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''IN A GLASS DARKLY

BY

J. SHERIDAN LE FANU

LONDON
EVELEIGH NASH & GRAYSON
LIMITED
1923
''Mabe AND PRINTED IN GREAT Britain. RicHarD Ciay & Sons, LTp.,
PRINTERS, BunNGay, SUFFOLK.
'' 

. “x
CONTENTS
GREEN TEA.

PAGE
PrRoLoGuE—Martin Iesselius, the German Physician  e ° 1

CHAPTER I.—Dr. Hesselius Relates how he met the Rev. Mr.
Jennings . . . . . . 4

” II.—The Doctor ee mai ine and She
Answers . : 10

»  III.—Dr. Hesselius picks up ede in Latin Books 13
», | 1V.—Four Eyes were Reading the Passage . ; - 17
is V.—Dr. Hesselius is Summoned to Richmond . ° 21
»  VI.—How Mr. Jennings Met his Companion ‘ % 25
», VII,—The Journey: First Stage . . ° . ° 30
», WIII.—The Second Stage . . ° . ° ° 35
», 1X.—The Third Stage . . . . . . 40
ss X.—Home ° : . ° ° . . . 44
ConcLusion—A Word for Those who Suffer . ; : ° 51

626967
''vi CONTENTS.

THE FAMILIAR.

PAGE
PROLOGUE . e ° ° . > « ° a . 55

CHAPTER I.—Footsteps . . oe . ‘ . . 58
as Il.—The Watcher . ; . . : ® . 65
s»  1II.—An Advertisement . . wees ‘ is or
»» 1lV.—He Talks with a Clergyman . . . . 78
Sy V.—Mr. Barton States His Case : * : ° 86
3,  WiI.—Seen Again . . : : . “ . 92
»  VII.—Flight oriee . ’ . . : . 98
»» VIII.—Softened . : ’ . . . . «E04

»  LX.—Requiescat . ° . ‘ a er oo tt

MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE.

PROLOGUE . : : ‘ ‘ : F . : - 519
CHAPTER I,—The Judge’s House . E . ‘ < 122
i II.—Mr. Peters : . . . : . eT 428
»  111.—Lewis Pyneweck : ; 5 : ‘ RO
»»  1V.—Interruption in Court. : : ; js so 142
Bs V.—Caleb Searcher . : . ’ ’ ‘ e F485
+»  WI.—Arrested . 3 : . : . . i535
», WII,—Chief Justice Twofold ; ; . i «AST
+» WIII.—Somebody has got into the House . : . 1G
IX.—The Judge leaves his House. . ° » 169

THE ROOM IN THE DRAGON VOLANT.

PROLOGUE . . : . : : . : : <2. a8
CHAPTER I.—Onthe Road . . . . : ‘ . . 95
II,—The Inn-yard of the Belle Etoile mite $e
»  1I.—Death and Love Together Mated . +» « 187
''CONTENTS. vii

PAGE
CHAPTER IV.—Monsieur Droqville. . es soe

Pe V.—Supper at the Belle Etoile x ‘ : 2 TOS
ap VI.—The Naked Sword . x i‘ : ; of) 209
»»  WII.—The White Rose . i ° . . »  (2¥4
»  WIII.—A Three Minutes’ Visit . . . ° eee
ss IX.—Gossip and Counsel . ‘ a ‘ . PR i 74)
os X.—The Black Veil . * . . ° Paginae ec
~ XI.—The Dragon Volant . ° e . : sane
»  X&II.—The Magician. . ° Saks ene
x»  XIII.—The Oracle Tells Me Wonders. ° - see
»  &IV,—Mademoiselle dela Valli¢re . > ‘ at
», X&V.—Strange Story of the Dragon Volant . ° see
»,  XVI.—The Parc of the Chateau dela Carque . 4/0), 280
»» XVII.—The Tenant of the Palanquin . e e 3° 289
», S VIII.—The Churchyard ‘ ‘ . ’ e + egos
»» XIX.—The Key. . ‘ . . . ofc gm
» X&X.—A High-Cauld-Cap . : . . . i oee
»»  &XI.—I See Three Men ina Mirror . ; '. er Biy
» XXII.—Rapture . Z ‘ ‘ . ° . at gee
»» XXIII.—A Cup of Coffee . ° ° . . ogee
»> XXIV.—Hope ° ° . . . . . a ee
»» XXV.—Despair . ‘ a ; A J ‘ * 340
», XXVI.—Catastrophe . . . ° . ’ «Rag

CARMILLA,

PROLOGUE . . i . eae . . s 358
Cuaprer I.—An Early F ee . . . . . + 360
9 II.—A Guest . a i . . . . e367
i III.—We Compare Notes 5 is i. . are
Be IV.—Her Habits—A Saunter . : é . say
7. V.—A Wonderful Likeness . ; 4 LOY
''viii

CONTENTS

CHAPTER VI.—A Very Strange Agony

v9

3

VII.—Descending .
VIII.—Search . aq
IX.—The Doctor.
X.—Bereaved .
XI.—The Story .
XII.—A Petition .
XIII.—The Woodman
XIV.—The Meeting

XV.—Ordeal and Execution .

XVI1.—Conclusion ,

PAGE
407

413
421
426
433
437
443
449
456
462
''PN A’GCUASS DARE.

GREEWN EBA,

os

PROLOGUE.

MARTIN HESSELIUS, THE GERMAN PHYSICIAN,

HOUGH carefully educated in medicine and
surgery, I have never practised either. The
study of each continues, nevertheless, to interest me
profoundly. Neither idleness nor caprice caused my
secession from the honourable calling which I had
just entered. The cause was a very trifling scratch
inflicted by a dissecting knife. This trifle cost me
the loss of two fingers, amputated promptly, and the
more painful loss of my health, for I have never been
quite well since, and have seldom been twelve months
together in the same place
In my wanderings I became acquainted with Dr.
Martin Hesselius, a wanderer like myself, like me a
physician, and like me an enthusiast in his profession
i
''-8gi 90.) UNA GLASS DARKLY.

Unlike me in this, that his wanderings were volun-
tary, and he a man, if not of fortune, as we estimate
fortune in England, at least in what our forefathers
used to term “easy circumstances.” He was an old
man when I first saw him; nearly five-and-thirty
years my senior.

In Dr. Martin Hesselius, I found my master.
His knowledge was immense, his grasp of a case was
an intuition. He was the very man to inspire a
young enthusiast, like me, with awe and delight.
My admiration has stood the test of time and survived
the separation of death. I am sure it was well-
founded.

For nearly twenty years I acted as his medical
secretary. His immense collection of papers he has
left in my care, to be arranged, indexed and bound.
His treatment of some of these cases is curious. He
writes in two distinct characters. He describes what
he saw and heard as an intelligent layman might,
and when in this style of narrative he had seen the
patient either through his own hall-door, to the light
of day, or through the gates of darkness to the caverns
of the dead, he returns upon the narrative, and in the
terms of his art, and with all the force and originality
of genius, proceeds to the work of analysis, diagnosis
and illustration.

Here and there a case strikes me as of a kind to
amuse or horrify a lay reader with an interest quite
different from the peculiar one which it may possess
for an expert. With slight modifications, chiefly of
language, and of course a change of names, I copy
_the following. The narrator is Dr. Martin Hesselius,
I find it among the voluminous notes of cases which
''» ? tal
¢,

GREEN TEA. toy 4
he made during a tour in England about sixty-fo 4

years ago.

It is related in a-series of letters-to his friend
Professor Van Loo of Leyden. The professor was
not a physician, but a chemist, and a man who read
history and metaphysics and medicine, and had, in
his day, written a play.

The narrative is therefore, if somewhat less valu-
able as a medical record, necessarily written in a
manner more likely to interest an unlearned reader.

These letters, from a memorandum attached,
appear to ‘have been returned on the death of the
professor, in 1819, to Dr. Hesselius. They are
written, some in English, some in French, but the
greater part in German. I am a faithful, though I
am conscious, by no means a graceful translator, and
although here and there I omit some passages, and
shorten others, and disguised names, I have interpo-
lated nothing.

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''CHAPTER L

DR. HESSELIUS RELATES HOW HE MET THE
REV. MR. JENNINGS.

THE Rev. Mr. Jennings is tall and thin. He is
middle-aged, and dresses with a natty, old-fashioned,
high-church precision. He is naturally a little stately,
but not at all stiff. His features, without being hand-
some, are well formed, and their expression extremely
kind, but also shy.

I met him one evening at Lady Mary Heyduke’s.
The modesty and benevolence of his countenance are
extremely prepossessing.

We were but a small party, and he joined agree-
ably enough in the conversation. He seems to enjoy
listening very much more than contributing to the
talk; but what he says is always to the purpose and
well said. He isa great favourite of Lady Mary’s,
who it seems, consults him upon many things, and
thinks him the most happy and blessed person on
earth. Little knows she about him.

The Rev. Mr. Jennings is a bachelor, and has,
they say, sixty thousand pounds in the funds. He is
a charitable man. He is most anxious to be actively
''GREEN TEA. 5

employed in his sacred profession, and yet though
always tolerably well elsewhere, when he goes down
to his vicarage in Warwickshire, to engage in the
actual duties of his sacred calling, his health soon
fails him, and in a very strange way. So says Lady
Mary.

There is no doubt that Mr. Jennings’ health does
break down in, generally a sudden and mysterious
way, sometimes in the very act of officiating in his
old and pretty church at Kenlis. It may be his
heart, it may be his brain. But so it has happened
three or four times, or oftener, that after proceeding
a certain way in the service, he has on a sudden
stopped short, and after a silence, apparently quite
unable to resume, he has fallen into solitary, inaudible
prayer, his hands and his eyes uplifted, and then pale
as death, and in the agitation of a strange shame and
horror, descended trembling, and got into the vestry-
room, leaving his congregation, without explanation,
to themselves. This occurred when his curate was
absent. When he goes down to Kenlis now, he
always takes care to provide a clergyman to share
his duty, and to supply his place on the instant
should he become thus suddenly incapacitated.

When Mr. Jennings breaks down quite, and beats
a retreat from the vicarage, and returns to London,
where, in a dark street off Piccadilly, he inhabits a
very narrow house, Lady Mary says that he is always
perfectly well. I have my own opinion about that.
There are degrees of course. We shall see.

Mr. Jennings is a perfectly gentlemanlike man.
People, however, remark something odd. There is
an impression a little ambiguous. One thing which
''6 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

certainly contributes to it, people I think don’t
remember; or, perhaps, distinctly remark. But I
did, almost immediately. Mr. Jennings has a way of
looking sidelong upon the carpet, as if his eye followed
the movements of something there. This, of course,
is not always. It occurs only now and then. But
often enough to give a certain oddity, as I have said
to his manner, and in this glance travelling along the
floor there is something both shy and anxious.

A medical philosopher, as you are good enough
to call me, elaborating theories by the aid of cases
sought out by himself, and by him watched and
scrutinised with more time at command, and conse-
quently infinitely more minuteness than the ordinary
practitioner can afford, falls insensibly into habits
of observation, which accompany him everywhere,
and are exercised, as some people would say, im-
pertinently, upon every subject that presents itself
with the least likelihood of rewarding inquiry.

There was a promise of this kind in the slight
timid, kindly, but reserved gentleman, whom I met
for the first time at this agreeable little evening
gathering. I observed, of course, more than I here
set down; but I reserve all that borders on the
technical for a strictly scientific paper.

I may remark, that when I here speak of medical
science, I do so, as I hope some day to see it more

generally understood, in a‘much more comprehensive |

sense than its generally material treatment would
warrant. I believe the entire natural world is but the
ultimate expression of that spiritual world from
which, and in which alone, it has its life. I believe
that the essential man is a spirit, that the spirit is an

%
''GREEN TEA. 7

organised substance, but as different in point of
material from what we ordinarily understand by
matter, as light or electricity is; that the material
body is, in the most literal sense, a vesture, and death
consequently no interruption of the living man’s
existence, but simply his extrication from the natural
body—a process which commences at the moment of
what we term death, and the completion of which, at
furthest a few days later, is the resurrection “in
ower.”

The person who weighs the consequences of these
positions will probably see their practical bearing
upon medical science. This is, however, by no means
the proper place for displaying the proofs and dis-
cussing the consequences of this too generally unre-
cognized state of facts.

In pursuance of my habit, I was covertly observing
Mr. Jennings, with all my caution—I think he per-
ceived it—and I saw plainly that he was as cautiously
observing me. Lady Mary happening to address me
by my name, as Dr. Hesselius,' I saw that hd glanced
at me more sharply, and then became thoughtful for
a few minutes.

After this, as I conversed with a gentleman at the
other end of the room, I saw him look at me more
steadily, and with an interest which I thought I
understood. I then saw him take an opportunity of
chatting with Lady Mary, and was, as one always
is, perfectly aware of being the subject of a distant
inquiry and answer.

This tall cletgyman approached me by-and-by;
and in a little time we had got into conversation.
When two people, who like reading, and know books
''8 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

and places, having travelled, wish to discourse, it is
very strange if they can’t find topics. It was not
accident that brought him near me, and led him into
conversation. He knew German, and had read my
Essays on Metaphysical Medicine which suggest more
than they actually say.

This courteous man, gentle, shy, plainly a man of
thought and reading, who moving and talking among
us, was not altogether of us, and whom I already
suspected of leading a life whose transactions and
alarms were carefully concealed, with an impenetrable
reserve from, not only the world, but his best beloved
friends—was cautiously weighing in his own mind the
idea of taking a certain step with regard to me.

I penetrated his thoughts without his being aware
of it, and was careful to say nothing which could
betray to his sensitive vigilance my suspicions re-
specting his position, or my surmises about his plans
respecting myself.

We chatted upon indifferent subjects for a time
but at last he said :

“T was very much interested by some papers of
yours, Dr. Hesselius, upon what you term Meta-
physical Medicine—I read them in German, ten or
twelve years ago—have they been translated ?”

“No, I’m sure they have not—I should have
heard. They would have asked my leave, I think.”

“TI asked the publishers here, a few months ago,
to get the book for me in the original German; but
they tell me it is out of print.”

“So it is,and has been for some years; but it
flatters me as an author to find that you have not
forgotten my little book, although,” I added, laugh-
''GREEN TEA, 9

ing, “ten or twelve years is a considerable time to
have managed without it; but I suppose you have
been turning the subject over again in your mind, or
something has happened lately to revive your interest
in it.”

At this remark, accompanied by a glance of
inquiry, a sudden embarrassment disturbed Mr. Jen-
nings, analogous to that which makes a young lady
blush and look foolish. He dropped his eyes, and
folded his hands together uneasily, and looked oddly,
and you would have said, guiltily, for a moment.

I helped him out of his awkwardness in the best
way, by appearing not to observe it, and going
straight on, I said: “Those revivals of interest in a
subject happen to me often; one book suggests
another, and often sends me back a wild-goose chase
over an interval of twenty years. But if you still care
to possess a copy, I shall be only too happy to provide
you ; I have still got two or three by me—and if you
allow me to present one I shall be very much
honoured.”

“You are very good indeed,” he said, quite at his
ease again, in a moment: “I almost despaired—I
don’t know how to thank you.”

“Pray don’t say a word; the thing is really so
little worth that I am only ashamed of having offered
it, and if you thank me any more I shall throw it into
the fire in a fit of modesty.”

Mr. Jennings laughed. He inquired where I was
staying in London, and after a little more conversa-
tion on a variety of subjects, he took his departure.
''CUAPIER. if,

THE DOCTOR QUESTIONS LADY MARY, AND SHE
ANSWERS,

“] LIKE your vicar so much, Lady Mary,” said I, as
soon as he was gone. “He has read, travelled, and
thought, and having also suffered, he ought to be an
accomplished companion.”

“So he is, and, better still, he is a really good
man,” said she. “His advice is invaluable about my
schools, and all my little undertakings at Dawlbridge,
and he’s so painstaking, he takes so much trouble—
you have no idea—wherever he thinks he can be of
use: he’s so good-natured and so sensible.”

“Tt is pleasant to hear so good an account of his
neighbourly virtues. I can only testify to his being
an agreeable and gentle companion, and in addition
to what you have told me, I think I can tell you two
or three things about him,” said I.

“ Really !”

“Yes, to begin with, he’s unmarried.”

“Yes, that’s right—go on.”

“ He has been writing, that is he was, but for two
''GREEN TEA. ir

or three years perhaps, he has not gone on with his
work, and the book was upon some rather abstract
subject—perhaps theology.”

“Well, he was writing a book, as you say; I’m
not quite sure what it was about, but only that it was
nothing that I cared for; very likely you are right,
and he certainly did tadeeet

“ And although he only drank a little coffee here
to-night, he likes tea, at least, did like it, extra-
vagantly.”

“Yes, that’s guzte true.”

“He drank green tea, a good deal, didn’t he?” I
pursued.

“ Well, that’s very odd! Green tea was a subject
on which we used almost to quarrel.”

“ But he has quite given that up,” said I,

“So he has,”

“ And, now, one more fact. His mother or his
father, did you know them?”

“Yes, both ; his father is only ten years dead, and
their place is near Dawlbridge. We knew them very
well,” she answered.

“Well, either his mother or his father—I should
rather think his father, saw a ghost,” said I.

“ Well, you really are a conjurer, Dr. Hesselius.”

“Conjurer or no, haven’t I said right?” I answered
merrily.

“You certainly have, and it was his fathien
he was a silent, whimsical man, and he used to bore
my father about his dreams, and at last he told him
a story about a ghost he had seen and talked with,
and a very odd story it was. I remember it particu-
larly, because I was so afraid of him. This story was
''a IN A GLASS DARKLY.

long before he died—when I was quite a child—and
his ways were so silent and moping, and he used to
drop in sometimes, in the dusk, when I was alone in
the drawing-room, and I used to fancy there were
ghosts about him.”

I smiled and nodded.

“ And now, having established my character asa
conjurer, I think I must say good-night,” said I.

“But how ad you find it out ?”

“By the planets, of course, as the gipsies do,” I
answered, and so, gaily we said good-night.

Next morning I sent the little book he had been
inquiring after,and a note to Mr. Jennings, and on
returning late that evening, I found that he had
called at my lodgings, and left his card. He asked
whether I was at home, and asked at what hour he
would be most likely to find me.

Does he intend opening his case, and consulting
me “ professionally,” as they say. I hope so. I have
already conceived a theory about him. It is sup-
ported by Lady Mary’s answers to my parting
questions. I should like much to ascertain from his
own lips. But what can I do consistently with good
breeding to invite a confession? Nothing. I rather
think he meditates one. At all events, my dear
Van L., I shan’t make myself difficult of access; I
mean to return his visit to-morrow. It will be only
civil in return for his politeness, to ask to see him.
Perhaps something may come of it. Whether much,
little, or nothing, my dear Van L., you shall hear.
''*

CHAPTER III.

DR. HESSELIUS PICKS UP SOMETHING IN LATIN BOOKS,

WELL, I have called at Blank Street.

On inquiring at the door, the servant told me that
Mr. Jennings was engaged very particularly with a
gentleman, a clergyman from Kenlis, his parish in the
country. Intending to reserve my privilege, and to
call again, I merely intimated that I should try
another time, and had turned to go, when the servant
begged my pardon, and asked me, looking at me a
little more attentively than well-bred persons of his
order usually do, whether I was Dr. Hesselius ; and,

on learning that I was, he said, “ Perhaps then, sir,

you would allow me to mention it to Mr. Jennings,
for I am sure he wishes to see you.”

The servant returned in a moment, with a message
from Mr. Jennings, asking me to go into his study,
which was in effect his back drawing-room, ores
to be with me in a very few minutes.

This was really a study—almost a library. The
room was lofty, with two tall slender windows, and
rich dark curtains. It was much larger than I had
expected, and stored with books on every side, from
the floor to the ceiling. The upper carpet—for to my
''14 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

tread it felt that there were two or three—was a
Turkey carpet. My steps fell noiselessly. “The book-
cases standing out, placed the windows, particularly
narrow ones, in deep recesses. The effect of the room
was, although extremely comfortable, and even
luxurious, decidedly gloomy, and aided by the silence,
almost oppressive. Perhaps, however, I ought to have
allowed something for association. My mind had
connected peculiar ideas with Mr. Jennings. I stepped
into this perfectly silent room, of a very silent house,
with a peculiar foreboding; and its darkness, and
solemn clothing of books, for except where two
narrow looking-glasses were set in the wall, they were
everywhere, helped this sombre feeling.

While awaiting Mr. Jennings’ arrival, I amused
myself by looking into some of the books with which
his shelves were laden. Not among these, but im-
mediately under them, with their backs upward, on
the floor, I lighted upon a complete set of Sweden-
borg’s “ Arcana Celestia,” in the original Latin, a
very fine folio set, bound in the natty livery which
theology affects, pure vellum, namely, gold letters,
and carmine edges. There were paper markers in
several of these volumes, I raised and placed them, one
after the other, upon the table, and opening where
these papers were placed, I read in the solemn Latin
phraseology, a series of sentences indicated by a pen-
cilled line at the margin. Of these I copy here a few,
translating them into English.

“When man’s interior sight is opened, which is
that of his spirit, then there appear the things of
another life, whick cannot possibly be made visible to
the bodily sight.” ....
''GREEN TEA. 15

“By the internal sight it has been granted me to
see the things that are in the other life, more clearly
than I see those that are in the world. From these
considerations, it is evident that external vision exists
from interior vision, and this from a vision still more
interior, and’ so on.” . ..'.

“There are with every man at least two evil
Sorte is,

“ With wicked genii there is also a fluent speech,
but harsh and grating. There is also among them a
speech which is not fluent, wherein the dissent of the
thoughts is perceived as something secretly creeping
along within it.”

“The evil spirits associated with man are, indeed
from the hells, but when with man they are not then
in hell, but are taken out thence. The place where
they then are, is in the midst between heaven and
hell, and is called the world of spirits—when the evil
spirits who are with man, are in that world, they are
not in any infernal torment, but in every thought and
affection of the man, and so, in all that the man him-
self enjoys. But when they are remitted into their
hell, they return to their former state.” ....

“If evil spirits could perceive that they were
associated with man, and yet that they were spirits
separate from him, and if they could flow in into the
things of his body, they would attempt by a thousand
means to destroy him; for they hate man with a
Geaahy natred.” ....

“Knowing, therefore, that I was a man in the
body, they were continually striving to destroy me,
not as to the body only, but especially as to the soul ;
for to destroy any man or spirit is the very delight of
''16 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

the life of all who are in hell; but I have been con-
tinually protected by the Lord. Hence it appears
how dangerous it is for man to be ina living consort
with spirits, unless he be in the good of faith,” ....

“Nothing is more carefully guarded from the
knowledge of associate spirits than their being thus
conjoint with a man, for if they knew it they would
speak to him, with the intention to destroy him.” .. .

“ The delight of hell is to do evil to man, and to
hasten his eternal ruin.”

A long note, written with a very sharp and fine
pencil, in Mr. Jennings’ neat hand, at the foot of the
page, caught my eye. Expecting his criticism upon
the text, I read a word or two, and stopped, for it
was something quite different, and began with these
words, Deus misereatur met—“ May God compassion-
ate me.” Thus warned of its private nature, I averted
my eyes, and shut the book, replacing all the
volumes as I had found them, except one which
interested me, and in which, as men studious and
solitary in their habits will do, I grew so absorbed as
to take no cognisance of the outer world, nor to
remember where I was.

I was reading some pages which refer to “repre-
sentatives” and “correspondents,” in the technical
language of Swedenborg, and had arrived at a passage,
the substance of which is, that evil spirits, when seen
by other eyes than those of their infernal associates,
present themselves, by “correspondence,” in the shape
of the beast (feva) which represents their particular
lust and life, in aspect direful and atrocious. This is
a long passage, and particularises a number of those
bestial forms.
''CHAPTER IV.
FOUR EYES WERE READING THE PASSAGE,

I wAs running the head of my pencil-case along the
line as I read it, and something caused me to raise
my eyes,

Directly before me was one of the mirrors I have
mentioned, in which I saw reflected the tall shape of
my friend, Mr. Jennings, leaning over my shoulder,
and reading the page at which I was busy, and with a
face so dark and wild that I should hardly have
known him.

I turned and rose. He stood erect also, and with
an effort laughed a little, saying :

“TI came in and asked you how you did, but
without succeeding in awaking you from your book ;
so I could not restrain my curiosity, and very imper-
tinently, I’m afraid, peeped over your shoulder. This
is not your first time of looking into those pages.
You have looked into Swedenborg, no doubt, long
ago?”

“Oh dear, yes! I owe Swedenborg a great deal ;
you will discover traces of him in the little book on

2
''18 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

Metaphysical Medicine, which you were so good as to
remember.”

Although my friend affected a gaiety of manner,
there was a slight flush in his face, and I could per-
_ ceive that he was inwardly much perturbed.

“I’m scarcely yet qualified, I know so little of
Swedenborg. I’ve only had them a fortnight,” he
answered, “and I think they are rather likely to
make a solitary man nervous—that is, judging from
the very little I have read—I don’t say that they
have made me so,” he laughed ; “and I’m so very
much obliged for the book. I hope you got my
note?”

I made all proper acknowledgments and modest
disclaimers.

“TI never read a book that I go with, so entirely,
as that of yours,” he continued. “I sawat once there
is More in it than is quite unfolded. Do you know
Dr. Harley ?” he asked, rather abruptly.

In passing, the editor remarks that the physician
here named was one of the most eminent who had
ever practised in England.

I did, having had letters to him, and had expe-
rienced from him great courtesy and considerable
assistance during my visit to England.

“T think that man one of the very greatest fools
I ever met in my life,” said Mr. Jennings.

This was the first time I had ever heard him say
a sharp thing of anybody, and such a term applied to
so high a name a little startled me.

“Really ! and in what way?” I asked.

“Tn his profession,” he answered.

I smiled.
''GREEN TEA. 19

“T mean this,” he said: “he seems to me, one
half, blind—I mean one half of all he looks at is dark
—preternaturally bright and vivid all the rest; and
the worst of it is, it seems wz/fu/. I can’t get him—
I mean he won’t—I’ve had some experience of him as
a physician, but I look on him as, in that sense, no
better than a paralytic mind, an intellect half dead.
Vil tell you—I know I shall some time—all about it,”
he said, with a little agitation. “You stay some
months longer in England. If I should be out of
town during your stay for a little time, would you
allow me to trouble you with a letter?”

“T should be only too happy,” I assured him.

“Very good of you. Iam so utterly dissatisfied
with Harley.”

“A little leaning to the materialistic school,” I
said.

“A mere materialist,’ he corrected me; “you
can’t think how that sort of thing worries one who
knows better. You won't tell any one—any of my
friends you know—that I am hippish; now, for in-
stance, no one knows—not even Lady Mary—that I
have seen Dr. Harley, or any other doctor. So pray
don’t mention it; and, if I should have any threaten-
ing of an attack, you'll kindly let me write, or, should
I be in town, have a little talk with you.”

I was full of conjecture, and unconsciously I
found I had fixed my eyes gravely on him, for he
lowered his for a moment, and he said:

“T see you think I might as well tell you now, or
else you are forming a conjecture; but you may as
well give it up. If you were guessing all the rest of
your life, you will never hit on it.”
''20 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

He shook his head smiling, and over that wintry
sunshine a black cloud suddenly came down, and he
drew his breath in, through his teeth as men do in
pain.

“Sorry, of course, to learn that you apprehend
occasion to consult any of us; but, command me
when and how you like, and I need not assure you
that your confidence is sacred.”

He then talked of quite other things, and in a
comparatively cheerful way and after a little time, J
took my leave.
''CHAPTER V:.
DOCTOR HESSELIUS IS SUMMONED TO RICHMOND.

WE parted cheerfully, but he was not cheerful, nor
was I. There are certain expressions of that power-
ful organ of spirit—the human face—which, although
I have seen them often, and possess a doctor’s nerve,
yet disturb me profoundly. One look of Mr. Jennings
haunted me. It had seized my imagination with so
dismal a power that I changed my plans for the even-
ing, and went to the opera, feeling that I wanted a
change of ideas.

I heard nothing of or from him for two or three
days, when a note in his hand reached me. It was
cheerful, and full of hope. He said that he had been
for some little time so much better—quite well, in fact
—that he was going to make a little experiment, and
run down for a month or so to his parish, to try
whether a little work might not quite set him up.
There was in it a fervent religious expression of
gratitude for his restoration, as he now almost hoped
he might call it.

A day or two later I saw Lady Mary, who
''22 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

repeated what his note had announced, and told me
that he was actually in Warwickshire, having resumed
his clerical duties at Kenlis; and she added, “I
begin to think that he is really perfectly well, and
that there never was anything the matter, more than
nerves and fancy; we are all nervous, but I fancy
there is nothing like a little hard work for that kind
of weakness, and he has made up his mind to try it.
I should not be surprised if he did not come back for
a year.”

Notwithstanding all this confidence, only two
days later I had this note, dated from his house off
Piccadilly :

“ DEAR SIR,—I have returned disappointed. If I
should feel at all able to see you, I shall write to ask
you kindly to call. At present, I am too low, and, in
fact, simply unable to say all I wish to say. Pray
don’t mention my name to my friends. I can see no
one. By-and-by, please God, you shall hear from me.
I mean to take a run into Shropshire, where some of
my people are. God bless you! May we, on my
return, meet more happily than I can now write.”

About a week after this I saw Lady Mary at her
own house, the last person, she said, left in town, and
just on the wing for Brighton, for the London season
was quite over. She told me that she had heard from
Mr. Jennings’ niece, Martha, in Shropshire. There
was nothing to be gathered from her letter, more than
that he was low and nervous. In those words, of
which healthy people think so lightly, what a world
of suffering is sometimes hidden !

Nearly five weeks had passed without any further
''GREEN TEA. 23

news of Mr. Jennings. At the end of that time I
received a note from him. He wrote:

“T have been in the country, and have had change
of air, change of scene, change of faces, change of
everything and in everything—but myse/f' I have
made up my mind, so far as the most irresolute
creature on earth can do it, to tell my case fully to
you. If your engagements will permit, pray come to
me to-day, to-morrow, or the next day; but, pray
defer as little as possible. You know not how much
I need help. I have a quiet house at Richmond,
where I now am. Perhaps you can manage to come
to dinner, or to luncheon, or even to tea. You shall
have no trouble in finding me out. The servant at
Blank Street, who takes this note, will have a carriage
at your door at any hour you please; and I am
always to be found. You will say that I ought
not to be alone. I have tried everything. Come
and see.”

I called up the servant, and decided on going out
the same evening, which accordingly I did.

He would have been much better in a lodging-
house, or hotel, I thought, as I drove up through a
short double row of sombre elms to a very old-
fashioned brick house, darkened by the foliage of
these trees, which overtopped, and nearly surrounded
it. It was a perverse choice, for nothing could be
imagined more triste and silent. The house, I found,
belonged to him. He had stayed for a day or two in
town, and, finding it for some cause insupportable, had
come out here, probably because being furnished and
his own, he was relieved of the thought and delay of
selection, by coming here.
''24 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

The sun had already set, and the red reflected
light of the western sky illuminated the scene with
the peculiar effect with which we are all familiar.
The hall seemed very dark, but, getting to the back
drawing-room, whose windows command the west, I
was again in the same dusky light.

I sat down, looking out upon ‘the richly-wooded
landscape that glowed in the grand and melancholy
light which was every moment fading. The corners
of the room were already dark; all was growing dim,
and the gloom was insensibly toning my mind, already
prepared for what was sinister. I was waiting alone
for his arrival, which soon took place. The door com-
municating with the front room opened, and the tall
figure of Mr. Jennings, faintly seen in the ruddy twi-
light, came, with quiet stealthy steps, into the room.

We shook hands, and, taking a chair to the win-
dow, where there was still light enough to enable us
to see each other’s faces, he sat down beside me, and,
placing his hand upon my arm, with scarcely a word
of preface began his narrative,
''CHAPTER VI.

HOW MR. JENNINGS MET HIS COMPANION.

THE faint glow of the west, the pomp of the then
lonely woods of Richmond, were before us, behind
and about usthe darkening room, and on the stony
face of the sufferer—for the character of his face,
though still gentle and sweet, was changed—rested
that dim, odd glow which seems to descend and
produce, where it touches, lights, sudden though faint,
which are lost, almost without gradation, in darkness.
The silence, too, was utter; not a distant wheel, or
bark, or whistle from without ; and within the depres-
sing stillness of an invalid bachelor’s house.

I guessed well the nature, though not even vaguely
the particulars of the revelations I was about to
receive, from that fixed face of suffering that so
oddly flushed stood out, like a portrait of Schalken’s,
before its background of darkness.

“Tt began,” he said, “on the 15th of October,
three years and eleven weeks ago,and two days—I
keep very accurate count, for every day is torment.
If I leave anywhere a chasm in my narrative tell me.

“ About four years ago I began a work, which had
''26 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

cost me very much thought and reading. It was
upon the religious metaphysics of the ancients.”

“I know,” said I, “the actual religion of educated
and thinking paganism, quite apart from symbolic
worship? A wide and very interesting field.”

“Yes; but not good for the mind—the Chris-
tian mind, I mean. Paganism is all bound together
in essential unity, and, with evil sympathy, their
religion involves their art, and both their manners,
and the subject is a degrading fascination and the
Nemesis sure. God forgive me!

“T wrote a great deal; I wrote late at night. I
was always thinking on the subject, walking about,
wherever I was, everywhere. It thoroughly infected
me. You are to remember that all the material ideas
connected with it were more or less of the beautiful,
the subject itself delightfully interesting, and I, then,
without a care.”

He sighed heavily.

“T believe that every one who sets about writing

in earnest does his work, as a friend of mine phrased
- it, on something—tea, or coffee, or tobacco. I suppose
there is a material waste that must be hourly sup-
plied in such occupations, or that we should grow too
abstracted, and the mind, as it were, pass out of the
body, unless it were reminded often of the connection
by actual sensation. At all events, I felt the want,
and I supplied it. Tea was my companion—at first
the ordinary black tea, made in the usual way, not
too strong: but I drank a good deal, and increased its
strength as I went on. I never experienced an un-
comfortable symptom from it. I began to take a
little green tea. I found the effect pleasanter, it
''GREEN TEA. 27

cleared arid intensified the power of thought so. I
had come to take it frequently, but not stronger than
one might take it for pleasure. I wrote a great deal
out here, it was so quiet, and in this room. I used to
sit up very late, and it became a habit with me to
sip my tea—green tea—every now and then as
my work proceeded. I had a little kettle on my
table, that swung overa lamp, and made tea two
or three times between eleven o'clock and two
or three in the morning, my hours of going to
bed. I used to go into town every day. I was nota
monk, and, although I spent an hour or two in a
library, hunting up authorities and looking out lights
upon my theme, I was in no morbid state as far as I
can judge. I met my friends pretty much as usual
and enjoyed their society, and, on the whole, existence
had never been, I think, so pleasant before.

“IT had met with a man who had some odd old
books, German editions in medizeval Latin, and I was
only too happy to be permitted access tothem. This
obliging person’s books were in the City, a very out-
of-the-way part of it. I had rather out-stayed my
intended hour, and, on coming out, seeing no cab
near, I was tempted to get into the omnibus which
used to drive past this house. It was darker than
this by the time the bus had reached an old house,
you may have remarked, with four poplars at each
side of the door, and there the last passenger but
myself got out. We drove along rather faster. It
was twilight now. I leaned back in my corner next
the door ruminating pleasantly.

“The interior of the omnibus was nearly
dark, I had observed in the corner opposite to
''28 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

me at the other side, and at the end next the
horses, two small circular reflections, as it seemed
to me of a reddish light. They were about two
inches apart, and about the size of those small
brass buttons that yachting men used to put upon
their jackets. I began to speculate, as listless men
will, upon this trifle, as it seemed. From what centre
did that faint but deep red light come, and from
what—glass beads, buttons, toy decorations—was it
reflected? We were lumbering along gently, having
nearly a mile still to go. I had not solved the puzzle,
and it became in another minute more odd, for these
two luminous points, with a sudden jerk, descended
nearer the floor, keeping still their relative distance
and horizontal position, and then, as suddenly, they
rose to the level of the seat on which I was sitting
and I saw them no more.

“My curiosity was now really excited, and, before
I had time to think, I saw again these two dull lamps,
again together near the floor ; again they disappeared,
and again in their old corner I saw them.

“So, keeping my eyesupon them, I edged quietly
up my own side, towards the end at which I still saw
these tiny discs of red.

“There was very little light in the bus. It was
nearly dark. I leaned forward to aid my endeavour
to discover what these little circles really were. They
shifted their position a little as I did so. I began
now to perceive an outline of something black, and I
soon saw, with tolerable distinctness, the outline of a
small black monkey, pushing its face forward in
mimicry to meet mine; those were its eyes, and I
''GREEN TEA. 29

“J drew back, not knowing whether it might not
meditate a spring. I fancied that one of the passen-
gers had forgot this ugly pet, and wishing to ascertain
something of its temper, though not caring to trust
my fingers to it, I poked my umbrella softly towards
it. It remained immovable—up to it—hrough it.
For through it, and back and forward it passed, with-
out the slightest resistance.

“T can’t, in the least, convey to you the kind of
horror that I felt. When I had ascertained that the
thing was an illusion, as I then supposed, there came
a misgiving about myself and a terror that fascinated
me in impotence to remove my gaze from the eyes of
the brute for some moments. As I looked, it made
a little skip back, quite into the corner, and I,in a
panic, found myself at the door, having put my head
out, drawing deep breaths of the outer air, and staring
at the lights and trees we were passing, too glad to
reassure myself of reality.

“JT stopped the ’bus and got out. I perceived the
man look oddly at me as I paid him. I daresay
there was something unusual in my looks and man-
ner, for I had never felt so strangely before.‘
''CHAPTER VII.
THE JOURNEY: FIRST STAGE.

“WHEN the omnibus drove on, and I was alone upon
the road, I looked carefully round to ascertain
whether the monkey had followed me. To my in-
describable relief I saw it nowhere. I can’t describe
easily what a shock I had received, and my sense of
genuine gratitude on finding myself, as I supposed,
quite rid of it.

“JT had got out a little before we reached this
house, two or three hundred steps. A brick wall runs
along the footpath, and inside the wall isa hedge of
yew, or some dark evergreen of that kind, and within
that again the row of fine trees which you may have
remarked as you came.

“ This brick wall is about as high as my shoulder,
and happening to raise my eyes I saw the monkey,
with that stooping gait, on all fours, walking or
creeping, close beside me on top of the wall. I stopped,
looking at it with a feeling of loathing and horror.
As I stopped so did it. It sat up on the wall with its
long hands on its knees looking at me. There was
''GREEN TEA. 31

not light enough to see it much more than in outline,
nor was it dark enough to bring the peculiar light of
its eyes into strong relief. I still saw, however, that
red foggy light plainly enough. It did not show its
teeth, nor exhibit any sign of irritation, but seemed
jaded and sulky, and was observing me steadily.

“T drew back into the middle of the road. It was”
an unconscious recoil, and there I stood, still looking
at it. It did not move.

“With an instinctive determination to try some-
thing—anything, I turned about and walked briskly
towards town with askance look, all the time, watch-
ing the movements of the beast. It crept swiftly
along the wall, at exactly my pace.

“Where the wall ends, near the turn of the road,
it came down, and with a wiry spring or two brought:
itself close to my feet, and continued to keep up with
me, as I quickened my pace. It was at my left side,
so close to my leg that I felt every moment as if I
should tread upon it.

“The road was quite deserted and silent, and it
was darker every moment. I stopped dismayed and
bewildered, turning as I did so, the other way—I
mean, towards this house, away from which I had
been walking. When I stood still, the monkey drew
back to a distance of, I suppose, about five or six
yards, and remained stationary, watching me.

