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originally from Dublin University Magazine, (1853)
It is not worth telling, this story of mine--at least,
not worth writing. Told, indeed, as I have sometimes been
called upon to tell it, to a circle of intelligent and eager
faces, lighted up by a good after- My cousin (Tom Ludlow) and I studied medicine
together. I think he would have succeeded, had he stuck to
the profession; but he preferred the Church, poor fellow,
and died early, a sacrifice to contagion, contracted in the
noble discharge of his duties. For my present purpose, I say
enough of his character when I mention that he was of a
sedate but frank and cheerful nature; very exact in his
observance of truth, and not by any means like
myself My Uncle Ludlow-- Our furniture was very scant--our whole
equipage remarkably modest and primitive; and, in short, our
arrangements pretty nearly as simple as those of a bivouac.
Our new plan was, therefore, executed almost as soon as
conceived. The front drawing-room was our sitting-room. I
had the bedroom over it, and Tom the back bedroom on the
same floor, which nothing could have induced me to occupy.
The house, to begin with, was a very old one.
It had been, I believe, newly fronted about fifty years
before; but with this exception, it had nothing modern about
it. The agent who bought it and looked into the titles for
my uncle, told me that it was sold, along with much other
forfeited property, at Chichester House, I think, in 1702;
and had belonged to Sir Thomas Hacket, who was Lord Mayor of
Dublin in James II's time. How old it was then, I
can't say; but, at all events, it had seen years and changes
enough to have contracted all that mysterious and saddened
air, at once exciting and depressing, which belongs to most
old mansions.
There had been very little done in the way of
modernising details; and, perhaps, it was better so; for
there was something queer and by-gone in the very walls and
ceilings-- An effort had, indeed, been made, to the
extent of papering the drawing-rooms; but, somehow the paper
looked raw and out of keeping; and the old woman, who kept a
little dirt-pie of a shop in the lane, and whose daughter--a
girl of two and fifty--was our solitary handmaid, coming in
at sunrise, and chastely receding again as soon as she had
made all ready for tea in our state apartment;-- The bedrooms were wainscoted, but the front
one was not gloomy; and in it the cosiness of antiquity
quite overcame its sombre associations. But the back
bedroom, with its two queerly- I had never pretended to conceal from poor
Tom my superstitious weakness; and he, on the other hand,
most unaffectedly ridiculed my tremors. The sceptic was,
however, destined to receive a lesson, as you shall hear.
We had not been very long in occupation of
our respective dormitories, when I began to complain of
uneasy nights and disturbed sleep. I was, I suppose, the
more impatient under this annoyance, as I was usually a
sound sleeper, and by no means prone to nightmares. It was
now, however, my destiny, instead of enjoying my customary
repose, every night to "sup full of horrors."
After a preliminary course of disagreeable and frightful
dreams, my troubles took a definite form, and the same
vision, without an appreciable variation in a single detail,
visited me at least (on an average) every second night in
the week.
Now, this dream, nightmare, or infernal
illusion--which you please--of which I was the miserable
sport, was on this wise:--
I saw, or thought I saw, with the most
abominable distinctness, although at the time in profound
darkness, every article of furniture and accidental
arrangement of the chamber in which I lay. This, as you
know, is incidental to ordinary nightmare. Well, while in
this clairvoyant condition, which seemed but the lighting up
of the theatre in which was to be exhibited the monotonous
tableau of horror, which made my nights insupportable, my
attention invariably became, I know not why, fixed upon the
windows opposite the foot of my bed; and, uniformly with the
same effect, a sense of dreadful anticipation always took
slow but sure possession of me. I became somehow conscious
of a sort of horrid but undefined preparation going forward
in some unknown quarter, and by some unknown agency, for my
torment; and, after an interval, which always seemed to me
of the same length, a picture suddenly flew up to the
window, where it remained fixed, as if by an electrical
attraction, and my discipline of horror then commenced, to
last perhaps for hours. The picture thus mysteriously glued
to the window-panes, was the portrait of an old man, in a
crimson flowered silk dressing- the fiend who had enslaved me through the
awful watches of the night; and, harassed and nervous, I
rose to the duties of the day.
