possible,

to prevent.

I attempted
to speak;
but Wieland,
turning suddenly upon me,
commanded silence,
in a tone furious and terrible.

My lips closed,
and my tongue refused its office."

What art thou?"

he resumed,
addressing himself
to Carwin.

"Answer me:

whose form--whose voice,--was it thy contrivance?

Answer me."


The answer was now given,
but confusedly and scarcely articulated.

"I meant nothing--I intended no ill--if I understand--if I do not mistake you--it is too true--I did appear--in the entry--did speak.

The contrivance was mine,
but--"
These words were no sooner uttered,
than my brother ceased
to wear the same aspect.

His eyes were downcast;
he was motionless;
his respiration became hoarse,
like that of a man in the agonies of death.

Carwin seemed unable
to say more.

He might have easily escaped;
but the thought which occupied him related
to what was horrid and unintelligible in this scene,
and not
to his own danger.Presently the faculties of Wieland,
which,

for a time,
were chained up,
were seized
with restlessness and trembling.

He broke silence.

The stoutest heart would have been appalled by the tone in which he spoke.

He addressed himself
to Carwin:--
"Why art thou here?

Who detains thee?

Go and learn better.

I will meet thee,
but it must be at the bar of thy Maker.

There shall I bear witness against thee."


Perceiving that Carwin did not obey,
he continued,
"Dost thou wish me
to complete the catalogue by thy death?

Thy life is a worthless thing.

Tempt me no more.

I am but a man,
and thy presence may awaken a fury which may spurn my control.

Begone!"
Carwin,
irresolute,
striving in vain
for utterance,
his complexion pallid as death,
his knees beating one against another,
slowly obeyed the mandate and withdrew.

II
A few words more and I lay aside the pen forever.

Yet why should I not relinquish it now?

All that I have said is preparatory
to this scene,
and my fingers,
tremulous and cold as my heart,
refuse any further exertion.

This must not be.

Let my last energies support me in the finishing of this task.

Then will I lay down my head in the lap of death.

Hushed will be all my murmurs in the sleep of the grave.Every sentiment has perished in my bosom.

Even friendship is extinct.

Your love
for me has prompted me
to this task;
but I would not have complied if it had not been a luxury thus
to feast upon my woes.

I have justly calculated upon my remnant of strength.

When I lay down the pen the taper of life will expire;
my existence will terminate
with my tale.Now that I was left alone
with Wieland,
the perils of my situation presented themselves
to my mind.

That this paroxysm should terminate in havoc and rage it was reasonable
to predict.

The first suggestion of my fears had been disproved by my experience.

Carwin had acknowledged his offenses,
and yet had escaped.

The vengeance which I had harbored had not been admitted by Wieland;
and yet the evils which I had endured,
compared
with those inflicted on my brother,
were as nothing.

I thirsted
for his blood,
and was tormented
with an insatiable appetite
for his destruction;
but my brother was unmoved,
and had dismissed him in safety.

Surely thou wast more than man,
while I am sunk below the beasts.Did I place a right construction on the conduct of Wieland?

Was the error that misled him so easily rectified?

Were views so vivid and faith so strenuous thus liable
to fading and
to change?

Was there not reason
to doubt the accuracy of my perceptions?


with images like these was my mind thronged,
till the deportment of my brother called away my attention.I saw his lips move and his eyes cast up
to heaven.

Then would he listen and look back,
as if in expectation of some one's appearance.

Thrice he repeated these gesticulations and this inaudible prayer.

Each time the mist of confusion and doubt seemed
to grow darker and
to settle on his understanding.

I guessed at the meaning of these tokens.

The words of Carwin had shaken his belief,
and he was employed in summoning the messenger who had formerly communed
with him,

to attest the value of those new doubts.

In vain the summons was repeated,

for his eye met nothing but vacancy,
and not a sound saluted his ear.He walked
to the bed,
gazed
with eagerness at the pillow which had sustained the head of the breathless Catharine,
and then returned
to the place where I sat.

I had no power
to lift my eyes
to his face:

I was dubious of his purpose;
this purpose might aim at my life.Alas!

nothing but subjection
to danger and exposure
to temptation can show us what we are.

By this test was I now tried,
and found
to be cowardly and rash.

Men can deliberately untie the thread of life,
and of this I had deemed myself capable.

It was now that I stood upon the brink of fate,
that the knife of the sacrificer was aimed at my heart,
I shuddered,
and betook myself
to any means of escape,
however monstrous.Can I bear
to think--can I endure
to relate the outrage which my heart meditated?

Where were my means of safety?

Resistance was vain.

Not even the energy of despair could set me on a level
with that strength which his terrific prompter had bestowed upon Wieland.

Terror enables us
to perform incredible feats;
but terror was not then the state of my mind:

where then were my hopes of rescue?
Methinks it is too much.

I stand aside,
as it were,
from myself;
I estimate my own deservings;
a hatred,
immortal and inexorable,
is my due.

I listen
to my own pleas,
and find them empty and false:

yes,
I acknowledge that my guilt surpasses that of mankind;
I confess that the curses of a world and the frowns of a Deity are inadequate
to my demerits.

Is there a thing in the world worthy of infinite abhorrence?

It is I.What shall I say?

I was menaced,
as I thought,

with death,
and,

to elude this evil,
my hand was ready
to inflict death upon the menacer.

In visiting my house,
I had made provision against the machinations of Carwin.

In a fold of my dress an open penknife was concealed.

This I now seized and drew forth.

It lurked out of view;
but I now see that my state of mind would have rendered the deed inevitable if my brother had lifted his hand.

This instrument of my preservation would have been plunged in
to his heart.O insupportable remembrance!

hide thee from my view
for a time;
hide it from me that my heart was black enough
to meditate the stabbing of a brother!

a brother thus supreme in misery;
thus towering in virtue!
He was probably unconscious of my design,
but presently drew back.

This interval was sufficient
to restore me
to myself.

The madness,
the iniquity,
of that act which I had purposed rushed upon my apprehension.


for a moment I was breathless
with agony.

At the next moment I recovered my strength,
and threw the knife
with violence on the floor.The sound awoke my brother from his reverie.

He gazed alternately at me and at the weapon.


with a movement equally solemn he stooped and took it up.

He placed the blade in different positions,
scrutinizing it accurately,
and maintaining,
at the same time,
a profound silence.Again he looked at me;
but all that vehemence and loftiness of spirit which had so lately characterized his features were flown.

Fallen muscles,
a forehead contracted in
to folds,
eyes dim
with unbidden drops,
and a ruefulness of aspect which no words can describe,
were now visible.His looks touched in
to energy the same sympathies in me,
and I poured forth a flood of tears.

This passion was quickly checked by fear,
which had now no longer my own but his safety
for their object.

I watched his deportment in silence.

At length he spoke:--
"Sister," said he,
in an accent mournful and mild,
"I have acted poorly my part in this world.

What thinkest thou?

Shall I not do better in the next?"


I could make no answer.

The mildness of his tone astonished and encouraged me.

I continued
to regard him
with wistful and anxious looks."

I think," resumed he,
"I will try.

My wife and my babes have gone before.

Happy wretches!

I have sent you
to repose,
and ought not
to linger behind."


These words had a meaning sufficiently intelligible.

I looked at the open knife in his hand and shuddered,
but knew not how
to prevent the deed which I dreaded.

He quickly noticed my fears,
and comprehended them.

Stretching toward me his hand,

with an air of increasing mildness,
"Take it," said he;
"fear not
for thy own sake,
nor
for mine.

The cup is gone by,
and its transient inebriation is succeeded by the soberness of truth."

Thou angel whom I was wont
to worship!

fearest thou,
my sister,

for thy life?

Once it was the scope of my labors
to destroy thee,
but I was prompted
to the deed by heaven;
such,
at least,
was my belief.

Thinkest thou that thy death was sought
to gratify malevolence?

No.

I am pure from all stain.

I believed that my God was my mover!
"Neither thee nor myself have I cause
to injure.

I have done my duty;
and surely there is merit in having sacrificed
to that all that is dear
to the heart of man.

If a devil has deceived me,
he came in the habit of an angel.

If I erred,
it was not my judgment that deceived me,
but my senses.

In thy sight,
Being of beings!

I am still pure.

Still will I look
for my reward in thy justice!"
Did my ears truly report these sounds?

If I did not err,
my brother was restored
to just perceptions.

He knew himself
to have been betrayed
to the murder of his wife and children,

to have been the victim of infernal artifice;
yet he found consolation in the rectitude of his motives.

He was not devoid of sorrow,

for this was written on his countenance;
but his soul was tranquil and sublime.Perhaps this was merely a transition of his former madness in
to a new shape.

Perhaps he had not yet awakened
to the memory of the horrors which he had perpetrated.

Infatuated wretch that I was!


to set myself up as a model by which
to judge of my heroic brother!

My reason taught me that his conclusions were right;
but,
conscious of the impotence of reason over my own conduct,
conscious of my cowardly rashness and my criminal despair,
I doubted whether anyone could be steadfast and wise.Such was my weakness,
that even in the midst of these thoughts my mind glided in
to abhorrence of Carwin,
and I uttered,
in a low voice,
"O Carwin!

Carwin!

what hast thou
to answer for?"


My brother immediately noticed the involuntary exclamation.

"Clara!" said he,
"be thyself.

Equity used
to be a theme
for thy eloquence.

Reduce its lessons
to practice,
and be just
to that unfortunate man.

The instrument has done its work,
and I am satisfied."

I thank thee,
my God,

for this last illumination!

My enemy is thine also.

I deemed him
to be a man,--the man
with whom I have often communed;
but now thy goodness has unveiled
to me his true nature.

As the performer of thy behests,
he is my friend."


My heart began now
to misgive me.

His mournful aspect had gradually yielded place
to a serene brow.

A new soul appeared
to actuate his frame,
and his eyes
to beam
with preternatural luster.

These symptoms did not abate,
and he continued:--
"Clara,
I must not leave thee in doubt.

I know not what brought about thy interview
with the being whom thou callest Carwin.


for a time I was guilty of thy error,
and deduced from his incoherent confessions that I had been made the victim of human malice.

He left us at my bidding,
and I put up a prayer that my doubts should be removed.

Thy eyes were shut and thy ears sealed
to the vision that answered my prayer."

I was indeed deceived.

The form thou hast seen was the incarnation of a demon.

The visage and voice which urged me
to the sacrifice of my family were his.

Now he personates a human form;
then he was environed
with the luster of heaven."

Clara," he continued,
advancing closer
to me,
"thy death must come.

This minister is evil,
but he from whom his commission was received is God.

Submit then
with all thy wonted resignation
to a decree that cannot be reversed or resisted.

Mark the clock.

Three minutes are allowed
to thee,
in which
to call up thy fortitude and prepare thee
for thy doom."

There he stopped.Even now,
when this scene exists only in memory,
when life and all its functions have sunk in
to torpor,
my pulse throbs,
and my hairs uprise;
my brows are knit,
as then,
and I gaze around me in distraction.

I was unconquerably averse
to death;
but death,
imminent and full of agony as that which was threatened,
was nothing.

This was not the only or chief inspirer of my fears.
for him,
not
for myself,
was my soul tormented.

I might die,
and no crime,
surpassing the reach of mercy,
would pursue me
to the presence of my Judge;
but my assassin would survive
to contemplate his deed,
and that assassin was Wieland!
Wings
to bear me beyond his reach I had not.

I could not vanish
with a thought.

The door was open,
but my murderer was interposed between that and me.

Of self-defense I was incapable.

The frenzy that lately prompted me
to blood was gone:

my state was desperate;
my rescue was impossible.The weight of these accumulated thoughts could not be borne.

My sight became confused;
my limbs were seized
with convulsion;
I spoke,
but my words were half formed:--
"Spare me,
my brother!

Look down,
righteous Judge!

snatch me from this fate!

take away this fury from him,
or turn it elsewhere!

"
Such was the agony of my thoughts that I noticed not steps entering my apartment.

Supplicating eyes were cast upward;
but when my prayer was breathed I once more wildly gazed at the door.

A form met my sight;
I shuddered as if the God whom I invoked were present.

It was Carwin that again intruded,
and who stood before me,
erect in attitude and steadfast in look!
The sight of him awakened new and rapid thoughts.

His recent tale was remembered;
his magical transitions and mysterious energy of voice.

Whether he were infernal or miraculous or human,
there was no power and no need
to decide.

Whether the contriver or not of this spell,
he was able
to unbind it,
and
to check the fury of my brother.

He had ascribed
to himself intentions not malignant.

Here now was afforded a test of his truth.

Let him interpose,
as from above;
revoke the savage decree which the madness of Wieland has assigned
to heaven,
and extinguish forever this passion
for blood!
My mind detected at a glance this avenue
to safety.

The recommendations it possessed thronged as it were together,
and made but one impression on my intellect.

Remoter effects and collateral dangers I saw not.

Perhaps the pause of an instant had sufficed
to call them up.

The improbability that the influence which governed Wieland was external or human;
the tendency of this stratagem
to sanction so fatal an error or substitute a more destructive rage in place of this;
the insufficiency of Carwin's mere muscular forces
to counteract the efforts and restrain the fury of Wieland,
might,
at a second glance,
have been discovered;
but no second glance was allowed.

My first thought hurried me
to action,
and,
fixing my eyes upon Carwin,
I exclaimed,--
"O wretch!

once more hast thou come?

Let it be
to abjure thy malice;

to counterwork this hellish stratagem;

to turn from me and from my brother this desolating rage!
"Testify thy innocence or thy remorse;
exert the powers which pertain
to thee,
whatever they be,

to turn aside this ruin.

Thou art the author of these horrors!

What have I done
to deserve thus
to die?

How have I merited this unrelenting persecution?

I adjure thee,
by that God whose voice thou hast dared
to counterfeit,

to save my life!
"Wilt thou then go?--leave me!

Succorless!"
Carwin listened
to my entreaties unmoved,
and turned from me.

He seemed
to hesitate a moment,--then glided through the door.

Rage and despair stifled my utterance.

The interval of respite was past;
the pangs reserved
for me by Wieland were not
to be endured;
my thoughts rushed again in
to anarchy.

Having received the knife from his hand,
I held it loosely and without regard;
but now it seized again my attention,
and I grasped it
with force.He seemed
to notice not the entrance or exit of Carwin.

My gesture and the murderous weapon appeared
to have escaped his notice.

His silence was unbroken;
his eye,
fixed upon the clock
for a time,
was now withdrawn;
fury kindled in every feature;
all that was human in his face gave way
to an expression supernatural and tremendous.

I felt my left arm within his grasp.Even now I hesitated
to strike.

I shrunk from his assault,
but in vain.Here let me desist.

Why should I rescue this event from oblivion?

Why should I paint this detestable conflict?

Why not terminate at once this series of horrors?--Hurry
to the verge of the precipice,
and cast myself forever beyond remembrance and beyond hope?
Still I live;

with this load upon my breast;

with this phantom
to pursue my steps;

with adders lodged in my bosom,
and stinging me
to madness;
still I consent
to live!
Yes!

I will rise above the sphere of mortal passions;
I will spurn at the cowardly remorse that bids me seek impunity in silence,
or comfort in forgetfulness.

My nerves shall be new-strung
to the task.

Have I not resolved?

I will die.

The gulf before me is inevitable and near.

I will die,
but then only when my tale is at an end.

III
My right hand,
grasping the unseen knife,
was still disengaged.

It was lifted
to strike.

All my strength was exhausted but what was sufficient
to the performance of this deed.

Already was the energy awakened and the impulse given that should bear the fatal steel
to his heart,
when--Wieland shrunk back;
his hand was withdrawn.

Breathless
with affright and desperation,
I stood,
freed from his grasp;
unassailed;
untouched.Thus long had the power which controlled the scene forborne
to interfere:

but now his might was irresistible;
and Wieland in a moment was disarmed of all his purposes.

A voice,
louder than human organs could produce,
shriller than language can depict,
burst from the ceiling and commanded him--
TO HOLD!
Trouble and dismay succeeded
to the steadfastness that had lately been displayed in the looks of Wieland.

His eyes roved from one quarter
to another,

with an expression of doubt.

He seemed
to wait
for a further intimation.Carwin's agency was here easily recognized.

I had besought him
to interpose in my defense.

He had flown.

I had imagined him deaf
to my prayer,
and resolute
to see me perish;
yet he disappeared merely
to devise and execute the means of my relief.Why did he not forbear when this end was accomplished?

Why did his misjudging zeal and accursed precipitation overpass that limit?

Or meant he thus
to crown the scene,
and conduct his inscrutable plots
to this consummation?
Such ideas were the fruit of subsequent contemplation.

This moment was pregnant
with fate.

I had no power
to reason.

In the career of my tempestuous thoughts,
rent in
to pieces as my mind was by accumulating horrors,
Carwin was unseen and unsuspected.

I partook of Wieland's credulity,
shook
with his amazement,
and panted
with his awe.Silence took place
for a moment:

so much as allowed the attention
to recover its post.

Then new sounds were uttered from above:--
"Man of errors!

cease
to cherish thy delusion;
not heaven or hell,
but thy senses,
have misled thee
to commit these acts.

Shake off thy frenzy,
and ascend in
to rational and human.

Be lunatic no longer."


My brother opened his lips
to speak.

His tone was terrific and faint.

He muttered an appeal
to heaven.

It was difficult
to comprehend the theme of his inquiries.

They implied doubt as
to the nature of the impulse that hither
to had guided him,
and questioned whether he had acted in consequence of insane perceptions.
to these interrogatories the voice,
which now seemed
to hover at his shoulder,
loudly answered in the affirmative.