“TI had been more agitated than I have said. I
had read, of course, as every one has, something about
‘spectral illusions, as you physicians term the
phenomena of such cases. I considered my situation,
and looked my misfortune in the face.

“These affections, I had read, are sometimes
''32 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

transitory and sometimes obstinate. I had read of
cases in which the appearance, at first harmless, had,
step by step, degenerated into something direful and
insupportable, and ended by wearing its victim out:
Still as I stood there, but for my bestial companion,
quite alone, I tried to comfort myself by repeating
again and again the assurance, ‘the thing is purely
disease, a well-known physical affection, as distinctly
as small-pox or neuralgia. Doctors are all agreed on
that, philosophy demonstrates it. I must not be a
fool. I’ve been sitting up too late, and I daresay my
digestion is quite wrong, and, with God’s help, I shall
be all right, and this is but a symptom of nervous
dyspepsia.’ Did I believe all this? Not one word of
it, no more than any other miserable being ever did
who is once seized and riveted in this satanic cap-
tivity. Against my convictions, I might say my
knowledge, I was simply bullying myself into a false
courage.

“TI now walked homeward. I had only a few
hundred yards to go. I had forced myself into a sort
of resignation, but I had not got over the sickening
shock and the flurry of the first certainty of my
misfortune. ‘

“T made up my mind to pass the night at home.
The brute moved close beside me, and I fancied there
was the sort of anxious drawing toward the house,
which one sees in tired horses or dogs, sometimes as
they come toward home.

“T was afraid to go into town, I was afraid of
any one’s seeing and recognizing me. I was conscious
of an irrepressible agitation in my manner. Also, I
was afraid of any violent change in my habits, such
''GREEN TEA. 33

as going to a place of amusement, or walking from
home in order to fatigue myself. At the hall door it
waited till I mounted the steps, and when the door
was opened entered with me.

“TI drank no tea that night. I got cigars and
some brandy and water. My idea was that I should
act upon my material system, and by living for a
while in sensation apart from thought, send myself
forcibly, as it were, into a new groove. I came up
here to this drawing-room. I sat just here. The
monkey then got upon a small table that then stood
there. It looked dazed and languid. An irrepressible
uneasiness as to its movements kept my eyes always
upon it. Its eyes were half closed, but I could see
them glow. It was looking steadily at me. In all
situations, at all hours, it is awake and looking at me.
That never changes.

“JT shall not continue in detail my narrative of
this particular night. I shall describe, rather, the
phenomena of the first year, which never varied,
essentially. I shall describe the monkey as it ap-
peared in daylight. In the dark, as you shall pre-
sently hear, there are peculiarities. It is a small
monkey, perfectly black. It had only one peculiarity
—a character of malignity—unfathomable malignity.
During the first year it looked sullen and sick. But
this character of intense malice and vigilance was
always underlying that surly languor. During all
that time it acted as if on a plan of giving me as
little trouble as was consistent with watching me.
Its eyes were never off me. I have never lost sight
of it, except in my sleep, light or dark, day or

3
''34 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

night, since it came here, excepting when it withdraws
for some weeks at a time, unaccountably.

“In total dark it is visible as in daylight. I do
not mean merely its eyes. It is a// visible distinctly
in a halo that resembles a glow of red embers, and
which accompanies it in all its movements,

“When it leaves me for a time, it is always at
night, in the dark, and in the same way. It grows at
first uneasy, and then furious, and then advances
towards me, grinning and shaking, its paws clenched,
and, at the same time, there comes the appearance of
fire in the grate. Inever have any fire. I can’t sleep
in the room where there is any, and it draws nearer
and nearer to the chimney, quivering, it seems, with
rage, and when its fury rises to the highest pitch, it
springs into the grate, and up the chimney, and I see
it no more.

“When first this happened, I thought I was re-
leased. I was now a new man. A day passed—a
night—and no return, and a blessed week—a week—
another week. I was always on my knees, Dr, Hes-
selius, always, thanking God and praying. A whole
month passed of liberty, but on a sudden, it was with
me again.”
''CHAPTER Vill.
THE SECOND STAGE.

“IT was with me, and the malice which before was
torpid under a sullen exterior, was now active. It
was perfectly unchanged in every other respect. This
new energy was apparent in its activity and its looks,
and soon in other ways.

“For a time, you will understand, the change was
shown only in an increased vivacity, and an air of
menace, as if it was always brooding over some
atrocious plan. Its eyes, as before, were never off
me.’

“Ts it here now?” I asked.

“No,” he replied, “it has been absent exactly a
fortnight and a day—fifteen days. It has sometimes
been away so long as nearly two months, once for
three. Its absence always exceeds a fortnight,
although it may be but bya single day. Fifteen days
having past since I saw it last, it may return now at
any moment.”

“Ts its return,” I asked, “accompanied by any
peculiar manifestation ?”
''36 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“ Nothing—no,” he said. “It is simply with me
again. On lifting my eyes from a book, or turning
my head, I see it, as usual, looking at me, and then it
remains, as before, for its appointed time. I have
never told so much and so minutely before to any
one.”

I perceived that he was agitated, and looking like
death, and he repeatedly applied his handkerchief to
his forehead ; I suggested that he might be tired, and
told him that I would call, with pleasure, in the
morning, but he said:

“ No, if you don’t mind hearing it all now. I have
got so far, and I should prefer making one effort of it.
When I spoke to Dr. Harley, I had nothing like so
much to tell, You are a _ philosophic physician.
You give spirit its proper rank. If this thing is
real P

He paused, looking at me with agitated inquiry.

“We can discuss it by-and-by, and very fully. I
will give you all I think,’ I answered, after an
interval.

“ Well—very well. If it is anything real, I say, it
is prevailing, little by little, and drawing me more
interiorly into hell. Optic nerves, he talked of. Ah!
well—there are other nerves of communication. May
God Almighty help me! You shall hear.

“Its power of action, I tell you, had increased.
Its malice became, in a way aggressive. About two
years ago, some questions that were pending between
me and the bishop having been settled, I went down
to my parish in Warwickshire, anxious to find occupa-
tion in my profession. I was not prepared for what
happened, although I have since thought I might have

 
''GREEN TEA. 37

apprehended something like it. The reason of my
saying so is this in

He was beginning to speak with a great deal
more effort and reluctance, and sighed often, and
seemed at times nearly overcome. But at this time
his manner was not agitated. It was more like that
of a sinking patient, who has given himself up.

“Yes, but I will first tell you about Kenlis, my
parish.

“Tt was with me when I left this place for Dawl-
bridge. It was my silent travelling companion, and it
remained with me at the vicarage When I entered
on the discharge of my duties, another change took
place. The thing exhibited an atrocious determina-
tion to thwart me. It was with mein the church—in
the reading-desk—in the pulpit—within the com-
munion rails. At last, it reached this extremity, that
while I was reading to the congregation, it would
spring upon the open book and squat there, so that I
was unable to see the page. This happened more
than once.

“T left Dawlbridge for a time. I placed myself in
Dr. Harley’s hands. I did everything he told me.
He gave my case a great deal of thought. It
interested him, I think. He seemed successful. For
nearly three months I was perfectly free from a
return. I began to think I was safe. With his full
assent I returned to Dawlbridge.

“TI travelled in a chaise. I was in good spirits.
Iwas more—I was happy and grateful. I was re-
turning, as I thought, delivered from a dreadful hallu-
cination, to the scene of duties which I longed to
enter upon. It was a beautiful sunny evening, every-

 
''38 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

thing looked serene and cheerful, and I was delighted.
I remember looking out of the window to see the
spire of my church at Kenlis among the trees, at the
point where one has the earliest view of it. It is
exactly where the little stream that bounds the
parish passes under the road by a culvert, and where
it emerges at the road-side, a stone with an old in-
scription is placed. As we passed this point, I drew
my head in and sat down, and in the corner of the
chaise was the monkey.

“Fora moment I felt faint, and then quite wild
with despair and horror. I called to the driver,
and got out, and sat down at the road-side, and
prayed to God silently for mercy. A despairing
resignation supervened. My companion was with
me as I re-entered the vicarage. The same persecu-
tion followed. After a short struggle I submitted,
and soon I left the place.

“TI told you,” he said, “that the beast has before
this become in certain ways aggressive. I will explain
a little. It seemed to be actuated by intense and
increasing fury, whenever I said my prayers, or even
meditated prayer. It amounted at last to a dreadful
interruption. You will ask, how could a silent
immaterial phantom effect that? It was thus, when-
ever I meditated praying; it was always before me,
and nearer and nearer.

“Tt used to spring on a table, on the back of a
chair, on the chimney-piece, and slowly to swing
itself from side to side, looking at me all the time.
There is in its motion an indefinable power to
dissipate thought, and to contract one’s attention to
that monotony, till the ideas shrink, as it were, to a
''GREEN TEA. 39

point, and at last to nothing—and unless I had
started up, and shook off the catalepsy I have felt as
if my mind were on the point of losing itself. There
are other ways,” he sighed heavily; “thus, for in-
stance, while I pray with my eyes closed, it comes
closer and closer, and I see it. I know it is not to be
accounted for physically, but I do actually see it,
though my lids are closed, and so it rocks my mind,
as it were, and overpowers me, and I am obliged to
rise from my knees. If vou had ever yourself known
this, you would be acquainted with desperation.”
''CHAPTER IX.
THE THIRD STAGE,

“T SEE, Dr. Hesselius, that you don’t lose one word
of my statement. I need not ask you to listen
specially to what I am now going to tell you. They
talk of the optic nerves, and of spectral illusions, as
if the organ of sight was the only point assailable by
the influences that have fastened upon me—I know
better. For two years in my direful case that limita-
tion prevailed. But as food is taken in softly at the
lips, and then brought under the teeth, as the tip of
the little finger caught ina mill crank will draw in
the hand, and the arm, and the whole body, so the
miserable mortal who has been once caught firmly by
the end of the finest fibre of his nerve, is drawn in
and in, by the enormous machinery of hell, until he
isasIlam. Yes, Doctor, as / am, for while I talk to
you, and implore relief, I feel that my prayer is for
the impossible, and my pleading with the inexor-
able.”

I endeavoured to calm his visibly increasing agita-
tion, and told him that he must not despair,
''GREEN TEA. 41

While we talked the night had overtaken us. The
filmy moonlight was wide over the scene which the
window commanded, and I said:

“Perhaps you would prefer having candles. This
light, you know, is odd. I should wish you, as much
as possible, under your usual conditions while I make
my diagnosis, shall I call it—otherwise I don’t care.”

“ All lights are the same to me,” he said; “except
when I read or write, I care not if night were
perpetual. Iam going to tell you what happened
about a year ago. The thing began to speak to me.”

“Speak! How do you mean—speak as a man
does, do you mean ?”

“Yes ; speak in words and consecutive sentences,
with perfect coherence and articulation; but there is
a peculiarity. It is not like the tone of a human
voice, It is not by my ears it reaches me—it comes
like a singing through my head.

“This faculty, the power of speaking to me, will
be my undoing. It won’t let me pray, it interrupts
me with dreadful blasphemies. I dare not go on, I
could not. Oh! Doctor, can the skill, and thought,
and prayers of man avail me nothing !”

“You must promise me, my dear sir, not to
trouble yourself with unnecessarily exciting thoughts ;
confine yourself strictly to the narrative of facts ;
and recollect, above all, that even if the thing that
infests you be, you seem to suppose, a reality with an
actual independent life and will, yet it can have no
power to hurt you, unless it be given from above: its
access to your senses depends mainly upon your
physical condition—this is, under God, your comfort
and reliance: we are all alike environed. It is only
''42 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

that in your case, the ‘aries, the veil of the flesh, the
screen, is a little out of repair, and sights and sounds
are transmitted. We must enter on a new course,
sir,—be encouraged. I'll give to-night to the careful
consideration of the whole case.”

“You are very good, sir; you think it worth try-
ing, you don’t give me quite up; but, sir, you don’t
know, it is gaining such an influence over me: it
orders me about, it is such a tyrant, and I’m growing
so helpless. May God deliver me!”

“Tt orders you about—of course you mean by
speech ?”

“Yes, yes; it is always urging me to crimes, to
injure others, or myself. You see, Doctor, the situa-
tion is urgent, it is indeed. When I was in Shrop-
shire, a few weeks ago” (Mr. Jennings was speaking
rapidly and trembling now, holding my arm with one
hand, and looking in my face), “I went out one day
with a party of friends for a walk: my persecutor, I
tell you, was with me at the time. I lagged behind
the rest: the country near the Dee, you know, is
beautiful. Our path happened to lie near a coal
mine, and at the verge of the wood is a perpendicular
shaft, they say, a hundred and fifty feet deep. My niece
had remained behind with me—she knows, of course,
nothing of the nature of my sufferings. She knew,
however, that I had been ill, and was low, and she
remained to prevent my being quite alone. As we
loitered slowly on together, the brute that accom-
panied me was urging me to throw myself down the
shaft. I tell you now—oh, sir, think of it!—the one
consideration that saved me from that hideous death
was the fear lest the shock of witnessing the occurrence
''GREEN TEA, 43

should be too much for the poor girl. I asked her to
go on and take her walk with her friends, saying that
I could go no further. She made excuses, and the
more I urged her the firmer she became. She looked
doubtful and frightened. I suppose there was
something in my looks or manner that alarmed
her ; but she would not go, and that literally saved
me. You had no idea, sir, that a living man could be
made so abject a slave of Satan,” he said, with a
ghastly groan and a shudder.

There was a pause here, and I said,“ You were
preserved nevertheless. It was the act of God. You
are in His hands and in the power of no other being:
be therefore confident for the future.~
''CHAPTER X.

HOME.

I MADE him have candles lighted, and saw the room
looking cheery and inhabited before I left him. 1
told him that he must regard his illness strictly as
one dependent on physical, though szdtle physical
causes. I told him that he had evidence of God’s
care and love in the deliverance which he had just
described, and that I had perceived with pain that he
seemed to regard its peculiar features as indicating
that he had been delivered over to spiritual repro-
bation. Than such a conclusion nothing could be, I
insisted, less warranted; and not only so, but more
contrary to facts, as disclosed in his mysterious
deliverance from that murderous influence during his
Shropshire excursion. First, his niece had been
retained by his side without his intending to keep her
near him ; and, secondly, there had been infused into
his mind an irresistible repugnance to execute the
dreadful suggestion in her presence.

As I reasoned this point with him, Mr. Jennings
wept. He seemed comforted. One promise I
''GREEN TEA. 45

exacted, which was that should the monkey at any
time return, I should be sent for immediately ; and,
repeating my assurance that I would give neither
time nor thought to any other subject until I had
thoroughly investigated his case, and that to-morrow
he should hear the result, I took my leave.

Before getting into the carriage I told the servant
that his master was far from well, and that he should
make a point of frequently looking into his room.

My own arrangements I made witha view to being
quite secure from interruption.

I merely called at my lodgings, and with a travel-
ling-desk and carpet-bag, set off in a hackney carriage
for an inn about two miles out of town, called “The
Horns,” a very quiet and comfortable house, with
good thick walls, And there I resolved, without the
possibility of intrusion or distraction, to devote some
hours of the night, in my comfortable sitting-room, to
Mr. Jennings’ case, and so much of the morning as it
might require.

(There occurs here a careful note of Dr. Hesselius’
opinion upon the case, and of the habits, dietary, and
medicines which he prescribed. It is curious—some
persons would say mystical. But, on the whole, I
doubt whether it would sufficiently interest a reader
of the kind I am likely to meet with, to warrant its
being here reprinted. The whole letter was plainly.
written at the inn where he had hid himself for the
occasion. The next letter is dated from his town
lodgings.)

I left town for the inn where I slept last night at
half-past nine, and did not arrive at my room in town
until one o'clock this afternoon. I found a letter in
''46 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

Mr. Jennings’ hand upon my table. It had not come
by post, and, on inquiry, I learned that Mr. Jennings’
servant had brought it, and on learning that I was
not to return until to-day, and that no one could tell
him my address, he seemed very uncomfortable, and
said that his orders from his master were that he was
not to return without an answer.

I opened the letter and read :

“DEAR DR. HESSELIUS.—It is here. You had
not been an hour gone when it returned. It is speak-
ing. It knows all that has happened. It knows
everything—it knows you, and is frantic and atrocious.
It reviles. I send you this. It knows every word I
have written—I write. This I promised, and I there-
fore write, but I fear very confused, very incoherently.
I am so interrupted, disturbed.

“ Ever yours, sincerely yours,
“ROBERT LYNDER JENNINGS.”

“When did this come?” I asked.

“ About eleven last night : the man was here again,
and has been here three times to-day. The last time
is about an hour since.”

Thus answered, and with the notes I had made
upon his case in my pocket, I was in a few minutes
driving towards Richmond, to see Mr. Jennings.

I by no means, as you perceive, despaired of Mr.
Jennings’ case. He had himself remembered and
applied, though quite in a mistaken way, the principle
which I lay down in my Metaphysical Medicine, and
which governs all such cases. I was about to apply
it in earnest. I was profoundly interested, and very
''GREEN TEA. 47

anxious to see and examine him while the “ enemy ”
was actually present.

I drove up to the sombre house, and ran up the
steps, and knocked. The door, in a little time, was
opened by a tall woman in black silk. She looked
ill, and as if she had been crying. She curtseyed, and
heard my question, but she did not answer. She
turned her face away, extending her hand towards
two men who were coming down-stairs; and thus
having, as it were, tacitly made me over to them, she
passed through a side-door hastily and shut it.

The man who was nearest the hall, I at once
accosted, but being now close to him, I was shocked
to see that both his hands were covered with blood.

I drew back a little, and the man, passing down-
stairs, merely said in a low tone, “ Here’s the servant,
sir.”

The servant had stopped on the stairs, confounded
and dumb at seeing me. He was rubbing his hands
ina handkerchief, and it was steeped in blood.

“ Jones, what is it? what has happened ?” I asked,
while a sickening suspicion overpowered me.

The man asked me to come up to the lobby. I
was beside him in a moment, and, frowning and
pallid, with contracted eyes, he told me the horror
which I already half guessed.

His master had made away with himself.

I went upstairs with him to the room—what I
saw there I won’t tell you. He had cut his throat
with his razor. It was a frightful gash. The two
men had laid him on the bed, and composed his
limbs. It had happened, as the immense pool of
blood on the floor declared, at some distance between
''48. IN A GLASS DARKLY.

the bed and the window. There was carpet round
his bed, and a carpet under his dressing-table, but
none on the rest of the floor, for the man said he did
not like a carpet on his bedroom. In this sombre and
now terrible room, one of the great elms that darkened
the house was slowly moving the shadow of one of
its great boughs upon this dreadful floor.

I beckoned to the servant, and we went downstairs
together. I turned off the hall into an old-fashioned
panelled room, and there standing, I heard all the
servant had to tell. It was not a great deal.

“T concluded, sir, from your words, and looks,
sir, as you left last night, that you thought my master
seriously ill. I thought it might be that you were
afraid of a fit,or something. So I attended very
close to your directions. He sat up late, till past
three o'clock. He was not writing or reading. He was
talking a great deal to himself, but that was nothing
unusual, At about that hour I assisted him to un-
dress, and left him in his slippers and dressing-gown.
I went back softly in about half-an-hour. He was in
his bed, quite undressed, and a pair of candles lighted
on the table beside his bed. He was leaning on his
elbow, and looking out at the other side of the bed
when I camein. I asked him if he wanted anything,
and he said No.

“J don’t know whether it was what you said to
me, sir, or something a little unusual about him, but I
was uneasy, uncommon uneasy about him last night.

“Tn another half hour, or it might be a little more,
I went up again. I did not hear him talking as-
before. I opened the door a little. The candles were
both out, which was not usual. I had a bedroom
''GREEN TEA. 49

candle, and I let the light in, a little bit, looking softly
round. I saw him sitting in that chair beside the
dressing-table with his clothes on again. He turned
round and looked at me. I thought it strange he
should get up and dress, and put out the candles to
sit in the dark, that way. But I only asked him
again if I could do anything for him. He said, No,
rather sharp, I thought. I asked if I might light the
candles, and he said,‘ Do as you like, Jones’ So I
lighted them, and I lingered about the room, and he
said, ‘Tell me truth, Jones; why did you come again
—you did not hear anyone cursing?’ ‘No, sir, I
said, wondering what he could mean.

“*No, said he, after me, ‘of course, no ;’ and I
said to him, ‘Wouldn’t it be well, sir, you went to
bed? It’s just five o’clock ;’ and he said nothing but,
‘Very likely ; good-night, Jones.” So I went, sir, but
in less than an hour I came again. The door was
fast, and he heard me, and called as I thought from
the bed to know what I wanted, and he desired me
not to disturb him again. I lay down and slept for a
little. It must have been between six and seven
when I went up again. The door was still fast, and
he made no answer, so J did not like to disturb him,
and thinking he was asleep, I left him till nine. It
was his custom to ring when he wished me to come,
and I had no particular hour for calling him. I
tapped very gently, and getting no answer, I stayed
away a good while, supposing he was getting some
rest then. It was not till eleven o’clock I grew really
uncomfortable about him—for at the latest he was
never, that I could remember, later than half-past ten.
I got no answer. I knocked and called, and still no

4
''50 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

answer. So not being able to force the door, I called
Thomas from the stables, and together we forced it,
and found him in the shocking way you saw.”

Jones had no more to tell. Poor Mr. Jennings
was very gentle, and very kind. All his people were
fond of him. I could see that the servant was very
much moved.

So, dejected and agitated, I passed from that
terrible house, and its dark canopy of elms, and I
hope I shall never see it more. While I write to you
I feel like a man who has but half waked from a
frightful and monotonous dream. My memory rejects
the picture with incredulity and horror. Yet I know
itis true. It isthe story of the process of a poison, a
poison which excites the reciprocal action of spirit
and nerve, and paralyses the tissue that separates
those cognate functions of the senses, the external
and the interior. Thus we find strange bed-fellows,
and the mortal and immortal p-ematurely make

acquaintance.
6
''CONCLUSION.
A WORD FOR THOSE WHO SUFFER.

My dear Van L , you have suffered from an affec-
tion similar to that which I have just described.
You twice complained of a return of it.

Who, under God, cured you? Your humble ser-
vant, Martin Hesselius. Let me rather adopt the
more emphasised piety of a certain good old French
surgeon of three hundred years ago: “I treated, and
God cured you.”

Come, my friend, you are not to be hippish. Let
me tell you a fact.

I have met with, and treated, as my book shows,
fifty-seven cases of this kind of vision, which I term
indifferently “sublimated,” “ precocious,” and “in-
terior.”

There is another class of affections which are
truly termed — though commonly confounded with
those which I describe—spectral illusions. These
latter I look upon as being no less simply curable
than a cold in the head or a trifling dyspepsia.

It is those which rank in the first category that

 
''§2 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

test our promptitude of thought. Fifty-seven such
cases have I encountered, neither morenor less. And
in how many of these have I failed? In no one
single instance.

There is no one affliction of mortality more easily
and certainly reducible, with a little patience, and a
rational confidence in the physician. With these
simple conditions, I look upon the cure as absolutely
certain.

You are to remember that I had not even com-
menced to treat Mr. Jennings’ case. I have not any
doubt that I should have cured him perfectly in
eighteen months, or possibly it might have extended
to two years. Some cases are very rapidly curable,
others extremely tedious. Every intelligent physician
who will give thought and diligence to the task, will
effect a cure.

You know my tract on “The Cardinal Functions
of the Brain.” I there, by the evidence of innumer-
able facts, prove, as I think, the high probability of a
circulation arterial and venous in its mechanism,
through the nerves, Of this system, thus considered,
the brain is the heart. The fluid, which is propagated
hence through one class of nerves, returns in an
altered state through another, and the nature of that
fluid is spiritual, though not immaterial, any more
than, as I before remarked, light or electricity are so.

By various abuses, among which the habitual
use of such agents as green tea is one, this fluid
may be affected as to its quality, but it is more
frequently disturbed as to equilibrium. This fluid
being that which we have in common with spirits,
a congestion found upon the masses of brain or
''GREEN TEA. 53

nerve, connected with the interior sense, forms a
surface unduly exposed, on which disembodied
spirits may operate: communication is thus more or
less effectually established. Between this brain
circulation and the heart circulation there is an
intimate sympathy. The seat, or rather the instru-
ment of exterior vision, is the eye. The.seat of
interior vision is the nervous tissue and brain, imme-
diately about and above the eyebrow. You remember
how effectually I dissipated your pictures by the
simple application of iced eau-de-cologne. Few
cases, however, can be treated exactly alike with any-
thing like rapid success. Cold acts powerfully as-a
repellant of the nervous fluid. Long enough con-
tinued it will even produce that permanent insensi-
bility which we call numbness, and a little longer,
muscular as well as sensational paralysis.

I have not, I repeat, the slightest doubt that I
should have first dimmed and ultimately sealed that
inner eye which Mr. Jennings had inadvertently
opened. The same senses are opened in delirium
tremens, and entirely shut up again when the over-
action of the cerebral heart, and the prodigious
nervous congestions that attend it, are terminated by
a decided change in the state of the body. It is by
acting steadily upon the body, by a simple process,
that this result is produced—and inevitably produced
—I have never yet failed.

Poor Mr. Jennings made away with himself. But
that catastrophe was the result of a totally differént
malady, which, as it were, projected itself upon that
disease which was established. His case was in the
distinctive manner a complication, and the complaint
''eK, 4 pi og Oe See

Pee Ge’ IN A GLASS DARKLY...”
under which he really succumbed, was hereditary
‘suicidal mania. Poor Mr. Jennings I cannot call a
patient of mine, for I had not even begun to treat his
case, and he had not yet given me, I am convinced,
his full and unreserved confidence. If the patient do
not array himself on the side of the disease, his cure
is certain.
''THE FAMILIAR

PROLOGUE. |

UT of about two hundred and thirty cases,
() more or less nearly akin to that I have entitled
“Green Tea,” I select the following, which I call
“The Familiar.”

To this MS., Doctor Hesselius has, after his wont,
attached some sheets of letter-paper, on which are
written, in his hand nearly as compact as print, his
own remarks upon the case. He says—

“In point of conscience, no more unexcep-
tionable narrator, than the venerable Irish Clergy-
man who has given me this paper, on Mr.
Barton’s case, could have been chosen. The
statement is, however, medically imperfect. The
report of an intelligent physician, who had marked
its progress, and attended the patient, from its earlier
stages to its close, would have supplied what is want-
ing to erable me to pronounce with confidence, I
''56 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

should have been acquainted with Mr. Barton’s pro-
bable hereditary predispositions; I should have
known, possibly, by very early indications, something
of a remoter origin of the disease than can now be
ascertained.

“Tn a rough way, we may reduce all similar cases
to three distinct classes. They are founded on the
primary distinction between the subjective and the
objective. Of those whose senses are alleged to be
subject to supernatural impressions—some are simply
_visionaries, and propagate the illusions of which they
complain, from diseased brain or nerves, Others are,
. unquestionably, infested by, as we term them, spiritual
agencies, exterior to themselves. Others, again, owe
their sufferings to a mixed condition. The interior
sense, it is true, is opened; but it has been and
continues open by the action of disease. This form of
disease may, in one sense, be compared to the loss of
the scarf-skin, and a consequent exposure of surfaces
for whose excessive sensitiveness, nature has provided
a muffling. The loss of this covering is attended by
an habitual impassibility, by influences against which
we were intended to be guarded. But in the case of
the brain, and the nerves immediately connected with
its functions and its sensuous impressions, the cerebral
circulation undergoes periodically that vibratory
disturbance, which, I believe, I have satisfactorily
examined and demonstrated, in my MS. Essay,
A.17. This vibratory disturbance differs, as I there
prove, essentially from the congestive disturbance, the
phenomena of which are examined in A. 19. It is,
when excessive, invariably accompanied by z//uszons.

“Had I seen Mr. Barton, and examined him upon
''THE FAMILIAR. 57

the points, in his case, which need elucidation, I
should have without difficulty referred those pheno-
mena to their proper disease. My diagnosis is now,
necessarily, conjectural.”

Thus writes Doctor Hesselius ; and adds a great
deal which is of interest only to a scientific physician.

The Narrative of the Rev. Thomas Herbert, which
furnishes all that is known of the case, will be found
in the chapters that follow.
''CHAPTER 1.
FOOTSTEPS.

I WAS a young man at the time, and intimately
acquainted with some of the actors in this strange tale ;
the impression which its incidents made on me, there-
fore, were deep and lasting. I shall now endeavour,
with precision, to relate them all, combining, of course,
in the narrative, whatever I have learned from various
sources, tending, however imperfectly, to illuminate
the darkness which involves its progress and termi-
nation.

Somewhere about the year 1794, the younger
brother of a certain baronet, whom I shall call Sir
James Barton, returned to Dublin. He had served in
the navy with some distinction, having commanded
one of His Majesty’s frigates during the greater part
of the American war. Captain Barton was apparently
some two or three-and-forty years of age. He was
an intelligent and agreeable companion when he
pleased it, though generally reserved, and occasion-
ally even moody.

In society, however, he deported himself as a man
''THE FAMILIAR. 59

of the world, and a gentleman. He had not con-
tracted any of the noisy brusqueness sometimes
acquired at sea; on the contrary, his manners were
remarkably easy, quiet and even polished. Hewasin
person about the middle size,and somewhat strongly
formed—his countenance was marked with the lines of
thought, and on the whole wore an expression of
gravity and melancholy ; being, however, as I have
said, a man of perfect breeding, as well as of good
family, and in affluent circumstances, he had, of
course, ready access to the best society of Dublin,
without the necessity of any other credentials.

In his personal habits Mr. Barton was unexpensive.
He occupied lodgings in one of the ¢/en fashionable
streets in the south side of the town—kept but one
horse and one servant—and though a reputed free-
thinker, yet lived an orderly and moral life—indulging
neither in gaming, drinking, nor any other vicious
pursuit—living very much to himself, without forming
intimacies, or choosing any companions, and appearing
to mix in gay society rather for the sake of its bustle
and distraction, than for any opportunities it offered
of interchanging thought or feeling with its votaries.

Barton was, therefore, pronounced a saving, pru-
dent, unsocial sort of fellow, who bid fair to maintain
his celibacy alike against stratagem and assault, and
was likely to live to a good old age, die rich, and leave
his money to an hospital.

It was now apparent, however, that the nature of
Mr. Barton’s plans had been totally misconceived. A
young lady, whom I shall call Miss Montague, was at
this time introduced into the gay world by her aunt,
the Dowager Lady L——. Miss Montague was
''.

60 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

decidedly pretty and accomplished, and having some
natural cleverness, and a great deal of gaiety, became
for a while a reigning toast.

Her popularity, however, gained her, for a time,
nothing more than that unsubstantial admiration
which, however pleasant as an incense to vanity, is by
no means necessarily antecedent to matrimony—for,
unhappily for the young lady in question, it was an
understood thing, that beyond her personal attractions,
she had no kind of earthly provision. Such being the
state of affairs, it will readily be believed that no
little surprise was consequent upon the appearance of
Captain Barton as the avowed lover of the penniless
Miss Montague.

His suit prospered, as might have been expected,
and in a short time it was communicated by old
Lady L to each of her hundred-and-fifty parti-
cular friends in succession, that Captain Barton had
actually tendered proposals of marriage, with her
approbation, to her niece, Miss Montague, who had,
moreover, accepted the offer of his hand, conditionally
upon the consent of her father, who was then upon
his homeward voyage from India, and expected in
two or three weeks at the furthest.

About this consent there could be no doubt—the
delay, therefore, was one merely of form—they were
looked upon as absolutely engaged, and Lady L :
with a rigour of old-fashioned decorum with which
her niece would, no doubt, gladly have dispensed,
withdrew her thenceforward from all further partici-
pation in the gaieties of the town.

Captain Barton was a constant visitor, as well as
a frequent guest at the house, and was permitted all

 

 
''THE FAMILIAR. 61

the privileges of intimacy which a betrothed suitor is
usually accorded. Such was the relation of parties,
when the mysterious circumstances which darken
this narrative first begun to unfold themselves.

Lady L resided in a handsome mansion at
the north side of Dublin, and Captain Barton’s lodg-
ings, as we have already said, were situated at the
south. The distance intervening was considerable,
and it was Captain Barton’s habit generally to walk
home without an attendant, as often as he passed the
evening with the old lady and her fair charge.

His shortest way in such nocturnal walks, lay, for
a considerable space, through a line of street which
had as yet merely been laid out, and little more than
the foundations of the houses constructed.

One night, shortly after his engagement with Miss
Montague had commenced, he happened to remain
unusually late, in company with her and Lady L ‘
The conversation had turned upon the evidences of
revelation, which he had disputed with the callous
scepticism of a confirmed infidel. What were called
“French principles,” had in those days found their
way a good deal into fashionable society, especially
that portion of it which professed allegiance to
Whiggism, and neither the old lady nor her charge
were so perfectly free from the taint, as to look upon
Mr. Barton’s views as any serious objection to the
proposed union.

The discussion had degenerated into one upon
the supernatural and the marvellous, in which he had
pursued precisely the same line of argument and ridi-
cule. In all this, it is but truth to state, Captain
Barton was guilty of no affectation—the doctrines

 

 
''62 IN A GLASS DARKLY,

upon which he insisted, were, in reality, but too truly
the basis of his own fixed belief, if so it might be
called ; and perhaps not the least strange of the many
strange circumstances connected with my narrative,
was the fact that the subject of the fearful influences
I am about to describe, was himself, from the delibe-
rate conviction of years, an utter disbeliever in what
are usually termed preternatural agencies.

It was considerably past midnight when Mr. Bar-
ton took his leave, and set out upon his solitary walk
homeward. Hehad now reached the lonely road, with
its unfinished dwarf walls tracing the foundations of
the projected row of houses on either side — the
moon was shining mistily, and its imperfect light
made the road he trod but additionally dreary—that
utter silence which has in it something indefinably
exciting, reigned there, and made the sound of his
steps, which alone broke it, unnaturally loud and
distinct.

He had proceeded thus some way, when he, on a
sudden, heard other footfalls, pattering at a measured
pace, and, as it seemed, about two score steps behind
him.

The suspicion of being dogged is at all times
unpleasant: it is, however, especially so in a spot so
lonely: and this suspicion became so strong in the
mind of Captain Barton, that he abruptly turned
about to confront his pursuer, but, though there was
quite sufficient moonlight to disclose any object upon
the road he had traversed, no form of any kind was
visible there.

The steps he had heard could not have been the
reverberation of his own, for he stamped his foot upon
''THE FAMILIAR. 63

the ground, and walked briskly up and down, in the
vain attempt to awake an echo ; though by no means
a fanciful person, therefore, he was at last fain to
charge the sounds upon his imagination, and treat
them as an illusion. Thus satisfying himself, he re-
sumed his walk, and before he had proceeded a
dozen paces, the mysterious footfall was again audible
from behind, and this time, as if with the special
design of showing that the sounds were not the re-
sponses of an echo—the steps sometimes slackened
nearly to a halt, and sometimes hurried for six or
eight strides to a run, and again abated to a walk.

Captain Barton, as before, turned suddenly round,
and with the same result—no object was visible above
the deserted level of the road. He walked back over
the same ground, determined that, whatever might
have been the cause of the sounds which had so dis-
concerted him, it should not escape his search—the
endeavour, however, was unrewarded.

In spite of all his scepticism, he felt something
like a superstitious fear stealing fast upon him, and
with these unwonted and uncomfortable sensations,
he once more turned and pursued his way. There
was no repetition of these haunting sounds, until he
had reached the point where he had last stopped to
retrace his steps—here they were resumed—and
with sudden starts of running, which threatened to
bring the unseen pursuer up to the alarmed pedestrian,

Captain Barton arrested his course as formerly—
the unaccountable nature of the occurrence filled him
with vague and disagreeable sensations—and yielding
to the excitement that was gaining upon him, he
shouted sternly,“ Who goes there?” The sound of
''64 IN A GLASS DARKLY,

one’s own voice, thus exerted, in utter solitude, and
followed by total silence, has in it something un-
pleasantly dismaying, and he felt a degree of nervous-
ness which, perhaps, from no cause had he ever known
before.

To the very end of this solitary street the steps
pursued him—and it required a strong effort of stub-
born pride on his part, to resist the impulse that
prompted him every moment to run for safety at the
top of his speed. It was not until he had reached
his lodging, and sate by his own fireside, that he felt
sufficiently reassured to rearrange and reconsider in
his own mind the occurrences which had so discom-
posed him. So little a matter, after all, is sufficient
to upset the pride of scepticism and vindicate the old
simple laws of nature within us.
''CHARTER V1,
THE WATCHER.

Mr. BARTON was next morning sitting at a late
breakfast, reflecting upon the incidents of the previous
night, with more of inquisitiveness than awe, so
speedily do gloomy impressions upon the fancy dis-
appear under the cheerful influence of day, when a
letter just delivered by the postman was placed upon
the table before him.

There was nothing remarkable in the address of
this missive, except that it was written in a hand
which he did not know—perhaps it was disguised—
for the tall narrow characters were sloped backward ;
and with the self-inflicted suspense which we often
see practised in such cases, he puzzled over the in-
scription for a full minute before he broke the seal.
When he did so, he read the following words, writ-
ten in the same hand :—

“Mr. Barton, late captain oi the ‘Dolphin,’ is
warned of DANGER. He will do wisely to avoid
5

 
''66 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

Street—[here the locality of his last night’s adventure
was named|—if he walks there as usual he will meet
with something unlucky—let him take warning, once
for all, for he has reason to dread

“THE WATCHER.”

Captain Barton read and re-read this strange
effusion ; in every light and in every direction he
turned it over and over; he examined the paper on
which it was written, and scrutinized the hand-writing
once more. Defeated here, he turned to the seal ; it
was nothing but a patch of wax, upon which the
accidental impression of a thumb was imperfectly
visible.

There was not the slightest mark, or clue of any
kind, to lead him to even a guess as to its possible
origin. The writer’s object seemed a friendly one,
and yet he subscribed himself as one whom he had
“reason to dread.” Altogether the letter, its author,
and its real purpose were to him an inexplicable
puzzle, and one, moreover, unpleasantly suggestive,
in his mind, of other associations connected with his
last night’s adventure.

In obedience to some feeling—perhaps of pride—
Mr. Barton did not communicate, even to his intended
bride, the occurrences which I have just detailed.
Trifling as they might appear, they had in reality
most disagreeably affected his imagination, and he
cared not to disclose, even to the young lady in ques-
tion, what she might possibly look upon as evidences
of weakness. The letter might very well be but a
hoax, and the mysterious footfall but a delusion or a
trick. But although he affected to treat the whole
''THE FAMILIAR. 67

affair as unworthy of a thought, it yet haunted him
pertinaciously, tormenting him with perplexing
doubts, and depressing him with undefined appre-
hensions. Certain it is, that for a considerable time
afterwards he carefully avoided the street indicated in
the letter as the scene of danger.

It was not until about a week after the receipt of
the letter which I have transcribed, that anything
further occurred to remind Captain Barton of its
contents, or to counteract the gradual disappearance
from his mind of the disagreeable impressions then
received.

He was returning one night, after the interval I
have stated, from the theatre, which was then situated
in Crow Street, and having there seen Miss Montague
and Lady L—— into their carriage, he loitered for
some time with two or three acquaintances,

With these, however, he parted close to the college,
and pursued his way alone. It was now fully one
o’clock, and the streets were quite deserted. During
the whole of his walk with the companions from whom
he had just parted, he had been at times painfully
aware of the sound of steps, as it seemed, doyging
them on their way.

Once or twice he had looked back, in the uneasy
anticipation that he was again about to experience
the same mysterious annoyances which had so dis-
concerted him a week before, and earnestly hoping
that he might see some form to account naturally for
the sounds. But the street was deserted—no one was
visible.