I had--I can't say exactly why, but it may
have been from the exquisite anguish and profound
impressions of unearthly horror, with which this strange
phantas I will do this tonic justice, and frankly
admit that the accursed portrait began to intermit its
visits under its influence. What of that? Was this singular
apparition--as full of character as of
terror-- I found afterwards that my would-be sceptical
companion had his troubles too. But of these I knew nothing
yet. One night, for a wonder, I was sleeping soundly, when I
was roused by a step on the lobby outside my room, followed
by the loud clang of what turned out to be a large brass
candlestick, flung with all his force by poor Tom Ludlow
over the banisters, and rattling with a rebound down the
second flight of stairs; and almost concurrently with this,
Tom burst open my door, and bounced into my room backwards,
in a state of extraordinary agitation.
I had jumped out of bed and clutched him by
the arm before I had any distinct idea of my own
whereabouts. There we were--in our shirts-- "What's the matter, Tom? What's the
matter with you? What the devil's the matter with you,
Tom?" I demanded, shaking him with nervous impatience.
He took a long breath before he answered me,
and then it was not very coherently.
"It's nothing, nothing at all--did I
speak?--what did I say?--where's the candle, Richard? It's
dark; I--I had a candle!"
"Yes, dark enough," I said;
"but what's the matter?-- "The matter?--oh, it is all over. It
must have been a dream-- "Of course," said I,
feeling uncommonly nervous, "it was a
dream."
"I thought," he said, "there
was a man in my room, and--and I jumped out of bed;
and--and-- "In your room, most likely," I
said, "shall I go and bring it?"
"No; stay here--don't go; it's no
matter--don't, I tell you; it was all a dream. Bolt the
door, Dick; I'll stay here with you--I feel nervous. So,
Dick, like a good fellow, light your candle and open the
window--I am in a shocking state."
I did as he asked me, and robing himself like
Granuaile in one of my blankets, he seated himself close
beside my bed.
Everybody knows how contagious is fear of all
sorts, but more especially that particular kind of fear
under which poor Tom was at that moment labouring. I would
not have heard, nor I believe would he have recapitulated,
just at that moment, for half the world, the details of the
hideous vision which had so unmanned him.
"Don't mind telling me anything about
your nonsensical dream, Tom," said I, affecting
contempt, really in a panic; "let us talk about
something else; but it is quite plain that this dirty old
house disagrees with us both, and hang me if I stay here any
longer, to be pestered with indigestion and--and-- Tom agreed, and, after an interval, said--
"I have been thinking, Richard, that it
is a long time since I saw my father, and I have made up my
mind to go down to-morrow and return in a day or two, and
you can take rooms for us in the meantime."
I fancied that this resolution, obviously the
result of the vision which had so profoundly scared him,
would probably vanish next morning with the damps and
shadows of night. But I was mistaken. Off went Tom at peep
of day to the country, having agreed that so soon as I had
secured suitable lodgings, I was to recall him by letter
from his visit to my Uncle Ludlow.
Now, anxious as I was to change my quarters,
it so happened, owing to a series of petty procrastinations
and accidents, that nearly a week elapsed before my bargain
was made and my letter of recall on the wing to Tom; and, in
the meantime, a trifling adventure or two had occurred to
your humble servant, which, absurd as they now appear,
diminished by distance, did certainly at the time serve to
whet my appetite for change considerably.
A night or two after the departure of my
comrade, I was sitting by my bedroom fire, the door locked,
and the ingredients of a tumbler of hot whisky-punch upon
the crazy spider-table; for, as the best mode of keeping the
with which I was environed, at bay, I had adopted the
practice recommended by the wisdom of my ancestors, and
"kept my spirits up by pouring spirits down." I
had thrown aside my volume of Anatomy, and was treating
myself by way of a tonic, preparatory to my punch and bed,
to half-a-dozen pages of the Spectator, when I
heard a step on the flight of stairs descending from the
attics. It was two o'clock, and the streets were as silent
as a church-yard-- I knew quite well that my attendant had gone
away many hours before, and that nobody but myself had any
business in the house. It was quite plain also that the
person who was coming downstairs had no intention whatever
of concealing his movements; but, on the contrary, appeared
disposed to make even more noise, and proceed more
deliberately, than was at all necessary. When the step
reached the foot of the stairs outside my room, it seemed to
stop; and I expected every moment to see my door open
spontaneously, and give admission to the original of my
detested portrait. I was, however, relieved in a few seconds
by hearing the descent renewed, just in the same manner,
upon the staircase leading down to the drawing-rooms, and
thence, after another pause, down the next flight, and so on
to the hall, whence I heard no more.
