Alive again? Then show me where he is;
I'll give a thousand pounds to look upon him.
Shakespeare.In the autumn of 1816, John Melmoth, a student in Trinity
College, Dublin, quitted it to attend a dying uncle on whom his
hopes for independence chiefly rested. John was the orphan son of a
younger brother, whose small property scarce could pay John's
college expences; but the uncle was rich, unmarried, and old; and
John, from his infancy, had been brought up to look on him with
that mingled sensation of awe, and of the wish, without the means
to conciliate, (that sensation at once attractive and repulsive),
with which we regard a being who (as nurse, domestic, and parent
have tutored us to believe) holds the very threads of our existence
in his hands, and may prolong or snap them when he
pleases.On receiving this summons, John set immediately out to attend
his uncle.The beauty of the country through which he travelled (it was
the county Wicklow) could not prevent his mind from dwelling on
many painful thoughts, some borrowed from the past, and more from
the future. His uncle's caprice and moroseness,–the strange reports
concerning the cause of the secluded life he had led for many
years,–his own dependent state,–fell like blows fast and heavy on
his mind. He roused himself to repel them,–sat up in the mail, in
which he was a solitary passenger,–looked out on the
prospect,–consulted his watch;–then he thought they receded for a
moment,–but there was nothing to fill their place, and he was
forced to invite them back for company. When the mind is thus
active in calling over invaders, no wonder the conquest is soon
completed. As the carriage drew near the Lodge, (the name of old
Melmoth's seat), John's heart grew heavier every
moment.The recollection of this awful uncle from infancy,–when he
was never permitted to approach him without innumerable lectures,–
not to be troublesome,–not to go too near his uncle,–not
to ask him any questions,–on no account to disturb the inviolable
arrangement of his snuff-box, hand-bell, and spectacles, nor to
suffer the glittering of the gold-headed cane to tempt him to the
mortal sin of handling it,–and, finally, to pilot himself aright
through his perilous course in and out of the apartment without
striking against the piles of books, globes, old newspapers,
wig-blocks, tobacco-pipes, and snuff-cannisters, not to mention
certain hidden rocks of rat-traps and mouldy books beneath the
chairs,–together with the final reverential bow at the door, which
was to be closed with cautious gentleness, and the stairs to be
descended as if he were 'shod with felt.'–This recollection was
carried on to his school-boy years, when at Christmas and Easter,
the ragged poney, the jest of the school, was dispatched to bring
the reluctant visitor to the Lodge,–where his pastime was to sit
vis-a-vis to his uncle, without speaking or moving, till the pair
resembled Don Raymond and the ghost of Beatrice in the Monk,–then
watching him as he picked the bones of lean mutton out of his mess
of weak broth, the latter of which he handed to his nephew with a
needless caution not to 'take more than he liked,'–then hurried to
bed by daylight, even in winter, to save the expence of an inch of
candle, where he lay awake and restless from hunger, till his
uncle's retiring at eight o'clock gave signal to the governante of
the meagre household to steal up to him with some fragments of her
own scanty meal, administering between every mouthful a whispered
caution not to tell his uncle. Then his college life, passed in an
attic in the second square, uncheered by an invitation to the
country; the gloomy summer wasted in walking up and down the
deserted streets, as his uncle would not defray the expences of his
journey;–the only intimation of his existence, received in
quarterly epistles, containing, with the scanty but punctual
remittance, complaints of the expences of his education, cautions
against extravagance, and lamentations for the failure of tenants
and the fall of the value of lands. All these recollections came
over him, and along with them the remembrance of that last scene,
where his dependence on his uncle was impressed on him by the dying
lips of his father.'John, I must leave you, my poor boy; it has pleased God to
take your father from you before he could do for you what would
have made this hour less painful to him. You must look up, John, to
your uncle for every thing. He has oddities and infirmities, but
you must learn to bear with them, and with many other things too,
as you will learn too soon. And now, my poor boy, may He who is the
father of the fatherless look on your desolate state, and give you
favour in the eyes of your uncle.' As this scene rose to John's
memory, his eyes filled fast with tears, which he hastened to wipe
away as the carriage stopt to let him out at his uncle's
gate.He alighted, and with a change of linen in a handkerchief,
(his only travelling equipment), he approached his uncle's gate.
The lodge was in ruins, and a barefooted boy from an adjacent cabin
ran to lift on its single hinge what had once been a gate, but was
now a few planks so villainously put together, that they clattered
like a sign in a high wind. The stubborn post of the gate, yielding
at last to the united strength of John and his barefooted
assistant, grated heavily through the mud and gravel stones, in
which it left a deep and sloughy furrow, and the entrance lay open.