Proceeding now quite alone upon his homeward
way, he grew really nervous and uncomfortable, as he
''68 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

became sensible, with increased distinctnesss, of the
well-known and now absolutely dreaded sounds,

By the side of the dead wall which bounded the
college park, the sounds followed, recommencing
almost simultaneously with his own steps. The
same unequal pace—sometimes slow, sometimes for a
score yards or so, quickened almost to a run—was
audible from behind him. Again and again he
turned ; quickly and stealthily he glanced over his
shoulder—almost at every half-dozen steps; but no
one was visible.

The irritation of this intangible and unseen pur-
suit became gradually all but intolerable; and when
at last he reached his home, his nerves were strung to
such a pitch of excitement that he could not rest,
and did not attempt even to lie down until after the
daylight had broken.

He was awakened by a knock at his chamber-door,
and his servant entering, handed him several letters
which had just been received by the penny post.
One among them instantly arrested his attention—a
single glance at the direction aroused him thoroughly.
He at once recognized its character, and read as
follows :—

“You may as well think, Captain Barton, to escape
from your own shadow as from me; do what you
may, I will see you as often as I please, and you shall
see me, for I do not want to hide myself, as you fancy.
Do not let it trouble your rest, Captain Barton ; for,
with a good conscience, what need you fear from the
eye of

“THE WATCHER.
''THE FAMILIAR. 69

It is scarcely necessary to dwell upon the feelings
that accompanied a perusal of this strange communi-
cation. Captain Barton was observed to be unusually
absent and out of spirits for several days afterwards !
but no one divined the cause.

Whatever he might think as to the phantom steps
which followed him, there could be no _ possible
illusion about the letters he had received ; and, to say
the least, their immediate sequence upon the myste-
rious sounds which had haunted him, was an odd
coincidence.

The whole circumstance was, in his own mind,
vaguely and instinctively connected with certain
passages in his past life, which, of all others, he hated
to remember.

It happened, however, that in addition to his own
approaching nuptials, Captain Barton had just then—
fortunately, perhaps, for himself—some business of an
engrossing kind connected with the adjustment
of a large and long-litigated claim upon certain
properties.

The hurry and excitement of business had its
natural effect in gradually dispelling the gloom which
had for a time occasionally oppressed him, and in
a little while his spirits had entirely recovered their
accustomed tone.

During all this time, however, he was, now and
then, dismayed by indistinct and half-heard repeti-
tions of the same annoyance, and that in lonely
places, in the day-time as well as after nightfall.
These renewals of the strange impressions from
which he had suffered so much, were, however,
desultory and faint, insomuch that often he really
''70 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

could not, to his own satisfaction, distinguish between
them and the mere suggestions of an excited
imagination.

One evening he walked down to the House of
Commons with a Member, an acquaintance of his and
mine. This was one of the few occasions upon
which I have been in company with Captain Barton.
As we walked down together, I observed that he
became absent and silent, and to a degree that
seemed to argue the pressure of some urgent and
absorbing anxiety.

I afterwards learned that during the whole of our
walk, he had heard the well-known footsteps tracking
him as we proceeded.

This, however, was the last time he suffered from
this phase of the persecution, of which he was already
the anxious victim. A new and a very different one
was about to be presented.
''CHAPTER IIL
AN ADVERTISEMENT.

OF the new series of impressions which were after-
wards gradually to work out his destiny, I that
evening witnessed the first; and but for its relation
to the train of events which followed, the incident
would scarcely have been now remembered by me.
As we were walking in at the passage from Col-
lege Green, a man, of whom I remember only that he
was short in stature, looked like a foreigner, and wore
a kind of fur travelling-cap, walked very rapidly, and
as if under fierce excitement, directly towards us,
muttering to himself, fast and vehemently the while.
This odd-looking person walked straight toward
Barton, who was foremost of the three, and halted,
regarding him for a moment or two with a look of
maniacal menace and fury; and then turning about
as abruptly, he walked before us at the same agitated
pace, and disappeared at a side passage. I do dis-
tinctly remember being a good deal shocked at the
countenance and bearing of this man, which indeed
irresistibly impressed me with an undefined sense of .
''72 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

danger, such as I have never felt before or since from
the presence of anything human; but these sensa-
tions were, on my part, far from amounting to any-
thing so disconcerting as to flurry or excite me—I
had seen only a singularly evil countenance, agitated,
as it seemed, with the excitement of madness.

I was absolutely astonished, however, at the effect
of this apparition upon Captain Barton. I knew him
to be a man of proud courage and coolness in real
danger—a circumstance which made his conduct upon
this occasion the more conspicuously odd. He recoiled
a step or two as the stranger advanced, and clutched
my arm in silence, with what seemed to be a spasm
of agony or terror! and then, as the figure disap-
peared, shoving me roughly back, he followed it for a
few paces, stopped in great disorder, and sat down
upon a form. I never beheld a countenance more
ghastly and haggard.

“For God’s sake, Barton, what is the matter?”
said ——, our companion, really alarmed at his ap-
pearance. “You're not hurt, are you?—or unwell?
What is it?”

“What did he say?—I did not hear it—what
was it?” asked Barton, wholly disregarding the
question.

“ Nonsense,” said , greatly surprised ; “who
cares what the fellow said. You are unwell, Barton
—decidedly unwell ; let me call a coach.”

“Unwell! No—not unwell,” he said, evidently
making an effort to recover his self-possession ; “ but,
to say the truth, I am fatigued—a little over-worked
—and perhaps over anxious. You know I have been
in Chancery, and the winding-up of a suit is always a

 
''THE FAMILIAR. 73

nervcus affair. I have felt uncomfortable all this
evening; but I am better now. Come, come—shall
we goon?”

“No, no. Take my advice, Barton, and go home;
you really do need rest; you are looking quite ill. I
really do insist on your allowing me to see you home,”
replied his friend.

I seconded ’s advice, the more readily as it
was obvious that Barton was not himself disinclined
to be persuaded. He left us, declining our offered
escort. I was not sufficiently intimate with to
discuss the scene we had both just witnessed. I was,
however, convinced from his manner in the few
common-place comments and regrets we exchanged,
that he was just as little satisfied as I with the ex-
tempore plea of illness with which he had accounted
for the strange exhibition, and that we were both
agreed in suspecting some lurking mystery in the
matter.

I called next day at Barton’s lodgings, to inquire
for him, and learned from the servant that he had not
left his room since his return the night before ; but
that he was not seriously indisposed, and hoped to
be out in a few days. That evening he sent for
Dr. R: , then in large and fashionable practice in
Dublin, and their interview was, it is said, an odd one.

He entered into a detail of his own symptoms in
an abstracted and desultory way, which seemed to
argue a strange want of interest in his own cure, and,
at all events, made it manifest that there was some
topic engaging his mind of more engrossing import-
ance than his present ailment. He complained of
occasional palpitations and headache.

 

 

 
''74 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

Doctor R asked him, among other questions,
whether there was any irritating circumstance or
anxiety then occupying his thoughts. This he denied
quickly and almost peevishly; and the physician
thereupon declared his opinion that there was noth-
ing amiss except some slight derangement of the
digestion, for which he accordingly wrote a prescrip-
tion, and was about to withdraw, when Mr. Barton,
with the air of a man who recollects a topic which
had nearly escaped him, recalled him.

“TI beg your pardon, Doctor, but I really almost
forgot; will you permit me to ask you two or three
medical questions—rather odd ones, perhaps, but a
wager depends upon their solution, you will, I hope,
excuse my unreasonableness ?”

The physician readily undertook to satisfy the
inquirer.

Barton seemed to have some difficulty about
opening the proposed interrogatories, for he was
silent for a minute, then walked to his book-case,
and returned as he had gone; at last he sat down,
and said— :
- “You'll think them very childish questions, but I
‘can’t recover my wager without a decision ; so I must
‘put them. I want to know first about lock-jaw. If
a man actually has had that complaint, and
appears to have died of it—so much so, that a
physician of average skill pronounces him actually
dead—may he, after all, recover ?”

The physician smiled, and shook his head.

“ But—but a blunder may be made,” resumed
Barton. “ Suppose an ignorant pretender to medical
skill; may he be so deceived by any stage of the

 
''THE FAMILIAR. 75

complaint, as to mistake what is only a part of the
progress of the disease, for death itself ?”

“No one who had ever seen death,” answered he,
“could mistake it in a case of lock-jaw.”

Barton mused for a few minutes. “Iam going to
ask you a question, perhaps, still more childish ; but
first, tell me, are the regulations of foreign hospitals,
such as that of, let us say, Naples, very lax and
bungling. May not all kinds of blunders and slips
occur in their entries of names, and so forth?”

Doctor R professed his incompetence to
answer that query.

“Well, then, Doctor, here is the last of my ques-
tions. You will, probably, laugh at it; but it must
out nevertheless. Is there any disease, in all the
range of human maladies, which would have the
effect of perceptibly contracting the stature, and the
whole frame—causing the man to shrink in all his
proportions, and yet to preserve his exact’ resemblance
to himself in every particular—with the ore exception,
his height and bulk; azy disease, mark—.no matter
how rare—how little believed in, generaliy—which
could possibly result in producing such an effect ?”

The physician replied with a smile, pad a very
decided negative.

“Tell me, then,” said Barton, abruptly, “if a man
be in reasonable fear of assault from alunatic who is
atlarge, can he not procure a warrant for his arrest
and detention ?” ;

“Really, that is more a lawyer’s question than
one in my way,” replied Doctor R——; “ but I be-
lieve, on applying to a magistrate, such a course would
be directed.”

 
''76 fN A GLASS DARKLY.

The physician then took his leave; but, just as he
reached the hall-door, remembered that he had left
his cane upstairs, and returned. His reappearance
was awkward, for a piece of paper, which he recog-
nized as his own prescription, was slowly burning
upon the fire, and Barton sitting close by with an
expression of settled gloom and dismay.

Doctor R—— had too much tact to observe what
presented itself; but he had seen quite enough to
assure him that the mind, and not the body, of Cap-
tain Barton was in reality the seat of suffering.

A few days afterwards, the following advertise-
ment appeared in the Dublin newspapers :—

“ff Sylvester Yelland, formerly a foremast man
on board His Majesty’s frigate ‘Dolphin,’ or his
nearest of kin, will apply to Mr. Hubert Smith, at-
torney, at his office, Dame Street, he or they may hear
of something greatly to his or their advantage. Ad-
mission may be had.at any hour up to twelve o’clock
at night, should parties desire to avoid observation ;
and the strictest secresy, as to all cormmunications
intended to be confidential, shall be honourably
observed.”

The “ Dolphin,” as I have mentioned, was the
vessel which Captain Barton had commanded; and
his circumstance, connected with the extraordinary
exertions made by the circulation of hand-bills, etc.,
as well as by repeated advertisements, to secure for
this strange notice the utmost possible publicity,
suggested to Dr. R—— the idea that Captain Barton’s
extreme uneasiness was somehow connected with the
individual to whom the advertisement was addressed,
and he himself the author of it.
''THE FAMILIAR. 7

This, however, it is needless to add, was no more
than a conjecture. No information, whatsoever, as to
the real purpose of the advertisement was divulged
by the agent, nor yet any hint as to who his employer
might be.
''CHATTER TV.
HE TALKS WITH A CLERGYMAN.

MR. BARTON, although he had latterly begun to
earn for himself the character of an hypochondriac,
was yet very far from deserving it. Though by no
means lively, he had yet, naturally, what are termed
“even spirits,” and was not subject to undue depres-
sions.

He soon, therefore, began to return to his former

habits; and one of the earliest symptoms of this-

healthier tone of spirits was his appearing at a grand
dinner of the Freemasons, of which worthy fraternity
he was himself a brother. Barton, who had been
at first gloomy and abstracted, drank much more
freely than was his wont—possibly with the purpose
of dispelling his own secret anxieties—and under
the influence of good wine and pleasant company,
became gradually (unlike himself) talkative, and even
noisy.

It was under this unwonted excitement that he
left his company at about half-past ten o’clock ; and,
as counviviality is a strong incentive to gallantry, it

#:
''THE FAMILIAR. 79

occurred to him to proceed forthwith to Lady L——’s,
and pass the remainder of the evening with her and
his destined bride.

Accordingly, he was soon at —— Street, and
chatting gaily with the ladies. It is not to be sup-
posed that Captain Barton had exceeded the limits
which propriety prescribes to good fellowship—he
had merely taken enough wine to raise his spirits,
without, however, in the least degree unsteadying
his mind, or affecting his manners.

With this undue elevation of spirits had super-
vened an entire oblivion or contempt of those unde-
fined apprehensions which had for so long weighed
upon his mind, and to a certain extent estranged him
from society ; but as the night wore away, and his
artificial gaiety began to flag, these painful feelings
gradually intruded themselves again, and he grew
abstracted and anxious as heretofore.

He took his leave at length, with an unpleasant
foreboding of some coming mischief, and with a mind
haunted with a thousand mysterious apprehensions,
such as, even while he acutely felt their pressure, he,
nevertheless, inwardly strove, or affected to contemn.

It was this proud defiance of what he regarded as
his own weakness, which prompted him upon the
present occasion to that course which brought about
the adventure I am now about to relate.

Mr. Barton might have easily called a coach, but
he was conscious that his strong inclination to do so
proceeded from no cause other than what he
desperately persisted in representing to himself to be
his own superstitious tremors.

He might also have returned home by a route
''80 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

different from that against which he had been warned
by his mysterious correspondent; but for the same
reason he dismissed this idea also, and with a dogged
and half desperate resolution to force matters to a
crisis of some kind, if there were any reality in the
causes of his former suffering, and if not, satisfactorily
to bring their delusiveness to the proof, he determined
to follow precisely the course which he had trodden
upon the night so painfully memorable in his own
mind as that on which his strange persecution com-
menced. Though, sooth to say, the pilot who for the
first time steers his vessel under the muzzles of a
hostile battery, never felt his resolution more severely
tasked than did Captain Barton, as he breathlessly
pursued this solitary path—a path which, spite of
every effort of scepticism and reason, he felt to be
infested by some (as respected 4zw) malignant
being.

He pursued his way steadily and rapidly, scarcely
breathing from intensity of suspense; he, however,
was troubled by no renewal of the dreaded footsteps,
and was beginning to feel a return of confidence, as
more than three-fourths of the way being accomp-
lished with impunity, he approached the long line of
twinkling oil lamps which indicated the frequented
streets.

This feeling of self-congratulation was, however,
but momentary. ‘The report of a musket at some
hundred yards behind him, and the whistle of a bullet
close to his head, disagreeably and startlingly dis-
pelled it. His first impulse was to retrace his steps
in pursuit of the assassin; but the road on either side
was, as we have said, embarrassed by the ioundations
''THE FAMILIAR, oI

of astreet, beyond which extended waste fields, full
of rubbish and neglected lime and brick-kilns, and
all now as utterly silent as though no sound had ever
disturbed their dark and unsightly solitude. The
futility of, single-handed, attempting, under such cir-
cumstances, a search for the murderer, was apparent
especially as no sound, either of retreating steps or
any other kind, was audible to direct his pursuit.

With the tumultuous sensations of one whose
life has just been exposed to a murderous attempt,
and whose escape has been the narrowest possible
Captain Barton turned again ; and without, however
quickening his pace actually to a run, hurriedly pur-
sued his way.

He had turned, as I have said, after a pause of a
few seconds, and had just commenced his rapid re-
treat, when on a sudden he met the well-remembered
little man in the fur cap. The encounter was but
momentary. The figure was walking at the same
exaggerated pace, and with the same strange air of
menace as before; and as it passed him, he thought
he heard it say, in a furious whisper, “ Still alive—
still alive!”

The state of Mr. Barton’s spirits began now to
work a corresponding alteration in his health and
looks, and to such a degree that it was impossible
that the change should escape general remark.

For some reasons, known but to himself, he took
no steps whatsoever to bring the attempt upon his life,
which he had so narrowly escaped, under the notice
of the authorities; on the contrary, he kept it jealously
to himself; and it was not for many weeks after the
occurrence that he mentioned it, and then in strict

: 6
''82 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

confidence, to a gentleman, whom the torments of his
mind at last compelled him to consult.

Spite of his blue devils, however, poor Barton,
having no satisfactory reason to render to the public
for any undue remissness in the attentions exacted by
the relation existing between him and Miss Montague,
was obliged to exert himself, and present to the world
a confident and cheerful bearing.

The true source of his sufferings, and every cir-
cumstance connected with them, he guarded with a
reserve so jealous, that it seemed dictated by at least
a suspicion that the origin of his strange persecu-
tion was known to himself, and that it was of a nature
which, upon his own account, he could not or dared
not disclose,

The mind thus turned in upon itself, and con-
stantly occupied with a haunting anxiety which it
dared not reveal or confide to any human breast, he-
came daily more excited, and, of course, more vividly
impressible, by a system of attack which operated
through the nervous system ; and in this state he was
destined to sustain, with increasing frequency, the
stealthy visitations of that apparition which from the
first had seemed to possess so terrible a hold upon his
imagination.

* * * * *

It was about this time that Captain Barton called
upon the then celebrated preacher, Dr. , with
whom he had a slight acquaintance, and an extra-
ordinary conversation ensued.

The divine was seated in his chambers in college,
surrounded with works upon his favourite pursuit, and
deep in theology, when Barton was announced.

 
''THE FAMILIAR. 83

There was something at once embarrassed and
excited in his manner, which, along with his wan and
haggard countenance, impressed the student with the
unpleasant consciousness that his visitor must have
recently suffered terribly indeed, to account for an
alteration so striking—almost shocking.

After the usual interchange of polite greeting, and
a few common-place remarks, Captain Barton, who
obviously perceived the surprise which his visit had
excited, and which Doctor was unable wholly
to conceal, interrupted a brief pause by remark-
ing—

“This is a strange call, Doctor , perhaps
scarcely warranted by an acquaintance so slight as
mine with you. I should not under ordinary circum-
stances have ventured to disturb you; but my visit is
neither an idle nor impertinent intrusion. I am sure
you will not so account it, when I tell you how
afflicted I am.”

Doctor interrupted him with assurances such
as good breeding suggested, and Barton resumed—

“T am come to task your patience by asking your
advice. When I say your patience, I might, indeed,
say more; I might have said your humanity—your
compassion ; for I have been and am a great suf-
ferer,”

“My dear sir,’ replied the churchman, “ it will,
indeed, afford me infinite gratification if I can give
you comfort in any distress of mind! but—you
know 4

“I know what you would say,” resumed Barton,
quickly ; “I am an unbeliever, and, therefore, inca-
pable of deriving help from religion; but don’t take

 

 

 

 
''84 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

that for granted. At least you must not assume
that, however unsettled my «convictions may be, I
do not feel a deep—a very deep—interest in the
subject. Circumstances have lately forced it upon my
attention, in such a way as to compel me to review
the whole question in a more candid and teachable
spirit, I believe, than I ever studied it in before.”

“Your difficulties, I take it for granted, refer
to the evidences of revelation,” suggested the clergy-
man.

“ Why—no—not altogether ; in fact, I am ashamed
to say I have not considered even my objections
sufficiently to state them connectedly ; but—but there
is one subject on which I feel a peculiar interest.”

He paused again, and Doctor pressed him to
proceed,

“The fact is,” said Barton, “whatever may be my
uncertainty as to the authenticity of what we are
taught to call revelation, of one fact I am deeply and
horribly convinced, that there does exist beyond
this a spiritual world—a system whose workings are
generally in mercy hidden from us—a system which
may be, and which is sometimes, partially and
terribly revealed. I am sure—I know,” continued Bar-
ton, with increasing excitement, “that there is a God
—a dreadful God—and that retribution follows guilt,
in ways the most mysterious and stupendous—by
agencies the most inexplicable and terrific ;—there is
a spiritual system—great God, how I have been con-
vinced !—a system malignant, and implacable, and
omnipotent, under whose persecutions I am, and have
been, suffering the torments of the damned !—yes, sir
—yes—the fires and frenzy of hell!”

 
''THE FAMILIAR 85

As Barton spoke, his agitation became so vehe-
ment that the Divine was shocked, and even alarmed.
The wild and excited rapidity with which he spoke,
and, above all, the indefinable horror that stamped
his features, afforded a contrast to his ordinary cool
and unimpassioned self-possession striking and pain-
' ful in the last degree.
''CHAPTER. V.
MR. BARTON STATES HIS CASE.

“ My dear sir,” said Doctor , after a brief pause,
“T fear you have been very unhappy, indeed ; but I
venture to predict that the depression under which
you labour will be found to originate in purely
physical causes, and that with a change of air, and the
aid of a few tonics, your spirits will return, and the
tone of your mind be once more cheerful and tranquil
as heretofore. There was, after all, more truth
than we are quite willing to admit in the classic
theories which assigned the undue predominance of
any one affection of the mind, to the undue action or
torpidity of one or other of our bodily organs. Believe
me, that a little attention to diet, exercise, and the
other essentials of health, under competent direction,
will make you as much yourself as you can wish.”
“Doctor ——,” said Barton, with something likea
shudder, “I cannot delude myself with such a hope.
I have no hope to cling to but one, and that is, that
by some other spiritual agency more potent than that
which tortures me, z¢ may be combated, and I de-

 
''THE FAMILIAR. 87

livered. If this may not be, I am lost—now and for
ever lost.”

“But, Mr. Barton, you must remember,” urged
his companion, “that others have suffered as you
have done, and ——”

“No, no, no,” interrupted he, with irritability—
“no, sir, I am not a credulous—far from a super-
stitious man. I have been, perhaps, too much the
reverse—too sceptical, too slow of belief; but unless
I were one whom no amount of evidence could con-
vince unless I were to contemn the repeated, the
perpetual evidence of my own senses, I am now—now
at last constrained to believe—I have no escape from
the conviction—the overwhelming certainty—that I
am haunted and dogged, go where I may, by—by a
DEMON !”

There was a preternatural energy of horror in
Barton’s face, as, with its damp and death-like
lineaments turned towards his companion, he thus
delivered himself.

“God help you, my poor friend,” said Dr. ——,
much shocked, “God help you; for, indeed, you are
a sufferer, however your sufferings may have been
caused.”

“ Ay, ay, God help me,” echoed Barton, sternly ;
“but wl He help me—will He help me?”

“Pray to Him—pray in an humble and trusting
spirit,” said he.

“ Pray, pray,” echoed he again; “I can’t pray—I
could as easily move a mountain by an effort of my
will. I have not belief enough to pray; there is
something within me that will not pray. You pre-
scribe impossibilities—literal impossibilities,”

@
''88 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“You will not find it so, if you will but try,’ said
Doctor .

“Try! I have tried, and the attempt only fills me
with confusion: and, sometimes, terror: I have tried
in vain, and more than in vain. The awful, unutter-
able idea of eternity and infinity oppresses and
maddens my brain whenever my mind approaches
the contemplation of the Creator: I recoil from the
effort scared. I tell you, Doctor , if I am to be
saved, it must be by other means, The idea of an
eternal Creator is to me intolerable—my mind cannot
support it.”

“Say, then, my dear sir,” urged he, “say how you
would have me serve you—what you would learn of
me—what I can do or say to relieve you?”

“ Listen to me first,” replied Captain Barton, with
a subdued air, and an effort to suppress his excite-
ment, “listen to me while I detail the circumstances
of the persecution under which my life has become all
but intolerable—a persecution which has made me
fear death and the world beyond the grave as much
as I have grown to hate existence.”

Barton then proceeded to relate the circumstances
which I have already detailed, and then continued :

“ This has now become habitual—an accustomed
thing. Ido not mean the actual seeing him in the
flesh—thank God, ¢hat at least is not permitted daily.
Thank God, from the ineffable horrors of that visi-
tation I have been mercifully allowed intervals of
repose, though none of security; but from the
consciousness that a malignant spirit is following and
watching me wherever I go, I have never, for a single
instant, a temporary respite, I am pursued with

 

 
''THE FAMILIAR, 89

blasphemies, cries of despair, and appalling hatred.
I hear those dreadful sounds called after me as I
turn the corners of the streets; they come in the
night-time, while I sit in my chamber alone; they
haunt me everywhere, charging me with hideous
crimes, and — great God!—threatening me with
coming vengeance and eternal misery. Hush! do
you hear ¢hat?” he cried, with a horrible smile of
triumph; “ there—there, will that convince you ?”

The clergyman felt a chill of horror steal over
him, while, during the wail of a sudden gust of wind,
he heard, or fancied he heard, the half-articulate
sounds of rage and derision mingling in the
sough.

“Well, what do you think of that?” at length
Barton cried, drawing a long breath through his
teeth.

“T heard the wind,” said Doctor “ What
should I think of it—what is there remarkable about
it?’

“The prince of the powers of the air,” muttered
Barton, with a shudder.

“Tut, tut ! my dear sir,” said the student, with an
effort to reassure himself; for though it was broad
daylight, there was nevertheless something disagree-
ably contagious in the nervous excitement under
which his visitor so miserably suffered. “You must
not give way to those wild fancies; you must resist
these impulses of the imagination.”

“ Ay, ay; ‘resist the devil and he will flee from
thee, ” said Barton, in the same tone ; “ but Low resist
him! ay, there it is—there is the rub. What—what
am I to do? what canI do?”

3.

 
''90 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“ My dear sir, this zs fancy,” said the man of folios ;
“you are your own tormentor.”

“No, no, sir—fancy has no part in it,’ answered
Barton, somewhat sternly. “Fancy! was it that made
you, as well as me, hear, but this moment, those
accents of hell? Fancy, indeed! No, no.”

“ But you have seen this person frequently,” said
the ecclesiastic; “why have you not accosted or
secured him? Is it not a little precipitate, to say no
more, to assume, as you have done, the existence of
preternatural agency ; when, after all, everything may
be easily accountable, if only proper means were
taken to sift the matter.”

“There are circumstances connected with this—
this appearance,’ said Barton, “ which it is needless to
disclose, but which to me are proofs of its horrible
nature. I know that the being that follows me is not
human—I say I kuvow this; I could prove it to your
own conviction.” He paused for a minute, and then
added, “ And as to accosting it, I dare not, I could
not; when I see it I am powerless; I stand in the
gaze of death, in the triumphant presence of infernal
power and malignity. My strength, and faculties, and
memory, all forsake me. O God, I fear, sir, you know
not what you speak of. Mercy, mercy; heaven have
pity on me!”

He leaned his elbow on the table, and passed his
hand across his eyes, as if to exclude some image of
horror, muttering the last words of the sentence he
chad just concluded, again and again.

"© Doctor ,’ he said, abruptly raising himself,
and looking full upon the clergyman with an imploring
eye, “I know you will do for me whatever may be

 
''THE FAMILIAR. or

done. You know now fully the circumstances and
the nature of my affliction. I tell you I cannot help
myself ; I cannot hope to escape; I am utterly pas-
sive. I conjure you, then, to weigh my case well, and
if anything may be done for me by vicarious suppli-
cation—by the intercession of the good—or by any
aid or influence whatsoever, I implore of you, I adjure
you in the name of the Most High, give me the bene-
fit of that influence—deliver me from the body of
this death. Strive for me, pity me; I know you will;
you cannot refuse this; it is the purpose and object of
my visit. Send me away with some hope—however
little—some faint hope of ultimate deliverance, and
I will nerve myself to endure, from hour to hour, the
hideous dream into which my existence has been
transformed.

Doctor assured him that all he could do was
to pray earnestly for him, and that so much he would
not fail to do. They parted with a hurried and
melancholy valediction. Barton hastened to the
carriage that awaited him at the door, drew down the
blinds, and drove away, while Doctor —— returned
to his chamber, to ruminate at leisure upon the
strange interview which had just interrupted his
studies.

 
''CHAPTER VI.

SEEN AGAIN.

IT was not to be expected that Captain Barton’s

changed and eccentric habits should long escape
remark and discussion. Various were the theories
suggested to account for it. Some attributed the
alteration to the pressure of secret pecuniary em-
barrassments; others to a repugnance to fulfil an
engagement into which he was presumed to have
too precipitately entered; and others, again, to the
supposed incipiency of mental disease, which latter,
indeed, was the most plausible, as well as the most
generally received, of the hypotheses circulated in
the gossip of the day.

From the very commencement of this change, at
first so gradual in its advances, Miss Montague had of
course been aware of it. The intimacy involved in
their peculiar relation, as well as the near interest
which it inspired afforded, in her case, a like opportu-
nity and motive for the successful exercise of that
keen and penetrating observation peculiar to her sex.

His visits became, at length, so interrupted, and
''THE FAMILIAR. 93

his manner, while they lasted, so abstracted, strange,
and agitated, that Lady L——, after hinting her
anxiety and her suspicions more than once, at length
distinctly stated her anxiety, and pressed for an ex-
planation.

The explanation was given, and although its
nature at first relieved the worst solicitudes of the old
lady and her niece, yet the circumstances which at-
tended it, and the really dreadful consequences which
it obviously indicated, as regarded the spirits, and
indeed the reason of the now wretched man, who
made the strange declaration, were enough, upon little
reflection, to fill their minds with perturbation and
alarm,

General Montague, the young lady’s father, at
length arrived. He had himself slightly known Bar-
ton, some ten or twelve years previously, and being
aware of his fortune and connexions, was disposed
to regard him as an unexceptionable and indeed a
most desirable match for his daughter. He laughed
at the story of Barton’s supernatural visitations, and
lost no time in calling upon his intended son-in-law.

“My dear Barton,” he continued, gaily, after a
little conversation, “ my sister tells me that you area
victim to blue devils, in quite a new and original
shape.”

Barton changed countenance, and sighed pro-
foundly.

“Come, come; I protest this will never do,” con-
tinued the General ; “you are more like a man on his
way to the gallows than to the altar. These devils
have made quite a saint of you.”

Barton made an effort to change the conversation.

  
 
''94 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“No, no, it won’t do,” said his visitor laughing;
*T am resolved to say what I have to say upon this
magnificent mock mystery of yours. You must not
be angry, but really it is too bad to see you at your
time of life, absolutely frightened into good behaviour,
like a naughty child by a bugaboo, and as far as I can
learn, a very contemptible one. Seriously, I have been
a good deal annoyed at what they tell me; but at
the same time thoroughly convinced that there is
nothing in the matter that may not be cleared up,
with a little attention and management, within a week
at furthest.”

“ Ah, General, you do not know he began.

“Yes, but I do know quite enough to-warrant my
confidence,” interrupted the soldier, “don’t I know
that all your annoyance proceeds from the occasional
appearance of a certain little man in a cap and great-
coat, with a red vest and a bad face, who follows you
about, and pops upon you at corners of lanes, and
throws you into ague fits. Now, my dear fellow, I'll
make it my business to catch this mischievous little
mountebank, and either beat him to a jelly with my
own hands, or have him whipped through the town,
at the cart’s tail, before a month passes.”

“Tf you knew what J knew,” said Barton, with
gloomy agitation, “you would speak very differently.
Don’t imagine that Iam so weak as to assume, with-
out proof the most overwhelming, the conclusion to _
which I have been forced—the proofs are here, locked
up here.” As he spoke he tapped upon his breast,
and with an anxious sigh continued to walk up and
down the room.

“ Well, well, Barton,” said his visitor, “Tll wager

”

 
''THE FAMILIAR. 95

a rump and a dozen I collar the ghost, and convince
even you before many days are over.”

He was running onin the same strain when he
was suddenly arrested, and not a little shocked, by
observing Barton, who had approached the window,
stagger slowly back, like one who had received a
stunning blow; his arm extended toward the street
—his face and his very lips white as ashes—while he
muttered, “ There—by heaven !—there—there !”

General Montague started mechanically to his
feet, and from the window of the drawing-room, saw
a figure corresponding, as well as his hurry would
permit him to discern, with the description of the
person whose appearance so persistently disturbed the
repose of his friend.

The figure was just turning from the rails of the
area upon which it had been leaning, and, without
waiting to see more, the old gentleman snatched his
cane and hat, and rushed down the stairs and into
the street, in the furious hope of securing the person,
and punishing the audacity of the mysterious
stranger.

He looked round him, but in vain, for any trace
of the person he had himself distinctly seen. He ran
breathlessly to the nearest corner, expecting to see
from thence the retiring figure, but no such form was
visible. Back and forward, from crossing to crossing,
he ran, at fault, and it was not until the curious gaze and
laughing countenances of the passers-by reminded him
of the absurdity of his pursuit, that he checked his
hurried pace, lowered his walking cane from the
menacing altitude which he had mechanically given
it, adjusted his hat, and walked composedly back
''96 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

again, inwardly vexed and flurried. He found Barton
pale and trembling in every joint; they both remained
silent, though under emotions very different. At last
Barton whispered, “ You saw it?”

“7t—him—some one—you mean—to be sure I
did,” replied Montague, testily. “But where is the
good or the harm of seeing him? The fellow runs
like a lamplighter. I wanted to catch him, but he had
stolen away before I could reach the hall door. How-
ever, it is no great matter; next time, I dare say, I'll
do better; and, egad, if I once tome within reach of
him, I'll introduce his shoulders to the weight of my
cane.”

Notwithstanding General Montague’s undertakings
and exhortations, however, Barton continued to suffer
from the self-same unexplained cause ; go how, when,
or where he would, he was still constantly dogged or
confronted by the being who had established over
him so horrible an influence.

Nowhere and at no time was he secure against
the odious appearance which haunted him with such
diabolic perseverance.

His depression, misery, and excitement became
more settled and alarming every day, and the mental
agonies that ceaselessly prayed upon him, began at
last so sensibly to affect his health, that Lady L
and General Montague succeeded, without, indeed,
much difficulty, in persuading him to try a short tour
on the Continent, in the hope that an entire change
of scene would, at all events, have the effect of break-
ing through the influences of local association, which
the more sceptical of his friends assumed to be by no
means inoperative in suggesting and perpetuating

 
''THE FAMILIAR. 97

what they conceived to be a mere form of nervous
illusion.

General Montague indeed was persuaded that the
figure which haunted his intended son-in-law was by
no means the creation of his imagination, but, on the
contrary, a substantial form of flesh and blood,
animated by a resolution, perhaps with some mur-
derous object in perspective, to watch and follow the
unfortunate gentleman.

Even this hypothesis was not a very pleasant one;
yet it was plain that if Barton could ever be convinced
that there was nothing preternatural in the phenome-
non which he had hitherto regarded in that light, the
affair would lose all its terrors in his eyes, and wholly
cease to exercise upon his health and spirits the bale-
ful influence which it had hitherto done. He there-
fore reasoned, that if the annoyance were actually
escaped by mere locomotion and change of scene, it
obviously could not have originated in any super-
natural agency.
''CHAPTER VII.
FLIGHT.

YIELDING to their persuasions, Barton left Dublin
for England, accompanied by General Montague.
They posted rapidly to London, and thence to Dover,
whence they took the packet with a fair wind for
Calais. The General’s confidence in the result of the
expedition on Barton’s spirits had risen day by day,
since their departure from the shores of Ireland ; for
to the inexpressible relief and delight of the latter, he
had not since then, so much as even once fancied a
repetition of those impressions which had, when at
home, drawn him gradually down to the very depths
of despair.

This exemption from what he had begun to regard
as the inevitable condition of his existence, and the
sense of security which began to pervade his mind,
were inexpressibly delightful ; and in the exultation
of what he considered his deliverance, he indulged in
a thousand happy anticipations for a future into which
so lately he had hardly dared to look ; and, in short,
''THE FAMILIAR, 99

both he and his companion secretly congratulated
themselves upon the termination of that persecution
which had been to its immediate victim a source of
such unspeakable agony.

It was a beautiful day, and a crowd of idlers stood
upon the jetty to receive the packet, and enjoy the
bustle of the new arrivals. Montague walked a few
paces in advance of his friend, and as he made his
way through the crowd, a little man touched his arm,
and said to him, in a broad provincial patozs—

“Monsieur is walking too fast; he will lose his
sick comrade in the throng, for, by my faith, the poor
gentleman seems to be fainting.”

Montague turned quickly, and observed that
Barton did indeed look deadly pale. He hastened to
his side.

“My dear fellow, are you ill,’ he asked anxiously.

The question was unheeded, and twice repeated,
ere Barton stammered—

“I saw him—by ——, I saw him!”

“ Him !—the wretch—who—where now ?—where
is he?” cried Montague, looking around him.

“I saw him—but he is gone,” repeated Barton,
faintly.

“But where—where? For God’s sake speak,”
urged Montague, vehemently.

“It is but this moment—“ere,” said he.

“But what did he look like—what had he on—
what did he wear—quick, quick,” urged his excited
companion, ready to dart among the crowd and collar
the delinquent on the spot.

“He touched your arm—he spoke to you—he
pointed tome, God be merciful to me, there is no
''100 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

escape,” said Barton, in the low, subdued tones of
despair.

Montague had already bustled away in all the
flurry of mingled hope and rage; but though the
singular personnel of the stranger who had accosted
him was vividly impressed upon his recollection, he
failed to discover among the crowd even the slightest
resemblance to him.

After a fruitless search, in which he enlisted the
services of several of the bystanders, who aided
all the more zealously, as they believed he had been
robbed, he at length, out of breath and baffled, gave
over the attempt.

“ Ah, my friend, it won’t do,” said Barton, with
the faint voice and bewildered, ghastly look of one
who had been stunned by some mortal shock; “there
is no use in contending; whatever it is, the dreadful
association between me and it is now established—I
shall never escape—never !”

“ Nonsense, nonsense, my dear Barton ; don’t talk
so,” said Montague, with something at once of irrita-
tion and dismay ; “ you must not, I say ; we'll jockey
the scoundrel yet ; never mind, I say-—never mind.”

It was, however, but labour lost to endeavour
henceforward to inspire Barton with one ray of hope ;
he became desponding.

This intangible, and, as it seemed, utterly inade-
quate influence was fast destroying his energies of
intellect, character, and health. His first object was
now to return to Ireland, there, as he believed, and
now almost hoped, speedily to die.

To Ireland accordingly he came, and one of the
first faces he saw upon the shore, was again that of his
''THE FAMILIAR, ic 8! lO age
implacable and dreaded attendant. B«rton seemed at
tast to have lost not only all enjoyment and every
hope in existence, but all independence of will besides,
He now submitted himself passively to the manage-
ment of the friends most nearly interested in his
welfare.

With the apathy of entire despair, he implicitly
assented to whatever measures they suggested and
advised ; and as a last resource, it was determined to
remove him to a house of Lady L ’s, in the neigh-
bourhood of Clontarf, where, with the advice of his
medical attendant, who persisted in his opinion that
the whole train of consequences resulted merely from
some nervous derangement, it was resolved that he
was to confine himself strictly to the house, and make
use only of those apartments which commanded a
view of an enclosed yard, the gates of which were to
be kept jealously locked.

Those precautions would certainly secure him
against the casual appearance of any living form, that
his excited imagination might possibly confound with
the spectre which, as it was contended, his fancy
recognized in every figure that bore even a distant
or general resemblance to the peculiarities with which
his fancy had at first invested it.

A month or six weeks’ absolute seclusion under
these conditions, it was hoped might, by interrupting
the series of these terrible impressions, gradually
dispel the predisposing apprehensions, and the asso-
ciations which had confirmed the supposed disease,
and rendered recovery hopeless.

Cheerful society and that of his friends was to be
constantly supplied, and on the whole, very sanguine

 
''48a 8 ' ' VA GLASS DARKLY,

expectations were indulged in, that under the treat-
ment thus detailed, the obstinate hypochondria of the
patient might at length give way.

Accompanied, therefore, by Lady L——, General
Montague and his daughter—his own affianced bride
—Poor Barton —himself never daring to cherish a
hope of his ultimate emancipation from the horrors
under which his life was literally wasting away—took
possession of the apartments, whose situation protected
him against the intrusions, from which he shrank with
such unutterable terror.

After a little time, a steady persistence in this
system began to manifest its results, in a very marked
though gradual improvement, alike in the health and
spirits of the invalid. Not, indeed that anything at
all approaching complete recovery was yet discernible.
On the contrary, to those who had not seen him since
the commencement of his strange sufferings, such an
alteration would have been apparent as might well
have shocked them.

