“‘ Speak to me no more of love, as you would save your soul alive. In sin and sorrow my lot is fixed for ever. Beware how you court me here. I strive to save you. We are not all alike. I am not as these: I have mercy: I would deliver you: but these are stronger than I. The adversary has called me from my mournful dreams to work his will. They will have you — they will have you. Know you who they are?”
“I spoke again, I know not what. Beware — once more beware,’ said she softly. ‘ See you not that these are in torment and hatred? You know what they are. If you regard not my counsel you will be among them, and of them in eternity. You are in mortal peril — beware.’
“Again, in wayward madness, I spoke.
“‘The time draws nigh,’ said she, while death-paleness overspread her cheeks. ‘ I foresaw this. I dreaded it. The time draws nigh — my mission will be ended. They will let me go to my quiet; but you they will possess and keep in the bondage of hell — in hatred and agony for ever and ever. It is too late now. You have spoken the word. I am going hence, where you will see me no more.’
“As she thus spoke, a cloudy indistinctness overspread the pale beautiful vision, and she began slowly and mournfully to recede from me. Stung with horror and agony at the sight, I cast myself before the fading form.
“‘Stay, stay, beautiful, beloved illusion,’ I said; ‘leave me not, oh, leave me not alone — I can love none other — I am your slave, your worshipper — I am yours for ever — God be my witness.’
“As I ended the sentence, a yelling crash like the roar of ten thousand gigantic bells stunned my ears — total darkness swallowed every object, and my senses forsook me.
*
“I was found in the morning by the sexton of — , senseless, bruised, and covered with blood and foam, lying in the great aisles of that building. Since then I have been, you will say, mad — I say, the sport of other souls than my own — a blind, desperate instrument of hell, wending onward to an eternal doom which no imaginable power can avert. This consciousness of inevitable fate has been my companion ever since then, and it has taught me to despise opinion, virtue, vice — to trample on religion, and to laugh at punishment.
“Satan, whose I am, had chosen me for himself, to do his work even from the first. I am one with him, and he with me; and when I die, will merge forever into that dark mind. Think you, then, I care whether death come to-day, or tomorrow, or the next day? It must arrive soon; and then —
“Now, father, I have confessed enough, and you are welcome to tell my shrift to all the world. Absolve me now; and if you send me to heaven, I’ll give you credit for a wonder-worker when we meet.”
So saying, he laughed loud and bitterly.
*
He is to die tomorrow in the Place of St. Mark. They are building the scaffold. All are anxious to see the celebrated bravo and bandit.
They say that he has killed more than two hundred men in various broils and actions with his own hand. The caitiff mob of Venice admires the gigantic ruffian.
“Spalatro,” say they, “was a great man — a grand robber — a tremendous bravo. There will not soon again be such another dagger in Venice.”
*
It is over — the axe has fallen — the wretched sinner has passed from the world he so much abused. He spoke to the people from the scaffold, and all in mockery and jibes. The giddy crowd applauded him. When he had done speaking, and before the executioner was ready, of a sudden, and for the last time, a fit seized him; he cried out with a loud voice. The devil cast him down, and tore him. While he lay struggling on the planks the signal was made, and at two blows the head was severed from the body.
*
Thus ends the narrative of honest Giacamo. Whether or not he believed the tale I cannot tell: he certainly wrote it carefully out from end to end in his fair tall hand. For myself, I have little doubt that the story contains a pretty accurate detail of the successive attacks of delirium tremens which the drunken excesses of the wretch Spalatro were calculated to induce; for it is but giving the devil his due to admit, that it is not his usual practice to have young men to supper with a view to get off his daughters. I confess, too, that, under all the circumstances, I am strongly inclined to think that “the old man” who figures in the foregoing narrative, (and whom I take to be identical with the old boy) ought to have consummated his persecution of the poor highwayman by an action for breach of promise of marriage, which would certainly lie in such a case. Perhaps, however, the devil showed his good sense in preferring his own fireside to venturing into our courts of law for a remedy. However, my dear Harry, joke as we may, it is not easy, no nor possible, altogether to extract from the mind its inborn affection for the marvellous. Philosophy does but teach us the extent of our ignorance (I think I saw that somewhere or other before, but no matter). Do the dead return from the grave? Do strange influences reveal to mortal eye the shadowy vistas of futurity? Can demoniac agencies possess the body as of old, and blast the mind? What are these things that we call spectral illusions, dreams, madness? All around us is darkness and uncertainty. To what thing shall we say I understand thee? All is doubt — all is mystery; in short, in the words of our poetic countrymen— “It’s all botheration from bottom to top.”
Yours faithfully, though far away,
The Translator.
A STABLE FOR NIGHTMARE
S
OR, WEIRD TALES
CONTENTS
A DEBT OF HONOR.
DEVEREUX’S DREAM.
CATHERINE’S QUEST.
HAUNTED.
PICHON & SONS, OF THE CROIX ROUSSE.