Now, by the time the sound had ceased, I was
wound up, as they say, to a very unpleasant pitch of
excitement. I listened, but there was not a stir. I screwed
up my courage to a decisive experiment-- Next night brought no return of my barefooted
fellow-lodger; but the night following, being in my bed, and
in the dark-- This time I had had my punch, and the
morale of the garrison was consequently excellent. I
jumped out of bed, clutched the poker as I passed the
expiring fire, and in a moment was upon the lobby. The sound
had ceased by this time--the dark and chill were
discouraging; and, guess my horror, when I saw, or thought I
saw, a black monster, whether in the shape of a man or a
bear I could not say, standing, with its back to the wall,
on the lobby, facing me, with a pair of great greenish eyes
shining dimly out. Now, I must be frank, and confess that
the cupboard which displayed our plates and cups stood just
there, though at the moment I did not recollect it. At the
same time I must honestly say, that making every allowance
for an excited imagination, I never could satisfy myself
that I was made the dupe of my own fancy in this matter; for
this apparition, after one or two shiftings of shape, as if
in the act of incipient transformation, began, as it seemed
on second thoughts, to advance upon me in its original form.
From an instinct of terror rather than of courage, I hurled
the poker, with all my force, at its head; and to the music
of a horrid crash made my way into my room, and
double-locked the door. Then, in a minute more, I heard the
horrid bare feet walk down the stairs, till the sound ceased
in the hall, as on the former occasion.
If the apparition of the night before was an
ocular delusion of my fancy sporting with the dark outlines
of our cupboard, and if its horrid eyes were nothing but a
pair of inverted teacups, I had, at all events, the
satisfaction of having launched the poker with admirable
effect, and in true "fancy" phrase, "knocked
its two daylights into one," as the commingled
fragments of my tea-service testified. I did my best to
gather comfort and courage from these evidences; but it
would not do. And then what could I say of those horrid bare
feet, and the regular tramp, tramp, tramp, which measured
the distance of the entire staircase through the solitude of
my haunted dwelling, and at an hour when no good influence
was stirring? Confound it!--the whole affair was abominable.
I was out of spirits, and dreaded the approach of night.
It came, ushered ominously in with a
thunder-storm and dull torrents of depressing rain. Earlier
than usual the streets grew silent; and by twelve o'clock
nothing but the comfortless pattering of the rain was to be
heard.
I made myself as snug as I could. I lighted
two candles instead of one. I forswore bed, and held myself
in readiness for a sally, candle in hand; for, coute qui
coute, I was resolved to see the being, if visible at
all, who troubled the nightly stillness of my mansion. I was
fidgety and nervous and, tried in vain to interest myself
with my books. I walked up and down my room, whistling in
turn martial and hilarious music, and listening ever and
anon for the dreaded noise. I sate down and stared at the
square label on the solemn and reserved-looking black
bottle, until "FLANAGAN &
CO.'S BEST
OLD MALT
WHISKY grew into a sort of subdued
accompaniment to all the fantastic and horrible speculations
which chased one another through my brain.
Silence, meanwhile, grew more silent, and
darkness darker. I listened in vain for the rumble of a
vehicle, or the dull clamour of a distant row. There was
nothing but the sound of a rising wind, which had succeeded
the thunder-storm that had travelled over the Dublin
mountains quite out of hearing. In the middle of this great
city I began to feel myself alone with nature, and Heaven
knows what beside. My courage was ebbing. Punch, however,
which makes beasts of so many, made a man of me again--just
in time to hear with tolerable nerve and firmness the lumpy,
flabby, naked feet deliberately descending the stairs again.
I took a candle, not without a tremor. As I
crossed the floor I tried to extemporise a prayer, but
stopped short to listen, and never finished it. The steps
continued. I confess I hesitated for some seconds at the
door before I took heart of grace and opened it. When I
peeped out the lobby was perfectly empty--there was no
monster standing on the staircase; and as the detested sound
ceased, I was reassured enough to venture forward nearly to
the banisters. Horror of horrors! within a stair or two
beneath the spot where I stood the unearthly tread smote the
floor. My eye caught something in motion; it was about the
size of Goliath's foot--it was grey, heavy, and flapped with
a dead weight from one step to another. As I am alive, it
was the most monstrous grey rat I ever beheld or imagined.
