THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES c v.. ^\ MAXIMA VIS EST PHANTASLE PHANTASMS THIS WORK AND ALL THE PUBLICATIONS OF ARE SUPPLIED TO THE TRADE BY MESSRS. SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, ANE^CO., LIMITED. RETAIL AT 32, CHARING CROSS, S.W. 0- • * PHANTASMS ORIGINAL STORIES II.LCSI'i^ lPostl3uinou6 |pcr5onalit\2 ant) Cbaractci* vviKT gi:rrare PI PTM *» I r<: > rHICAL ROMANCr, "• I meddle not with those Bedlam phancies, ti\ whose conceits are antiques, but leave them for the Physician to purge wit' '■ BOLE EDITION. J. uiiuuu : THE ROXBURGHE PRt^^, 3, VICTORIA STREET, WESTMINSTER. ADVERTISEMENT TIME LIMIT. This, the sole etHtion of "Phantasms" which will be published during the continuance of the copyright, will not be obtainable of the Puhli.-hers after March the 31st, 1895. ^ CONTENTS FAGS Introduction— An Interview 7 The Dark Shadow . 43 Retrilution t 68 The Sleepless Man 89 Uncle Sel\v\'n 142 A Good Intention . 153 A New Force 165 Mysterious Maisie 174 The Face of Nature 219 The Actual Apparition 226 B ice2953 0. INTRODUCTION Posthumous Perso7iality and Character HORACE VESEY left Corby during my first term in the lower school. I therefore knew little of him personally. True, his doings as a fifth-form boy were fresh in the memories of my schoolmates, and I remembered a few of them which had passed into the traditional lore of the school. When a young and hard-pressed journalist, I presumed on this acquaintance to interview Vesey on the subject of " Spiritualism." I hoped to get specially interesting information ; for no one in London was credited with so complete a knowledge of the mystic cults, which at that time were again attracting general attention. From the journalistic standpoint the interview was not a success — I remember that my "copy" was pigeon-holed and forgotten — but I benefited to the extent of gaining a friend and an intimate 8 INTR OD UC TION. association with the most remarkable personality it has been my fortune to meet. " We were at Corby together, you say, Gerrare ; but you must have been learning genders at the time I was on Sallust. What do you remember of me?" " That you walked in your sleep, and threw the hammer fully ten feet further than Alec Grove." He laughed. "The first needs explanation, the second does not, I suppose." The former was the easier to believe. It seemed to me incomprehensible that the slight, slack, sinewless frame of the sleep-walker had been capable of achieving such success over the skilled and muscular Alec. " It is of spiritualism I wish to talk with you." "But the general public cannot understand spiritualism. It is as useless to attempt an explanation of spirit- life to materialists, as to expound the Differential Calculus to ignorant Papuans." " The interpreter only is wanting." " A right conception of the mystery of being is necessary to a comprehension of posthumous existence, and this conception is lacking." ' ■ INTRODUCTION. 9 " Is not that because scientists will not use the common language of the people ? " " No ; for learning is not wisdom. Our con- ception of a thigh-bone is not altered when we learn to call it a femur, nor have we advanced in knowledge when we term a lapse of memory ecmnesia. Much of the labour of eminent men is thrown away, because resulting only in the discovery of new names for well-known things, or is misspent in search of correct definitions for long-ascertained processes. Wisdom rather is possessed by those who have not lost their perception of facts, in attempting to represent the relation of them by S}'mbols." " I want facts." He smiled. A gleam as of humour flashed into his wondrous dreamy eyes ; but they almost immediately reassumed their habitual faraway look — a look which I have never seen in other ^yzs, and which I can only describe as being a soft, intelligent gaze into the unknown. " I am not a fact-monger," he said quietly. "You must go to the schoolmen if. )-ou wish to hear someone who can talk glibly of telakousia, aponeurosis, dynamogeny, and other things which are under- lo INTRODUCTION. standable, capable even of being demonstrated, and adequately, if not accurately, described with the aid of special vocables culled from the choicer teratology of the textbooks. I am an idealist whose ideas have been proved by experience. I cannot convey my ideas to you, because they are known to me only as what they an\ not by symbols; and if I coined names, or made symbols, neither you nor anyone else would understand them, nor could I explain them — there is the difficulty." " It is not insurmountable." "Yes and no. I can suggest certain things to you, as I have to others. I can suggest that you believe them as being realities, as tJicy are ; but what does that amount to .' No more than that you have been hypnotised, and experienced what some term hallucinations ; others, less learned, delusions. If you perchance alight on the right path without direction, you are believed to have evolved the ideas out of your inner consciousness, told that your experiences arc self-suggested phantasms, not real discoveries of fact." "The general public dislikes anyone to be greatly ahead of it in knowledge." INTRODUCTION. n "The limit of human knowledge is not where public opinion places it, nor as it is determined by exponents of the physical sciences ; it rests solely with the individual. In the first place, you must distinguish between the knowledge of the in- dividual and the knowledge of the whole mass of individuals. For instance, I may not know what one John Jones in California and another in New South Wales know at this moment ; but there is a state some persons attain, in which it is possible to ascertain what any and every person living knows — that is comparatively easy. Beyond there is a state in which it is possible to ascertain more, but to translate it is impossible." " Because no one can comprehend the trans- lation .? " " Quite so. The individual cannot understand that of which he has no experience, as in the material world we know not the feel of iron or stone until we have touched something harder than a feather pillow ; so our unutilised senses need experience if we are to comprehend the non-material world, whilst even to perceive the facts of this, our ordinary senses are barely suffi- cient." 1 2 INTR on UCTION. " Some people are supposed to possess a sixth sense." "There is really but one sense. Man's so- called five senses are but variations of the same mechanism suited to receive material impressions of different kinds, and communicate the result of each ijidcntation to the brain ; for all are operated in the same manner — by contact. You know the physiological processes ; for instance, the sense of touch, the most limited in range of the five senses, arises from the membrane that first receives the impression of the object in contact, setting up a certain vibration in the nerve which connects it with the brain. The impression reaches the brain as a sensation, the interpretation of which is dependent upon the memory of past experiences of like similar, or dissimilar, sensations produced by the same nerve, or one of the same order. The quality of touch varies in different parts of the body. If two needle points placed only one twenty-fifth part of an inch apart be applied to the tip of the tongue, they will be felt as iiuo points. If they are placed even four times the distance apart, and applied to the back, they will be felt as a single point only. Taste and smell r^ INTRODUCTION. 13 are closely allied to touch, the sensations being excited by the impinging of extremely minute particles of matter upon appropriate nerves. Hearing is the sensation caused by certain vibra- tions of the atmospheric ether, in contact with the tympanum of the ear. Sight the result of certain movements of the optic nerve, caused by the impression of a picture upon the retina." "Just so; but I came to hear you talk of life after death, about elementary spirits, ghosts, goblins, and the like." " Including objective and subjective appari- tions ; therefore I point out to you particularly the acknowledged fact that we never see an object, only the reflection in miniature of one, as it is depicted upon a membrane ivithin the eye by the rays of light ; that is, by contact with waves of atmospheric ether in rapid motion, for light as you know is but a mode of movement. Red waves result from impulses at a speed of 392 billions a second, and violet, at the other extremity of the solar spectrum, by impulses at a speed of 757 billions a second. Vibrations above the violet and below the red do not excite luminous sensations." 1 4 INTR on UCTION. "Then above the violet is spirit land ?" "The scientist says simply that there is chemical activity." "And below the red?" " Heat — until we descend to the very low figure of say 35,000 a second, when vibrations are per- ceived as sound." "What is the usual difference in the sensory capabilities of individuals .-'" " Too slight to affect the main issue. Some people cannot hear the squeal of a bat; and it may be presumed that should a bat squeal within the hearing of seven people, yet only one hear it, an examination of the witnesses would establish in an overwhelming fashion that the bat did not then squeal : thus if one sees a ghost, and a dozen people having equal opportunities ought to see it but do not, then there was no appearance of a ghost — the senses of the man who saw it must have deceived him, he is left doubting, too often is over-persuaded, and believes the contrary of the actual fact. Of course, all the senses may be deceived ; the sensation which ordinarily results from touching a steel point with the tip of the finger may arise from anything inside the body r^ INTRODUCTION. 15 which will produce a like movement of the nerve connecting the finger tip with the brain. The stimulation of any sense nerve to action results in the delivery of a sensation to the conscious self; its interpretation, as a false message or as a genuine impression, will depend upon the past experience of the recipient. When one knows that one's optic nerve is unable to convey accurately different sensations for impressions of red and green, one learns to distrust that sen- sation ; in like manner when one hears strange noises, unheard by others, one distrusts one's hearing, and believes one's self to be the subject of hallucinations. On the other hand the value of each of the senses increases as memories of past experiences of its use accumulate." "Apparently the evidence of one sense is sup- ported, or is contradicted, by that of another ? " " Yes, but the accumulations of past experiences prove how close is the association of one sense with another ; upon hearing the word ' vinegar ' there comes a sensation as of sour taste ; this association of sensation with words helps the mesmeriser towards the mental realisation of the suggestion he makes. The transference of sensa- 1 6 INTR OD UCTION. tion from person to person without the ordinary perceptible suggestion, has been done, accompHshed under test conditions. Apparently all perception must be by means of motion. What movement then is that, by which one person in one room is mentally directed by another person in another room at a distance to taste coffee, and the coffee so hot as to scald } " " Thought transference is done simply by an effort of will.?" "Then no doubt the effort puts into wave-motion particles of ethic substance which reach the other person and produce the sensation desired. Could we see that mode of motion we know to exist at higher velocities than 760 billion vibrations a second, or hear sound waves travelling at a higher pitch than 35,000 vibrations a second, possibly we might either sec or hear the process by which thought-transference is cfl'ected." " We shall not do that unless the sixth sense is developed ; yet we can neither see nor hear magnetic force and have nevertheless been able to make much use of it, and scientists think they fairly comprehend it now." "Just as we have been able to use electricity to INTRO D UCTION. 1 7 enable us hear and see things our senses can perceive, so can thought-transference be utilised. Thought-transference also explains the kindred phenomena of clairvoyance; for clairvoyance is merely a change to the other end of the connecting- line. The percipient of a sensation, the one who receives a thought-message, knozvs that a similar sensation is experienced by the person who communicates. The person who wills conjures up a vision of a luminous cross, or actually beholds one ; the person who receives the thought-message or impression, knows that the sender is regarding a cross ; what one sees the other sees ; clairvoyance therefore is but a variety of thought-transference, or, more accurately, telepathy." "Such communications are surely limited," I ventured. " Limitations of this kind ; if the person who wishes to transmit the impression knows neither the taste nor the appearance of, say, olives, and determines to transmit the sensation of taste of them to a person who does know it, the nerves of the sense of taste would not be directly acted upon by the will of the transmitter, but the sense of hearing or of sight would be directed to the 1 8 INTRO D UCTION. word 'olives,' and by a reflex action and the association of ideas, the taste of oHves would become apparent to the percipient. If neither the person who wills, that is the transmitter, nor the person who perceives, that is recipient, knows anything of olives, although a knowledge of the name-word may be conveyed, it will be as power- less to produce the flavour of olives as though the word ' Mcthuscla' had been communicated. If, however, the transmitter likes olives, and the percipient does not, the taste communicated, although recognised, will be agreeable to the percipient." " Then thought or sensation-transference proves that the external organs of sense do not need to be appealed to directly, in order to produce exactly similar sensations to those which follow an actual appeal to the senses in the ordinary way.?" "If such proof were needed. Of more im- portance is the fact that through thought- transference and clairvoyance many get a glimpse of a world of activities imperceptible to man's external organs of sense ; an indication of the manner in which it is the easiest for a being not • INTRODUCTION. 19 possessing man's organs of speech or material body to communicate with him." " Then you acknowledge that apparitions, ghosts, are subjective, not objective ? That they are in fact illusions ? " " Consider the matter in a commonsense manner. Assume that a phantom of the dead wishes to appear to the living, in order to accomplish some set purpose, will not the phantom adopt the method easiest for it ? The simplest and most direct means arc usually the best, and if the phantom had to simultaneously attract the attention of a blind man and a deaf one it would be useless to 'appear' in winding-sheet and with clinking of chain ; it would be easier to appeal to the sense of touch." " Do you give ghosts credit for ability to touch ?" " Say rather ability to make themselves felt. The hypnotiscr can suggest to the subject that he is blistered, and a real actual blister, leaving a real, unmistakable scar, is produced wholly by the effect of the suggestion on the hypnotised subject. When, therefore, the ghost of Lord Tyrone appeared to Lady Beresford, and made an indelible scar upon her wrist, it is not necessary' ao INTRODUCTION. to suppose that it was really burned, or that the phantom had the power of touch." " But how about the impress burnt into the cabinet ?" " The evidence for that is not so good ; nor are we considering the power of phantoms to act upon inorganic matter. That they may do so is, I think, the logical inference from the proven fact that they act upon organic matter." " In order to do so phantoms must materialise, and their ability to do even this has, I believe, never been proved under test conditions." " It is amusing how some of those who laugh at every phase of spiritualism, express their willing- ness to be convinced if spirits will manifest under test conditions which tJicy will impose. They admit that they know nothing of spirits, nor of the laws by which they are governed, and so the test conditions are often extremely ridiculous. It is as though when one proposed to make ice- cream for the delectation of an African potentate, he refused to believe in the solidification of the confection unless it should remain frozen as solid after an exposure of an hour or two to a tropical sun. You propose to show a sceptic a spirit. He r^ INTR on UCTION. 2 1 will not believe it to be a spirit until it shall have materialised. When materialised he will even declare that it, being matter, cannot be spirit, and will attribute its appearance and disappearance to trickery — probably complimenting you upon having so successfully deluded his perceptions. It is thankless work." " Does not much of the opposition to spiritualism arise from the trivial nature of spiritualistic phenomena .'' " " Arises rather from a misconception of the character of spirit life. The idea that human beings as soon as dead become as omniscient as angels are popularly supposed to be, is not based upon commonsense, and is fallacious. Man im- mediately after death is neither more nor less than the entity he was — minus the body and the power of communicating through it with the material world. He has precisely the same intelligence and character, the same knowledge, and he has to discern his universe from a fresh point of view. Whatever he may learn in this new environment he will never be able to communicate to men in the flesh, unless they are such facts or experiences as by learning or research he had some conception C 83 INTRODUCTION. of when in the body. The talk of a spiritualist medium who is controlled, or fancies himself controlled, by a bricklayer is such as one expects from a man of the labouring class. It is in the fitness of things that such should be so. Whatever was beyond his knowledge as a bricklayer will be still unknown so far as informing a medium is concerned ; and this, not because new knowledge is unobtainable by a spirit, but because it is acquired by a method, the manner of expressing which was unknown to him prior to his post- humous existence." " There is then little hope of learning from spirits .-• " " So far as the ordinary manifestations go the teaching is that suited to the needs and capabilities of the learners. As far as my ex- perience goes, nothing very new, very startling, or radically different to preconceived and gener- ally accepted ideas, need ever be expected from them." " Matter passing through matter, for instance } " " Matter is always passing through matter in the same way as a fish through water, or the earth through a comet's tail. Solidity is only relative ; '^ INTR OD UCTION. 2 3 the comet which occupies millions of cubic miles would, if its particles were as closely packed as those of gold, form a tiny lump small enough to place in the pocket of one's waistcoat. Even then some space would be left between the atoms composing it. The radiometer, as you know, reveals the fact that matter may be reduced to particles so small, that in comparison with the smallest of those observable with the most powerful microscope they are in size as a pistol- bullet to the earth. Solid matter passes through solid wire, as you may demonstrate with a water- battery by placing the one pole in a solution of various salts and the other in a separate vessel in a bit of moist sand ; the salt crj'stals will be found in the sand-heap, separately deposited, those of dissimilar character apart." " But that does not show how a book passes through a brick wall." " It illustrates the working of a force, and the force which controls lifeless matter is known to ph}'sical science solely by the result of its operation. F"or instance, it has never been explained why and how steel is attracted to the magnet. If instead of comprehending force as a 24 INTR OD UCTION. property of matter, you ascertain the nature of the activities by which matter is conditioned, the passage of matter through matter in the sense you mean will no longer appear impossible, and you will be as little inclined as I am to witness irregular physical manifestations of force." "You regard them as pertaining to black magic ? " I simply do not desire them. I know that man does not end at the finger-tips, and is able to influence matter at a distance from his body. There is a radiation from each soul-cantre which receives sympathetic response from other centres — from the soul of things. The sun as an entity terminates many millions of miles from this earth ; the sun as a force reaches here and obtains that physical response known as heat and light — two forms of motion — of life." "But table-turning, rapping, and supposed communications with the spirits of the dead do not seem to impart much knowledge." " Simply the knowledge fitted to the under- standing and desires of the circle. If the search is for truth, so much truth as the seekers can comprehend; if the 'circle' is frivolous, then the INTRODUCTION. 25 desired quantity of frivolity. The wholly curious are most often disappointed." "And the indifferent multitude truth does not attract ? " "Is not so large as you imagine; for the truth is known by many names. I receive communi- cations from all sorts and conditions of people. Some of these abuse spiritualism, yet give particular instances which are further evidence of its working. The chief effect these com- munications have is to convince me that truth must be taught by parable." " Because spiritualism is not to be scientifically demonstrated } " " The scientific spirit of the age is materialistic. When matter has been ascertained, if not before, the spirit underlying matter will be sought and found. Now, as always, there are many for whom the study of matter is insufficient, and them I serve. If you wish to know more of magic, come here whenever you choose, and in time, in lieu of talking elementary physics, we will speak of matters the multitude cannot understand." From that day my visits were frequent. Vesey had no inclination to symbolic mysticism ; his 26 INTRODUCTION. room was an ordinary, comfortably- furnished apartment ; quiet, lofty, roomy, light, and as home-like as the cosy corner of the cultured bachelor can be made to be. It was if anything too modern ; too orderly ; too business-like ; his books, other than one in immediate use, were stored away in closed presses ; there was no statuary, few ornaments, and the pictures were bright, cheerful, and common-place; the most noticeable, and most used, piece of furniture was a large Persian divan, on which every day Vesey, reclining at ease, spent hours in dreaming those untranslatable visions, which were to him the very essence of being. " Be at ease, be comfort- able, and let no one disturb you," he counselled, "if you wish to attain a conception of the higher life ; my people guard the door, and, as yoii know, will allow no one to enter nor themselves intrude ; as I lie here at perfect ease, my nargJiilch induces that trance condition I wish, and my universe unfolds to my view." The only peculiarity I noticed was the always burning wood-fire on the open hearth, so con- stantly replenished that the heat of the room was never less than 65° and often 10^ higher. INTRODUCTION. 