The improvement, however, such as it was, was
welcomed with gratitude and delight, especially by
the young lady, whom her attachment to him, as
well as her now singularly painful position, conse-
quent on his protracted illness, rendered an object
scarcely one degree less to be commiserated than
himself.

A week passed—a fortnight—a month—and yet
there had been no recurrence of the hated visitation.
The treatment had, so far forth, been followed by
complete success. The chain of associations was
broken. The constant pressure upon the overtasked
spirits had been removed, and, under these compara-
''THE FAMILIAR, 103

tively favourable circumstances, the sense of social
community with the world about him, and something
of human interest, if not of enjoyment, began to re-
animate him.

It was about this time that Lady L who, like
most old ladies of the day, was deep in family
receipts, and a great pretender to medical science,
dispatched her own maid to the kitchen garden,
with a list of herbs, which were there to be carefully
culled, and brought back to her housekeeper for the
purpose stated. The handmaiden, however, returned
with her task scarce half completed, and a good deal
flurried and alarmed. Her mode of accounting for
her precipitate retreat and evident agitation was odd,
and, to the old lady, startling,

 
''CHAPTER VIII.
SOFTENED.

It appeared that she had repaired to the kitchen
garden, pursuant to her mistress’s directions, and
had there begun to make the specified election among
the rank and neglected herbs which crowded one
corner of the enclosure, and while engaged in this
pleasant labour, she carelessly sang a fragment of an
old song, as she said, “to keep herself company.”
She was, however, interrupted by an _ ill-natured
laugh ; and, looking up, she saw through the old
thorn hedge, which surrounded the garden, a singu-
larly ill-looking little man, whose countenance wore
the stamp of menace and malignity, standing close to
her, at the other side of the hawthorn screen.

She described herself as utterly unable to move or
speak, while he charged her with a message for Captain
Barton ; the substance of which she distinctly remem-
bered to have been to the effect, that he, Captain
Barton, must come abroad as usual, and show himself
to his friends, out of doors, or else prepare for a visit
in his own chamber.
''THE FAMILIAR. 105

On concluding this brief message, the stranger
had, with a threatening air, got down into the outer
ditch, and, seizing the hawthorn stems in his hands,
seemed on the point of climbing through the fence
—a feat which might have been accomplished without
much difficulty.

Without, of course, awaiting this result, the girl
—throwing down her treasures of thyme and rose-
mary—had turned’ and run, with the swiftness of
terror, to the house. Lady L commanded her,
on pain of instant dismissal, to observe an absolute
silence respecting all that passed of the incident
which related to Captain Barton; and, at the same
time, directed instant search to be made by her men,
in the garden and the fields adjacent. This measure,
however, was as usual, unsuccessful, and, filled with
undefinable misgivings, Lady L—— communicated
the incident to her brother. The story, however,
until long afterwards, went no further, and, of course,
it was jealously guarded from Barton, who continued
to amend though slowly.

Barton now began to walk occasionally in the
court-yard which I have mentioned, and which being
enclosed by a high wall, commanded no view beyond
its own extent. Here he, therefore, considered
himself perfectly secure: and, but for a careless
violation of orders by one of the grooms, he might
have enjoyed, at least for some time longer, his much-
prized immunity. Opening upon the public road,
this yard was entered by a wooden gate, with a wicket
in it, and was further defended by an iron gate upon
the outside. Strict orders had been given to keep
both carefully locked; but, spite of these, it had

 
''a IN A GLASS DARKLY.

happened that one day, as Barton was slowly pacing
this narrow enclosure, in his accustomed walk,
and reaching the farther extremity, was turning to
retrace his steps, he saw the boarded wicket ajar,
and the face of his tormentor immovably looking
at him through the iron bars. For a few seconds he
stood riveted to the earth—breathless and bloodless
—in the fascination of that dreaded gaze, and then
fell helplessly insensible upon the pavement.

There he was found a few minutes afterwards,
and conveyed to his room—the apartment which he
was never afterwards to leave alive. Henceforward
a marked and unaccountable change was observable
in the tone of his mind. Captain Barton was now no
longer the excited and despairing man he had been
before ; a strange alteration had passed upon him—
an unearthly tranquillity reigned in his mind—it was
the anticipated stillness of the grave.

“Montague, my friend, this struggle is nearly
ended now,” he said, tranquilly, but with a look of
fixed and fearful awe. “I have, at last, some comfort
from that world of spirits, from which my punishment
has come. I now know that my sufferings will soon
be over.”

Montague pressed him to speak on.

“Yes,” said he, in a softened voice, “my punish-
ment is nearly ended. From sorrow, perhaps, I shall
never, in time or eternity, escape; but my agony is
almost over. Comfort has been revealed to me, and
what remains of my allotted struggle I will bear with
submission—even with hope.”

“Tam glad to hear you speak so tranquilly, my
dear Barton,” said Montague ; “ peace and cheer of
''THE FAMILIAR. 107

mind are all you need to make you what you
were,”

“No, no—I never can be that,” said he mournfully.
“Tam no longer fit for life. Iam soon to die. I am
to see him but once again, and then all is ended.”

“ He said so, then?” suggested Montague.

“ He ?—No, no: good tidings could scarcely come
through him; and these were good and welcome ; and
they came so solemnly and sweetly—with unutterable
love and melancholy, such as I could not—without
saying more than is needful, or fitting, of other long
past scenes and persons—fully explain to you.” As
Barton said this he shed tears.

“Come, come,” said Montague, mistaking the
source of his emotions, “you must not give way.
What is it, after all, but a pack of dreams and
nonsense ; or, at worst, the practices of a scheming
rascal that enjoys his power of playing upon your
nerves, and loves to exert it—a sneaking vagabond
that owes you a grudge, and pays it off this way, not
daring to try a more manly one.”

“A grudge, indeed, he owes me—you say rightly,”
said Barton, with a sudden shudder; “a grudge as
you call it. Oh, my God! when the justice of Heaven
permits the Evil one to carry out a scheme of
vengeance—when its execution is committed to the
lost and terrible victim of sin, who owes his own ruin
to the man, the very man, whom he is commissioned
to pursue — then, indeed, the torments and terrors
of hell are anticipated on earth. But heaven has
deait mercifully with me—hope has opened to me at
last; and if death could come without the dreadful
sight Iam doomed to see, I would gladly close my
''108 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

eyes this moment upon the world. But though death
is welcome, I shrink with an agony you cannot under-
stand—an actual frenzy of terror—from the last
encounter with that—that DEMON, who has drawn me
thus to the verge of the chasm, and whois himself to
plunge me down. Iam to see him again—once more
—but under circumstances unutterably more terrific
than ever.”

As Barton thus spoke, he trembled so violently
that Montague was really alarmed at the extremity
of his sudden agitation, and hastened to lead him
back to the topic which had before seemed to exert
so tranquillizing an effect upon his mind.

“Tt was not a dream,” he said, after a time; “I
was in a different state —I felt differently and
strangely ; and yet it was all as real, as clear, and
vivid, as what I now see and hear—it was a reality.”

“And what aid you see and hear?” urged his
companion.

“ When I wakened from the swoon I fell into on
seeing zm,” said Barton, continuing as if he had not
heard the question, “it was slowly, very slowly—I
was lying by the margin of a broad lake, with misty
hills all round, and a soft, melancholy, rose-coloured
light illuminated it all. It was unusually sad and
lonely, and yet more beautiful than any earthly
scene. My head was leaning on the lap of a girl,
and she was singing a song, that told, I know not how
—whether by words or harmonies—of all my life—all
that is past, and all that is still to come; and with
the song the old feelings that I thought had perished
within me came back, and tears flowed from my eyes
—partly for the song and its mysterious beauty, and
''THE FAMILIAR. 10g

partly for the unearthly sweetness of her voice; and
yet I knew the voice—oh! how well; and I was
spellbound as I listened and looked at the solitary
scene, without stirring, almost without breathing—
and, alas! alas! without turning my eyes towards
the face that I knew was near me, so sweetly powerful
was the enchantment that held me. And so, slowly,
the song and scene grew fainter, and fainter, to my
senses, till all was dark and still again. And then I
awoke to this world, as you saw, comforted, for I
knew that I was forgiven much.” Barton wept again
long and bitterly.

From this time, as we have said, the prevailing
tone of his mind was one of profound and tranquil
melancholy. This, however, was not without its
interruptions. He was thoroughly impressed with
the conviction that he was to experience another and
a final visitation, transcending in horror all he had
before experienced. From this anticipated and un-
known agony, he often shrank in such paroxysms of
abject terror and distraction, as filled the whole
household with dismay and _ superstitious panic.
Even those among them who affected to discredit
the theory of preternatural agency, were often in
their secret souls visited during the silence of night
with qualms and apprehensions, which they would
not have readily confessed; and none of them
attempted to dissuade Barton from the resolution on
which he now systematically acted, of shutting him-
self up in his own apartment. The window-blinds of
this room were kept jealously down; and his own
man was seldom out of his presence, day or night,
his bed being placed in the same chamber,
''110 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

This man was an attached and respectable servant;
and his duties, in addition to those ordinarily imposed
upon valets, but which Barton’s independent habits
generally dispensed with, were to attend carefully to
the simple precautions by means of which his master
hoped to exclude the dreaded intrusion of the
“Watcher.” And, in addition to attending to those
arrangements, which amounted merely to guarding
against the possibility of his master’s being, through
any unscreened window or open door, exposed to the
dreaded influence, the valet was never to suffer him
to be alone—total solitude, even for a minute, had
become to him now almost as intolerable as the idea
of going abroad into the public ways—it was an
instinctive anticipation of what was coming.
''CHAPTER IX,
REQUIESCAT,

IT is needless to say, that under these circumstances,
no steps were taken toward the fulfilment of that
engagement into which he had entered. There was
quite disparity enough in point of years, and indeed
of habits, between the young lady and Captain Bar-
ton, to have precluded anything like very vehement or
romantic attachment on her part. Though grieved
and anxious, therefore, she was very far from being
heart-broken.

Miss Montague, however, devoted much of her
time to the patient but fruitless attempt to cheer the
unhappy invalid. She read for him, and conversed
with him ; but it was apparent that whatever exertions
he made, the endeavour to escape from the one ever
waking fear that preyed upon him, was utterly and
miserably unavailing.

Young ladies are much given to the cultivation of
pets ; and among those who shared the favour of Miss
Montague was a fine old owl, which the gardener,
''112 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

who caught him napping among the ivy of a ruined
stable, had dutifully presented to that young lady.

The caprice which regulates such preferences was
manifested in the extravagant favour with which this
grim and ill-favoured bird was at once distinguished
by his mistress ; and, trifling as this whimsical cir-
cumstance may seem, I am forced to mention it,
inasmuch as it is connected, oddly enough, with the
concluding scene of the story.

Barton, so far sharing in this liking for the new
favourite, regarded it from the first with an antipathy
as violent as it was utterly unaccountable. Its very
vicinity was unsupportable to him. He seemed to
hate and dread it with a vehemence absolutely laugh-
able, and which, to those who have never witnessed
the exhibition of antipathies of this kind, would
seem all but incredible.

With these few words of preliminary explanation,
I shall proceed to state the particulars of the last
scene in this strange series of incidents. - It was
almost two o’clock one winter’s night, and Barton
was, as usual at that hour, in his bed ; the servant we
have mentioned occupied a smaller bed in the same
room, and a light was burning. The man was ona
sudden aroused by his master, who said—

“T can’t get it out of my head that that accursed
bird has got out somehow, and is lurking in some
corner of the room. I have been dreaming about
him. Get up, Smith, and look about; search for
him. Such hateful dreams!”

The servant rose, and examined the chamber, and
while engaged in so doing, he heard the well-known
sound, more like a long-drawn gasp than a hiss, with
''THE FAMILIAR. 113

which these birds from their secret haunts affright the
quiet of the night.

This ghostly indication of its proximity—for the
sound proceeded from the passage upon which
Barton’s chamber-door opened — determined the
search of the servant, who, opening the door, pro-
ceeded a step or two forward for the purpose of
driving the bird away. He had however, hardly
entered the lobby, when the door behind him slowly
swung to under the impulse, as it seemed, of some
gentle current of air; but as immediately over the
door there was a kind of window, intended in the day
time to aid in lighting the passage, and through
which at present the rays of the candle were issuing,
the valet could see quite enough for his purpose.

As he advanced he heard his master—who, lying
in a well-curtained bed, had not, as it seemed, per-
ceived his exit from the room—call him by name,
and direct him to place the candle on the table by
his bed. The servant, who was now some way in
the long passage, and not liking to raise his voice
for the purpose of replying, lest he should startle
the sleeping inmates of the house, began to walk
hurriedly and softly back again, when, to his
amazement, he heard a voice in the interior of the
chamber answering calmly, and actually saw, through
the window which overtopped the door, that the light
was slowly shifting, as if carried across the room in
answer to his master’s call. Palsied by a feeling akin
to terror, yet not unmingled with curiosity, he stood
breathless and listening at the threshold, unable to
summon resolution to push open the door and enter.
Then came a rustling of the curtains, and a sound

8
''114 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

like that of one who in a low voice hushes a child to
rest, in the midst of which he heard Barton say, in a
tone of stifled horror—* Oh, God—oh, my God !” and
repeat the same exclamation several times. Then
ensued a silence, which again was broken by the same
strange soothing sound ; and at last there burst forth,
in one swelling peal, a yell of agony so appalling and
hideous, that, under some impulse of ungovernable
horror, the man rushed to the door, and with his
whole strength strove to force it open. Whether it
was that, in his agitation, he had himself but im-
perfectly turned the handle, or that the door was
really secured upon the inside, he failed to effect an
entrance; and as he tugged and pushed, yell after
yell rang louder and wilder through the chamber,
accompanied all the while by the same hushed
sounds. Actually freezing with terror, and scarce
knowing what he did, the man turned and ran down
the passage, wringing his hands in the extremity of
horror and irresolution. At the stair-head he was
encountered by General Montague, scared and eager,
and just as they met the fearful sounds had ceased.

“What is it? Who—where is your master?”
said Montague, with the incoherence of extreme
agitation. “Has anything—for God’s sake is any-
thing wrong?”

“Lord have mercy on us, it’s all over,” said the
man, staring wildly towards his master’s chamber.
“ He’s dead, sir, I’m sure he’s dead.”

Without waiting for inquiry or explanation,
Montague, closely followed by the servant, hurried to
the chamber door, turned the handle, and pushed it
open. As the door yielded to his pressure, the ill-
''THE FAMILIAR. 115

omened bird of which the servant had been in search,
uttering its spectral warning, started suddenly from
the far side of the bed, and flying through the ©
doorway close over their heads, and extinguishing, in
his passage, the candle which Montague carried,
crashed ‘through the skylight that overlooked the
lobby, and sailed away into the darkness of the outer
space.

“ There it is, God bless us,” whispered the man
after a breathless pause.

“ Curse that bird,” muttered the General, startled
by the suddenness of the apparition, and unable to
conceal his discomposure.

“The candle is moved,” said the man, after
another breathless pause, pointing to the candle that
still burned in the room; “see, they put it by the
bed.”

“Draw the curtains, fellow, and don’t stand
gaping there,” whispered Montague, sternly.

The man hesitated.

“Hold this, then,” said Montague, impatiently
thrusting the candlestick into the servant’s hand, and
himself advancing to the bed-side, he drew the cur-
tains apart. The light of the candle, which was still
burning at the bedside, fell upon a figure huddled
together, and half upright, at the head of the bed.
It seemed as though it had slunk back as far as the
solid panelling would allow, and the hands were still
clutched in the bed-clothes.

“Barton, Barton, Barton!” cried the General,
with a strange mixture of awe and vehemence. He
took the candle, and held it so that it shone full upon
the face. The features were fixed, stern, and white ;
''116 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

the jaw was fallen; and the sightless eyes still open,
gazed vacantly forward toward the front of the bed.
“God Almighty! he’s dead,” muttered the General,
as he looked upon this fearful spectacle. They both
continued to gaze upon it in silence for a minute or
more. “And cold, too,” whispered Montague, with-
drawing his hand from that of the dead man.

* And see, see—may I never have life, sir,” added
the man, after another pause, with a shudder, “but
there was something else on the bed with him. Look
there—look there—see that, sir.”

As the man thus spoke he pointed to a deep
indenture as if caused by a heavy pressure, near the
foot of the bed.

Montague was silent.

“Come, sir, come away, for God’s sake,” whispered
the man, drawing close up to him, and holding fast
by his arm, while he glanced fearfully round ; “ what
good can be done here now—come away, for God’s
sake!”

At this moment they heard the steps of more
than one approaching, and Montague, hastily desiring
the servant to arrest their progress, endeavoured to
loose the rigid gripe with which the fingers of the
dead man were clutched in the bed-clothes, and drew,
as well as he was able, the awful figure into a
reclining posture ; then closing the curtains carefully
upon it, he hastened himself to meet those persons
that were approaching.

* * * * *

It is needless to follow the personages so slightly
connected with this narrative, into the events of their
after life; it is enough to say, that no clue to the
''THE FAMILIAR. 117

solution of these mysterious occurrences was ever
after discovered ; and so long an interval having now
passed since the event which I have just described
concluded this strange history, it is scarcely to be
expected that time can throw any new lights upon
its dark and inexplicable outline. Until the secrets
of the earth shall be no longer hidden, therefore,
these transactions must remain shrouded in their
original obscurity.

The only occurrence in Captain Barton’s former
life to which reference was ever made, as having any
possible connection with the sufferings with which his
existence closed, and which he himself seemed to
regard as working out a retribution for some
grievous sin of his past life, was a circumstance
which not for several years after his death was
brought to light. The nature of this disclosure
was painful to his relatives, and discreditable to his
memory.

It appeared that some six years before Captain
Barton’s final return to Dublin, he had formed, in the
town of Plymouth, a guilty attachment, the object of
which was the daughter of one of the ship’s crew
under his command. The father had visited the frailty
of his unhappy child with extreme harshness, and
even brutality, and it was said that she had died heart-
broken. Presuming upon Barton’s implication in her
guilt, this man had conducted himself toward him with
marked insolence, and Barton retaliated this, and
what he resented with still more exasperated bitter-
ness—his treatment of the unfortunate girl—by a
systematic exercise of those terrible and arbitrary
severities which the regulations of the navy placed at
''118 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

the command of those who are responsible for its
discipline. The man had at length made his escape,
while the vessel was in port at Naples, but died as it
was said, in an hospital in that town, of the wounds
inflicted in one of his recent and sanguinary punish-
ments. :

Whether these circumstances in reality bear, or
not, upon the occurrences of Barton’s after-life, it is,
of course, impossible to say. It seems, however,
more than probable that they were at least, in his
own mind, closely associated with them. But how-
ever the truth may be, as to the origin and motives
of this mysterious persecution, there can be no doubt
that, with respect to the agencies by which it was
accomplished, absolute and impenetrable mystery is
like to prevail until the day of doom.

POSTSCRIPT BY THE EDITOR.

The preceding narrative is given in the zfsissima verba of
the good old clergyman, under whose hand it was delivered to
Doctor Hesselius. Notwithstanding the occasional stiffness
and redundancy of his sentences, I thought it better to reserve
to myself the power of assuring the reader, that in handing to
the printer the MS. of a statement so marvellous, the Editor
has not altered one letter of the original text —[Ed. Pagers
of Dr. Hesselius.]
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTILE.

 

PROLOGUE.

N this case Doctor Hesselius has inscribed
nothing more than the words, “ Harman’s
Report,’ and a simple reference to his own extraor-
dinary Essay on “The Interior Sense, and the Con-
ditions of the Opening thereof.”

The reference is to Vol. I., Section 317, Note Z*.
The note to which reference is thus made, simply
says: “There are two accounts of the remarkable
case of the Honourable Mr. Justice Harbottle, one
furnished to me by Mrs. Trimmer, of Tunbridge
Wells (June, 1805) ; the other ata much later date,
by Anthony Harman, Esq. I much prefer the for-
mer; in the first place, because it is minute and
detailed, and written, it seems to me, with more
caution and knowledge; and in the next, because
the letters from Dr. Hedstone, which are embodied
in it, furnish matter of the highest value to a right
apprehension of the nature of the case. It was:
''120 IN A GLASS DARKLY,

one of the best declared cases of an opening of
the interior sense, which I have met with. It was
affected too, by the phenomenon, which occurs so
frequently as to indicate a law of these eccentric
conditions ; that is to say, it exhibited what I may
term, the contagious character of this sort of intru-
sion of the spirit-world upon the proper domain
of matter. So soon as the spirit-action has
established itself in the case of one patient, its
developed energy begins to radiate, more or less
effectually, upon others. The interior vision of the
child was opened; as was, also, that of its mother,
Mrs. Pyneweck; and both the interior vision and
hearing of the scullery-maid, were opened on the
same occasion. After-appearances are the result of
the law explained in Vol. II., Section 17 to 49. The
common centre of association, simultaneously recalled,
unites, or veunites, as the case may be, for a period
measured, as we see,in Section 37. The marimum
will extend to days, the mznzmum is little more than
a second. We see the operation of this principle
perfectly displayed, in certain cases of lunacy, of
epilepsy, of catalepsy, and of mania, of a peculiar and
painful character, though unattended by incapacity
of business.”

The memorandum of the case of Judge Harbottle,
which was written by Mrs. Trimmer, of Tunbridge
Wells, which Doctor Hesselius thought the better of
the two, I have been unable to discover among his
papers. I found in his escritoire a note to the effect
that he had lent the Report of Judge Harbottle’s
case, written by Mrs. Trimmer, to Dr. F. Heyne. To
that learned and able gentleman accordingly I wrote,
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 121

and received from him, in his reply, which was full
of alarms and regrets, on account of the uncertain
safety of that “valuable MS.,” a line written long
since by Dr. Hesselius, which completely exonerated
him, inasmuch as it acknowledged the safe return
of the papers. The narrative of Mr. Harman, is
therefore, the only one available for this collec-
tion. The late Dr. Hesselius, in another passage
of the note that I have cited, says,“ As to the facts
(non-medical) of the case, the narrative of Mr.
Harman exactly tallies with that furnished by Mrs.
Trimmer.” The strictly scientific view of the case
would scarcely interest the popular reader; and,
possibly, for the purposes of this selection, I should,
even had I both papers to choose between, have
preferred that of Mr. Harman, which is given, in full,
in the following pages,
''CHAPTER If,
THE JUDGE'S HOUSE.

‘THIRTY years ago, an elderly man, to whom I paid
quarterly a small annuity charged on some property
of mine, came on the quarter-day to receive it. He
was a dry, sad, quiet man, who had known better
days, and had always maintained an unexceptionable
character. No better authority could be imagined
for a ghost story.

He told me one, though with a manifest reluct-
ance; he was drawn into the narration by his
choosing to explain what I should not have remarked,
that he had called two days earlier than that week
after the strict day of payment, which he had usually
allowed to elapse. His reason was a sudden deter-
mination to change his lodgings, and the consequent
necessity of paying his rent a little before it was due.

He lodged in a dark street in Westminster, in a
spacious old house, very warm, being wainscoted
from top to bottom, and furnished with no undue
abundance of windows, and those fitted with thick
sashes and small panes.
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 123

This house was, as the bills upon the windows
testified, offered to be sold or let. Butno oneseemed
to care to look at it.

A thin matron, in rusty black silk, very taciturn,
with large, steady, alarmed eyes, that seemed to look
in your face, to read what you might have seen in
the dark rooms and passages through which you had
passed, was in charge of it, with a solitary “ maid-of-
all-work” under her command. My poor friend had
taken lodgings in this house, on account of their
extraordinary cheapness. He had occupied them for
nearly a year without the slightest disturbance, and
was the only tenant, under rent, in the house. He_
had two rooms; a sitting-room and a bed-room with -
a closet opening from it, in which he kept his books
and papers locked up. He had gone to his bed,
having also locked the outer door. Unable to sleep,
he had lighted a candle, and after having read for a
time, had laid the book beside him. He heard the
old clock at the stair-head strike one; and very
shortly after, to his alarm, he saw the closet-door,
which he thought he had locked, open stealthily,
and a slight dark man, particularly sinister, and
somewhere about fifty, dressed in mourning of a very
antique fashion, such a suit as we see in Hogarth,
entered the room on tip-toe. He was followed by an
elder man, stout, and blotched with scurvy, and whose
features, fixed as a corpse’s, were stamped with dread-
ful force with a character of sensuality and villany.

This old man wore a flowered silk dressing-gown
and ruffles, and he remarked a gold ring on his finger,
and on his head a cap of velvet, such as, in the days
of perukes, gentlemen wore in undress,
''124 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

This direful old man carried in his ringed and
ruffled hand a coil of rope; and these two figures
crossed the floor diagonally, passing the foot of his
bed, from the closet door at the farther end of the
room, at the left, near the window, to the door
opening upon the lobby, close to the bed’s head, at
his right.

He did not attempt to describe his sensations as
these figures passed so near him. He merely said,
that so far from sleeping in that room again, no con-
sideration the world could offer would induce him so
much as to enter it again alone, even in the daylight.
He found both doors, that of the closet, and that of
the room opening upon the lobby, in the morning
fast locked as he had left them before going to bed.

In answer to a question of mine, he said that
neither appeared the least conscious of his presence.
They did not seem to glide, but walked as living men
do, but without any sound, and he felt a vibration on
the floor as they crossed it. He so obviously suffered
from speaking about the apparitions, that I asked him
no more questions.

There were in his description, however, certain
coincidences so very singular, as to induce me, by
that very post, to write to a friend much my senior,
then living in a remote part of England, for the
information which I knew he could give me. He
had himself more than once pointed out that old
house to my attention, and told me, though very
briefly, the strange story which I now asked him to
give me in greater detail.

His answer satisfied me; and the following pages
convey its substance.
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 125

Your letter (he wrote) tells me you desire some
particulars about the closing years of the life of Mr.
Justice Harbottle, one of the judges of the Court of
Common Pleas. You refer, of course, to the extra-
ordinary occurrences that made that period of his
life long after a theme for “winter tales” and
metaphysical speculation. I happen to know perhaps
more than any other man living of those mysterious
particulars.

The old family mansion, when I revisited London,
more than thirty years ago, I examined for the last
time. During the years that have passed since then,
I hear that improvement, with its preliminary
demolitions, has been doing wonders for the quarter
of Westminster in which it stood. If I were quite
certain that the house had been taken down, I should
have no difficulty about naming the street in which it
stood. As what I have to tell, however, is not likely
to improve its letting value, and as I should not care
to get into trouble, I prefer being silent on that
particular point.

How old the house was, I can’t tell. People said
it was built by Roger Harbottle,a Turkey merchant,
in the reign of King James I. I am not a good
opinion upon such questions ; but having been in it,
though in its forlorn and deserted state, I can tell you
in a general way what it was like. It was built of
dark-red brick, and the door and windows were faced
with stone that had turned yellow by time. It
receded some feet from the line of the other houses in
the street ; and it had a florid and fanciful rail of iron
about the broad steps that invited your ascent to the
hall-door, in which were fixed, under a file of lamps
''126 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

among scrolls and twisted leaves, two immense
“extinguishers,” like the conical caps of fairies, into
which, in old times, the footmen used to thrust their
flambeaux when their chairs or coaches had set down
their great people, in the hall or at the steps, as the
case might be. That hall is panelled up to the
ceiling, and has a large fire-place. Two or three
stately old rooms open from it at each side. The
windows of these are tall, with many small panes,
Passing through the arch at the back of the hall, you
come upon the wide and heavy well-staircase. There
is a back staircase also. The mansion is large, and
has not as much light, by any means, in proportion to
its extent, as modern houses enjoy. When I saw it,
it had long been untenanted, and had the gloomy
reputation beside of a haunted house. Cobwebs
floated from the ceilings or spanned the corners of
the cornices, and dust lay thick over everything.
The windows were stained with the dust and rain of
fifty years, and darkness had thus grown darker.

When I made it my first visit, it was in company
with my father, when I was still a boy, in the year
1808. Iwas about twelve years old, and my imagi-
nation impressible, as it always is at that age. I
looked about me with great awe. I was here in the
very centre and scene of those occurrences which I
had heard recounted at the fireside at home, with so
delightful a horror.

My father was an old bachelor of nearly sixty
when he married. He had, when a child, seen Judge
Harbottle on the bench in his robes and wig a dozen
times at least before his death, which took place in
1748, and his appearance made a powerful and
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 127

unpleasant impression, not only on his imagination,
but upon his nerves,

The Judge was at that time a man of some sixty-
seven years. He had a great mulberry-coloured face,
a big, carbuncled nose, fierce eyes, and a grim and
brutal mouth. My father, who was young at the
time, thought it the most formidable face he had ever
seen ; for there were evidences of intellectual power
in the formation and lines of the forehead. His
voice was loud and harsh, and gave effect to the
sarcasm which was his habitual weapon on the
bench.

This old gentleman had the reputation of being
about the wickedest man in England. Even on the
bench he now and then showed his scorn of opinion.
He had carried cases his own way, it was said, in spite
of counsel, authorities, and even of juries, by a sort of
cajolery, violence, and bamboozling, that somehow
confused and overpowered resistance. He had never
actually committed himself; he was too cunning to
do that. He had the character of being, however, a
dangerous and unscrupulous judge; but his character
did not trouble him. The associates he chose for his
hours of relaxation cared as little as he did about it,
''CHAPTER II.

MR. PETERS.

ONE night during the session of 1746 this old Judge
went down in his chair to wait in one of the rooms of
the House of Lords for the result of a division in
which he and his order were interested.

This over, he was about to return to his house
close by, in his chair; but the night had become so
soft and fine that he changed his mind, sent it home
empty, and with two footmen, each with a flambeau,
set out on foot in preference. Gout had made him
rather a slow pedestrian. It took him some time to
get through the two or three streets he had to pass
before reaching his house.

In one of those narrow streets of tall houses,
perfectly silent at that hour, he overtook, slowly as he
was walking, a very singular-looking old gentleman.

He had a bottle-green coat on, with a cape to it,
and large stone buttons, a broad-leafed low-crowned
hat, from under which a big powdered wig escaped ;
he stooped very much, and supported his bending
knees with the aid of a crutch-handled cane, and so
shuffled and tottered along painfully.
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 129

“TI ask your pardon, sir,’ said this old man, in a
very quavering voice, as the burly Judge came up
with him, and he extended his hand feebly towards
his arm.

Mr. Justice Harbottle saw that the man was by
no means poorly dressed, and his manner that of a
gentleman.

The Judge stopped short, and said, in his harsh
peremptory tones, “Well, sir, how can I serve you?”

“Can you direct me to Judge Harbottle’s house?
I have some intelligence of the very last importance
to communicate to him.”

“Can you tell it before witnesses?” asked the
Judge.

“By no means; it must reach 4zs ear only,”
quavered the old man earnestly,

“If that be so, sir, you have only to accompany
me a few steps farther to reach my house, and obtain
a private audience; for I am Judge Harbottle.”

With this invitation the infirm gentleman in the
white wig complied very readily; and in another
minute the stranger stood in what was then termed
the front parlour of the Judge’s house, té¢e-d-téte with
that shrewd and dangerous functionary,

He had to sit down, being very much exhausted,
and unable for a little time to speak; and then he
had a fit of coughing, and after that a fit of gasping ;
and thus two or three minutes passed, during which
the Judge dropped his roquelaure on an arm-chair,
and threw his cocked-hat over that.

The venerable pedestrian in the white wig quickly
recovered his voice, With closed doors they re-
mained together for some time.

9
''130 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

There were guests waiting in the drawing-rooms,
and the sound of men’s voices laughing, and then of
a female voice singing to a harpsichord, were heard
distinctly in the hall over the stairs; for old Judge
Harbottle had arranged one of his dubious jollifica-
tions, such as might well make the hair of godly
men’s heads stand upright for that night.

This old gentleman in the powdered white wig,
that rested on his stooped shoulders, must have
had something to say that interested the judge
very much; for he would not have parted on easy
terms with the ten minutes and upwards which that
conference filched from the sort of revelry in which he
most delighted, and in which he was the roaring king,
and in some sort the tyrant also, of his company. —

The footman who showed the aged gentleman out
observed that the Judge’s mulberry-coloured face,
pimples and all, were bleached to a dingy yellow, -
and there was the abstraction of agitated thought in
his manner, as he bid the stranger good-night. The
servant saw that the conversation had been of serious
import, and that the Judge was frightened.

Instead of stumping upstairs forthwith to his
scandalous hilarities, his profane company, and his
great china bowl of punch—the identical bowl from
which a bygone Bishop of London, good easy
man, had baptised this Judge’s grandfather, now
clinking cound the rim with silver ladles, and hung
with scrolls of lemon-peel—instead, I say, of stump-
ing and clambering up the great staircase to the
cavern of his Circean enchantment, he stood with his
big nose flattened against the window-pane, watching
the progress of the feeble old man, who clung stiffly
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 131

to the iron rail as he got down, step by step, to the
pavement.

The hall-door had hardly closed, when the old
Judge was in the hall bawling hasty orders, with such
stimulating expletives as old colonels under excite-
ment sometimes indulge in now-a-days, with a stamp
or two of his big foot, and a waving of his clenched
fist in the air. He commanded the footman to over-
take the old gentleman in the white wig, to offer him
his protection on his way home, and in no case to
show his face again without having ascertained where
he lodged, and who he was, and all about him.

“ By , sirrah! if you fail me in this, you doff
my livery to-night !”

Forth bounced the stalwart footman, with his
heavy cane under his arm, and skipped down the
steps, and looked up and down the street after the
singular figure, so easy to recognize.

What were his adventures I shall not tell you
just now.

The old man, in the conference to which he had
been admitted in that stately panelled room, had just
told the Judge a very strange story. He might be
himself a conspirator ; he might possibly be crazed ;
or possibly his whole story was straight and true.

The aged gentleman in the bottle-green coat, on
finding himself alone with Mr. Justice Harbottle, had
become agitated. He said,

“ There is, perhaps you are not aware, my lord, a
prisoner in Shrewsbury jail, charged with having
forged a bill of exchange for a hundred and twenty
pounds, and his name is Lewis Pyneweck, a grocer of
that town.”

 
''132 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“Js there?” says the Judge, who knew well that
_ there was.

“Yes, my lord,” says the old man.

“Then you had better say nothing to affect this
case. If you do, by —— I'll commit you! for I’m
to try it,’ says the Judge, with his terrible look and
tone.

“JT am not going to do anything of the kind, my
lord; of him or his case I know nothing, and care
nothing. But a fact has come tomy knowledge which
it behoves you to well consider.”

“And what may that fact be?” inquired the
Judge ; “I’m in haste, sir, and beg you will use dis-
patch.”

“Tt has come to my knowledge, my lord, that a
secret tribunal is in process of formation, the object
of which is to take cognisance of the conduct of the
judges ; and first, of your conduct, my lord: it isa
wicked conspiracy.”

“Who are of it?” demands the Judge.

“I know not a single name as yet. I know but
the fact, my lord ; it is most certainly true.”

“ll have you before the Privy Council, sir,” says
the Judge.

“That is what I most desire ; but. not for a day or
two, my lord.”

“ And why so?”

“]T have not as yet a single name, as I told your
lordship; but I expect to have a list of the most
forward men in it, and some other papers connected
with the plot, in two or three days.”

“You said one or two just now.”

“ About that time, my lord.”
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTILE. 133

“Ts this a Jacobite plot?”

‘ In the main I think it is, my lord.”

“Why, then, it is political. I have tried no State
prisoners, nor am like to try any such. How, then,
doth it concern me ?”

“From what I can gather, my lord, there are those
in it who desire private revenges upon certain
judges.”

“What do they call their cabal?”

“The High Court of Appeal, my lord.”

“ Who are you, sir? What is your name?”

“Hugh Peters, my Lord.”

“ That should be a Whig name?”

“Tt is, my lord.”

“Where do you lodge, Mr. Peters ?”

“In Thames Street, my lord, over against the sign
of the ‘Three Kings.,’”

“Three Kings?’ Take care one be not too
many for you, Mr. Peters! How come you, an honest
Whig, as you say, to be privy to a Jacobite plot?
Answer me that.”

“My lord, a person in whom I take an interest
has been seduced to take a part in it; and being
frightened at the unexpected wickedness of their
plans, he is resolved to become an informer for the
Crown.”

“He resolves like a wise man, sir. What does he
say of the persons? Who are in the plot? Doth he
know them ?”

“Only two, my lord; but he will be introduced to
the club in a few days, and he will then have a list,
and more exact information of their plans, and above
all of their oaths, and their hours and places of
''134 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

meeting, with which he wishes to be acquainted before
they can have any suspicions of his intentions. And
being so informed, to whom, think you, my lord, had
he best go then ?”

“To the king’s attorney-general straight. But you
say this concerns me, sir, in particular? How about
this prisoner, Lewis Pyneweck? Is he one of
them?”

“T can’t tell, my lord; but for some reason, it is
thought your lordship will be well advised if you try
him not. For if you do, it is feared ’twill shorten your
days.”

“So far as I can learn, Mr. Peters, this business
smells pretty strong of blood and treason. The king’s
attorney-general will know how to deal with it.
When shall I see you again, sir?”

“Tf you give me leave, my lord, either before your
lordship’s court sits, or after it rises, to-morrow. I
should like to come and tell your lordship what has
passed.”

“Do so, Mr. Peters, at nine o’clock to-morrow
morning. And see you play me no trick, sir, in this
matter; if you do, by , sir, Pll lay you by the
heels !”

“You need fear no trick from me, my lord; had I
not wished to serve you, and acquit my own con-
science, I never would have come all this way to talk
with your lordship.”

“I’m willing to believe you, Mr. Peters; I’m
willing to believe you, sir.”

And upon this they parted.

“He has either painted his face, or he is con-
sumedly sick,” thought the old Judge.

 
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 135

The light had shone more effectually upon his
features as he turned to leave the room with a low
bow, and they looked, he fancied, unnaturally chalky.

“D— him!” said the Judge ungraciously, as he
began to scale the stairs: “he has half-spoiled my
supper.”

But if he had, no one but the Judge himself per-
ceived it, and the evidence was all, as any one might
perceive, the other way,
''CHAPTER III.
LEWIS PYNEWECK,

IN the meantime the footman dispatched in pursuit
of Mr. Peters speedily overtook that feeble gentleman.
The old man stopped when he heard the sound of
pursuing steps, but any alarms that may have crossed
his mind seemed to disappear on his recognizing the
livery. He very gratefully accepted the proffered
assistance, and placed his tremulous arm within the
servant’s for support. They had not gone far, how-
ever, when the old man stopped suddenly, saying,

“Dear me! as I live, I have dropped it. You
heard it fall. My eyes, I fear, won’t serve me, and
I’m unable to stoop low enough; but if you will
look, you shall have half the find. It is a guinea; I
carried it in my glove.”

The street was silent and deserted. The footman
had hardly descended to what he termed his
“ hunkers,” and begun to search the pavement about
the spot which the old man indicated, when Mr.
Peters, who seemed very much exhausted, and
breathed with difficulty, struck him a violent blow,
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 137

from above, over the back of the head with a heavy
rinstument, and then another; and leaving him
bleeding and senseless in the gutter, ran like a lamp-
lighter down a lane to the right, and was gone.

When, an hour later, the watchman brought the
man in livery home, still stupid and covered with
blood, Judge Harbottle cursed his servant roundly,
swore he was drunk, threatened him with an indict-
ment for taking bribes to betray his master, and
cheered him with a perspective of the broad street
leading from the Old Bailey to Tyburn, the cart’s
tail, and the hangman’s lash,

Notwithstanding this demonstration, the Judge
was pleased. It was.a disguised “ affidavit man,” or
footpad, no doubt, who had been employed to frighten
him. The trick had fallen through,

A “court of appeal,’ such as the false Hugh
Peters had indicated, with assassination for its sanc-
tion, would be an uncomfortable institution for a
“hanging judge” like the Honourable Justice Har-
bottle. That sarcastic and ferocious administrator
of the criminal code of England, at that time a
rather pharisaical, bloody and heinous system of
justice, had reasons of his own for choosing to try
that very Lewis Pyneweck, on whose behalf this
audacious trick was devised. Try him he would.
No man living should take that morsel out of his
mouth.

