The Two Destinies

by Wilkie Collins

you can suppose adisembodied spirit to appear in earthly clothing--of silk or merino, asthe case may be--it's no great stretch to suppose, next, that this samespirit is capable of holding a mortal pencil, and of writing mortalwords in a mortal sketching-book. And if the ghost vanishes (which yourghost did), it seems supernaturally appropriate that the writing shouldfollow the example and vanish too. And the reason of the vanishment maybe (if you want a reason), either that the ghost does not like letting astranger like me into its secrets, or that vanishing is a settled habitof ghosts and of everything associated with them, or that this ghosthas changed its mind in the course of three hours (being the ghost ofa woman, I am sure that's not wonderful), and doesn't care to seeyou 'when the full moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' There's the_ir_rational explanation for you. And, speaking for myself, I'm bound toadd that I don't set a pin's value on _that_ explanation either."

  Mr. MacGlue's sublime indifference to both sides of the question beganto irritate me.

  "In plain words, doctor," I said, "you don't think the circumstancesthat I have mentioned to you worthy of serious investigation?"

  "I don't think serious investigation capable of dealing with thecircumstances," answered the doctor. "Put it in that way, and you put itright. Just look round you. Here we three persons are alive and heartyat this snug table. If (which God forbid!) good Mistress Germaine oryourself were to fall down dead in another moment, I, doctor as I am,could no more explain what first principle of life and movement hadbeen suddenly extinguished in you than the dog there sleeping on thehearth-rug. If I am content to sit down ignorant in the face of such animpenetrable mystery as this--presented to me, day after day, every timeI see a living creature come into the world or go out of it--why may Inot sit down content in the face of your lady in the summer-house, andsay she's altogether beyond my fathoming, and there is an end of her?"

  At those words my mother joined in the conversation for the first time.

  "Ah, sir," she said, "if you could only persuade my son to takeyour sensible view, how happy I should be! Would you believe it?--hepositively means (if he can find the place) to go to Saint Anthony'sWell!"

  Even this revelation entirely failed to surprise Mr. MacGlue.

  "Ay, ay. He means to keep his appointment with the ghost, does he? Well,I can be of some service to him if he sticks to his resolution. I cantell him of another man who kept a written appointment with a ghost, andwhat came of it."

  This was a startling announcement. Did he really mean what he said?

  "Are you in jest or in earnest?" I asked.

  "I never joke, sir," said Mr. MacGlue. "No sick person really believesin a doctor who jokes. I defy you to show me a man at the head of ourprofession who has ever been discovered in high spirits (in medicalhours) by his nearest and dearest friend. You may have wondered, I daresay, at seeing me take your strange narrative as coolly as I do. Itcomes naturally, sir. Yours is not the first story of a ghost and apencil that I have heard."

  "Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that you know of another man who hasseen what I have seen?"

  "That's just what I mean to tell you," rejoined the doctor. "The man wasa far-away Scots cousin of my late wife, who bore the honorable nameof Bruce, and followed a seafaring life. I'll take another glass of thesherry wine, just to wet my whistle, as the vulgar saying is, beforeI begin. Well, you must know, Bruce was mate of a bark at the time I'mspeaking of, and he was on a voyage from Liverpool to New Brunswick. Atnoon one day, he and the captain, having taken their observation of thesun, were hard at it below, working out the latitude and longitude ontheir slates. Bruce, in his cabin, looked across through the open doorof the captain's cabin opposite. 'What do you make it, sir?' says Brace.The man in the captain's cabin looked up. And what did Bruce see? Theface of the captain? Devil a bit of it--the face of a total stranger!Up jumps Bruce, with his heart going full gallop all in a moment, andsearches for the captain on deck, and finds him much as usual, with hiscalculations done, and his latitude and longitude off his mind for theday. 'There's somebody at your des k, sir,' says Bruce. 'He's writing onyour slate; and he's a total stranger to me.' 'A stranger in my cabin?'says the captain. 'Why, Mr. Bruce, the ship has been six weeks out ofport. How did he get on board?' Bruce doesn't know how, but he sticks tohis story. Away goes the captain, and bursts like a whirlwind into hiscabin, and finds nobody there. Bruce himself is obliged to acknowledgethat the place is certainly empty. 'If I didn't know you were a soberman,' says the captain, 'I should charge you with drinking. As it is,I'll hold you accountable for nothing worse than dreaming. Don't do itagain, Mr. Bruce.' Bruce sticks to his story; Bruce swears he saw theman writing on the captain's slate. The captain takes up the slate andlooks at it. 'Lord save us and bless us!' says he; 'here the writing is,sure enough!' Bruce looks at it too, and sees the writing as plainlyas can be, in these words: 'Steer to the nor'-west.' That, and nomore.--Ah, goodness me, narrating is dry work, Mr. Germaine. With yourleave, I'll take another drop of the sherry wine.