Then uninterrupted silence ensued.Fallen from his lofty and heroic station;
now finally restored
to the perception of truth;
weighed
to earth by the recollection of his own deeds;
consoled no longer by a consciousness of rectitude
for the loss of offspring and wife,--a loss
for which he was indebted
to his own misguided hand,--Wieland was transformed at once in
to the MAN OF SORROWS!
He reflected not that credit should be as reasonably denied
to the last as
to any former intimation;
that one might as justly be ascribed
to erring or diseased senses as the other.

He saw not that this discovery in no degree affected the integrity of his conduct;
that his motives had lost none of their claims
to the homage of mankind;
that the preference of supreme good,
and the boundless energy of duty,
were undiminished in his bosom.It is not
for me
to pursue him through the ghastly changes of his countenance.

Words he had none.

Now he sat upon the floor,
motionless in all his limbs,

with his eyes glazed and fixed,
a monument of woe.Anon a spirit of tempestuous but undesigning activity seized him.

He rose from his place and strode across the floor,
tottering and at random.

His eyes were without moisture,
and gleamed
with the fire that consumed his vitals.

The muscles of his face were agitated by convulsions.

His lips moved,
but no sound escaped him.That nature should long sustain this conflict was not
to be believed.

My state was little different from that of my brother.

I entered,
as it were,
in
to his thoughts.

My heart was visited and rent by his pangs.

"Oh that thy frenzy had never been cured!

that thy madness,

with its blissful visions,
would return!

or,
if that must not be,
that thy scene would hasten
to a close!--that death would cover thee
with his oblivion!
"What can I wish
for thee?

Thou who hast vied
with the great Preacher of thy faith in sanctity of motives,
and in elevation above sensual and selfish!

Thou whom thy fate has changed in
to parricide and savage!

Can I wish
for the continuance of thy being?

No."



for a time his movements seemed destitute of purpose.

If he walked;
if he turned;
if his fingers were entwined
with each other;
if his hands were pressed against opposite sides of his head
with a force sufficient
to crush it in
to pieces;
it was
to tear his mind from self-contemplation;

to waste his thoughts on external objects.Speedily this train was broken.

A beam appeared
to be darted in
to his mind which gave a purpose
to his efforts.

An avenue
to escape presented itself;
and now he eagerly gazed about him.

When my thoughts became engaged by his demeanor,
my fingers were stretched as by a mechanical force,
and the knife,
no longer heeded or of use,
escaped from my grasp and fell unperceived on the floor.

His eye now lighted upon it;
he seized it
with the quickness of thought.I shrieked aloud,
but it was too late.

He plunged it
to the hilt in his neck;
and his life instantly escaped
with the stream that gushed from the wound.

He was stretched at my feet;
and my hands were sprinkled
with his blood as he fell.Such was thy last deed,
my brother!


for a spectacle like this was it my fate
to be reserved!

Thy eyes were closed--thy face ghastly
with death--thy arms,
and the spot where thou lyedst,
floated in thy life's blood!

These images have not
for a moment forsaken me.

Till I am breathless and cold,
they must continue
to hover in my sight.Carwin,
as I said,
had left the room;
but he still lingered in the house.

My voice summoned him
to my aid;
but I scarcely noticed his reentrance,
and now faintly recollect his terrified looks,
his broken exclamations,
his vehement avowals of innocence,
the effusions of his pity
for me,
and his offers of assistance.I did not listen--I answered him not--I ceased
to upbraid or accuse.

His guilt was a point
to which I was indifferent.

Ruffian or devil,
black as hell or bright as angels,
thenceforth he was nothing
to me.

I was incapable of sparing a look or a thought from the ruin that was spread at my feet.When he left me,
I was scarcely conscious of any variation in the scene.

He informed the inhabitants of the hut of what had passed,
and they flew
to the spot.

Careless of his own safety,
he hasted
to the city
to inform my friends of my condition.My uncle speedily arrived at the house.

The body of Wieland was removed from my presence,
and they supposed that I would follow it;
but no,
my home is ascertained;
here I have taken up my rest,
and never will I go hence,
till,
like Wieland,
I am borne
to my grave.Importunity was tried in vain.

They threatened
to remove me by violence,--nay,
violence was used;
but my soul prizes too dearly this little roof
to endure
to be bereaved of it.

Force should not prevail when the hoary locks and supplicating tears of my uncle were ineffectual.

My repugnance
to move gave birth
to ferociousness and frenzy when force was employed,
and they were obliged
to consent
to my return.They besought me--they remonstrated--they appealed
to every duty that connected me
with Him that made me and
with my fellow-men--in vain.

While I live I will not go hence.

Have I not fulfilled my destiny?
Why will ye torment me
with your reasonings and reproofs?

Can ye restore
to me the hope of my better days?

Can ye give me back Catharine and her babes?

Can ye recall
to life him who died at my feet?
I will eat--I will drink--I will lie down and rise up--at your bidding;
all I ask is the choice of my abode.

What is there unreasonable in this demand?

Shortly will I be at peace.

This is the spot which I have chosen in which
to breathe my last sigh.

Deny me not,
I beseech you,
so slight a boon.Talk not
to me,
O my reverend friend!

of Carwin.

He has told thee his tale,
and thou exculpatest him from all direct concern in the fate of Wieland.

This scene of havoc was produced by an illusion of the senses.

Be it so;
I care not from what source these disasters have flowed;
it suffices that they have swallowed up our hopes and our existence.What his agency began,
his agency conducted
to a close.

He intended,
by the final effort of his power,

to rescue me and
to banish his illusions from my brother.

Such is his tale,
concerning the truth of which I care not.

Henceforth I foster but one wish:

I ask only quick deliverance from life and all the ills that attend it.Go,
wretch!

torment me not
with thy presence and thy prayers.-- Forgive thee?

Will that avail thee when thy fateful hour shall arrive?

Be thou acquitted at thy own tribunal,
and thou needest not fear the verdict of others.

If thy guilt be capable of blacker hues,
if hither
to thy conscience be without stain,
thy crime will be made more flagrant by thus violating my retreat.

Take thyself away from my sight if thou wouldst not behold my death!
Thou art gone!

murmuring and reluctant!

And now my repose is coming--my work is done!


Fitzjames O'Brien
The Golden Ingot
I had just retired
to rest,

with my eyes almost blind
with the study of a new work on physiology by M.

Brown-Sequard,
when the night bell was pulled violently.It was winter,
and I confess I grumbled as I rose and went downstairs
to open the door.

Twice that week I had been aroused long after midnight
for the most trivial causes.

Once,

to attend upon the son and heir of a wealthy family,
who had cut his thumb
with a penknife,
which,
it seems,
he insisted on taking
to bed
with him;
and once,

to restore a young gentleman
to consciousness,
who had been found by his horrified parent stretched insensible on the staircase.

Diachylon in the one case and ammonia in the other were all that my patients required;
and I had a faint suspicion that the present summons was perhaps occasioned by no case more necessitous than those I have quoted.

I was too young in my profession,
however,

to neglect opportunities.

It is only when a physician rises
to a very large practice that he can afford
to be inconsiderate.

I was on the first step of the ladder,
so I humbly opened my door.A woman was standing ankle deep in the snow that lay upon the stoop.

I caught but a dim glimpse of her form,

for the night was cloudy;
but I could hear her teeth rattling like castanets,
and,
as the sharp wind blew her clothes close
to her form,
I could discern from the sharpness of the outlines that she was very scantily supplied
with raiment."

Come in,
come in,
my good woman," I said hastily,

for the wind seemed
to catch eagerly at the opportunity of making itself at home in my hall,
and was rapidly forcing an entrance through the half- open door.

"Come in,
you can tell me all you have
to communicate inside."


She slipped in like a ghost,
and I closed the door.

While I was striking a light in my office,
I could hear her teeth still clicking out in the dark hall,
till it seemed as if some skeleton was chattering.

As soon as I obtained a light I begged her
to enter the room,
and,
without occupying myself particularly about her appearance,
asked her abruptly what her business was."

My father has met
with a severe accident," she said,
"and requires instant surgical aid.

I entreat you
to come
to him immediately."


The freshness and the melody of her voice startled me.

Such voices rarely,
if ever,
issue from any but beautiful forMs. I looked at her attentively,
but,
owing
to a nondescript species of shawl in which her head was wrapped,
I could discern nothing beyond what seemed
to be a pale,
thin face and large eyes.

Her dress was lamentable.

An old silk,
of a color now unrecognizable,
clung
to her figure in those limp folds which are so eloquent of misery.

The creases where it had been folded were worn nearly through,
and the edges of the skirt had decayed in
to a species of irregular fringe,
which was clotted and discolored
with mud.

Her shoes-- which were but half concealed by this scanty garment--were shapeless and soft
with moisture.

Her hands were hidden under the ends of the shawl which covered her head and hung down over a bust,
the outlines of which,
although angular,
seemed
to possess grace.

Poverty,
when partially shrouded,
seldom fails
to interest:

witness the statue of the Veiled Beggar,
by Monti."

In what manner was your father hurt?"

I asked,
in a tone considerably softened from the one in which I put my first question."

He blew himself up,
sir,
and is terribly wounded."


"Ah!

He is in some factory,
then?"


"No,
sir,
he is a chemist."


"A chemist?

Why,
he is a brother professional.

Wait an instant,
and I will slip on my coat and go
with you.

Do you live far from here?"


"In the Seventh Avenue,
not more than two blocks from the end of this street."


"So much the better.

We will be
with him in a few minutes.

Did you leave anyone in attendance on him?"


"No,
sir.

He will allow no one but myself
to enter his laboratory.

And,
injured as he is,
I could not induce him
to quit it."


"Indeed!

He is engaged in some great research,
perhaps?

I have known such cases."


We were passing under a lamp-post,
and the woman suddenly turned and glared at me
with a look of such wild terror that
for an instant I involuntarily glanced round me under the impression that some terrible peril,
unseen by me,
was menacing us both."

Don't--don't ask me any questions," she said breathlessly.

"He will tell you all.

But do,
oh,
do hasten!

Good God!

he may be dead by this time!"
I made no reply,
but allowed her
to grasp my hand,
which she did
with a bony,
nervous clutch,
and endeavored
with some difficulty
to keep pace
with the long strides--I might well call them bounds,

for they seemed the springs of a wild animal rather than the paces of a young girl--
with which she covered the ground.

Not a word more was uttered until we stopped before a shabby,
old-fashioned tenement house in the Seventh Avenue,
not far above Twenty-third Street.

She pushed the door open
with a convulsive pressure,
and,
still retaining hold of my hand,
literally dragged me upstairs
to what seemed
to be a back offshoot from the main building,
as high,
perhaps,
as the fourth story.

In a moment more I found myself in a moderate-sized chamber,
lit by a single lamp.

In one corner,
stretched motionless on a wretched pallet bed,
I beheld what I supposed
to be the figure of my patient."

He is there," said the girl;
"go
to him.

See if he is dead--I dare not look."


I made my way as well as I could through the numberless dilapidated chemical instruments
with which the room was littered.

A French chafing dish supported on an iron tripod had been overturned,
and was lying across the floor,
while the charcoal,
still warm,
was scattered around in various directions.

Crucibles,
alembics,
and retorts were confusedly piled in various corners,
and on a small table I saw distributed in separate bottles a number of mineral and metallic substances,
which I recognized as antimony,
mercury,
plumbago,
arsenic,
borax,
etc.

It was veritably the apartment of a poor chemist.

All the apparatus had the air of being second-hand.

There was no luster of exquisitely annealed glass and highly polished metals,
such as dazzles one in the laboratory of the prosperous analyst.

The makeshifts of poverty were everywhere visible.

The crucibles were broken,
or gallipots were used instead of crucibles.

The colored tests were not in the usual transparent vials,
but were placed in ordinary black bottles.

There is nothing more melancholy than
to behold science or art in distress.

A threadbare scholar,
a tattered book,
or a battered violin is a mute appeal
to our sympathy.I approached the wretched pallet bed on which the victim of chemistry was lying.

He breathed heavily,
and had his head turned toward the wall.

I lifted his arm gently
to arouse his attention.

"How goes it,
my poor friend?"

I asked him.

"Where are you hurt?"


In a moment,
as if startled by the sound of my voice,
he sprang up in his bed,
and cowered against the wall like a wild animal driven
to bay.

"Who are you?

I don't know you.

Who brought you here?

You are a stranger.

How dare you come in
to my private rooms
to spy upon me?"


And as he uttered this rapidly
with a frightful nervous energy,
I beheld a pale distorted face,
draped
with long gray hair,
glaring at me
with a mingled expression of fury and terror."

I am no spy," I answered mildly.

"I heard that you had met
with an accident,
and have come
to cure you.

I am Dr. Luxor,
and here is my card."


The old man took the card,
and scanned it eagerly.

"You are a physician?"

he inquired distrustfully."

And surgeon also."


"You are bound by oath not
to reveal the secrets of your patients."


"Undoubtedly."


"I am afraid that I am hurt," he continued faintly,
half sinking back in the bed.I seized the opportunity
to make a brief examination of his body.

I found that the arms,
a part of the chest,
and a part of the face were terribly scorched;
but it seemed
to me that there was nothing
to be apprehended but pain."

You will not reveal anything that you may learn here?"

said the old man,
feebly fixing his eyes on my face while I was applying a soothing ointment
to the burns.

"You will promise me."


I nodded assent."

Then I will trust you.

Cure me--I will pay you well."


I could scarce help smiling.

If Lorenzo de' Medici,
conscious of millions of ducats in his coffers,
had been addressing some leech of the period,
he could not have spoken
with a loftier air than this inhabitant of the fourth story of a tenement house in the Seventh Avenue."

You must keep quiet," I answered.

"Let nothing irritate you.

I will leave a composing draught
with your daughter,
which she will give you immediately.

I will see you in the morning.

You will be well in a week."


"Thank God!" came in a murmur from a dusk corner near the door.

I turned,
and beheld the dim outline of the girl,
standing
with clasped hands in the gloom of the dim chamber."

My daughter!" screamed the old man,
once more leaping up in the bed
with renewed vitality.

"You have seen her,
then?

When?

Where?

Oh,
may a thousand cur--"
"Father!

father!

Anything--anything but that.

Don't,
don't curse me!" And the poor girl,
rushing in,
flung herself sobbing on her knees beside his pallet."

Ah,
brigand!

You are there,
are you?

Sir," said he,
turning
to me,
"I am the most unhappy man in the world.

Talk of Sisyphus rolling the ever-recoiling stone--of Prometheus gnawed by the vulture since the birth of time.

The fables yet live.

There is my rock,
forever crushing me back!

there is my eternal vulture,
feeding upon my heart!

There!

there!

there!" And,

with an awful gesture of malediction and hatred,
he pointed
with his wounded hand,
swathed and shapeless
with bandages,
at the cowering,
sobbing,
wordless woman by his side.I was too much horror-stricken
to attempt even
to soothe him.

The anger of blood against blood has an electric power which paralyzes bystanders."

Listen
to me,
sir," he continued,
"while I skin this painted viper.

I have your oath;
you will not reveal.

I am an alchemist,
sir.

Since I was twenty-two years old,
I have pursued the wonderful and subtle secret.

Yes,

to unfold the mysterious Rose guarded
with such terrible thorns;

to decipher the wondrous Table of Emerald;

to accomplish the mystic nuptials of the Red King and the White Queen;

to marry them soul
to soul and body
to body,
forever and ever,
in the exact proportions of land and water--such has been my sublime aim,
such has been the splendid feat that I have accomplished."


I recognized at a glance,
in this incomprehensible farrago,
the argot of the true alchemist.

Ripley,
Flamel,
and others have supplied the world,
in their works,

with the melancholy spectacle of a scientific bedlam."

Two years since," continued the poor man,
growing more and more excited
with every word that he uttered--"two years since,
I succeeded in solving the great problem--in transmuting the baser metals in
to gold.

None but myself,
that girl,
and God knows the privations I had suffered up
to that time.

Food,
clothing,
air,
exercise,
everything but shelter,
was sacrificed toward the one great end.

Success at last crowned my labors.

That which Nicholas Flamel did in 1382,
that which George Ripley did at Rhodes in 1460,
that which Alexander Sethon and Michael Scudivogius did in the seventeenth century,
I did in 1856.

I made gold!

I said
to myself,
'I will astonish New York more than Flamel did Paris.' He was a poor copyist,
and suddenly launched in
to magnificence.

I had scarce a rag
to my back:

I would rival the Medicis.

I made gold every day.

I toiled night and morning;

for I must tell you that I never was able
to make more than a certain quantity at a time,
and that by a process almost entirely dissimilar
to those hinted at in those books of alchemy I had hither
to consulted.

But I had no doubt that facility would come
with experience,
and that ere long I should be able
to eclipse in wealth the richest sovereigns of the earth."

So I toiled on.

Day after day I gave
to this girl here what gold I succeeded in fabricating,
telling her
to store it away after supplying our necessities.

I was astonished
to perceive that we lived as poorly as ever.

I reflected,
however,
that it was perhaps a commendable piece of prudence on the part of my daughter.

Doubtless,
I said,
she argues that the less we spend the sooner we shall accumulate a capital where
with
to live at ease;
so,
thinking her course a wise one,
I did not reproach her
with her niggardliness,
but toiled on,
amid want,

with closed lips."

The gold which I fabricated was,
as I said before,
of an invariable size,
namely,
a little ingot worth perhaps thirty or forty-five dollars.