Of Lewis Pyneweck, of course, so far as the outer
world could see, he knew nothing. He would try
him after his fashion, without fear, favour, or affec-
tion.

But did he not remember a certain thin man,
''138 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

dressed in mourning, in whose house, in Shrewsbury,
the Judge’s lodgings used to be, until a scandal of
his ill-treating his wife came suddenly to light? A
grocer with a demure look, a soft step, and a lean
face as dark as mahogany, with a nose sharp and
long, standing ever so little awry, and a pair of dark
steady brown eyes under thinly-traced black brows—
a man whose thin lips wore always a faint unpleasant
smile.

Had not that scoundrel an account to settle with
the Judge? had he not been troublesome lately?
and was not his name Lewis Pyneweck, some time
grocer in Shrewsbury, and now prisoner in the jail
of that town ?

The reader may take it, if he pleases, as a sign
that Judge Harbottle was a good Christian, that he
suffered nothing ever from remorse. That was un-
deubtedly true. He had, nevertheless, done this
grocer, forger, what you will, some five or six years
before, a grievous wrong; but it was not that, but
a possible scandal, and possible complications, that
troubled the learned Judge now.

Did he not, as a lawyer, know, that to bring a
man from his shop to the dock, the chances must be
at least ninety-nine out of a hundred that he is guilty.

A weak man like his learned brother Withershins
was not a judge to keep the high-roads safe, and
make crime tremble. Old Judge Harbottle was the
man to make the evil-disposed quiver, and to refresh
the world with showers of wicked blood, and thus
save the innocent, to the refrain of the ancient saw

he loved to quote -
Foolish pity
Ruins a City.
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 139

In hanging that fellow he could not be wrong.
The eye of a man accustomed to look upon the dock
could not fail to read “villain” written sharp and
clear in his plotting face. Of course he would try
him, and no one else should.

A saucy-looking woman, still handsome, in a
mob-cap gay with blue ribbons, in a saque of flowered
silk, with lace and rings on, much too fine for the
Judge’s housekeeper, which nevertheless she was,
peeped into his study next morning, and, seeing the
Judge alone, stepped in.

“Here’s another letter from him, come by the
post this morning. Can’t you do nothing for him?”
she said wheedlingly, with her arm over his neck, and
her delicate finger and thumb fiddling with the lobe —
of his purple ear.

“T’ll try,” said Judge Harbottle, not raising his
eyes from the paper he was reading.

“I knew you'd do what I asked you,” she said.

The Judge clapt his gouty claw over his heart,
and made her an ironical bow.

“What,” she asked, “ will you do?”

“Hang him,” said the Judge with a chuckle,

“You don’t mean to; no, you don’t, my little
man,” said she, surveying herself in a mirror on the
wall.

“Tm d—d but I think you're falling in love with
your husband at last!” said Judge Harbottle.

“Tm blest but I think you’re growing jealous of
him,” replied the lady with a laugh. “But no; he
was always a bad one to me; I’ve done with him
long ago.”

“And he with you, by George! When he took
''140 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

your fortune, and your spoons, and your ear-rings, he
had all he wanted of you. He drove you from his
house; and when he discovered you had made your-
self comfortable, and found a good situation, he’d
have taken your guineas, and your silver, and your
ear-rings over again, and then allowed you half-a-
dozen years more to make a new harvest for his mill.
You don’t wish him good; if you say you do, you
He,"

She laughed a wicked, saucy laugh, and gave the
terrible Rhadamanthus a playful tap on the chops.

“He wants me to send him money to fee a coun-
sellor,” she said, while her eyes wandered over the
pictures on the wall, and back again to the looking-
glass ; and certainly she did not look as if his jeopardy
troubled her very much.

“Confound his impudence, the scoundrel /” thun-
dered the old Judge, throwing himself back in his chair,
as he used to do zz furore on the bench, and the lines
of his mouth looked brutal, and his eyes ready to leap
from their sockets. “ If you answer his letter from my
house to please yourself, you'll write your next from
somebody else’s to please me. You understand, my
pretty witch, I’ll not be pestered. Come, no pouting;
whimpering won’t do. You don’t care a brass
farthing for the villain, body or soul. You came here
but to make a row. You are one of Mother Carey’s
chickens; and where you come, the storm is up.
Get you gone, baggage! get you gone /” he repeated,
with a stamp; for a knock at the hall-door made her
instantaneous disappearance indispensable.

I need hardly say that the venerable Hugh Peters
did not appear again. The Judge never mentioned
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. wat

him. But oddly enough, considering how he laughed
to scorn the weak invention which he had blown into
dust at the very first puff, his white-wigged visitor
and the conference in the dark front parlour was
often in his memory.

His shrewd eye told him that allowing for change
of tints and such disguises as the playhouse affords
every night, the features of this false old man, who
had turned out too hard for his tall footman, were
identical with those of Lewis Pyneweck.

Judge Harbottle made his registrar call upon the
crown solicitor, and tell him that there was a man
in town who bore a wonderful resemblance to a
prisoner in Shrewsbury jail named Lewis Pyneweck,
and to make inquiry through the post forthwith
whether any one was personating Pyneweck in prison,
and whether he had thus or otherwise made his
escape.

The prisoner was safe, however, and no question
as to his identity.
''CHARTER TV:
INTERRUPTION IN COURT.

IN due time Judge Harbottle went circuit; and in
due time the judges were in Shrewsbury. News
travelled slowly in those days, and newspapers, like
the wagons and stage-coaches, took matters easily.
Mrs. Pyneweck, in the Judge’s house, with a diminished
household—the greater part of the Judge’s servants
having gone with him, for he had given up riding
circuit, and travelled in his coach in state—kept house
rather solitarily at home.

In spite of quarrels, in spite of mutual injuries—
some of them, inflicted by herself, enormous—in spite
of a married life of spited bickerings—a life in which
there seemed no love or liking or forbearance, for
years—now that Pyneweck stood in near danger of
death, something like remorse came suddenly upon
her. She knew that in Shrewsbury were transacting
the scenes which were to determine his fate. She
_knew she did not love him; but she could not have
supposed, even a fortnight before, that the hour of
suspense could have affected her so powerfully.
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. £43

She knew the day on which the trial was expected
to take place. She could not get it out of her head
for a minute; she felt faint as it drew towards
evening.

Two or three days passed; and then she knew
that the trial must be over by this time. There were
floods between London and Shrewsbury, and news
was long delayed. She wished the floods would last
for ever. It was dreadful waiting to hear; dreadful
to know that the event was over, and that she could
not hear till self-willed rivers subsided ; dreadful to
know that they must subside and the news come at
last.

She had some vague trust in the Judge’s good-
nature, and much in the resources of chance and
accident. She had contrived to send the money he
wanted. He would not be without legal advice and
energetic and skilled support.

At last the news did come—a long arrear all ina
gush: a letter from a female friend in Shrewsbury ;
a return of the sentences, sent up for the Judge; and
most important, because most easily got at, being
told with great aplomb and brevity, the long-deferred
intelligence of the Shrewsbury Assizes in the JMZorn-
ing Advertiser. Like an impatient reader of a novel,
who reads the last page first, she read with dizzy eyes
the list of the executions.

Two were respited, seven were hanged; and in
that capital catalogue was this line:

“Lewis Pyneweck—forgery.”

She had to read it half-a-dozen times over before
she was sure she understood it. Here was the para-
graph :
''144 IN A GLASS DARKLY,

“ Sentence, Death—7.

“ Executed accordingly, on Friday the 13th instant,
to wit:

“Thomas Primer, al/zas Duck—highway robbery.

“ Flora Guy—stealing to the value of IIs. 6d.

“ Arthur Pounden—burglary.

“ Matilda Mummery—riot.

‘ Lewis Pyneweck—forgery, bill of exchange.”

And when she reached this, she read it over and
over, feeling very cold and sick.

This buxom housekeeper was known in the house
as Mrs. Carwell—Carwell being her maiden name,
which she had resumed.

No one in the house except its master knew her
history. Her introduction had been managed craftily.
No one suspected that it had been concerted between
her and the old reprobate in scarlet and ermine.

Flora Carwell ran up the stairs now, and snatched
her little girl, hardly seven years of age, whom she
met on the lobby, hurriedly up in her arms, and
carried her into her bedroom, without well knowing
what she was doing, and sat down, placing the child
before her. She was not abletospeak. She held the
child before her, and looked in the little girl’s
wondering face, and burst into tears of horror.

She thought the Judge could have saved him. I
daresay he could. For a time she was furious with
him, and hugged and kissed her bewildered little girl,
who returned her gaze with large round eyes.

That little girl had lost her father, and knew
nothing of the matter. She had been always told
that her father was dead long ago.
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 145

A woman, coarse, uneducated, vain, and violent,
does not reason, or even feel, very distinctly; but
in these tears of consternation were mingling a
self-upbraiding. She felt afraid of that little
child,

But Mrs, Carwell was a person who lived not
upon sentiment, but upon beef and pudding; she
consoled herself with punch; she did not trouble
herself long even with resentments; she was a gross
and material person, and could not mourn over the
irrevocable for more than a limited number of hours,
even if she would.

Judge Harbottle was soon in London again. Ex-
cept the gout, this savage old epicurean never knew
a day’s sickness. He laughed, and coaxed, and
bullied away the young woman’s faint upbraidings,
and in a little time Lewis Pyneweck troubled her no
more; and the Judge secretly chuckled over the
perfectly fair removal of a bore, who might have
grown little by little into something very like a
tyrant.

It was the lot of the Judge whose adventures I
am now recounting to try criminal cases at the Old
Bailey shortly after his return. He had commenced:
his charge to the jury in a case of forgery, and
was, after his wont, thundering dead against the
prisoner, with many a hard aggravation and cynical
gibe, when suddenly all died away in_ silence,
and, instead of looking at the jury, the eloquent
Judge was gaping at some person in the body of the
court.

Among the persons of small importance who
stand and listen at the sides was one tall enough to

10
''146 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

show with a little prominence; a slight mean figure,
dressed in seedy black, lean and dark of visage. He
had just handed a letter to the crier, before he caught
the Judge’s eye.

That Judge descried, to his amazement, the
features of Lewis Pyneweck. He has the usual faint
thin-lipped smile; and with his blue chin raised in
air, and as it seemed quite unconscious of the dis-
tinguished notice he has attracted, he was stretching
his low cravat with his crooked fingers, while he
slowly turned his head from side to side—a process
which enabled the Judge to see distinctly a stripe of
swollen blue round his neck, which indicated, he
thought, the grip of the rope.

This man, with a few others, had got a footing
on a step, from which he could better see the
court. He now stepped down, and the Judge lost
sight of him.

His lordship signed energetically with his hand in
the direction in which this man had vanished. He
turned to the tipstaff. His first effort to speak ended
in a gasp. He cleared his throat,and told the
astounded official to arrest that man who had inter-
rupted the court.

“ He’s but this moment gone down ¢here. Bring
him in custody before me, within ten minutes’ time,
or I’ll strip your gown from your shoulders and fine
the sheriff!” he thundered, while his eyes flashed
round the court in search of the functionary.

Attorneys, counsellors, idle spectators, gazed in
the direction in which Mr. Justice Harbottle had
shaken his gnarled old hand. They compared notes.
Not one had seen any one making a disturbance.
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 147

They asked one another if the Judge was losing his
head.

Nothing came of the search. His lordship con-
cluded his charge a great deal more tamely ; and
when the jury retired, he stared round the court
with a wandering mind, and looked as if he would

not have given sixpence to see the prisoner
hanged,
''CHAPTER V.
CALEB SEARCHER,

THE Judge had received the letter; had he known
from whom it came, he would no doubt have read it
instantaneously. As it was he simply read the .
direction :

Lo the Honourable
Lhe Lord Justice
Elijah Harbottle,
One of his Majesty's Justices of
the Honourable Court of Common Pleas.

It remained forgotten in his pocket till he reached
home.

When he pulled out that and others from the
capacious pocket of his coat, it had its turn, as he
sat in his library in his thick silk dressing-gown ; and
then he found its contents to be a closely-written
letter, in a clerk’s hand, and an enclosure in “secretary
hand,” as I believe the angular scrivinary of law-
writings in those days was termed, engrossed on a
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 149

bit of parchment about the size of this page. The
letter said :

“MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE,—MY LorD,

“Tam ordered by the High Court of Appeal to
acquaint your lordship, in order to your better
preparing yourself for your trial, that a true bill hath
been sent down, and the indictment lieth against your
lordship for the murder of one Lewis Pyneweck of
Shrewsbury, citizen, wrongfully executed for the
forgery of a bill of exchange, on the —th day of
—— last, by reason of the wilful perversion of the
evidence, and the undue pressure put upon the jury,
together with the illegal admission of evidence by
your lordship, well knowing the same to be illegal,
by all which the promoter of the prosecution of the
said indictment, before the High Court of Appeal,
hath lost his life.

“And the trial of the said indictment, I am
farther ordered to acquaint your lordship, is fixed
for the 1oth day of next ensuing, by the right
honourable the Lord Chief Justice Twofold, of the
court aforesaid, to wit, the High Court of Appeal, on
which day it will most certainly take place. And I
am farther to acquaint your lordship, to prevent any
surprise or miscarriage, that your case stands first for
the said day, and that the said High Court of Appeal
sits day and night, and never rises ; and herewith, by
order of the said court, I furnish your lordship with a
copy (extract) of the record in this case, except of
the indictment, whereof, notwithstanding, the sub-
stance and effect is supplied to your lordship in this
Notice. And farther I am to inform you, that incase

 
''150 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

the jury then to try your lordship should find you
guilty, the right honourable the Lord Chief Justice
will, in passing sentence of death upon you, fix the
day of execution for the 10th day of ——, being one
calendar month from the day of your trial.”

It was signed by “CALEB SEARCHER,

“ Officer of the Crown Solicitor in the
“Kingdom of Life and Death.”

The Judge glanced through the parchment.

“’Sblood! Do they think a man like me is to be
bamboozled by their buffoonery ?”

The Judge’s coarse features were wrung into one
of his sneers ; but he was pale. Possibly, after all,
there was a conspiracy on foot. It was queer. Did
they mean to pistol him in his carriage? or did they
only aim at frightening him ?

Judge Harbottle had more than enough of animal
courage. He was not afraid of highwaymen, and he
had fought more than his share of duels, being a foul-
mouthed advocate while he held briefs at the bar.
No one questioned his fighting qualities. But with
respect to this particular case of Pyneweck, he lived
in a house of glass. Was there not his pretty, dark-
eyed, over-dressed housekeeper, Mrs. Flora Carwell ?
Very easy for people who knew Shrewsbury to
identify Mrs. Pyneweck, if once put upon the scent;
and had he not stormed and worked hard in that
case? Had he not made it hard sailing for the
prisoner? Did he not iknow very well what the bar
thought of it? It would be the worst scandal that
ever blasted Judge.

So much there was intimidating in the matter
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 151

but nothing more. The Judge was a little bit gloomy
for a day or two after, and more testy with every one
than usual. °

He locked up the papers; and about a week
after he asked his housekeeper, one day, in the
library:

“Had your husband never a brother?”

Mrs. Carwell squalled' on this sudden introduction
of the funereal topic, and cried exemplary “ piggins
full,’ as the Judge used pleasantly to say. But
he was in no mood for trifling now, and he said
sternly :

“Come, madam! this wearies me. Do it another
time; and give me an answer to my question.” So
she did.

Pyneweck had no brother living. He once had
one ; but he died in Jamaica.

“How do you know he is dead?” asked the
Judge.

“ Because he told me so.”

“Not the dead man.”

“ Pyneweck told me so.”

“Ts that all?” sneered the Judge.

He pondered this matter; and time wenton. The
Judge was growing a little morose, and less enjoying.
The subject struck nearer to his thoughts than he
fancied it could have done. But so it is with most
undivulged vexations, and there was no one to whom
he could tell this one.

It was now the ninth; and Mr. Justice Harbottle
was glad. He knew nothing would come of it. Still

it bothered him; and to-morrow would see it well
over, ,
''152 IN A GLASS DARKLY,

[What of the paper I have cited? No one saw
it during his life ; no one, after his death. He spoke
of it to Dr. Hedstone; and what purported to be
“a copy,” in the old Judge’s handwriting, was
found. The original was nowhere. Was it a copy
of an illusion, incident to brain disease? Such is my
belief.]
''CHAPTER VI.
ARRESTED.

JUDGE HARBOTTLE went this night to the play at
Drury Lane. He was one of those old fellows who
care nothing for late hours, and occasional knocking
about in pursuit of pleasure. He had appointed
with two cronies of Lincoln’s Inn to come home in
his coach with him to sup after the play.

They were not in his box, but were to meet him
near the entrance, and get into his carriage there;
and Mr. Justice Harbottle, who hated waiting, was
looking a little impatiently from the window.

The Judge yawned.

He told the footman to watch for Counsellor
Thavies and Counsellor Beller, who were coming;
and, with another yawn, he laid his cocked hat on
his knees, closed his eyes, leaned back in his corner,
wrapped his mantle closer about him, and began to
think of pretty Mrs. Abington.

And being a man who could sleep like a sailor, at
a moment's notice, he was thinking of taking a nap.
''154 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

Those fellows had no business to keep a judge
waiting.

He heard their voices now. Those rake-hell
counsellors were laughing, and bantering, and sparring
after their wont. The carriage swayed and jerked, as
one got in, and then again as the other followed.
The door clapped, and the coach was now jogging
and rumbling over the pavement. The Judge wasa
little bit sulky. He did not care to sit up and open
his eyes. Let them suppose he was asleep. He
heard them laugh with more malice than good-
humour, he thought, as they observed it. He would
give them a d—d hard knock or two when they got
to his door, and till then he would couterfeit his nap.

The clocks were chiming twelve. Beller and
Thavies were silent as tombstones. They were gene-
rally loquacious and merry rascals.

The Judge suddenly felt himself roughly seized
and thrust from his corner into the middle of the
seat, and opening his eyes, instantly he found himself
between his two companions.

Before he could blurt out the oath that was at his
lips, he saw that they were two strangers—evil-
looking fellows, each with a pistol in his hand, and
dressed like Bow Street officers.

The Judge clutched at the check-string. The
coach pulled up. He stared about him. They were
not among houses; but through the windows, under
a broad moonlight, he saw a black moor stretching
lifelessly from right to left, with rotting trees, pointing
fantastic branches in the air, standing here and there
in groups, as if they held up their arms and twigs
like fingers, in horrible glee at the Judge’s coming.
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 155

A footman came to the window. He knew his
long face and sunken eyes. He knew it was Dingly
Chuff, fifteen years ago a footman in his service,
whom he had turned off at a moment’s notice, in a
burst of jealousy, and indicted for a missing spoon.
The man had died in prison of the jail-fever.

The Judge drew back in utter amazement. His
armed companions signed mutely; and they were
again gliding over this unknown moor.

The bloated and gouty old man, in his horror
considered the question of resistance. But his athletic
days were long over. This moor was adesert. There
was no help to be had. He was in the hands of
strange servants, even if his recognition turned out to
be a delusion, and they were under the command of
his captors. There was nothing for it but submission,
for the present.

- Suddenly the coach was brought nearly to a
standstill, so that the prisoner saw an ominous sight
from the window.

It was a gigantic gallows beside the road; it
stood three-sided, and from each of its three broad
beams at top depended in chains some eight or ten
bodies, from several of which the cere-clothes had
dropped away, leaving the skeletons swinging lightly
by their chains. A tall ladder reached to the sum-
mit of the structure, and on the peat beneath lay
bones.

On top of the dark transverse beam facing the
road, from which, as from the other two completing
the triangle of death, dangled a row of these unfor-
tunates in chains, a hangman, with a pipe in his
mouth, much as we see him in the famous print of
''156 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

the “Idle Apprentice,’ though here his perch was
ever so much higher, was reclining at his ease and
listlessly shying bones, from a little heap at his elbow,
at the skeletons that hung round, bringing down now
a rib or two, now a hand, now half a leg. A long-
sighted man could have discerned that he was a dark
fellow, lean; and from continually looking down on
the earth from the elevation over which, in another
sense, he always hung, his nose, his lips, his chin were
pendulous and loose, and drawn down into a
monstrous grotesque.

This fellow took his pipe from his mouth on
seeing the coach, stood up, and cut some solemn
capers high on his beam, and shook a new rope in
the air, crying with a voice high and distant as the
caw of a raven hovering over a gibbet, “A rope for
Judge Harbottle!”

The coach was now driving on at its old swift
pace.

So high a gallows as that, the Judge had never,
even in his most hilarious moments, dreamed of. He
thought he must be raving. And the dead footman!
He shook his ears and strained his eyelids; but if he
was dreaming, he was unable to awake himself.

There was no good in threatening these scound-
rels, A drutum fulmen might bring a real one on his
head.

Any submission to get out of their hands; and
then heaven and earth he would move to unearth and
hunt them down.

Suddenly they drove round a corner of a vast
white building, and under a forte-cochére,
''CHAPTER VIt.
CHIEF JUSTICE TWOFOLD.

THE Judge found himself in a corridor lighted with
dingy oil lamps, the walls of bare stone; it looked
like a passage ina prison. His guards placed him
in the hands of other people. Here and there he
saw bony and gigantic soldiers passing to and fro,
with muskets over their shoulders. They looked
straight before them, grinding their teeth, in bleak
fury, with no noise but the clank of their shoes. He
saw these by glimpses, round corners, and at the
ends of passages, but he did not actually pass
them by.

And now, passing under a narrow doorway, he
found himself in the dock, confronting a judge in
his scarlet robes, in a large court-house. There was
nothing to elevate this Temple of Themis above
its vulgar kind elsewhere. Dingy enough it looked,
in spite of candles lighted in decent abundance. A
case had just closed, and the last jurors back was
seen escaping through the door in the wall of the
jury-box. There were some dozen barristers, some
''158 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

fiddling with pen and ink, others buried in briefs,
some beckoning, with the plumes of their pens, to
their attorneys, of whom there were no lack; there
were clerks to-ing and fro-ing, and the officers of the
court, and the registrar, who was handing up a paper
to the judge ; and the tipstaff, who was presenting a
note at the end of his wand toa king’s counsel over
the heads of the crowd between. If this was the
High Court of Appeal, which never rose day or
night, it might account for the pale and jaded aspect
of everybody in it. An air of indescribable gloom
hung upon the pallid features of all the people here ;
no one ever smiled ; all looked more or less secretly
suffering.

“The King against Elijah Harbottle!” shouted
the officer.

“Ts the appellant Lewis Pyneweck in court?”
asked Chief-Justice Twofold, in a voice of thunder,
that shook the woodwork of the court, and boomed
down the corridors.

Up stood Pyneweck from his place at the table.

“ Arraign the prisoner!” roared the Chief: and
Judge Harbottle felt the panels of the dock round
him, and the floor, and the rails quiver in the vibra-
tions of that tremendous voice.

The prisoner, 2” /émzne, objected to this pretended
court, as being a sham, and non-existent in point of
law; and then, that, even if it were a court consti-
tuted by law (the Judge was growing dazed), it had
not and could not have any jurisdiction to try him
for his conduct on the bench.

Whereupon the chief-justice laughed suddenly,
and every one in court, turning round upon the
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 159

prisoner, laughed also, till the laugh grew and roared
all round like a deafening acclamation; he saw
nothing but glittering eyes and teeth, a universal
stare and grin; but though all the voices laughed,
not a single face of all those that concentrated their
gaze upon him looked like a laughing face. The
mirth subsided as suddenly as it began.

The indictment was read. Judge Harbottle
actually pleaded! He pleaded “ Not Guilty.” <A
jury were sworn. The trial proceeded. Judge Har-
bottle was bewildered. This could not be real. He
must be either mad, or gozng mad, he thought.

One thing could not fail to strike even him.
This Chief-Justice Twofold, who was knocking him
about at every turn with sneer and gibe, and roaring
him down with his tremendous voice, was a dilated
effigy of himself; an image of Mr. Justice Harbottle,
at least double his size, and with all his fierce
colouring, and his ferocity of eye and visage, enhanced
awfully.

Nothing the prisoner could argue, cite, or state,
was permitted to retard for a moment the march of
the case towards its catastrophe.

The chief-justice seemed to feel his power over
the jury, and to exult and riot in the display of it.
He glared at them, he nodded to them; he seemed
to have established an understanding with them.
The lights were faint in that part of the court. The
jurors were mere shadows, sitting in rows; the
prisoner could see a dozen pair of white eyes shining,
coldly, out of the darkness ; and whenever the judge
in his charge, which was contemptuously brief,
nodded and grinned and gibed, the prisoner could
''160 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

see, in the obscurity, by the dip of all these rows of
eyes together, that the jury nodded in acquiescence,

And now the charge was over, the huge chief-
justice leaned back panting and gloating on the
prisoner. Every one in the court turned about, and
gazed with steadfast hatred on the man in the dock.
From the jury-box where the twelve sworn brethren
were whispering together, a sound in the general
stillness like a prolonged “ hiss-s-s!” was heard ; and
then, in answer to the challenge of the officer, “ How
say you, gentlemen of the jury, guilty or not guilty?”
came in a melancholy voice the finding, “ Guilty.”

The place seemed to the eyes of the prisoner to
grow gradually darker and darker, till he could
discern nothing distinctly but the lumen of the eyes
that were turned upon him from every bench and
side and corner and gallery of the building. The
prisoner doubtless thought that he had quite enough
to say, and conclusive, why sentence of death should
not be pronounced upon him; but the lord chief- -
justice puffed it contemptuously away, like so much
smoke, and proceeded to pass sentence of death upon
the prisoner, having named the tenth of the ensuing
month for his execution.

Before he had recovered the stun of this ominous
farce, in obedience to the mandate, “ Remove the
prisoner,” he was led from the dock. The lamps
seemed all to have gone out, and there were stoves
and charcoal-fires here and there, that threw a faint
crimson light on the walls of the corridors through
which he passed, The stones that composed them
looked now enormous, cracked and unhewn.

He came into a vaulted smithy, where two men,
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 161

naked to the waist, with heads like bulls, round
shoulders, and the arms of giants, were welding red-
hot chains together with hammers that pelted like
thunderbolts.

They looked on the prisoner with fierce red eyes,
and rested on their hammers for a minute; and said
the elder to his companion, “ Take out Elijah Har-
bottle’s gyves;” and with a pincers he plucked the
end which lay dazzling in the fire from the furnace.

“One end locks,” said he, taking the cool end of
the iron in one hand, while with the grip of a vice he
seized the leg of the Judge, and locked the ring round
his ankle. “The other,’ he said with a grin, “is
welded.”

The iron band that was to form the ring for the
other leg lay still red hot upon the stone floor, with
brilliant sparks sporting up and down its surface.

His companion, in his gigantic hands, seized the
old Judge’s other leg, and pressed his foot immovably
to the stone floor; while his senior, in a twinkling,
with a masterly application of pincers and hammer,
sped the glowing bar round his ankle so tight that
the skin and sinews smoked and bubbled again, and
old Judge Harbottle uttered a yell that seemed to
chill the very stones, and make the iron chains quiver
on the wall,

Chains, vaults, smiths, and smithy all vanished in
a moment; but the pain continued. Mr. Justice
Harbottle was suffering torture all round the ankle
on which the infernal smiths had just been operating.

His friends, Thavies and Beller were startled by the
Judge’s roar in the midst of their elegant trifling
about a marriage d-/a-mode case which was going

II
''162 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

on. The Judge was in panic as well as pain. The
street lamps and the light of his own hall door
restored him.

“ T’m very bad,” growled he between his set teeth ;
“ my foot’s blazing. Who was he that hurt my foot?
’Tis the gout—'tis the gout!” he said, awaking com-
pletely. “How many hours have we been coming.
from the playhouse? ’Sblood, what has happened on
the way? I’ve slept half the night!”

There had been no hitch or delay, and they had
driven home at a good pace.

The Judge, however, was in gout ; he was feverish
too; and the attack, though very short, was sharp;
and when, in about a fortnight, it subsided, his
ferocious joviality did not return. He could not get
this dream, as he chose to call it, out of his head.

he
ig?
''CHAPTER VIII.
SOMEBODY HAS GOT INTO THE HOUSE.

PEOPLE remarked that the Judge was in the vapours.
Ilis doctor said he should go for a fortnight to
Buxton.

Whenever the Judge fell into a brown study, he
was always conning over the terms of the sentence
pronounced upon him in his vision—“ in one calendar
month from the date of this day ;” and then the usual
form, “and you shall be hanged by the neck till you
are dead,” etc. “That will be the 1oth—I’m not
much in the way of being hanged. I know what
stuff dreams are, and I laugh at them; but this is
continually in my thoughts, as if it forecast mis-
fortune of some sort. I wish the day my dream gave
me were passed and over. I wish I were well purged
of my gout. I wish I were as I used to be. ’Tis
nothing but vapours, nothing but a maggot.” The
copy of the parchment and letter which had an-
nounced his trial with many a snort and sneer he
would read over and over again, and the scenery and
people of his dream would rise about him in places
''164 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

the most unlikely, and steal him in a moment from
all that surrounded him into a world of shadows,

The Judge had lost his iron energy and banter.
He was growing taciturn and morose. The Bar
remarked the change, as well they might. His friends
thought him ill. The doctor said he was troubled
with hypochondria, and that his gout was still lurking
in his system, and ordered him to that ancient haunt
of crutches and chalk-stones, Buxton.

The Judge’s spirits were very low; he was
frightened about himself; and he described to his
housekeeper, having sent for her to his study to drink
a dish of tea, his strange dream in his drive home
from Drury Lane Playhouse. He was sinking into
the state of nervous dejection in which men lose their
faith in orthodox advice, and in despair consult quacks,
astrologers, and nursery story-tellers. Could such a
dream mean that he was to have a fit, and so die on
the roth? She did not think so. On the contrary, it
was certain some good luck must happen on that day.

The Judge kindled; and for the first time for
many days, he looked for a minute or two like him-
self, and he tapped her on the cheek with the hand
that was not in flannel.

“Odsbud! odsheart! you dear rogue! I had
forgot. There is young Tom—yellow Tom, my
nephew, you know, lies sick at Harrogate; why
shouldn’t he go that day as well as another, and if he
does, I get an estate by it? Why, lookee, I asked
Doctor Hedstone yesterday if I was like to take a fit
any time, and he laughed, and swore I was the last
man in town to go off that way.”

The Judge sent most of his servants down to
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE., 165

Buxton to make his lodgings and all things comfort-
able for him. He was to follow in a day or two.

It was now the oth; and the next day well over,
he might laugh at his visions and auguries.

On the evening of the oth, Dr. Hedstone’s foot-
man knocked at the Judge’s door. The Doctor ran
up the dusky stairs to the drawing-room. It wasa
March evening, near the hour of sunset, with an east
wind whistling sharply through the chimney-stacks.
A wood fire blazed cheerily on the hearth. And
Judge Harbottle, in what was then called a brigadier-
wig, with his red roquelaure on, helped the glowing
effect of the darkened chamber, which looked red all
over like a room on fire.

The Judge had his feet on a stool, and his huge
grim purple face confronted the fire, and seemed to
pant and swell, as the blaze alternately spread upward
and collapsed. He had fallen again among his blue
devils, and was thinking of retiring from the Bench,
and of fifty other gloomy things.

But the Doctor, who was an energetic son of
sculapius, would listen to no croaking, told the
Judge he was full of gout, and in his present con- —
dition no judge even of his own case, but promised
him leave to pronounce on all those melancholy
questions, a fortnight later.

In the meantime the Judge must be very careful.
He was over-charged with gout, and he must not
provoke an attack, till the waters of Buxton should
do that office for him, in their own salutary way.

The Doctor did not think him perhaps quite so
well as he pretended, for he told him he wanted rest,
and would be better if he went forthwith to his bed.
''166 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

Mr. Gerningham, his valet, assisted him, and gave
him his drops; and the Judge told him to wait in
his bedroom till he should go to sleep.

Three persons that night had specially odd stories
to tell.

The housekeeper had got rid of the trouble of
amusing her little girl at this anxious time, by giving
her leave to run about the sitting-rooms and look at
the pictures and china, on the usual condition of
touching nothing. It was not until the last gleam of
sunset had for some time faded, and the twilight
had so deepened that she could no longer discern the
colours on the china figures on the chimneypiece or
in the cabinets, that the child returned to the house-
keeper’s room to find her mother.

To her she related, after some prattle about the
china, and the pictures, and the Judge’s two grand
wigs in the dressing-room off the library, an adventure
of an extraordinary kind.

In the hall was placed, as was customary in those
times, the sedan-chair which the master of the house
occasionally used, covered with stamped leather, and
studded with gilt nails, and with its red silk blinds
down. In this case, the doors of this old-fashioned
conveyance were locked, the windows up, and, as I
said, the blinds down, but not so closely that the
curious child could not peep underneath one of them,
and see into the interior.

A parting beam from the setting sun, admitted
through the window of a back room, shot obliquely
through the open door, and lighting on the chair,
shone with a dull transparency through the crimson
blind.
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. — 167

To her surprise, the child saw in the shadow a
thin man, dressed in black, seated in it ; he had sharp
dark features; his nose, she fancied, a little awry, and
his brown eyes were looking straight before him ; his
hand was on his thigh, and he stirred no more than
the waxen figure she had seen at Southwark fair.

A child is so often lectured for asking questions,
and on the propriety of silence, and the superior
wisdom of its elders, that it accepts most things at
last in good faith; and the little girl acquiesced
respectfully in the occupation of the chair by this
mahogany-faced person as being all right and proper.

It was not until she asked her mother who this
man was, and observed her scared face as she
questioned her more minutely upon the appearance
of the stranger, that she began to understand that
she had seen something unaccountable.

Mrs. Carwell took the key of the chair from its
nail over the footman’s shelf, and led the child by the
hand up to the hall, having a lighted candle in her
other hand. She stopped at a distance from the
chair, and placed the candlestick in the child’s hand.

“Peep in, Margery, again, and try if there’s any-
thing there,’ she whispered; “hold the candle near
the blind so as to throw its light through the curtain.”

The child peeped, this time with a very solemn
face, and intimated at once that he was gone.

“Look again, and be sure,” urged her mother.

The little girl was quite certain; and Mrs. Car-
well, with her mob-cap of lace and cherry-coloured
ribbons, and her dark brown hair, not yet powdered,
pver a very pale face, unlocked the door, looked in,
and beheld emptiness,
''168 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“ Alla mistake, child, you see.”

“ There! ma’am! see there! He’s gone round
the corner,” said the child.

“Where?” said Mrs. Carwell, stepping backward
a step.

“Into that room.”

“Tut, child! ’twas the shadow,” cried Mrs. Car-
well, angrily, because she was frightened. “I moved
the candle.” But she clutched one of the poles of the
chair, which leant against the wall in the corner,
and pounded the floor furiously with one end of it,
being afraid to pass the open door the child had
pointed to.

The cook and two kitchen-maids came running
upstairs, not knowing what to make of this unwonted
alarm.

They all searched the room; but it was still and
empty, and no sign of any one’s having been there.

Some people may suppose that the direction given
to her thoughts by this odd little incident will account
for a very strange illusion which Mrs. Carwell herself
experienced about two hours later.
''CHAPTER IX,
THE JUDGE LEAVES HIS HOUSE.

Mrs. FLORA CARWELL was going up the great stair-
case with a posset for the Judge in a china bowl,
on a little silver tray.

Across the top of the well-staircase there runs a
massive oak rail; and, raising her eyes accidentally,
she saw an extremely odd-looking stranger, slim and
long, leaning carelessly over with a pipe between his
finger and thumb. Nose, lips, and chin seemed all
to droop downward into extraordinary length, as he
leant his odd peering face over the banister. In his
other hand he held a coil of rope, one end of which
escaped from under his elbow and hung over the rail,

Mrs. Carwell, who had no suspicion at the moment,
that he was not a real person, and fancied that he
was some one employed in cording the Judge’s
luggage, called to know what he was doing there.

Instead of answering, he turned about, and walked
across the lobby, at about the same leisurely pace at
which she was ascending, and entered a room, into
which she followed him. It was an uncarpeted and
''170 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

unfurnished chamber. An open trunk lay upon the
floor empty, and beside it the coil of rope ; but except
herself there was no one in the room.

Mrs. Carwell was very much frightened, and now
concluded that the child must have seen the same
ghost that had just appeared to her. Perhaps,
when she was able to think it over, it was a relief to
_ believe so; for the face, figure, and dress described
by the child were awfully like Pyneweck ; and this
certainly was not he.

Very much scared and very hysterical, Mrs. Car-
well ran down to her room, afraid to look over her
shoulder, and got some companions about her, and
wept, and talked, and drank more than one cordial,
and talked and wept again, and so on, until, in those
early days, it was ten o’clock, and time to go to bed.

A scullery-maid remained up finishing some of
her scouring and “scalding” for some time after the
other servants—who, as I said, were few in number
—that night had got to their beds. This was a low-
browed, broad-faced, intrepid wench with black hair,
who did not “ vally a ghost not a button,” and treated
the housekeeper’s hysterics with measureless scorn.

The old house was quiet now. It was near twelve
o'clock, no sounds were audible except the muffled
wailing of the wintry winds, piping high among the
roofs and chimneys, or rumbling at intervals, in under
gusts, through the narrow channels of the street.

The spacious solitudes of the kitchen level were
awfully dark, and this sceptical kitchen-wench was
the only person now up and about in the house. She
hummed tunes to herself, for a time; and then
stopped and listened; and then resumed her work
''MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE. 171

again. At last, she was destined to be more terrified
than even was the housekeeper.

There was a back kitchen in this house, and from
this she heard, as if coming from below its founda-
tions, a sound like heavy strokes, that seemed to
shake the earth beneath her feet. Sometimes a
dozen in sequence, at regular intervals; sometimes
fewer. She walked out softly into the passage, and
was surprised to see a dusky glow issuing from this
room, as if from a charcoal fire.

The room seemed thick with smoke

Looking in she very dimly beheld a monstrous
figure, over a furnace, beating with a mighty hammer
the rings and rivets of a chain.

The strokes, swift and heavy as they looked,
sounded hollow and distant. The man stopped, and
pointed to something on the floor, that, through the
smoky haze, looked, she thought, like a dead body.
She remarked no more; but the servants in the
room close by, startled from their sleep by a hideous
scream, found her in a swoon on the flags, close to the
door, where she had just witnessed this ghastly vision.

Startled by the girl’s incoherent asseverations that
she had seen the Judge’s corpse on the floor, two
servants having first searched the lower part of the
house, went rather frightened up-stairs to inquire
whether their master was well. They found him,
not in his bed, but in his room. He had a table with
candles burning at his bedside, and was getting on
his clothes again ; and he swore and cursed at them
roundly in his old style, telling them that he had
business, and that he would discharge on the spot any
scoundrel who should dare to disturb him again.
''172 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

So the invalid was left to his quietude.

In the morning it was rumoured here and there in
the street that the Judge was dead. A servant was
sent from the house three doors away, by Counsellor
Traverse, to inquire at Judge Harbottle’s hall door.

The servant who opened it was pale and reserved,
and would only say that the Judge was ill. He had
had a dangerous accident; Doctor Hedstone had
been with him at seven o’clock in the morning.

There were averted looks, short answers, pale and
frowning faces, and all the usual signs that there was
a secret that sat heavily upon their minds, and the
time for disclosing which had not yet come. That
time would arrive when the coroner had arrived, and
the mortal scandal that had befallen the house could
be no longer hidden. For that morning Mr. Justice
Harbottle had been found hanging by the neck from
the banister at the top of the great staircase, and
quite dead.