Shakespeare says--"Some men there are
cannot abide a gaping pig, and some that are mad if they
behold a cat." I went well-nigh out of my wits when I
beheld this rat; for, laugh at me as you may, it
fixed upon me, I thought, a perfectly human expression of
malice; and, as it shuffled about and looked up into my face
almost from between my feet, I saw, I could swear it--I felt
it then, and know it now, the infernal gaze and the accursed
countenance of my old friend in the portrait, transfused
into the visage of the bloated vermin before me.
I bounced into my room again with a feeling
of loathing and horror I cannot describe, and locked and
bolted my door as if a lion had been at the other side. D--n
him or it; curse the portrait and its original! I
felt in my soul that the rat--yes, the rat, the
RAT I had just seen, was that evil
being in masquerade, and rambling through the house upon
some infernal night lark.
Next morning I was early trudging through the
miry streets; and, among other transactions, posted a
peremptory note recalling Tom. On my return, however, I
found a note from my absent "chum," announcing his
intended return next day. I was doubly rejoiced at this,
because I had succeeded in getting rooms; and because the
change of scene and return of my comrade were rendered
specially pleasant by the last night's half ridiculous half
horrible adventure.
I slept extemporaneously in my new quarters
in Digges' Street that night, and next morning returned for
breakfast to the haunted mansion, where I was certain Tom
would call immediately on his arrival.
I was quite right--he came; and almost his
first question referred to the primary object of our change
of residence.
"Thank God," he said with genuine
fervour, on hearing that all was arranged. "On your
account I am delighted. As to myself, I assure you that no
earthly consideration could have induced me ever again to
pass a night in this disastrous old house."
"Confound the house!" I ejaculated,
with a genuine mixture of fear and detestation, "we
have not had a pleasant hour since we came to live
here"; and so I went on, and related incidentally my
adventure with the plethoric old rat.
"Well, if that were all,"
said my cousin, affecting to make light of the matter,
"I don't think I should have minded it very much."
"Ay, but its eye--its countenance, my
dear Tom," urged I; "if you had seen
that, you would have felt it might be
anything but what it seemed."
"I am inclined to think the best
conjurer in such a case would be an able-bodied cat,"
he said, with a provoking chuckle.
"But let us hear your own
adventure," I said tartly.
At this challenge he looked uneasily round
him. I had poked up a very unpleasant recollection.
"You shall hear it, Dick; I'll tell it
to you," he said. "Begad, sir, I should feel quite
queer, though, telling it here, though we are too
strong a body for ghosts to meddle with just now."
Though he spoke this like a joke, I think it
was serious calculation. Our Hebe was in a corner of the
room, packing our cracked delf tea and dinner- "I saw it three times, Dick--three
distinct times; and I am perfectly certain it meant me some
infernal harm. I was, I say, in danger--in extreme
danger; for, if nothing else had happened, my reason would
most certainly have failed me, unless I had escaped so soon.
Thank God. I did escape.
"The first night of this hateful
disturbance, I was lying in the attitude of sleep, in that
lumbering old bed. I hate to think of it. I was really wide
awake, though I had put out my candle, and was lying as
quietly as if I had been asleep; and although accidentally
restless, my thoughts were running in a cheerful and
agreeable channel.
"I think it must have been two o'clock
at least when I thought I heard a sound in that--that odious
dark recess at the far end of the bedroom. It was as if
someone was drawing a piece of cord slowly along the floor,
lifting it up, and dropping it softly down again in coils. I
sate up once or twice in my bed, but could see nothing, so I
concluded it must be mice in the wainscot. I felt no emotion
graver than curiosity, and after a few minutes ceased to
observe it.
"While lying in this state, strange to
say; without at first a suspicion of anything supernatural,
on a sudden I saw an old man, rather stout and square, in a
sort of roan-red dressing-gown, and with a black cap on his
head, moving stiffly and slowly in a diagonal direction,
from the recess, across the floor of the bed-room, passing
my bed at the foot, and entering the lumber-closet at the
left. He had something under his arm; his head hung a little
at one side; and merciful God! when I saw his face."