John, after searching his pocket in vain for a trifle to reward his
assistant, pursued his way, while the lad, on his return, cleared
the road at a hop step and jump, plunging through the mud with all
the dabbling and amphibious delight of a duck, and scarce less
proud of his agility than of his 'sarving a gentleman.' As John
slowly trod the miry road which had once been the approach, he
could discover, by the dim light of an autumnal evening, signs of
increasing desolation since he had last visited the spot,–signs
that penury had been aggravated and sharpened into downright
misery. There was not a fence or a hedge round the domain: an
uncemented wall of loose stones, whose numerous gaps were filled
with furze or thorns, supplied their place. There was not a tree or
shrub on the lawn; the lawn itself was turned into pasture-ground,
and a few sheep were picking their scanty food amid the
pebblestones, thistles, and hard mould, through which a few blades
of grass made their rare and squalid appearance.The house itself stood strongly defined even amid the
darkness of the evening sky; for there were neither wings, or
offices, or shrubbery, or tree, to shade or support it, and soften
its strong harsh outline. John, after a melancholy gaze at the
grass-grown steps and boarded windows, 'addressed himself' to knock
at the door; but knocker there was none: loose stones, however,
there were in plenty; and John was making vigorous application to
the door with one of them, till the furious barking of a mastiff,
who threatened at every bound to break his chain, and whose yell
and growl, accompanied by 'eyes that glow and fangs that grin,'
savoured as much of hunger as of rage, made the assailant raise the
siege on the door, and betake himself to a well-known passage that
led to the kitchen. A light glimmered in the window as he
approached: he raised the latch with a doubtful hand; but, when he
saw the party within, he advanced with the step of a man no longer
doubtful of his welcome.Round a turf-fire, whose well-replenished fuel gave testimony
to the 'master's' indisposition, who would probably as soon have
been placed on the fire himself as seen the whole kish
emptied on it once, were seated the old housekeeper, two or three
followers, (i.e. people who ate, drank, and lounged about
in any kitchen that was open in the neighbourhood, on an occasion
of grief or joy, all for his honor's sake, and for the great
rispict they bore the family), and an old woman, whom John
immediately recognized as the doctress of the neighbourhood,–a
withered Sybil, who prolonged her squalid existence by practising
on the fears, the ignorance, and the sufferings of beings as
miserable as herself. Among the better sort, to whom she sometimes
had access by the influence of servants, she tried the effects of
some simples, her skill in which was sometimes productive of
success. Among the lower orders she talked much of the effects of
the 'evil eye,' against which she boasted a counter-spell, of
unfailing efficacy; and while she spoke, she shook her grizzled
locks with such witch-like eagerness, that she never failed to
communicate to her half-terrified, half-believing audience, some
portion of that enthusiasm which, amid all her consciousness of
imposture, she herself probably felt a large share of; still, when
the case at last became desperate, when credulity itself lost all
patience, and hope and life were departing together, she urged the
miserable patient to confess 'there was something about his
heart;' and when this confession was extorted from the
weariness of pain and the ignorance of poverty, she nodded and
muttered so mysteriously, as to convey to the bystanders, that she
had had difficulties to contend with which were invincible by human
power. When there was no pretext, from indisposition, for her
visiting either 'his honor's' kitchen, or the cottar's hut,–when
the stubborn and persevering convalescence of the whole country
threatened her with starvation,–she still had a resource:–if there
were no lives to be shortened, there were fortunes to be told;–she
worked 'by spells, and by such daubry as is beyond our element.' No
one twined so well as she the mystic yarn to be dropt into the
lime-kiln pit, on the edge of which stood the shivering inquirer
into futurity, doubtful whether the answer to her question of 'who
holds?' was to be uttered by the voice of demon or
lover.No one knew so well as she to find where the four streams
met, in which, on the same portentous season, the chemise was to be
immersed, and then displayed before the fire, (in the name of one
whom we dare not mention to 'ears polite'), to be turned by the
figure of the destined husband before morning. No one but herself
(she said) knew the hand in which the comb was to be held, while
the other was employed in conveying the apple to the mouth,–while,
during the joint operation, the shadow of the phantom-spouse was to
pass across the mirror before which it was performed. No one was
more skilful or active in removing every iron implement from the
kitchen where these ceremonies were usually performed by the
credulous and terrified dupes of her wizardry, lest, instead of the
form of a comely youth exhibiting a ring on his white finger, an
headless figure should stalk to the rack, (Anglicè,
dresser), take down a long spit, or, in default of that, snatch a
poker from the fire-side, and mercilessly take measure with its
iron length of the sleeper for a coffin. No one, in short, knew
better how to torment or terrify her victims into a belief of that
power which may and has reduced the strongest minds to the level of
the weakest; and under the influence of which the cultivated
sceptic, Lord Lyttleton, yelled and gnashed and writhed in his last
hours, like the poor girl who, in the belief of the horrible
visitation of the vampire, shrieked aloud, that her grandfather was
sucking her vital blood while she slept, and expired under the
influence of imaginary horror. Such was the being to whom old
Melmoth had committed his life, half from credulity, and (
Hibernicè speaking) more than half from avarice.
Among this groupe John advanced,–recognising some,–disliking
more,–distrusting all. The old housekeeper received him with
cordiality;–he was always her 'white-headed boy,' she said,–(
imprimis, his hair was as black as jet), and she tried to
lift her withered hand to his head with an action between a
benediction and a caress, till the difficulty of the attempt forced
on her the conviction that that head was fourteen inches higher
than her reach since she had last patted it. The men, with the
national deference of the Irish to a person of superior rank, all
rose at his approach, (their stools chattering on the broken
flags), and wished his honor 'a thousand years, and long life to
the back of that; and would not his honor take something to keep
the grief out of his heart;' and so saying, five or six red and
bony hands tendered him glasses of whiskey all at once. All this
time the Sybil sat silent in the ample chimney-corner, sending
redoubled whiffs out of her pipe. John gently declined the offer of
spirits, received the attentions of the old housekeeper cordially,
looked askance at the withered crone who occupied the chimney
corner, and then glanced at the table, which displayed other cheer
than he had been accustomed to see in his 'honor's time.' There was
a wooden dish of potatoes, which old Melmoth would have considered
enough for a week's subsistence. There was the salted salmon, (a
luxury unknown even in London. Vide Miss Edgeworth's
Tales, 'The Absentee').There was the slink-veal, flanked with tripe; and,
finally, there were lobsters and fried turbot enough to
justify what the author of the tale asserts, 'suo periculo,' that
when his great grandfather, the Dean of Killala, hired servants at
the deanery, they stipulated that they should not be required to
eat turbot or lobster more than twice a-week. There were also
bottles of Wicklow ale, long and surreptitiously borrowed from his
'honor's' cellar, and which now made their first appearance on the
kitchen hearth, and manifested their impatience of further
constraint, by hissing, spitting, and bouncing in the face of the
fire that provoked its animosity. But the whiskey (genuine
illegitimate potsheen, smelling strongly of weed and smoke, and
breathing defiance to excisemen) appeared, the 'veritable
Amphitryon' of the feast; every one praised, and drank as deeply as
he praised.John, as he looked round the circle, and thought of his dying
uncle, was forcibly reminded of the scene at Don Quixote's
departure, where, in spite of the grief caused by the dissolution
of the worthy knight, we are informed that 'nevertheless the niece
eat her victuals, the housekeeper drank to the repose of his soul,
and even Sancho cherished his little carcase.' After returning, 'as
he might,' the courtesies of the party, John asked how his uncle
was. 'As bad as he can be;'–'Much better, and many thanks to your
honor,' was uttered in such rapid and discordant unison by the
party, that John turned from one to the other, not knowing which or
what to believe. 'They say his honour has had a fright,' said a
fellow, upwards of six feet high, approaching by way of whispering,
and then bellowing the sound six inches above John's head. 'But
then his honor has had a cool since,' said a man who was
quietly swallowing the spirits that John had refused. At these
words the Sybil who sat in the chimney corner slowly drew her pipe
from her mouth, and turned towards the party: The oracular
movements of a Pythoness on her tripod never excited more awe, or
impressed for the moment a deeper silence. 'It's not
here,' said she, pressing her withered finger on her