In two years I calculated that I had made five hundred of these ingots,
which,
rated at an average of thirty dollars apiece,
would amount
to the gross sum of fifteen thousand dollars.

After deducting our slight expenses
for two years,
we ought
to have had nearly fourteen thousand dollars left.

It was time,
I thought,

to indemnify myself
for my years of suffering,
and surround my child and myself
with such moderate comforts as our means allowed.

I went
to my daughter and explained
to her that I desired
to make an encroachment upon our little hoard.


to my utter amazement,
she burst in
to tears,
and told me that she had not got a dollar--that all of our wealth had been stolen from her.

Almost overwhelmed by this new misfortune,
I in vain endeavored
to discover from her in what manner our savings had been plundered.

She could afford me no explanation beyond what I might gather from an abundance of sobs and a copious flow of tears."

It was a bitter blow,
doctor,
but nil desperandum was my motto,
so I went
to work at my crucible again,

with redoubled energy,
and made an ingot nearly every second day.

I determined this time
to put them in some secure place myself;
but the very first day I set my apparatus in order
for the projection,
the girl Marion--that is my daughter's name--came weeping
to me and implored me
to allow her
to take care of our treasure.

I refused decisively,
saying that,
having found her already incapable of filling the trust,
I could place no faith in her again.

But she persisted,
clung
to my neck,
threatened
to abandon me;
in short,
used so many of the bad but irresistible arguments known
to women that I had not the heart
to refuse her.

She has since that time continued
to take the ingots."

Yet you behold," continued the old alchemist,
casting an inexpressibly mournful glance around the wretched apartment,
"the way we live.

Our food is insufficient and of bad quality;
we never buy clothes;
the rent of this hole is a mere nothing.

What am I
to think of the wretched girl who plunges me in
to this misery?

Is she a miser,
think you?--or a female gamester?--or--or--does she squander it riotously in places I know not of?

O Doctor,
Doctor!

do not blame me if I heap imprecations on her head,

for I have suffered bitterly!" The poor man here closed his eyes and sank back groaning on his bed.This singular narrative excited in me the strangest emotions.

I glanced at the girl Marion,
who had been a patient listener
to these horrible accusations of cupidity,
and never did I behold a more angelic air of resignation than beamed over her countenance.

It was impossible that anyone
with those pure,
limpid eyes;
that calm,
broad forehead;
that childlike mouth,
could be such a monster of avarice or deceit as the old man represented.

The truth was plain enough:

the alchemist was mad--what alchemist was there ever who was not?--and his insanity had taken this terrible shape.

I felt an inexpressible pity move my heart
for this poor girl,
whose youth was burdened
with such an awful sorrow."

What is your name?"

I asked the old man,
taking his tremulous,
fevered hand in mine."

William Blakelock," he answered.

"I come of an old Saxon stock,
sir,
that bred true men and women in former days.

God!

how did it ever come
to pass that such a one as that girl ever sprung from our line?"

The glance of loathing and contempt that he cast at her made me shudder."

May you not be mistaken in your daughter?"

I said,
very mildly.

"Delusions
with regard
to alchemy are,
or have been,
very common--"
"What,
sir?"

cried the old man,
bounding in his bed.

"What?

Do you doubt that gold can be made?

Do you know,
sir,
that M.

C.

Theodore Tiffereau made gold at Paris in the year 1854 in the presence of M.

Levol,
the assayer of the Imperial Mint,
and the result of the experiments was read before the Academy of Sciences on the sixteenth of October of the same year?

But stay;
you shall have better proof yet.

I will pay you
with one of my ingots,
and you shall attend me until I am well.

Get me an ingot!"
This last command was addressed
to Marion,
who was still kneeling close
to her father's bedside.

I observed her
with some curiosity as this mandate was issued.

She became very pale,
clasped her hands convulsively,
but neither moved nor made any reply."

Get me an ingot,
I say!" reiterated the alchemist passionately.She fixed her large eyes imploringly upon him.

Her lips quivered,
and two huge tears rolled slowly down her white cheeks."

Obey me,
wretched girl," cried the old man in an agitated voice,
"or I swear,
by all that I reverence in heaven and earth,
that I will lay my curse upon you forever!"
I felt
for an instant that I ought perhaps
to interfere,
and spare the girl the anguish that she was so evidently suffering;
but a powerful curiosity
to see how this strange scene would terminate withheld me.The last threat of her father,
uttered as it was
with a terrible vehemence,
seemed
to appall Marion.

She rose
with a sudden leap,
as if a serpent had stung her,
and,
rushing in
to an inner apartment,
returned
with a small object which she placed in my hand,
and then flung herself in a chair in a distant corner of the room,
weeping bitterly."

You see--you see," said the old man sarcastically,
"how reluctantly she parts
with it.

Take it,
sir;
it is yours."


It was a small bar of metal.

I examined it carefully,
poised it in my hand--the color,
weight,
everything,
announced that it really was gold."

You doubt its genuineness,
perhaps," continued the alchemist.

"There are acids on yonder table--test it."


I confess that I DID doubt its genuineness;
but after I had acted upon the old man's suggestion,
all further suspicion was rendered impossible.

It was gold of the highest purity.

I was astounded.

Was then,
after all,
this man's tale a truth?

Was his daughter,
that fair,
angelic-looking creature,
a demon of avarice,
or a slave
to worse passions?

I felt bewildered.

I had never met
with anything so incomprehensible.

I looked from father
to daughter in the blankest amazement.

I suppose that my countenance betrayed my astonishment,

for the old man said:

"I perceive that you are surprised.

Well,
that is natural.

You had a right
to think me mad until I proved myself sane."


"But,
Mr. Blakelock," I said,
"I really cannot take this gold.

I have no right
to it.

I cannot in justice charge so large a fee."


"Take it--take it," he answered impatiently;
"your fee will amount
to that before I am well.

Besides," he added mysteriously,
"I wish
to secure your friendship.

I wish that you should protect me from her," and he pointed his poor,
bandaged hand at Marion.My eyes followed his gesture,
and I caught the glance that replied-- a glance of horror,
distrust,
despair.

The beautiful face was distorted in
to positive ugliness."

It's all true," I thought;
"she is the demon that her father represents her."


I now rose
to go.

This domestic tragedy sickened me.

This treachery of blood against blood was too horrible
to witness.

I wrote a prescription
for the old man,
left directions as
to the renewal of the dressings upon his burns,
and,
bidding him good night,
hastened toward the door.While I was fumbling on the dark,
crazy landing
for the staircase,
I felt a hand laid on my arm."

Doctor," whispered a voice that I recognized as Marion Blakelock's,
"Doctor,
have you any compassion in your heart?"


"I hope so," I answered shortly,
shaking off her hand;
her touch filled me
with loathing."

Hush!

don't talk so loud.

If you have any pity in your nature,
give me back,
I entreat of you,
that gold ingot which my father gave you this evening."


"Great heaven!" said I,
"can it be possible that so fair a woman can be such a mercenary,
shameless wretch?"


"Ah!

you know not--I cannot tell you!

Do not judge me harshly.

I call God
to witness that I am not what you deem me.

Some day or other you will know.

But," she added,
interrupting herself,
"the ingot--where is it?

I must have it.

My life depends on your giving it
to me."


"Take it,
impostor!" I cried,
placing it in her hand,
that closed on it
with a horrible eagerness.

"I never intended
to keep it.

Gold made under the same roof that covers such as you must be accursed."


So saying,
heedless of the nervous effort she made
to detain me,
I stumbled down the stairs and walked hastily home.The next morning,
while I was in my office,
smoking my matutinal cigar,
and speculating over the singular character of my acquaintances of last night,
the door opened,
and Marion Blakelock entered.

She had the same look of terror that I had observed the evening before,
and she panted as if she had been running fast."

Father has got out of bed," she gasped out,
"and insists on going on
with his alchemy.

Will it kill him?"


"Not exactly," I answered coldly.

"It were better that he kept quiet,
so as
to avoid the chance of inflammation.

However,
you need not be alarmed;
his burns are not at all dangerous,
although painful."


"Thank God!

thank God!" she cried,
in the most impassioned accents;
and,
before I was aware of what she was doing,
she seized my hand and kissed it."

There,
that will do," I said,
withdrawing my hand;
"you are under no obligations
to me.

You had better go back
to your father."


"I can't go," she answered.

"You despise me--is it not so?"


I made no reply."

You think me a monster--a criminal.

When you went home last night,
you were wonderstruck that so vile a creature as I should have so fair a face."


"You embarrass me,
madam," I said,
in a most chilling tone.

"Pray relieve me from this unpleasant position."


"Wait.

I cannot bear that you should think ill of me.

You are good and kind,
and I desire
to possess your esteem.

You little know how I love my father."


I could not restrain a bitter smile."

You do not believe that?

Well,
I will convince you.

I have had a hard struggle all last night
with myself,
but am now resolved.

This life of deceit must continue no longer.

Will you hear my vindication?"


I assented.

The wonderful melody of her voice and the purity of her features were charming me once more.

I half believed in her innocence already."

My father has told you a portion of his history.

But he did not tell you that his continued failures in his search after the secret of metallic transmutation nearly killed him.

Two years ago he was on the verge of the grave,
working every day at his mad pursuit,
and every day growing weaker and more emaciated.

I saw that if his mind was not relieved in some way he would die.

The thought was madness
to me,

for I loved him--I love him still,
as a daughter never loved a father before.

During all these years of poverty I had supported the house
with my needle;
it was hard work,
but I did it--I do it still!"
"What?"

I cried,
startled,
"does not--"
"Patience.

Hear me out.

My father was dying of disappointment.

I must save him.

By incredible exertions,
working night and day,
I saved about thirty-five dollars in notes.

These I exchanged
for gold,
and one day,
when my father was not looking,
I cast them in
to the crucible in which he was making one of his vain attempts at transmutation.

God,
I am sure,
will pardon the deception.

I never anticipated the misery it would lead to."

I never beheld anything like the joy of my poor father,
when,
after emptying his crucible,
he found a deposit of pure gold at the bottom.

He wept,
and danced,
and sang,
and built such castles in the air,
that my brain was dizzy
to hear him.

He gave me the ingot
to keep,
and went
to work at his alchemy
with renewed vigor.

The same thing occurred.

He always found the same quantity of gold in his crucible.

I alone knew the secret.

He was happy,
poor man,

for nearly two years,
in the belief that he was amassing a fortune.

I all the while plied my needle
for our daily bread.

When he asked me
for the savings,
the first stroke fell upon me.

Then it was that I recognized the folly of my conduct.

I could give him no money.

I never had any--while he believed that I had fourteen thousand dollars.

My heart was nearly broken when I found that he had conceived the most injurious suspicions against me.

Yet I could not blame him.

I could give no account of the treasure I had permitted him
to believe was in my possession.

I must suffer the penalty of my fault,

for
to undeceive him would be,
I felt,

to kill him.

I remained silent then,
and suffered."

You know the rest.

You now know why it was that I was reluctant
to give you that ingot--why it was that I degraded myself so far as
to ask it back.

It was the only means I had of continuing a deception on which I believed my father's life depended.

But that delusion has been dispelled.

I can live this life of hypocrisy no longer.

I cannot exist and hear my father,
whom I love so,
wither me daily
with his curses.

I will undeceive him this very day.

Will you come
with me,

for I fear the effect on his enfeebled frame?"


"Willingly," I answered,
taking her by the hand;
"and I think that no absolute danger need be apprehended.

Now,
Marion," I added,
"let me ask forgiveness
for having even
for a moment wounded so noble a heart.

You are truly as great a martyr as any of those whose sufferings the Church perpetuates in altar-pieces."


"I knew you would do me justice when you knew all," she sobbed,
pressing my hand;
"but come.

I am on fire.

Let us hasten
to my father,
and break this terror
to him."


When we reached the old alchemist's room,
we found him busily engaged over a crucible which was placed on a small furnace,
and in which some indescribable mixture was boiling.

He looked up as we entered."

No fear of me,
doctor," he said,

with a ghastly smile,
"no fear;
I must not allow a little physical pain
to interrupt my great work,
you know.

By the way,
you are just in time.

In a few moments the marriage of the Red King and White Queen will be accomplished,
as George Ripley calls the great act,
in his book entitled 'The Twelve Gates.' Yes,
doctor,
in less than ten minutes you will see me make pure,
red,
shining gold!" And the poor old man smiled triumphantly,
and stirred his foolish mixture
with a long rod,
which he held
with difficulty in his bandaged hands.

It was a grievous sight
for a man of any feeling
to witness."

Father," said Marion,
in a low,
broken voice,
advancing a little toward the poor old dupe,
"I want your forgiveness."


"Ah,
hypocrite!


for what?

Are you going
to give me back my gold?"


"No,
father,
but
for the deception that I have been practicing on you
for two years--"
"I knew it!

I knew it!" shouted the old man,

with a radiant countenance.

"She has concealed my fourteen thousand dollars all this time,
and now comes
to restore them.

I will forgive her.

Where are they,
Marion?"


"Father--it must come out.

You never made any gold.

It was I who saved up thirty-five dollars,
and I used
to slip them in
to your crucible when your back was turned--and I did it only because I saw that you were dying of disappointment.

It was wrong,
I know--but,
father,
I meant well.

You'll forgive me,
won't you?"

And the poor girl advanced a step toward the alchemist.He grew deathly pale,
and staggered as if about
to fall.

The next instant,
though,
he recovered himself,
and burst in
to a horrible sardonic laugh.

Then he said,
in tones full of the bitterest irony:

"A conspiracy,
is it?

Well done,
doctor!

You think
to reconcile me
with this wretched girl by trumping up this story that I have been
for two years a dupe of her filial piety.

It's clumsy,
doctor,
and is a total failure.

Try again."


"But I assure you,
Mr. Blakelock," I said as earnestly as I could,
"I believe your daughter's statement
to be perfectly true.

You will find it
to be so,
as she has got the ingot in her possession which so often deceived you in
to the belief that you made gold,
and you will certainly find that no transmutation has taken place in your crucible."


"Doctor," said the old man,
in tones of the most settled conviction,
"you are a fool.

The girl has wheedled you.

In less than a minute I will turn you out a piece of gold purer than any the earth produces.

Will that convince you?"


"That will convince me," I answered.

By a gesture I imposed silence on Marion,
who was about
to speak.

I thought it better
to allow the old man
to be his own undeceiver--and we awaited the coming crisis.The old man,
still smiling
with anticipated triumph,
kept bending eagerly over his crucible,
stirring the mixture
with his rod,
and muttering
to himself all the time.

"Now," I heard him say,
"it changes.

There--there's the scum.

And now the green and bronze shades flit across it.

Oh,
the beautiful green!

the precursor of the golden-red hue that tells of the end attained!

Ah!

now the golden-red is coming--slowly--slowly!

It deepens,
it shines,
it is dazzling!

Ah,
I have it!" So saying,
he caught up his crucible in a chemist's tongs,
and bore it slowly toward the table on which stood a brass vessel."

Now,
incredulous doctor!" he cried,
"come and be convinced," and immediately began carefully pouring the contents of the crucible in
to the brass vessel.

When the crucible was quite empty he turned it up and called me again.

"Come,
doctor,
come and be convinced.

See
for yourself."


"See first if there is any gold in your crucible," I answered,
without moving.He laughed,
shook his head derisively,
and looked in
to the crucible.

In a moment he grew pale as death."

Nothing!" he cried.

"Oh,
a jest,
a jest!

There must be gold somewhere.

Marion!"
"The gold is here,
father," said Marion,
drawing the ingot from her pocket;
"it is all we ever had."


"Ah!" shrieked the poor old man,
as he let the empty crucible fall,
and staggered toward the ingot which Marion held out
to him.

He made three steps,
and then fell on his face.

Marion rushed toward him,
and tried
to lift him,
but could not.

I put her aside gently,
and placed my hand on his heart."

Marion," said I,
"it is perhaps better as it is.

He is dead!"
Fitzjames O'Brien
My Wife's Tempter
I
A PREDESTINED MARRIAGE
Elsie and I were
to be married in less than a week.

It was rather a strange match,
and I knew that some of our neighbors shook their heads over it and said that no good would come.

The way it came
to pass was thus.I loved Elsie Burns
for two years,
during which time she refused me three times.

I could no more help asking her
to have me,
when the chance offered,
than I could help breathing or living.


to love her seemed natural
to me as existence.

I felt no shame,
only sorrow,
when she rejected me;
I felt no shame either when I renewed my suit.

The neighbors called me mean-spirited
to take up
with any girl that had refused me as often as Elsie Burns had done;
but what cared I about the neighbors?

If it is black weather,
and the sun is under a cloud every day
for a month,
is that any reason why the poor farmer should not hope
for the blue sky and the plentiful burst of warm light when the dark month is over?

I never entirely lost heart.

Do not,
however,
mistake me.

I did not mope,
and moan,
and grow pale,
after the manner of poetical lovers.

No such thing.

I went bravely about my business,
ate and drank as usual,
laughed when the laugh went round,
and slept soundly,
and woke refreshed.

Yet all this time I loved--desperately loved--Elsie Burns.

I went wherever I hoped
to meet her,
but did not haunt her
with my attentions.

I behaved
to her as any friendly young man would have behaved:

I met her and parted from her cheerfully.

She was a good girl,
too,
and behaved well.

She had me in her power-- how a woman in Elsie's situation could have mortified a man in mine!--but she never took the slightest advantage of it.