Tom stopped for a while, and then said "That awful countenance, which living or
dying I never can forget, disclosed what he was. Without
turning to the right or left, he passed beside me, and
entered the closet by the bed's head.
"While this fearful and indescribable
type of death and guilt was passing, I felt that I had no
more power to speak or stir than if I had been myself a
corpse. For hours after it had disappeared, I was too
terrified and weak to move. As soon as daylight came, I took
courage, and examined the room, and especially the course
which the frightful intruder had seemed to take, but there
was not a vestige to indicate anybody's having passed there;
no sign of any disturbing agency visible among the lumber
that strewed the floor of the closet.
"I now began to recover a little. I was
fagged and exhausted, and at last, overpowered by a feverish
sleep. I came down late; and finding you out of spirits, on
account of your dreams about the portrait, whose
original I am now certain disclosed himself to me,
I did not care to talk about the infernal vision. In fact, I
was trying to persuade myself that the whole thing was an
illusion, and I did not like to revive in their intensity
the hated impressions of the past night--or, to risk the
constancy of my scepticism, by recounting the tale of my
sufferings.
"It required some nerve, I can tell you,
to go to my haunted chamber next night, and lie down quietly
in the same bed," continued Tom. " I did so with a
degree of trepidation, which, I am not ashamed to say, a
very little matter would have sufficed to stimulate to
downright panic. This night, however, passed off quietly
enough, as also the next; and so too did two or three more.
I grew more confident, and began to fancy that I believed in
the theories of spectral illusions, with which I had at
first vainly tried to impose upon my convictions.
"The apparition had been, indeed,
altogether anomalous. It had crossed the room without any
recognition of my presence: I had not disturbed it,
and it had no mission to me. What, then,
was the imaginable use of its crossing the room in a visible
shape at all? Of course it might have been in the
closet instead of going there, as easily as it
introduced itself into the recess without entering the
chamber in a shape discernible by the senses. Besides, how
the deuce had I seen it? It was a dark night; I had
no candle; there was no fire; and yet I saw it as
distinctly, in colouring and outline, as ever I beheld human
form! A cataleptic dream would explain it all; and I was
determined that a dream it should be.
"One of the most remarkable phenomena
connected with the practice of mendacity is the vast number
of deliberate lies we tell ourselves, whom, of all persons,
we can least expect to deceive. In all this, I need hardly
tell you, Dick, I was simply lying to myself, and did not
believe one word of the wretched humbug. Yet I went on, as
men will do, like persevering charlatans and impostors, who
tire people into credulity by the mere force of reiteration;
so I hoped to win myself over at last to a comfortable
scepticism about the ghost.
"He had not appeared a second time--that
certainly was a comfort; and what, after all, did I care for
him, and his queer old toggery and strange looks? Not a fig!
I was nothing the worse for having seen him, and a good
story the better. So I tumbled into bed, put out my candle,
and, cheered by a loud drunken quarrel in the back lane,
went fast asleep.
"From this deep slumber I awoke with a
start. I knew I had had a horrible dream; but what it was I
could not remember. My heart was thumping furiously; I felt
bewildered and feverish; I sate up in the bed and looked
about the room. A broad flood of moonlight came in through
the curtainless window; everything was as I had last seen
it; and though the domestic squabble in the back lane was,
unhappily for me, allayed, I yet could hear a pleasant
fellow singing, on his way home, the then popular comic
ditty called, 'Murphy Delany.' Taking advantage of this
diversion I lay down again, with my face towards the
fireplace, and closing my eyes, did my best to think of
nothing else but the song, which was every moment growing
fainter in the distance:--
"The singer, whose condition I dare say resembled
that of his hero, was soon too far off to regale my ears any
more; and as his music died away, I myself sank into a doze,
neither sound nor refreshing. Somehow the song had got into
my head, and I went meandering on through the adventures of
my respectable fellow- "Through this ballad I continued with a
weary monotony to plod, down to the very last line, and then
da capo, and so on, in my uncomfortable half-sleep,
for how long, I can't conjecture. I found myself at last,
however, muttering, 'dead as a door-nail, so there
was an end'; and something like another voice within me,
seemed to say, very faintly, but sharply, 'dead! dead!
dead! and may the Lord have mercy on your soul!'
and instantaneously I was wide awake, and staring right
before me from the pillow.