wrinkled forehead, 'nor here,–nor here;' and she
extended her hand to the foreheads of those who were near her, who
all bowed as if they were receiving a benediction, but had
immediate recourse to the spirits afterwards, as if to ensure its
effects.–'It's all here–it's all about the
heart;' and as she spoke she spread and pressed her fingers on
her hollow bosom with a force of action that thrilled her
hearers.–'It's all here,' she added, repeating the action,
(probably excited by the effect she had produced), and then sunk on
her seat, resumed her pipe, and spoke no more. At this moment of
involuntary awe on the part of John, and of terrified silence on
that of the rest, an unusual sound was heard in the house, and the
whole company started as if a musket had been discharged among
them:–it was the unwonted sound of old Melmoth's bell. His
domestics were so few, and so constantly near him, that the sound
of his bell startled them as much as if he had been ringing the
knell for his own interment. 'He used always to rap down
for me,' said the old housekeeper, hurrying out of the kitchen; 'he
said pulling the bells wore out the ropes.'The sound of the bell produced its full effect. The
housekeeper rushed into the room, followed by a number of women,
(the Irish præficæ); all ready to prescribe for the dying or weep
for the dead,–all clapping their hard hands, or wiping their dry
eyes. These hags all surrounded the bed; and to witness their loud,
wild, and desperate grief, their cries of 'Oh! he's going, his
honor's going, his honor's going,' one would have imagined their
lives were bound up in his, like those of the wives in the story of
Sinbad the Sailor, who were to be interred alive with their
deceased husbands.Four of them wrung their hands and howled round the bed,
while one, with all the adroitness of a Mrs. Quickly, felt his
honor's feet, and 'upward and upward,' and 'all was cold as any
stone.'Old Melmoth withdrew his feet from the grasp of the
hag,–counted with his keen eye (keen amid the approaching dimness
of death) the number assembled round his bed,–raised himself on his
sharp elbow, and pushing away the housekeeper, (who attempted to
settle his nightcap, that had been shoved on one side in the
struggle, and gave his haggard, dying face, a kind of grotesque
fierceness), bellowed out in tones that made the company
start,–'What the devil brought ye all here?' The question scattered
the whole party for a moment; but rallying instantly, they communed
among themselves in whispers, and frequently using the sign of the
cross, muttered 'The devil,–Christ save us, the devil in his mouth
the first word he spoke.' 'Aye,' roared the invalid, 'and the devil
in my eye the first sight I see.' 'Where,–where?' cried the
terrified housekeeper, clinging close to the invalid in her terror,
and half-hiding herself in the blanket, which she snatched without
mercy from his struggling and exposed limbs. 'There, there,' he
repeated, (during the battle of the blanket), pointing to the
huddled and terrified women, who stood aghast at hearing themselves
arointed as the very demons they came to banish. 'Oh! Lord keep
your honor's head,' said the housekeeper in a more soothing tone,
when her fright was over; 'and sure your honour knows them all,
is'n't her name,–and her name,–and her
name,'–and she pointed respectively to each of them, adding their
names, which we shall spare the English reader the torture of
reciting, (as a proof of our lenity, adding the last only,
Cotchleen O'Mulligan), 'Ye lie, ye b–-h,' growled old Melmoth;
'their name is Legion, for they are many,–turn them all out of the
room,–turn them all out of doors,–if they howl at my death, they
shall howl in earnest,–not for my death, for they would see me dead
and damned too with dry eyes, but for want of the whiskey that they
would have stolen if they could have got at it,' (and here old
Melmoth grasped a key which lay under his pillow, and shook it in
vain triumph at the old housekeeper, who had long possessed the
means of getting at the spirits unknown to his 'honor'), 'and for
want of the victuals you have pampered them with.' '
Pampered, oh Ch–st!' ejaculated the housekeeper. 'Aye, and
what are there so many candles for, all fours, and the
same below I warrant. Ah! you–you–worthless, wasteful old devil.'
'Indeed, your honor, they are all sixes.' 'Sixes,–and what
the devil are you burning sixes for, d'ye think it's the
wake already? Ha?' 'Oh! not yet, your honor, not yet,'
chorussed the beldams; 'but in God's good time, your honor knows,'
in a tone that spoke ill suppressed impatience for the event. 'Oh!
that your honor would think of making your soul.' 'That's the first
sensible word you have said,' said the dying man, 'fetch me the
prayer-book,–you'll find it there under that old boot-jack,–blow
off the cobwebs;–it has not been opened this many a year.' It was
handed to him by the old governante, on whom he turned a
reproaching eye. 'What made you burn sixes in the kitchen, you
extravagant jade? How many years have you lived in this house?' 'I
don't know, your honor.' 'Did you ever see any extravagance or
waste in it?' 'Oh never, never, your honor.' 'Was any thing but a
farthing candle ever burned in the kitchen?' 'Never, never, your
honor.' 'Were not you kept as tight as hand and head and heart
could keep you, were you not? answer me that.' 'Oh yes, sure, your
honor; every sowl about us knows that,–every one does your
honor justice, that you kept the closest house and closest hand in
the country,–your honor was always a good warrant for it.' 'And how
dare you unlock my hold before death has unlocked it,' said the
dying miser, shaking his meagre hand at her. 'I smelt meat in the
house,–I heard voices in the house,–I heard the key turn in the
door over and over. Oh that I was up,' he added, rolling in
impatient agony in his bed, 'Oh that I was up, to see the waste and
ruin that is going on. But it would kill me,' he continued, sinking
back on the bolster, for he never allowed himself a pillow; 'it
would kill me,–the very thought of it is killing me now.' The
women, discomfited and defeated, after sundry winks and whispers,
were huddling out of the room, till recalled by the sharp eager
tones of old Melmoth.–'Where are ye trooping to now? back to the
kitchen to gormandize and guzzle? Won't one of ye stay and listen
while there's a prayer read for me? Ye may want it one day for
yourselves, ye hags.' Awed by this expostulation and menace, the
train silently returned, and placed themselves round the bed, while
the housekeeper, though a Catholic, asked if his honor would not
have a clergyman to give him the rights, (rites) of his
church. The eyes of the dying man sparkled with vexation at the
proposal. 'What for,–just to have him expect a scarf and hat-band
at the funeral. Read the prayers yourself, you old –––; that will
save something.' The housekeeper made the attempt, but soon
declined it, alleging, as her reason, that her eyes had been watery
ever since his honor took ill. 'That's because you had always a
drop in them,' said the invalid, with a spiteful sneer, which the
contraction of approaching death stiffened into a hideous
grin.–'Here,–is not there one of you that's gnashing and howling
there, that can get up a prayer to keep me from it?' So adjured,
one of the women offered her services; and of her it might truly be
said, as of the 'most desartless man of the watch' in Dogberry's
time, that 'her reading and writing came by nature;' for she never
had been at school, and had never before seen or opened a
Protestant prayer book in her life; nevertheless, on she went, and
with more emphasis than good discretion, read nearly through the
service for the 'churching of women;' which in our prayer-books
following that of the burial of the dead, she perhaps imagined was
someway connected with the state of the invalid.She read with great solemnity,–it was a pity that two
interruptions occurred during the performance, one from old
Melmoth, who, shortly after the commencement of the prayers, turned
towards the old housekeeper, and said, in a tone scandalously
audible, 'Go down and draw the niggers of the kitchen fire closer,
and lock the door, and let me hear it locked. I can't mind
any thing till that's done.' The other was from John Melmoth
gliding into the room, hearing the inappropriate words uttered by
the ignorant woman, taking quietly as he knelt beside her the
prayer-book from her hands, and reading in a suppressed voice part
of that solemn service which, by the forms of the Church of
England, is intended for the consolation of the
departing.'That is John's voice,' said the dying man; and the little
kindness he had ever shewed this unfortunate lad rushed on his hard
heart at this moment, and touched it. He saw himself, too,
surrounded by heartless and rapacious menials; and slight as must
have been his dependence on a relative whom he had always treated
as a stranger, he felt at this hour he was no stranger, and grasped
at his support like a straw amid his wreck. 'John, my good boy, you
are there.–I kept you far from me when living, and now you are
nearest me when dying.–John, read on.' John, affected
deeply by the situation in which he beheld this poor man,
amid all his wealth, as well as by the solemn request to impart
consolation to his dying moments, read on;–but in a short time his
voice became indistinct, from the horror with which he listened to
the increasing hiccup of the patient, which, however, he struggled
with from time to time, to ask the housekeeper if the niggers
were closed. John, who was a lad of feeling, rose from his
knees in some degree of agitation. 'What, are you leaving me like
the rest?' said old Melmoth, trying to raise himself in the bed.