She danced
with me when I asked her,
and had no foolish fears of allowing me
to see her home of nights,
after a ball was over,
or of wandering
with me through the pleasant New England fields when the wild flowers made the paths like roads in fairyland.On the several disastrous occasions when I presented my suit I did it simply and manfully,
telling her that I loved her very much,
and would do everything
to make her happy if she would be my wife.

I made no fulsome protestations,
and did not once allude
to suicide.

She,
on the other hand,
calmly and gravely thanked me
for my good opinion,
but
with the same calm gravity rejected me.

I used
to tell her that I was grieved;
that I would not press her;
that I would wait and hope
for some change in her feelings.

She had an esteem
for me,
she would say,
but could not marry me.

I never asked her
for any reasons.

I hold it
to be an insult
to a woman of sense
to demand her reasons on such an occasion.

Enough
for me that she did not then wish
to be my wife;
so that the old intercourse went on--she cordial and polite as ever,
I never
for one moment doubting that the day would come when my roof tree would shelter her,
and we should smile together over our fireside at my long and indefatigable wooing.I will confess that at times I felt a little jealous--jealous of a man named Hammond Brake,
who lived in our village.

He was a weird,
saturnine fellow,
who made no friends among the young men of the neighborhood,
but who loved
to go alone,

with his books and his own thoughts
for company.

He was a studious and,
I believe,
a learned young man,
and there was no avoiding the fact that he possessed considerable influence over Elsie.

She liked
to talk
with him in corners,
or in secluded nooks of the forest,
when we all went out blackberry gathering or picnicking.

She read books that he gave her,
and whenever a discussion arose relative
to any topic higher than those ordinary ones we usually canvassed,
Elsie appealed
to Brake
for his opinion,
as a disciple consulting a beloved master.

I confess that
for a time I feared this man as a rival.

A little closer observation,
however,
convinced me that my suspicions were unfounded.

The relations between Elsie and Hammond Brake were purely intellectual.

She reverenced his talents and acquirements,
but she did not love him.

His influence over her,
nevertheless,
was none the less decided.In time--as I thought all along--Elsie yielded.

I was what was considered a most eligible match,
being tolerably rich,
and Elsie's parents were most anxious
to have me
for a son-in-law.

I was good- looking and well educated enough,
and the old people,
I believe,
pertinaciously dinned all my advantages in
to my little girl's ears.

She battled against the marriage
for a long time
with a strange persistence--all the more strange because she never alleged the slightest personal dislike
to me;
but after a vigorous cannonading from her own garrison (in which,
I am proud
to say,
I did not in any way join),
she hoisted the white flag and surrendered.I was very happy.

I had no fear about being able
to gain Elsie's heart.

I think--indeed I know--that she had liked me all along,
and that her refusals were dictated by other feelings than those of a personal nature.

I only guessed as much then.

It was some time before I knew all.As the day approached
for our wedding Elsie did not appear at all stricken
with woe.

The village gossips had not the smallest opportunity
for establishing a romance,

with a compulsory bride
for the heroine.

Yet
to me it seemed as if there was something strange about her.

A vague terror appeared
to beset her.

Even in her most loving moments,
when resting in my arms,
she would shrink away from me,
and shudder as if some cold wind had suddenly struck upon her.

That it was caused by no aversion
to me was evident,

for she would the moment after,
as if
to make amends,
give me one of those voluntary kisses that are sweeter than all others.Once only did she show any emotion.

When the solemn question was put
to her,
the answer
to which was
to decide her destiny,
I felt her hand--which was in mine--tremble.

As she gasped out a convulsive "Yes," she gave one brief,
imploring glance at the gallery on the right.

I placed the ring upon her finger,
and looked in the direction in which she gazed.

Hammond Brake's dark countenance was visible looking over the railings,
and his eyes were bent sternly on Elsie.

I turned quickly round
to my bride,
but her brief emotion,
of whatever nature,
had vanished.

She was looking at me anxiously,
and smiling--somewhat sadly--through her maiden's tears.The months went by quickly,
and we were very happy.

I learned that Elsie really loved me,
and of my love
for her she had proof long ago.

I will not say that there was no cloud upon our little horizon.

There was one,
but it was so small,
and appeared so seldom,
that I scarcely feared it.

The old vague terror seemed still
to attack my wife.

If I did not know her
to be pure as heaven's snow,
I would have said it was a REMORSE.

At times she scarcely appeared
to hear what I said,
so deep would be her reverie.

Nor did those moods seem pleasant ones.

When rapt in such,
her sweet features would contract,
as if in a hopeless effort
to solve some mysterious problem.

A sad pain,
as it were,
quivered in her white,
drooped eyelids.

One thing I particularly remarked:

SHE SPENT HOURS AT A TIME GAZING AT THE WEST.

There was a small room in our house whose windows,
every evening,
flamed
with the red light of the setting sun.

Here Elsie would sit and gaze westward,
so motionless and entranced that it seemed as if her soul was going down
with the day.

Her conduct
to me was curiously varied.

She apparently loved me very much,
yet there were times when she absolutely avoided me.

I have seen her strolling through the fields,
and left the house
with the intention of joining her,
but the moment she caught sight of me approaching she has fled in
to the neighboring copse,

with so evident a wish
to avoid me that it would have been absolutely cruel
to follow.Once or twice the old jealousy of Hammond Brake crossed my mind,
but I was obliged
to dismiss it as a frivolous suspicion.

Nothing in my wife's conduct justified any such theory.

Brake visited us once or twice a week--in fact,
when I returned from my business in the village,
I used
to find him seated in the parlor
with Elsie,
reading some favorite author,
or conversing on some novel literary topic;
but there was no disposition
to avoid my scrutiny.

Brake seemed
to come as a matter of right;
and the perfect unconsciousness of furnishing any grounds
for suspicion
with which he acted was a sufficient answer
to my mind
for any wild doubts that my heart may have suggested.Still I could not but remark that Brake's visits were in some manner connected
with Elsie's melancholy.

On the days when he had appeared and departed,
the gloom seemed
to hang more thickly than ever over her head.

She sat,
on such occasions,
all the evening at the western window,
silently gazing at the cleft in the hills through which the sun passed
to his repose.At last I made up my mind
to speak
to her.

It seemed
to me
to be my duty,
if she had a sorrow,

to partake of it.

I approached her on the matter
with the most perfect confidence that I had nothing
to learn beyond the existence of some girlish grief,
which a confession and a few loving kisses would exorcise forever."

Elsie," I said
to her one night,
as she sat,
according
to her custom,
gazing westward,
like those maidens of the old ballads of chivalry watching
for the knights that never came--"Elsie,
what is the matter
with you,
darling?

I have noticed a strange melancholy in you
for some time past.

Tell me all about it."


She turned quickly round and gazed at me
with eyes wide open and face filled
with a sudden fear.

"Why do you ask me that,
Mark?"

she answered.

"I have nothing
to tell."


From the strange,
startled manner in which this reply was given,
I felt convinced that she had something
to tell,
and instantly formed a determination
to discover what it was.

A pang shot through my heart as I thought that the woman whom I held dearer than anything on earth hesitated
to trust me
with a petty secret.I believed I understood.

I was tolerably rich.

I knew it could not be any secret over milliners' bills or women's usual money troubles.

God help me!

I felt sad enough at the moment,
though I kissed her back and ceased
to question her.

I felt sad,
because my instinct told me that she deceived me;
and it is very hard
to be deceived,
even in trifles,
by those we love.

I left her sitting at her favorite window,
and walked out in
to the fields.

I wanted
to think.I remained out until I saw lights in the parlor shining through the dusky evening;
then I returned slowly.

As I passed the windows-- which were near the ground,
our house being cottage-built--I looked in.

Hammond Brake was sitting
with my wife.

She was sitting in a rocking chair opposite
to him,
holding a small volume open on her lap.

Brake was talking
to her very earnestly,
and she was listening
to him
with an expression I had never before seen on her countenance.

Awe,
fear,
and admiration were all blent together in those dilating eyes.

She seemed absorbed,
body and soul,
in what this man said.

I shuddered at the sight.

A vague terror seized upon me;
I hastened in
to the house.

As I entered the room rather suddenly,
my wife started and hastily concealed the little volume that lay on her lap in one of her wide pockets.

As she did so,
a loose leaf escaped from the volume and slowly fluttered
to the floor unobserved by either her or her companion.

But I had my eye upon it.

I felt that it was a clew."

What new novel or philosophical wonder have you both been poring over?"

I asked quite gayly,
stealthily watching at the same time the telltale embarrassment under which Elsie was laboring.Brake,
who was not in the least discomposed,
replied.

"That," said he,
"is a secret which must be kept from you.

It is an advance copy,
and is not
to be shown
to anyone except your wife."


"Ha!" cried I,
"I know what it is.

It is your volume of poems that Ticknor is publishing.

Well,
I can wait until it is regularly
for sale."


I knew that Brake had a volume in the hands of the publishing house I mentioned,

with a vague promise of publication some time in the present century.

Hammond smiled significantly,
but did not reply.

He evidently wished
to cultivate this supposed impression of mine.

Elsie looked relieved,
and heaved a deep sigh.

I felt more than ever convinced that a secret was beneath all this.

So I drew my chair over the fallen leaf that lay unnoticed on the carpet,
and talked and laughed
with Hammond Brake gayly,
as if nothing was on my mind,
while all the time a great load of suspicion lay heavily at my heart.At length Hammond Brake rose
to go.

I wished him good night,
but did not offer
to accompany him
to the door.

My wife supplied this omitted courtesy,
as I had expected.

The moment I was alone I picked up the book leaf from the floor.

It was NOT the leaf of a volume of poeMs. Beyond that,
however,
I learned nothing.

It contained a string of paragraphs printed in the biblical fashion,
and the language was biblical in style.

It seemed
to be a portion of some religious book.

Was it possible that my wife was being converted
to the Romish faith?

Yes,
that was it.

Brake was a Jesuit in disguise--I had heard of such things--and had stolen in
to the bosom of my family
to plant there his destructive errors.

There could be no longer any doubt of it.

This was some portion of a Romish book--some infamous Popish publication.

Fool that I was not
to see it all before!

But there was yet time.

I would forbid him the house.I had just formed this resolution when my wife entered.

I put the strange leaf in my pocket and took my hat."

Why,
you are not going out,
surely?"

cried Elsie,
surprised."

I have a headache," I answered.

"I will take a short walk."


Elsie looked at me
with a peculiar air of distrust.

Her woman's instinct told her that there was something wrong.

Before she could question me,
however,
I had left the room and was walking rapidly on Hammond Brake's track.He heard the footsteps,
and I saw his figure,
black against the sky,
stop and peer back through the dusk
to see who was following him."

It is I,
Brake," I called out.

"Stop;
I wish
to speak
with you."


He stopped,
and in a minute or so we were walking side by side along the road.

My fingers itched at that moment
to be on his throat.

I commenced the conversation."

Brake," I said,
"I'm a very plain sort of man,
and I never say anything without good reason.

What I came after you
to tell you is,
that I don't wish you
to come
to my house any more,
or
to speak
with Elsie any farther than the ordinary salutations go.

It's no joke.

I'm quite in earnest."


Brake started,
and,
stopping short,
faced me suddenly in the road.

"What have I done?"

he asked.

"You surely are too sensible a man
to be jealous,
Dayton."


"Oh," I answered scornfully,
"not jealous in the ordinary sense of the word,
a bit.

But I don't think your company good company
for my wife,
Brake.

If you WILL have it out of me,
I suspect you of being a Roman Catholic,
and of trying
to convert my wife."


A smile shot across his face,
and I saw his sharp white teeth gleam
for an instant in the dusk."

Well,
what if I am a Papist?"

he said,

with a strange tone of triumph in his voice.

"The faith is not criminal.

Besides,
what proof have you that I was attempting
to proselyte your wife?"


"This," said I,
pulling the leaf from my pocket--"this leaf from one of those devilish Papist books you and she were reading this evening.

I picked it up from the floor.

Proof enough,
I think!"
In an instant Brake had snatched the leaf from my hand and torn it in
to atoMs."You shall be obeyed," he said.

"I will not speak
with Elsie as long as she is your wife.

Good night.

You think I'm a Papist,
then,
Dayton?

You're a clever fellow!"
And
with rather a sneering chuckle he marched on along the road and vanished in
to the darkness.

II
THE SECRET DISCOVERED
Brake came no more.

I said nothing
to Elsie about his prohibition,
and his name was never mentioned.

It seemed strange
to me that she should not speak of his absence,
and I was very much puzzled by her silence.

Her moodiness seemed
to have increased,
and,
what was most remarkable,
in proportion as she grew more and more reserved,
the intenser were the bursts of affection which she exhibited
for me.

She would strain me
to her bosom and kiss me,
as if she and I were about
to be parted forever.

Then
for hours she would remain sitting at her window,
silently gazing,

with that terrible,
wistful gaze of hers,
at the west.I will confess
to having watched my wife at this time.

I could not help it.

That some mystery hung about her I felt convinced.

I must fathom it or die.

Her honor I never
for a moment doubted;
yet there seemed
to weigh continually upon me the prophecy of some awful domestic calamity.

This time the prophecy was not in vain.About three weeks after I had forbidden Brake my house,
I was strolling over my farm in the evening apparently inspecting my agriculture,
but in reality speculating on that topic which latterly was ever present
to me.There was a little knoll covered
with evergreen oaks at the end of the lawn.

It was a picturesque spot,

for on one side the bank went off in
to a sheer precipice of about eighty feet in depth,
at the bottom of which a pretty pool lay,
that in the summer time was fringed
with white water-lilies.

I had thought of building a summer-house in this spot,
and now my steps mechanically directed themselves toward the place.

As I approached I heard voices.

I stopped and listened eagerly.

A few seconds enabled me
to ascertain that Hammond Brake and my wife were in the copse talking together.

She still followed him,
then;
and he,
scoundrel that he was,
had broken his promise.

A fury seemed
to fill my veins as I made this discovery.

I felt the impulse strong upon me
to rush in
to the grove,
and then and there strangle the villain who was poisoning my peace.

But
with a powerful effort I restrained myself.

It was necessary that I should overhear what was said.

I threw myself flat on the grass,
and so glided silently in
to the copse until I was completely within earshot.

This was what I heard.My wife was sobbing.

"So soon--so soon?

I--Hammond,
give me a little time!"
"I cannot,
Elsie.

My chief orders me
to join him.

You must prepare
to accompany me."


"No,
no!" murmured Elsie.

"He loves me so!

And I love him.

Our child,
too--how can I rob him of our unborn babe?"


"Another sheep
for our flock," answered Brake solemnly.

"Elsie,
do you forget your oath?

Are you one of us,
or are you a common hypocrite,
who will be of us until the hour of self-sacrifice,
and then fly like a coward?

Elsie,
you must leave to-night."


"Ah!

my husband,
my husband!" sobbed the unhappy woman."

You have no husband,
woman," cried Brake harshly.

"I promised Dayton not
to speak
to you as long as you were his wife,
but the vow was annulled before it was made.

Your husband in God yet awaits you.

You will yet be blessed
with the true spouse."


"I feel as if I were going
to die," cried Elsie.

"How can I ever forsake him--he who was so good
to me?"


"Nonsense!

no weakness.

He is not worthy of you.

Go home and prepare
for your journey.

You know where
to meet me.

I will have everything ready,
and by daybreak there shall be no trace of us left.

Beware of permitting your husband
to suspect anything.

He is not very shrewd at such things--he thought I was a Jesuit in disguise--but we had better be careful.

Now go.

You have been too long here already.

Bless you,
sister."


A few faint sobs,
a rustling of leaves,
and I knew that Brake was alone.

I rose,
and stepped silently in
to the open space in which he stood.

His back was toward me.

His arms were lifted high over his head
with an exultant gesture,
and I could see his profile,
as it slightly turned toward me,
illuminated
with a smile of scornful triumph.

I put my hand suddenly on his throat from behind,
and flung him on the ground before he could utter a cry."

Not a word," I said,
unclasping a short-bladed knife which I carried;
"answer my questions,
or,
by heaven,
I will cut your throat from ear
to ear!"
He looked up in
to my face
with an unflinching eye,
and set his lips as if resolved
to suffer all."

What are you?

Who are you?

What object have you in the seduction of my wife?"


He smiled,
but was silent."

Ah!

you won't answer.

We'll see."


I pressed the knife slowly against his throat.

His face contracted spasmodically,
but although a thin red thread of blood sprang out along the edge of the blade,
Brake remained mute.

An idea suddenly seized me.

This sort of death had no terrors
for him.

I would try another.

There was the precipice.

I was twice as powerful as he was,
so I seized him in my arms,
and in a moment transported him
to the margin of the steep,
smooth cliff,
the edge of which was garnished
with the tough stems of the wild vine.

He seemed
to feel it was useless
to struggle
with me,
so allowed me passively
to roll him over the edge.

When he was suspended in the air,
I gave him a vine stem
to cling
to and let him go.

He swung at a height of eighty feet,

with face upturned and pale.

He dared not look down.

I seated myself on the edge of the cliff,
and
with my knife began
to cut in
to the thick vine a foot or two above the place of his grasp.

I was correct in my calculation.

This terror was too much
for him.

As he saw the notch in the vine getting deeper and deeper,
his determination gave way."

I'll answer you," he gasped out,
gazing at me
with starting eyeballs;
"what do you ask?"


"What are you?"

was my question,
as I ceased cutting at the stem."

A Mormon," was the answer,
uttered
with a groan.

"Take me up.

My hands are slipping.

Quick!"
"And you wanted my wife
to follow you
to that infernal Salt Lake,
City,
I suppose?"