"Now--will you believe it, Dick?--I saw
the same accursed figure standing full front, and gazing at
me with its stony and fiendish countenance, not two yards
from the bedside."
Tom stopped here, and wiped the perspiration
from his face. I felt very queer. The girl was as pale as
Tom; and, assembled as we were in the very scene of these
adventures, we were all, I dare say, equally grateful for
the clear daylight and the resuming bustle out of doors.
"For about three seconds only I saw it
plainly; then it grew indistinct; but, for a long time,
there was something like a column of dark vapour where it
had been standing between me and the wall; and I felt sure
that he was still there. After a good while, this appearance
went too. I took my clothes downstairs to the hall, and
dressed there, with the door half open; then went out into
the street, and walked about the town till morning, when I
came back, in a miserable state of nervousness and
exhaustion. I was such a fool, Dick, as to be ashamed to
tell you how I came to be so upset. I thought you would
laugh at me; especially as I had always talked philosophy,
and treated your ghosts with contempt. I concluded
you would give me no quarter; and so kept my tale of horror
to myself.
"Now, Dick, you will hardly believe me,
when I assure you, that for many nights after this last
experience, I did not go to my room at all. I used to sit up
for a while in the drawing-room after you had gone up to
your bed; and then steal down softly to the hall-door, let
myself out, and sit in the ' Robin Hood ' tavern until the
last guest went off; and then I got through the night like a
sentry, pacing the streets till morning.
"For more than a week I never slept in
bed. I sometimes had a snooze on a form in the 'Robin Hood,'
and sometimes a nap in a chair during the day; but regular
sleep I had absolutely none.
"I was quite resolved that we should get
into another house; but I could not bring myself to tell you
the reason, and I somehow put it off from day to day,
although my life was, during every hour of this
procrastination, rendered as miserable as that of a felon
with the constables on his track. I was growing absolutely
ill from this wretched mode of life.
"One afternoon I determined to enjoy an
hour's sleep upon your bed. I hated mine; so that I had
never, except in a stealthy visit every day to unmake it,
lest Martha should discover the secret of my nightly
absence, entered the ill-omened chamber.
"As ill-luck would have it, you had
locked your bedroom, and taken away the key. I went into my
own to unsettle the bedclothes, as usual, and give the bed
the appearance of having been slept in. Now, a variety of
circumstances concurred to bring about the dreadful scene
through which I was that night to pass. In the first place,
I was literally overpowered with fatigue, and longing for
sleep; in the next place, the effect of this extreme
exhaustion upon my nerves resembled that of a narcotic, and
rendered me less susceptible than, perhaps I should in any
other condition have been, of the exciting fears which had
become habitual to me. Then again, a little bit of the
window was open, a pleasant freshness pervaded the room,
and, to crown all, the cheerful sun of day was making the
room quite pleasant. What was to prevent my enjoying an
hour's nap here? The whole air was resonant with
the cheerful hum of life, and the broad matter-of-fact light
of day filled every corner of the room.
"I yielded--stifling my qualms--to the
almost overpowering temptation; and merely throwing off my
coat, and loosening my cravat, I lay down, limiting myself
to half-an-hour's doze in the unwonted enjoyment of a
feather bed, a coverlet, and a bolster.
"It was horribly insidious; and the
demon, no doubt, marked my infatuated preparations. Dolt
that I was, I fancied, with mind and body worn out for want
of sleep, and an arrear of a full week's rest to my credit,
that such measure as half-an-hour's sleep, in such
a situation, was possible. My sleep was death-like, long,
and dreamless.
"Without a start or fearful sensation of
any kind, I waked gently, but completely. It was, as you
have good reason to remember, long past midnight--I believe,
about two o'clock. When sleep has been deep and long enough
to satisfy nature thoroughly, one often wakens in this way,
suddenly, tranquilly, and completely.
"There was a figure seated in that
lumbering, old sofa-chair, near the fireplace. Its back was
rather towards me, but I could not be mistaken; it turned
slowly round, and, merciful heavens! there was the stony
face, with its infernal lineaments of malignity and despair,
gloating on me. There was now no doubt as to its
consciousness of my presence, and the hellish malice with
which it was animated, for it arose, and drew close to the
bedside. There was a rope about its neck, and the other end,
coiled up, it held stiffly in its hand.