21 My first experience of Vesey's mystic world was one dull November afternoon ; a thick fog had turned to rain, and his cheerful fireside was an oasis in London wretchedness. I was at my ease in smoking jacket and soft buckskin slippers, my roomy arm-chair was in the very front of the fire ; Vesey was in his happiest mood, and the conversation which had been brisk became desul- tory, and the silence often broken only by the bubbling of the iiargJuleh, as Vesey drew furtively from the sinuous pipe which reached him as he lay stretched inelegantly on his divan. It was of course a dream, but very difterent to any previously experienced. In the first place, I appeared to be gazing at a large screen of a browny drab colour. Suddenly I noticed that in the centre there was something bright ; no sooner had it attracted my attention than it instantly burst into a scintillating blaze of colour, of a colour which was new to me, for into its com- position neither red nor yellow nor blue entered ; it had no suggestion of any of the secondary or tertiary hues, and as I looked into its magnificent depth, enraptured with its beauty, it seemed to centralise and be set against a background of 28 INTRODUCTION. fiery opal, with every varying tint of which this new colour contrasted sharply ; as I looked a broad black bar appeared across the upper half, a white one across the lower, both shewing with equal distinctness ; then, as my gaze faded, I saw this new colour showing dimly through the jet black of the streak across the upper half, whilst the portion covered with the diaphanous white band remained totally hidden. I opened my eyes. Vesey was sitting upright on the divan, an amused expression on his face. " What have you seen ?" he asked. " A new colour," I replied. " Can you describe it V " I think so." "Well.?" I remained silent. " Come ! Speak ! Was it transparent or fuligi- nous .'' Opalescent or phosphorescent } Aplanatic or atramentous } Glaucous, xanthous, or gridelin } Or perhaps murrey, lateritious, or cymophanous } "Don't ! I will write out the description." " You may spare yourself the worry ; remember I have been a journalist, and the attempt to describe a new colour will only cause you to curse INTRODUCTION. 29 the cecity and ablepsy of an cxcecated generation. Yet, if language cannot convey even an idea of a mild exaltation of the colour sense, is it sur- prising that man remains etiolate ? Probably you and I are the only persons living who have seen the colour ; now tell me what colour was it ?" I understood his humour. " I must see it again," I replied. "Are you at my end of the spectrum ? Am I likely to have a companion in my investigations, or are you with so many modern mystics at the other ? " What separates the two ? Is not the whole field of the unknown one ? " " In the appreciation of colour the difference is only some 350 billion vibrations the second, in the speed of light waves — but that means the whole of the universe as measured by man's senses," On another excursion into the unknown, I appeared to be viewing a world in which this new colour entered largely, and I saw moving about in it strange shapes, most of them of the more delicate shades of pink and heliotrope, but some 30 INTR OD UCTION. fulvous, others pearly, all diaphanous ; occasionally two or more apparently united for an instant, and a vivid flash of yet another colour new to me was produced, which, glowing intensely, seemed to burn itself out with wondrous reful- gence, and change into a mass of iridescent syenite. My descriptions of such visions did not appear to afford any information to Vcsey, who ex- horted me to idealise differently and "create new thoughts." One day, when urging me into iiis field of ideal speculation, I told him t»hat it lacked variety; this he attributed to the extraordinary development of my colour sense. "It has the sameness of Danics Paradiso,'' I complained. "The sameness of Paradise! It is only the ' Inferno' that lacks variety. Have you no better conception of future existence } Do you not know that heaven is Kalpa-Taroo, a tree of the imagination from which everyone gathers the fruit he expects } How otherwise could the heavens of true believers harmonise ^ The picture of Paradise drawn by and for the gold-keeping, jewel-worshipping, music-loving Jew is not satis- fying even to the modern cultured orthodox INTRO D UCTION. 3 1 Christian, who rightly regards the Biblical description as symbolic ; for some it has no attraction, others it actively repels. Yet every man will find the heaven or hell he expects ; the Jew his golden Jerusalem, the Hindu his Nirvhana, the Pagan his Olympus, the warrior his Valhalla, and the poor savage his happy hunting ground, for in the future state the ideals of this are realised." " Then the good Catholic his thousand or more years of purgatory, and some eternal fire," "The thousand or more years certainly, accord- ing to the believer's conception of a thousand years, but not for ever ; because no one who can conceive eternity believes he merits everlasting punishment." " Then the suffering is measured, not by the enormity of the evil wrought, but by the wrong- doer's conception of the punishment due.-*" " Exactly." "A belief in such injustice would add a new terror to death !" " Is it wrong to give a man what he conceives to be his just reward.' In physical life do not the sick, the weakly, the incompetent, suffer more than 3 2 INTR on UCTION. the strong, the healthy, the successful ? Are not misfortunes invariably accompanied with com- pensations ? Do you believe in the eternal fitness of things ? You, my friend, arc gravitating to the wrong end of the spectrum, instead of seeing in future existence an extended sphere of activity, greater knowledge, fresh powers, new desires, illimitable life, increasing variety ; you would confine yourself to an enlarged memory of the past, to live again and again the existences you have had, and renew the dreadful experiences of your slow development to your present not very enjoyable state of being!" " Is such my destiny ? " " Not if you will have it otherwise." " And you, Vcsey, what do you conceive to be your ultimate state ? " " Not Nirvhana ! At present I feel drawn towards the sun; I could luxuriate in its fierce warmth, gain new strength from its intense energy. Thence, ever onward, in illimitable, infinite space — there is ever room ! " " It is useless for me to attempt your idealisa- tions ; I must be useful at the other end of the spectrum." INTRODUCTIOX. 33 "With no other ambition than to become a dead, joyless, unenh'ghtened, motionless moon !" Here I may observe that these ideas were not speculative abstractions ; to Vesey they were real, living, almost tangible, realities. From that time he endeavoured to make his views more pleasing, and was assiduous in directing my attention to objects which had no attraction for me, and of which I could not understand the significance. One day when we had been com- paring the houri-haunted paradise of the Moslem with that heaven in which there is " no marriage," he remarked that sex was but an accident, just as " in a future state some of the beings cannot hide a fact in their past history, whilst others are perfectly inscrutable both as to the past and the present, and the attraction of each kind to the other far surpasses in intensity any phase of mundane passion." Soon it became evident to Vesey that he and I were attracted to mysticism from different poles ; the only thing we both held in common was a dislike of symbolism and detestation of ritual. When Vesey found that I was, to use his term, " at the other end of the spectrum," he helped me 34 INTR OD UCTION. to a better understanding of mysticism in its nearer relations to human life. We used to study together some of the problems which were sub- mitted to him for advice ; we would seek out cases of extraordinary psychical experiences, analyse, and comment upon them ; for a time he took an interest in this work, and even annotated a number of other people's experiences upon his own initiative, but this was not so interesting as the speculative mysticism which grew to a master passion and occupied him night and day. I suggested that he should write a' theory of apparitions ; some fragments only, scrawled upon the margin of theses drawn up by myself and submitted for his consideration, are all he wrote. From them it appears that he held that man after death has " other concerns than those which occupied his attention during life on earth ; the phantom or apparition is usually but a thought- picture deeply impressed upon the ever-living memory, and observable by those in whose nature there is a sufficiently responsive chord in active sympathy with that which sustained, received, the original impression." " Periodically or irregularly recurrent appari- (r. INTRODUCTION. 35 tions are usually produced by the individual after death, recalling to memory the experience of a certain fact of earth life; when, for instance, a wrong done is deeply felt and rankles in the soul of the sufferer, the remembrance of the injury surges up into the memory during post- humous life, and is dwelt upon with such in- tensity of feeling that the thought is observable by men in the flesh." " The malignant phantom possessing a hatred of certain natures, objects, or localities is some- times unable to follow the attractions of the newer life it has entered upon, and haunts those places or people, and is observable ; in time this per- version succumbs to other impulses, and if the apparitions do not wholly cease, they at least become harmless and occur at irregular intervals and without malicious intent." "Minor material disturbances, instead of being attributed to elementary spirits, should be traced to irregular action of earth-force, an energy closely allied in its nature to that which causes volcanic, seismic, and electric disturbances, and at times escapes from the throbbing and over-fatigued creature which we call the earth." 36 INTR OB UCTION. " The apparitions of phantoms of living persons, although less frequently perceived than the phan- toms of the dead, and attracting less attention, really deserve closer study at this time, for they prove that man is more than mere flesh and nerve, and they indicate his intimacy with the intelligent cosmos, or world force ; in like manner, from their rarity and the seemingly trivial circumstances which induce them, we comprehend better the like action of the posthumous phantom. It should also be remembered that man after death, possess- ing already a full knowledge of earth life, is not prompted by curiosity to live its details over again — thus spirit manifestation is often as accidental, both with regard to the cause and the apper- ception and the coincidence of observation, as is the ascertained apparition of a phantasm of a living person." Here I may explain that Vesey believed all occurrences were purposely brought about by world-force or the intelligent cosmos ; to him the word accidental had a different significance to that commonly assigned it, but in this instance he appears to use it in the ordinary sense. Apparently the most trivial occurrences would INTR DUCT TON. 3 7 attract him, because he perceived their psychical significance. " Coincidence," he remarked to me one dav, " has convinced more people of the existence of Providence than have all the miracles. It is the seeming miracle brought about in a natural manner which touches the soul - sense, and in- fluences for good a man who would be only bewildered by seeing a revised edition of the Bible passing through a solid brick wall. You know the case of the mill foreman who wore a pocketless suit, and one day so far transgressed the factory rules as to secrete a penknife about him ; he could never explain why he was impelled to do so ; he had never done it before ; he has never done it since ; but that day he did it ; and because he had the knife was able to save the life of his master, whose neckerchief or ' comforter ' had accidentally engaged with a fast rotating shaft, and hoisted the wearer to the ceiling. It appeared to ///cm a direct interposition of Provi- dence, and in like instances is almost always so regarded ; often as a direct answer to prayer for preservation. Of course, answered pra}'ers are much too frequent to be the result of accidental D 38 INTRODUCTION. coincidence : it is rare indeed that a request for a psychical favour is not accorded, and this is a further indication that a closer knowledge of the intelligent cosmos is not denied to those who desire it ; a guardian angel, a mentor, or an actual spiritual adviser is at the call of everyone, but as the manner of working is incomprehensible to many, I will explain it by assuming the case of an orthodox theologian who feels an overpowering impulse to read any particular book, from Volney's Ruins of Empires to Robert Elsmere. He believes that the impulse is the instigation of the devil to an act designed to tempt him from his belief; the temptation to read is always before him, his power to resist becomes weaker and weaker ; he prays that the temptation may be removed, or that he may have power to resist it. The next time the book is before him, open perhaps, he is about just to glance at its contents, when instantly there is a message, ' If you read you will become blind.' The dread of physical misfortune kills the desire ; he is saved from the temptation ; his faith is strengthened. There are messages which com- mand and impel one to do directly the opposite to what one has fully determined to do. When INTRO D UCTION. 39 one's will is subordinated to an impulse to the commission of an act at variance with reason, previous experience, and intention, the impulse is followed, and if a catastrophe is thereby avoided, the person warned and saved is blindly grateful to the spirit guide and becomes superstitious." After what I have reported of my first con- versation with Vesey, it seems hardly necessary to give his view of the manner in which the phantoms make themselves known : that they do not usually materialise in order to be observed, but act directly upon the sense nerve, or brain, awaken the memory of themselves in order to be at once recognised, and influence rather than compel action. " Our waking thoughts, our sleep- ing memories, the records of the whole of our past experiences arc available to the phantom, just as fully as is the actual mechanism by which we are actuated, and as the phantom knows that the idea of a stone wall obstructing our progress is quite as effective to change our path as the actual obstacle would be, he creates the idea as being less trouble- some than producing real masonry." " The fact that the phantom acts upon a higher plane than the material one should increase the 40 INTRODUCTION. dread we have of its interference rather than lessen the awe with which we regard it, for it is much easier to combat earthworks, of which our senses have cognizance, than struggle against the psychical wrongs done by malicious beings working on a plane where the mischief wrought is known to us only by the disastrous results to our psychical and material well-being." "The worst natural phantoms are those of persons whose earthly life is cut short before naturally developed ; particularly of those evilly inclined, who are killed whilst attempting some wicked act, and powerfully animated by lust or passion." "The worst unnatural phantoms are those of persons who, during earth life, have been able to attract to themselves some of the world-force, or energy, without intelligence." " Not one, nor a dozen, but legion," complained Vesey, " for they are possessed of that lowest of all attributes, the faculty of uniting ; of taking common action against the separate individual, just like fellows of a Society, or subscribers to a Trade's Union. Pah ! blinded by their own greed they do not see that ever)' work in creation points INTRO D UCTION. 4 1 to the evolution of the individual, so they linger, hindering all, and missing every chance of development." The stories which reached us, the experiences we ourselves had, and the cases in which Vesey was consulted were, Vesey declared, nearly all concerned with the work of the evil-disposed phantoms ; the recountal of them could serve no useful purpose, and the selection I have made is of those cases in which the higher principle is not wholly obscured. Three stories, however, do not properly come within this classification ; one, " A New Force," appears to me to warrant insertion, as illustrating a possible achievement on the material plane; the other, "The Face of Nature," is a narrative of Vesey 's, which in my opinion forecasts the direction of some of his later experiments; it was with others in a parcel of MSS. handed to me after his death, which took place suddenly, and was attributed to failure of the heart's action, though readers of the story may find indications of a more recondite cause. The story of Robert has been still more recently notified to me, and is introduced because the phantom has points which 43 INTRODUCTIOI^. differentiate it from others of the astral type, and, altliough the manifestations appear to have been motiveless, this publication of the particulars, together with the capital portrait of the phantom, drawn from memory by the artist to whom he appeared, may be a means to the identification of the person, and lead to the elucidation of the mystery connected with its periodical reappear- ance. r^ TIic Dark Sliadozv, IN November, 1888, I was ordered to relieve Nurse Rose at Ikacknal House, Kbcry, where she liad been her full term of six weeks. It was a hopeless case, and I had of late had so many that I felt disheartened, and was so dismayed at the cheerless aspect of the deserted, straggling village, and more particularly of the lonely house on its outskirts, that I was inclined to sacrifice my career and return forthwith to Kyrwick with Nurse Rose : many times since I have wished that I had done so. Nurse Rose was not long in getting away ; a farmer drove her to the station. I watched the spring- cart as long as it was in sight, then shut the heavy iron gate in the old high wall, and burst out crying. I walked slowly up the weedy path through the neglected and desolate garden, with its dark gloomy evergreens and leafless old trees. It was already becoming dark, and I saw, or thought I saw, some- thing like a luiman figure, dimly discernible, 44 THE DARK SHADOW. crouching behind some overgrown and gnarled espah'ers at the far end of the garden. I hastened to the front door, which I had left ajar ; but it closed with a bang before I reached it, and no sooner had the echo it produced died out than I heard an ominous chuckle ; it seemed close at my side. There was nothing for it but to make my way round by the espaliers to the other door, and this I did with face averted and as fast as my legs could take me. The little village girl, our sole establishment, was astonished to sec me out of breath and sobbing in her kitchen ; my manner frightened her, and she never got over her aversion, which was unfortunate, for she and her mother, who came once or twice to char, were the only people to speak to. My unfortunate patient, however, required constant care. Poor woman, I hardly knew how to take her at first ; she was so importunate, so querulous, so insistent upon constant and im- mediate attention, that I thought she would weary me to death ; but I found that it was because she was afraid to be alone, and not that she had determined to have the full value of her money in service, as it is the manner of some coarse THE DARK SHADOW. 45 natures to exact. For fifty years she had lived alone and uncared for in that dreary village, unloving and unloved ; there appeared to be no relative to solace her age, or comfort her dying moments with sympathy. To the doctor also she was almost a stranger, and although she suffered from a wondrous number of diseases, not one had the merit of being uncommon or interesting. Chronic bronchitis, with dropsy, a sphacelitic limb and senile atrophy, are merely trouble- some and hopeless. It was indceda dj;cadfu[ti^me. The close, stuffy sick-room with bronchitis-kettle always steaming, and the air reeking of Iodoform, nauseous com- pounds, and the ever-prevailing odour of death ; the huge four-post bedstead and its heavy curtains; the heavy, well-polished press ; the equally sub- stantial and inelegant chest-upon-chest ; the dirty and foxed engravings in their worm-eaten frames; the badly-polished bare floor and rush-bottomed, cruelly angular, and impossible chairs ; these and other reminders of that age when people regarded hardship, torture, and agony as daily necessaries, all added to the prevailing gloom — a gloom which was not enlivened by such glimpses of day as 46 THE DARK SHADOW. one obtained through the small latticed window, o'ershadowed by the huge arms of an elm from which the vigour of youth had long since departed. Then the doctor, a grumpy, dried-up, ill-at- easc old bachelor, whom nothing could please, barely noticed me — I suppose I have Nurse Rose to thank for that — and had nothing to say to his patient. Then the mild-faced, soulless curate, who was a sort of hereditary incumbent, nephew to a vicar who invariably wintered in the South and passed the summer in Scotland. The charwoman, Kate's mother, a grasping, cruel, bargain-driving peasant woman, and a young, very boorish, taci- turn farmer, who drove me back to the station at Soltun-in-the-Marsh, were the only other persons to whom I spoke except the village lawyer, Mr. Shum. He came but once, ostensibly to see Mrs. Bailey, and assure me that the nursing-fee would be paid ; really I think to see me ; for he asked me to visit him at Frog Hall — what a name for a house! — on Sunday afternoon and try his Madeira. A would- be waggish and not at all nice man, Mr. Shum. I was glad when his visit ended. Then out of doors dull November ; dead leaves strewn thickly over dank grass, and muddy roads, O- THE DARK SHADOW. 