"
for God's sake,
release me!

I'll quit the place,
never
to come back.

Do help me up,
Dayton--I'm falling!"
I felt mightily inclined
to let the villain drop;
but it did not suit my purpose
to be hung
for murder,
so I swung him back again on the sward,
where he fell panting and exhausted."

Will you quit the place to-night?"

I said.

"You'd better.

By heaven,
if you don't,
I'll tell all the men in the village,
and we'll lynch you,
as sure as your name is Brake."


"I'll go--I'll go," he groaned.

"I swear never
to trouble you again."


"You ought
to be hanged,
you villain.

Be off!"
He slunk away through the trees like a beaten dog;
and I went home in a state bordering on despair.

I found Elsie crying.

She was sitting by the window as of old.

I knew now why she gazed so constantly at the west.

It was her Mecca.

Something in my face,
I suppose,
told her that I was laboring under great excitement.

She rose startled as soon as I entered the room."

Elsie," said I,
"I am come
to take you home."


"Home?

Why,
I AM at home,
am I not?

What do you mean?"


"No.

This is no longer your home.

You have deceived me.

You are a Mormon.

I know all.

You have become a convert
to that apostle of hell,
Brigham Young,
and you cannot live
with me.

I love you still,
Elsie,
dearly;
but--you must go and live
with your father."


Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Minister's Black Veil
A PARABLE[1]
[1] Another clergyman in New England,
Mr. Joseph Moody,
of York,
Maine,
made himself remarkable by the same eccentricity that is here related of the Reverend Mr. Hooper.

In his case,
however,
the symbol had a different import.

In early life he had accidentally killed a beloved friend,
and from that day till the hour of his own death,
he hid his face from men.

The sexton stood in the porch of Milford meeting-house,
pulling busily at the bell-rope.

The old people of the village came stooping along the street.

Children,

with bright faces,
tripped merrily beside their parents,
or mimicked a graver gait,
in the conscious dignity of their Sunday clothes.

Spruce bachelors looked sidelong at the pretty maidens,
and fancied that the Sabbath sunshine made them prettier than on week days.

When the throng had mostly streamed in
to the porch,
the sexton began
to toll the bell,
keeping his eye on the Reverend Mr. Hooper's door.

The first glimpse of the clergyman's figure was the signal
for the bell
to cease its summons."

But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face?"

cried the sexton in astonishment.All within hearing immediately turned about,
and beheld the semblance of Mr. Hooper,
pacing slowly his meditative way towards the meetinghouse.


with one accord they started,
expressing more wonder than if some strange minister were coming
to dust the cushions of Mr. Hooper's pulpit."

Are you sure it is our parson?"

inquired Goodman Gray of the sexton."

Of a certainty it is good Mr. Hooper," replied the sexton.

"He was
to have exchanged pulpits
with Parson Shute,
of Westbury;
but Parson Shute sent
to excuse himself yesterday,
being
to preach a funeral sermon."


The cause of so much amazement may appear sufficiently slight.

Mr. Hooper,
a gentlemanly person,
of about thirty,
though still a bachelor,
was dressed
with due clerical neatness,
as if a careful wife had starched his band,
and brushed the weekly dust from his Sunday's garb.

There was but one thing remarkable in his appearance.

Swathed about his forehead,
and hanging down over his face,
so low as
to be shaken by his breath,
Mr. Hooper had on a black veil.

On a nearer view it seemed
to consist of two folds of crape,
which entirely concealed his features,
except the mouth and chin,
but probably did not intercept his sight,
further than
to give a darkened aspect
to all living and inanimate things.


with this gloomy shade before him,
good Mr. Hooper walked onward,
at a slow and quiet pace,
stooping somewhat,
and looking on the ground,
as is customary
with abstracted men,
yet nodding kindly
to those of his parishioners who still waited on the meeting-house steps.

But so wonder-struck were they that his greeting hardly met
with a return."

I can't really feel as if good Mr. Hooper's face was behind that piece of crape," said the sexton."

I don't like it," muttered an old woman,
as she hobbled in
to the meeting-house.

"He has changed himself in
to something awful,
only by hiding his face."


"Our parson has gone mad!" cried Goodman Gray,
following him across the threshold.A rumor of some unaccountable phenomenon had preceded Mr. Hooper in
to the meeting-house,
and set all the congregation astir.

Few could refrain from twisting their heads towards the door;
many stood upright,
and turned directly about;
while several little boys clambered upon the seats,
and came down again
with a terrible racket.

There was a general bustle,
a rustling of the women's gowns and shuffling of the men's feet,
greatly at variance
with that hushed repose which should attend the entrance of the minister.

But Mr. Hooper appeared not
to notice the perturbation of his people.

He entered
with an almost noiseless step,
bent his head mildly
to the pews on each side,
and bowed as he passed his oldest parishioner,
a white-haired great grandsire,
who occupied an arm-chair in the centre of the aisle.

It was strange
to observe how slowly this venerable man became conscious of something singular in the appearance of his pastor.

He seemed not fully
to partake of the prevailing wonder,
till Mr. Hooper had ascended the stairs,
and showed himself in the pulpit,
face
to face
with his congregation,
except
for the black veil.

That mysterious emblem was never once withdrawn.

It shook
with his measured breath,
as he gave out the psalm;
it threw its obscurity between him and the holy page,
as he read the Scriptures;
and while he prayed,
the veil lay heavily on his uplifted countenance.

Did he seek
to hide it from the dread Being whom he was addressing?
Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape,
that more than one woman of delicate nerves was forced
to leave the meeting-house.

Yet perhaps the pale-faced congregation was almost as fearful a sight
to the minister,
as his black veil
to them.Mr. Hooper had the reputation of a good preacher,
but not an energetic one:

he strove
to win his people heavenward by mild,
persuasive influences,
rather than
to drive them thither by the thunders of the Word.

The sermon which he now delivered was marked by the same characteristics of style and manner as the general series of his pulpit oratory.

But there was something,
either in the sentiment of the discourse itself,
or in the imagination of the auditors,
which made it greatly the most powerful effort that they had ever heard from their pastor's lips.

It was tinged,
rather more darkly than usual,

with the gentle gloom of Mr. Hooper's temperament.

The subject had reference
to secret sin,
and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest,
and would fain conceal from our own consciousness,
even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them.

A subtle power was breathed in
to his words.

Each member of the congregation,
the most innocent girl,
and the man of hardened breast,
felt as if the preacher had crept upon them,
behind his awful veil,
and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought.

Many spread their clasped hands on their bosoMs. There was nothing terrible in what Mr. Hooper said,
at least,
no violence;
and yet,

with every tremor of his melancholy voice,
the hearers quaked.

An unsought pathos came hand in hand
with awe.

So sensible were the audience of some unwonted attribute in their minister,
that they longed
for a breath of wind
to blow aside the veil,
almost believing that a stranger's visage would be discovered,
though the form,
gesture,
and voice were those of Mr. Hooper.At the close of the services,
the people hurried out
with indecorous confusion,
eager
to communicate their pent-up amazement,
and conscious of lighter spirits the moment they lost sight of the black veil.

Some gathered in little circles,
huddled closely together,

with their mouths all whispering in the centre;
some went homeward alone,
wrapt in silent meditation;
some talked loudly,
and profaned the Sabbath day
with ostentatious laughter.

A few shook their sagacious heads,
intimating that they could penetrate the mystery;
while one or two affirmed that there was no mystery at all,
but only that Mr. Hooper's eyes were so weakened by the midnight lamp,
as
to require a shade.

After a brief interval,
forth came good Mr. Hooper also,
in the rear of his flock.

Turning his veiled face from one group
to another,
he paid due reverence
to the hoary heads,
saluted the middle aged
with kind dignity as their friend and spiritual guide,
greeted the young
with mingled authority and love,
and laid his hands on the little children's heads
to bless them.

Such was always his custom on the Sabbath day.

Strange and bewildered looks repaid him
for his courtesy.

None,
as on former occasions,
aspired
to the honor of walking by their pastor's side.

Old Squire Saunders,
doubtless by an accidental lapse of memory,
neglected
to invite Mr. Hooper
to his table,
where the good clergyman had been wont
to bless the food,
almost every Sunday since his settlement.

He returned,
therefore,

to the parsonage,
and,
at the moment of closing the door,
was observed
to look back upon the people,
all of whom had their eyes fixed upon the minister.

A sad smile gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil,
and flickered about his mouth,
glimmering as he disappeared."

How strange," said a lady,
"that a simple black veil,
such as any woman might wear on her bonnet,
should become such a terrible thing on Mr. Hooper's face!"
"Something must surely be amiss
with Mr. Hooper's intellects," observed her husband,
the physician of the village.

"But the strangest part of the affair is the effect of this vagary,
even on a sober-minded man like myself.

The black veil,
though it covers only our pastor's face,
throws its influence over his whole person,
and makes him ghostlike from head
to foot.

Do you not feel it so?"


"Truly do I," replied the lady;
"and I would not be alone
with him
for the world.

I wonder he is not afraid
to be alone
with himself!"
"Men sometimes are so," said her husband.The afternoon service was attended
with similar circumstances.

At its conclusion,
the bell tolled
for the funeral of a young lady.

The relatives and friends were assembled in the house,
and the more distant acquaintances stood about the door,
speaking of the good qualities of the deceased,
when their talk was interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Hooper,
still covered
with his black veil.

It was now an appropriate emblem.

The clergyman stepped in
to the room where the corpse was laid,
and bent over the coffin,

to take a last farewell of his deceased parishioner.

As he stooped,
the veil hung straight down from his forehead,
so that,
if her eyelids had not been closed forever,
the dead maiden might have seen his face.

Could Mr. Hooper be fearful of her glance,
that he so hastily caught back the black veil?

A person who watched the interview between the dead and living,
scrupled not
to affirm,
that,
at the instant when the clergyman's features were disclosed,
the corpse had slightly shuddered,
rustling the shroud and muslin cap,
though the countenance retained the composure of death.

A superstitious old woman was the only witness of this prodigy.

From the coffin Mr. Hooper passed in
to the chamber of the mourners,
and thence
to the head of the staircase,

to make the funeral prayer.

It was a tender and heart-dissolving prayer,
full of sorrow,
yet so imbued
with celestial hopes,
that the music of a heavenly harp,
swept by the fingers of the dead,
seemed faintly
to be heard among the saddest accents of the minister.

The people trembled,
though they but darkly understood him when he prayed that they,
and himself,
and all of mortal race,
might be ready,
as he trusted this young maiden had been,

for the dreadful hour that should snatch the veil from their faces.

The bearers went heavily forth,
and the mourners followed,
saddening all the street,

with the dead before them,
and Mr. Hooper in his black veil behind."

Why do you look back?"

said one in the procession
to his partner."

I had a fancy," replied she,
"that the minister and the maiden's spirit were walking hand in hand."


"And so had I,
at the same moment," said the other.That night,
the handsomest couple in Milford village were
to be joined in wedlock.

Though reckoned a melancholy man,
Mr. Hooper had a placid cheerfulness
for such occasions,
which often excited a sympathetic smile where livelier merriment would have been thrown away.

There was no quality of his disposition which made him more beloved than this.

The company at the wedding awaited his arrival
with impatience,
trusting that the strange awe,
which had gathered over him throughout the day,
would now be dispelled.

But such was not the result.

When Mr. Hooper came,
the first thing that their eyes rested on was the same horrible black veil,
which had added deeper gloom
to the funeral,
and could portend nothing but evil
to the wedding.

Such was its immediate effect on the guests that a cloud seemed
to have rolled duskily from beneath the black crape,
and dimmed the light of the candles.

The bridal pair stood up before the minister.

But the bride's cold fingers quivered in the tremulous hand of the bridegroom,
and her deathlike paleness caused a whisper that the maiden who had been buried a few hours before was come from her grave
to be married.

If ever another wedding were so dismal,
it was that famous one where they tolled the wedding knell.

After performing the ceremony,
Mr. Hooper raised a glass of wine
to his lips,
wishing happiness
to the new-married couple in a strain of mild pleasantry that ought
to have brightened the features of the guests,
like a cheerful gleam from the hearth.

At that instant,
catching a glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass,
the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror
with which it overwhelmed all others.

His frame shuddered,
his lips grew white,
he spilt the untasted wine upon the carpet,
and rushed forth in
to the darkness.


for the Earth,
too,
had on her Black Veil.The next day,
the whole village of Milford talked of little else than Parson Hooper's black veil.

That,
and the mystery concealed behind it,
supplied a topic
for discussion between acquaintances meeting in the street,
and good women gossiping at their open windows.

It was the first item of news that the tavern-keeper told
to his guests.

The children babbled of it on their way
to school.

One imitative little imp covered his face
with an old black handkerchief,
thereby so affrighting his playmates that the panic seized himself,
and he well-nigh lost his wits by his own waggery.It was remarkable that all of the busybodies and impertinent people in the parish,
not one ventured
to put the plain question
to Mr. Hooper,
wherefore he did this thing.

Hitherto,
whenever there appeared the slightest call
for such interference,
he had never lacked advisers,
nor shown himself averse
to be guided by their judgment.

If he erred at all,
it was by so painful a degree of self-distrust,
that even the mildest censure would lead him
to consider an indifferent action as a crime.

Yet,
though so well acquainted
with this amiable weakness,
no individual among his parishioners chose
to make the black veil a subject of friendly remonstrance.

There was a feeling of dread,
neither plainly confessed nor carefully concealed,
which caused each
to shift the responsibility upon another,
till at length it was found expedient
to send a deputation of the church,
in order
to deal
with Mr. Hooper about the mystery,
before it should grow in
to a scandal.

Never did an embassy so ill discharge its duties.

The minister received then
with friendly courtesy,
but became silent,
after they were seated,
leaving
to his visitors the whole burden of introducing their important business.

The topic,
it might be supposed,
was obvious enough.

There was the black veil swathed round Mr. Hooper's forehead,
and concealing every feature above his placid mouth,
on which,
at times,
they could perceive the glimmering of a melancholy smile.

But that piece of crape,

to their imagination,
seemed
to hang down before his heart,
the symbol of a fearful secret between him and them.

Were the veil but cast aside,
they might speak freely of it,
but not till then.

Thus they sat a considerable time,
speechless,
confused,
and shrinking uneasily from Mr. Hooper's eye,
which they felt
to be fixed upon them
with an invisible glance.

Finally,
the deputies returned abashed
to their constituents,
pronouncing the matter too weighty
to be handled,
except by a council of the churches,
if,
indeed,
it might not require a general synod.But there was one person in the village unappalled by the awe
with which the black veil had impressed all beside herself.

When the deputies returned without an explanation,
or even venturing
to demand one,
she,

with the calm energy of her character,
determined
to chase away the strange cloud that appeared
to be settling round Mr. Hooper,
every moment more darkly than before.

As his plighted wife,
it should be her privilege
to know what the black veil concealed.

At the minister's first visit,
therefore,
she entered upon the subject
with a direct simplicity,
which made the task easier both
for him and her.

After he had seated himself,
she fixed her eyes steadfastly upon the veil,
but could discern nothing of the dreadful gloom that had so overawed the multitude:

it was but a double fold of crape,
hanging down from his forehead
to his mouth,
and slightly stirring
with his breath."

No," said she aloud,
and smiling,
"there is nothing terrible in this piece of crape,
except that it hides a face which I am always glad
to look upon.

Come,
good sir,
let the sun shine from behind the cloud.

First lay aside your black veil:

then tell me why you put it on."


Mr. Hooper's smile glimmered faintly."

There is an hour
to come," said he,
"when all of us shall cast aside our veils.

Take it not amiss,
beloved friend,
if I wear this piece of crape till then."


"Your words are a mystery,
too," returned the young lady.

"Take away the veil from them,
at least."


"Elizabeth,
I will," said he,
"so far as my vow may suffer me.

Know,
then,
this veil is a type and a symbol,
and I am bound
to wear it ever,
both in light and darkness,
in solitude and before the gaze of multitudes,
and as
with strangers,
so
with my familiar friends.

No mortal eye will see it withdrawn.

This dismal shade must separate me from the world:

even you,
Elizabeth,
can never come behind it!"
"What grievous affliction hath befallen you," she earnestly inquired,
"that you should thus darken your eyes forever?"


"If it be a sign of mourning," replied Mr. Hooper,
"I,
perhaps,
like most other mortals,
have sorrows dark enough
to be typified by a black veil."


"But what if the world will not believe that it is the type of an innocent sorrow?"

urged Elizabeth.

"Beloved and respected as you are,
there may be whispers that you hide your face under the consciousness of secret sin.


for the sake of your holy office,
do away this scandal!"
The color rose in
to her cheeks as she intimated the nature of the rumors that were already abroad in the village.

But Mr. Hooper's mildness did not forsake him.

He even smiled again--that same sad smile,
which always appeared like a faint glimmering of light,
proceeding from the obscurity beneath the veil."

If I hide my face
for sorrow,
there is cause enough," he merely replied;
"and if I cover it
for secret sin,
what mortal might not do the same?"


And
with this gentle,
but unconquerable obstinacy did he resist all her entreaties.

At length Elizabeth sat silent.


for a few moments she appeared lost in thought,
considering,
probably,
what new methods might be tried
to withdraw her lover from so dark a fantasy,
which,
if it had no other meaning,
was perhaps a symptom of mental disease.

Though of a firmer character than his own,
the tears rolled down her cheeks.

But,
in an instant,
as it were,
a new feeling took the place of sorrow:

her eyes were fixed insensibly on the black veil,
when,
like a sudden twilight in the air,
its terrors fell around her.