There was not the smallest sign of any struggle
or resistance. There had not been heard a cry or
any other noise in the slightest degree indicative of
violence. There was medical evidence to show that,
in his atrabilious state, it was quite on the cards that
he might have made away with himself. The jury
found accordingly that it was a case of suicide. But
to those who were acquainted with the strange story
which Judge Harbottle had related to at least two
persons, the fact that the catastrophe occurred on the
morning of March 1oth seemed a startling coincidence.

A few days after, the pomp of a great funeral
attended him to the grave; and so, in the language
of Scripture, “the rich man died, and was buried.”
''THE

ROOM IN THE DRAGON VOLANT.

 

PROLOGUE.

HE curious case which I am about to place
before you, is referred to, very pointedly, and
more than once, in the extraordinary Essay

upon the Drugs of the Dark and the Middle Ages,
from the pen of Doctor Hesselius.

This Essay he entitles “ Mortis Imago,” and he,
therein, discusses the Vinum Jetiferum, the Beatifica,
the Somnus Angelorum, the Hypnus Sagarum, the
Aqua Thessallig, and about twenty other infusions
and distillations, well known to the sages of eight
hundred years ago, and two of which are still, he
alleges, known to the fraternity of thieves, and, among
them, as police-office inquiries sometimes disclose to
this day, in practical use.

The Essay, Mortis Imago, will occupy as nearly
as I can, at present, calculate, two volumes, the
''174 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

ninth and tenth, of the collected papers of Dr. Martin
Hesselius.

This Essay, I may remark, in conclusion, is very
curiously enriched by citations, in great abundance,
from medizval verse and prose romance, some of the
most valuable of which, strange to say, are Egyptian.

I have selected this particular statement from
among many cases equally striking, but hardly, I
think, so effective as mere narratives, in this irregular
form of publication, it is simply as a story that I
present it.
''CHAPTER 1.
ON THE ROAD,

IN the eventful year, 1815, I was exactly three-and-
twenty, and had just succeeded to a very large sum in
consols, and other securities. The first fall of Napoleon
had thrown the continent open to English excur-
sionists, anxious, let us suppose, to improve their
minds by foreign travel; and I—the slight check
of the “hundred days” removed, by the genius of
Wellington, on the field of Waterloo — was now
added to the philosophic throng.

I was posting up to Paris from Bruxelles, follow-
ing, I presume, the route that the allied army had
pursued but a few weeks before—more carriages than
you could believe were pursuing the same line. You
could not look back or forward, without seeing into
far perspective the clouds of dust which marked the
line of the long series of vehicles. We were per-
petually passing relays of return-horses, on their way,
jaded and dusty, to the inns from which they had
been taken. They were arduous times for those
''er, ee

176 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

patient public servants. The whole world seemed
posting up to Paris.

I ought to have noted it more particularly, but
my head was so full of Paris and the future, that I
passed the intervening scenery with little patience and
less attention ; I think, however, that it was about
four miles to the frontier side of a rather picturesque
little town, the name of which, as of many more
important places through which I posted in my
hurried journey, I forget,and about two hours before
sunset, that we came up with a carriage in distress.

It was not quite an upset. But the two leaders
were lying flat. The booted postilions had got down,
and two servants who seemed very much at sea in
such matters, were by way of assisting them. A pretty
little bonnet and head were popped out of the window
of the carriage in distress. Its zournure, and that of
the shoulders that also appeared for a moment, was
captivating : I resolved to play the part of a good
Samaritan ; stopped my chaise, jumped out, and with
my servant lent a very willing hand in the emergency.
Alas! the lady with the pretty bonnet, wore a very
thick, black veil. I could see nothing but the pattern
of the Bruxelles lace, as she drew back.

A lean old gentleman, almost at the same time,
stuck his head out of the window. An invalid he
seemed, for although the day was hot, he wore a
black muffler which came up to his ears and nose,
quite covering the lower part of his face, an arrange-
ment which he disturbed by pulling it down for a
moment, and poured forth a torrent of French thanks,
as he uncovered his black wig, and gesticulated with
grateful animation.
''     

THE DRAGON VOLAN.

One of my very few accomp ishments, besides
boxing, which was cultivated by all Englishmen at
that time, was French; and I replied, I hope and
believe grammatically. Many bows being exchanged
the old gentleman’s head went in again, and the
demure, pretty little bonnet once more appeared.

The lady must have heard me speak to my ser-
vant, for she framec her little speech in such pretty,
broken English, and in a voice so sweet, that I more
than ever cursed the black veil that baulked my
romantic curiosity.

The arms that were emblazoned on the panel
were peculiar; I remember especially one device—it
was the figure of a stork, painted in carmine, upon
what the heralds call a “field or.” The bird was
standing upon one leg, and in the other claw held a
stone. This is, I believe, the emblem of vigilance.
Its oddity struck me, and remained impressed upon
my memory. There were supporters besides, but I
forget what they were. The courtly manners of these ©

people, the style of their servants, the elegance of their

travelling carriage, and the supporters to their arms,
satisfied me that they were noble. +a

The lady, you may be sure, was not the less
interesting on that account. What a fascination a
title exercises upon the imagination! I donot mean
on that of snobs or moral flunkies. Superiority of
rank is a powerful and genuine influence in love.
The idea of superior refinement is associated with it.
The careless notice of the squire tells more upon the
heart of the pretty milkmaid than years of honest
Dobbin’s manly devotion, and soon and up. It is an
unjust world!

 
''178 4N A GLASS DARKLY.

But in this case there was something more. I
was conscious of being good-looking. I really be-
lieve I was; and there could be no mistake about
my being nearly six feet high. Why need this lady
have thanked me? Had not her husband, for such I
assumed him to be, thanked me quite enough and for
both? I was instinctively aware that the lady was
looking on me with no unwilling eyes; and, through
her veil, I felt the power of her gaze.

She was now rolling away, with a train of dust
behind her wheels in the golden sunlight, and a wise
young gentleman followed her with ardent eyes, and
sighed profoundly as the distance increased.

I told the postilions on no account to pass the
carriage, but to keep it steadily in view, and to pull
up at whatever posting-house it should stop at. We
were soon in the little town, and the carriage we
followed drew up at the Belle Etoile, a comfortable
old inn. They got out of the carriage and entered
the house.

At a leisurely pace we followed. I got down,
and mounted the steps listlessly, like a man quite
apathetic and careless.

Audacious as I was, I did not care to inquire in
what room I should find them. I peeped into
the apartment to my right, and then into that on my
left. My people were not there.

I ascended the stairs. <A enero door
stood open. I entered with the most innocent air in
the world. It was a spacious room, and, beside my-
self, contained but one living figure—a very pretty
and lady-like one. There was the very bonnet with
which I had fallen in love. The lady stood with her
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 179

back toward me. I could not tell whether the envious
veil was raised ; she was reading a letter.

I stood for a minute in fixed attention, gazing
upon her, in the vague hope that she might turn
about, and give me an opportunity of seeing her
features. She did not; but witha step or two she
placed herself before a little cabriole-table, which
stood against the wall, from which rose a tall mirror,
in a tarnished frame.

I might, indeed, have mistaken it for a picture;
for it now reflected a half-length portrait of a singu-
larly beautiful woman.

She was looking down upon a letter which she
held in her slender fingers, and in which she seemed
absorbed.

The face was oval, melancholy, sweet. It had in
it, nevertheless, a faint and undefinably sensual quality
also. Nothing could exceed the delicacy of its
features, or the brilliancy of its tints. The eyes,
indeed, were lowered, so that I could not see their
colour; nothing but their long lashes, and delicate
eyebrows. Shecontinued reading. She must have
been deeply interested; I never saw a living form so
motionless—I gazed on a tinted statue.

Being at that time blessed with long and keen
vision, I saw this beautiful face with perfect dis-
tinctness. I saw even the blue veins that traced
their wanderings on the whiteness of her full
throat.

I ought to have retreated as noiselessly as I came
in, before my presence was detected. But I was too
much interested to move from the spot, for a few
moments longer; and while they were passing, she
''180 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

raised her eyes. Those eyes were large, and of that
hue which modern poets term “ violet.”

These splendid melancholy eyes were turned
upon me from the glass, with a haughty stare, and
hastily the lady lowered her black veil, and turned
about.

I fancied that she hoped I had not seen her, I
was watching every look and movement, the minutest,
with an attention as intense as if an ordeal involving
my life depended on thera.
''CHAPTER II,
THE INN-YARD OF THE BELLE ETOILE.

THE face was, indeed, one to fall in love with at first
sight. Those sentiments that take such sudden
possession of young men were now dominating my
curiosity. My audacity faltered before her; and I
felt that my presence in this room was probably an
impertinence. This point she quickly settled, for the
same very sweet voice I had heard before, now said
coldly, and this time in French, “ Monsieur cannot be
aware that this apartment is not public.”

I bowed very low, faltered some apologies, and
backed to the door.

I suppose I looked penitent and embarrassed. I
certainly felt so; forthe lady said, by way it seemed of
softening matters, “I am happy, however, to have an
opportunity of again thanking Monsieur for the
assistance, so prompt and effectual, which he had the
goodness to render us to-day.”

It was more the altered tone in which it was
spoken, than the speech itself, that encouraged me.
It was also true that she need not have recognized
''182 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

me ; and if she had, she certainly was not obliged to
thank me over again.

All this was indescribably flattering, and all the
more so that it followed so quickly on her slight
reproof.

The tone in which she spoke had become low
and timid, and I observed that she turned her head
quickly towards a second door of the room, I
fancied that the gentleman in the black wig, a jealous
husband, perhaps, might reappear through it. Almost
at the same moment, a voice at once reedy and nasal,
was heard snarling some directions to a servant, and
evidently approaching. It was the voice that had
thanked me so profusely, from the carriage windows,
about an hour before.

“Monsieur will have the goodness to retire,” said
the lady, in a tone that resembled entreaty, at the
same time gently waving her hand toward the door
through which I had entered. Bowing again very
low, I stepped back, and closed the door.

I ran down the stairs, very much elated. I saw
the host of the Belle Etoile which, as I said, was the
sign and designation of my inn.

I described the apartment I had just quitted, said
I liked it, and asked whether I could have it.

He was extremely troubled, but that apartment
and two adjoining rooms were engaged—

“By whom ?”

“ People of distinction.”

“But who are they? They must have names, or
titles.”

“Undoubtedly, Monsieur, but such a stream is
rolling into Paris, that we have ceased to inquire
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 183

the names or titles of our guests—we designate them
simply by the rooms they occupy.”

“What stay do they make?”

“Even that, Monsieur, I cannot answer. It does
not interest us. Our rooms, while this continues, can
never be, for a moment, disengaged.”

“T should have liked those rooms so much! Is
one of them a sleeping apartment ?”

“Yes, sir, and Monsieur will observe that people
do not usually engage bed-rooms, unless they mean
to stay the night.”

“Well, I can, I suppose, have some rooms, any, I
don’t care in what part of the house ?”

“Certainly, Monsieur can have two apartments.
They are the last at present disengaged.”

I took them instantly.

It was plain these people meant to make a stay
here; at least they would not go till morning, I
began to feel that I was all but engaged in an
adventure.

I took possession of my rooms, and looked out of
the window, which I found commanded the inn-yard.
Many horses were being liberated from the traces, hot
and weary, and others fresh from the stables, being
put to. A great many vehicles—some private car-
riages, others, like mine, of that public class, which
is equivalent to our old English post-chaise, were
standing on the pavement, waiting their turn for
relays. Fussy servants were to-ing and fro-ing, and
idle ones lounging or laughing, and the scene, on the
whole, was animated and amusing.

Among these objects, I thought I recognized the
travelling carriage, and one of the servants of the
''184 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“persons of distinction” about whom I was, just
then, so profoundly interested.

I therefore ran down the stairs, made my way to
the back door; and so, behold me, in a moment,
upon the uneven pavement, among all these sights
and sounds which in such a place attend upon a
period of extraordinary crush and traffic.

By this time the sun was near its setting, and
threw its golden beams on the red brick chimneys of
the offices, and made the two barrels, that figured as
pigeon-houses, on the tops of poles, look as if they
were on fire. Everything in this light becomes
picturesque; and things interest us which, in the
sober grey of morning, are dull enough.

After a little search, I lighted upon the very
carriage of which I was in quest. A servant was
locking one of the doors, for it was made with the
security of lock and key. I paused near, looking at
the panel of the door.

“A very pretty device that red stork !” I observed,
pointing to the shield on the door, “and no doubt
indicates a distinguished family?”

The servant looked at me for a moment, as he
placed the little key in his pocket, and said with a
slightly sarcastic bow and smile, “Monsieur is at
liberty to conjecture.”

Nothing daunted, I forthwith administered that
laxative which, on occasion, acts so happily upon the
tongue—I mean a “tip.”

The servant looked at the Napoleon in his hand,
and then in my face, with a sincere expression of
surprise.

“Monsieur is very generous !| ”
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 185

“Not worth mentioning—who are the lady and
gentleman who came here, in this carriage, and
whom, you may remember, I and my servant assisted
to-day in an emergency, when their horses had come
to the ground ?”

“They are the Count, and the young lady we
call the Countess—but I know not, she may be his
daughter.”

“ Can you tell me where they live?”

“Upon my honour, Monsieur, I am unable—I
know not.”

“Not know where your master lives! Surely
you know something more about him than his name ?”

“Nothing worth relating, Monsieur; in fact, I
was hired in Bruxelles, on the very day they started.
Monsieur Picard, my fellow-servant, Monsieur the
Comte’s gentleman, he has been years in his service,
and knows everything ; but he never speaks except
to communicate an order. From him I have learned
nothing. Weare going to Paris, however, and there
I shall speedily pick up all about them. At present
I am as ignorant of all that as Monsieur himself.”

“ And where is Monsieur Picard ?”

“He has gone to the cutler’s to get his razors
set. But I do not think he will tell anything.”

This was a poor harvest for my golden sowing
The man, I think, spoke truth, and would honestly
have betrayed the secrets of the family, if he had
possessed any. I took my leave politely ; and mount-
ing the stairs, again I found myself once more in my
room,

Forthwith I summoned my servant. Though
I had brought him with me from England, he was a
''186 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

native of France—a useful fellow, sharp, bustling, and,
of course, quite familiar with the ways and tricks of
his countrymen.

“St. Clair, shut the door; come here. I can’t
rest till I have made out something about those
people of rank who have got the apartments under
mine. Here are fifteen francs; make out the ser-
vants we assisted to-day; have them to a jetit
souper, and come back and tell me their entire history.
I have, this moment, seen one of them who knows
nothing, and has communicated it. The other, whose
name I forget, is the unknown nobleman’s valet, and
knows everything. Him you must pump. It is, oi
course, the venerable peer, and not the young lady
who accompanies him, that interests me—you under-
stand? Begone! fly! and return with all the details
I sigh for, and every circumstance that can possibly
interest me.”

It was a commission which admirably suited the
tastes and spirits of my worthy St. Clair, to whom,
you will have observed, I had accustomed myself to
talk with the peculiar familiarity which the old French
comedy establishes between master and valet.

I am sure he laughed at me in secret ; but nothing
could be more polite and deferential.

With several wise looks, nods and shrugs, he
withdrew ; and looking down from my window, I
saw him, with incredible quickness, enter the yard
where I soon lost sight of him among the carriages,
''CHAPTER III.
DEATH AND LOVE TOGETHER MATED,

WHEN the day drags, when a man is solitary, and in
a fever of impatience and suspense; when the
minute hand of his watch travels as slowly as the
hour hand used to do, and the hour hand has lost all
appreciable motion ; when he yawns, and beats the
devil’s tattoo, and flattens his handsome nose against
the window, and whistles tunes he hates, and, in short,
does not know what to do with himself, it is deeply
to be regretted that he cannot make a solemn dinner
of three courses more than once in a day. The laws
of matter, to which we are slaves, deny us that
resource.

But in the times I speak of, supper was still a
substantial meal, and its hour wasapproaching. This
was consolatory. Three-quarters of an hour, how-
ever, still interposed. How was I to dispose of that
interval ?

I had two or three idle books, it is true, as
travelling-companions ; but there are many moods in
which one cannot read. My novel lay with my rug

ae
''188 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

and walking-stick on the sofa, and I did not care if

the heroine and the hero were both drowned together

in the water barrel that I saw in the inn-yard under
my window.

I took a turn or two up and down my room,
and sighed, looking at myself in the glass, adjusted
my great white “choker,” folded and tied after
Brummel, the immortal “ Beau,” put on a buff waist-
coat and my blue swallow-tailed coat with gilt
buttons; I deluged my pocket-handkerchief with
Eau-de-Cologne (we had not then the variety of
bouquets with which the genius of perfumery has
since blessed us); I arranged my hair, on which I
piqued myself, and which I loved to groom in those
days. That dark-brown chevelure, with a natural
curl, is now represented by a few dozen perfectly
white hairs, and its place—a smooth, bald, pink head
—knows it no-more. But let us forget these mortifi-
cations. It was then rich, thick, and dark-brown. I
was making a very careful toilet. I took my unex-
ceptionable hat from its case, and placed it lightly on
my wise head, as nearly as memory and _ practice
enabled me to do so, at that very slight inclination
which the immortal person I have mentioned was
wont to give to his. A pair of light French gloves
and a rather club-like knotted walking-stick, such
as just then came into vogue, for a year or two again
in England, in the phraseology of Sir Walter Scott’s
romances, “completed my equipment.”

All this attention to effect, preparatory to a mere
lounge in the yard, or on the steps of the Belle
Etoile, was a simple act of devotion to the wonderful
eyes which I had that evening beheld for the first
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 189

time, and never, never could forget! In plain terms,
it was all done in the vague, very vague hope that
those eyes might behold the unexceptionable get-up
of a melancholy slave, and retain the image, not
altogether without secret approbation.

As I completed my preparations the light failed
me ; the last level streak of sunlight disappeared, and
a fading twilight only remained. I sighed in unison
with the pensive hour, and threw open the window,
intending to look out for a moment before going
downstairs. I perceived instantly that the window
underneath mine was also open, for I heard two
voices in conversation, although I could not distin-
guish what they were saying.

The male voice was peculiar; it was, as I told
you, reedy and nasal. I knew it, of course, instantly.
The answering voice spoke in those sweet tones
which I recognized only too easily. The dialogue
was only for a minute; the repulsive male voice
laughed, I fancied, with a kind of devilish satire, and
retired from the window, so that I almost ceased to
hear it.

The other voice remained nearer the window, but
not so near as at first.

It was not an altercation; there was evidently
nothing the least exciting in the colloquy. What
would I not have given that it had been a quarrel—
a violent one—and I the redresser of wrongs, and the
defender of insulted beauty! Alas! so far as I could
pronounce upon the character of the tones I heard,
they might be as tranquil a pair as any in existence.
In a moment more the lady began to sing an odd
little chanson. I need not remind you how much
''190 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

farther the voice is heard sengzng than speaking. I
could distinguish the words. The voice was of that
exquisitely sweet kind which is called, I believe, a semi-
contralto ; it had something pathetic, and something,
I fancied, a little mocking in its tones. I venture a
clumsy, but adequate translation of the words :—
“ Death and Love, together mated,
Watch and wait in ambuscade;

At early morn, or else belated,
They meet and mark the man or maid.

“ Burning sigh, or breath that freezes,

Numbs or maddens man or maid;
Death or Love the victim seizes,

Breathing from their ambuscade.”

“Enough, Madame!” said the old voice, with
sudden severity. “We do not desire, I believe, tc
amuse the grooms and hostlers in the yard with our
music.”

The lady’s voice laughed gaily,

“You desire to quarrel, Madame!” And the old
man, I presume, shut down the window. Down it
went, at all events, with a rattle that might easily
have broken the glass.

Of all thin partitions, glass is the most effectual
excluder of sound. I heard no more, not even the
subdued hum of the colloquy.

What a charming voice this Countess had! How
it melted, swelled, and trembled! How it moved.
and even agitated me! What a pity that a hoarse
old jackdaw should have power to crow down such
a Philomel! “Alas! what a life it is!” I moral-
ized, wisely. “That beautiful Countess, with the
patience of an angel and the beauty of a Venus and
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 19!

the accomplishments of all the Muses, a slave! She
knows perfectly who occupies the apartments over
hers; she heard me raise my window. One may
conjecture pretty well for whom that music was
intended—aye, old gentleman, and for whom you
suspected it to be intended.”

In a very agreeable flutter I left my room, and
descending the stairs, passed the Count’s door very
much at my leisure. There was just a chance that
the beautiful songstress might emerge. I dropped
my stick on the lobby, near their door, and you may
be sure it took me some little time to pick it up!
Fortune, nevertheless, did not favour me. I could not
stay on the lobby all night picking up my stick, so I
went down to the hall.

I consulted the clock, and found that there re-
mained but a quarter of an hour to the moment of
supper.

Every one was roughing it now, every inn in
confusion ; people might do at such a juncture what
they never did before. Was it just possible that, for
once, the Count and Countess would take their chairs
at the table-d’héte?
''CHAPTER IV.
MONSIEUR DROQVILLE.

FULL of this exciting hope, I sauntered out upon
the steps of the Belle Etoile. It was now night, and
a pleasant moonlight over everything. I had entered
more into my romance since my arrival, and this
poetic light heightened the sentiment. What a drama,
if she turned out to be the Count’s daughter, and in
love with me! What a delightful—zragedy, if she
turned out to be the Count’s wife !

In this luxurious mood, I was accosted by a tall
and very elegantly made gentleman, who appeared to
be about fifty. His air was courtly and graceful, and
there was in his whole manner and appearance some-
thing so distinguished, that it was impossible not to
suspect him of being a person of rank.

He had been standing upon the steps, looking out,
like me, upon the moonlight effects that transformed,
as it were, the objects and buildings in the little
street. He accosted me, I say, with the politeness, at
once easy and lofty, of a French nobleman of the old
school. He asked me if I were not Mr. Beckett? I
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 193

assented ; and he immediately introduced himself as
the Marquis d’Harmonville (this information he gave
me in a low tone), and asked leave to present me
with a letter from Lord R , who knew my father
slightly, and had once done me, also, a trifling kind-
ness,

This English peer, I may mention, stood very
high in the political world, and was named as the
most probable successor to the distinguished post of
English Minister at Paris.

I received it with a low bow, and read:

 

“My DEAR BECKETT,

“T beg to introduce my very dear friend, the
Marquis d’Harmonville, who will explain to you the
nature of the services it may be in your power to
render him and us.”

He went on to speak of the Marquis as a man
whose great wealth, whose intimate relations with the
old families, and whose legitimate influence with the
court rendered him the fittest possible person for
those friendly offices which, at the desire of his
own sovereign, and of our government, he has so
obligingly undertaken.

It added a great deal to my perplexity, when I
read, further—

“ By-the-bye, Walton was here yesterday, and told
me that your seat was likely to be attacked; some-
thing, he says, is unquestionably going on at Dom-
well. You know there is an awkwardness in my
meddling ever so cautiously. But I advise, if it is
not very officious, your making Haxton look after
it, and report immediately. I fear it is serious, I

13
''194 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

ought to have mentioned that, for reasons that you
will see, when you have talked with him for five
minutes, the Marquis—with the concurrence of all
our friends—drops his title, for a few weeks, and is
at present plain Monsieur Drogville.

“Tam this moment going to town, and can say
no more.

“Yours faithfully,
“ Re

I was utterly puzzled. I could scarcely boast of
Lord ’s acquaintance. I knew no one named
Haxton, and, except my hatter, no one called Walton;
and this peer wrote as if we were intimate friends!
I looked at the back of the letter, and the mystery
was solved. And now, to my consternation—for I
was plain Richard Beckett—I read—

 

“ To George Stanhope Beckett, Esq.. M.P.”

I looked with consternation in the face of the
Marquis.

“ What apology can I offer to Monsieur the Mar—
to Monsieur Drogqville? It is truemy name is Beckett
—it is true I am known, though very slightly, to Lord
R ; but the letter was not intended for me. My
name is Richard Beckett—this is to Mr. Stanhope
Beckett, the member for Shillingsworth. What can I
say, or do, in this unfortunate situation? I can only
give you my honour as a gentleman, that, for me, the
letter, which I now return, shall remain as unviolated
a secret as before I opened it. Iam so shocked and
grieved that such a mistake should have occurred !”

I dare say my honest vexation and good faith

 
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 195

were pretty legibly written in my countenance; for
the look of gloomy embarrassment which had fora
moment settled on the face of the Marquis, bright-
ened ; he smiled, kindly, and extended his hand.

“T have not the least doubt that Monsieur Beckett
will respect my little secret. As a mistake was
destined to occur, 1 have reason to thank my good
stars that it should have been with a gentleman of
honour. Monsieur Beckett will permit me, I hope,
to place his name among those of my friends ?”

I thanked the Marquis very much for his kind
expressions. He went on to say—

“If, Monsieur, I can persuade you to visit me at
Claironville, in Normandy, where I hope to see, on
the 15th of August, a great many friends, whose
acquaintance it might interest you to make, I shall be
too happy.” 5

I thanked him, of course, very gratefully for his
hospitality. He continued:

“JT cannot, for the present, see my friends, for
reasons which you may surmise, at my house in Paris.
But Monsieur will be so good as to let me know the
hotel he means to stay at in Paris; and he will find
that although the Marquis d’Harmonville is not in
town, that Monsieur Droqville will not lose sight of
hina! 4)

With many acknowledgments I gave him the
information he desired.

“And in the meantime,” he continued, “if you
think of any way in which Monsieur Droqville can be
of use to you, our communication shall not be inter-
rupted, and I shall so manage matters that you can
easily let me know.”
''196 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

I was very much flattered. The Marquis had, as
we say, taken a fancy to me. Such likings at first
sight often ripen into lasting friendships. To be sure
it was just possible that the Marquis might think it
prudent to keep the involuntary depositary of a
political secret, even so vague a one, in good humour.

Very graciously the Marquis took his leave, going
up the stairs of the Belle Etoile.

I remained upon the steps, for a minute lost in
speculation upon this new theme of interest. But
the wonderful eyes, the thrilling voice, the exquisite
figure of the beautiful lady who had taken possession
of my imagination, quickly re-asserted their influence,
I was again gazing at the sympathetic moon, and
descending the steps, I loitered along the pavements
among strange objects, and houses that were antique
and picturesque, in a dreamy state, thinking,

In a little while, I turned into the inn-yard again.
There had come a lull. Instead of the noisy place it
was, an hour or two before, the yard was perfectly
still and empty, except for the carriages that stood
here and there. Perhaps there was a servants’ table-
d’héte just then. I was rather pleased to find
solitude ; and undisturbed I found out my lady-love’s
carriage, in the moonlight. I mused, I walked round
it; I was as utterly foolish and maudlin as very
young men, in my situation, usually are. The blinds
were down, the doors, I suppose, locked. The
brilliant moonlight revealed everything, and cast
sharp, black shadows of wheel, and bar, and spring,
on the pavement. I stood before the escutcheon
painted on the door, which I had examined in the
daylight. I wondered how often her eyes had rested
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 197

on the same object. I pondered in a charming
dream. A harsh, loud voice, over my shoulder, said
suddenly,—

“A red stork—good! The stork is a bird of
prey; it is vigilant, greedy, and catches gudgeons.
Red, too!—blood red! Ha! ha! the symbol is
appropriate.”

I had turned about, and beheld the palest face I
ever saw. It was broad, ugly, and malignant. The
figure was that of a French officer, in undress, and
was six feet high. Across the nose and eyebrow
there was a deep scar, which made the repulsive face
grimmer.

The officer elevated his chin and his eyebrows,
with a scoffing chuckle, and said—“I have shot a
stork, with a rifle bullet, when he thought himself safe
in the clouds, for mere sport!” (He shrugged, and
laughed malignantly.) “See, Monsieur; when a man
like me—a man of energy, you understand, a man
with all his wits about him, a man who has made the
tour of Europe under canvas, and, pardleu! often
without it—resolves to discover a secret, expose a
crime, catch a thief, spit a robber on the point of his
sword, it is odd if he does not succeed. Ha! ha! ha!
Adieu, Monsieur !”

He turned with an angry whisk on his heel,
and swaggered with long strides out of the gate.
''CHAPTER V.
SUPPER AT THE BELLE ETOILE,

THE French army were in a rather savage temper,
just then. The English, especially, had but scant
courtesy to expect at their hands. It was plain,
however, that the cadaverous gentleman who had just
apostrophized the heraldry of the~Count’s carriage,
with such mysterious acrimony, had not intended any
of his malevolence for me. He was stung by some
old recollection, and had marched off, seething with
fury.

I had received one of those unacknowledged
shocks which startle us, when fancying ourselves
perfectly alone, we discover on a sudden, that our
antics have been watched by a spectator, almost at
our elbow. In this case, the effect was enhanced by
the extreme repulsiveness of the face, and, I may add,
its proximity, for, as I think, it almost touched mine.
The enigmatical harangue of this person, so full of
hatred and implied denunciation, was still in my ears.
Here at all events was new matter for the industrious
fancy of a lover to work upon.
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 199

It was time now to go to the table-d’héte. Who
could tell what lights the gossip of the supper-table
might throw upon the subject that interested me so
powerfully !

I stepped into the room, my eyes searching the
little assembly, about thirty people, for the persons
who specially interested me.

It was not easy to induce people, so hurried and’
overworked as those of the Belle Etoile just now to
send meals up to one’s private apartments, in the
midst of this unparalleled confusion ; and therefore,
“many people who did not like it, might find them-
selves reduced to the alternative of supping at the
table-d’hote, or starving.

The Count was not there, nor his beautiful com-
panion; but the Marquis d’Harmonville, whom I
hardly expected to see in so public a place, signed,
with a significant smile, to a vacant chair beside
himself. I secured it, and he seemed pleased, and
almost immediately entered into conversation with
me.

“This is, probably, your first visit to France?” he
said.

I told him it was, and he said :

“You must not think me very curious and imper-
tinent ; but Paris is about the most dangerous capital
a high-spirited and generous young gentleman could
visit without a Mentor. If you have not an expe-
rienced friend as a companion during your visit——”
He paused,

I told him I was not so provided, but that I had
my wits about me; that I had seen a good deal of
life in England, and that, I fancied human nature
''A
200 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

was pretty much the same in all parts of the world,
The Marquis shook his head, smiling.

“You will find very marked differences, notwith-
standing,” he said. “ Peculiarities of intellect and
peculiarities of character, undoubtedly, do pervade
different nations ; and this results, among the criminal
classes, in a style of villany no less peculiar. In
Paris, the class who live by their wits, is three or four
times as great as in London; and they live much
better; some of them even splendidly. They are
more ingenious than the London rogues ; they have
more animation, and invention, and the dramatic
faculty, in which your countrymen are deficient, is
everywhere. These invaluable attributes place them
upon a totally different level. They can affect the
manners and enjoy the luxuries of people of distinc-
tion. They live, many of them, by play.”

“So do many of our London rogues.”

“Yes, but in a totally different way. They are the
habitués of certain gaming-tables, billiard-rooms, and
other places, including your races, where high play
goes on; and by superior knowledge of chances, by
masking their play, by means of confederates, by
means of bribery, and other artifices, varying with
the subject of their imposture, they rob the unwary.
But here it is more elaborately done, and with a really
exquisite finesse. There are people whose manners,
style, conversation, are unexceptionable, living in
handsome houses in the best situations, with every-
thing about them in the most refined taste, and
exquisitely luxurious, who impose even upon the
Parisian bourgeois, who believe them to be, in good
faith, people of rank and fashion, because their
''ey, :
THE DRAGON VOLANT. * te

habits are expensive and refined, and their houses
are frequented by foreigners of distinction, and, to
a degree, by foolish young Frenchmen of rank. At
all these houses play goes on. The ostensible host
and hostess seldom join in it; they provide it simply
to plunder their guests, by means of their accomplices,
and thus wealthy strangers are inveigled and
robbed.”

“ But I have heard of a young Englishman, a son
of Lord Rooksbury, who broke two Parisian gaming-
tables only last year.”

“T see,” he said, laughing, “ you are come here to
do likewise. I, myself, at about your age, undertook
the same spirited enterprise. I raised no less a sum
than five hundred thousand francs to begin with; I
expected to carry all before me by the simple ex-
pedient of going on doubling my stakes. I had heard
of it,and I fancied that the sharpers, who kept the
table, knew nothing of the matter. I found, however,
that they not only knew all about it, but had provided
against the possibility of any such experiments; and
I was pulled up before I had well begun, by a rule
which forbids the doubling of an original stake more
than four times consecutively.”

“And is that rule in force still?” I inquired, chap-
fallen.

He laughed and shrugged, “Of course it is, my
young friend. People who live by an art, always
understand it better than an amateur. I see you had
formed the same plan, and no doubt came provided.”

I confessed I had prepared for conquest upon a
still grander scale. I had arrived with a purse ot
thirty thousand pounds sterling.
''202 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“Any acquaintance of my very dear friend, Lord
R , interests me ; and, besides my regard for him,
I am charmed with you; so you will pardon all my,
perhaps, too officious questions and advice.”

I thanked him most earnestly for his valuable
counsel, and begged that he would have the goodness
to give me all the advice in his power.

“Then if you take my advice,” said he, “you will
leave your money in the bank where it lies. Never
risk a Napoleon in a gaming house. The night I
went to break the bank, I lost between seven and
eight thousand pounds sterling of your English
money ; and my next adventure, I had obtained an
introduction to one of those elegant gaming-houses
which affect to be the private mansions of persons of
distinction, and was saved from ruin by a gentleman
whom, ever since, I have regarded with increasing
respect and friendship. It oddly happens he is in
this house at this moment. I recognized his servant,
and made him a visit in his apartments here, and
found him the same brave, kind, honourable man I
always knew him. But that he is living so entirely
out of the world, now, I should have made a point
of introducing you. Fifteen years ago he would have
been the man of all others to consult. The gentle-
man I speak of is the Comte de St. Alyre. He
represents a very old family. He is the very soul of
honour, and the most sensible man in the world,
except in one particular.”

“ And that particular?” I hesitated. I was now
deeply interested.

“Ts that he has married a charming creature, at
least five-and-forty years younger than himself, and

 
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 203

is, of course, although I believe absolutely without
cause, horribly jealous.”

“ And the lady ?”

“ The Countess is, I believe, in every way worthy
of so good a man,” he answered, a little drily.

“T think I heard her sing this evening.”

“Yes, I daresay ; she is very accomplished.” After
a few moments’ silence he continued,

“TI must not lose sight of you, for I should be
sorry, when next you meet my friend Lord R ;
that you had to tell him you had been pigeoned in
Paris. A rich Englishman as you are, with so large
asumat his Paris bankers, young, gay, generous, a
thousand ghouls and harpies will be contending who
shall be the first to seize and devour you.”

At this moment I received something like a jerk
from the elbow of the gentleman at my right. It was
an accidental jog, as he turned in his seat.

“On the honour of a soldier, there is no man’s
flesh in this company heals so fast as mine.”

The tone in which this was spoken was harsh and
stentorian, and almost made me bounce. I looked
round and recognized the officer, whose large white
face had half scared me in the inn-yard, wiping his
mouth furiously, and then with a gulp of Macon, he
went on—

“No one! It’s not blood; it is ichor! it’s miracle!
Set aside stature, thew, bone, and muscle—set aside
courage, and by all the angels of death, I’d fight a
lion naked, and dash his teeth down his jaws with my
fist, and flog him to death with his own tail! Set
aside, I say, all those attributes, which I am allowed to
possess, and I am worth six men in any campaign, for

 
''204 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

that one quality of healing as I do—rip me up;
punch me through, tear me to tatters with bomb-
shells, and nature has me whole again, while your
tailor would fine-draw an old coat. Parbleu / gentle-
men, if you saw me naked, you would laugh? Look
at my hand, a sabre-cut across the palm, to the bone,
to save my head, taken up with three stitches, and
five days afterwards I was playing ball with an
English general, a prisoner in Madrid, against the wall
of the convent of the Santa Maria de la Castita! At
Arcola, by the great devil himself! that was an
action. Every man there, gentlemen, swallowed as
much smoke in five minutes as would smother you
all,in this room! I received, at the same moment,
two musket balls in the thighs, a grape shot through
the calf of my leg, a lance through my left shoulder,
a piece of a shrapnel in the left deltoid, a bayonet
through the cartilage of my right ribs, a sabre-cut
that carried away a pound of flesh from my chest,
and the better part of a congreve rocket on my fore-
head. Pretty well, ha, ha! and all while you'd say
bah! and in eight days and a half I was making a
forced march, without shoes, and only one gaiter, the
life and soul of my company, and as sound as a
roach!”

“Bravo! Bravissimo! Per Bacco! un gallant
uomo!” exclaimed, in a martial ecstacy, a fat little
Italian, who manufactured toothpicks and wicker
cradles on the island of Notre Dame ; “your exploits
shall resound through Europe! and the history of
those wars should be written in your blood !”

“Never mind! a trifle!” exclaimed the soldier.
“At Ligny, the other day, where we smashed the
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 205

Prussians into ten hundred thousand milliards of atoms,
a bit of a shell cut me across the leg and opened an
artery. It was spouting as high as the chimney, and
in half a minute I had lost enough to fill a pitcher. I
must have expired in another minute, if I had not
whipped off my sash like a flash of lightning, tied it
round my leg above the wound, whipt a bayonet out
of the back of a dead Prussian, and passing it under,
made a tourniquet of it with a couple of twists, and
so stayed the hemorrhage, and saved my life. But,
sacré bleu! gentlemen, I lost so much blood, I have
been as pale as the bottom of a plate ever since. No
matter. A trifle. Blood well spent, gentlemen.” He
applied himself now to his bottle of wz ordinaire.

The Marquis had closed his eyes, and looked
resigned and disgusted, while all this was going on.

“ Gargon,” said the officer, for the first time,
speaking in a low tone over the back of his chair to
the waiter ; “who came in that travelling carriage,
dark yellow and black, that stands in the middle
of the yard, with arms and supporters emblazoned on
the door, and a red stork, as red as my facings ?”

The waiter could not say.

The eye of the eccentric officer, who had suddenly
grown grim and serious, and seemed to have aban-
doned the general conversation to other people,
lighted, as it were, accidentally, on me.

“Pardon me, Monsieur,” he said. “Did I not see
you examining the panel of that carriage at the same
time that I did so, this evening? Can you tell me
who arrived in it?”

“JT rather think the Count and Countess de St.
Alyre,’
''206 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“ And are they here, in the Belle Etoile?” he asked.

“They have got apartments upstairs,” I answered.

He started up, and half pushed his chair from the
table. He quickly sat down again, and I could
hear him sacré-ing and muttering to himself, and
grinning and scowling. I could not tell whether he
was alarmed or furious,

I turned to say a word or two to the Marquis, but
he was gone. Several other people had dropped out
also, and the supper party soon broke up.

Two or three substantial pieces of wood smouldered
on the hearth, for the night had turned out chilly. I
sat down by the fire in a great armchair, of carved
oak, with a marvellously high back, that looked as
old as the days of Henry IV.

“ Garcon,” said I1,“do you happen to know who
that officer is?”

“That is Colonel Gaillarde, Monsieur.”

“Has he been often here?”

“Once before, Monsieur, fora week; it is a year
since.”

“He is the palest man I ever saw.”

“That is true, Monsieur; he has been often taken
for a revenant.”

“Can you give me a bottle of really good Bur-
gundy ?”

“ The best in France, Monsieur.”

“Place it, and a glass by my side, on this table, if
you please. I may sit here for half-an-hour ?”

“Certainly, Monsieur.”