47 rotten sticks which cracked, and bursting acorns which crunched beneath one's feet ; a sleepy- village, with dirty cottages, dilapidated church, and a barn for a school ; pools of water in fields and roads, and ponds hidden by dead rushes ; drizzle, fog, the churchyard smell of Nature in extremis ; no paint, no life, no colour, no solidity anywhere visible ; rather decrepit walls, worn-out thatch, cracking boughs, huge, waving black poplars — their sooty trunks at every angle but a right one — moist leaves and skeletons of leaves; old withered hags ; children of stunted growth ; dejected curs too ill to yelp ; heavy-limbed, leaden-eyed, listless men ; lazy pigs rooting for offal. Such are my recollections of Ebery. All through, the house was cheerless. In the damp, unused hall an old mildewed hunting-whip hung against the wall over the head of a mangy fox, which, cut off close behind the ears, and with only one glass eye, grinned like a death's head at a moth-eaten jay perched in a broken case over the door. The rooms were even more gloomy : threadbare carpets, the furniture rickety and angular and scant ; the curtains thin, colourless, and patched ; the linen blinds of Isabella hue and 48 THE DARK SHADOW. full of holes, and the ceiling cracked and dirty, and ornamented with long-deserted cobwebs ; and peering into the gloom of the corners one noticed tiny heaps of wood dust and the shrivelled-up corpses of insects long since dead. There was no sign of life, neither cat, nor dog, neither mouse nor fly ; a stray reptile which had wandered from the congenial dampness of the moss-covered yard had yielded its low life, and lay mummified on the flagged floor at the edge of a mat too rotten to raise. * On the second day Kate, our tiny, juvenile maid-of-all-work, told me that on the third floor, in the room farthest from that in which my patient lay, a man lived. "The woman's son," she said, "a poor creature, but evil disposed ; at enmity with his dying mother, and barely able to keep life in his own body." Kate attended to him, but he mostly foraged for himself when she was absent from the kitchen, for he possessed the cunning common to those whose intellect has only in part developed. For more than a fortnight my life there was simply dull. There was no change in the condition of the patient ; she was not only resigned to death, but anxious for a termination to her suffering. The * THE DARK SHADOW. 49 little girl attended to us as she was able, but was an unconscionable time on her errands. The doctor came in and hummed and hahed ; the curate called thrice, the postman called once — with a note for mc from the matron — and time dragged on, my odd hours being spent in reading aloud Paley's Evidences, or Jeremy Taylor's Holy Dying, to my listless patient. The monotony was becoming dreadful ; it wanted but a month to Christmas, and it seemed possible that I should have to while it away amidst the in festivity of Ebery. In the middle drawer of the chest-upon-che.st was a little store of money upon which wc drew for our daily supplies. As I saw it dwindle to very small proportions, I fear I longed for it to become exhausted ; only in order to see where the next supply, if any, would come from ; everything was so insulse. My patient, I thought, took very little interest in it, until one day she accidentally lisped something which made me more careful of her trifling hoard ; she was not a lovable object, barely likable, but really I felt more for her than for many who were far more interesting. On the last Friday in November I noticed a 50 THE DARK SHADOW. change ; there could be no doubt she was sinking fast. This the doctor corroborated ; she had repeatedly asked him when the end would come. He was now able to tell her. "At four o'clock to-day," he said shortly. He bade her a more kindly farewell than I thought him capable of, gave me a few final instructions, bade mc good- bye, and went. My patient seemed much relieved ; she would not allow me to send for the curate, " Not again, nurse, not again — you will stay with pie — tell no one," she whispered. Of course I reassured her, and I told no one. "When's her goin' to dic.^" asked Kate bluntly, the next time I entered the kitchen. I answered as kindly as I could. "'Cos I ain't a goin' to stay here while hcr's dyin'. Mother says I needn't." " What has your mother to do with it .'' " " D 'yer think I 'd be here now if 't warn't fur mother.' Her'd thrape mc if I went whum, but her sed I needn't stay while her's dyinV " Are you afraid .'' " " Afeared ! A course I 'm afeared, so you '11 be by-and-bye. I suppose you dursen't leave ,'' " • THE DARK SHADOW. 51 " I should not think of leaving, nor must you," I replied, and I escaped quickly from the kitchen, for there was something in the girl's manner which alarmed me. Slowly the hours went by, the silence broken only by the often reiterated " How long ? " or "What time is it now?" of my patient, in whose condition there was no change. As it grew dusk I put the clock on half an hour and lit my small lamp. Four o'clock came ; five o'clock ; my patient grew restless. Six ; seven ; she accused me of deceiving her. And so on until midnight, when she fell into a troubled sleep. In the morning she seemed stronger, but depressed in spirits, and I could not rouse her. On Saturdays Kate's mother went to char at Frog Hall. No one came to Bracknal House. Hour after hour crawled slowly by. My patient besought me to end her suffering; if only I would give her a treble dose of medicine, or snatch from under her the pillows on which she was propped ; anything which would snap the slender thread which held her to this world. These requests were so earnest, so often repeated, the state of the patient so piteous, that I fear I became somewhat unnerved. Once only I looked 52 THE DARK SHADOW. out of the window ; and saw an old man with his spade over his shoulder limping towards the churchyard. I turned quickly away, and my patient recommenced. She upbraided me with want of heart ; reproached me for my attentions to her, and cried at my refusal to do her wish. "If I only had more money to give, you would do it, you know you would," she gasped exasper- atingly, and all I could do was to sit at the dressing table, with my back towards her, my head upon my hand, and bear with it. All through that long Saturday, all through the long, long dreary night, I had to hear it ; often with hands clenched and grinding teeth, and my heart listening to what I could not shut my ears to. At last day broke. My patient was worn, and I half mad ; our solitude was unbearable. I told Kate she would have to sit with my patient, and I — went to church : made my way through the thick fog which hung over the village, but cleared to show me a newly-dug grave yawning beneath the dripping yew. Everyone knew that Mrs. Bailey was dead ; the doctor had told them so. They appeared, too, surprised to see me, but after service no one spoke to me except the doctor. 0- ' THE DARK SHADOW. 53 "Why has not Shum sent up his man to take you to the station ? " he asked. I told him it was probably because his patient was not yet dead. " She died at four o'clock on Friday afternoon," he said. "Confound it, won't you understand .''" " I am afraid I do not." The doctor fumed. " The thing is doncl' he said. " I made out the certificate yesterday, Fluck has it now, he'll be round for the body to-morrow. You understand, don't you .'' " " I think it will be best for you to come with me now," I answered. " 1 1 Oh, no, not again. I can do nothing. Good morning." I went back alone, Kate seemed stupefied with terror at having been left so long ; in an hour or so things resumed their usual course. As soon as possible I shut out the heavy day, but I could not make the room cheery ; even my lamp refused to burn, and had to be replaced with snuffy candles. As I turned over the words of the doctor, and looked at the patient, I thought it strange that the woman was not dead. " Why could she not die ? " Perhaps I spoke the question ; at any rate the E 54 THE DARK SHADOW. patient understood ; she groaned. " I will tell you, nurse, I will tell you. I shall not die to-day unless j^« — ah, you won't! but listen to me." I drew a chair near, and bent over to hear her story, told in short gasps : painfully, discon- nectedly, but understandable. More than fifty years ago, she said, she had loved the man who owned the house in which we were. During his absence she was faithless, or rather was coerced into marrying Mr. Bailey, a man of fierce temper and violent disposition, and who was both cruel and resentful. When her lover returned he committed suicide, " here in this room," she gasped — " with a saddle-pistol — at dead of night, on the last day of November, fifty years ago." " And your husband } " " He swore that I had been false, and left me, but vowed that — in fifty years — dead or alive — he would return and be avenged on me. ' When your dead lover will no longer be able to protect you,' as he said." " But your husband is dead } " " Yes, yes, dead." " And your son .-' " r^ THE DARK SHADOW. 55 " That thiug ! He hates me — hates me — more than his father did." *' But you have not injured him ? " " No, but — I could not love — him — and he has — cursed me." " What can you fear } None can hurt you." " What can you know, child ? For fifty years I have never been outside but ill befell me, it is only here — in the house where he died — that there is peace — for I am forgiven by Judi ; I must join him before the other returns," "No, no," I replied quickly, "you will soon be at peace ; where nought can trouble you more." " No. It is not true." The death-bed is no place for argument. My patient was terribly agitated, so anxious did she appear to hear my answer, that her look frightened me. I took her hard, wrinkled hand in mine, and kneeling prayed for her earnestly, and as I prayed I heard short mocking laughs, and at each she clutched at my hand convulsively as if in terror. I dared not look up, my tongue was stilled, I shook with fright. Then all was silent except the heavy short breathing of the patient, her broken sobs and bronchial hiss. In time I gained sufficient 56 THE DARK SHADOW. courage to look up. Her terror-stricken gaze filled me with despair ; I would have prayed but could not. My patient was the first to speak. " You are afraid." " No, no," I answered. " Then pray," 1 could not. I passed my hand over my face, tried to persuade myself that I was only weak, nervous from long watching, that really I was not afraid ; but I got up from the bedside, and said that I would call Kate to serve ted — that I felt faint. The look of anguish on my patient's face as I made these poor excuses was heart-rending, and filled me with shame. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding her piteous appeal to remain with her, I went along the corridor to the head of the stairs, and called Kate. There was no answer. I went down to the kitchen ; it was empty, and the fire had burned out. I called again and again, but obtained no reply. Loneliness brought back the feeling of fright, and I turned upstairs eager for companionship — even that of my dying patient. I paused at the top of the stairs, determining to regain courage. Everything was explicable. THE DARK SHADOW. 57 Kate had run away home. There was nothing to fear ; no harm could come to me. I ought to be ashamed of my cowardice. I was too familiar with death for that to frighten me, and these and kindred thoughts resolved me to be brave; but my newly-recovered courage quickly left me, when, as I neared the bedroom door, I heard sounds which my patient, bedridden as she was, could not possibly have made. Footsteps were audible, the drawing out of drawers, angry exclamations, splutterings, mingled with the groans of my patient. I remember peering into the room and seeing the strange form of a man, at the head of the bed, bending over it. I drew hastily back. Then came a faint cry, "Nurse! Nurse!" I fear that I staggered rather than walked into the room. Something told me that it was only the son ; and with any living creature I felt able to deal. This strange creature was gesticulating violently a few inches from his mother's face, muttering incoherently, occasionally spluttering words which were half intelligible, " Papersh crrsse." " What is it you want .-* " I asked firmly. He turned his face towards me, a small, pinchcd-up 58 THE DARK SHADOW. hairless face, with eyes deep sunken, and lips drawn tightly across broken teeth. He was wretchedly clothed, and his ill-shapen form thin to attenuation ; his limbs were long, but his body bowed — a tabid, flcshless, cretinous creature who might have been seventeen or seventy for all one could tell, but evidently weak and unable to control his movements. He hissed a reply, the import of which I did not understand. " You must go, if you please," I said. " I have to attend to my patient." He understood, for he expostulated energeti- cally. "At once, please," I said, holding the door. I never saw a face so full of evil, perfectly demoniacal in its malignance. " Crsse womssh," he hissed ; but he did not go. Unfortunately I could not hear my patient, nor could I approach closer whilst he was there. I therefore grasped him firmly by the arm, thinking to remove him ; but as my fingers closed I felt that he was as strong and unyielding as one in a cataleptic fit, and instinctively my fingers relaxed until there was but the slightest pressure. "You THE DARK SHADOW. 59 must go now, please," I said. " Come again if you wish — in an hour." Somewhat to my surprise he yielded, reluctantly it is true, and with jerky movements made his way to the door, hissing and muttering and gesticulating wildly with his hands. No sooner had he passed the threshold than I sprang to the door, shut it upon him, and locked it. He turned in a terrific fury, hammered at the door, and made the house echo with weird, horrible noises. I appreciated the mistake I had made, and opened the door, but blocked the entrance by confronting him. " Have you forgotten anything 1 " I asked as calmly as I could. A grimace was his only reply. " Come when you will after eight o'clock," I continued, " but come quietly ; you must go now." I tendered him a candle, pretending it was that he had forgotten. He motioned that he did not need it, and turned a\yay. " The door will be unlocked after eight, but do not trouble us without cause," I called after him. The poor patient was decidedly worse. I com- forted her as well as circumstances permitted. I 6o THE DARK SHADOW. must confess that I was elated at the success of my encounter with the intruder. After I had made and taken tea, and thought the matter over, I concluded that my senses had been deceived, and that I had frightened myself needlessly ; in short, I recovered m)- nerve, and awaited composedly to carry out whatever wishes my patient might express. She requested that I should read to her, and this I did. It seemed to distract her attention from herself, but not for long; then she made me promise that I would not leave her again that night for anything; to this I agreed. ' I sat close to the bed and kept her hand in mine, only loosing it when I needed both to minister to her wants. I remember well looking into her face, and trying to trace in the coarse features the beauty which half a century before had attracted two men, and years before that had doubtless been the happy, smiling face of a child. I was not very successful, for surely never were human lineaments so brutalised by selfishness and fear ; but I felt an intimacy as of years. What little there was in her life I knew, and I remember that I felt puzzled then, as I am puzzled now, as to what useful purpose such an existence as hers had been could serve. THE DARK SHADOW. 6i She regarded me as her sole hope, gazed at me with a look of longing that was akin to love, and listened to every trifling thing I said, as though her salvation depended upon understanding it. No one, I am sure, had extended sympathy to her, and it was iliat she lacked. My talk was of such trifling matters as are distinctly human, and she became so far interested as to forget her immediate state. I was pleased that I had calmed her terrors, and she appeared to be so grateful for the relation of the few trifling private occurrences which concerned only myself, that I ventured to tell her of a weightier matter, one which I ap- proached with some diffidence, and blushing like a school girl ; a matter 1 would have confided to a loving mother, perhaps to one other ; but its relation to this poor dying woman was as pleasing to her as it was surprising to me. How I came to say so much I do not know ; perhaps because I knew she was dying, and would keep my poor little secret. Of course I was crying when my story finished, and the tears were rolling down her fat, furrowed cheeks too. It was unutterably silly, but I kissed her; then dried my eyes, and stood at the foot of the bed looking at her confusedly. 62 THE DARK SHADOW. "God bless you, dear," she wliispcred, and turned her face away. Perhaps I had touched a chord wliich the orthodox and usual conversation would have missed. Then I sat down at the table and wrote for a short time in my journal ; read again to my patient, but she seemed to wish to chat. She complimented me upon the prettincss of our uniform, expressed herself as satisfied with the white cuffs and the long streamers to the cap. I wished to humour her, and crossed over and snuffed the candle, that she could sec better, and she told mc that I was really handsome and carried my odd years like a girl of seventeen. I just bowed my head and replaced the snuffers, and when I looked up I saw a man's face staring at mc out of the highly polished wood of the wardrobe. I remember that I drew a very quick breath, and the face, which had anything but a pleasing expression upon it, slowly died away from view as I looked. I did not cr)' out; I do not think that I betrayed my fear by any tremor. I could not trust myself to speak, nor should I have spoken of what I had seen ; but the very silence seemed to convey a knowledge of all to the dying woman. T//£ DARK SHADOW. 6^ " What time ? " she murmured. " A quarter past twelve," I replied. " No. You arc fast." I remembered then that I had put on my clock fully thirty minutes the day upon which she was to have died. " Perhaps," I replied. " Yes, yes. Do not leave me — you do not know." Then came some terrible gasps, and she was shaken with convulsive tremors. I made a supreme effort to be calm ; I felt that I must see something beyond that terrible room. I went to the window, and pulling aside the blind looked out into the night. I was surprised to sec that the fog had lifted, the moon shone brightly, the whole garden from the house to the gate was clearly visible. There was of course no one stirring; the silence was only broken by the dripping of the fog-damp from the boughs. As I gazed at the gate I distinctly heard it clang as though pushed to in haste, but it had not stirred. There was something coming along the path, for I heard the footsteps as of a person stealing, as on tip-toe, towards the house ; it was clearer than day, but I could see no one— no thing. 64 THE DARK SHADOW. " Nurse — nurse — it comes ! "' I went to the bed, and took the woman's hand in mine ; she clung to it with all the strength of her feeble grasp. "I will not leave you," I stammered. Again that face appeared in the wardrobe — ivas there when I looked, and faded away before my gaze. The head of the bedstead was towards the door. I stood with my back to the door, facing the fire- place ; on my left, the window ; on the right, the bed ; and beyond it, at the foot, the table, with the candle burning brightly upon it. I am thus particular because the occurrences of that night can be set down only as I remember them, not perhaps in the order of their e.xact sequence. First (of that I am sure) the son came into the room, staggering, staring blindly, and ever blinking his strange deeply-sunk eyes. He groped his way to the wardrobe, opened it, and passed his hands along the upper shelves ; brought from there a small bundle of yellow papers, waved them above his head in an unmeaning fashion, and with them tottered from the room. His young-old wizened face, his terribly emaciated frame, and his ex- THE DARK SHADOW. 6$ pression of wicked cunning, I can see now as plainly as though he stood before me as he did then, and as I write I hear the peculiar chuckle, the only sound he made then. His footsteps died away in the corridor. All around, in the house and out of it, everything was still — still as the dreadful calm before the hurricane. The silence was broken by two sharp blows, as though struck with a withy switch on the window- pane. There was a firmer grip of my hand, a muttered cry of " Help ! " and I reeled as I saw glide into the room a shapeless, shadowy pillar of sooty blackness, larger than human size, but with a form no better defined than that of a huge cactus : without marks, or lines, or excrescences. It passed round to the foot of the bed, my gaze firmly riveted upon it. For a moment it passed between me and the candle, and obscured the light, and I remember noticing that the bronchitis-kettle on the fire ceased to emit its tiny puff of steam ; then it again moved to the foot of the bed, and the room instantly and perceptibly darkened, just like the darkening of the stage at a second-rate theatre, when they alter the scene from noonday to dusk. Then this thing extended ; as it were a 66 THE DARK SHADOW. shapeless shadowy arm, or limb ivas stretching from one side and closing the door of the wardrobe ; then instantly another, like the trunk of an elephant, reached out to the candle, enveloped, and extinguished it ; all in very much less time than I can recall the memory. Then, in the glow of the fire and the dim light of the moon shining through the dirty, stained blinds, this sooty shadow extended upwards, bent under the canopy of the bedstead, reached in a straight line from the head to the foot of the bed immediately above the dying woman, then spread out in breadth and descended. There was a bright flash of light, a loud shriek from the corridor, a convulsive tug at my hand ; voices, the hurrying of many feet, low groans, ear-piercing yells, sobs, stifled cries — but I had swooned. When I recovered, the room was still dark, and I was alone. The candle had burned out in the socket ; there was a dull, red glow from the lower bars of the grate, and all was still, the silence broken only by the almost inaudible slow ticking of my clock. I knew that my patient was dead. There is very little more to tell. The affairs of Cr. THE DARK SHADOW. 67 the dead arc no concern of mine, and the little I said to the doctor next day elicited only the fact that Mrs. Bailey had occupied the house at a peppercorn rent for fifty years. The lease ended, strange to say, the day of her death; and as she appeared to be very poor it is possible that this may have made her anxious to quit the world when she did. My stay at the house of the dark shadow almost terminated my career as a nurse. My nerve was shattered, and for a long time I was too ill to undertake any duty. However, twelve months amid the brighter surroundings of a convalescent home have assisted my recovery, although, I am sure, the events will never fade from my memory, nor, I fancy, will their freshness be impaired by new adventures. Retribution. I. THE sun had set, and the throng gathered on the gibbet-hill over against Durbuy dis- persed. A few lingered expecting that at sundown the death's man, Maclet, would administer the coup de grace to Bosly Velroux, whom he had that morning broken on the wheel, and who now lay groaning on the triangle ten feet above their heads. The bourrcaii, however, satisfied with his work, had no inclination to again mount the scafibld, and his young assistant had no liking for the horrid task ; so the two climbed up into their cart, taking their twine and wire with them, and made a seat of the hurdle upon which the wretched Bosly had been drawn out of the town in the morning. No one cared to stay longer, and the idlers, although they would not ride with the executioners, followed closely at the tail of the vehicle, and descended to the inhabited valley. 