She arose,
and stood trembling before him."

And do you feel it then,
at last?"

said he mournfully.She made no reply,
but covered her eyes
with her hand,
and turned
to leave the room.

He rushed forward and caught her arm."

Have patience
with me,
Elizabeth!" cried he,
passionately.

"Do not desert me,
though this veil must be between us here on earth.

Be mine,
and hereafter there shall be no veil over my face,
no darkness between our souls!

It is but a mortal veil--it is not
for eternity!

O!

you know not how lonely I am,
and how frightened,

to be alone behind my black veil.

Do not leave me in this miserable obscurity forever!"
"Lift the veil but once,
and look me in the face," said she."

Never!

It cannot be!" replied Mr. Hooper."

Then farewell!" said Elizabeth.She withdrew her arm from his grasp,
and slowly departed,
pausing at the door,

to give one long shuddering gaze,
that seemed almost
to penetrate the mystery of the black veil.

But,
even amid his grief,
Mr. Hooper smiled
to think that only a material emblem had separated him from happiness,
though the horrors,
which it shadowed forth,
must be drawn darkly between the fondest of lovers.From that time no attempts were made
to remove Mr. Hooper's black veil,
or,
by a direct appeal,

to discover the secret which it was supposed
to hide.

By persons who claimed a superiority
to popular prejudice,
it was reckoned merely an eccentric whim,
such as often mingles
with the sober actions of men otherwise rational,
and tinges them all
with its own semblance of insanity.

But
with the multitude,
good Mr. Hooper was irreparably a bugbear.

He could not walk the street
with any peace of mind,
so conscious was he that the gentle and timid would turn aside
to avoid him,
and that others would make it a point of hardihood
to throw themselves in his way.

The impertinence of the latter class compelled him
to give up his customary walk at sunset
to the burial ground;

for when he leaned pensively over the gate,
there would always be faces behind the gravestones,
peeping at his black veil.

A fable went the rounds that the stare of the dead people drove him thence.

It grieved him,

to the very depth of his kind heart,

to observe how the children fled from his approach,
breaking up their merriest sports,
while his melancholy figure was yet afar off.

Their instinctive dread caused him
to feel more strongly than aught else,
that a preternatural horror was interwoven
with the threads of the black crape.

In truth,
his own antipathy
to the veil was known
to be so great,
that he never willingly passed before a mirror,
nor stooped
to drink at a still fountain,
lest,
in its peaceful bosom,
he should be affrighted by himself.

This was what gave plausibility
to the whispers,
that Mr. Hooper's conscience tortured him
for some great crime too horrible
to be entirely concealed,
or otherwise than so obscurely intimated.

Thus,
from beneath the black veil,
there rolled a cloud in
to the sunshine,
an ambiguity of sin or sorrow,
which enveloped the poor minister,
so that love or sympathy could never reach him.

It was said that ghost and fiend consorted
with him there.


with self-shudderings and outward terrors,
he walked continually in its shadow,
groping darkly within his own soul,
or gazing through a medium that saddened the whole world.

Even the lawless wind,
it was believed,
respected his dreadful secret,
and never blew aside the veil.

But still good Mr. Hooper sadly smiled at the pale visages of the worldly throng as he passed by.Among all its bad influences,
the black veil had the one desirable effect,
of making its wearer a very efficient clergyman.

By the aid of his mysterious emblem--
for there was no other apparent cause--he became a man of awful power over souls that were in agony
for sin.

His converts always regarded him
with a dread peculiar
to themselves,
affirming,
though but figuratively,
that,
before he brought them
to celestial light,
they had been
with him behind the black veil.

Its gloom,
indeed,
enabled him
to sympathize
with all dark affections.

Dying sinners cried aloud
for Mr. Hooper,
and would not yield their breath till he appeared;
though ever,
as he stooped
to whisper consolation,
they shuddered at the veiled face so near their own.

Such were the terrors of the black veil,
even when Death had bared his visage!

Strangers came long distances
to attend service at his church,

with the mere idle purpose of gazing at his figure,
because it was forbidden them
to behold his face.

But many were made
to quake ere they departed!

Once,
during Governor Belcher's administration,
Mr. Hooper was appointed
to preach the election sermon.

Covered
with his black veil,
he stood before the chief magistrate,
the council,
and the representatives,
and wrought so deep an impression,
that the legislative measures of that year were characterized by all the gloom and piety of our earliest ancestral sway.In this manner Mr. Hooper spent a long life,
irreproachable in outward act,
yet shrouded in dismal suspicions;
kind and loving,
though unloved,
and dimly feared;
a man apart from men,
shunned in their health and joy,
but ever summoned
to their aid in mortal anguish.

As years wore on,
shedding their snows above his sable veil,
he acquired a name throughout the New England churches,
and they called him Father Hooper.

Nearly all his parishioners,
who were of mature age when he was settled,
had been borne away by many a funeral:

he had one congregation in the church,
and a more crowded one in the churchyard;
and having wrought so late in
to the evening,
and done his work so well,
it was now good Father Hooper's turn
to rest.Several persons were visible by the shaded candlelight,
in the death chamber of the old clergyman.

Natural connections he had none.

But there was the decorously grave,
though unmoved physician,
seeking only
to mitigate the last pangs of the patient whom he could not save.

There were the deacons,
and other eminently pious members of his church.

There,
also,
was the Reverend Mr. Clark,
of Westbury,
a young and zealous divine,
who had ridden in haste
to pray by the bedside of the expiring minister.

There was the nurse,
no hired handmaiden of death,
but one whose calm affection had endured thus long in secrecy,
in solitude,
amid the chill of age,
and would not perish,
even at the dying hour.

Who,
but Elizabeth!

And there lay the hoary head of good Father Hooper upon the death pillow,

with the black veil still swathed about his brow,
and reaching down over his face,
so that each more difficult gasp of his faint breath caused it
to stir.

All through life that piece of crape had hung between him and the world:

it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman's love,
and kept him in that saddest of all prisons,
his own heart;
and still it lay upon his face,
as if
to deepen the gloom of his darksome chamber,
and shade him from the sunshine of eternity.
for some time previous,
his mind had been confused,
wavering doubtfully between the past and the present,
and hovering forward,
as it were,
at intervals,
in
to the indistinctness of the world
to come.

There had been feverish turns,
which tossed him from side
to side,
and wore away what little strength he had.

But in his most convulsive struggles,
and in the wildest vagaries of his intellect,
when no other thought retained its sober influence,
he still showed an awful solicitude lest the black veil should slip aside.

Even if his bewildered soul could have forgotten,
there was a faithful woman at this pillow,
who,

with averted eyes,
would have covered that aged face,
which she had last beheld in the comeliness of manhood.

At length the death-stricken old man lay quietly in the torpor of mental and bodily exhaustion,

with an imperceptible pulse,
and breath that grew fainter and fainter,
except when a long,
deep,
and irregular inspiration seemed
to prelude the flight of his spirit.The minister of Westbury approached the bedside."

Venerable Father Hooper," said he,
"the moment of your release is at hand.

Are you ready
for the lifting of the veil that shuts in time from eternity?"


Father Hooper at first replied merely by a feeble motion of his head;
then,
apprehensive,
perhaps,
that his meaning might be doubted,
he exerted himself
to speak."

Yea," said he,
in faint accents,
"my soul hath a patient weariness until that veil be lifted."


"And is it fitting," resumed the Reverend Mr. Clark,
"that a man so given
to prayer,
of such a blameless example,
holy in deed and thought,
so far as mortal judgment may pronounce;
is it fitting that a father in the church should leave a shadow on his memory,
that may seem
to blacken a life so pure?

I pray you,
my venerable brother,
let not this thing be!

Suffer us
to be gladdened by your triumphant aspect as you go
to your reward.

Before the veil of eternity be lifted,
let me cast aside this black veil from your face!"
And thus speaking,
the Reverend Mr. Clark bent forward
to reveal the mystery of so many years.

But,
exerting a sudden energy,
that made all the beholders stand aghast,
Father Hooper snatched both his hands from beneath the bedclothes,
and pressed them strongly on the black veil,
resolute
to struggle,
if the minister of Westbury would contend
with a dying man."

Never!" cried the veiled clergyman.

"On earth,
never!"
"Dark old man!" exclaimed the affrighted minister,
"
with what horrible crime upon your soul are you now passing
to the judgment?"


Father Hooper's breath heaved;
it rattled in his throat;
but,

with a mighty effort,
grasping forward
with his hands,
he caught hold of life,
and held it back till he should speak.

He even raised himself in bed;
and there he sat,
shivering
with the arms of death around him,
while the black veil hung down,
awful,
at that last moment,
in the gathered terrors of a lifetime.

And yet the faint,
sad smile,
so often there,
now seemed
to glimmer from its obscurity,
and linger on Father Hooper's lips."

Why do you tremble at me alone?"

cried he,
turning his veiled face round the circle of pale spectators.

"Tremble also at each other!

Have men avoided me,
and women shown no pity,
and children screamed and fled,
only
for my black veil?

What,
but the mystery which it obscurely typifies,
has made this piece of crape so awful?

When the friend shows his inmost heart
to his friend;
the lover
to his best beloved;
when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator,
loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin;
then deem me a monster,

for the symbol beneath which I have lived,
and die!

I look around me,
and,
lo!

on every visage a Black Veil!"
While his auditors shrank from one another,
in mutual affright,
Father Hooper fell back upon his pillow,
a veiled corpse,

with a faint smile lingering on the lips.

Still veiled,
they laid him in his coffin,
and a veiled corpse they bore him
to the grave.

The grass of many years has sprung up and withered on that grave,
the burial stone is moss-grown,
and good Mr. Hooper's face is dust;
but awful is still the thought that it mouldered beneath the Black Veil!


Anonymous
Horror:

A True Tale
I was but nineteen years of age when the incident occurred which has thrown a shadow over my life;
and,
ah me!

how many and many a weary year has dragged by since then!

Young,
happy,
and beloved I was in those long-departed days.

They said that I was beautiful.

The mirror now reflects a haggard old woman,

with ashen lips and face of deadly pallor.

But do not fancy that you are listening
to a mere puling lament.

It is not the flight of years that has brought me
to be this wreck of my former self:

had it been so I could have borne the loss cheerfully,
patiently,
as the common lot of all;
but it was no natural progress of decay which has robbed me of bloom,
of youth,
of the hopes and joys that belong
to youth,
snapped the link that bound my heart
to another's,
and doomed me
to a lone old age.

I try
to be patient,
but my cross has been heavy,
and my heart is empty and weary,
and I long
for the death that comes so slowly
to those who pray
to die.I will try and relate,
exactly as it happened,
the event which blighted my life.

Though it occurred many years ago,
there is no fear that I should have forgotten any of the minutest circumstances:

they were stamped on my brain too clearly and burningly,
like the brand of a red-hot iron.

I see them written in the wrinkles of my brow,
in the dead whiteness of my hair,
which was a glossy brown once,
and has known no gradual change from dark
to gray,
from gray
to white,
as
with those happy ones who were the companions of my girlhood,
and whose honored age is soothed by the love of children and grandchildren.

But I must not envy them.

I only meant
to say that the difficulty of my task has no connection
with want of memory--I remember but too well.

But as I take my pen my hand trembles,
my head swims,
the old rushing faintness and Horror comes over me again,
and the well-remembered fear is upon me.

Yet I will go on.This,
briefly,
is my story:

I was a great heiress,
I believe,
though I cared little
for the fact;
but so it was.

My father had great possessions,
and no son
to inherit after him.

His three daughters,
of whom I was the youngest,
were
to share the broad acres among them.

I have said,
and truly,
that I cared little
for the circumstance;
and,
indeed,
I was so rich then in health and youth and love that I felt myself quite indifferent
to all else.

The possession of all the treasures of earth could never have made up
for what I then had--and lost,
as I am about
to relate.

Of course,
we girls knew that we were heiresses,
but I do not think Lucy and Minnie were any the prouder or the happier on that account.

I know I was not.

Reginald did not court me
for my money.

Of THAT I felt assured.

He proved it,
Heaven be praised!

when he shrank from my side after the change.

Yes,
in all my lonely age,
I can still be thankful that he did not keep his word,
as some would have done--did not clasp at the altar a hand he had learned
to loathe and shudder at,
because it was full of gold--much gold!

At least he spared me that.

And I know that I was loved,
and the knowledge has kept me from going mad through many a weary day and restless night,
when my hot eyeballs had not a tear
to shed,
and even
to weep was a luxury denied me.Our house was an old Tudor mansion.

My father was very particular in keeping the smallest peculiarities of his home unaltered.

Thus the many peaks and gables,
the numerous turrets,
and the mullioned windows
with their quaint lozenge panes set in lead,
remained very nearly as they had been three centuries back.

Over and above the quaint melancholy of our dwelling,

with the deep woods of its park and the sullen waters of the mere,
our neighborhood was thinly peopled and primitive,
and the people round us were ignorant,
and tenacious of ancient ideas and traditions.

Thus it was a superstitious atmosphere that we children were reared in,
and we heard,
from our infancy,
countless tales of horror,
some mere fables doubtless,
others legends of dark deeds of the olden time,
exaggerated by credulity and the love of the marvelous.

Our mother had died when we were young,
and our other parent being,
though a kind father,
much absorbed in affairs of various kinds,
as an active magistrate and landlord,
there was no one
to check the unwholesome stream of tradition
with which our plastic minds were inundated in the company of nurses and servants.

As years went on,
however,
the old ghostly tales partially lost their effects,
and our undisciplined minds were turned more towards balls,
dress,
and partners,
and other matters airy and trivial,
more welcome
to our riper age.

It was at a county assembly that Reginald and I first met--met and loved.

Yes,
I am sure that he loved me
with all his heart.

It was not as deep a heart as some,
I have thought in my grief and anger;
but I never doubted its truth and honesty.

Reginald's father and mine approved of our growing attachment;
and as
for myself,
I know I was so happy then,
that I look back upon those fleeting moments as on some delicious dream.

I now come
to the change.

I have lingered on my childish reminiscences,
my bright and happy youth,
and now I must tell the rest--the blight and the sorrow.It was Christmas,
always a joyful and a hospitable time in the country,
especially in such an old hall as our home,
where quaint customs and frolics were much clung to,
as part and parcel of the very dwelling itself.

The hall was full of guests--so full,
indeed,
that there was great difficulty in providing sleeping accommodation
for all.

Several narrow and dark chambers in the turrets--mere pigeon-holes,
as we irreverently called what had been thought good enough
for the stately gentlemen of Elizabeth's reign-- were now allotted
to bachelor visitors,
after having been empty
for a century.

All the spare rooms in the body and wings of the hall were occupied,
of course;
and the servants who had been brought down were lodged at the farm and at the keeper's,
so great was the demand
for space.

At last the unexpected arrival of an elderly relative,
who had been asked months before,
but scarcely expected,
caused great commotion.

My aunts went about wringing their hands distractedly.

Lady Speldhurst was a personage of some consequence;
she was a distant cousin,
and had been
for years on cool terms
with us all,
on account of some fancied affront or slight when she had paid her LAST visit,
about the time of my christening.

She was seventy years old;
she was infirm,
rich,
and testy;
moreover,
she was my godmother,
though I had forgotten the fact;
but it seems that though I had formed no expectations of a legacy in my favor,
my aunts had done so
for me.

Aunt Margaret was especially eloquent on the subject.

"There isn't a room left," she said;
"was ever anything so unfortunate!

We cannot put Lady Speldhurst in
to the turrets,
and yet where IS she
to sleep?

And Rosa's godmother,
too!

Poor,
dear child,
how dreadful!

After all these years of estrangement,
and
with a hundred thousand in the funds,
and no comfortable,
warm room at her own unlimited disposal-- and Christmas,
of all times in the year!" What WAS
to be done?

My aunts could not resign their own chambers
to Lady Speldhurst,
because they had already given them up
to some of the married guests.

My father was the most hospitable of men,
but he was rheumatic,
gouty,
and methodical.

His sisters-in-law dared not propose
to shift his quarters;
and,
indeed,
he would have far sooner dined on prison fare than have been translated
to a strange bed.

The matter ended in my giving up my room.

I had a strange reluctance
to making the offer,
which surprised myself.

Was it a boding of evil
to come?

I cannot say.

We are strangely and wonderfully made.

It MAY have been.

At any rate,
I do not think it was any selfish unwillingness
to make an old and infirm lady comfortable by a trifling sacrifice.

I was perfectly healthy and strong.

The weather was not cold
for the time of the year.

It was a dark,
moist Yule--not a snowy one,
though snow brooded overhead in the darkling clouds.

I DID make the offer,
which became me,
I said
with a laugh,
as the youngest.

My sisters laughed too,
and made a jest of my evident wish
to propitiate my godmother.

"She is a fairy godmother,
Rosa," said Minnie;
"and you know she was affronted at your christening,
and went away muttering vengeance.

Here she is coming back
to see you;
I hope she brings golden gifts
with her."


I thought little of Lady Speldhurst and her possible golden gifts.

I cared nothing
for the wonderful fortune in the funds that my aunts whispered and nodded about so mysteriously.

But since then I have wondered whether,
had I then showed myself peevish or obstinate--had I refused
to give up my room
for the expected kinswoman--it would not have altered the whole of my life?

But then Lucy or Minnie would have offered in my stead,
and been sacrificed--what do I say?--better that the blow should have fallen as it did than on those dear ones.The chamber
to which I removed was a dim little triangular room in the western wing,
and was only
to be reached by traversing the picture-gallery,
or by mounting a little flight of stone stairs which led directly upward from the low-browed arch of a door that opened in
to the garden.