THE PHANTOM FOURTH.
THE SPIRIT’S WHISPER.
DOCTOR FEVERSHAM’S STORY.
THE SECRET OF THE TWO PLASTER CASTS.
WHAT WAS IT?
A DEBT OF HONOR.
A GHOST STORY.
HUSH! what was that cry, so low but yet so piercing, so strange but yet so sorrowful? It was not the marmot upon the side of the Righi — it was not the heron down by the lake; no, it was distinctively human. Hush! there it is again — from the churchyard which I have just left!
Not ten minutes have elapsed since I was sitting on the low wall of the churchyard of Weggis, watching the calm glories of the moonlight illuminating with silver splendor the lake of Lucerne; and I am certain there was no one within the inclosure but myself.
I am mistaken, surely. What a silence there is upon the night! Not a breath of air now to break up into a thousand brilliant ripples the long reflection of the August moon, or to stir the foliage of the chestnuts; not a voice in the village; no splash of oar upon the lake. All life seems at perfect rest, and the solemn stillness that reigns about the topmost glaciers of S. Gothard has spread its mantle over the warmer world below.
I must not linger; as it is, I shall have to wake up the porter to let me into the hotel. I hurry on.
Not ten paces, though. Again I hear the cry. This time it sounds to me like the long, sad sob of a wearied and broken heart. Without staying to reason with myself, I quickly retrace my steps.
I stumble about among the iron crosses and the graves, and displace in my confusion wreaths of immortelles and fresher flowers. A huge mausoleum stands between me and the wall upon which I had been sitting not a quarter of an hour ago. The mausoleum casts a deep shadow upon the side nearest to me. Ah! something is stirring there. I strain my eyes — the figure of a man passes slowly out of the shade, and silently occupies my place upon the wall. It must have been his lips that gave out that miserable sound.
What shall I do? Compassion and curiosity are strong. The man whose heart can be rent so sorely ought not to be allowed to linger here with his despair. He is gazing, as I did, upon the lake. I mark his profile — clear-cut and symmetrical; I catch the lustre of large eyes. The face, as I can see it, seems very still and placid. I may be mistaken; he may merely be a wanderer like myself; perhaps he heard the three strange cries, and has also come to seek the cause. I feel im
pelled to speak to him.
I pass from the path by the church to the east side of the mausoleum, and so come toward him, the moon full upon his features. Great heaven! how pale his face is!
“Good-evening, sir. I thought myself alone here, and wondered that no other travellers had found their way to this lovely spot. Charming, is it not?”
For a moment he says nothing, but his eyes are full upon me. At last he replies:
“It is charming, as you say, Mr. Reginald Westcar.”
“You know me?” I exclaim, in astonishment.
“Pardon me, I can scarcely claim a personal acquaintance. But yours is the only English name entered to-day in the Livre des Étrangers.”
“You are staying at the Hôtel de la Concorde, then?”
An inclination of the head is all the answer vouchsafed.
“May I ask,” I continue, “whether you heard just now a very strange cry repeated three times?”
A pause. The lustrous eyes seem to search me through and through — I can hardly bear their gaze. Then he replies.
“I fancy I heard the echoes of some such sounds as you describe.”
The echoes! Is this, then, the man who gave utterance to those cries of woe! is it possible? The face seems so passionless; but the pallor of those features bears witness to some terrible agony within.
“I thought some one must be in distress,” I rejoin, hastily; “and I hurried back to see if I could be of any service.”
“Very good of you,” he answers, coldly; “but surely such a place as this is not unaccustomed to the voice of sorrow.”
“No doubt. My impulse was a mistaken one.”
“But kindly meant. You will not sleep less soundly for acting on that impulse, Reginald Westcar.”
He rises as he speaks. He throws his cloak round him, and stands motionless. I take the hint. My mysterious countryman wishes to be alone. Some one that he has loved and lost lies buried here.
“Goodnight, sir,” I say, as I move in the direction of the little chapel at the gate. “Neither of us will sleep the less soundly for thinking of the perfect repose that reigns around this place.”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“The dead,” I reply, as I stretch my hand toward the graves. “Do you not remember the lines in ‘King Lear’?
“‘After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well.’”
“But you have never died, Reginald Westcar. You know nothing of the sleep of death.”
For the third time he speaks my name almost familiarly, and — I know not why — a shudder passes through me. I have no time, in my turn, to ask him what he means; for he strides silently away into the shadow of the church, and I, with a strange sense of oppression upon me, returned to my hotel.