0. RETRIBUTION. 69 Very dim were the shadows thrown by the scaffold and its hideous burden, before any human creature again trod the high land ; then as dusk mingled with darkness a young girl came from the direction of the hamlet of Rom, and with quick steps made her way directly to the scaffold. She peered up anxiously at the wheel, from which the blood was still dripping. " Bosly ! Bosly ! " she called. A groan was the reply. She drew out from under her blouse a long thin rope of knotted hay-bands, and removing her sabot, tied one end round it, put a fragment of limestone in the toe, and pitched it high into the air. After several attempts she succeeded in getting it over a cross-bar of the scaffold, then drew the two ends towards one of the three uprights supporting the triangle, twisted the rope round the post, made the ends fast, and quickly scaled to where the wheel lay. " Bosly ! my Bosly ! " she sobbed. She wiped the blood and froth from his mouth and nostrils with some damp lint she had brought. "They said thou wert living, and I came, my Bosly ! " F 70 RETRIBUTION. The man looked at her and recognised her. "Mis(S," he groaned. " Thy Mist* ! and thou know'st me ? " She placed a drinking-flask of bcechwood to his lips, and he gulped down the contents greedily. She looked at his terrible wounds, and clenched her hands in grief and miserj'. "Thou hast not forgotten, Mise," he murmured. " I live but to avenge thee, my Bosly. Oh cruel ! cruel ! " Her sobs stayed her words. " Listen my Mise ! Jean Bex is now at Barvaux." "I will kill him wherever he may be." "Not if thou hatcst him — his torment must endure longer than mine. Thou hatest him, Misd-.?" " Even as thou dost, my Bosly." " Thou forgettest not thy oath t " " Until thou art avenged seven score times thy Mis(§ cannot forget." " God give thee strength, my Misd" " The good God will give thy Mis^ strength to avenge thee." "Amen! Amen!" " Thou must go, Mise." " Not whilst thou art in torment." "If thou'rt seen here they'll kill thee, Mis^ ; 0. RETRIBUTION. 71 burn thee in the market-place at Marche, or cast thee into the donjon at Laroche." " I fear not, my Bosly." " What seest thou, Mis6 ? " "'Tis but the crows flying near, I will not leave thee, Bosly." " The crows ! " A look of terror came upon his face. The girl bent low and kissed him repeatedly. "Thy father knoweth that I confessed nothing at the torture." " He hath told me." "At the fifth coqiicviari I accused Nycs, Jesu forgive me. Is he free .'' " " Free as air, my Bosly. Thou wcrt brave, and thou goest from me " " 'T is not they, 't is Bex who accused falsely. 'T is he who leaves thy Bosly to languish in torment till the crows eat his living " " No ! no ! my Bosly ! " " Thou art brave, my Mise." " Canst thou ask it ? " " Thou wilt not leave thy Bosly to be killed by the foul beasts of the air } " " Aye, even so much I dare." " Promise ! " 72 RETRIBUTION. " I promise." " See how brightly the stars shine, my Mis6. Even as they thou wilt be if thou dost as thou hast vowed." "Then the brightest of all stars, thy Mise." "And no crow so black, no beast so foul as thee, if thou breakest thy vow ! " " Break my vows after seeing thee thus mangled here ! I could serve them as thou art served, and strike but one blow a year that their torment mifjht endure the longer." Her savagery pleased him. " Tell me again how thou hatest him," he pleaded. " I hate him as I love thee, with all my soul." So they talked, until the cold night air heightened the fever of Bosly Velroux, and thus before daybreak it was only a dead body that Misd guarded, and into the heart of which she plunged again and again the short miscricorde she had picked up on a deserted battle-field. Then in the bright autumn morning she made her way over the crisp grass to the Devil's Seat overlooking the swift-flowing Ourthe at Barvaux, and tore her rope of knotted bands into hay by the way. RETRIBUTION. 73 II. It was not often that Horace Vesey was favoured with a call by Dr. Victor Colquhon ; for the latter was a young man with a rapidly-growing practice, and although his increasing fortune was due to his success in the hypnotic treatment of dipso- maniacs, kleptomaniacs, and other decadents, he had to some extent forsaken the " promise of his spring," and joined forces with the materialistic section. He had taken as his motto Facta non verba. He practised, he did not preach. The facts of animal magnetism satisfied him ; he had no time for ideas ; so that, although he was constantly employed, he made no progress — that is to say what Vesey considered progress ; the Income Tax Commissioners thought differently. Dr. Colquhon, however, was not disinclined to consult Vesey whenever he had a case which was not within a reasonable time amenable to mesmeric influence, and he now had a patient who troubled him sorely. " He was introduced to me by Wimpole of 74 RETRIBUTION. Stockton, or Sunderland, or some place that way," said Colquhon, " suffering from insomnia. Of course he had been drugged to death, and was half poisoned with morphia when I first had him. A very difficult case, but after a time I became hopeful ; but then I knew only part of the truth. Progress was checked, the patient grew rapidly worse. I knew that something was being withheld, but at last he told me all. I have the story written out ; for I knew you idealists rely upon an exact substratum of fact. Read it and tell me what you think." " What opinion have you formed .' " asked Vesey. "Oh, the man is mad, there is no doubt about that ; but I want to cure him, and I am persuaded that vou can tell me how." Ube Statement q>X Raines 3Becbinan. "I was born at G in the year 1861. So far as I know I have no hereditary taint. Until after my marriage I enjoyed perfect health, and in the year 1884 was accepted as a first-rate risk by the Life Assurance Co, for ;i^3,000, which policy was made over to M , now my wife, by an RETRIBUTION. 75 ante-nuptial settlement. With reference to M , she is two years my junior, I felt drawn towards her when we first met (a year and a half before marriage), it being a case of what Goethe terms elective affinity. I was quite happy when she consented to be my wife. From the day of our first meeting to the moment of writing this paper we have never quarrelled, nor has there been any serious disagreement between us. My wife, both before and since our marriage, has had good health, and the trouble I have experienced has never been felt by her; and although she is very sympathetic in other matters, she is, apparently, quite unconcerned at my sufferings — she says they are wholly imaginary. "My trouble commenced during our honeymoon; I am unable to fix the exact date. My earliest recollection is of a sensation : the feeling one has upon awakening after a bad dream, the details of the dream itself being entirely forgotten. I dreamed but rarely before I was married ; after- wards, as I have stated, I remember being awakened by a sort of nightmare. At first the impressions of the dream were faint, and I quickly fell asleep again. The next night, or the next 76 RETRIBUTION. night but one, the dream would be repeated ; then it occurred not only every night, but twice, even thrice, and the details were all forgotten on awakening, but the impression ever grew. The sense of oppression increased ; the agony became so great I dared not, after awakening, again fall asleep. V>y my side my wife lay sleeping calmly and happily, a sweet smile on her baby face, and often her hand thrown over me as in the caress with which she dozed into unconsciousness. I took a sleeping-draught; for one night my slumber was undisturbed, but I arose in the morning unrefreshcd. Repeating the experiment, I found to my dismay that the opiate not only failed to prevent the recurrence of the dream, but increased the agonising sensation I always experienced on awakening. I at once consulted Dr. W . lie attributed the restlessness to business worries, and prescribed a change of air and scene. It was impossible to act upon his suggestion at once, but I arranged fur a short continental tour, and started as soon as business engagements allowed. "At that time the after-effects of the dream were felt by me as a distinct sensation of pain in V RETRIBUTION. 77 my right arm and leg, a terrible oppression of the chest, and a prevailing languor I cannot specify. The remedies prescribed by the doctors were taken; all had the same effect — they heightened the sensation, and the insomnia increased. I therefore discontinued medicine, and took narcotics but sparingly, and only when in fits of des- peration. " The tour my wife and I had planned was through Brussels and the Belgian Ardennes to Luxemburg, thence to the Black Forest, and home by Strasburg and Paris. We stayed at Ghent and Bruges, and there my malady increased. At Brussels I first remembered the dream — that terrible tragedy I have endured so many hundreds of times since. " I felt that I was bound to a wheel ; that with a heavy bar of iron some person struck at me, breaking each of my limbs, not always at the first blow, for in all thirteen blows were felt, the two last crushing in the ribs of my right and left sides respectively. The pain was excruciating and the languor intolerable ; I felt beside myself with frenzy. But all these details I have already given you by word of mouth. 78 RETRIBUTION. " We hurriedly left Brussels, and the next place at which we stayed was Barvaux. I had never been there before, indeed had never been out of England, but the place seemed strangely familiar. As we walked over the hills to Durbuy I saw nothing that was fresh; the ruined chapel, the arched cliffs, the woods, the slaty-topped hills — one and all I had seen somewhere. I did not need to ask or to be shown the way. Durbuy bored us, and we walked out to an adjoining hamlet, the name of which I forget if I ever knew it, but the locality was familiar. Then we walked towards Barvaux. Tired, we sat down to rest. After the manner of those suff"cring from insomnia I dozed. The dream came again, more vivid than ever before. The wheel I saw was now mounted on a triangular scaffold right where we were, one corner pointing to Barvaux, the other to Durbuy. I could have shrieked with terror, but nothing, my wife states, escaped my lips. "After I had endured my martyrdom, and sunk into that ever-increasing agony which is death, I noticed that a figure was regarding me. In time, for I was feeble and confused with the torture I endured, I saw the face of the figure which looked 0. RETRIBUTION. 79 upon me and gloated over my anguish — it was the face of my wife ! " I can write no more you do not already know. We left that accursed district at once. Dr. W persuaded me to confide in you. You know that your treatment for a time alleviated my suffering. The dream returns, is ever-recurrent ; many, many times a day I have had to endure it, and always with the full details as for the first time experienced at Barvaux. Is it to /ci// me ? Will it first drive me mad? Is there nothing in medicine, nothing in science, which will give me twenty-four, aye twelve, or even six hours' relief? My torment is unendurable." Vesey read without showing that he felt the least interest or sympathy. He tossed the paper idly aside, asking, " Have you his wife's statement ? " " Great Scott, no!" vehemently replied Colquhon. " Well, you advised a separation, of course." " Naturally." " And it does not succeed, or you would not be here." " I think it might have done, but the fellow would not keep away, or go far enough away. I So RETRIBUTION. \vorked very hard ; he was the very worst subject to hypnotise I ever met. If it had not been that I was proud of my reputation in the matter, I should not have persevered to the extent I did. Well, to some extent he got better, and I had him so far under control that he at last consented to take a voyage in a sailing ship to New Zealand, and leave his wife here with her friends. The fellow had not been gone three months before he was back ; got put ashore, or aboard a passing vessel, and turns up declaring that he was worse whilst going away than when returning." Vcsey did not appear to have been listening, lie had before him two large musty folios he had reached from one of the closed presses, and was calmly turning over the leaves. " There is no doubt this is the case mentioned in a note to Damhoudere, the Antwerp folio edition of 1648 ; if so, full particulars are contained in the ' Archives du grand Grefitc des Echevins,' province of Liege. It appears that some time during the rule of Archbishop Ernest, probably about 1609, one Bosly Velroux was broken on the wheel at Durbuy for some outlawry. Later, during the period of Ferdinand, a woman called Mise de Rom, r^ RETRIBUTION. 8i or Derome, was accused of witchcraft at Laroche by one Jean Bex ; he testified that by her sorcery she caused him great suffering and damage both to body and effects. This she denied. Put to the torture, she accused Bex of having sworn falsely and brought about the execution of the man Velroux, and attributed the misery of Bex to the remorse he felt at having caused the degradation and punishment of an innocent man. There appears to have been some investigation made ; for Bex adhered to his statement later, and specified the particular witchcraft, as being tortured with brodequins and the wheel, and declared that on these occasions he saw the accused Mise sitting on the scaffold looking at him and gloating over his anguish. The woman was then again put to the torture, and declared that on the night of the execution she had climbed on to the scaffold and conversed with the culprit, and her words were written down ; and she made oath that her accuser knew at the time of this, and that it was his own conscience which troubled him. This declaration was sufficient to warrant Bex being put to the torture, and we arc informed that he died at the seventh coquemart. How this fact was twisted 82 RETRIBUTION, round as corroborative evidence of the guilt of Mise only a grcffier of that epoch could make clear; but there is no doubt that Miso, after lying for a time in a donjon of Laroche Castle, was duly executed upon the accession of Maxi- milian Henry to the episcopate ; that is to say, about 1O50." " And the only evidence you have to connect tlicse two is the fancied retrocognition of a land- scape by a hypersensitive neuropath ? " " I have sufficient evidence to convince me ; it is you who need the proof of connecting links." " I do not hold the theory of reincarnation." " Of course you do not. Whoever would think you guilty of that heresy, Vic. .'' " " Have your little joke, since it pleases you. You overlook the fact that it is no trifling matter to this poor fellow. Take a serious view of the case." " Your interesting patient with his imaginary disorder." " Insomnia is not hypochondriasis." " Then disordered imagination, if you so prefer it " Dr. Colquhon made a gesture of dissent. RETRIBUTION. 83 " We have his view of the trouble. Let us regard it from his wife's standpoint." " Why his wife's } " " Is she consciously or unconsciously producing his uncomfortable condition ? Has he wronged her? Is it part of the vengeance of Bosly Velroux ? Is it her revenge for the pain felt by Mise Derome as she sped down the hill- side at Laroche inside the barrel lined with spikes ? " " Was the woman killed that way } " "You do not need to be told how they served witches in Flanders in the middle of the seven- teenth century." " Wait ! The only particulars I have relating to Mrs. Bechman are concerning a number of strange star-shaped cicatrices on the face and arms. A fine, tall, fair, clear-skinned woman but for these viaculosa. The scars are just such as would be produced by the incision of spikes." " Colquhon of little faith ! A regarder of birth- marks, moles, lines on the palm, creases of the skin and their possible significance, yet ignoring the obvious source of their origin. But we are agreed; we assume that James Bechman two hundred and 84 RETRIBUTION. fifty years ago was Jean Bex ; that M. was Mis6 of Rom ? " " Assume it ? Yes, but it is only assumption." " Assuming it, James Bcchman suffers what he deserves." " Man ! where is your pity ? " " I feel none." " No sympathy for his suffering } " " None." " Yet be merciful. Mercy is of all qualities the " " Pah ! Nature knows no such quality. Mercy has no place in the scheme of creation. Mercy is base currency, justice the only legal tender." " Be just to him then." " And to others." " What will you do ? " " Nothing." "What am I to do to alleviate his torment .'' " " Nothing." " I must do something." " Oh well ! Treat the symptoms in the usual way as they arise. It will amount to ' There was a knock at the door. "A gentleman, sir, to see Dr. Colquhon. Mr. Bechman " 0, RETRIBUTION. 85 But the servant was pushed aside. A tall large-formed man strode hurriedly into the room. He was very thin, nervous, and trembling like one worn with fever. His eyes shone brightly, but his gaze was wandering. His face was partly hidden by a bushy black beard and very heavy eyebrows, but the darkness of the hair, and the tiny bright red patches on each cheek, only heightened his pallor. Every feature, every line, every movement expressed his suffering; his imaginary torment was a dreadful reality to him. His presence roused Vesey, but the emotion he felt was betrayed by the restless movement of his lips only; his eyes looked as dreamy as though he saw nothing of what was taking place before him. " It is with me now, waking or sleeping ! " cried the intruder. " Oh, Colquhon, do sovictJiing for me ! I have not slept an instant since I saw you yesterday, and I have suffered the torment six times. Help me ! Save me ! You must ! You shall!" " Come, come now, my dear fellow, calm your- self. No nonsense here ! " said Colquohn. G 86 RETRIBUTION. " Calm yourself ? See ! There 's the hurdle ! and the wheel ! " he pointed to the floor, and looked at Vesey's thick Turkey pile in terror. Then he clenched his fists, flexed his arms spasmodically, and then threw himself to the ground in a paroxysm. Colquhon would have raised him, but Vesey motioned him to be quiet. Then the wretched man, with varied contortions, acted as though the executioner were performing his barbarous work. The limbs twitched, and shrank as from expected blows ; and the man groaned and 'shrieked, and called for mercy ; prayed and cursed by turns. Then the paroxysm subsided, and he fell into a state of torpor, groaning faintly and calling for water. Vesey was clumsily rolling a cigarette, Colquhon was watching his patient, looking up from time to time and glancing furtively at Vesey. Then the man stirred as though awakening from a deep sleep, looked listlessly about him, passed his hand over his face and raised himself on one elbow. Colquhon watched him closely but re- mained silent. Then he appeared to recover him- self; he arose, threw himself wearily into a low r^ RETRIBUTION. 87 chair, put his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. For some time no one spoke ; then the visitor asked : " Does your friend know all ? " Vesey answered immediately and with emphasis " I know all." " Can you help me ? " " No one can help you." " Then I must end my misery by death." " You know that will not end it." The man looked up in alarm. Two minutes of oppressive silence elapsed before he asked, " What am I to do .-• " " Undo what you have done." " I have done nothing," he expostulated weakly. " So you say, so you tell your wife. This statement of yours " — and he pushed the folded paper away from him with his still unlighted cigarette — " informs me to the contrary. You have not written tlie truth. Goethe und Wahlver- wandschaft, forsooth ! Your marriage was not for love ; yours was but an affinity like that of the base metal for a pure element which it consumes, but is shrunken instead of enlarged by its nourish- ment. More, you have dared to violate the 88 RETRIBUTION. grandest emotion Nature has evolved. By what false accusation did you separate your wife from him whom she loved ? By what lies did you coerce her into the loveless union with yourself? You know the wrong you have done ; you know a part of the punishment. What will cure you is the sympathy of others, but this your sufferings will never excite; and the greater they become the more you will pity yourself and so feed your malady. You know the remedy ; repair the injury you have done unto others. Neither in time nor eternity can you have justice until yoti have freely rendered it ; you can decide ivhen. Take your patient away, Colquhon, and leave him where he may effect his own cure." "But are these accusations true.