There was one more room on the same landing-place,
and this was a mere receptacle
for broken furniture,
shattered toys,
and all the lumber that WILL accumulate in a country-house.

The room I was
to inhabit
for a few nights was a tapestry-hung apartment,

with faded green curtains of some costly stuff,
contrasting oddly
with a new carpet and the bright,
fresh hangings of the bed,
which had been hurriedly erected.

The furniture was half old,
half new;
and on the dressing-table stood a very quaint oval mirror,
in a frame of black wood--unpolished ebony,
I think.

I can remember the very pattern of the carpet,
the number of chairs,
the situation of the bed,
the figures on the tapestry.

Nay,
I can recollect not only the color of the dress I wore on that fated evening,
but the arrangement of every scrap of lace and ribbon,
of every flower,
every jewel,

with a memory but too perfect.Scarcely had my maid finished spreading out my various articles of attire
for the evening (when there was
to be a great dinner-party) when the rumble of a carriage announced that Lady Speldhurst had arrived.

The short winter's day drew
to a close,
and a large number of guests were gathered together in the ample drawing-room,
around the blaze of the wood-fire,
after dinner.

My father,
I recollect,
was not
with us at first.

There were some squires of the old,
hard-riding,
hard-drinking stamp still lingering over their port in the dining-room,
and the host,
of course,
could not leave them.

But the ladies and all the younger gentlemen--both those who slept under our roof,
and those who would have a dozen miles of fog and mire
to encounter on their road home--were all together.

Need I say that Reginald was there?

He sat near me--my accepted lover,
my plighted future husband.

We were
to be married in the spring.

My sisters were not far off;
they,
too,
had found eyes that sparkled and softened in meeting theirs,
had found hearts that beat responsive
to their own.

And,
in their cases,
no rude frost nipped the blossom ere it became the fruit;
there was no canker in their flowerets of young hope,
no cloud in their sky.

Innocent and loving,
they were beloved by men worthy of their esteem.The room--a large and lofty one,

with an arched roof--had somewhat of a somber character,
from being wainscoted and ceiled
with polished black oak of a great age.

There were mirrors,
and there were pictures on the walls,
and handsome furniture,
and marble chimney-pieces,
and a gay Tournay carpet;
but these merely appeared as bright spots on the dark background of the Elizabethan woodwork.

Many lights were burning,
but the blackness of the walls and roof seemed absolutely
to swallow up their rays,
like the mouth of a cavern.

A hundred candles could not have given that apartment the cheerful lightness of a modern drawing room.

But the gloomy richness of the panels matched well
with the ruddy gleam from the enormous wood-fire,
in which,
crackling and glowing,
now lay the mighty Yule log.

Quite a blood-red luster poured forth from the fire,
and quivered on the walls and the groined roof.

We had gathered round the vast antique hearth in a wide circle.

The quivering light of the fire and candles fell upon us all,
but not equally,

for some were in shadow.

I remember still how tall and manly and handsome Reginald looked that night,
taller by the head than any there,
and full of high spirits and gayety.

I,
too,
was in the highest spirits;
never had my bosom felt lighter,
and I believe it was my mirth that gradually gained the rest,

for I recollect what a blithe,
joyous company we seemed.

All save one.

Lady Speldhurst,
dressed in gray silk and wearing a quaint head- dress,
sat in her armchair,
facing the fire,
very silent,

with her hands and her sharp chin propped on a sort of ivory-handled crutch that she walked
with (
for she was lame),
peering at me
with half- shut eyes.

She was a little,
spare old woman,

with very keen,
delicate features of the French type.

Her gray silk dress,
her spotless lace,
old-fashioned jewels,
and prim neatness of array,
were well suited
to the intelligence of her face,

with its thin lips,
and eyes of a piercing black,
undimmed by age.

Those eyes made me uncomfortable,
in spite of my gayety,
as they followed my every movement
with curious scrutiny.

Still I was very merry and gay;
my sisters even wondered at my ever-ready mirth,
which was almost wild in its excess.

I have heard since then of the Scottish belief that those doomed
to some great calamity become fey,
and are never so disposed
for merriment and laughter as just before the blow falls.

If ever mortal was fey,
then I was so on that evening.

Still,
though I strove
to shake it off,
the pertinacious observation of old Lady Speldhurst's eyes DID make an impression on me of a vaguely disagreeable nature.

Others,
too,
noticed her scrutiny of me,
but set it down as a mere eccentricity of a person always reputed whimsical,

to say the least of it.However,
this disagreeable sensation lasted but a few moments.

After a short pause my aunt took her part in the conversation,
and we found ourselves listening
to a weird legend,
which the old lady told exceedingly well.

One tale led
to another.

Everyone was called on in turn
to contribute
to the public entertainment,
and story after story,
always relating
to demonology and witchcraft,
succeeded.

It was Christmas,
the season
for such tales;
and the old room,

with its dusky walls and pictures,
and vaulted roof,
drinking up the light so greedily,
seemed just fitted
to give effect
to such legendary lore.

The huge logs crackled and burned
with glowing warmth;
the blood-red glare of the Yule log flashed on the faces of the listeners and narrator,
on the portraits,
and the holly wreathed about their frames,
and the upright old dame,
in her antiquated dress and trinkets,
like one of the originals of the pictures,
stepped from the canvas
to join our circle.

It threw a shimmering luster of an ominously ruddy hue upon the oaken panels.

No wonder that the ghost and goblin stories had a new zest.

No wonder that the blood of the more timid grew chill and curdled,
that their flesh crept,
that their hearts beat irregularly,
and the girls peeped fearfully over their shoulders,
and huddled close together like frightened sheep,
and half fancied they beheld some impish and malignant face gibbering at them from the darkling corners of the old room.

By degrees my high spirits died out,
and I felt the childish tremors,
long latent,
long forgotten,
coming over me.

I followed each story
with painful interest;
I did not ask myself if I believed the dismal tales.

I listened,
and fear grew upon me--the blind,
irrational fear of our nursery days.

I am sure most of the other ladies present,
young or middle-aged,
were affected by the circumstances under which these traditions were heard,
no less than by the wild and fantastic character of them.

But
with them the impression would die out next morning,
when the bright sun should shine on the frosted boughs,
and the rime on the grass,
and the scarlet berries and green spikelets of the holly;
and
with me--but,
ah!

what was
to happen ere another day dawn?

Before we had made an end of this talk my father and the other squires came in,
and we ceased our ghost stories,
ashamed
to speak of such matters before these new-comers--hard-headed,
unimaginative men,
who had no sympathy
with idle legends.

There was now a stir and bustle.Servants were handing round tea and coffee,
and other refreshments.

Then there was a little music and singing.

I sang a duet
with Reginald,
who had a fine voice and good musical skill.

I remember that my singing was much praised,
and indeed I was surprised at the power and pathos of my own voice,
doubtless due
to my excited nerves and mind.

Then I heard someone say
to another that I was by far the cleverest of the Squire's daughters,
as well as the prettiest.

It did not make me vain.

I had no rivalry
with Lucy and Minnie.

But Reginald whispered some soft,
fond words in my ear a little before he mounted his horse
to set off homeward,
which DID make me happy and proud.

And
to think that the next time we met-- but I forgave him long ago.

Poor Reginald!

And now shawls and cloaks were in request,
and carriages rolled up
to the porch,
and the guests gradually departed.

At last no one was left but those visitors staying in the house.

Then my father,
who had been called out
to speak
with the bailiff of the estate,
came back
with a look of annoyance on his face."

A strange story I have just been told," said he;
"here has been my bailiff
to inform me of the loss of four of the choicest ewes out of that little flock of Southdowns I set such store by,
and which arrived in the north but two months since.

And the poor creatures have been destroyed in so strange a manner,

for their carcasses are horribly mangled."


Most of us uttered some expression of pity or surprise,
and some suggested that a vicious dog was probably the culprit."

It would seem so," said my father;
"it certainly seems the work of a dog;
and yet all the men agree that no dog of such habits exists near us,
where,
indeed,
dogs are scarce,
excepting the shepherds' collies and the sporting dogs secured in yards.

Yet the sheep are gnawed and bitten,

for they show the marks of teeth.

Something has done this,
and has torn their bodies wolfishly;
but apparently it has been only
to suck the blood,

for little or no flesh is gone."


"How strange!" cried several voices.

Then some of the gentlemen remembered
to have heard of cases when dogs addicted
to sheep- killing had destroyed whole flocks,
as if in sheer wantonness,
scarcely deigning
to taste a morsel of each slain wether.My father shook his head.

"I have heard of such cases,
too," he said;
"but in this instance I am tempted
to think the malice of some unknown enemy has been at work.

The teeth of a dog have been busy,
no doubt,
but the poor sheep have been mutilated in a fantastic manner,
as strange as horrible;
their hearts,
in especial,
have been torn out,
and left at some paces off,
half- gnawed.

Also,
the men persist that they found the print of a naked human foot in the soft mud of the ditch,
and near it--this."

And he held up what seemed a broken link of a rusted iron chain.Many were the ejaculations of wonder and alarm,
and many and shrewd the conjectures,
but none seemed exactly
to suit the bearings of the case.

And when my father went on
to say that two lambs of the same valuable breed had perished in the same singular manner three days previously,
and that they also were found mangled and gore- stained,
the amazement reached a higher pitch.

Old Lady Speldhurst listened
with calm,
intelligent attention,
but joined in none of our exclamations.

At length she said
to my father,
"Try and recollect--have you no enemy among your neighbors?"

My father started,
and knit his brows.

"Not one that I know of," he replied;
and indeed he was a popular man and a kind landlord.

"The more lucky you," said the old dame,

with one of her grim smiles.

It was now late,
and we retired
to rest before long.

One by one the guests dropped off.

I was the member of the family selected
to escort old Lady Speldhurst
to her room--the room I had vacated in her favor.

I did not much like the office.

I felt a remarkable repugnance
to my godmother,
but my worthy aunts insisted so much that I should ingratiate myself
with one who had so much
to leave that I could not but comply.

The visitor hobbled up the broad oaken stairs actively enough,
propped on my arm and her ivory crutch.

The room never had looked more genial and pretty,

with its brisk fire,
modern furniture,
and the gay French paper on the walls.

"A nice room,
my dear,
and I ought
to be much obliged
to you
for it,
since my maid tells me it is yours," said her ladyship;
"but I am pretty sure you repent your generosity
to me,
after all those ghost stories,
and tremble
to think of a strange bed and chamber,
eh?"

I made some commonplace reply.

The old lady arched her eyebrows.

"Where have they put you,
child?"

she asked;
"in some cock-loft of the turrets,
eh?

or in a lumber-room--a regular ghost-trap?

I can hear your heart beating
with fear this moment.

You are not fit
to be alone."

I tried
to call up my pride,
and laugh off the accusation against my courage,
all the more,
perhaps,
because I felt its truth.

"Do you want anything more that I can get you,
Lady Speldhurst?"

I asked,
trying
to feign a yawn of sleepiness.

The old dame's keen eyes were upon me.

"I rather like you,
my dear," she said,
"and I liked your mamma well enough before she treated me so shamefully about the christening dinner.

Now,
I know you are frightened and fearful,
and if an owl should but flap your window to-night,
it might drive you in
to fits.

There is a nice little sofa-bed in this dressing closet--call your maid
to arrange it
for you,
and you can sleep there snugly,
under the old witch's protection,
and then no goblin dare harm you,
and nobody will be a bit the wiser,
or quiz you
for being afraid."

How little I knew what hung in the balance of my refusal or acceptance of that trivial proffer!

Had the veil of the future been lifted
for one instant!

but that veil is impenetrable
to our gaze.I left her door.

As I crossed the landing a bright gleam came from another room,
whose door was left ajar;
it (the light) fell like a bar of golden sheen across my path.

As I approached the door opened and my sister Lucy,
who had been watching
for me,
came out.

She was already in a white cashmere wrapper,
over which her loosened hair hung darkly and heavily,
like tangles of silk.

"Rosa,
love," she whispered,
"Minnie and I can't bear the idea of your sleeping out there,
all alone,
in that solitary room--the very room too Nurse Sherrard used
to talk about!

So,
as you know Minnie has given up her room,
and come
to sleep in mine,
still we should so wish you
to stop
with us to-night at any rate,
and I could make up a bed on the sofa
for myself or you--and--" I stopped Lucy's mouth
with a kiss.

I declined her offer.

I would not listen
to it.

In fact,
my pride was up in arms,
and I felt I would rather pass the night in the churchyard itself than accept a proposal dictated,
I felt sure,
by the notion that my nerves were shaken by the ghostly lore we had been raking up,
that I was a weak,
superstitious creature,
unable
to pass a night in a strange chamber.

So I would not listen
to Lucy,
but kissed her,
bade her good-night,
and went on my way laughing,

to show my light heart.

Yet,
as I looked back in the dark corridor,
and saw the friendly door still ajar,
the yellow bar of light still crossing from wall
to wall,
the sweet,
kind face still peering after me from amidst its clustering curls,
I felt a thrill of sympathy,
a wish
to return,
a yearning after human love and companionship.

False shame was strongest,
and conquered.

I waved a gay adieu.

I turned the corner,
and peeping over my shoulder,
I saw the door close;
the bar of yellow light was there no longer in the darkness of the passage.

I thought at that instant that I heard a heavy sigh.

I looked sharply round.

No one was there.

No door was open,
yet I fancied,
and fancied
with a wonderful vividness,
that I did hear an actual sigh breathed not far off,
and plainly distinguishable from the groan of the sycamore branches as the wind tossed them
to and fro in the outer blackness.

If ever a mortal's good angel had cause
to sigh
for sorrow,
not sin,
mine had cause
to mourn that night.

But imagination plays us strange tricks and my nervous system was not over-composed or very fitted
for judicial analysis.

I had
to go through the picture-gallery.

I had never entered this apartment by candle-light before and I was struck by the gloomy array of the tall portraits,
gazing moodily from the canvas on the lozenge-paned or painted windows,
which rattled
to the blast as it swept howling by.

Many of the faces looked stern,
and very different from their daylight expression.

In others a furtive,
flickering smile seemed
to mock me as my candle illumined them;
and in all,
the eyes,
as usual
with artistic portraits,
seemed
to follow my motions
with a scrutiny and an interest the more marked
for the apathetic immovability of the other features.

I felt ill at ease under this stony gaze,
though conscious how absurd were my apprehensions;
and I called up a smile and an air of mirth,
more as if acting a part under the eyes of human beings than of their mere shadows on the wall.

I even laughed as I confronted them.

No echo had my short- lived laughter but from the hollow armor and arching roof,
and I continued on my way in silence.By a sudden and not uncommon revulsion of feeling I shook off my aimless terrors,
blushed at my weakness,
and sought my chamber only too glad that I had been the only witness of my late tremors.

As I entered my chamber I thought I heard something stir in the neglected lumber-room,
which was the only neighboring apartment.

But I was determined
to have no more panics,
and resolutely shut my eyes
to this slight and transient noise,
which had nothing unnatural in it;

for surely,
between rats and wind,
an old manor- house on a stormy night needs no sprites
to disturb it.

So I entered my room,
and rang
for my maid.

As I did so I looked around me,
and a most unaccountable repugnance
to my temporary abode came over me,
in spite of my efforts.

It was no more
to be shaken off than a chill is
to be shaken off when we enter some damp cave.

And,
rely upon it,
the feeling of dislike and apprehension
with which we regard,
at first sight,
certain places and people,
was not implanted in us without some wholesome purpose.

I grant it is irrational--mere animal instinct--but is not instinct God's gift,
and is it
for us
to despise it?

It is by instinct that children know their friends from their enemies--that they distinguish
with such unerring accuracy between those who like them and those who only flatter and hate them.

Dogs do the same;
they will fawn on one person,
they slink snarling from another.

Show me a man whom children and dogs shrink from,
and I will show you a false,
bad man--lies on his lips,
and murder at his heart.

No;
let none despise the heaven-sent gift of innate antipathy,
which makes the horse quail when the lion crouches in the thicket--which makes the cattle scent the shambles from afar,
and low in terror and disgust as their nostrils snuff the blood-polluted air.

I felt this antipathy strongly as I looked around me in my new sleeping-room,
and yet I could find no reasonable pretext
for my dislike.

A very good room it was,
after all,
now that the green damask curtains were drawn,
the fire burning bright and clear,
candles burning on the mantel-piece,
and the various familiar articles of toilet arranged as usual.

The bed,
too,
looked peaceful and inviting--a pretty little white bed,
not at all the gaunt funereal sort of couch which haunted apartments generally contain.My maid entered,
and assisted me
to lay aside the dress and ornaments I had worn,
and arranged my hair,
as usual,
prattling the while,
in Abigail fashion.

I seldom cared
to converse
with servants;
but on that night a sort of dread of being left alone--a longing
to keep some human being near me possessed me--and I encouraged the girl
to gossip,
so that her duties took her half an hour longer
to get through than usual.

At last,
however,
she had done all that could be done,
and all my questions were answered,
and my orders
for the morrow reiterated and vowed obedience to,
and the clock on the turret struck one.

Then Mary,
yawning a little,
asked if I wanted anything more,
and I was obliged
to answer no,

for very shame's sake;
and she went.

The shutting of the door,
gently as it was closed,
affected me unpleasantly.

I took a dislike
to the curtains,
the tapestry,
the dingy pictures-- everything.

I hated the room.