'No, Sir,' said John; 'but,' observing the altered looks of the
dying man, 'I think you want some refreshment, some support, Sir.'
'Aye, I do, I do, but whom can I trust to get it for me.
They, (and his haggard eye wandered round the groupe),
they would poison me.' 'Trust me, Sir,' said John; 'I will
go to the apothecary's, or whoever you may employ.' The old man
grasped his hand, drew him close to his bed, cast a threatening yet
fearful eye round the party, and then whispered in a voice of
agonized constraint, 'I want a glass of wine, it would keep me
alive for some hours, but there is not one I can trust to get it
for me,– they'd steal a bottle, and ruin me.' John was
greatly shocked. 'Sir, for God's sake, let me get a glass
of wine for you.' 'Do you know where?' said the old man, with an
expression in his face John could not understand. 'No, Sir; you
know I have been rather a stranger here, Sir.' 'Take this key,'
said old Melmoth, after a violent spasm; 'take this key, there is
wine in that closet,– Madeira. I always told them there
was nothing there, but they did not believe me, or I should not
have been robbed as I have been. At one time I said it was whiskey,
and then I fared worse than ever, for they drank twice as much of
it.'John took the key from his uncle's hand; the dying man
pressed it as he did so, and John, interpreting this as a mark of
kindness, returned the pressure. He was undeceived by the whisper
that followed,–'John, my lad, don't drink any of that wine while
you are there.' 'Good God!' said John, indignantly throwing the key
on the bed; then, recollecting that the miserable being before him
was no object of resentment, he gave the promise required, and
entered the closet, which no foot but that of old Melmoth had
entered for nearly sixty years. He had some difficulty in finding
out the wine, and indeed staid long enough to justify his uncle's
suspicions,–but his mind was agitated, and his hand unsteady. He
could not but remark his uncle's extraordinary look, that had the
ghastliness of fear superadded to that of death, as he gave him
permission to enter his closet. He could not but see the looks of
horror which the women exchanged as he approached it. And, finally,
when he was in it, his memory was malicious enough to suggest some
faint traces of a story, too horrible for imagination, connected
with it. He remembered in one moment most distinctly, that no one
but his uncle had ever been known to enter it for many
years.Before he quitted it, he held up the dim light, and looked
around him with a mixture of terror and curiosity. There was a
great deal of decayed and useless lumber, such as might be supposed
to be heaped up to rot in a miser's closet; but John's eyes were in
a moment, and as if by magic, rivetted on a portrait that hung on
the wall, and appeared, even to his untaught eye, far superior to
the tribe of family pictures that are left to moulder on the walls
of a family mansion. It represented a man of middle age. There was
nothing remarkable in the costume, or in the countenance, but
the eyes, John felt, were such as one feels they wish they
had never seen, and feels they can never forget. Had he been
acquainted with the poetry of Southey, he might have often
exclaimed in his after-life,
'Only the eyes had life,
They gleamed with demon light.'–THALABA.
From an impulse equally resistless and painful, he approached
the portrait, held the candle towards it, and could distinguish the
words on the border of the painting,–Jno. Melmoth, anno 1646. John
was neither timid by nature, or nervous by constitution, or
superstitious from habit, yet he continued to gaze in stupid horror
on this singular picture, till, aroused by his uncle's cough, he
hurried into his room. The old man swallowed the wine. He appeared
a little revived; it was long since he had tasted such a
cordial,–his heart appeared to expand to a momentary confidence.
'John, what did you see in that room?' 'Nothing, Sir.' 'That's a
lie; every one wants to cheat or to rob me.' 'Sir, I don't want to
do either.' 'Well, what did you see that you–you took notice of?'
'Only a picture, Sir.' 'A picture, Sir!–the original is still
alive.' John, though under the impression of his recent feelings,
could not but look incredulous. 'John,' whispered his uncle;–'John,
they say I am dying of this and that; and one says it is for want
of nourishment, and one says it is for want of medicine,–but,
John,' and his face looked hideously ghastly, 'I am dying of a
fright. That man,' and he extended his meagre arm toward the
closet, as if he was pointing to a living being; 'that man, I have
good reason to know, is alive still.' 'How is that possible, Sir?'