* * *
The events which I have just related passed in vivid recollection through my mind as I travelled northward one cold November day in the year 185 — . About six months previously I had taken my degree at Oxford, and had since been enjoying a trip upon the continent; and on my return to London I found a letter awaiting me from my lawyers, informing me somewhat to my astonishment, that I had succeeded to a small estate in Cumberland. I must tell you exactly how this came about. My mother was a Miss Ringwood, and she was the youngest of three children: the eldest was Aldina, the second was Geoffrey, and the third (my mother) Alice. Their mother (who had been a widow since my mother’s birth) lived at this little place in Cumberland, and which was known as The Shallows; she died shortly after my mother’s marriage with my father, Captain Westcar. My aunt Aldina and my uncle Geoffrey — the one at that time aged twenty-eight, and the other twenty-six — continued to reside at The Shallows. My father and mother had to go to India, where I was born, and where, when quite a child, I was left an orphan. A few months after my mother’s marriage my aunt disappeared; a few weeks after that event, and my uncle Geoffrey dropped down dead, as he was playing at cards with Mr. Maryon, the proprietor of a neighboring mansion known as The Mere. A fortnight after my uncle’s death, my aunt Aldina returned to The Shallows, and never left it again till she was carried out in her coffin to her grave in the churchyard. Ever since her return from her mysterious disappearance she maintained an impenetrable reserve. As a schoolboy I visited her twice or thrice, but these visits depressed my youthful spirits to such an extent, that as I grew older I excused myself from accepting my aunt’s not very pressing invitations; and at the time I am now speaking of I had not seen her for eight or ten years. I was rather surprised, therefore, when she bequeathed me The Shallows, which, as the surviving child, she inherited under her mother’s marriage settlement.
But The Shallows had always exercised a grim influence over me, and the knowledge that I was now going to it as my home oppressed me. The road seemed unusually dark, cold, and lonely. At last I passed the lodge, and two hundred yards more brought me to the porch. Very soon the door was opened by an elderly female, whom I well remembered as having been my aunt’s housekeeper and cook. I had pleasant recollections of her, and was glad to see her. To tell the truth, I had not anticipated my visit to my newly acquired property with any great degree of enthusiasm; but a very tolerable dinner had an inspiriting effect, and I was pleased to learn that there was a bin of old Madeira in the cellar. Naturally I soon grew cheerful, and consequently talkative; and summoned Mrs. Balk for a little gossip. The substance of what I gathered from her rather diffusive conversation was as follows:
My aunt had resided at The Shallows ever since the death of my uncle Geoffrey, but she had maintained a silent and reserved habit; and Mrs. Balk was of opinion that she had had some great misfortune. She had persistently refused all intercourse with the people at The Mere. Squire Maryon, himself a cold and taciturn man, had once or twice showed a disposition to be friendly, but she had sternly repulsed all such overtures. Mrs. Balk was of opinion that Miss Ringwood was not “quite right,” as she expressed it, on some topics; especially did she seem impressed with the idea that The Mere ought to belong to her. It appeared that the Ringwoods and Maryons were distant connections; that The Mere belonged in former times to a certain Sir Henry Benet; that he was a bachelor, and that Squire Maryon’s father and old Mr. Ringwood were cousins of his, and that there was some doubt as to which was the real heir; that Sir Henry, who disliked old Maryon, had frequently said he had set any chance of dispute at rest, by bequeathing the Mere property by will to Mr. Ringwood, my mother’s father; that, on his death, no such will could be found; and the family lawyers agreed that Mr. Maryon was the legal inheritor, and my uncle Geoffrey and his sisters must be content to take the Shallows, or nothing at all. Mr. Maryon was comparatively rich, and the Ringwoods poor, consequently they were advised not to enter upon a costly lawsuit. My aunt Aldina maintained to the last that Sir Henry had made a will, and that Mr. Maryon knew it, but had destroyed or suppressed the document. I did not gather from Mrs. Balk’s narrative that Miss Ringwood had any foundation for her belief, and I dismissed the notion at once as baseless.
“And my uncle Geoffrey died of apoplexy, you say, Mrs. Balk?”
“I don’t say so, sir, no more did Miss Ringwood; but they said so.”
“Whom do you mean by they?”
“The people at The Mere — the young doctor, a friend of Squire Maryon’s, who was brought over from York, and the rest; he fell heavily from his chair, and his head struck against the fender.”
“Playing at cards with Mr. Maryon, I think you said.”
“Yes, sir; he was too fond of cards, I believe, was Mr. Geoffrey.”
“Is Mr. Maryon seen much in the county — is he hospitable?”
“Well, sir, he goes up to London a good deal, and has some friends down from town occasionally; but he does not seem to care much about the people in the neighborhood.”
“He has some children, Mrs. Balk?”
“Only one daughter, sir; a sweet pretty thing she is. Her mother died when Miss Agnes was born.”
“You have no idea, Mrs. B
alk, what my aunt Aldina’s great misfortune was?”
“Well, sir, I can’t help thinking it must have been a love affair. She always hated men so much.”
“Then why did she leave The Shallows to me, Mrs. Balk?”
“Ah, you are laughing, sir. No doubt she considered that The Mere ought to belong to you, as the heir of the Ringwoods, and she placed you here, as near as might be to the place.”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 817