-*" queried the doctor incredulously. "They are true," muttered the man, sitting with hands clenched on his knees, and glaring ashamedly at the carpet. The doctor looked enquiringly at Vesey. " You regard symptoms, I study causes," the other replied, as he threw the unsmoked cigarette upon the hearth, and walked to the door. Tlie Sleepless Man. I. THE POST TRAIN. A FEW minutes after the train had left St. Petersburg, the passengers in the sleeping-car had arranged their packages and sat down to talk to each other. My vis-d-vis was a stout, elderly, bald-headed man, with a dark moustache, heavy double-chin, and peculiarly arched eyebrows. He had the air of a sleepy man who could with difficulty keep awake. He took out a tobacco-pouch and rolled a cigarette, a sure indication that his home was, or had been, in the south of Russia. I tendered him a light. After thanking me, and looking at my baggage, he asked me if I was on a sporting tour. I answered that I was travelling to Moscow 90 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. with the intention of getting some bear and elk shooting with a friend who lived on the Yaroslav Railway. " I am a great sportsman, or rather I was before my wife died. My health will not now permit me to indulge in field sports as I used to do. Still I shoot one or two bears every winter, and occasionally an elk." " Do you live near Moscow .''" "At Lieschneva, on the Knieschma Railway. There is plenty of large game in the ilistrict. The will to hunt is still great within me, but I am weak, nervous, and physically incapable of exercise. I will tell you how the change came about. We were living in Odessa, my wife, son, daughter, and myself. It was vacation time, my boy was home from the university, my daughter had finished her education, and we were preparing for a trip to the Crimea ; my wife went into town to make some necessary purchases. They brought her home in the evening — dead. She had been run over in the street by a carriage and pair, and from the moment she was knocked down had never opened her mouth to speak. It was a great shock to me ; to my children also ; but they were young, and THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 91 recovered. I was terribly prostrated, fever super- vened, chronic nervousness resulted, and from that day to this, now nearly five years ago, I have never had a refreshing sleep. You cannot understand this } It is nevertheless true. I have travelled, I have tried the remedies prescribed by the best doctors in Vienna, Paris, and London. I have consulted them personally, and followed their advice as to diet, change of climate, and all that sort of thing, but the only sleep I get is obtained from a dose of chloral, or sometimes from a milder opiate I receive from a physician in Paris. It is very bad. I always want to go to sleep and yet can never do so. If for instance I go out shooting, after walking a few yards I am overcome with fatigue, the gun falls from my hands, I sink to the ground and doze, but for a few seconds only. I awake and am unable to con- tinue my sport — return home, lie down, but cannot sleep. My daughter plays to me, for she is a great musician, and when she plays I seem to be a little refreshed. She is a great singer too ! Do you know that there are two Pattis } one the Italian Patti — Adelina ; the other, the Caucasian Patti, my daughter, Tatiana, whose acquaintance 92 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. you must make. She is in the ladies' car, for, as you know, tobacco smoke is very bad for the voice, and she has a splendid voice, a soprano of great volume. She can play with the C in alt, play with it, sir, and even one or two notes still higher she can sing distinctly and with ease. There is a great future before my daughter, but unfortunately she wants practice and the aid of a first class teacher. She is too devoted to me to live in towns where such a master can be procured, and 1 cannot live in any large town, not even in Moscow, where last year I purchased a house for ourselves. Vou must understand that my daughter's voice is strong, rich, and powerful, and as she had constantly to practice, the neighbours complained to our landlord. It became almost impossible to keep a fine suite of apartments, so I bought a house — not a very large one, but still a fine dwelling — standing in its own yard and garden in the best part of Moscow, near the Pretschenska, in a quiet street with but little traffic. It was of no use, I could not live there, and we returned to our summer place at Lieschncva. Ah, you do not know the life I lead, unable to go to sleep, unable to forget cares. f^ THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 93 even for a time, never for an instant to be oblivious to what is going on about you. Can you imagine anything more dreadful ? Then to see people sleeping calmly, how terribly annoying ! It irritates me to such an extent that I shriek out in agony, and they wake up and abuse me. So do you know what I did } It was the only thing to be done. I married a gipsy w^oman from Arcadia ! You know that pleasure resort at St. Petersburg. The gipsy band of singers seems to be always there ; at whatever hour of the day or night you may command them they straight- way appear. I thought that one of these women, used to being awake all through the night, and night after night, would never annoy me by lying at my side fast asleep, so I married one of them." He sighed and remained silent, from which I inferred, from his point of view this second marriage had been a failure. When next he spoke he evaded my leading questions, and turned the conversation into another channel. By-and-bye he began to recount his sporting exploits, and I related certain of my experiences upon a yachting trip in the North Sea — a 94 THE SLEEPLESS MAN, memorable voyage, for none of us got to sleep for nearly a week. " Yes, /^/^ had something to keep you awake." "Apart from that, English sailors can live and be well with but very little sleep," I remarked. " I do not know that. Have they no wish to sleep .? " " Possibly, but they are so used to having only four hours' sleep in the day that they neither need nor desire much more." " It is possible." " For instance. Captain Boyle, of the Babara, arrived at St. Petersburg from Liverpool, a voyage of eleven days, during which he had only eight hours' sleep in his bunk, and an odd hour or so from time to time in the chart-room, yet, having a chance of a trip to Moscow with friends, he started off by the post train on Tuesday, and when he got back on the Friday neither he nor his friends had once closed their eyes in sleep." " I should like to know Captain Boyle. I should like to travel with such a man. Can you do without sleep ">. " " Fairly well," I answered. " Come down to Lieschneva with mc. It is very THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 95 quiet, but you will have plenty of sport by day, and at night \vc can play cards, talk or amuse ourselves in some way. My daughter is always telling me to find a companion, but my Russian neighbours — you can imagine what they are like after dinner — as torpid as a boa-constrictor which has swallowed an ox. " Why do I not make a companion of my son } He prefers the society of younger men than myself He is in the capital, and is doing all he can to spend my money. I think he will succeed in spending all our fortune. But what does that matter } My father left me a little more than two million roubles, I spent them as fast as I could, I did not squander them ; that is to say, I always obtained fair value for my money. I have still more than one million roubles, in addition to my little estate at Licschneva. My daughter has four hundred thousand roubles left her by her mother, and although my son is only twenty-two, and is spending two or three thousand roubles every month, there will still be enough left for us. So, what does it matter after all, even if the young man does spend a thousand roubles or more every month and enjoys himself 96 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. "Ah ! here is my daughter, Tatiana Glebevna Nalivaete, the Caucasian Patti." A well-dressed young girl with fair hair, a sallow complexion and spare figure, came into the car and sat for a few minutes with us. Her eyes, unlike her father's, were bright, sparkling, and lustrous, but she had his air of lassitude. She was thin to attenuation, and seemed to be haggard, worn, and restless from constant watching. Having satisfied herself that her father was comfortable, she retired to her own car, and we again conversed upon sporting topics. Very early in the evening the Russian had his berth made up for the night — it was the upper cross berth, and opposite to mine. He took a small quantity of a colourless fluid, and I sat under the lamp reading the last number of The Field, which I had obtained in St. Petersburg. Whenever I looked towards his berth I saw him lying with his eyes wide open, and gazing vacantly at me. At about eleven o'clock his daughter again paid us a visit, and shortly afterwards I got into my berth. " Are you asleep ? " I asked. " No, never again to sleep, never again to sleep," THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 97 and he turned over wearily, so that I could no longer see his face. I do not know that sleeplessness is infectious, but neither I nor anyone else in that car slept soundly that night — even that common terror of the sleeping car, the persistent snorer, was silent, for all were awake — some reading, some restlessly turning from side to side, or ever and anon lighting cigarettes and breaking the silence with a few words spoken in a low tone to their neighbour, or occasionally someone, with an ejaculation of impatience, would turn his face to the wall and resolutely court sleep and rest. Only my friend remained still and silent. Yet he was awake, I knew it ; everyone in the car knew it ; but, with his face averted, he lay as motionless as though he had been of carved stone. Towards three o'clock in the morning his daughter quietly entered the car. Her thin straw- coloured hair hung loose about her shoulders, her shapeless gown showed all the angularities of her spare figure, her restless eyes glanced rapidly from one occupant of a berth to another, and as she neared where her father lay I closed my eyes. 98 THE SLEEPLESS .VAN. She did not speak, her hand sought his, there was a gentle pressure, her head was bent down as she gazed into his face, a silent kiss, and she quietly and quickly withdrew, hiding her face in the woollen wrap she had thrown over her shoulders. Is it unnatural that I was anxious to learn more about the sleepless man and his devoted daughter ? Before we reached Tver, and took our coffee, I had determined to accept his invitation to Lieschneva, and at Moscow all the details were settled as we breakfasted together. Early in the afternoon we drove to the terminus of the Nijni- Novogorod Railway, to catch the only train in the day to Knieschma. II. THE FAMILIAR. It was an uneventful ride to Knieschma. The travellers were few, and the journey was broken by a long wait and change of trains at the Junction. Towards six o'clock in the morning THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 99 we arrived at the small wayside station which was nearest to my host's estate. It wanted two hours to break of day, but there was quite a company of peasants with lanterns awaiting our arrival. The sledges were at once loaded up, and we commenced our drive of twenty- five miles through the forest to Kertchemskoi, following for some miles the road to Lieschneva — if a barely indicated track through the forest and over the moorland may be termed a road — we then left the highway for the sledge path to the villages, and as in each sledge there was room but for one person besides the driver, and the sledges kept in Indian file, it was impossible for me either to communicate with my host who was in front, or with his daughter, whose sledge with three others conveying the baggage followed mine. We passed through several villages, all very much alike, and neither in the landscapes nor in the homesteads was there anything worthy of admiration or notice. Shortly after eight o'clock the first sledge got some distance ahead, and I noticed that a sledge with a single occupant was trotting along before loo THE SLEEPLESS MAN, mine. My driver hurried his horse, but we could not gain upon the sledges in front, and looking backwards I noticed that Tatiana and the baggage sledges were falling far in the rear. Thinking that my host wished to arrive in advance of us, I slackened speed ; but we did not lose sight of the two sledges, although both drove rapidly ahead. At about nine o'clock we reached Kertchemskoi and our house. It was a dreary one-story dwelling of wood, and stood within its own yard at some distance from the road, and a couple of hundred yards outside the village. It was apparently deserted, but the entrance gates, as we neared them, were thrown open by a stalwart young peasant, and several domestics were gathered about the porch awaiting our arrival. Nalivaete's sledge was empty, and the over- driven horse was being unharnessed. The second sledge was nowhere visible, although I was sure I had seen it driven into the yard close behind that of my host. And Nalivaete, when I saw him, tremblingly grasped my hand as he stammered a few words of welcome. The domestics silently helped us to t^ THE SLEEPLESS .VAiY. loi take off our heavy cloaks and overshoes, and Tatiana, all bustle and talking nonsense with great volubility, alone made a show of hospitality. By-and-by Nalivaete apologised for the scanty accommodation his house provided, but which, as a sportsman conversant with the rough and ready methods of country life, he hoped I would not despise. The room assigned to mc was a small bed- chamber at one of the angles, and at the farthest extremity of the large and well-heated hall which separated the kitchens and outbuildings from the rest of the house. With the exception of a small hanging mirror, the ikon, and a shelf of books, my room contained nothing but the furniture absolutely indispensable to a bed-chamber. The living-rooms were larger and sumptuously furnished, especially the best reception or music room, which had an elegant cabinet, a grand piano from a fashionable maker, and a large Persian divan. Madam Nalivaete, I was told, was still sleeping, and was absent from the breakfast-table. My host talked of sport, dozed, told us his symptoms, H 102 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. drank freely, and seemed to be terribly bored and wear)'. Tatiana spoke in monosyllables, listened with- out interest to my feeble attempts at jocularity, and appeared undecided as to whether she should weep or go to sleep. Surely never did a meal drag on as did that one. Breakfast finished, Tatiana played, at her father's request, a few pieces of classical music, but ex- cused herself from singing, and retired to her apartments. , In the afternoon we sent for the staritza, or chief villager, and arranged with him the details of a hunt — three bears having taken up their winter quarters near a neighbouring village. Two land- owners, friends of my host, were to meet us at eleven next morning, and the beaters were all quickly engaged. There was nothing more for us to do until the morrow, and how to occupy the two-and-twenty hours which intervened was a puzzle. It was impossible to interest my host in any- thing. " He had," he said, " played every game of cards there was to be played — chess, backgammon, chequers, five stones, puzzles, acrostics, all bored THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 103 him," and he proved that he was fast becoming a confirmed melanchoh'c hypochondriac. The dinner was the sole remaining event of the day. We dined at six, and Madame Nalivaete presided. She was a taciturn woman, with the features and manners of the gipsy — a combination of the gkittonous untaught savage, and the alluring voluptuous gipsy queen. Her coal-black eyes — her only beauty — were most attractive, and had evidently been trained to serve their owner well — they sparkled with merriment at the weakest jest, rewarded with a kindly glance of encouragement the little attentions of Tatiana to her father, and spoke volumes of love in answer to the polite flatteries of her melancholy husband. She looked frequently towards and at me, but where I saw only sprightly roguishness there lurked the cun- ning of a fox. The dinner was a good one, and the vieim would have satisfied any gourmand. Fresh caviare ; rich soup made from a fish similar to our bream ; fresh fish caught from the lake through a hole in the ice; a fillet of beef; roast venison, game pAtis ; apple cake, ices, Russian wines, kvas, coffee and liqueurs, and of everything a profuse abundance. 104 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. Tatiana ate but little. I was sure that she had both wept and slept since she had left us after breakfast ; now she assumed an air of gaiety so distraite as to be painfully evident. Madame Nalivacte also was acting; only the sick man was natural in his behaviour ; and when we at length retired from the table he lay down silent and motionless upon the divan, with his eyes vacantly staring at the cornice. With piano, guitar, and mandoline we whilcd away a few hours, but the merriment was too forced to continue long. Tatiana retired shortly after midnight, and a little later I went to my room, though in no mood for sleep. I never felt more wakeful. My brain was strangely excited, and in some measure to compose my thoughts I took down a book, and without undressing lay down to read. The volume was a ribald, jesting work, in French, published in Paris in the year three, the production of some wicked wit who had written when his world was mad, and his piquant if blasphemous stories lost nothing of their point from squeamishness on the part of either writer or printer. THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 105 The book was not worth reading, but there was nothing on the shelf more interesting, and I read on until I heard the tick-tick of the death-watch, and looking up met the eyes of the ikon, smiling benignly through the smoky mist arising from the tiny lamp ever burning before it. I closed the book and listened. From the music room came the patter of the gipsy woman, inter- spersed with an occasional weird yell — that usual accompaniment of the peculiar dance of the Romany people, and I thought I saw the languid look of the recumbent Russian as he lay, silently and without interest, gazing at her gyrations. In another apartment a young girl was weeping, or praying, and here I lay reading the wretched witticisms of a mad man ! Veritably this is "a mad world, my masters"; but as perforce we must continue in our madness I banished serious thoughts, and resumed the perusal of the old French book. But my attention was divided. I heard that the death-watch ticked with greater vigour, the shrieks from the other room were in earnest, the sound of a real sob reached my ear from the distant chamber. My hand trembled, my sight io6 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. became dim, the light waned, and a cold, clammy hand touched my throat ! It was but a waking nightmare, to be shaken ofif by determined resolution. I arose, lit another candle, retrimmed the little lamp before the ikon, threw aside my book for once and all, and after smoking a cigarette felt drowsy and dropped asleep. But in a moment came again that cold, clammy hand, insidiously creeping along my throat, the better to obtain a firm grip. I awoke with a start to see the room filled with a faint bluish vapour, in which some indistinct figures seemed to be moving. Neither nervous nor superstitious, nor yet subject to illusions, I arose gaily ; the vision — if vision it were — was quickly dispelled, and somewhat puzzled at being unable to sleep, I determined to pass the night in company with my host. As I made my way to the music-room I heard the voice of Tatiana singing a topical song. Then she stopped, and played the hunting chorus from Dorothy. I entered the room noiselessly and unheeded. The gipsy was sitting in a chair opposite her husband, silent and sullen, with a dogged look of o. THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 107 active discontent upon her face ; the husband motionless as usual, and with eyes averted. Tatiana, in her travelling gown, her hair loose, and with tears fast coursing down her cheeks, seemed to be playing against time upon the piano. She changed, from time to time, without pause, from grave to gay, from simple air to intricate key fingering, a musical medley such as an artist intent upon a tour de force might choose to execute, as proof of staying power and an extensive repertoire. Madam, grim, taciturn, and sulky, stared at me sullenly ; but Tatiana, at length perceiving me, turned her face away, but not so quickly that I failed to see her anguish. No interference was possible. Quietly I walked back to my room and paced impatiently to and fro until the music stopped, then I crept rather than walked towards the room once more. At the threshold I paused ; the door was open ; I could see the greater part of the apartment, the gipsy woman was not there. Tatiana, still seated at the piano, was watching her father, who, as though in a trance and quite unconscious of what he was doing, moved mysteriously about the room, io8 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. now crouching near the table, now violently gesticulating at the divan, again walking without apparent motive from one object to another, until at last, bursting with spasmodic sobs, he knelt with bowed head before the holy picture. Tatiana rose and knelt by his side, and his sobbing became less violent just as a light hand was placed upon my shoulder, and an icy cold finger touched my neck. I looked round to meet the flashing eyes of Madame Nalivaetc, gazing angrily into mine. , " Is Monsieur a spy ? " she hissed. " Your guest, Madame, and your husband's." " Do you understand the meaning of this .'' " and she gesticulated her disgust of what was taking place in the room. " Your husband suffers." '■ Pfui ! A madman ! You may learn more some day, take care that while here you do not learn too much." " I am already interested." " In what cannot concern you. Would it not be better to retire .'' " " If I can but serve you by so doing." " I wish it," and she turned away impatiently, THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 109 walking through the hall towards her own apartments. I went to mine, but not to sleep, and I was still thinking of what I had witnessed, when some hours after a servant brought me coffee, and the business of an eventful day had to be commenced. III. THE BEAR HUNT. Than the bear hunt there is nothing more enjoy- able. The short, brisk drive over the cold snow to the village nearest to the bear's winter lair ; the merry chatter of the villagers who have gathered to witness your arrival ; the earnest bargaining of the staritza with his beaters ; the pretty faces of the young girls as they shyly peep from under their hoods at a strange face; the good-humoured smiles of the buxom dames who have come into the ring to see that their husbands are not cheated by the staritza; the muttered criticisms of the sour-tempered old men who made such good bargains and had such excellent sport no THE SLEEPLESS MAN. in their youth ; the new white sheepskins, the gay- coloured handkerchiefs of the women, the clear bright sunshine making the snowflakes sparkle, and brightening even the dull dark forest in the background, all furnish their quota of life to a scene which for earnestness, excitement, and gaiety has no equal. But there is a bear hunt of a different kind, and it was to one of these that my host introduced mc. The sUxriiza was melancholy, there were no beaters visible, and as we walked through the village to hunt them up the young ones hurried from our path, and the able men sat listening to our commands with apathy. The day was dull and the snow fitfully falling. We started out for the forest, a small band, trudging wearily through the deep snow in half-hearted fashion ; we were silent from ill-humour, not from love of the chase. We aroused the bear with a pistol shot, for none had the heart to cheer, and the sleepy brute ran directly towards my rifle and promptly fell to my aim, never to rise again. The peasants grumblingly swung him to a pole, and in silence we marched back to the village, where our arrival received no comment. From beginning to end it was a THE SLEEPLESS MAN. in wretched business, unworthy of the name of sport, and my success produced only a feeh'ng of disgust. The remainder of the day wc passed as we had the preceding one, and I went to bed early hoping to sleep soundly ; but I dreamed again, this time of the bear hunt. I was again at my post in the forest, and a bear— an immense animal — was advancing towards me. I fired, but it still came on ; I fired again and again until I had no loaded weapon left, and the brute reared within arm's length. I hastily seized my knife, but too late; the great animal falls heavily upon mc, and, buried in the snow, beneath his great rough chest I feel the heavy weight of his body, as his ponderous paw upon my breast forces me still further into the snow. I am crushed beneath his heavy flesh, stifled with the thick shaggy hot wool about his throat — I struggle to free myself, believing it is but a dream from which I shall soon awake. I do wake — it is not a bear which is burying me, but a monster feather-bed, with Nalivaete a-top, and by him held down tightly over my head. His knees are upon my chest, and he it is who, by exerting his great strength, is murdering me in his madness. 