  "Well (it's fine old wine, that; look at the oily drops running down theglass)--well, steering to the north-west, you will understand, wasout of the captain's course. Nevertheless, finding no solution of themystery on board the ship, and the weather at the time being fine, thecaptain determined, while the daylight lasted, to alter his course, andsee what came of it. Toward three o'clock in the afternoon an icebergcame of it; with a wrecked ship stove in, and frozen fast to the ice;and the passengers and crew nigh to death with cold and exhaustion.Wonderful enough, you will say; but more remains behind. As the matewas helping one of the rescued passengers up the side of the bark, whoshould he turn out to be but the very man whose ghostly appearance Brucehad seen in the captain's cabin writing on the captain's slate! And morethan that--if your capacity for being surprised isn't clean worn out bythis time--the passenger recognized the bark as the very vessel which hehad seen in a dream at noon that day. He had even spoken of it to oneof the officers on board the wrecked ship when he woke. 'We shall berescued to-day,' he had said; and he had exactly described the rig ofthe bark hours and hours before the vessel herself hove in view. Now youknow, Mr. Germaine, how my wife's far-away cousin kept an appointmentwith a ghost, and what came of it."*

  Concluding his story in these words, the doctor helped himself toanother glass of the "sherry wine." I was not satisfied yet; I wanted toknow more.

  "The writing on the slate," I said. "Did it remain there, or did itvanish like the writing in my book?"

  Mr. MacGlue's answer disappointed me. He had never asked, and had neverheard, whether the writing had remained or not. He had told me allthat he knew, and he had but one thing more to say, and that was in thenature of a remark with a moral attached to it. "There's a marvelousresemblance, Mr. Germaine, between your story and Bruce's story. Themain difference, as I see it, is this. The passenger's appointmentproved to be the salvation of a whole ship's company. I very much doubtwhether the lady's appointment will prove to be the salvation of You."

  I silently reconsidered the strange narrative which had just beenrelated to me. Another man had seen what I had seen--had done what Iproposed to do! My mother noticed with grave displeasure the strongimpression which Mr. MacGlue had produced on my mind.

  "I wish you had kept your story to yourself, doctor," she said, sharply.

  "May I ask why, madam?"

  "You have confirmed my son, sir, in his resolution to go to SaintAnthony's Well."

  Mr. MacGlue quietly consulted his pocket almanac before he replied.

  "It's the full moon on the ninth of the month," he said. "That gives Mr.Germaine some days of rest, ma'am, before he takes the journey. If hetravels in his own comfortable carriage--whatever I may think, morallyspeaking, of his enterprise--I can't say, medically speaking, that Ibelieve it will do him much harm."

  "You know where Saint Anthony's Well is?" I interposed.

  "I must be mighty ignorant of Edinburgh not to know that," replied thedoctor.

  "Is the Wel
l in Edinburgh, then?"

  "It's just outside Edinburgh--looks down on it, as you may say. Youfollow the old street called the Canongate to the end. You turn to yourright past the famous Palace of Holyrood; you cross the Park and theDrive, and take your way upward to the ruins of Anthony's Chapel, on theshoulder of the hill--and there you are! There's a high rock behindthe chapel, and at the foot of it you will find the spring they callAnthony's Well. It's thought a pretty view by