I felt a temptation
to put on a cloak,
run,
half-dressed,

to my sisters' chamber,
and say I had changed my mind and come
for shelter.

But they must be asleep,
I thought,
and I could not be so unkind as
to wake them.

I said my prayers
with unusual earnestness and a heavy heart.

I extinguished the candles,
and was just about
to lay my head on my pillow,
when the idea seized me that I would fasten the door.

The candles were extinguished,
but the firelight was amply sufficient
to guide me.

I gained the door.

There was a lock,
but it was rusty or hampered;
my utmost strength could not turn the key.

The bolt was broken and worthless.

Balked of my intention,
I consoled myself by remembering that I had never had need of fastenings yet,
and returned
to my bed.

I lay awake
for a good while,
watching the red glow of the burning coals in the grate.

I was quiet now,
and more composed.

Even the light gossip of the maid,
full of petty human cares and joys,
had done me good--diverted my thoughts from brooding.

I was on the point of dropping asleep,
when I was twice disturbed.

Once,
by an owl,
hooting in the ivy outside--no unaccustomed sound,
but harsh and melancholy;
once,
by a long and mournful howling set up by the mastiff,
chained in the yard beyond the wing I occupied.

A long-drawn,
lugubrious howling was this latter,
and much such a note as the vulgar declare
to herald a death in the family.

This was a fancy I had never shared;
but yet I could not help feeling that the dog's mournful moans were sad,
and expressive of terror,
not at all like his fierce,
honest bark of anger,
but rather as if something evil and unwonted were abroad.

But soon I fell asleep.How long I slept I never knew.

I awoke at once
with that abrupt start which we all know well,
and which carries us in a second from utter unconsciousness
to the full use of our faculties.

The fire was still burning,
but was very low,
and half the room or more was in deep shadow.

I knew,
I felt,
that some person or thing was in the room,
although nothing unusual was
to be seen by the feeble light.

Yet it was a sense of danger that had aroused me from slumber.

I experienced,
while yet asleep,
the chill and shock of sudden alarm,
and I knew,
even in the act of throwing off sleep like a mantle,
WHY I awoke,
and that some intruder was present.

Yet,
though I listened intently,
no sound was audible,
except the faint murmur of the fire--the dropping of a cinder from the bars-- the loud,
irregular beatings of my own heart.

Notwithstanding this silence,
by some intuition I knew that I had not been deceived by a dream,
and felt certain that I was not alone.

I waited.

My heart beat on;
quicker,
more sudden grew its pulsations,
as a bird in a cage might flutter in presence of the hawk.

And then I heard a sound,
faint,
but quite distinct,
the clank of iron,
the rattling of a chain!

I ventured
to lift my head from the pillow.

Dim and uncertain as the light was,
I saw the curtains of my bed shake,
and caught a glimpse of something beyond,
a darker spot in the darkness.

This confirmation of my fears did not surprise me so much as it shocked me.

I strove
to cry aloud,
but could not utter a word.

The chain rattled again,
and this time the noise was louder and clearer.

But though I strained my eyes,
they could not penetrate the obscurity that shrouded the other end of the chamber whence came the sullen clanking.

In a moment several distinct trains of thought,
like many-colored strands of thread twining in
to one,
became palpable
to my mental vision.

Was it a robber?

Could it be a supernatural visitant?

Or was I the victim of a cruel trick,
such as I had heard of,
and which some thoughtless persons love
to practice on the timid,
reckless of its dangerous results?

And then a new idea,

with some ray of comfort in it,
suggested itself.

There was a fine young dog of the Newfoundland breed,
a favorite of my father's,
which was usually chained by night in an outhouse.

Neptune might have broken loose,
found his way
to my room,
and,
finding the door imperfectly closed,
have pushed it open and entered.

I breathed more freely as this harmless interpretation of the noise forced itself upon me.

It was--it must be--the dog,
and I was distressing myself uselessly.

I resolved
to call
to him;
I strove
to utter his name--"Neptune,
Neptune," but a secret apprehension restrained me,
and I was mute.Then the chain clanked nearer and nearer
to the bed,
and presently I saw a dusky,
shapeless mass appear between the curtains on the opposite side
to where I was lying.

How I longed
to hear the whine of the poor animal that I hoped might be the cause of my alarm.

But no;
I heard no sound save the rustle of the curtains and the clash of the iron chains.

Just then the dying flame of the fire leaped up,
and
with one sweeping,
hurried glance I saw that the door was shut,
and,
horror!

it is not the dog!

it is the semblance of a human form that now throws itself heavily on the bed,
outside the clothes,
and lies there,
huge and swart,
in the red gleam that treacherously died away after showing so much
to affright,
and sinks in
to dull darkness.

There was now no light left,
though the red cinders yet glowed
with a ruddy gleam like the eyes of wild beasts.

The chain rattled no more.

I tried
to speak,

to scream wildly
for help;
my mouth was parched,
my tongue refused
to obey.

I could not utter a cry,
and,
indeed,
who could have heard me,
alone as I was in that solitary chamber,

with no living neighbor,
and the picture-gallery between me and any aid that even the loudest,
most piercing shriek could summon.

And the storm that howled without would have drowned my voice,
even if help had been at hand.


to call aloud--
to demand who was there--alas!

how useless,
how perilous!

If the intruder were a robber,
my outcries would but goad him
to fury;
but what robber would act thus?

As
for a trick,
that seemed impossible.

And yet,
WHAT lay by my side,
now wholly unseen?

I strove
to pray aloud as there rushed on my memory a flood of weird legends--the dreaded yet fascinating lore of my childhood.

I had heard and read of the spirits of the wicked men forced
to revisit the scenes of their earthly crimes--of demons that lurked in certain accursed spots--of the ghoul and vampire of the east,
stealing amidst the graves they rifled
for their ghostly banquets;
and then I shuddered as I gazed on the blank darkness where I knew it lay.

It stirred--it moaned hoarsely;
and again I heard the chain clank close beside me--so close that it must almost have touched me.

I drew myself from it,
shrinking away in loathing and terror of the evil thing--what,
I knew not,
but felt that something malignant was near.And yet,
in the extremity of my fear,
I dared not speak;
I was strangely cautious
to be silent,
even in moving farther off;

for I had a wild hope that it--the phantom,
the creature,
whichever it was--had not discovered my presence in the room.

And then I remembered all the events of the night--Lady Speldhurst's ill- omened vaticinations,
her half-warnings,
her singular look as we parted,
my sister's persuasions,
my terror in the gallery,
the remark that "this was the room nurse Sherrard used
to talk of."

And then memory,
stimulated by fear,
recalled the long-forgotten past,
the ill-repute of this disused chamber,
the sins it had witnessed,
the blood spilled,
the poison administered by unnatural hate within its walls,
and the tradition which called it haunted.

The green room--I remembered now how fearfully the servants avoided it--how it was mentioned rarely,
and in whispers,
when we were children,
and how we had regarded it as a mysterious region,
unfit
for mortal habitation.

Was It--the dark form
with the chain--a creature of this world,
or a specter?

And again--more dreadful still--could it be that the corpses of wicked men were forced
to rise and haunt in the body the places where they had wrought their evil deeds?

And was such as these my grisly neighbor?

The chain faintly rattled.

My hair bristled;
my eyeballs seemed starting from their sockets;
the damps of a great anguish were on my brow.

My heart labored as if I were crushed beneath some vast weight.

Sometimes it appeared
to stop its frenzied beatings,
sometimes its pulsations were fierce and hurried;
my breath came short and
with extreme difficulty,
and I shivered as if
with cold;
yet I feared
to stir.

IT moved,
it moaned,
its fetters clanked dismally,
the couch creaked and shook.

This was no phantom,
then--no air-drawn specter.

But its very solidity,
its palpable presence,
were a thousand times more terrible.

I felt that I was in the very grasp of what could not only affright but harm;
of something whose contact sickened the soul
with deathly fear.

I made a desperate resolve:

I glided from the bed,
I seized a warm wrapper,
threw it around me,
and tried
to grope,

with extended hands,
my way
to the door.

My heart beat high at the hope of escape.

But I had scarcely taken one step before the moaning was renewed--it changed in
to a threatening growl that would have suited a wolf's throat,
and a hand clutched at my sleeve.

I stood motionless.

The muttering growl sank
to a moan again,
the chain sounded no more,
but still the hand held its gripe of my garment,
and I feared
to move.

It knew of my presence,
then.

My brain reeled,
the blood boiled in my ears,
and my knees lost all strength,
while my heart panted like that of a deer in the wolf's jaws.

I sank back,
and the benumbing influence of excessive terror reduced me
to a state of stupor.When my full consciousness returned I was sitting on the edge of the bed,
shivering
with cold,
and barefooted.

All was silent,
but I felt that my sleeve was still clutched by my unearthly visitant.

The silence lasted a long time.

Then followed a chuckling laugh that froze my very marrow,
and the gnashing of teeth as in demoniac frenzy;
and then a wailing moan,
and this was succeeded by silence.

Hours may have passed--nay,
though the tumult of my own heart prevented my hearing the clock strike,
must have passed--but they seemed ages
to me.

And how were they passed?

Hideous visions passed before the aching eyes that I dared not close,
but which gazed ever in
to the dumb darkness where It lay--my dread companion through the watches of the night.

I pictured It in every abhorrent form which an excited fancy could summon up:

now as a skeleton;

with hollow eye-holes and grinning,
fleshless jaws;
now as a vampire,

with livid face and bloated form,
and dripping mouth wet
with blood.

Would it never be light!

And yet,
when day should dawn I should be forced
to see It face
to face.

I had heard that specter and fiend were compelled
to fade as morning brightened,
but this creature was too real,
too foul a thing of earth,

to vanish at cock-crow.

No!

I should see it--the Horror--face
to face!

And then the cold prevailed,
and my teeth chattered,
and shiverings ran through me,
and yet there was the damp of agony on my bursting brow.

Some instinct made me snatch at a shawl or cloak that lay on a chair within reach,
and wrap it round me.

The moan was renewed,
and the chain just stirred.

Then I sank in
to apathy,
like an Indian at the stake,
in the intervals of torture.

Hours fled by,
and I remained like a statue of ice,
rigid and mute.

I even slept,

for I remember that I started
to find the cold gray light of an early winter's day was on my face,
and stealing around the room from between the heavy curtains of the window.Shuddering,
but urged by the impulse that rivets the gaze of the bird upon the snake,
I turned
to see the Horror of the night.

Yes,
it was no fevered dream,
no hallucination of sickness,
no airy phantom unable
to face the dawn.

In the sickly light I saw it lying on the bed,

with its grim head on the pillow.

A man?

Or a corpse arisen from its unhallowed grave,
and awaiting the demon that animated it?

There it lay--a gaunt,
gigantic form,
wasted
to a skeleton,
half-clad,
foul
with dust and clotted gore,
its huge limbs flung upon the couch as if at random,
its shaggy hair streaming over the pillows like a lion's mane.

His face was toward me.

Oh,
the wild hideousness of that face,
even in sleep!

In features it was human,
even through its horrid mask of mud and half-dried bloody gouts,
but the expression was brutish and savagely fierce;
the white teeth were visible between the parted lips,
in a malignant grin;
the tangled hair and beard were mixed in leonine confusion,
and there were scars disfiguring the brow.

Round the creature's waist was a ring of iron,

to which was attached a heavy but broken chain--the chain I had heard clanking.


with a second glance I noted that part of the chain was wrapped in straw
to prevent its galling the wearer.

The creature--I cannot call it a man--had the marks of fetters on its wrists,
the bony arm that protruded through one tattered sleeve was scarred and bruised;
the feet were bare,
and lacerated by pebbles and briers,
and one of them was wounded,
and wrapped in a morsel of rag.

And the lean hands,
one of which held my sleeve,
were armed
with talons like an eagle's.

In an instant the horrid truth flashed upon me--I was in the grasp of a madman.

Better the phantom that scares the sight than the wild beast that rends and tears the quivering flesh--the pitiless human brute that has no heart
to be softened,
no reason at whose bar
to plead,
no compassion,
naught of man save the form and the cunning.

I gasped in terror.

Ah!

the mystery of those ensanguined fingers,
those gory,
wolfish jaws!

that face,
all besmeared
with blackening blood,
is revealed!
The slain sheep,
so mangled and rent--the fantastic butchery--the print of the naked foot--all,
all were explained;
and the chain,
the broken link of which was found near the slaughtered animals--it came from his broken chain--the chain he had snapped,
doubtless,
in his escape from the asylum where his raging frenzy had been fettered and bound,
in vain!

in vain!

Ah me!

how had this grisly Samson broken manacles and prison bars--how had he eluded guardian and keeper and a hostile world,
and come hither on his wild way,
hunted like a beast of prey,
and snatching his hideous banquet like a beast of prey,
too!

Yes,
through the tatters of his mean and ragged garb I could see the marks of the seventies,
cruel and foolish,

with which men in that time tried
to tame the might of madness.

The scourge--its marks were there;
and the scars of the hard iron fetters,
and many a cicatrice and welt,
that told a dismal tale of hard usage.

But now he was loose,
free
to play the brute--the baited,
tortured brute that they had made him--now without the cage,
and ready
to gloat over the victims his strength should overpower.

Horror!

horror!

I was the prey--the victim-- already in the tiger's clutch;
and a deadly sickness came over me,
and the iron entered in
to my soul,
and I longed
to scream,
and was dumb!

I died a thousand deaths as that morning wore on.

I DARED NOT faint.

But words cannot paint what I suffered as I waited-- waited till the moment when he should open his eyes and be aware of my presence;

for I was assured he knew it not.

He had entered the chamber as a lair,
when weary and gorged
with his horrid orgy;
and he had flung himself down
to sleep without a suspicion that he was not alone.

Even his grasping my sleeve was doubtless an act done betwixt sleeping and waking,
like his unconscious moans and laughter,
in some frightful dream.Hours went on;
then I trembled as I thought that soon the house would be astir,
that my maid would come
to call me as usual,
and awake that ghastly sleeper.

And might he not have time
to tear me,
as he tore the sheep,
before any aid could arrive?

At last what I dreaded came
to pass--a light footstep on the landing--there is a tap at the door.

A pause succeeds,
and then the tapping is renewed,
and this time more loudly.

Then the madman stretched his limbs,
and uttered his moaning cry,
and his eyes slowly opened-- very slowly opened and met mine.

The girl waited a while ere she knocked
for the third time.

I trembled lest she should open the door unbidden--see that grim thing,
and bring about the worst.I saw the wondering surprise in his haggard,
bloodshot eyes;
I saw him stare at me half vacantly,
then
with a crafty yet wondering look;
and then I saw the devil of murder begin
to peep forth from those hideous eyes,
and the lips
to part as in a sneer,
and the wolfish teeth
to bare themselves.

But I was not what I had been.

Fear gave me a new and a desperate composure--a courage foreign
to my nature.

I had heard of the best method of managing the insane;
I could but try;
I DID try.

Calmly,
wondering at my own feigned calm,
I fronted the glare of those terrible eyes.

Steady and undaunted was my gaze--motionless my attitude.

I marveled at myself,
but in that agony of sickening terror I was OUTWARDLY firm.

They sink,
they quail,
abashed,
those dreadful eyes,
before the gaze of a helpless girl;
and the shame that is never absent from insanity bears down the pride of strength,
the bloody cravings of the wild beast.

The lunatic moaned and drooped his shaggy head between his gaunt,
squalid hands.I lost not an instant.

I rose,
and
with one spring reached the door,
tore it open,
and,

with a shriek,
rushed through,
caught the wondering girl by the arm,
and crying
to her
to run
for her life,
rushed like the wind along the gallery,
down the corridor,
down the stairs.

Mary's screams filled the house as she fled beside me.

I heard a long-drawn,
raging cry,
the roar of a wild animal mocked of its prey,
and I knew what was behind me.

I never turned my head--I flew rather than ran.

I was in the hall already;
there was a rush of many feet,
an outcry of many voices,
a sound of scuffling feet,
and brutal yells,
and oaths,
and heavy blows,
and I fell
to the ground crying,
"Save me!" and lay in a swoon.

I awoke from a delirious trance.

Kind faces were around my bed,
loving looks were bent on me by all,
by my dear father and dear sisters;
but I scarcely saw them before I swooned again.When I recovered from that long illness,
through which I had been nursed so tenderly,
the pitying looks I met made me tremble.

I asked
for a looking-glass.

It was long denied me,
but my importunity prevailed at last--a mirror was brought.

My youth was gone at one fell swoop.

The glass showed me a livid and haggard face,
blanched and bloodless as of one who sees a specter;
and in the ashen lips,
and wrinkled brow,
and dim eyes,
I could trace nothing of my old self.

The hair,
too,
jetty and rich before,
was now as white as snow;
and in one night the ravages of half a century had passed over my face.

Nor have my nerves ever recovered their tone after that dire shock.

Can you wonder that my life was blighted,
that my lover shrank from me,
so sad a wreck was I?
I am old now--old and alone.

My sisters would have had me
to live
with them,
but I chose not
to sadden their genial homes
with my phantom face and dead eyes.

Reginald married another.

He has been dead many years.

I never ceased
to pray
for him,
though he left me when I was bereft of all.

The sad weird is nearly over now.

I am old,
and near the end,
and wishful
for it.

I have not been bitter or hard,
but I cannot bear
to see many people,
and am best alone.

I try
to do what good I can
with the worthless wealth Lady Speldhurst left me,
for,
at my wish,
my portion was shared between my sisters.

What need had I of inheritance?--I,
the shattered wreck made by that one night of horror!