"My good angel nerved me for this
horrible crisis. I remained for some seconds transfixed by
the gaze of this tremendous phantom. He came close to the
bed, and appeared on the point of mounting upon it. The next
instant I was upon the floor at the far side, and in a
moment more was, I don't know how, upon the lobby.
"But the spell was not yet broken; the
valley of the shadow of death was not yet traversed. The
abhorred phantom was before me there; it was standing near
the banisters, stooping a little, and with one end of the
rope round its own neck, was poising a noose at the other,
as if to throw over mine; and while engaged in this baleful
pantomime, it wore a smile so sensual, so unspeakably
dreadful, that my senses were nearly overpowered. I saw and
remember nothing more, until I found myself in your room.
"I had a wonderful escape, Dick--there
is no disputing that--an escape for which, while I
live, I shall bless the mercy of heaven. No one can conceive
or imagine what it is for flesh and blood to stand in the
presence of such a thing, but one who has had the terrific
experience. Dick, Dick, a shadow has passed over me--a chill
has crossed my blood and marrow, and I will never be the
same again--never, Dick--never!"
Our handmaid, a mature girl of two-and-fifty,
as I have said, stayed her hand, as Tom's story proceeded,
and by little and little drew near to us, with open mouth,
and her brows contracted over her little, beady black eyes,
till stealing a glance over her shoulder now and then, she
established herself close behind us. During the relation,
she had made various earnest comments, in an under- tone;
but these and her ejaculations, for the sake of brevity and
simplicity, I have omitted in my narration.
"It's often I heard tell of it,"
she now said, "but I never believed it rightly till
now--though, indeed, why should not I? Does not my mother,
down there in the lane, know quare stories, God bless us,
beyant telling about it? But you ought not to have slept in
the back bedroom. She was loath to let me be going in and
out of that room even in the day time, let alone for any
Christian to spend the night in it; for sure she says it was
his own bedroom."
"Whose own bedroom?" we
asked, in a breath.
"Why, his--the ould Judge's--Judge
Horrock's, to be sure, God rest his sowl"; and she
looked fearfully round.
"Amen!" I muttered. "But did
he die there?"
"Die there! No, not quite
there," she said. "Shure, was not it over the
banisters he hung himself, the ould sinner, God be merciful
to us all? and was not it in the alcove they found the
handles of the skipping-rope cut off, and the knife where he
was settling the cord, God bless us, to hang himself with?
It was his housekeeper's daughter owned the rope, my mother
often told me, and the child never throve after, and used
to be starting up out of her sleep, and screeching in the
night time, wid dhrames and frights that cum an her; and
they said how it was the speerit of the ould Judge that was
tormentin' her; and she used to be roaring and yelling out
to hould back the big ould fellow with the crooked neck; and
then she'd screech 'Oh, the master! the master! he's
stampin' at me, and beckoning to me! Mother, darling, don't
let me go!' And so the poor crathure died at last, and the
docthers said it was wather on the brain, for it was all
they could say."
"How long ago was all this?" I
asked.
"Oh, then, how would I know?" she
answered. "But it must be a wondherful long time ago,
for the housekeeper was an ould woman, with a pipe in her
mouth, and not a tooth left, and better nor eighty years
ould when my mother was first married; and they said she was
a rale buxom, fine-dressed woman when the ould Judge come to
his end; an', indeed, my mother's not far from eighty years
ould herself this day; and what made it worse for the
unnatural ould villain, God rest his soul, to frighten the
little girl out of the world the way he did, was what was
mostly thought and believed by everyone. My mother says how
the poor little crathure was his own child; for he was by
all accounts an ould villain every way, an' the hangin'est
judge that ever was known in Ireland's ground."
"From what you said about the danger of
sleeping in that bed-room," said I, " I suppose
there were stories about the ghost having appeared there to
others."
"Well, there was things said--quare
things, surely," she answered, as it seemed, with some
reluctance. "And why would not there? Sure was it not
up in that same room he slept for more than twenty years?
and was it not in the alcove he got the rope ready
that done his own business at last, the way he done many a
betther man's in his lifetime?--and was not the body lying
in the same bed after death, and put in the coffin there,
too, and carried out to his grave from it in Pether's
churchyard, after the coroner was done? But there was quare
stories--my mother has them all--about how one Nicholas
Spaight got into trouble on the head of it."