said John involuntarily, 'the date on the picture is 1646.' 'You
have seen it,–you have noticed it,' said his uncle. 'Well,'–he
rocked and nodded on his bolster for a moment, then, grasping
John's hand with an unutterable look, he exclaimed, 'You will see
him again, he is alive.' Then, sinking back on his bolster, he fell
into a kind of sleep or stupor, his eyes still open, and fixed on
John.The house was now perfectly silent, and John had time and
space for reflection. More thoughts came crowding on him than he
wished to welcome, but they would not be repulsed. He thought of
his uncle's habits and character, turned the matter over and over
again in his mind, and he said to himself, 'The last man on earth
to be superstitious. He never thought of any thing but the price of
stocks, and the rate of exchange, and my college expences, that
hung heavier at his heart than all; and such a man to die of a
fright,–a ridiculous fright, that a man living 150 years ago is
alive still, and yet–he is dying.' John paused, for facts will
confute the most stubborn logician. 'With all his hardness of mind,
and of heart, he is dying of a fright. I heard it in the kitchen, I
have heard it from himself,–he could not be deceived. If I had ever
heard he was nervous, or fanciful, or superstitious, but a
character so contrary to all these impressions;–a man that, as poor
Butler says, in his Remains, of the Antiquarian, would have 'sold
Christ over again for the numerical piece of silver which Judas got
for him,'–such a man to die of fear! Yet he isdying,' said
John, glancing his fearful eye on the contracted nostril, the
glazed eye, the dropping jaw, the whole horrible apparatus of the
facies Hippocratica displayed, and soon to cease its
display.Old Melmoth at this moment seemed to be in a deep stupor; his
eyes lost that little expression they had before, and his hands,
that had convulsively been catching at the blankets, let go their
short and quivering grasp, and lay extended on the bed like the
claws of some bird that had died of hunger,–so meagre, so yellow,
so spread. John, unaccustomed to the sight of death, believed this
to be only a sign that he was going to sleep; and, urged by an
impulse for which he did not attempt to account to himself, caught
up the miserable light, and once more ventured into the forbidden
room,–the blue chamber of the dwelling. The motion roused
the dying man;–he sat bolt upright in his bed. This John could not
see, for he was now in the closet; but he heard the groan, or
rather the choaked and guggling rattle of the throat, that
announces the horrible conflict between muscular and mental
convulsion. He started, turned away; but, as he turned away, he
thought he saw the eyes of the portrait, on which his own was
fixed, move, and hurried back to his uncle's
bedside.Old Melmoth died in the course of that night, and died as he
had lived, in a kind of avaricious delirium. John could not have
imagined a scene so horrible as his last hours presented. He cursed
and blasphemed about three half-pence, missing, as he said, some
weeks before, in an account of change with his groom, about hay to
a starving horse that he kept. Then he grasped John's hand, and
asked him to give him the sacrament. 'If I send to the clergyman,
he will charge me something for it, which I cannot pay,–I cannot.
They say I am rich,–look at this blanket;–but I would not mind
that, if I could save my soul.' And, raving, he added, 'Indeed,
Doctor, I am a very poor man. I never troubled a clergyman before,
and all I want is, that you will grant me two trifling requests,
very little matters in your way,–save my soul, and (whispering)
make interest to get me a parish coffin,–I have not enough left to
bury me. I always told every one I was poor, but the more I told
them so, the less they believed me.'John, greatly shocked, retired from the bed-side, and sat
down in a distant corner of the room. The women were again in the
room, which was very dark. Melmoth was silent from exhaustion, and
there was a death-like pause for some time. At this moment John saw
the door open, and a figure appear at it, who looked round the
room, and then quietly and deliberately retired, but not before
John had discovered in his face the living original of the
portrait. His first impulse was to utter an exclamation of terror,
but his breath felt stopped. He was then rising to pursue the
figure, but a moment's reflection checked him. What could be more
absurd, than to be alarmed or amazed at a resemblance between a
living man and the portrait of a dead one! The likeness was
doubtless strong enough to strike him even in that darkened room,
but it was doubtless only a likeness; and though it might be
imposing enough to terrify an old man of gloomy and retired habits,
and with a broken constitution, John resolved it should not produce
the same effect on him.But while he was applauding himself for this resolution, the
door opened, and the figure appeared at it, beckoning and nodding
to him, with a familiarity somewhat terrifying. John now started
up, determined to pursue it; but the pursuit was stopped by the
weak but shrill cries of his uncle, who was struggling at once with
the agonies of death and his housekeeper. The poor woman, anxious
for her master's reputation and her own, was trying to put on him a
clean shirt and nightcap, and Melmoth, who had just sensation
enough to perceive they were taking something from him, continued
exclaiming feebly, 'They are robbing me,–robbing me in my last
moments,–robbing a dying man. John, won't you assist me,–I shall
die a beggar; they are taking my last shirt,–I shall die a
beggar.'–And the miser died.
You that wander, scream, and groan,
Round the mansions once your own.
ROWE
A few days after the funeral, the will was opened before
proper witnesses, and John was found to be left sole heir to his
uncle's property, which, though originally moderate, had, by his
grasping habits, and parsimonious life, become very
considerable.
As the attorney who read the will concluded, he added, 'There
are some words here, at the corner of the parchment, which do not
appear to be part of the will, as they are neither in the form of a
codicil, nor is the signature of the testator affixed to them; but,
to the best of my belief, they are in the hand-writing of the
deceased.' As he spoke he shewed the lines to Melmoth, who
immediately recognized his uncle's hand, (that perpendicular and
penurious hand, that seems determined to make the most of the very
paper, thriftily abridging every word, and leaving scarce an atom
of margin), and read, not without some emotion, the following
words: 'I enjoin my nephew and heir, John Melmoth, to remove,
destroy, or cause to be destroyed, the portrait inscribed J.
Melmoth, 1646, hanging in my closet. I also enjoin him to search
for a manuscript, which I think he will find in the third and
lowest left-hand drawer of the mahogany chest standing under that
portrait,–it is among some papers of no value, such as manuscript
sermons, and pamphlets on the improvement of Ireland, and such
stuff; he will distinguish it by its being tied round with a black
tape, and the paper being very mouldy and discoloured. He may read
it if he will;–I think he had better not. At all events, I adjure
him, if there be any power in the adjuration of a dying man, to
burn it.'
After reading this singular memorandum, the business of the
meeting was again resumed; and as old Melmoth's will was very clear
and legally worded, all was soon settled, the party dispersed, and
John Melmoth was left alone.
We should have mentioned, that his guardians appointed by the
will (for he was not yet of age) advised him to return to College,
and complete his education as soon as proper; but John urged the
expediency of paying the respect due to his uncle's memory, by
remaining a decent time in the house after his decease. This was
not his real motive. Curiosity, or something that perhaps deserves
a better name, the wild and awful pursuit of an indefinite object,
had taken strong hold of his mind. His guardians (who were men of
respectability and property in the neighbourhood, and in whose eyes
John's consequence had risen rapidly since the reading of the
will), pressed him to accept of a temporary residence in their
respective houses, till his return to Dublin. This was declined
gratefully, but steadily. They called for their horses, shook hands
with the heir, and rode off–Melmoth was left alone.