1X2 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. It is impossible to escape. I am fast losing con- sciousness — there is singing in my ears — I gasp for breath and inhale feathers, nearly suffocated. I gasp again, and — wake. The house is silent, and it is sometime before I can realize that all I have suffered is but a dream. Sleep in the house seems to be quite impossible. As soon as I am sufficiently composed I again reach down the French book and commence to read. It seemed to me that in a few minutes the book fell from my hands, and that I dozed into a troubled sleep. I see Nalivaete come into my room and gaze at the bed. He listens, then disappears through the door into the adjoining apartment, quickly reappearing with a large soft cushion, and holding it before him in both hands he steals on tiptoe to the bedside. I see now for the first time the face of a fair woman lying upon my pillow. Nalivaete covers it with the cushion, and springs savagely upon the bed, kneading the writhing body as he sways from side to side upon his knees, grinning with demoniacal delight at the slight indications of movement under the pillow, which he holds down with both hands as THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 113 determinedly as though he expected a thousand furies to spring from underneath it. The struggles cease ; a look half of pleasure half of pain appears upon his face, to disappear instantly as he raises himself and notices, looking at him as from the wall, two human eyes, clear, brilliant, conscious. No face nor figure is visible ; but those eyes have witnessed this foul deed. Trembling he stands up, and now as he raises the pillow to screen his face from those penetrating glances, the eyes change their position, coming nearer to me. He cannot hide himself from them. Fearful of moving, upbraided by their steady, reproachful look, he is constrained to regard the face upon the pillow, a face dreadfully altered, discoloured, distorted, motionless, soulless — dead ! 'Tis enough ; the face disappears, and I see the trembling form of Nalivaete kneeling humbly before the ikon, his head bowed and his frame shaking convul- sively as he sobs aloud. Then I feel an icy cold hand upon my throat. I see that Nalivaete shudders as I am touched, and his sobs cease. As I slowly awake there is a numbed feeling about my neck, and the room seems to be filled 114 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. again with a thin bluish vapour, in which some unrecognisable figures are indistinctly to be seen moving about. There are two eyes quite plainly visible other than the eyes of the ikon, but as I become more clearly conscious of my surroundings they appear to be less distinct, and slowly fade from my sight. Confused, nervous, weary, and in a sleeping- waking dazed state, I grope together the bed coverings and stagger into the music room, where I lay myself down unthinkingly upoi^ the divan and fall again into slumber, which is undisturbed until soon after dawn. The servant again brings me coffee, and tells me that my host and his daughter have already risen. IV. THE WIZARD. "Ah, you have had a bad dream I fear, my friend." Nalivaete came quietly towards the divan and sat down by my side. " Will you tell me your dream } " he asked, as I, feeling very stupid, helped myself to the coffee. 0. THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 115 "Yes, certainly. I have been dreaming. A disagreeable dream, but of no consequence." " Do not say that. All dreams are of con- sequence, but no one seems to have pointed out yet how important dreams are in moulding character and in determining certain actions." " I never regard mine as of importance. How have you slept .•* " " But very little, not that I have not dreamt. I am haunted by dreadful day dreams, from which there is no awaking." " Is it always the same dream .-' " " Always the same subject, but variously presented. Last night during the few minutes I slept, I was haunted by a terrible nightmare. It has quite affected me. I must tell it to some- one ; poor Tatiana has trouble of her own ; moreover, she is so superstitious she would be afraid, and that would make me still more nervous, I might go mad. But I must tell it. Will you hear it ? You are not superstitious, and you will tell me what I am to think of it." " I can tell you that much before you begin. Dismiss " " No, no, first listen to what I have to say. ii6 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. It is about this woman I have married, I am afraid of her. She is not akin to us, she has no sympathy for me. She hates me, she hates me. Do you hear .^ What do people like these gipsies when they hate anyone } What do we do to those whom we hate ? We kill them, that is what she means to do to me. Do you hear ? She means to kill me. Last night she lay by my side, she was not asleep although her eyes were shut, and I did not think her to be foxing. I sat up in bed looking at her. While sitting so, I fell asleep and dreamed that she was hatch- ing a plot to destroy me. And how do you think this woman hopes to kill me ? She knows that these peasants — rude, ignorant fellows — will do anything they believe to be right. She is going to tell them that I am an • No, I did not dream that. What I dreamt was that I was turned out into the frosty night into the hands of a crowd of these peasants thirsting for my blood, they put an icy cold raw-hide rope round my neck, and fastened me to the back of a sledge. Then they drove out into the forest, and I heard the howling of wolves, and they left me there alone — alone." o. THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 117 He ceased speaking, and sat looking curiously into my face. " Is that all ? " " Is it not enough ? But it was not all ; I wanted to escape, but I was fast by reason of the cord round my neck, and then when I cried out in my agony for someone to come and free me, I heard the mocking laughter of the peasants, and I saw that where I was there lay another body too ! " " Did you recognise it ? " "Why do you ask? I recognized it. How strange dreams are! It was no one whom you know. It was a person known to me some years ago, now, alas ! dead — dead!' "And your dream ended there.-'" "Yes, my dream ended there." " And what did you do } " " I was much frightened, and began to think how I could avoid this terrible fate, when I saw the gipsy woman's face at my side. She was still awake and she knew how I was suffering. And I thought if I could only kill her, if I could smother her with a pillow, crush her, anything I ii8 THE SLEEPLESS JLAM to be free of her, it would relieve my brain Why do you look so scared ? " "It is nothing," I replied, "go on with your story." " Well, I remained like that a long time, until I frightened myself. I really thought I should commit some crime, so I shrieked out for Tatiana, and the gipsy laughingly replied that Tatiana would never come again. Then we began to quarrel, and I became more calm. I always gain greater courage and become composed when I have to wrangle with some one. It is only when people refuse to make any answer that I get excited ; I become wild then. But what do you think of my dream .' " "It is simply a dream; an unpleasant one certainly. Perhaps both you and I ate too heartily last evening." Nalivaete shook his head. " Tell me what you think of it .-• " he persisted. " Well I will think it over, and we will talk about it again this evening ; meanwhile we must prepare for the bear hunt." The sun shone brightly, and out of doors the scene was gay, and I dared to hope that this day's sport would be enjoyable. r*. THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 119 Unfortunately it was but a repetition of yester- day's proceedings, with two exceptions ; one that Nalivaete shot the bear, and a person who did not introduce himself followed us everywhere, and when I pointed him out to Nalivaete he was much agitated, but gave me no information as to who the stranger might be, nor did he address him in any way, but acted as though he wished to ignore his presence. This man returned to the house with us, but I lost sight of him among the crowd of domestics in the yard, and although I asked several of the beaters who he was, they declined to answer. In the hall Tatiana was waiting our return. She advanced gaily to meet me. " Have I to congratulate you upon success to-day .-' " she asked. "As yet I have accomplished nothing. Vaska has fallen to your father's rifle, his hand has not yet lost its cunning ; we can all congratulate him." She turned to her father, whose gaze wandered fitfully from object to object, and whose hand trembled like that of one who has sustained a severe shock. 120 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. "Has anything happened ? My father is quite unnerved. Father, what is the matter with you ? " " Nothing, my child. I am getting old, and you know how I have suffered. The excitement of the chase is too much for me." She gazed pitifully at the man, who, with the help of a servant, was divesting himself of his great over-shoes and sporting accoutrements. " It is a great bear, my Tatiana, my largest and my last. Let the villagers have a plentiful allowance of vodka, and, if you c^n spare it, give them white bread and zakonski. It is only meet that they should celebrate the last bear killed by their master." " They shall have all, father, but do not talk of this bear being your last ! " " And why not, child ? Is it a pleasure to me to shoot a brute like that and suffer as I am suffering.'* Where is Irma .''" " She will not appear until dinner ; to-day, it will be served earlier than usual. Meanwhile shall I play to you .-'" The time passed quickly until dinner was announced, and when I left the table I returned to the deserted music room and lay upon the THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 121 divan. Soon Nalivaete peered through the half- open door leading from the living room. Seeing no one but myself he hesitated, then quickly entered, shutting the door behind him. He was terribly haggard and worn and still trembling. " I want to ask you," he began, then stopped and his eyes wandered from one object to another. " About your dream t " " No, tell me about this person whom you say you saw." I described his figure as nearly as I could. " Yes, 't is he ! 't is he ! You saw him, you say .-* " he gasped. " I believe so. Do not be alarmed, for I was not in the least dismayed by his appearance." " No .? " He looked at me questioningly. " Is that all you saw } " "That was all." " That was all then, but you saw that figure before; you noticed its eyes in your bedroom last night." I started. " I do not remember it," I replied. 122 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. "We arc alone. Whatever I say to you now is of no value. Why should I not tell you all ? " The man was, I thought, mad, and I did not answer. " Let me ask you once more. You never saw that figure before .•' " " Never ! " "Last night you dreamed. You saw me in your dream ? Speak ! " I did not answer. " Ah ! I see that you fear to answer me. You saw me — /'/// — my — wife ? " He bent forward, looking earnestly into my eyes. I thought I saw again that terrible dream drama enacted, and involuntarily I closed my eyes. " You think it strange that I dare to tell you of my crime. You are a stranger, there are no witnesses to support any statement you may make about me. It is a good thing for me to confess. Therefore I will tell you. How strange you must think it that I can calmly talk to you, can give you — a stranger — every detail of a crime for which I may be called upon to suffer capital punishment t " THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 123 "Do not tell me. I do not want to hear any particulars. Go ! " " You shun me .-' " " I know all. Go ! Go ! " He did not go. He sat there silent, as though pained by my words ; then he proceeded to slowly roll a cigarette, while I watched him eagerly, savagely, not knowing what to do, and remaining inactive upon the divan. He continued to regard my agitation with unmoved curiosity. "Ah, if you would but hear all the story !" " Tell it to the priest or to the police, not to me ! Do go away ! " " I am braver now than you. I want to tell you all the details, then if you command me I will seek the police or the priest ; I do not care ! " " Not now ! I will not hear anything now ! " and I rushed from the room into the hall. A servant was hurrying towards Tatiana's apartments ; a sledge driver, covered with snow spray and the icicles hanging from his moustache, stood uncovered in the hall. " Oh, mistress ! " I heard the servant call, "our 124 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. young lord has been hurt, and has sent for you to go to him at once ! " Tatiana, surprised and frightened, burst into tears, and asked incoherently for particulars. " What is the matter ? " I asked of the driver. "The young Barin, sir, the betrothed of our mistress, has met with an accident. lie is badly injured, and he wishes to sec the Barina at once." "And I dare not leave my father. Say! Is he badly hurt .•' " The man turned away his head and replied hoarsely, " I am told, Barina, that he is very badly hurt. He may be dying, and he wishes to sec the Barina, if only for a time. lie is so good, our young Barin. My lady, do see him, I have driven here fast ; my horse is fleet, and I can take you quickl)'. Vou may yet be in time to hear something from his lips, and I, Vanka, will be answerable to anyone for your safety." " I will ^o!' She turned to me. " Promise me that you will not leave my father until I return ! " " And allow you to go alone } " " That is nothing ; 1 have no fear. My father may be in danger, watch over him until my return. Do you promise } " 0. THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 125 " I promise." She put on a heavy fur cloak, and I went into the yard and watched her, as, seated by the side of Vanka, she rapidly disappeared across the frozen snow. I made my way to the music room ; Nalivaete lay upon the divan, his eyes open staring^ vacantly, a freshly-rolled cigarette between his fingers, a melancholy spectacle, and one that I had then no wish to contemplate. I sat down on m}' bed and read for a few minutes. Strange noises outside disturbed me. I called for the servants, there was no reply. I went into the hall and called again ; all was silent. I returned to my room and saw peering in through the double-sashed window a human face, horribly ugly and grinning fiendishly. As I stepped towards the window it vanished. I listened, there was the sound of shuffling feet upon the snow outside, a rasping noise as of wood grating against the wall, then all was still again. I went to the servants' quarters ; they were quite deserted ; and passing through the music - room I saw that Nalivaete too had disappeared. I sat down there and in a few minutes I heard strange 126 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. voices outside. The door of the h'ving-room opened, the face of the man whom I had seen at the bear hunt appeared before me. I saw nothing but the face, pallid, with glassy eyes and a vacuous expression. I thought I noticed the features slightly relax, then the face disappeared. I glanced towards the other door, it was ajar, and a face peered through t/iat staring saucily at me ; at the window was another ugly grinning face, which as soon as I moved vanished. J made my way to the living room. The gipsy woman was there, seated in a low chair. "Ah ! Anglichannin ! You want to know what has happened, do you .-* How do you feel, batucJika ? Will you drink some coffee .•* Shall I tell you what is happening } Where shall I begin ? " At the beginning. Ah, ah, ah ! Where is the beginning, Golubchick? I don't know, but the end will soon be here. It is not yet eight months since I left my people at Arcadia to come here, and what have I not suffered since then, living with this teharodi." " A wizard .' " • THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 127 " Krovososs ! a vampire ! a murderer ! phui ! " " What has become of him ? " I asked. "Chort vosini ! I don't know. Hark ! Can you not hear the Tcharodi's dirge ? " I listened, and from far away there came a sound as of voices slowly chanting : — " Mu — urderer ! Sorcerer ! So — orcerer ! Mu — urderer ! We have no fear. Mu— urderer ! So — orcerer ! So — orcerer ! Mu — urderer ! The end it is near. Mu— urderer ! So — orcerer ! Sorcerer ! Mu — urderer ! " Then came the same monotonous dirge, louder, nearer, and sung by many more people. Again and again I heard it, in as many directions, " What is to be done } " I looked inquiringly at the gipsy woman. "We shall escape. All the peasants from ten villages assemble here to put to death the sorcerer of Kertchemskoi. We who have lived with him may escape by purifying ourselves in the approved fashion." " And that is ? " 128 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. " I will not tell you. A gipsy cannot perform it. What is that face at the window } " Turning round quickly I saw a shadow pass across the window, nothing more. " It was not a human face nor yet a mask," muttered the woman, advancing with hesitating steps towards the window. All outside was silent, and indoors there was no sound except the ticking of a clock and the hissing and crackling of the burning wood in the stove. « " You are not afraid, Irma ? " I asked as I followed her to the window. She replied with a malicious grin. Peering through the steam-covered panes I saw before me the wide expanse of snow on the moorlands, and to the right and left the dark line of the forest. There was no one in the enclosed garden, and the snow appeared to be untrodden round about the house. The moon, screened by a filmy cloud, shed enough light upon the scene for me to distinguish a band of persons approaching the village from the forest, and in the far distance was a solitary sledge apparently at a standstill. " Do you see yon sledge .-' " I asked the gipsy. THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 129 " Distinctly. It brings the ghostly Vanka to the sorcerer's home." " Is that the epileptic boy whom Tatiana visits ? " The gipsy woman stared at me strangely. " It is one of the fiends of the sorcerer ; others will come." I looked at the woman, who was still peering out of the window. With a scream of terror she sprang back, and right before me, a few inches only from my face, was a horrible purple visage, bloated, distorted, half human, half bestial, only its bleared eyes, blinking in at the strongly-lighted room, betokened its earthly nature. I turned quickly away. The gipsy woman, loudly yelling, had rushed from the apartment, and in her hurry had overturned the lamp, which now lay extinguished upon the floor. When next I looked towards the window the face — too horrible for any mask — was no longer visible. The hall was in darkness ; so, throwing open the door of the stove, the cheery rosy rays from the glowing embers enabled me to find my room and reach down my weapons. I lit my candle and cautiously entered the hall once more, 130 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. for I thought I heard the noises of people about the house. In the semi-darkness I plainly discerned shadows moving swiftly towards the music-room — shadows not of men and women, but of strange creatures having a certain resemblance to the human form, but with horribly disorted features, crooked limbs, and necks askew. I stood still gazing earnestly at the shadows, then from out the gloom came a raggedly-clad woman with crone-like features and a crooked spine ; her hair, dark and glossy, grew thickly upon her forehead and temples, and was coiled round her large red ears. From the crown and the back of her head, and all down her withered neck, the hair had been scalded, and her parchment-like skin shone with iridescent hues. She held before her a boy of some eighteen years, lean, lank and long, whose horrible contortions she endeavoured in some way to guide, for over his muscleless limbs he seemed unable to exert any control, while he gazed idiotically in whatever direction his eyes were spasmodically rolled, and threw with jerky twitchings his ungainly limbs into meaningless and seemingly impossible attitudes. THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 131 The crone, with some difficulty, got the youth in front of the stove, where she permitted him to lie, and where the unhappy being writhed and floundered restless and tormented. Then with uncertain steps she tottered towards me. I did not advance, and should have kept my gaze fixed upon her had not I felt a tug at my coat sleeve, and, turning round, saw standing at my elbow a monstrosity of frightful magnitude. Upon a short podgy body, bent with infirmities, was a head of enormous size, a bloated visage, bulbous, blue, and beardless — the lips awry and the mouth distorted — for instead of flesh and bone there was nothing but a rank growth of fungoid skin. Tearing myself away from the trembling hold he had upon my arm, I rushed across the hall and entered Nalivaete's room, closing and locking the door behind me. V. TATIANA. The room was empty. I sat upon the bed expecting an attack, for I knew that an attempt would be made to force open the door, and I heard 132 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. the heavy tread of the peasants in the hall and the confused babble of voices — amongst them I thought I could distinguish that of the gipsy woman. Suddenly a grating noise in the room attracted my attention, and turning towards the.corner from which it seemed to proceed I saw Nalivaete staring at me, through a trap-door in the floor. He beckoned to me and signed me that I was not to speak. I saw as I approached the trap-door that he stood upon the steps of a rude ladder; he descended into the cellar and beckoned to me to follow him. I stood in the darkness upon the earthen floor of \\\\?> pogrib, and he secured the trap- door with strong wooden bars from below. As I became used to the darkness I noticed a large chest, a common bench, and a huge covered vat almost level with the floor. " Fetch Tatiana. Tell her that her father wants her help now. We must escape." " The house is surrounded by enraged peasants ; strange people are in the rooms ; it is not easy to escape." He pointed to a door in the cellar. " I have thought of all this. Irma must escape, why not you .'