"And what did they say of this Nicholas
Spaight?" I asked.
"Oh, for that matther, it's soon
told," she answered.
And she certainly did relate a very strange
story, which so piqued my curiosity, that I took occasion to
visit the ancient lady, her mother, from whom I learned many
very curious particulars. Indeed, I am tempted to tell the
tale, but my fingers are weary, and I must defer it. But if
you wish to hear it another time, I shall do my best.
When we had heard the strange tale I have
not told you, we put one or two further questions
to her about the alleged spectral visitations, to which the
house had, ever since the death of the wicked old Judge,
been subjected.
"No one ever had luck in it," she
told us. "There was always cross accidents, sudden
deaths, and short times in it. The first that tuck it was a
family--I forget their name--but at any rate there was two
young ladies and their papa. He was about sixty, and a stout
healthy gentleman as you'd wish to see at that age. Well, he
slept in that unlucky back bedroom; and, God between us an'
harm! sure enough he was found dead one morning, half out of
the bed, with his head as black as a sloe, and swelled like
a puddin', hanging down near the floor. It was a fit, they
said. He was as dead as a mackerel, and so he could not say
what it was; but the ould people was all sure that it was
nothing at all but the ould Judge, God bless us! that
frightened him out of his senses and his life together.
"Some time after there was a rich old
maiden lady took the house. I don't know which room
she slept in, but she lived alone; and at any rate,
one morning, the servants going down early to their work,
found her sitting on the passage-stairs, shivering and
talkin' to herself, quite mad; and never a word more could
any of them or her friends get from her ever
afterwards but, 'Don't ask me to go, for I promised to wait
for him.' They never made out from her who it was she meant
by him, but of course those that knew all about the
ould house were at no loss for the meaning of all that
happened to her.
"Then afterwards, when the house was let
out in lodgings, there was Micky Byrne that took the same
room, with his wife and three little children; and sure I
heard Mrs. Byrne myself telling how the children used to be
lifted up in the bed at night, she could not see by what
mains; and how they were starting and screeching every hour,
just all as one as the housekeeper's little girl that died,
till at last one night poor Micky had a dhrop in him, the
way he used now and again; and what do you think in the
middle of the night he thought he heard a noise on the
stairs, and being in liquor, nothing less id do him but out
he must go himself to see what was wrong. Well, after that,
all she ever heard of him was himself sayin', 'Oh, God!' and
a tumble that shook the very house; and there, sure enough,
he was lying on the lower stairs, under the lobby, with his
neck smashed double undher him, where he was flung over the
banisters."
Then the handmaiden added "I'll go down to the lane, and send up
Joe Gavvey to pack up the rest of the taythings, and bring
all the things across to your new lodgings."
And so we all sallied out together, each of
us breathing more freely, I have no doubt, as we crossed
that ill-omened threshold for the last time.
Now, I may add thus much, in compliance with
the immemorial usage of the realm of fiction, which sees the
hero not only through his adventures, but fairly out of the
world. You must have perceived that what the flesh, blood,
and bone hero of romance proper is to the regular compounder
of fiction, this old house of brick, wood, and mortar is to
the humble recorder of this true tale. I, therefore, relate,
as in duty bound, the catastrophe which ultimately befell
it, which was simply this--that about two years subsequently
to my story it was taken by a quack doctor, who called
himself Baron Duhlstoerf, and filled the parlour windows
with bottles of indescribable horrors preserved in brandy,
and the newspapers with the usual grandiloquent and
mendacious advertisements. This gentleman among his virtues
did not reckon sobriety, and one night, being overcome with
much wine, he set fire to his bed curtains, partially burned
himself, and totally consumed the house. It was afterwards
rebuilt, and for a time an undertaker established himself in
the premises.
I have now told you my own and Tom's
adventures, together with some valuable collateral
particulars; and having acquitted myself of my engagement, I
wish you a very good night, and pleasant dreams.
(End.)
"The cock he crew, away then flew"
"Black spirits and white,
Blue spirits and grey,"
''Twas Murphy Delany, so funny and frisky,
Stept into a shebeen shop to get his skin
full;
He reeled out again pretty well lined with whiskey,
As fresh as a shamrock, as blind as a bull.'