I was very comfortable, the wine excellent, and my
thoughts glowing and serene. “ Beautiful Countess !
Beautiful Countess! shall we ever be better acquainted.”
''LHAPIER Vi,
THE NAKED SWORD,

A MAN who has been posting all day long, and
changing the air he breathes every half hour, who is
well pleased with himself, and has nothing on earth
to trouble him, and who sits alone by a fire in a
comfortable chair after having eaten a hearty supper,
may be pardoned if he takes an accidental nap.

I had filled my fourth glass when I fell asleep.
My head, I daresay, hung uncomfortably ; and it is
admitted, that a variety of French dishes is not the
most favourable precursor to pleasant dreams.

I had a dream as I took mine ease in mine inn
on this occasion. I fancied myself in a huge cathe-
dral, without light, except from four tapers that stood
at the corners of a raised platform hung with black,
on which lay, draped also in black, what seemed to
me the dead body of the Countess de St. Alyre. The
place seemed empty, it was cold, and I could see only
(in the halo of the candles) a little way round.

The little I saw bore the character of Gothic
gloom, and helped my fancy to shape and furnish the
''208 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

black void that yawned all round me. I heard a
sound like the slow tread of two persons walking up
the flagged aisle. A faint echo told of the vastness
of the place. An awful sense of expectation was
upon me, and I was horribly frightened when the
body that lay on the catafalque said (without stirring),
in a whisper that froze me, “They come to place me
in the grave alive ; save me.”

I found that I could neither speak nor move, I
was horribly frightened.

The two people who approached now emerged
from the darkness. One, the Count de St. Alyre,
glided to the head of the figure and placed his long
thin hands under it. The white-faced Colonel, with
the scar across his face, and a look of infernal triumph,
placed his hands under her feet, and they began to
raise her.

With an indescribable effort I broke the spell that
bound me, and started to my feet with a gasp,

I was wide awake, but the broad, wicked face of
Colonel Gaillarde was staring, white as death, at me,
from the other side of the hearth, “Where is she?”
I shuddered.

“That depends on who she is, Monsieur,” replied
the Colonel, curtly.

“ Good heavens!” I gasped, looking about me.

The Colonel, who was eyeing me sarcastically,
had had his demz-tasse of café noir,and now drank
his zasse, diffusing a pleasant perfume of brandy.

“JT fell asleep and was dreaming,” I said, least
any strong language, founded on the #V/e he played
in my dream, should have escaped me. “I did not
know for some moments where I was.”

he

a - 7s
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 209

“You are the young gentleman who has the
apartments over the Count and Countess de St.
Alyre?” he said, winking one eye, close in medita-
tion, and glaring at me with the other.

“T believe so—yes,” I answered.

“Well, younker, take care you have not worse
dreams than that some night,” he said, enigmatically,
and wagged his head with a chuckle. “ Worse dreams,”
he repeated.

“What does Monsieur the Colonel mean?” I
inquired.

“Tam trying to find that out myself,” said the
Colonel; “and I think I shall. When J get the first
inch of the thread fast between my finger and thumb,
it goes hard but I follow it up, bit by bit, little by
little, tracing it this way and that, and up and down,
and round about, until the whole clue is wound up on
my thumb, and the end, and its secret, fast in my
fingers. Ingenious! Crafty as five foxes! wide awake
as a weazel! Parbleu! if I had descended to that
occupation I should have made my fortune as a spy.
Good wine here?” he glanced interrogatively at my
bottle.

“Very good,” said I. “ Will Monsieur the Colonel
try a glass?”

He took the largest he could find, and filled it,
raised it with a bow, and drank it slowly. “Ah!
ah! Bah! That is not it,” he exclaimed, with some
disgust, filling it again. “You ought to have told
me to order your Burgundy, and they would not have
brought you that stuff.”

I got away from this man as soon as I civilly
tould, and, putting on my hat, I walked out with no

14
''210 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

other company than my sturdy walking-stick. I
visited the inn-yard, and looked up to the windows
of the Countess’s apartments. They were closed,
however, and I had not even the unsubstantial con-
solation of contemplating the light in which
that beautiful lady was at that moment writing, or
reading, or sitting and thinking of—any one you
please.

I bore this serious privation as well as I could,
and took a little saunter through the town. I shan’t
bore you with moonlight effects, nor with the
maunderings of a man who has fallen in love at first
sight with a beautiful face. My ramble, it is enough
to say, occupied about halfan hour, and, returning by
a slight détour, 1 found myself in a little square, with
about two high gabled houses on each side, and a
rude stone statue, worn by centuries of rain,on a
pedestal in the centre of the pavement. Looking at
this statue was a slight and rather tall man, whom I
instantly recognized as the Marquis d’Harmonville:
he knew me almost as quickly. He walked a step
towards me, shrugged and laughed :

“You are surprised to find Monsieur Drogqville
staring at that old stone figure by moonlight. Any-
thing to pass the time. You, I see, suffer from exnuz,
as Ido. These little provincial towns! Heavens!
what an effort it is tolive in them! If I could regret
having formed in early life a friendship that does
me honour, I think its condemning me to a sojourn
in such a place would make me do so. You go on
towards Paris, I suppose, in the morning ?”

“T have ordered horses.”

“As for me I await a letter, or an arrival, either
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. ail

would emancipate me; but I can’t say how soon
either event will happen.”

“Can I be of any use in this matter?” I began.

“None, Monsieur, I thank you a thousand times,
No, this is a piece in which every vé/e is already cast.
I am but an amateur, and induced, solely by friend-
ship, to take a part.”

So he talked on, for a time, as we walked slowly
toward the Belle Etoile, and then came a silence,
which I broke by asking him if he knew anything of
Colonel Gaillarde.

“Oh! yes, tobe sure. He is a little mad ; he has
had some bad injuries of the head. He used to
plague the people in the War Office to death. He
has always some delusion. They contrived some
employment for him—not regimental, of course—but
in this campaign Napoleon, who could spare nobody,
placed him in command of a regiment. He was
always a desperate fighter, and such men were more
than ever needed.”

There is, or was, a second inn, in this town, called
lEcu de France. At its door the Marquis stopped,
bade me a mysterious good-night, and disappeared.

As I walked slowly toward my inn, I met, in the
shadow of a row of poplars, the garcon who had
brought me my Burgundy a little time ago. I was
thinking of Colonel Gaillarde, and I stopped the little
waiter as he passed me,

“You said, I think, that Colonel Gaillarde was at
the Belle Etoile for a week at one time.”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“Is he perfectly in his right mind ?”

The waiter stared. “Perfectly, Monsieur.’
''212 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“ Has he been suspected at any time of being out
of his mind?”

“ Never, Monsieur ; he is a little noisy, but a very
shrewd man.”

“What is a fellow to think?” I muttered, as I
walked on.

I was soon within sight of the lights of the Belle
Etoile. A carriage, with four horses, stood in the
moonlight at the door, and a furious altercation was
going on in the hall, in which the yell of Colonel
Gaillarde out-topped all other sounds.

Most young men like, at least, to witness a row.
But, intuitively, I felt that this would interest me in
a very special manner. I had only fifty yards to run,
when I found myself in the hall of the old inn. The
principal actor in this strange drama was, indeed,
the Colonel, who stood facing the old Count de St.
Alyre, who, in his travelling costume, with his black
silk scarf covering the lower part of his face, con-
fronted him ; he had evidently been intercepted in an
endeavour to reach his carriage. A little in the rear
of the Count stood the Countess, also in travelling
costume, with her thick black veil down, and holding
in her delicate fingers a white rose. You can’t con-
ceive a more diabolical effigy of hate and fury than
the Colonel; the knotted veins stood out on his fore-
head, his eyes were leaping from their sockets, he was
grinding his teeth, and froth was on his lips. His
sword was drawn, in his hand, and he accompanied
his yelling denunciations with stamps upon the floor
and flourishes of his weapon in the air.

The host of the Belle Etoile was talking to the
Colonel in soothing terms utterly thrown away. Two
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 213

waiters, pale with fear, stared uselessly from behind.
The Colonel screamed and thundered, and whirled
his sword. “I was not sure of your red birds of
prey; I could not believe you would have the auda-
city to travel on high roads, and to stop at honest
inns, and lie under the same roof with honest men.
You! you! both—vampires, wolves, ghouls. Sum-
mon the gendarmes, I say. By St. Peter and all the
devils, if either of you try to get out of that door I'll
take your heads off.”

For a moment I had stood aghast. Here was a
situation! I walked up to the lady; she laid her
hand wildly upon my arm. “Oh! Monsieur,”
she whispered, in great agitation, “that dreadful
madman! What are we to do? He won't let us
pass ; he will kill my husband.”

“Fear nothing, Madame,’ I answered, with
romantic devotion, and stepping between the Count:
and Gaillarde, as he shrieked his invective, “ Hold
your tongue, and clear the way, you ruffian, you
bully, you coward!” I roared.

A faint cry escaped the lady, which more than
repaid the risk I ran, as the sword of the frantic
soldier, after a moment’s astonished pause, flashed in
the air to cut me down.
''CHAPTER VII,
THE WHITE ROSE.

I wAS too quick for Colonel Gaillarde. As he raised
his sword, reckless of all consequences but my con-
dign punishment, and quite resolved to cleave me
to the teeth, I struck him across the side of his head,
with my heavy stick; and while he staggered back, I
«struck him another blow, nearly in the same place,
that felled him to the floor, where he lay as if dead.

I did not care one of his own regimental buttons,
whether he was dead or not; I was, at that moment,
carried away by such a tumult of delightful and
diabolical emotions !

I broke his sword under my foot, and flung the
pieces across the street. The old Count de St. Alyre
skipped nimbly without looking to the right or left,
or thanking anybody, over the floor, out of the door,
down the steps, and into his carriage. Instantly I
was at the side of the beautiful Countess, thus left to
shift for herself; I offered her my arm, which she
took, and I led her to the carriage. She entered, and
I shut the door. All this without a word.

I was about to ask if there were any commands

¢
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 215

with which she would honour me—my hand was
laid upon the lower edge of the window, which was
open.

The lady’s hand was laid upon mine timidly and
excitedly. Her lips almost touched my cheek as
she whispered hurriedly—

“JT may never see you more, and, oh! that I could
forget you. Go—farewell—for God’s sake, go!”

I pressed her hand for a moment. She withdrew
it, but tremblingly pressed into mine the rose which
she had held in her fingers during the agitating scene
she had just passed through.

All this took place while the Count was command-
ing, entreating, cursing his servants, tipsy, and out of
the way during the crisis, my conscience afterwards
insinuated, by my clever contrivance. They now
mounted to their places with the agility of alarm.
The postilions’ whips cracked, the horses scrambled
into a trot, and away rolled the carriage, with its
precious freightage, along the seg main street, in
the moonlight, toward Paris.

I stood on the pavement, till it was quite lost to
eye and ear in the distance.

With a deep sigh, I then turned, my white rose
folded in my handkerchief—the little parting gage—
“Favour secret, sweet, and precious ; ”
which no mortal eye but hers and mine had seen
conveyed to me.

The care of the host of the Belle Etoile, and his
assistants, had raised the wounded hero of a hundred
fights partly against the wall,and propped him at
each side with portmanteaus and pillows, and poured

%
''216 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

a glass of brandy, which was duly placed to his
account, into his big mouth, where, for the first time,
such a Godsend remained unswallowed.

A bald-headed little military surgeon of sixty,
with spectacles, who had cut off eighty-seven legs and
arms to his own share, after the battle of Eylau,
having retired with his sword and his saw, his laurels
and his sticking-plaster to this, his native town, was
called in, and rather thought the gallant Colonel’s
skull was fractured, at all events, there was concus-
sion of the seat of thought, and quite enough work
for his remarkable self-healing powers, to occupy him
for a fortnight. »

I began to grow a little uneasy. A disagreeable
surprise, if my excursion, in which I was to break
banks and hearts, and, as you see, heads, should end
upon the gallows or the guillotine. I was not clear,
in those times of political oscillation, which was the
established apparatus.

The Colonel was conveyed, snorting apoplectically
to his room.

I saw my host in the apartment in which we had
supped. Wherever you employ a force of any sort,
to carry a point of real importance, reject all nice
calculations of economy. Better to be a thousand
per cent. over the mark, than the smallest fraction of
a unit under it. I instinctively felt this.

I ordered a bottle of my landlord’s very best wine;
made him partake with me,in the proportion of two
glasses to one; and then told him that he must not
decline a trifling souvenzr from a guest who had been
so charmed with all he had seen of the renowned
Belle Etoile. Thus saying, I placed five-and-thirty
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 217

Napoleons in his hand. At touch of which his
countenance, by no means encouraging before, grew
sunny, his manners thawed, and it was plain, as he
dropped the coins hastily into his pocket, that bene-
volent relations had been established between us.

I immediately placed the Colonel’s broken head
upon the ¢apzs. We both agreed that if I had not
given him that rather smart tap of my walking-cane,
he would have beheaded half the inmates of the Belle
Etoile. There was not a waiter in the house who
would not verify that statement on oath.

The reader may suppose that I had other motives,
beside the desire to escape the tedious inquisition of
the law, for desiring to recommence my journey to
Paris with the least possible delay. Judge what was
my horror then to learn, that for love or money,
horses were nowhere to be had that night. The last
pair in the town had been obtained from the Ecu de
France, by a gentleman who dined and supped at the
Belle Etoile, and was obliged to proceed to Paris that
night.

Who was the gentleman? Had heactually gone?
Could he possibly be induced to wait till morning ?

The gentleman was now upstairs getting his
things together, and his name was Monsieur Drogqville.

I ran upstairs. I found my servant St. Clair in
my room. At sight of him, for a moment, my
thoughts were turned into a different channel.

“Well, St. Clair, tell me this moment who the
lady is?” I demanded.

“ The lady is the daughter or wife, it matters not
which, of the Count de St. Alyre—the old gentleman
who was so near being sliced like a cucumber to-
''218 IN A GLASS DARKLY,

night, Iam informed, by the sword of the general
whom Monsieur, by a turn of fortune, has put to bed
of an apoplexy.”

“Hold your tongue, fool! The man’s beastly
drunk—he’s sulking—he could talk if he liked—who
cares? Pack up my things. Which are Monsieur
Drogqville’s apartments ?” :

He knew, of course ; he always knew everything.

Half an hour later Monsieur Droqville and I were
travelling towards Paris, in my carriage, and with his
horses. I ventured toask the Marquis d’Harmonville,
in a little while, whether the lady, who accompanied
the Count, was certainly the Countess, “Has he not
a daughter?”

“Yes; I believe a very beautiful and charming
young lady—I cannot say—it may have been she, his
daughter by an earlier marriage. I saw only the
Count himself to-day.”

The Marquis was growing a little sleepy, and, in a
little while, he actually fell asleep in his corner. I
dozed and nodded; but the Marquis slept like a top.
He awoke only for a minute or two at the next post-
ing-house, where he had fortunately secured horses
by sending on his man, he told me.

“You will excuse my being so dull a companion,”
he said, “but till to-night I have had but two
hours’ sleep, for more than sixty hours. I shall have
a cup of coffee here; I have had my nap. Permit
me to recommend you to do likewise. Their
coffee is really excellent.” He ordered two cups of
café noir, and waited, with his head from the window.
“ We will keep the cups,” he said, as he received them
from the waiter, “and the tray. Thank you.”
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 219

There was a little delay as he paid for these
things; and then he took in the little tray, and
handed me a cup of coffee.

I declined the tray ; sohe placed it on his own
knees, to act as a miniature table.

“T can’t endure being waited for and hurried,” he
said, “I like to sip my coffee at leisure.”

I agreed. It really was the very perfection of
coffee.

“J, like Monsieur le Marquis, have slept very little
for the last two or three nights ; and find it difficult
to keep awake. This coffee will do wonders for me;
it refreshes one so.”

Before we had half done, the carriage was again in
motion.

For a time our coffee made us chatty, and our
conversation was animated.

The Marquis was extremely good-natured, as well
as clever, and gave me a brilliant and amusing
account of Parisian life, schemes, and dangers, all put
so as to furnish me with practical warnings of the
most valuable kind.

In spite of the amusing and curious stories which
the Marquis related, with so much point and colour,
I felt myself again becoming gradually drowsy and
dreamy.

Perceiving this, no doubt, the Marquis good-
naturedly suffered our conversation to subside into
silence. The window next him was open. He threw
his cup out of it; and did the same kind office for
mine, and finally the little tray flew after, and I
heard it clank on the road; a valuable waif, no doubt,
for some early wayfarer in wooden shoes,
''220 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

I leaned back in my corner; I had my beloved
souveniy—my white rose—close to my heart, folded,
now, in white paper. It inspired all manner of
romantic dreams. I began to grow more and more
sleepy. But actual slumber did not come. I was
still viewing, with my half-closed eyes, from my
corner, diagonally, the interior of the carriage.

I wished for sleep ; but the barrier between waking
and sleeping seemed absolutely insurmountable ;
and, instead, I entered into a state of novel and
indescribable indolence.

The Marquis lifted his despatch-box from the
floor, placed it on his knees, unlocked it, and took out
what proved to be a lamp, which he hung with two
hooks, attached to it, to the window opposite to him.
He lighted it with a match, put on his spectacles, and
taking out a bundle of letters, began to read them
carefully.

We were making way very slowly. My im-
patience had hitherto employed four horses from
stage to stage. We were in this emergency, only too
happy to have secured two, But the difference in
pace was depressing.

I grew tired of the monotony of seeing the
spectacled Marquis reading, folding, and docketing,
letter after letter. I wished to shut out the image
which wearied me, but something prevented my
being able to shut my eyes. I tried again and
again; but, positively, I had lost the power of clos-
ing them.

I would have rubbed my eyes, but I could not
stir my hand, my will no longer acted on my body
—I found that I could not move one joint, or muscle,
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 221

no more than I could, by an effort of my will, have
turned the carriage about.

Up to this I had experienced no sense of horror.
Whatever it was, simple night-mare was not the cause.
I was awfully frightened! Was I in a fit?

It was horrible to see my good-natured compan-
ion pursue his occupation so serenely, when he might
have dissipated my horrors by a single shake.

I made a stupendous exertion to call out, but in
vain ; I repeated the effort again and again, with no
result.

My companion now tied up his letters, and
looked out of the window, humming an air from an
opera. He drew back his head, and said, turning
to me—

“Yes, I see the lights ; we shall be there in two or
three minutes.”

He looked more closely at me, and with a kind
smile, and a little shrug, he said, “ Poor child! how
fatigued he must have been—how profoundly he
sleeps! when the carriage stops he will waken.”

He then replaced his letters in the despatch-box,
locked it, put his spectacles in his pocket, and again
looked out of the window.

We had entered a little town. I suppose it was
past two o’clock by this time. The carriage drew up,
I saw an inn-door open, and a light issuing from it.

“Here we are!” said my companion, turning
gaily tome. But I did not awake.

“Yes, how tired he must have been!” he ex-
claimed, after he had waited for an answer.

My servant was at the carriage door, and opened
ips
''222 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“Your master sleeps soundly, he is so fatigued!
It would be cruel to disturb him. You and I will
goin, while they change the horses, and take some
refreshment, and choose something that Monsieur
Beckett will like to take in the carriage, for when he
awakes by-and-by, he will, I am sure, be hungry.”

He trimmed his lamp, poured in some oil; and
taking care not to disturb me, with another kind
smile, and another word of caution to my servant, he
got out, and I heard him talking to St. Clair,
as they entered the inn-door, and I was left in my
corner, in the carriage, in the same state,
''CHAPTER’ VI,

A THREE MINUTES’ VISIT.

I HAVE suffered extreme and protracted bodily pain,
at different periods of my life, but anything like that
misery, thank God, I never endured before or since.
I earnestly hope it may not resemble any type of
death, to which we are liable. I was, indeed, a spirit
in prison; and unspeakable was my dumb and un-
moving agony.

The power of thought remained clear and active.
Dull terror filled my mind. How would this end?
Was it actual death ?

You will understand that my faculty of observing
was unimpaired. I could hear and see anything as
distinctly as ever I did in my life. It was simply
that my will had, as it were, lost its hold of my body.

I told you that the Marquis d’Harmonville had
not extinguished his carriage lamp on going into this
village inn. I was listening intently, longing for his
return, which might result, by some lucky accident,
in awaking me from my catalepsy.

Without any sound of steps approaching, to
''224 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

announce an arrival, the carriage-door suddenly
opened, and a total stranger got in silently, and shut
the door.

The lamp gave about as strong a light as a wax-
candle, so I could see the intruder perfectly. He wasa
young man, with a dark grey loose surtout, made with
asort of hood, which was pulled over his head. I
thought, as he moved, that I saw the gold band of
a military undress cap under it; and I certainly saw
the lace and buttons of a uniform, on the cuffs of
the coat that were visible under the wide sleeves of
his outside wrapper.

This young man had thick moustaches, and an
imperial, and I observed that he had a red scar
running upward from his lip across his cheek.

He entered, shut the door softly, and sat down
beside me. It was all done in a moment; leaning
toward me, and shading his eyes with his gloved
hand, he examined my face closely, for a few seconds,

This man had come as noiselessly as a ghost;
and everything he did was accomplished with the
rapidity and decision, that indicated a well-defined
and pre-arranged plan. His designs were evidently
sinister. I thought he was going to rob, and, perhaps,
murder me. I lay, nevertheless, like a corpse under his
hands. He inserted his hand in my breast pocket,
from which he took my precious white rose and all
the letters it contained, among which was a paper of
some consequence to me.

My letters he glanced at. They were plainly not
what he wanted. My precious rose, too, he laid aside
with them. It was evidently about the paper I have
mentioned, that he was concerned; for the moment
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 225

he opened it, he began with a pencil, in a small
pocket-book, to make rapid notes of its contents,

This man seemed to glide through his work with
a noiseless and cool celerity which argued, I thought,
the training of the police department.

He re-arranged the papers, possibly in the very
order in which he had found them, replaced them in
my breast-pocket, and was gone.

His visit, I think, did not quite last three minutes.
Very soon after his disappearance, I heard the voice
of the Marquis once more. He got in, and I
saw him look at me, and smile, half-envying me, I
fancied, my sound repose. If he had but known
all!

He resumed his reading and docketing, by the
light of the little lamp which had just subserved the
purposes of a spy.

We were now out of the town, pursuing our
journey at the same moderate pace. We had left
the scene of my police visit, as I should have termed
it, now two leagues behind us, when I suddenly felt a
strange throbbing in one ear, and a sensation as if air
passed through it into my throat. It seemed as if
a bubble of air, formed deep in my ear, swelled, and
burst there. The indescribable tension of my brain
seemed all at once to give way; there was an odd
humming in my head, and a sort of vibration
through every nerve of my body, such as I have ex-
perienced in a limb that has been, in popular
phraseology, asleep. I uttered a cry and half rose
from my seat, and then fell back trembling, and with
a sense of mortal faintness.

The Marquis stared at me, took my hand, and

15
''226 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

earnestly asked if I was ill. I could answer only with
a deep groan.

Gradually the process of restoration was com.
pleted; and I was able, though very faintly, to tell
him how very ill I had been; and then to describe
the violation of my letters, during the time of his
absence from the carriage.

“Good heaven!” he exclaimed, “the miscreant
did not get at my dispatch-box ?”

I satisfied him, so far as I had observed, on that
point. He placed the box on the seat beside him
and opened and examined its contents very minutely.

“Yes, undisturbed; all safe, thank heaven!” he
murmured. “There are half-a-dozen letters here,
that I would not have some people read, for a great
deal.”

He now asked with a very kind anxiety all about
the illness I complained of. When he had heard me,
he said—

“A friend of mine once had an attack as like
yours as possible. It was on board-ship, and followed
a state of high excitement. He was a brave man like
you; and was called on to exert both his strength and
his courage suddenly. An hour or two after, fatigue
overpowered him, and he appeared to fall into a
sound sleep. He really sank into a state which he
afterwards described so, that I think it must have
been precisely the same affection as yours.”

“J am happy to think that my attack was not
unique. Did he ever experience a return of it?”

“T knew him for years after, and never heard of
any such thing. What strikes me is a parallel in the
predisposing causes of each attack. Your unexpected,
''. THE DRAGON VOLANT. 227

and gallant hand-to-hand encounter, at such desperate
odds, with an experienced swordsman, like that insane
colonel of dragoons, your fatigue, and, finally, your
composing yourself, as my other friend did, to sleep.”

“T wish,” he resumed, “one could make out who
that coguzn was, who examined your letters. It is not
worth turning back, however, because we should learn
nothing. Those people always manage soadroitly. I
am satisfied, however, that he must have been an
agent of the police. A rogue of any other kind would
have robbed you.”

I talked very little, being ill and exhausted, but
the Marquis talked on agreeably.

“We grow so intimate,” said he, at last, “that I
must remind you that I am not, for the present,
the Marquis d’Harmonville, but only Monsieur
Droqville; nevertheless, when we get to Paris,
although I cannot see you often I may be of use. I
shall ask you to name to me the hotel at which you
mean to put up; because the Marquis being, as you
are aware, on his travels, the Hotel d’Harmonville is,
for the present, tenanted only by two or three old
servants, who must not even see Monsieur Drogqville.
That gentleman will, nevertheless, contrive to get you
access to the box of Monsieur le Marquis, at the
Opera, as well, possibly, as to other places more
difficult ; and so soon as the diplomatic office of the
Marquis d’Harmonville is ended, and he at liberty
to declare himself, he will not excuse his friend,
Monsieur Beckett, from fulfilling his promise to visit
him this autumn at the Chateau d’Harmonville.”

You may be sure I thanked the Marquis.

The nearer we got to Paris, the more I valued his
''228 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

protection. The countenance of a great man on the
spot, just then, taking so kind an interest in the
stranger whom he had, as it were, blundered upon,
might make my visit ever so many degrees more
delightful than I had anticipated.

Nothing could be more gracious than the manner
and looks of the Marquis; and, as I still thanked
him, the carriage suddenly stopped in front of the
place where a relay of horses awaited us, and where,
as it turned out, we were to part.
''CHAPTER IX,
GOSSIP AND COUNSEL,

My eventful journey was over, at last. I sat in my
hotel window looking out upon brilliant Paris, which
had, ina moment, recovered all its gaiety, and more
than its accustomed bustle. Every one has read of
the kind of excitement that followed the catastrophe
of Napoleon, and the second restoration of the Bour-
bons. I need not, therefore, even if, at this distance,
I could, recall and describe my experiences and im-
pressions of the peculiar aspect of Paris, in those
strange times, It was, to be sure, my first visit. But
often as I have seen it since, I don’t think I ever saw
that delightful capital in a state, pleasurably so
excited and exciting.

I had been two days in Paris, and had seen all
sorts of sights, and experienced none of that rudeness
and insolence of which others complained, from the
exasperated officers of the defeated French army.

I must say this, also. My romance had taken
complete possession of me; and the chance of seeing
the object of my dream, gave a secret and delightful
interest tomy rambles and drives in the streets and
''230 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

environs, and my visits to the galleries and other
sights of the metropolis.

I had neither seen nor heard of Count or Countess,
nor had the Marquis d’Harmonville made any sign.
I had quite recovered the strange indisposition under
which I had suffered during my night journey.

It was now evening, and I was beginning to fear
that my patrician acquaintance had quite forgotten
me, when the waiter presented me the card of “ Mon-
sieur Droqville;” and, with no small elation and
hurry, I desired him to show the gentleman up.

In came the Marquis d’Harmonville, kind and
gracious as ever.

“T am a night-bird at present,” said he, so soon as
we had exchanged the little speeches which are usual.
“T keep in the shade during the daytime, and even
now I hardly ventured to come in a close carriage.
The friends for whom I have undertaken a rather
critical service, have so ordained it. They think all is
lost, if I am known to be in Paris. First, let me
present you with these orders for my box. Iam so
vexed that I cannot command it oftener during the
next fortnight; during my absence, I had directed
my secretary to give it for any night to the first of
my friends who might apply, and the result is, that I
find next to nothing left at my disposal.”

I thanked him very much.

“ And now, a word, in my office of Mentor. You
have not come here, of course, without introductions ?”

I produced half-a-dozen letters, the addresses of
which he looked at.

“Don’t mind these letters,’ he said. “I will
introduce you. I will take you myself from house to
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 231

house. One friend at your side is worth many letters,
Make no intimacies, no acquaintances, until then.
You young men like best to exhaust the public
amusements of a great city, before embarrassing
yourselves with the engagements of society. Go to
all these. It will occupy you, day and night, for at
least three weeks. When this is over, I shall be at
liberty, and will myself introduce you to the brilliant
but comparatively quiet routine of society. Place
yourself in my hands; and in Paris remember, when
once in society, you are always there.”

I thanked him very much, and promised to follow
his counsels implicitly.

He seemed pleased, and said—

“JT shall now tell you some of the places you
ought to go to. Take your map, and write letters
or numbers upon the points I will indicate, and we
will make out a little list. All the places that I shall
mention to you are worth seeing.”

In this methodical way, and with a great deal of
amusing and scandalous anecdote, he furnished me
with a catalogue and a guide, which, to a seeker of
novelty and pleasure, was invaluable.

“In a fortnight, perhaps in a week,” he said, “I
shall be at leisure to be of real use to you. In the
meantime, be on your guard. You must not play;
you will be robbed if you do. Remember, you are
surrounded, here, by plausible swindlers and villains
of all kinds, who subsist by devouring strangers.
Trust no one but those you know.”

I thanked him again, and promised to profit by
his advice. But my heart was too full of the beauti-
ful lady of the Belle Etoile, to allow our interview to
''232 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

close without an effort to learn something about her,
I therefore asked for the Count and Countess de St.
Alyre, whom I had had the good fortune to extricate
from an extremely unpleasant row in the hall of the inn.

Alas! he had not seen them since. He did not
know where they were staying. They had a fine
old house only a few leagues from Paris; but he
thought it probable that they would remain, for a few
days at least, in the city, as preparations would, no
doubt, be necessary, after so long an absence, for
their reception at home.

“ How long have they been away ?”

“ About eight months, I think.”

“ They are poor, I think you said?”

“What you would consider poor. But, Monsieur,
the Count has an income which affords them the
comforts, and even the elegancies of life, living as
they do, in a very quiet and retired way, in this cheap
country.”

“Then they are very happy?”

“One would say they ought to be happy.”

“And what prevents?”

“ He is jealous.”

“ But his wife—she gives him no cause?”

“T am afraid she does.”

“ How, Monsieur ?”

“TI always thought she was a little too—a great
deal to .

“Too what, Monsieur?”

“Too handsome. But although she has remark-
ably fine eyes, exquisite features, and the most
delicate complexion in the world, I believe that she

is a woman of probity. You have never seen her ?”
\

 
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 233

*There was a lady, muffled up in a cloak, with a
very thick veil on, the other night, in the hall of the
Belle Etoile, when I broke that fellow’s head who was
bullying the old Count. But her veil was so thick I
could not see a feature through it.” My answer was
diplomatic, you observe. “She may have been the
Count’s daughter. Do they quarrel?”

“Who, he and his wife ? ”

“Ves”

A ditties”

“Oh! and what do they quarrel about ?”

“It is a long story; about the lady’s diamonds,
They are valuable—they are worth, La Perelleuse
says, about a million of francs. The Count wishes
them sold and turned into revenue, which he offers to
settle as she pleases. The Countess, whose they are,
resists, and for a reason which, I rather think, she
can’t disclose to him.”

“ And pray what is that?” I asked, my curiosity
a good deal piqued.

“ She is thinking, I conjecture, how well she will
look in them when she marries her second husband.”

“Oh ?—yes, to be sure. But the Count de St.
Alyre is a good man?”

“ Admirable, and extremely intelligent.”

“TI should wish so much to be presented to the
Count: you tell me he’s so——”

“So agreeably married. But they are living quite
out of the world. He takes her now and then to the
Opera, or to a public entertainment ; but that is all.”

“And he must remember so much of the old
régime, and so many of the scenes of the revolution ! ”

“Yes, the very man for a philosopher, like you
''234 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

And he falls asleep after dinner; and his wife don’t.
But, seriously, he has retired from the gay and the
great world, and has grown apathetic; and so has his
wife ; and nothing seems to interest her now, not even
—her husband !”

The Marquis stood up to take his leave.

“Don’t risk your money,” said he. “ You will soon
have an opportunity of laying out some of it to great
advantage. Several collections of really good pictures,
belonging to persons who have mixed themselves up
in this Bonapartist restoration, must come within a
few weeks to the hammer. You can do wonders when
these sales commence. There will be startling
bargains! Reserve yourself for them. I shall let
you know all about it. By-the-by,” he said, stopping
short as he approached the door, “I was so near
forgetting. There is to be, next week, the very thing
you would enjoy so much, because you see so little of
it in England—I mean a bal masgué, conducted, it is
said, with more than usual splendour. It takes place
at Versailles—all the world will be there; there is
such a rush for cards! But I think I may promise
you one, Good-night! Adieu!”
''CHAPTER. 2.

THE BLACK VEIL

SPEAKING the language fluently, and with unlimited
money, there was nothing to prevent my enjoying
all that was enjoyable in the French capital. You
may easily suppose how two days were passed.
At the end of that time, and at about the same hour,
Monsieur Drogqville called again.

Courtly, good-natured, gay, as usual, he told me
that the masquerade ball was fixed for the next
Wednesday, and that he had applied for a card for
me.

How awfully unlucky. I was so afraid I should
not be able to go.

He stared at me fora moment with a suspicious
and menacing look, which I did not understand, in
silence, and then inquired rather sharply,

“And will Monsieur Beckett be good enough to
say why not ?”

I was a little surprised, but answered the simple
truth: I had made an engagement for that evening
''236 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

with two or three English friends, and did not see
how I could.

“Just so! You English, wherever you re,
always look out for your English boors, your beer
and ‘ difstek ” and when you come here, instead of
trying to learn something of the people you visit, and
pretend to study, you are guzzling and swearing, and
smoking with one another, and no wiser or mcre
polished at the end of your travels than if you had
been all the time carousing in a booth at Green-
wich.”

He laughed sarcastically, and looked as if he
could have poisoned me.

“There it is,” said he, throwing the card on the
table. “Take it or leave it, just as you please. [
suppose I shall have my trouble for my pains; but
it is not usual when aman, such as I, takes trouble,
asks a favour, and secures a privilege for an acquaint-
ance, to treat him so.”

This was astonishingly impertinent.

I was shocked, offended, penitent. I had possibly
committed unwittingly a breach of good breeding,
according to French ideas, which almost justified
the brusque severity of the Marquis’s undignified
fens

In a confusion, therefore, of many feelings, I
hastened to make my apologies, and to propitiate the
chance friend who had showed me so much dis-
interested kindness,

I told him that I would, at any cost, break through
the engagement in which I had unluckily entangled
myself; that I had spoken with too little reflection,
and that I certainly had not thanked him at all in
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 237

proportion to his kindness, and to my real estimate
of it.

“Pray say not a word more; my vexation was
entirely on your account; and I expressed it, I am
only too conscious, in terms a great deal too strong,
which, I am sure, your good nature will pardon.
Those who know me a little better are aware that I
sometimes say a good deal more than I intend ; and
am always sorry when I do. Monsieur Beckett will
forget that his old friend Monsieur Drogqville has lost
his temper in his cause, for a moment, and—we are
as good friends as before.”

He smiled like the Monsieur Drogqville of the
Belle Etoile, and extended his hand, which I took
very respectfully and cordially.

Our momentary quarrel had left us only better
friends.

The Marquis then told me I had better secure a
bed in some hotel at Versailles, as a rush would be
made to take them ; and advised my going down next
morning for the purpose.

I ordered horses accordingly for eleven o'clock;
and, after a little more conversation, the Marquis
d’Harmonville bade me good-night, and ran down the
stairs with his handkerchief to his mouth and nose,
and, as I saw from my window, jumped into his close
carriage again and drove away.

Next day I was at Versailles. As I approached
the door of the Hotel de France, it was plain that I
was not a moment too soon, if, indeed, I were not
already too late,

A crowd of carriages were drawn up about the
entrance, so that I had no chance of approaching
''238 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

except by dismounting and pushing my way among
the horses. The hall was full of servants and gentle-
men screaming to the proprietor, who in a state of
polite distraction, was assuring them, one and all,
that there was not a room or a closet disengaged in
his entire house.

I slipped out again, leaving the hall to those who
were shouting, expostulating, and wheedling, in the
delusion that the host might, if he pleased, manage
something for them. I jumped into my carriage and
drove, at my horses’ best pace, to the Hotel du
Reservoir. The blockade about this door was as
complete as the other. The result was the same. It
was very provoking, but what was to be done? My
postilion had, a little officiously, while I was in the
hall talking with the hotel authorities, got his horses,
bit by bit, as other carriages moved away, to the very
steps of the inn door.

This arrangement was very convenient so far as
getting in again was concerned. But, this accom-
plished, how were we to get on? There were carriages
in front, and carriages behind, and no less than four
rows of carriages, of all sorts, outside.

I had at this time remarkably long and clear
sight, and if I had been impatient before, guess what
my feelings were when I saw an open carriage pass
along the narrow strip of roadway left open at the
other side, a barouche in which I was certain I
recognized the veiled Countess and her husband.
This carriage had been brought to a walk by a cart
which occupied the whole breadth of the narrow
way, and was moving with the customary tardiness
of such vehicles.
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 239

I should have done more wisely if I had jumped
down on the ¢rottoir,and run round the block of
carriages in front of the barouche. But, unfortunately,
I was more of a Murat than a Moltke, and preferred
a direct charge upon my object to relying on ¢actique.
I dashed across the back seat of a carriage which
was next mine, I don’t know how; tumbled through
a sort of gig, in which an old gentleman and a dog
were dozing; stepped with an incoherent apology
over the side of an open carriage, in which were four
gentlemen engaged in a hot dispute; tripped at the
far side in getting out, and fell flat across the backs
of a pair of horses, who instantly began plunging and
threw me head foremost in the dust.

To those who observed my reckless charge, with-
out being in the secret of my object, I must have
appeared demented. Fortunately, the interesting
barouche had passed before the catastrophe, and
covered as I was with dust, and my hat blocked, you
may be sure I did not care to present myself before
the object of my Quixotic devotion.

I stood for awhile amid a storm of sacré-ing,
tempered disagreeably with laughter; and in the
midst of these, while endeavouring to beat the dust
from my clothes with my handkerchief, I heard a
voice with which I was acquainted call, “ Monsieur
Beckett.”

I looked and saw the Marquis peeping from a
carriage-window. It was a welcome sight. Ina
moment I was at his carriage side.

“You may as well leave Versailles,” he said ; “you
have learned, no doubt, that there is not a bed to hire
in either of the hotels; and I can add that there is
''240 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

not a room to let in the whole town. But I have
managed something for you that will answer just as
well. Tell your servant to follow us, and get in here
and sit beside me.”

Fortunately an opening in the closely-packed
carriages had just occurred, and mine was approach-
ing.

I directed the servant to follow us; and the
Marquis having said a word to his driver, we were
immediately in motion.

“JT will bring you to a comfortable place, the very
existence of which is known to but few Parisians,
where, knowing how things were here, I secured a
room for you. It is only a mile away, and an old
comfortable inn, called the Le Dragon Volant. It
was fortunate for you that my tiresome business
called me to this place so early.”

I think we had driven about a mile-and-a-half to
the further side of the palace when we found our-
selves upon a narrow old road, with the woods of
Versailles on one side, and much older trees, of a size
seldom seen in France, on the other.

We pulled up before an antique and solid inn,
built of Caen stone, in a fashion richer and more
florid than was ever usual in such houses, and which
indicated that it was originally designed for the
private mansion of some person of wealth, and
probably, as the wall bore many carved shields and
supporters, of distinction also. A kind of porch, less
ancient than the rest, projected hospitably with a wide
and florid arch, over which, cut in high relief in stone,
and painted and gilded, wasthesign of the inn. This
was the Flying Dragon, with wings of brilliant red
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 241

and gold, expanded, and its tail, pale green and gold,
twisted and knotted into ever so many rings, and
ending in a burnished point barbed like the dart of
death.