The remainder of the day was passed in gloomy and anxious
deliberation,–in traversing his late uncle's room,–approaching the
door of the closet, and then retreating from it,–in watching the
clouds, and listening to the wind, as if the gloom of the one, or
the murmurs of the other, relieved instead of increasing the weight
that pressed on his mind. Finally, towards evening, he summoned the
old woman, from whom he expected something like an explanation of
the extraordinary circumstances he had witnessed since his arrival
at his uncle's. The old woman, proud of the summons, readily
attended, but she had very little to tell,–her communication was
nearly in the following words: (We spare the reader her endless
circumlocutions, her Irishcisms, and the frequent interruptions
arising from her applications to her snuff-box, and to the glass of
whiskey punch with which Melmoth took care to have her supplied).
The old woman deposed, 'That his honor (as she always called the
deceased) was always intent upon the little room inside his
bed-chamber, and reading there, within the last two years;–that
people, knowing his honor had money, and thinking it must be there,
had broke into that room, (in other words, there was a robbery
attempted there), but finding nothing but some papers, they had
retired;–that he was so frightened, he had bricked up the window;
but she thought there was more in it than that, for when his
honor missed but a half-penny, he would make the house ring about
it, but that, when the closet was bricked up, he never said a
word;–that afterwards his honor used to lock himself up in his own
room, and though he was never fond of reading, was always found,
when his dinner was brought him, hanging over a paper, which he hid
the moment any one came into the room, and once there was a great
bustle about a picture that he tried to conceal;–that knowing there
was an odd story in the family, she did her best to come at
it, and even went to Biddy Brannigan's, (the medical Sybil before
mentioned), to find out the rights of it; but Biddy only shook her
head, filled her pipe, uttered some words she did not understand,
and smoked on;–that it was but two evenings before his honor was
struck, (i.e. took ill), she was standing at the door of the
court, (which had once been surrounded by stables, pigeon-house,
and all the usual etceteras of a gentleman's residence, but now
presented only a ruinous range of dismantled out-offices, thatched
with thistles, and tenanted by pigs), when his honor called to her
to lock the door, (his honor was always keen about locking
the doors early); she was hastening to do so, when he snatched the
key from her, swearing at her, (for he was always very keen about
locking the doors, though the locks were so bad, and the keys so
rusty, that it was always like the cry of the dead in the
house when the keys were turned);–that she stood aside for a
minute, seeing he was angry, and gave him the key, when she heard
him utter a scream, and saw him fall across the door-way;–that she
hurried to raise him, hoping it was a fit;–that she found
him stiff and stretched out, and called for help to lift him
up;–that then people came from the kitchen to assist;–that she was
so bewildered and terrified, she hardly knew what was done or said;
but with all her terror remembered, that as they raised him up, the
first sign of life he gave was lifting up his arm, and pointing it
towards the court, and at that moment she saw the figure of a tall
man cross the court, and go out of the court, she knew not where or
how, for the outer gate was locked, and had not been opened for
years, and they were all gathered round his honor at the other
door;–she saw the figure,–she saw the shadow on the wall,–she saw
him walk slowly through the court, and in her terror cried, 'Stop
him,' but nobody minded her, all being busy about her master; and
when he was brought to his room, nobody thought but of getting him
to himself again. And further she could not tell. His honor (young
Melmoth) knew as much as she,–he had witnessed his last illness,
had heard his last words, he saw him die,–how could she know more
than his honor.'
'True,' said Melmoth, 'I certainly saw him die; but–you say
there was an odd story in the family, do you know any thing
about it?' 'Not a word, it was long before my time, as old as I
am.' 'Certainly it must have been so; but, was my uncle ever
superstitious, fanciful?'–and Melmoth was compelled to use many
synonymous expressions, before he could make himself understood.
When he did, the answer was plain and decisive, 'No, never, never.
When his honor sat in the kitchen in winter, to save a fire in his
own room, he could never bear the talk of the old women that came
in to light their pipes betimes, (from time to time). He
used to shew such impatience of their superstitious nonsense, that
they were fain to smoke them in silence, without the consolatory
accompaniment of one whisper about a child that the evil eye had
looked on, or another, that though apparently a mewling, peevish,
crippled brat all day, went regularly out at night to dance with
the good people on the top of a neighbouring mountain,
summoned thereto by the sound of a bag-pipe, which was unfailingly
heard at the cabin door every night.' Melmoth's thoughts began to
take somewhat of a darker hue at this account. If his uncle was not
superstitious, might he not have been guilty, and might not his
strange and sudden death, and even the terrible visitation that
preceded it, have been owing to some wrong that his rapacity had
done the widow and the fatherless. He questioned the old woman
indirectly and cautiously on the subject,–her answer completely
justified the deceased. 'He was a man,' she said, 'of a hard hand,
and a hard heart, but he was as jealous of another's right as of
his own. He would have starved all the world, but he would not have
wronged it of a farthing.'
Melmoth's last resource was to send for Biddy Brannigan, who
was still in the house, and from whom he at least hoped to hear the
odd story that the old woman confessed was in the family. She came,
and, on her introduction to Melmoth, it was curious to observe the
mingled look of servility and command, the result of the habits of
her life, which was alternately one of abject mendicity, and of
arrogant but clever imposture. When she first appeared, she stood
at the door, awed and curtseying in the presence, and muttering
sounds which, possibly intended for blessings, had, from the harsh
tone and witch-like look of the speaker, every appearance of
malediction; but when interrogated on the subject of the story, she
rose at once into consequence,–her figure seemed frightfully
dilated, like that of Virgil's Alecto, who exchanges in a moment
the appearance of a feeble old woman for that of a menacing fury.'
She walked deliberately across the room, seated, or rather squatted
herself on the hearth-stone like a hare in her form, spread her
bony and withered hands towards the blaze, and rocked for a
considerable time in silence before she commenced her tale. When
she had finished it, Melmoth remained in astonishment at the state
of mind to which the late singular circumstances had reduced
him,–at finding himself listening with varying and increasing
emotions of interest, curiosity, and terror, to a tale so wild, so
improbable, nay, so actually incredible, that he at least blushed
for the folly he could not conquer. The result of these impressions
was, a resolution to visit the closet, and examine the manuscript
that very night.