* She has my fleetest horse ready harnessed THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 133 to the sledge ; take it, drive to Vorebba, bring back Tatiana quickly." " But to get the sledge ? " He smiled grimly, and drew from under the bench a large hooded shoob lined with white lambs- wool and made of pale cloth. " My wife's ! " He unfolded it slowly and placed it on my shoulders. " She lies here," and he placed his hand upon the vat. " They think she walks around the house in this shoob, my last present to her ; no one will dare to touch you," I fastened the garment across my chest, and pulled the hood over my head, it barely reached to my knees ; a pair of light-coloured valetikis were taken from a corner, and after putting them on I moved to the door, " See those eyes, they arc watching me still," and he pointed to a corner near the extremity of the vat. " I see nothing," I answered. " Not so loud ; I see them, but I fear nothing." I drew the bolt of the door and opened it quietly. I saw the eyes then, gleaming out of the darkness, and dimly outlined was the form of the mysterious man I had seen so frequently that da}-. K 134 THE SLEEPLESS MAN: Nalivaete shrieked, pushed me forward, and closed and bolted the door behind me. The figure of the man retreated along the passage, and groping my way, I followed it. The passage was a short one ; at the extremity was a door hinged horizontally and opening inwards. The figure opened the door and dis- appeared ; as quickly as possible I followed, and found myself in a retired corner of the pleasure ground at the rear of the stables. I walked round to the yard. Forms flit be- fore me as I advance, none approach. In the yard was the black horse with the sledge, the moiijik who stood at the horse's head ran as I walked towards him, the horse perceiving me reared — seizing the reins, I sprang upon the sledge and drove rapidly from the yard. The horse was fresh and travelled fast, and we soon reached the woods. I drew my revolver and fired a shot, then two others in quick succession. The horse, terrified, increased his pace, and the snow spray flew from before the runners like sea- foam from the prow of a racing yacht. The horse knew that an efi'ort was expected of him, and continued his wild pace across the moorland and * THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 135 through the forest ; a wolf, trotting along the track, at our approach hastened into the wood, and an elk gazed with astonishment from the brushwood on the edge of a clearing. In time we reached a village ; it was apparently deserted. At the further end, however, was a sledge with a horse harnessed thereto, but empty. The horse was steaming and had evidently been driven hard ; the ycmstdiik was standing midway between his sledge and the entrance to the house. As I drove up, the door of the house opened and Tatiana ran out. " What is the meaning of this } " she asked angrily. " Why am I brought here .-* Speak, will you ? Fool ! " The man made no reply, and Tatiana going to the sledge, seized the driver's whip and with it commenced to beat the fellow, who bent to escape the blows, but remained idiotically silent. A peasant had followed her from the house with a lantern and looked unconcernedly upon the scene, until perceiving my approach he cried out, and dropping his lantern ran towards the house. Tatiana came to me. I spoke to her, and 136 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. muttering words I could not hear, she sh'pped into the sledge and I at once turned the horse towards home. " It is a catch, a mean, miserable, foolish trick," she sobbed. " What does it mean .? " I did not answer, but urged on the horse, which seemed unwilling to race homewards. We were clear of the village and trotting slowly through the forest when she spoke again. " Where did you leave my father .-' " she asked. " In the cellar beneath his room," I replied. She started. Then putting her hand upon my arm she looked beseechingly into my face. " Then you know " " I do not know, but I can guess," I answered. The horse ran uneasily, turning first to the right and then to the left, walking at every turn in the road, and at last he came to a standstill and buried his nose in a snow-drift at the side of the track. "Poor father, I must save him, but how.-* Hurry the horse along." She spoke to him, and the animal moved more gaily. "Will you help me.'' Must my poor father THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 137 perish body and soul ? Is he not mad ? He was mad when he committed that terrible crime, and did he not tell you that my brother saw him — my poor half-witted brother ? He has never spoken since that time. He will not live with us, but haunts us unceasingly — watches us, follows us to Moscow, St. Petersburg, to Odessa, speaks to no one, looks only at us ! It is as though he had taken a vow never to speak again until my father has expiated his crime. And I try to save my father. Am I right in so attempting? I ask myself again and again ! He loves me because I try so hard to save him. To save him from that prison, where, living with senseless souls he would lose his own; to save him by imploring him to confess and to seek forgiveness of our Holy Mother. He has committed a crime and must bear the punishment — that he knows, that we know — but is it not right that he should bear the punishment inflicted by God who is just and merciful, rather than that of men who would wreck his life and lose his soul .'' But what an expiation his is, and how bravely and uncomplainingly he endures ! He promised me only yesterday that he would confess to the good priest in Lieschneva, and then he would be 13S THE SLEEPLESS MAN. content to die. He bears so much for my sake, thinking that if he gave himself up to the police, as, weary of his terrible lot he has often wished to do, his punishment would have to be borne by me, 'Who,' he asks, 'would wed the daughter of a condemned murderer?' " And you see the wretched life we lead," she continued sadly. "I cannot sing, but in order that my father's infirmities may not be too closely pried into, I have practised, and by loudly shrieking I have driven curious neighbours from our doors. Soon all must come right, is it not so .'' " " I pray that it may," I answered. " Yes, if father could but know that he is for- given by God ! To feel, to bear the punishment is nothing to the callous prison-hardened criminal working out his sentence. You cannot know what a soul-destroying hell is a Russian prison, and how happy are the evil-doers to work therein and stifle conscience." She paused. We were now reaching her home and we saw there were several groups of people near it ; some carried torches, others had large bundles on their shoulders. I drove over the fields, round to the back of the 0. • THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 139 stables, and leaving the sledge, by leaning against the fence of the pleasure-ground forced an entrance. There were a few peasants grouped on this side of the house, and they moved about unceasingly. I helped Tatiana from the sledge, and we walked stealthily towards the secret doorway. The windows shone with a lurid glare, and strange shadows moved about in the room. " They have fired the house," shrieked Tatiana, rushing wildly towards it. " Tatiana ! Tatiana ! Save me ! " " I come ! " cried Tatiana. Some of the peasants put out their hands to bar the wa}', but she eluded them and throwing herself against the hidden door it gave way and she disappeared from sight " Anglichannin ! " yelled the gipsy woman, recog- nising me. Then instantly moiijtks seized my arms, and cutting the reins from our sledge, bound my hands tightly to my side and my feet together. Tongues of fire were creeping round the windows and eaves, and the peasants who had torches threw them into the house through the broken windows. 140 THE SLEEPLESS MAN. Then the gipsy woman went to the passage through which Tatiana had disappeared, and at her command dry brushwood and faggots were placed in the doorway, the straw from our sledge was carried to it and fired ; then the peasants brought more faggots and piled them against those which were burning. The flames had now burst through the roof in several places, and issued freely at the windows and doorways ; the dry wood crackled as it burnt, and the sparks flew high into the air, and were followed by the broad streaming flames and the long sinuous tongues of fire. We heard cries, but the words were undistinguishable. We knew the prisoners were trying to force their way through the passage, for we saw the faggots near the little doorway shaken and forced outwards. It seemed possible that success would follow one effort, for the bundles of wood fell away suddenly, but the gipsy woman took a long fork from a peasant and pushed the half-burnt faggots further into the doorway, holding it there resolutely until fresh fuel had been heaped around it — then as the heat became unbearable she reluctantly fell back. THE SLEEPLESS MAN. 141 The crackling of the blazing shingle, the noise of the burning timber, the bursting of the thick pine logs placed against the walls, and the constant roar of the quickly advancing fire, deadened the cries of the perishing inmates ; but all could not drown a shriek that commenced with the supplicants' cry of " Forgive ! " and ended in a weird yell of agony. It stopped the wild talking of the excited peasants, and in silence they watched the falling beams and walls or slunk quietly and abashed to their village homes. In an hour's time all that remained as evidence of the tragedy was a heap of smouldering timber, and a few creatures on their knees in the snow, crossing themselves constantly, and praying without ceasing. Uncle Sekuyn. AFTER a long day of dull tramping in the swaaliy London streets the poorest home is welcome. That murky November evening I was particularly tired. Saturated with mud and slush, I was anxious to reach my poor lodgmg, where, if there were not other clothes, I could be rid of my wet, clinging, frayed, and splashed garments — at least for a time, I was terribly down on m)' luck, but the result of my tramp was promising for a dinner on the morrow, and I had enough to provide a good supper; for, like all men who eat to live, I had determined upon such substantial fare as can be most cheaply purchased. I climbed to my garret for the mug and platter, and found Uncle Selwyn seated upon my old sea chest ; recognised him by his whisky-laden breath, which dispelled my vision of the grateful and Comforting cup and hot-steaming "savoury duck." » UNCLE SELIVVN. 143 My relative was the ne'er-do-wcU of the family, and rarely visited me save to extort a loan or share my meal. "What cheer, Sclwyn?" I asked. " Bad news, Willy," he replied gently, and as he was generally boisterous his subdued tone afifected me strangely, and I crossed the room for a light so that I might see in what he had changed. To all appearance he was the same — tall, well- built and wiry, somewhat emaciated, and looking five years older than his age. He had grey whiskers and hair, although he was but forty ; he was wretchedly clad as usual with him, for he despised clothes ; a battered old bowler hat upon his shaggy head ; his moustache was awry and his chin had been shaved, perhaps a week ago. His cheek bones were prominent, his cheeks red, and his deep, sunken blue eyes were as bright and restless as ever ; but there was something more about my uncle, and to discover what it was I regarded him earnestly. He remained seated upon the chest without speaking until I had finished my scrutiny. I was doubtful as to this man being really my uncle, for as sometimes when you look into the eyes of a 144 UNCLE SELWYN. friend you sec his soul looking back at you, so now I saw in the dark pupils of my uncle's blue eyes an individuality that was strangely at variance with his character, and I was afraid of it. For my brusque-mannered, sottish, but withal kind Uncle Selwyn I never had the slightest fear. " I suppose it is you, Selwyn ?" " Have I changed so much ? What money have you got ?" " Eightpence." " Four drinks. Willy, my bo}', don't spend that money in liquor, however much I may plead or threaten. Now come with me, you are late. We may be too late." He got up nervously from his scat, raised his hat and put it more jauntily upon his head, and tottered towards the door. I felt impelled to follow him, just as whenever he asked a loan I never withheld it, and we slowly descended the broken stairs. "Where are you going.''" I asked, when we reached the street. " Over the water. Let us hurry along." We walked along in silence, threading our way across the busy thoroughfares, and plunging into UNCLE SELU'YN. 145 the narrower streets and passages which run parallel with them. It was ten o'clock when we reached the Thames, and my uncle declared it was too early to cross. " Let us take a drink. You have eightpcnce, and fourpence will be enough for what you have to buy." " I only brought fourpence. I could not afford to bring all." The lie satisfied him. We went to the Embank- ment and sat down. " Why have you brought me here .-' " I asked. He looked at me curiously. " I want your help — your eightpence," and he laughed nervously. " Will you take it then, and let me return home > " He seemed hurt at the suggestion. " I will never touch money again, never again," he replied snappishly. " What is the matter with you, Selwyn } " He was silent for several minutes, and then commenced to talk about the objects on the river ; of his college days at Oxford, and in garru- lous fashion recounted his freaks and escapades of ten years ago ; to all I listened patiently, ex- 146 UNCLE SELU'YN. pccting each moment to learn the reason for his call ; Uncle Selwyn was not the man to make a friendly visit. The Embankment was deserted, for fine rain had commenced to fall. It was nearly midnight. " About Thora, Thora ! " he said abruptly, and turned upon the seat so as to face me. " I can never be rid of that woman, the more badly I treat her the closer she sticks to mc." " Where is she now .'' " He started. Passing his hand over his brow he commenced to speak gently and in a con- fidential manner of his relations with Thora. " And the last thing was, eight days ago," he hesitated, " she was ill and could not get from our room, so she gave me her dress to pawn that we might have something to eat, and she has not been out of that room since." I laughed. " Yes, an excellent joke, isn't it } Could never get rid of the woman, you know. Good oppor- tunity, thought I, of keeping you indoors now, my lady, and so " he stopped abruptly. " There is no one here. Continue." " So I came round for you to go home with me." 0. UNCLE SELWYN. 147 I started up. " How long is it since you saw her ? " I gasped. " I don't know, I never went back. Pawned the rags and spent the money in drinks and a shave, must have a face like a gentleman. But she asked so earnestly that I would buy food that I promised her not to spend the money in drink, she made me swear not to, smiled," he shuddered, " thanked me, and said, ' I trust you, Selwyn, I will watch for you.' She expected me back soon, I led her to suppose that I should not be many minutes, and," he felt his chin musingly, " I suppose that is some days ago." " I am going now," and I sprang to my feet. " Where } You do not know where I live, and I am sure I shall not tell you. When the clock has struck twelve I will conduct you." I expostulated, but all remonstrance was vain, and seating myself by his side I waited anxiously for the stroke of twelve. It came at last, but Uncle Selwyn declared it had struck but eleven. In desperation I dragged him towards the bridge. Seeing that it was practically deserted he dashed across with such speed that it was with difficulty I kept pace with him. We went through dirty uS UNCLE SELWYN. and desolate streets, he sometimes running wildly ahead or hesitatingly creeping with uncertain steps along the dark streets. We entered an ill -lighted alley, silent, and apparently deserted ; it was flanked by lofty buildings, of which the greater number were untenanted. Something was following us, and I looked behind repeatedly, without catching a sight of the person whose persistent tread had attracted my attention. Uncle Selwyn was frightened, he clutched at my arm convulsively, and started violently at the commonest sounds. We turned into a deserted court, the houses were dilapidated and old ; tiles and broken earthenware lay about the yard, and subdued noises from the dismantled tenements disturbed the silence of the night. We heard still those steps following ours, slowly crunching the earthy floor of the unpaved yard. I paused, the sounds ceased ; it could but be the echo of our own steps. I led on again more slowly. A figure brushed past us and entered one of the dwellings ; a dark, almost shapeless pillar-like form, ill-defined in the semi-darkness of the night, but distinguishable as something. It seemed to UNCLE SELWYN. 149 glide along and make no noise in treading over the debris covered corner of the yard. "Which way?" I asked of Sehvyn. "Follow thatl' he stammered, again clutching my arm. I did not wonder that he feared to return alone. I paused and looked up at the windows of the building we were to enter ; they were all paneless, the frames of some had gone, in a couple there still remained a few fragments of broken glass, but no attempt had been made to fill up the openings with paper or rags. I saw as each landing was reached that a black form passed noiselessly across the window openings — it reached the topmost, a dark mass protruded, remained clearly visible for a few seconds, then disappeared. Through the next window we now saw a face peering — the figure was motionless, and it seemed to be staring fixedly down upon us in the yard. I looked at Uncle Sclwyn ; the darkness of that corner of the court was so great that I could not distinguish his features, but the light was reflected from his deep sunken eyes, and I saw that he was watching me. " Lead the way, Selwyn ! " "I dare not!" L 150 UNCLE SELWYN. " Thora is up there ! " "Who?" " Thora." "And what else? The figure of death passes us by ; let us go away." " Come," and I groped forward in the darkness. The stairs were broken, and as we trod upon them the noise of our footsteps reverberated through the house ; at the second flight I tripped and fell, and a hundred echoes were awakened in the empty tenements, and answered each other from all sides of the courtyard. Slowly we made our way to the topmost storey. The doors appeared to be nailed up, as were those of the floors below. Sehvyn directed me to a back passage, upon which there was a small door leading to the rooms on our left. I entered it, followed closely by Selwyn. It was apparently quite empty. I called to "Thora." There was no reply save the hollow-sounding echoes from the various rooms. " In the next garret," muttered Selwyn, pushing me towards a low doorway covered by an old piece of sacking. I tried to strike a match, but the walls and floor were so damp that I could not obtain a light. r„ UNCLE SELWYN. 151 We entered the other room. There was a figure at the window, the black something was near it; instinctively I drew back, and Sclwyn pulling wildly at my arm forced me through the door- way. "Did you see it?" " Thora must be dead," I said vacantly. " Yes ; but that thing, what was it } What does it want here .?" His grasp tightened upon my arm, and his face was but a few inches from mine. "See, it is coming this way!" and he pointed to the doorway, where the sacking was still shaking. It seemed to lift slightly, and the dark presence was in our room, between us and the door. Sehvyn, in abject fear, was crouching between me and the wall, and we heard distinctly groans and the tramping of feet in the room adjoining. I lifted Selwyn to his feet, and attempted to drag him towards the door. He released himself from my grasp, and running to the window attempted to leap through. I was able to prevent him, and he became more calm. I succeeded in getting a match to light, and we again raised the sacking. The dark figure was again by the side of the corpse, but disappeared at my approach. ' ,' IS2 UNCLE SELWYN. " Thora is dead," I called to Selwyn. He made no reply, but held the lighted match mechanically on high. The room was entirely destitute of furniture, and contained not even a bundle of rags or straw to serve as a bed. On the walls were scrawled a few undecipherable characters, which the damp had partly obliterated. I gave the lights to Selwyn, and moved the body from the window. The figure was terribly emaciated, and had been dead some days. As I placed it upon the floor I saw strange marks upon the naked breast. Selwyn recognised them and cried for mercy. He dropped upon his knees and raised his hands in supplication. The burning match flickered for a moment upon the floor, then left us in darkness, and the presence was with us again. Selwyn shuddered; he did not attempt to move from his knees. The figure advanced, and he fell prone upon his face, and when I had again succeeded in obtaining a light I found that he too was dead. A Good Intention. IN ethics, as in most things, Horace Vesey was original ; his ideas of right and wrong would not, I fear, be accepted by members of the Ethical Society, but then, as he said, he was ahead of most people. One day, after endeavouring to prove to me that a good intention is not a good intention when it is a paving-block in a certain road no one will willingly tread, he told me the story of a half- finished pen-and-ink sketch I had often examined with curiosity. It was a rough outline of a small factory, possessing numerous windows and far too many very tall chimneys, all smoking as though nuisance inspectors had never been appointed. From the manner in which the factory dwarfed those adjacent to it, to say nothing of churches and huge edifices in the neighbourhood, it had evidently been sketched in accordance with the views its occupier held of its importance. Why such a trumpery production was so highly esteemed by Vesey I had never dared to ask. 154 A GOOD INTENTION. "About seven years ago," he commenced, " I went to the Kyrvvick assizes to report for the Herald, and Mr. Justice Sterndale was judge. No, it was not the occasion, but prior to that, and it is, perhaps, because it was the same judge whose ineptitude wrecked my happiness, and the close association of place and scene with that of ;«j life story, that I have never broached the subject 1 am about to relate, although this story is of itself sad enough to keep. " Everyone knows that if law is Sterndale's forte, justice is his foible, and however lenient he may be towards the perpetrators of physical outrage, he is inexorably Draconian whenever the offence is one against morals. It is, of course, the old vice of 'compounding sins he is inclined to by damning those he has no mind to.' Hugo Speedy was the counsel in charge of the county prosecutions, and the list was cleared in his best manner ; in fact cases were running almost as rapidly as before a stipen- diary magistrate at a police court. A scoundrel who had done his paramour to death, and half-killed the policeman who arrested him, had been found guilty of manslaughter, and allotted twelve months ; then three fellows were put in the dock charged A GOOD INTENTION. 