This resolution he found it impossible to execute
immediately, for, on inquiring for lights, the gouvernante
confessed the very last had been burnt at his honor's wake;
and a bare-footed boy was charged to run for life and death to the
neighbouring village for candles; and if you could borry a
couple of candlesticks, added the housekeeper. 'Are there no
candlesticks in the house?' said Melmoth. 'There are, honey,
plinty, but it's no time to be opening the old chest, for the
plated ones, in regard of their being at the bottom of it, and the
brass ones that's in it (in the house), one of them has no
socket, and the other has no bottom.' 'And how did you make shift
yourself,' said Melmoth. 'I stuck it in a potatoe,' quoth the
housekeeper. So the gossoon ran for life and death, and
Melmoth, towards the close of the evening, was left alone to
meditate.
It was an evening apt for meditation, and Melmoth had his
fill of it before the messenger returned. The weather was cold and
gloomy; heavy clouds betokened a long and dreary continuance of
autumnal rains; cloud after cloud came sweeping on like the dark
banners of an approaching host, whose march is for desolation. As
Melmoth leaned against the window, whose dismantled frame, and
pieced and shattered panes, shook with every gust of wind, his eye
encountered nothing but that most cheerless of all prospects, a
miser's garden,–walls broken down, grass-grown walks whose grass
was not even green, dwarfish, doddered, leafless trees, and a
luxuriant crop of nettles and weeds rearing their unlovely heads
where there had once been flowers, all waving and bending in
capricious and unsightly forms, as the wind sighed over them. It
was the verdure of the church-yard, the garden of death. He turned
for relief to the room, but no relief was there,–the wainscotting
dark with dirt, and in many places cracked and starting from the
walls,–the rusty grate, so long unconscious of a fire, that nothing
but a sullen smoke could be coaxed to issue from between its dingy
bars,–the crazy chairs, their torn bottoms of rush drooping
inwards, and the great leathern seat displaying the stuffing round
the worn edges, while the nails, though they kept their places, had
failed to keep the covering they once fastened,–the chimney-piece,
which, tarnished more by time than by smoke, displayed for its
garniture half a pair of snuffers, a tattered almanack of 1750, a
time-keeper dumb for want of repair, and a rusty fowling-piece
without a lock.–No wonder the spectacle of desolation drove Melmoth
back to his own thoughts, restless and uncomfortable as they were.
He recapitulated the Sybil's story word by word, with the air of a
man who is cross-examining an evidence, and trying to make him
contradict himself.
'The first of the Melmoths, she says, who settled in Ireland,
was an officer in Cromwell's army, who obtained a grant of lands,
the confiscated property of an Irish family attached to the royal
cause. The elder brother of this man was one who had travelled
abroad, and resided so long on the Continent, that his family had
lost all recollection of him. Their memory was not stimulated by
their affection, for there were strange reports concerning the
traveller. He was said to be (like the 'damned magician, great
Glendower,') 'a gentleman profited in strange concealments.'
It must be remembered, that at this period, and even to a
later, the belief in astrology and witchcraft was very general.
Even so late as the reign of Charles II. Dryden calculated the
nativity of his son Charles, the ridiculous books of Glanville were
in general circulation, and Delrio and Wierus were so popular, that
even a dramatic writer (Shadwell) quoted copiously from them, in
the notes subjoined to his curious comedy of the Lancashire
witches. It was said, that during the life-time of Melmoth, the
traveller paid him a visit; and though he must have then been
considerably advanced in life, to the astonishment of his family,
he did not betray the slightest trace of being a year older than
when they last beheld him. His visit was short, he said nothing of
the past or the future, nor did his family question him. It was
said that they did not feel themselves perfectly at ease in his
presence. On his departure he left them his picture, (the same
which Melmoth saw in the closet, bearing date 1646), and they saw
him no more. Some years after, a person arrived from England,
directed to Melmoth's house, in pursuit of the traveller, and
exhibiting the most marvellous and unappeasable solicitude to
obtain some intelligence of him. The family could give him none,
and after some days of restless inquiry and agitation, he departed,
leaving behind him, either through negligence or intention, a
manuscript, containing an extraordinary account of the
circumstances under which he had met John Melmoth the Traveller (as
he was called).
The manuscript and portrait were both preserved, and of the
original a report spread that he was still alive, and had been
frequently seen in Ireland even to the present century,–but that he
was never known to appear but on the approaching death of one of
the family, nor even then, unless when the evil passions or habits
of the individual had cast a shade of gloomy and fearful interest
over their dying hour.
It was therefore judged no favourable augury for the
spiritual destination of the last Melmoth, that this extraordinary
person had visited, or been imagined to visit, the house previous
to his decease.'
Such was the account given by Biddy Brannigan, to which she
added her own solemnly-attested belief, that John Melmoth the
Traveller was still without a hair on his head changed, or a muscle
in his frame contracted;–that she had seen those that had seen him,
and would confirm their evidence by oath if necessary;–that he was
never heard to speak, seen to partake of food, or known to enter
any dwelling but that of his family;–and, finally, that she herself
believed that his late appearance boded no good either to the
living or the dead.
John was still musing on these things when the lights were
procured, and, disregarding the pallid countenances and monitory
whispers of the attendants, he resolutely entered the closet, shut
the door, and proceeded to search for the manuscript. It was soon
found, for the directions of old Melmoth were forcibly written, and
strongly remembered. The manuscript, old, tattered, and
discoloured, was taken from the very drawer in which it was
mentioned to be laid. Melmoth's hands felt as cold as those of his
dead uncle, when he drew the blotted pages from their nook. He sat
down to read,–there was a dead silence through the house. Melmoth
looked wistfully at the candles, snuffed them, and still thought
they looked dim, (perchance he thought they burned blue, but such
thought he kept to himself.) Certain it is, he often changed his
posture, and would have changed his chair, had there been more than
one in the apartment.
He sunk for a few moments into a fit of gloomy abstraction,
till the sound of the clock striking twelve made him start,–it was
the only sound he had heard for some hours, and the sounds produced
by inanimate things, while all living beings around are as dead,
have at such an hour an effect indescribably awful. John looked at
his manuscript with some reluctance, opened it, paused over the
first lines, and as the wind sighed round the desolate apartment,
and the rain pattered with a mournful sound against the dismantled
window, wished–what did he wish for?–he wished the sound of the
wind less dismal, and the dash of the rain less monotonous.–He may
be forgiven, it was past midnight, and there was not a human being
awake but himself within ten miles when he began to read.
Apparebat eidolon senex.
PLINY
The manuscript was discoloured, obliterated, and mutilated
beyond any that had ever before exercised the patience of a reader.