155 with dealing in prohibited literature and photo- graphs. The two brothers who dealt in the rubbish pleaded guilty, and urged nothing in extenuation ; the third was a cousin, who had coloured some of the prints at eighteen pence a dozen, and had been brought from some other part of the country ; he pleaded ignorance of the fact that the pictures were to be offered for sale, and stated that he and his wife and child were starving, and he had to take whatever work he could. This was the oppor- tunity Stcrndale needed to prove that the bench was the bulwark of morality. He was, of course, actuated by the highest motives, his intentions were good. So he gave a short lecture on the enormity of the offence, pointed out the sinful purposes to which art could be applied, the wickedness of this debased artist in prostituting his talent in order to make these abominable prints more attractive, and thus his crime was of greater magnitude than that of the others ; for without his gaudy work upon them it was doubtful whether there would have been purchasers. Then he unloosed all the stock phrases he keeps for grand occasions, and the poor artist in his threadbare coat drew himself up proudly, and looked back at the judge as a man of 156 A GOOD INTENTION. genius stares at a jack-in-office who attempts to coerce him. The soul of the artist was the soul of a man who repudiated the exaggerated notions of the judge, a judge whose speck of humanity was obscured by his intemperate indignation. " Sterndale docs not go express speed for nothing ; the objects of his wrath got two years' imprisonment each, and the artist a fine of a hundred pounds in addition, and was ordered to be kept in prison until the fine was pai^. " I got the sentence down mechanically, wonder- ing that such a barbarous punishment should be possible ; but if Sterndale imposed it, who would have the temerity to question its validity.^ "There was a sob heard in court; it came from the artist's wife. I think I can see her now ; you know the sort of woman a big, burly, black-bearded, callaesthetician would love. A pretty little woman: her features so regular that the face was almost characterless in its beauty ; fair hair in sunny ripples, blue eyes, clear complexion, and a neck Praxiteles would have delighted to cop)'. A frail, delicate creature withal, and dressed in a poor black gown which everyone could see had again and again been altered to the fashion ; and she 6. A GOOD INTENTION. 157 clasped to her arms a four-year-old boy, the noblest- looking and finest-built child I ever saw. Poor lad, he only half understood ; there were tears on his cheeks, yet a smile played about his lips, and he clung timorously to his mother, yet looked defiantly at us. A brave little fellow! He expected to be danced on his father's knee that night ; that father who could do no wrong, but — who had done what no one on this side of the Channel can attempt with impunity. So a family's happiness was sacri- ficed to British morality, and a British judge was appeased. "We were, of course, too busy to trouble more then. Judge and counsel went ahead like clock- work. We had a gang of swindlers next, with forty witnesses to boot, and morality went dungeonwards. " That night, as I thought the matter over, the pitch to which we had brought jurisprudence did not appear to me to be a high one. Scoundrels with money, who could buy eloquence to plead for them, who could purchase brains and experience to present their misdoings in the most favourable aspect, and actually adduce testimony to their good behaviour, appeared in court to be magni- ficently virtuous in comparison with the poor artist 158 A GOOD INTENTION. and his wretched mates. Moreover, to turn sav- agely upon the man who had not the necessary guinea with which to purchase a dock defence, then to fine that man a sum impossible to pay, and keep him until it was paid where he could never earn it, was an un-English course which angered me. I determined at the first opportunity to investigate the case; perhaps with a view to ' copy,' for I was very keen in those days. " In time I found where the man had worked. He shared a shop with an engraver, and I purchased that drawing— unfinished, as he left it when arrested. The little I gave for it the engraver sent on to the wife ; then — I forgot all about them for a time. "About eighteen months after those Kyrwick assizes I went down into the Potteries to write up the lead-poisoning topic. There I met the artist's wife — a wreck. The poor creature had been tempted by the high wages ; it was the only employment at which she could earn enough to put anything by for payment of the fine ; she worked too hard, too long, and denied herself the necessaries of life ; she had saved over thirty pounds, and she was poisoned through and through. I can hardly describe her — a withered, toothless, A GOOD INTENTION. 159 ill-shapen creature, with bleared eyes, her face terribly disfigured with crimson patches, lips blue, hair gone, and the finely-shaped hands stained, twisted, and swollen. I asked after her husband. He was still in prison ; the last two visiting-days she had not been. ' I would rather he remembered me as I was,' she sobbed. She knew then that she would never see him again; but she still hoped, by sacrificing her life, to earn enough to buy his release. The boy was in the hospital ; he had never thriven in the neighbourhood in which they had come to live, and the doctors feared he had a diseased bone. The poor woman furnished all the particulars I required, and I wrote that article as I never wrote but one other. She knew she was to have the payment, and I was pleased the cheque was for a substantial amount. I meant to visit the boy, but I did not. My trouble came — the murder, the trial, and its consequences. In the midst of all some one wrote asking me for pity sake to buy a portrait. I sent the few guineas asked, but did not open the package when it came, nor trouble to read the note of thanks which accompanied it. When I did it was to learn that the wretched woman was too far poisoned to be i6o A GOOD INTENTION. employed further, and lived upon her little hoard until death ended her suffering. " Some years passed. I changed ; money more than I could use was mine, but the child had disappeared. I was informed, how you would not understand, that Mr. Justice Sterndale was being troubled ; on the bench even he appeared pre- occupied ; some one had been known to laugh at him. I tried hard not to notice the information ; it was too persistent. Then a man consulted me about the treatment of some hypothetical case. I am pleased it remained hypothetical. It concerned a man of the highest probity, justly esteemed, an excellent liver, and good Christian, who was haunted by faces, horrible faces, but one face which was particularly persistent he seemed to remember, not an ugly face, rather a good-looking one, with dark hair, a bright eye, a noble expression, but with this there appeared always a number of highly-coloured pictures which no right-minded person would describe. It was a terrible haunting. This man of the greatest probity felt that he could not much longer discharge the duties of his high position unless these distracting illusions were stayed. • A GOOD INTENTION. i6i " No one suspected that the person, who was represented to me as being, if not a Lord Spiritual, some one of equal position, was subject to any hallucination, and notwithstanding the eminent position he had attained by reason of his great ability, no one had ever dared to breathe a word of slander about him. His reputation was like that of Caesar's wife, whilst his suffering was greater than that of St. Francis. " Now the explanation of all this is, that in sentencing the artist to imprisonment beyond hope of release, Mr. Justice Sterndale had committed an error ; for the artist had nothing to do but to brood over his lot. His thoughts were of the injustice of his sentence, of the man who had imposed it, and the actions of his own which had led up to the conviction. As time went on and the thoughts remained, or rather grew every time they were recalled to mind — and they were rarely absent — more particularly after the death of the prisoner's wife — and as they increased in intensity, they became so real as to be perceptible to others than the thinker who originated them. Now brain-pictures or thought-photographs of this description fall upon and drop away from the i62 A GOOD INTENTION. properly constituted medium, just as rain drops from a duck's back. But Stcrndale was an improperly constituted medium. Instead of the ingress to his conscious self being obtained by way of a will-controlled psychic valve, the im- pressions reached him owing to a lesion in his psychic structure. And such a lesion results from an ungovernable temper, or senile decay, or a combination of the two, and then the receiver of the impressions is as unable to stop or regulate their flow, as a Swiss guide to stop an avalanche some other guide has started on the peak above him. Sterndale was doomed, and I knew it. " One day, whilst walking through a drizzling rain, I saw on the pavement a face which, smudged, smeared, and half washed away though it was, I at once recognised. Only one person could have limned it ; I knew the artist had been released. I looked for the 'screever,' but he had left his pavement pictures and was nowhere to be found. Some weeks after I overtook him in Bayswater; he stooped as he shambled along, and a little fellow limped by his side. At first he resented my enquiries, but we soon got upon good terms ; he was half silly, and his hatred of Stcrndale was A GOOD INTENTION. 163 the only thing which kept him alive. He told me how he had tramped all the way to London, and had hung about the Law Courts for weeks, in order to show his boy 'the man who had killed his mother,' but he had no idea of taking any active revenge. I gave him the portrait of his wife, and tried to persuade him to other courses, but the cruelty of his fate had eaten too far into his nature to be eradicated, until the fierceness of his hate is in some measure appeased by Sterndale's death. I have tried to do something for the boy, but his father will not permit it ; poor little fellow, his fate too is sealed ; his right leg, I noticed, was fully four inches shorter than his left, his spine is crooked, the joints of his fingers and wrists are permanently enlarged, his face is wizened, his look cruel ; not in the least does he resemble the pretty little fellow whom I remember to have seen in the Assize Court ; truly a great injustice has been done to him. The fate of Sterndale is worse; the proud, strong man is the prey to the worst fears, his dread of death he hides, and the secret of his hauntings is not known to any but his confidential advisers, who are not likely to betray him ; but rather far endure the misery of the cripple 1 64 A GOOD INTENTION. boy than experience the torture of the death- affrighted Sterndale. Nothing in this great city is more painful than to see this poor artist and his crippled son painfully making their way through its crowded streets, impelled and guided by a force they know not, to be where Sterndale can see them. I have found out that the last time the judge went circuit the artist went too, tramping from town to town, and unconsciously appearing just when and where Sterndale least expected him ; but the tension is becoming too great, it cannot continue much longer." And it did not ; the figures of the wretched artist and his ruined son had barely become familiar to mc, when, a few weeks after I called on Vesey, I saw a miserably clad, unkempt fellow shivering on the doorstep, but on this man's face there was a look I envied. " He won't see anyone," he vouchsafed as I approached, " not any one. Cos for why } See there!" and he pointed to a contents bill carried by a newsboy, and I knew that before many hours should pass columns of type would be prepared for the paeans in praise of the man they hated and in whose death they gloried. • A New Force, PETER ROBERTSON, by vocation a pro- fessional inventor, I have known for some years ; he is a natural genius, one of that rare class who can create. This, to me, appears the most god- like of faculties, and its possessor nearer akin to the intelligent cosmos than to common humanity. Peter's father was a farm hand in the North- Country, an ordinary common-place lout, worth his fifteen shillings a week, but not altogether a success when promoted to the position of " hind," with eighteen shillings as his remuneration ; his mother a fine, braw, north-country woman, with a lust for work and great capacity for keeping a family of thirteen comfortably clothed, housed, and fed at a total cost of a shilling a head per week. With the exception of Peter the progen>' was mediocre; his brothers and sisters are where he left them forty years ago ; shepherding, farming and the like, the smartest foys a coble on the Tyne. M 1 66 A NEW FORCE. Peter commenced work as a rivet-catcher at the age of twelve, afterwards became a boiler-maker at Jarrow, where by sheer hard work he got enough money to buy for himself such books and learning as a marine engineer needs ; he went to sea as a donkey-man, and during the long watches studied algebra and geometry in the intcr\'als of engine tending. Then he took to inventing; came to London ; worked in a cellar in Soho ; brought out all sorts of new things from boot tingjes to armour plate. The patent laws and the company pro- moter swallowed up all Peter's takings, took too his few savings, and at fifty he had to face starva- tion or go to sea ; preferring the latter he soon picked up again, and but for domestic troubles, which had always plagued him sorely, but held back their heaviest trial for his old age and weak- ness, he would have been fairly happy in the royalties from the minor inventions trade thieves left to him. He gave me a call one day, when evidently something unusually heavy was pressing upon him. "What's the matter.?" I asked. " I want t' consult ye, Mr. Vesey, aboot a matter that 's cau^ing me a vast o' thinking." t. A NEW FORCE. 167 "Thinking only?" "Aye! joost that." " Patent jobbery ? " " Nae, it 's the thing itsel' that fashes me the noo." "Then I am afraid I cannot help you, Peter; the veriest fool can beat me hollow at mechanics and mathematics." " It 's nac a question o' mathematics nae book- learning, or I'd make no trouble on it; it's the thing itscl' that 's ayont me." " What is the mechanical problem then V "It's nae mechanical problem, it's a force o' Nature itsel' I am losing the grip on, man ! " " What ! you have discovered a new force .-' " "Joost that." " What is it .? " " I div 'na kna' ; I div 'na kna'." " Perpetual motion, perhaps .^ " " Man ! D'ye think I 'm mad .? " "You are far too clever, Peter; but what have you found .-• is it — something like electricity .'' " " Aye— to luke at." " Presumably you have discovered some re- condite property of matter ." 1 68 A NEW FORCE. " See here noo, I 've na come here to liear talk the like I can get in Great Saint Geordie Street ; I've come because ye'r an honest man, Horace Vesey, and it 's yer help I want. D'ye mind me this time ?" " Quite seriously." "Ye kna Scott ha' written in one o' his poems anent the force that cleft Eildon Hills in three ." "The same that 'curbed the Tweed with a bridge of stone,' and if it is with respect to raising the old Tay Bridge, I am no engineer to decide as to the possibility of your scheme." " I said nout about bridges ; but the force that cleft Eildon Hills." " I 'm not an authority on explosives." " But ye ken the magic words ; at least I 'vc been told so." " I am not good at riddles, Peter. What is it you want .''" " As I told ye ; there 's joost a force o' Nature I was utilising for ordinary mechanical purposes, a practical motor, an' I 've lost the grip o' the thing; and it 's joost running me the noo." " Tell me all about it, Peter ; steer clear of mechanical terms." f- A NEW FORCE. 169 " D'ye mind a time back o' the pneumatic motor ?" "You mean the dodge you had for running the water automatically through the surface condensers, instead of pumping it in and out of the ship?" " Nae I don't. I mean the wind-driven ketch in which I took ye to Putney." " I remember the trip ; can't say that I re- member the motor." " Well, when I went to sea again I was turning the idea over in my mind one night watch, when we were running from Kertch to the Bosphorus, and it came into my mind like, that if the reser- voir of the motor were all made solid, of one piece, without joint or seam, there 'd be no leakage from the vacuum." " You are getting too deep for me." " Haud thee gob, man ! Ye ken y'r mither tongue well enoo. Some time agone I got to work on the same tack, and I had to get a spherical hollow ball without any seam or flaw, and a perfect nat'ral vacuum inside — there's only one way o' getting that." *' I did not know there was one." " Y've no mind for mechanics. A weel ! For 170 A NEW FORCE. the last hundred years they 've rolled hollow tubes from the solid bar, and had a perfect vacuum inside. I changed about the rolls till I got the perfect sphere. T'were hard work for me and my boy Tich, making the model out of iron, and it came to me that a bigger train o' rolls than we could ever afford would be wanted if we were to have a fair-sized sphere. So after a vast o' cogitating I fixed on the alloy we 'd use instead o' steel. D'ye know anything about sodium ?" " Only the chloride — common salt." ' " I mean the chemistry o' the metal }" " Nothing." *' It has very pecooliar properties ; it 's a sort as though the solid metal had the power o' absorbing a rare quantity o' other solids." " Like a sponge." "Aye, a sponge squeezed vera dry, and which instead o' swelling with the water it takes up, gets smaller." "Hm!" "Aye. It'll take aboot one-fourth its bulk o' liquid oxygen, and lose more'n half its size; so when you add 3 and i together the sum total is 2 ; that 's a bit unnatural." A NEW FORCE. 171 " Unusual ! " " Well, the long and short of it is this ; I get my sphere, made of what I think is aluminium alloy, I put the tube in without destroying the natural vacuum " "How?" " That 's only a question o' mechanics, and none so difficult — I fills the charger with — but that 'd be telling — anyway, I fills it, turns on the stop- cock, and the sphere contracts to about two-thirds its size." "Yes!" " Now, how did that come aboot ? " " Can't say." " Y' see there was nout in the sphere ; I turns on the tap to let the charge in, and straightaway the receiver collapses like a blowed-up 'rubber bag when the wind 's let out." " Instead of which something got in the receiver." " Joost gas." " I understand." " So do I now. Well, Tich and I set to, to find out the chemistry o' that stuff. For surprises, mechanics can't compare with chemistry." " I agree with you." 172 yl NEW FORCE. " Man, the composition o' stuff's an awfu' mystery." " Matter is merely a form of energy." " May be. Well, we experimented until I got a stuff which grew just so much smaller and heavier as it swallowed up half its bulk and a fourth of its weight of another metal ; then, when agen a liquid, expanded ; so all y 'd to do was joost to pump in and off the liquid, and you had a solid mass of metal beating just like a living heart." " Very clever." " Eh, but it was what we wanted for the pneu- matic motor ! It was joost a bit uncanny from the first, this living lump o' metal. I cut it through with a sht saw, and it 's joost plain, solid, soft alloy, and it works like a charm. We fixed up the gear o' the hull of an old yawl, and with a bit o' a hand crank to work the pump, we ran up and down the river, slack or full, time and again." " Then if you have a really practical motor, Peter, I'm right glad of it." "Aye, but I 'ver nae doon. Man ! but I 'm sair perplexed o' th' matter." " What now 1 " " Aboot a week back I found the pump eccentric A NEW FORCE. 173 had loosed from the crank shaft, and that Tich and I had been turning and grinding at novvt, for the pump could nae 'a worked for days." " What difference did that make ? " " Nae difference whatever ! When we wanted to go ahead the metal started off abeating and abeat- ing and away we went, and 'gen we wanted to stop, we stopped ; the metal's alive, man, and I'm most scared to death wi' it." I made as thorough examination of the metal and the motor mechanism as Peter would allow, and certainly, if the facts are not exactly as he related them, he has a boat which, without any discoverable cause, is driven ahead or astern at will ; and although, on his voyages up and down stream, he has always someone grinding away at a small crank, I, Horace Vesey, have been convinced that such is not necessary to the working of the Robertson motor. Mysterious Maisie. DEAR MR. VESEY,— It is very good of you to interest yourself in my behalf in our quest for " Mysterious Maisie " — so we have named the kind creature — and I lose no time in giving you not only all the facts concerning her visits, but many details of my sister's strange experiences. For the best of reasons I cannot add to the particulars now given ; you have the whole story, and nothing extraneous to it, save such slight embellishments as my sister herself has written in her letters and journal, and some explanatory comments by myself to references which would be unintelligible to a stranger. I will preface the story by stating that my sister Laura was seventeen when our father died ; in our straitened circumstances, and with mother's health failing, it was needful that she should at once earn her living. She was not fitted for teaching, and had she been so, I think my experiences as assistant MYSTERIOUS MAISIE. 175 mistress of a High School were well enough known to her to act as an efficient repcllant from embark- ing upon a like career. She was accomplished, fond of literature, painted a little, played well, and was of such a kindly disposition that she seemed eminently fitted for the post of companion to an elderly or invalid lady, and we were glad to accept a situation of this kind for her. True it was obtained through an agency, but the references were quite satisfactory, and such enquiries as we could make brought replies which reassured us, and we were confident that Laura would quickly gain the affection of all with whom she came in contact. My sister at that time was very pretty ; she had a really beautiful face, but she was petite, very slight, very fragile ; a delicately nurtured child, but full of verve, and not wanting in courage. She was not unduly timorous, nor was she over imaginative, and so truthful in all she said, and honest in all she did, that I accept as actual fact every statement she has made, exaggerated though those accounts may appear, and extraordinary as they undoubtedly are. But to the story. My sister wrote in her journal, under the date of October 22nd, 1889: 176 MYSTERIOUS MAISIE. "Arrived safely at Willesden Junction at 4.33; after waiting nearly half-an-hour, took the train to , reaching that station in less than twenty minutes; took a 'four-wheeler' to Miss Mure's. The streets had a very dingy appearance, is a dowdy suburb. Soon we turned down a winding lane, very badly fenced, not many houses in it, they were all old and were built on one side of the road ; plenty of trees, nearly all of them bare of leaves. The car stopped in a wider road just out of the lane ; the house lool