Michaelis himself, scrutinizing into the pretended autograph of St
Mark at Venice, never had a harder time of it.–Melmoth could make
out only a sentence here and there. The writer, it appeared, was an
Englishman of the name of Stanton, who had travelled abroad shortly
after the Restoration. Travelling was not then attended with the
facilities which modern improvement has introduced, and scholars
and literati, the intelligent, the idle, and the curious, wandered
over the Continent for years, like Tom Coryat, though they
had the modesty, on their return, to entitle the result of their
multiplied observations and labours only 'crudities.'
Stanton, about the year 1676, was in Spain; he was, like most
of the travellers of that age, a man of literature, intelligence,
and curiosity, but ignorant of the language of the country, and
fighting his way at times from convent to convent, in quest of what
was called 'Hospitality,' that is, obtaining board and lodging on
the condition of holding a debate in Latin, on some point
theological or metaphysical, with any monk who would become the
champion of the strife. Now, as the theology was Catholic, and the
metaphysics Aristotelian, Stanton sometimes wished himself at the
miserable Posada from whose filth and famine he had been fighting
his escape; but though his reverend antagonists always denounced
his creed, and comforted themselves, even in defeat, with the
assurance that he must be damned, on the double score of his being
a heretic and an Englishman, they were obliged to confess that his
Latin was good, and his logic unanswerable; and he was allowed, in
most cases, to sup and sleep in peace. This was not doomed to be
his fate on the night of the 17th August 1677, when he found
himself in the plains of Valencia, deserted by a cowardly guide,
who had been terrified by the sight of a cross erected as a
memorial of a murder, had slipped off his mule unperceived,
crossing himself every step he took on his retreat from the
heretic, and left Stanton amid the terrors of an approaching storm,
and the dangers of an unknown country. The sublime and yet softened
beauty of the scenery around, had filled the soul of Stanton with
delight, and he enjoyed that delight as Englishmen generally do,
silently.
The magnificent remains of two dynasties that had passed
away, the ruins of Roman palaces, and of Moorish fortresses, were
around and above him;–the dark and heavy thunder-clouds that
advanced slowly, seemed like the shrouds of these spectres of
departed greatness; they approached, but did not yet overwhelm or
conceal them, as if nature herself was for once awed by the power
of man; and far below, the lovely valley of Valencia blushed and
burned in all the glory of sunset, like a bride receiving the last
glowing kiss of the bridegroom before the approach of night.
Stanton gazed around. The difference between the architecture of
the Roman and Moorish ruins struck him. Among the former are the
remains of a theatre, and something like a public place; the latter
present only the remains of fortresses, embattled, castellated, and
fortified from top to bottom,–not a loop-hole for pleasure to get
in by,–the loop-holes were only for arrows; all denoted military
power and despotic subjugation a l'outrance. The contrast
might have pleased a philosopher, and he might have indulged in the
reflection, that though the ancient Greeks and Romans were savages,
(as Dr Johnson says all people who want a press must be, and he
says truly), yet they were wonderful savages for their time, for
they alone have left traces of their taste for pleasure in
the countries they conquered, in their superb theatres, temples,
(which were also dedicated to pleasure one way or another), and
baths, while other conquering bands of savages never left any thing
behind them but traces of their rage for power. So thought Stanton,
as he still saw strongly defined, though darkened by the darkening
clouds, the huge skeleton of a Roman amphitheatre, its arched and
gigantic colonnades now admitting a gleam of light, and now
commingling with the purple thunder-cloud; and now the solid and
heavy mass of a Moorish fortress, no light playing between its
impermeable walls,–the image of power, dark, isolated,
impenetrable. Stanton forgot his cowardly guide, his loneliness,
his danger amid an approaching storm and an inhospitable country,
where his name and country would shut every door against him, and
every peal of thunder would be supposed justified by the daring
intrusion of a heretic in the dwelling of an old Christian,
as the Spanish Catholics absurdly term themselves, to mark the
distinction between them and the baptised Moors.–All this was
forgot in contemplating the glorious and awful scenery before
him,–light struggling with darkness,–and darkness menacing a light
still more terrible, and announcing its menace in the blue and
livid mass of cloud that hovered like a destroying angel in the
air, its arrows aimed, but their direction awfully indefinite. But
he ceased to forget these local and petty dangers, as the sublimity
of romance would term them, when he saw the first flash of the
lightning, broad and red as the banners of an insulting army whose
motto is Væ victis, shatter to atoms the remains of a Roman
tower;–the rifted stones rolled down the hill and fell at the feet
of Stanton. He stood appalled, and awaiting his summons from the
Power in whose eye pyramids, palaces, and the worms whose toil has
formed them, and the worms who toil out their existence under their
shadow or their pressure, are perhaps all alike contemptible, he
stood collected, and for a moment felt that defiance of danger
which danger itself excites, and we love to encounter it as a
physical enemy, to bid it 'do its worst,' and feel that its worst
will perhaps be ultimately its best for us. He stood and saw
another flash dart its bright, brief, and malignant glance over the
ruins of ancient power, and the luxuriance of recent fertility.
Singular contrast! The relics of art for ever decaying,–the
productions of nature for ever renewed.–(Alas! for what purpose are
they renewed, better than to mock at the perishable monuments which
men try in vain to rival them by). The pyramids themselves must
perish, but the grass that grows between their disjointed stones
will be renewed from year to year. Stanton was thinking thus, when
all power of thought was suspended, by seeing two persons bearing
between them the body of a young, and apparently very lovely girl,
who had been struck dead by the lightning. Stanton approached, and
heard the voices of the bearers repeating, 'There is none who will
mourn for her!' 'There is none who will mourn for her!' said other
voices, as two more bore in their arms the blasted and blackened
figure of what had once been a man, comely and graceful;–'there is
not one to mourn for her now!' They were lovers, and he had
been consumed by the flash that had destroyed her, while in the act
of endeavouring to defend her. As they were about to remove the
bodies, a person approached with a calmness of step and demeanour,
as if he were alone unconscious of danger, and incapable of fear;
and after looking on them for some time, burst into a laugh so
loud, wild, and protracted, that the peasants, starting with as
much horror at the sound as at that of the storm, hurried away,
bearing the corse with them. Even Stanton's fears were subdued by
his astonishment, and, turning to the stranger, who remained
standing on the same spot, he asked the reason of such an outrage
on humanity. The stranger, slowly turning round, and disclosing a
countenance which–(Here the manuscript was illegible for a few
lines), said in English–(A long hiatus followed here, and the next
passage that was legible, though it proved to be a continuation of
the narrative, was but a fragment).
* * * *