“TI shan’t go in—but you will find it a comfortable
place ; at all events better than nothing. I would go
in with you, but my incognito forbids. You will, I
daresay, be all the better pleased to learn that the
inn is haunted—I should have been, in my young
days, I know. But don’t allude to that awful fact in
hearing of your host, for I believe it is a sore subject.
Adieu. If you want to enjoy yourself at the ball
take my advice, and go ina domino. I think I shall
look in ; and certainly, if I do, in the same costume.
How shall we recognize one another? Let me see,
something held in the fingers—a flower won’t do, so
many people will have flowers. Suppose you get a
red cross a couple of inches long—you’re an English-
man—stitched or pinned on the breast of your
domino, and Ia white one? Yes, that will do very
well; and whatever room you go into keep near the
door till we meet. I shall look for you at all the
doors I pass; and you, in the same way, for me; and
we must find each other soon. So that is under-
stood. I can’t enjoy a thing of that kind with any
but a young person: a man of my age requires the
contagion of young spirits and the companionship of
, some one who enjoys everything spontaneously.
Farewell ; we meet to-night.”

By this time I was standing om the road; I shut
the carriage-door ; bid him good-bye; and away he
drove,

16
''CHAPTER XI
THE DRAGON VOLANT.

I TOOK one look about me.

The building was picturesque; the trees made it
more so. The antique and sequestered character of
the scene contrasted strangely with the glare and
bustle of the Parisian life, to which my eye and
ear had become accustomed.

Then I examined the gorgeous old sign for a
minute or two. Next I surveyed the exterior of the
house more carefully. It was large and solid, and
squared more with my ideas of an ancient English
hostelrie, such as the Canterbury Pilgrims might have
put up at,than a French house of entertainment.
Except, indeed, for a round turret, that rose at the
left flank of the house, and terminated in the extin-
guisher-shaped roof that suggests a French chateau.

I entered and announced myself as Monsieur
Beckett, for whom a room had been taken. I was
received with all the consideration due to an English
milord, with, of course, an unfathomable purse.

My host conducted me to my apartment. It was
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 243

a large room, a little sombre, panelled with dark
wainscoting, and furnished in a stately and sombre
style, long out of date. There was a wide hearth,
and a heavy mantelgiece, carved with shields, in
which I might, had I been curious enough, have dis-
covered a correspondence with the heraldry on the
outer walls. There was something interesting, melan-
choly, and even depressing in all this. I went to the
stone-shafted window, and looked out upon a small
park, with a thick wood, forming the background of
a chateau, which presented a cluster of such conical-
topped turrets as I have just now mentioned.

The wood and chateau were melancholy objects.
They showed signs of neglect, and almost of decay ;
and the gloom of fallen grandeur, and a certain air
of desertion hung oppressively over the scene.

I asked my host the name of the chateau.

“That, Monsieur, is the Chateau de la Carque,”
he answered.

“It is a pity it is so neglected,” I observed. “1
should say, perhaps, a pity that its proprietor is not
more wealthy ?”

“Perhaps so, Monsieur.”

“ Perhaps ?” —1 repeated, and looked at him.
Then I suppose he is not very popular.”

“Neither one thing nor the other, Monsieur,” he
answered ; “I meant only that we could not tell what
use he might make of riches,”

“And who is he?” I inquired.

“The Count de St. Alyre.”

“Oh! The Count! You are quite sure?” I
asked, very eagerly.

It was now the innkeeper’s turn to look at me,
''244 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“ Quite sure, Monsieur, the Count de St. Alyre.”

“Do you see much of him in this part of the
world ?”

“Not a great deal, Monsieur; he is often absent
for a considerable time.”

“ And is he poor?” I inquired.

“T pay rent to him for this house. It is not much;
but I find he cannot wait long for it,” he replied,
smiling satirically.

“From what I have heard, however, I should
think he cannot be very poor?” I continued.

“ They say, Monsieur, he plays. I know not. He
certainly is not rich. About seven months ago, a
relation of his died in a distant place. His body was
sent to the Count’s house here, and by him buried in
Pére la Chaise, as the poor gentleman had desired.
The Count was in profound affliction ; although he
got a handsome legacy, they say, by that death. But
money never seems to do him good for any time.”

“ He is old, I believe?”

“Old? Wecall him the ‘Wandering Jew,’ except,
indeed, that he has not always the five sous in his
pocket. Yet, Monsieur, his courage does not fail him.
He has taken a young and handsome wife.”

“And she?” I urged—

“Ts the Countess de St. Alyre.”

“Yes; but I fancy we may say something more?
She has attributes?”

“Three, Monsieur, three, at least most amiable.”

“Ah! And what are they?”

“ Youth, beauty, and—diamonds.”

I laughed. The sly old gentleman was foiling my
curiosity,
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 245

“I see, my friend,” said I,“ you are reluctant——”

“To quarrel with the Count,’ he concluded.
“True. You see, Monsieur, he could vex me in two
or three ways, so could I him. But, on the whole, it
is better each to mind his business, and to maintain
peaceful relations ; you understand.”

It was, therefore, no use trying, at least for the
present. Perhaps he had nothing to relate. Should
I think differently, by-and-by, I could try the effect
of afew Napoleons. Possibly he meant to extract them.

The host of the Dragon Volant was an elderly
man, thin, bronzed, intelligent, and with an air of
decision, perfectly military. I learned afterwards
that he had served under Napoleon in his early
Italian campaigns.

“One question, I think you may answer,” I said,
“without risking a quarrel. Is the Count at home?”

“He has many homes, I conjecture,” said the host
evasively. “ But—but I think I may say, Monsieur,
that he is, I believe, at present staying at the Chateau
de la Carque.”

I looked out of the window, more interested than
ever, across the undulating grounds to the chateau,
with its gloomy background of foliage.

“T saw him to-day, in his carriage at Versailles,”
I said.

“Very natural.”

“ Then his carriage, and horses, and servants, are
at the chateau ?”

“The carriage he puts up here, Monsieur, and the
servants are hired for the occasion. There is but one
who sleeps at the chateau. Such a life must be
terrifying for Madame the Countess,” he replied.
''246 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“The old screw!” I thought. “ By this torture, he
hopes to extract her diamonds. What a life! What
fiends to contend with—jealousy and extortion !”

The knight having made this speech to himself,
cast his eyes once more upon the enchanter’s castle,
and heaved a gentle sigh—a sigh of longing, of
resolution, and of love.

What a fool I was! and yet, in the sight of
angels, are we any wiser as we grow older? It
seems to me, only, that our illusions change as we
go on; but, still, we are madmen all the same.

“Well, St. Clair,” said I, as my servant entered, and
began toarrange my things. “You have got a bed?”

“Tn the cock-loft, Monsieur, among the spiders,
and, par ma fot! the cats andthe owls. But we agree
very well. Vivela bagatelle!”

“T had no idea it was so full.”

“ Chiefly the servants, Monsieur, of those persons
who were fortunate enough to get apartments at
Versailles.”

“ And what do you think of the Dragon Volant?’

“The Dragon Volant! Monsieur; the old fiery
dragon! The devil himself, if all is true! Onthe
faith of a Christian, Monsieur, they say that diabolical
miracles have taken place in this house.”

“What do you mean? evenants ?”

“Not at all, sir; I wish it was no worse. Reve-
nants? No! People who have zever returned—
who vanished, before the eyes of half-a-dozen men
all looking at them.”

“What do you mean, St. Clair? Let us hear the
story, or miracle, or whatever it is.”

“It is only this, Monsieur, that an ex-master-of-
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 247

the-horse of the late king, who lost his head—
Monsieur will have the goodness to recollect, in the
revolution—being permitted by the Emperor to
return to France, lived here in this hotel, for a month,
and at the end of that time vanished, visibly, as I
told you, before the faces of half-a-dozen credible
witnesses! The other was a Russian nobleman, six
feet high and upwards, who, standing in the centre of
the room, downstairs, describing to seven gentlemen
of unquestionable veracity, the last moments of Peter
the Great, and having a glass of eau de vie in his left
hand, and his ¢asse de café, nearly finished, in his
right, in like manner vanished. His boots were found
on the floor where he had been standing; and the
gentleman at his right, found, to his astonishment,
his cup of coffee in his fingers, and the gentleman at
his left, his glass of eau de vie——”

“Which he swallowed in his confusion,’ I sug-
gested.

“Which was preserved for three years among the
curious articles of this house, and was broken by the
curé while conversing with Mademoiselle Fidone in
the housekeeper’s room; but of the Russian noble-
man himself, nothing more was ever seen or heard’
Parbleu ! when we go out of the Dragon Volant, I
hope it may be by the door. I heard all this, Mon-
sieur, from the postilion who drove us.”

“Then it must be true!” said I, jocularly: but I
was beginning to feel the gloom of the view, and of
the chamber in which I stood; there had stolen over
me, I know not how, a pesentiment of evil ; and my
joke was with an effort, and my spirit flagged,
''CHAPTER XII.
THE MAGICIAN.

No more brilliant spectacle than this masked ball could
be imagined. Among other sa/ons and galleries, thrown
open, was the enormous perspective of the “Grande
Galerie des Glaces,” lighted up on that occasion
with no less than four thousand wax candles, reflected
and repeated by all the mirrors, so that the effect was
almost dazzling. The grand suite of salons was
thronged with masques, in every conceivable costume.
There was not a single room deserted. Every place
was animated with music, voices, brilliant colours,
flashing jewels, the hilarity of extemporized comedy,
and all the spirited incidents of a cleverly sustained
masquerade. I had never seen before anything, in
the least, comparable to this magnificent féte. I
moved along, indolently, in my domino and mask,
loitering, now and then, to enjoy a clever dialogue, a
farcical song, or an amusing monologue, but, at the_
same time, keeping my eyes about me, lest my friend
in the black domino, with the little white cross on his
breast, should pass me by.

I had delayed and looked about me, specially, at
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 249

every door I passed, as the Marquis and I had
agreed ; but he had not yet appeared.

While I was thus employed, in the very luxury of
lazy amusement, I saw a gilded sedan chair, or,
rather, a Chinese palanquin, exhibiting the fantastic
exuberance of “Celestial” decoration, borne forward
on gilded poles by four richly-dressed Chinese ; one
with a wand in his hand marched in front, and another
behind ; and a slight and solemn man, with a long
black beard, a tall fez, such as a dervish is represented
as wearing, walked close to its side. A strangely-
embroidered robe fell over his shoulders, covered with
hieroglyphic symbols; the embroidery was in black
and gold, upon a variegated ground of brilliant
colours. The robe was bound about his waist with
a broad belt of gold, with cabalistic devices traced
on it, in dark red and black; red stockings, and
shoes embroidered with gold, and pointed and curved
upward at the toes, in Oriental fashion, appeared
below the skirt of the robe. The man’s face was
dark, fixed, and solemn, and his eyebrows black, and
enormously heavy —he carried a singular-looking
book under his arm, a wand of polished black wood
in his other hand, and walked with his chin sunk on
his breast, and his eyes fixed upon the floor. The
man in front waved his wand right and left to clear
the way for the advancing palanquin, the curtains of
which were closed; and there was something so
singular, strange, and solemn about the whole thing,
that I felt at once interested.

I was very well pleased when I saw the bearers
set down their burthen within a few yards of the spot
on which I stood.
''240 IN A GLASS DARRLY.

The bearers and the men with the gilded wands
forthwith clapped their hands, and in silence danced
round the palanquin a curious and half-frantic dance,
which was yet, as to figures and postures, perfectly
methodical. This was soon accompanied by a
clapping of hands and a ha-ha-ing, rhythmically
delivered.

While the dance was going on a hand was lightly
laid on my arm, and, looking round, a black domino
with a white cross stood beside me.

“I am so glad I have found you,” said the
Marquis; “and at this moment. This is the best
group in the rooms. You must speak to the wizard.
About an hour ago I lighted upon them, in another
salon, and consulted the oracle, by putting .questions,
I never was more amazed. Although his answers
- were a little disguised it was soon perfectly plain that
he knew every detail about the business, which no
one on earth had heard of but myself, and two or
three other men, about the most cautious persons in
France. I shall never forget that shock. I saw
other people who consulted him, evidently as much
surprised, and more frightened than I. I came with
the Count St. Alyre and the Countess.”

He nodded toward a thin figure, also ina domino.
It was the Count

“ Come,” he said to me, “I'll introduce you.”

I followed, you may suppose, readily enough.

The Marquis presented me, with a very prettily-
turned allusion to my fortunate intervention in his
favour at the Belle Etoile; and the Count over-
whelmed me with polite speeches, and ended by
saying, what pleased me better still :
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 251

“The Countess is near us, in the next salon but
one, chatting with her old friend the Duchesse
d’Argensaque; I shall go for her in a few minutes;
and when I bring her here, she shall make your
acquaintance; and thank you, also, for your assist-
ance, rendered with so.much courage when we were
so very disagreeably interrupted.”

“You must, positively, speak with the magician,”
said the Marquis to the Count de St. Alyre, “ you will
be so much amused. J did so; and, I assure you, I
could not have anticipated such answers! I don’t
know what to believe.”

“ Really! Then, by all means, let us try,” he replied

We three approached, together, the side of the
palanquin, at which the black-bearded magician stood.

A young man, in a Spanish dress, who, with a
friend at his side, had just conferred with the
conjuror, was saying, as he passed us by:

“Ingenious mystification! Who is that in the
palanquin? He seems to know everybody!”

The Count, in his mask and domino, moved along,
stiffly, with us, toward the palanquin, Ai clear circle
was maintained by the Chinese attendants, and the
spectators crowded round in a ring.

One of these men—he who with a gilded wand
had preceded the procession—advanced, extending his
empty hand, palm upward.

“Money ?” inquired the Count.

“ Gold,” replied the usher.

The Count placed a piece of money in his hand;
and I and the Marquis were each called on in turn
to do likewise as we entered the circle. We paid
accordingly.
''252 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

The conjuror stood beside the palanquin, its silk
curtain in his hand; his chin sunk, with its long, jet-
black beard, on his chest; the outer hand grasping the
black wand, on which he leaned; his eyes were
lowered, as before, to the ground; his face looked
absolutely lifeless. Indeed, I never saw face or figure
so moveless, except in death.

The first question the Count put, was—

“ Am I married, or unmarried ?”

The conjuror drew back the curtain quickly, and
placed his ear toward a richly-dressed Chinese, who
sat in the litter; withdrew his head, and closed the
curtain again; and then answered—

Veer

The same preliminary was observed each time, so
that the man with the black wand presented himself,
not as a prophet, but as a medium ; and answered, as
it seemed, in the words of a greater than himself.

Two or three questions followed, the answers to
which seemed to amase the Marquis very much ; but
the point of which I could not see, for I knew next
to nothing of the Count’s peculiarities and adventures.

“ Does my wife love me?” asked he, playfully.

“ As well as you deserve.”

“Whom do I love best in the world?”

“Sell?

“Oh! That I fancy is pretty much the case with
every one. But, putting myself out of the question,
do I love anything on earth better than my wife?”

“Her diamonds.”

“Oh!” said the Count.

The Marquis, I could see, laughed.

“Ts it true,” said the Count, changing the con-
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 253

versation peremptorily, “that there has been a battle
in Naples ?”

“No; in France.”

“Indeed,” said the Count, satirically, witha glance
round. “And may I inquire between what powers,
and on what particular quarrel ?”

“ Between the Count and Countess de St. Alyre,
and about a document they subscribed on the 25th
July, 1811.”

The Marquis afterwards told me that this was the
date of their marriage settlement.

The Count stood stock-still fora minute or so;
and one could fancy that they saw his face flushing
through his mask.

Nobody, but we two, knew that the inquirer was
the Count de St. Alyre.

I thought he was puzzled to find a subject for his
next question ; and, perhaps, repented having entang-
led himself in such a colloquy. If so, he was relieved ;
for the Marquis, touching his arms, whispered—

“Look to your right, and see who is coming.”

I looked in the direction indicated by the Marquis,
and I saw a gaunt figure stalking toward us, It
was not a masque. The face was broad, scarred,
and white. In a word, it was the ugly face of
Colonel Gaillarde, who, in the costume of a corporal
of the Imperial Guard, with his left arm so adjusted
as to look like a stump, leaving the lower part of the
coat-sleeve empty, and pinned up to the breast.
There were strips of very real sticking-plaster across
his eyebrow and temple, where my stick had left its

mark, to score, hereafter, among the more honourable
scars of war.
''CHALTIER Atil.
-THE ORACLE TELLS ME WONDERS.

I FORGOT fora moment how impervious my mask
and domino were to the hard stare of the old
campaigner, and was preparing for an animated
scuffle. It was only for a moment, of course; but
the Count cautiously drew a little back as the
gasconading corporal, in blue uniform, white vest, and
white gaiters—for my friend Gaillarde was as loud
and swaggering in his assumed character as in his
real one of a colonel of dragoons—drew near. He
had already twice all but got himself turned out of
doors for vaunting the exploits of Napoleon le Grand,
in terrific mock-heroics, and had very nearly come
to hand-grips with a Prussian hussar. In fact, he
would have been involved in several sanguinary rows
already, had not his discretion reminded him that
the object of his coming there at all, namely, to
arrange a meeting with an affluent widow, on whom
he believed he had made a tender impression, would
not have been promoted by his premature removal
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 255

from the festive scene, of which he was an ornament,
in charge of a couple of gendarmes.

“Money! Gold! Bah! What money can a
wounded soldier like your humble servant have
amassed, with but his sword-hand left, which, being
necessarily occupied, places not a finger at his com-
mand with which to scrape together the spoils of a
routed enemy? ”

“No gold from him,” said the magician. “ His
scars frank him.”

“Bravo, Monsieur le prophéte! Bravissimo!
Here I am. Shall I begin, mon sorcier, without
further loss of time, to question you?”

Without waiting for an answer, he commenced, in
Stentorian tones.

After half-a-dozen questions and answers, he
asked—

“Whom do I pursue at present ?”

“Two persons.”

“Ha! Two? Well, who are they?”

“An Englishman, whom, if you catch, he will kill
you; and a French widow, whom, if you find, she will
spit in your face.”

“Monsieur le magicien calls a spade a spade, and
knows that his cloth protects him. No matter!
Why do I pursue them?”

“The widow has inflicted a wound on your heart,
and the Englishman a wound on your head. They
are each separately too strong for you; take care
your pursuit does not unite them.”

“Bah! How could that be?”

“The Englishman protects ladies. He has got
that fact into your head. The widow, if she sees,
''256 IN A GLASS DARKLY

will marry him. It takes some time, she will reflect,
to become a Coote and the Englishman is unques-
tionably young.”

“JT will cut his cock’s-comb for husk ” he ejaculated
with an oath and a grin; and in a softer tone he
asked, “ Where is she?”

“Near enough to be offended if you fail.”

“So she ought, by my faith. You are right, Mon-
sieur le prophete! A hundred thousand thanks!
Farewell!” And staring about him, and stretching
his lank neck as high as he could, he strode away
with his scars, and white waistcoat and gaiters, and
his bearskin shako,

I had been trying to see the person who sat in the
palanquin. I had only once an opportunity of a
tolerably steady peep. What I saw was singular.
The oracle was dressed, as I have said, very richly, in
the Chinese fashion. He was a figure altogether on
a larger scale than the interpreter, who stood outside.
The features seemed to me large and heavy, and the
head was carried with a downward inclination! the
eyes were closed, and the chin rested on the breast of
his embroidered pelisse. The face seemed fixed, and
the very image of apathy. Its character and jose
seemed an exaggerated repetition of the immobility
of the figure who communicated with the noisy outer
world. This face looked blood-red; but that was
caused, I concluded, by the light entering through
the red silk curtains. All this struck me almost at a
glance; I had not many seconds in which to make
my observation. The ground was now clear, and the
Marquis said, “ Go forward, my friend.”

I did so. When I reached the magician, as we
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 257

called the man with the black wand, I glanced
over my shoulder to see whether the Count was
near.

No, he was some yards behind ; and he and the
Marquis, whose curiosity seemed to be, by this time
satisfied, were now conversing generally upon some
subject of course quite different.

I was relieved, for the sage seemed to blurt out
secrets in an unexpected way; and some of mine
might not have amused the Count.

I thought for a moment. I wished to test the
prophet. A Church-of-England man. was a vara avis
in Paris.

“What is my religion?” I asked.

“A beautiful heresy,’ answered the oracle in-
stantly.

“ A heresy ?—and pray how is it named?”

* Love,’

“Oh! Then I suppose I am a polytheist, and
love a great many ?”

“One?

“ But, seriously,” I asked, intending to turn the
course of our colloquy a little out of an embarrassing
channel, “have I ever learned any words of devotion
by heart?”

Vee

“Can you repeat them?”

“ Approach.”

I did, and lowered my ear.

The man with the black wand closed the curtains,
and whispered, slowly and distinctly, these words
which, I need scarcely tell you, I instantly re-
cognized :

17

o
''258 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“7 may never see you more ; and, oh! that I could
forget you! go—farewell—for God’s sake, go!”

I started as I heard them. They were, you know,
the last words whispered to me by the Countess.

Good Heavens! How miraculous! Words heard
most assuredly, by no ear on earth but my own
and the lady’s who uttered them, till now!

I looked at the impassive face of the spokesman
with the wand. There was no trace of meaning, or
even of a consciousness that the words he had uttered
could possibie interest me.

“What do I most long for?” I asked, scarcely
knowing what I said.

“ Paradise.”

“And what prevents my reaching it?”

“ A black veil.”

Stronger and stronger! The answers seemed to
me to indicate the minutest acquaintance with every
detail of my little romance, of which not even the
Marquis knew anything! And I, the questioner,
masked and robed so that my own brother could not
have known me!

“You said I loved some one. Am I loved in
return?” I asked.

ed ey,”

I was speaking lower than before, and stood near
the dark man with the beard, to prevent the necessity
of his speaking in a loud key.

“Does any one love me?” I repeated.

“ Secretly,” was the answer.

“Much or little?” I inquired.

‘ Too well.”
''THE DRAGON VOLANT,. 259

“ How long will that love last?”

“ Till the rose casts its leaves.”

“The rose—another allusion ! ”

“Then—darkness!” I sighed. “ But till then I
live in light.”

“The light of violet eyes.”

Love, if not a religion, as the oracle had just pro-
nounced it, is, at least, a superstition. How it exalts
the imagination! How it enervates the reason! How
credulous it makes us!

All this which, in the case of another, I should
have laughed at, most powerfully affected me in my
own. It inflamed my ardour, and half crazed my
brain, and even influenced my conduct.

The spokesman of this wonderful trick—if trick
it were—now waved me backward with his wand, and
as I withdrew, my eyes still fixed upon the group, by
this time encircled with an aura of mystery in my
fancy ; backing toward the ring of spectators, I saw
him raise his hand suddenly, with a gesture of com-
mand, as a signal to the usher who carried the golden
wand in front.

The usher struck his wand on the ground, and, in
a shrill voice, proclaimed : “The great Confu is silent
for an hour,”

Instantly the bearers pulled -down a sort of blind
of bamboo, which descended with a sharp clatter, and
secured it at the bottom; and then the man in the
tall fez, with the black beard and wand, began a sort
of dervish dance. In this the men with the gold
wands joined, and finally, in an outer ring, the bearers,
the palanquin being the centre of the circles described
by these solemn dancers, whose pace, little by little,
''260 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

quickened, whose gestures grew sudden, strange,
frantic, as the motion became swifter and swifter,
until at length the whirl became so rapid that the
dancers seemed to fly by with the speed of a mill-
wheel, and amid a general clapping of hands, and
universal wonder, these strange performers mingled
with the crowd, and the exhibition, for the time at
least, ended.

The Marquis d’Harmonville was standing not far
away, looking on the ground, as one could judge by
his attitude and musing. I approached, and he said :

“The Count has just gone away to look for his
wife. It isa pity she was not here to consult the
prophet ; it would have been amusing, I daresay, to
see how the Count bore it. Suppose we follow him.
I have asked him to introduce you.”

With a beating heart, I accompanied the Marquis
d’Harmonville.
''CHAPTER XIV.
MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE.

WE wandered through the sa/ons, the Marquis and I.
It was no easy matter to find a friend in rooms so
crowded.

“Stay here,” said the Marquis,“I have thought
of a way of finding him. Besides, his jealousy may
- have warned him that there is no particular advantage
to be gained by presenting you to his wife, I had
better go and reason with him; as you seem to wish
an introduction so very much.”

This occurred in the room that is now called the
“Salon d’Apollon.” The paintings remained in my
memory, and my adventure of that evening was
destined to occur there.

I sat down upon a sofa; and looked about me.
Three or four persons beside myself were seated on
this roomy piece of gilded furniture. They were
chatting all very gaily ; all—except the person who
sat next me, and she wasa lady. Hardly two feet
interposed between us. The lady sat apparently in a
reverie. Nothing could be more graceful. She wore
''262 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

the costume perpetuated in Collignan’s full-length
portrait of Mademoiselle de la Vallicre. It is, as you
know, not only rich, but elegant. Her hair was pow-
dered, but one could perceive that it was naturally
a dark brown. One pretty little foot appeared,
and could anything be more exquisite than her
hand?

It was extremely provoking that this lady wore
her mask, and did not, as many did, hold it for a
time in her hand.

I was convinced that she was pretty. Availing
myself of the privilege of a masquerade, a microcosm
in which it is impossible, except by voice and allusion,
to distinguish friend from foe, I spoke—

“Tt is not easy, Mademoiselle, to deceive me,” I
began.

“So much the better for Monsieur,” answered the
mask, quietly.

“T mean,” I said, determined to tell my fib, “that
beauty is a gift more difficult to conceal than
Mademoiselle supposes.”

“Yet Monsieur has succeeded very well,” she said
in the same sweet and careless tones.

“T see the costume of this, the beautiful Made-
moiselle de la Vallitre, upon a form that surpasses her
own ; I raise my eyes, and I behold a mask, and yet
I recognize the lady; beauty is like that precious
stone in the ‘Arabian Nights, which emits, no
matter how concealed, a light that betrays it.”

“TI know the story,” said the young lady. “The
light betrayed it, not in the sun, but in darkness. Is
there so little light in these rooms, Monsieur, that a
poor glowworm can show so brightly. I thought we
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 263

were in a luminous atmosphere, wherever a certain
Countess moved ?”

Here was an awkward speech! How was I to
answer? This lady might be, as they say some
ladies are, a lover of mischief, or an intimate of the
Countess de St. Alyre. Cautiously, therefore, I
inquired,

“What Countess ?”

“If you know me, you must know that she is my
dearest friend. Is she not beautiful ?”

“ How can I answer, there are so many countesses,”

“Every one who knows me, knows who my best
beloved friend is. You don’t know me?”

“That is cruel. I can scarcely believe Iam mis-
taken.”

“With whom were you walking, just now?” she
asked.

“ A gentleman, a friend,” I answered,

“TI saw him, of course, a friend; but I think I
know him, and should like to be certain. Is ne nota
certain Marquis ?”

Here was another question that was extremely
awkward.

“There are so many people here, and one may
walk, at one time, with one, and at another with a
different one, that i

“ That an unscrupulous person has no difficulty in
evading a simple question like mine. Know then,
once for all, that nothing disgusts a person of spirit
so much as suspicion. You, Monsieur, are a gentle-
man of discretion, I shall respect you accordingly.”

“Mademoiselle would despise me, were I ta
violate a confidence,”

 
''264 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“But you don’t deceive me. You imitate your
friend’s diplomacy. I hate diplomacy. It means
fraud and cowardice. Don’t you think I know him.
The gentleman with the cross of white ribbon on his
breast. I know the Marquis d’Harmonville perfectly.
You see to what good purpose your ingenuity has
been expended.”

“To that conjecture I can answer neither yes
nor no.”

“You need not. But what was your motive in
mortifying a lady?”

“Tt is the last thing on earth I should do.”

“You affected to know me, and you don’t ; through
caprice, or listlessness, or curiosity, you wished to
converse, not with a lady, but with a costume. You
admired, and you pretend to mistake me for another.
But who is quite perfect? Is truth any longer to be
found on earth?”

“Mademoiselle has formed a mistaken opinion of
me.”

_ “And you also of me; you find me less foolish
than you supposed. I know perfectly whom you
intend amusing with compliments and melancholy
declamation, and whom, with that amiable purpose,
you have been seeking.”

“Tell me whom you mean,” I entreated.

“Upon one condition.”

“What is that?”

‘That you will confess if I name the lady.”

‘You describe my object unfairly.” I objected.
“T can’t admit that I proposed speaking to any lady
in the tone you describe.”

“Well, I shan’t insist on that; only if I name
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 265

the lady, you will promise to admit that I am
right.”

“ Must 1 promise ?”

“ Certainly not, there is no compulsion ; but your
promise is the only condition on which I will speak
to you again.”

I hesitated for a moment; but how could she
possibly tell? The Countess would scarcely have
admitted this little romance to any one; and the
mask in the La Valli¢re costume could not possibly
know who the masked domino beside her was,

“T consent,” I said, “I promise.”

“You must promise on the honour of a gentle-
man.”

“Well, I do; on the honour of a gentleman.”

“Then this lady is the Countess de St. Alyre.”

I was unspeakably surprised ; I was disconcerted ;
but I remembered my promise, and said—

“The Countess de St. Alyre zs, unquestionably,
the lady to whom I hoped for an introduction to-
night ; but I beg to assure you alsoon the honour of
a gentleman, that she has not the faintest imaginable
suspicion that I was seeking such an honour, nor, in
all probability, does she remember that such a person
as I exists. I had the honour to render her and the
Count a trifling service, too trifling, I fear, to have
earned more than an hour’s recollection.”

“The world is not so ungrateful as you suppose;
or if it be, there are, nevertheless, a few hearts that
redeem it. I can answer for the Countess de St.
Alyre, she never forgets a kindness. She does not
show all she feels ; for she is unhappy, and cannot.”

“Unhappy ! I feared, indeed, that might be. But
''266 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

for all the rest that you are good enough to suppose,
it is but a flattering dream.”

“T told you that I am the Countess’s friend, and
being so I must know something of her character ;
also, there are confidences between us, and I may
know more than you think, of those trifling services
of which you suppose the recollection is so transitory.”

I was becoming more and more interested. I was
as wicked as other young men, and the heinousness
of such a pursuit was as nothing, now that self-
love and all the passions that mingle in such a
romance, were roused. The image of the beautiful
Countess had now again quite superseded the pretty
counterpart of La Valliere, who was before me. I
would have given a great deal to hear, in solemn
earnest, that she did remember the champion who,
for her sake, had thrown himself before the sabre
of an enraged dragoon, with only a cudgel in his
hand, and conquered.

“You say the Countess is unhappy,” said I.
“What causes her unhappiness?”

“Many things. Her husband is old, jealous, and
tyrannical. Is not that enough? Even when relieved
from his society, she is lonely.”

“ But you are her friend?” I suggested.

“And you think one friend enough?” she
answered ; “she has one alone, to whom she can open
her heart.”

“Ts there room for another friend ?”

“ try?

“ How can I find a way?”

“ She will aid you.”

“How?”
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 267

She answered by a question. ‘“ Have you secured
rooms in either of the hotels of Versailles?”

“No, I could not. I am lodged in the Dragon
Volant, which stands at the verge of the grounds of
the Chateau de la Carque.”

“That is better still. I need not ask if you have
courage for an adventure. I need not ask if you are
aman of honour. A lady may trust herself to you,
and fear nothing. There are few men to whom the
interview, such as I shall arrange, could be granted
with safety. You shall meet her at two o'clock this
morning in the Park of the Chateau de la Carque.
What room do you occupy in the Dragon Volant ?”

I was amazed at the audacity and decision of
this girl. Was she, as we say in England, hoaxing
me? ;

“T can describe that accurately,” said I. “As I
look from the rear of the house, in which my apart-
ment is, I am at the extreme right, next the angle;
and one pair of stairs up, from the hall.”

“Very well; you must have observed, if you
looked into the park, two or three clumps of chestnut
and lime trees, growing so close together as to form a
small grove. You must return to your hotel, change
your dress, and, preserving a scrupulous secrecy, as to
why or where you go, leave the Dragon Volant, and
climb the park wall, unseen ; you will easily recognize
the grove I have mentioned ; there you will meet the
Countess, who will grant you an audience of a few
minutes, who will expect the most scrupulous reserve
on your part, and who will explain to you, in a few
words, a great deal which J could not so well tell you
here.”
''268 IN A GLASS DARKLY

I cannot describe the feeling with which I heard
these words. I was astounded. Doubt succeeded.
I could not believe these agitating words.

“Mademoiselle will believe that if I only dared
assure myself that so great a happiness and honour
were really intended for me, my gratitude would be
as lasting as my life. But how dare I believe that
Mademoiselle does not speak, rather from her own
sympathy or goodness, than from a certainty that the
Countess de St. Alyre would concede so great an
honour?”

“Monsieur believes either that I am not, as I
pretend to be, in the secret which he hitherto sup-
posed to be shared by no one but the Countess and
himself, or else that I am cruelly mystifying him.
That I am in her confidence, I swear by all that is
dear in a whispered farewell. By the last companion
of this flower!” and she took for a moment in her
fingers the nodding head of a white rosebud that was
nestled in her bouquet. “By my own good star, and
hers—or shall I call it our ‘ delle étoile?’ Have I
said enough?”

“Enough?” I repeated, “more than enough—a
thousand thanks.”

“ And being thus in her confidence, I am clearly
her friend ; and being a friend would it be friendly
to use her dear name so; and all for sake of prac-
tising a vulgar trick upon you—a stranger ?”

“Mademoiselle will forgive me. Remember how
very precious is the hope of seeing, and speaking to
the Countess. Is it wonderful, then, that I should
falter in my belief? You have convinced me, how-
ever, and will forgive my hesitation.”
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 269

“You will be at the place I have described, then,
at two o'clock?”

“ Assuredly,” I answered.

“And Monsieur, I know, will not fail, through
fear. No, he need not assure me; his courage is
already proved.

“No danger, in such a case, will be unwelcome
to me.”

“ Had you not better go now, Monsieur, and rejoin
your friend.”

“T promised to wait here for my friend’s return,
The Count de St. Alyre said that he intended to
introduce me to the Countess.”

“ And Monsieur is so simple as to believe him?”

“Why should I not?”

“Because he is jealous and cunning. You will
see. He will never introduce you to his wife. He
will come here and say he cannot find her, and
promise another time.”

“I think I see him approaching, with my friend.
No—there is no lady with him.”

“T told you so. You will wait a long time for
that happiness, if it is never to reach you except
through his hands. In the meantime, you had better
not let him see you so near me. He will suspect
that we have been talking of his wife; and that
will whet his jealousy and his vigilance.”

I thanked my unknown friend in the mask, and
withdrawing a few steps, came, by a little “ circum-
bendibus,” upon the flank of the Count.

I smiled under my mask, as he assured me that
the Duchess de la Roqueme had changed her place,
and taken the Countess with her; but he hoped, at
''270 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

some very early time, to have an opportunity ot
enabling her to make my acquaintance.

I avoided the Marquis d’Harmonville, who was
following the Count. I was afraid he might propose
accompanying me home, and had no wish to be
forced to make an explanation.

I lost myself quickly, therefore, in the crowd, and
moved, as rapidly as it would allow me, toward the
Galerie des Glaces, which lay in the direction opposite
to that in which I saw the Count and my friend
the Marquis moving,
''CHAPTER XV.
STRANGE STORY OF THE DRAGON VOLANT.

THESE fétes were earlier in those days, and in France,
than our modern balls are in London. I consulted
my watch. It was a little past twelve.

It was a still and sultry night; the magnificent
suite of rooms, vast as some of them were, could
not be kept at a temperature less than oppressive,
especially to people with masks on. In some places
the crowd was inconvenient, and the profusion of lights
added to the heat. I removed my mask, therefore
as I saw some other people do, who were as careless
of mystery as I. I had hardly done so, and began to
breathe more comfortably, when I heard a friendly
English voice call me by my name. It was Tom
Whistlewick, of the ——th Dragoons. He had un-
masked, with a very flushed face, as I did. He was
one of those Waterloo heroes, new from the mint of
glory, whom, as a body, all the world, except France,
revered ; and the only thing I knew against him, was
a habit of allaying his thirst, which was excessive, at
''272 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

balls, fétes, musical parties, and all gatherings, where
it was to be had, with champagne; and, as he intro-
duced me to his friend, Monsieur Carmaignac, I
observed that he spoke a little thick. Monsieur Car-
maignac was little, lean, and as straight as a ramrod.
He was bald, took snuff, and wore spectacles; and,
as I soon learned, held an official position.

Tom was facetious, sly, and rather difficult to
understand, in his present pleasant mood. He was
elevating his eyebrows and screwing his lips oddly,
and fanning himself vaguely with his mask.

After some agreeable conversation, I was glad to
observe that he preferred silence, and was satisfied
with the 7vé/e of listener, as I and Monsieur Car-
maignac chatted ; and he seated himself, with extra-
ordinary caution and indecision, upon a bench, beside
us, and seemed very soon to find a difficulty in
keeping his eyes open.

“T heard you mention,” said the French gentleman,
“that you had engaged an apartment in the Dragon
Volant, about half a league from this. When I was
in a different police department, about four years
ago, two very strange cases were connected with that
house. One was of a wealthy émzgre, permitted to
return to France, by the Em—by Napoleon. He
vanished. The other—equally strange—was the case
of a Russian of rank and wealth. He disappeared
just as mysteriously.”

“My servant,” I said, “ gave mea confused account
of some occurrences, and, as well as I recollect he
described the same persons—I mean a returned
French nobleman and a Russian gentleman. But he
made the whole story so marvellous—I mean in the
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 273

supernatural sense—that, I confess, I did not believe
a word of it.”

“No, there was nothing supernatural; but a great

deal inexplicable,” said the French gentleman. “Of

‘ course, there may be theories ; but the thing was never
explained, nor, so far as I know, was a ray of light
ever thrown upon it.”

“ Pray let me hear the story,” I said. “I think I
have a claim, as it affects my quarters. You don’t
suspect the people of the house?”

“Oh! it has changed hands since then. But
there seemed to bea fatality about a particular room.”

“ Could you describe that room?”

“Certainly. It is a spacious, panelled bed-room,
up one pair of stairs, in the back of the house,
and at the extreme right, as you look from its
windows.”

“Ho! Really? Why, then, I have got the very
room!” I said, beginning to be more interested—
perhaps the least bit in the world, disagreeably. “ Did
the people die, or were they actually spirited’ away ?”

“No, they did not die—they disappeared very
oddly. Ill tell you the particulars—I happen to
know them exactly, because I made an official visit,
on the first occasion, to the house, to collect evidence ;
and although I did not go down there, upon the
second, the papers came before me, and I dictated
the official letter despatched to the relations of the
people who had disappeared ; they had applied to the
government to investigate the affair. We had letters
from the same relations more than two years later,
from which we learned that the missing men had
never turned up.”

18
''274 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

He took a pinch of snuff, and looked steadily
at me.

“ Never! I shall relate all that happened, so far as
we could discover. The French noble, who was the
Chevalier Chateau Blassemare, unlike most émigrés,
had taken the matter in time, sold a large portion of
his property before the revolution had proceeded so
far as to render that next to impossible, and retired
with a large sum. He brought with him about half
a million of francs, the greater part of which he
invested in the French funds; a much larger sum
remained in Austrian land and securities. You will
observe then that this gentleman was rich, and there
was no allegation of his having lost money, or being,
in any way, embarrassed. You see?”

I assented.

“This gentleman’s habits were not expensive in
proportion to his means. He had suitable lodgings
in Paris; and for a time, society, the theatres, and
other reasonable amusements, engrossed him. He
did not play. He was a middle-aged man, affecting
youth, with the vanities which are usual in such
persons ; but, for the rest, he was a gentle and polite
person, who disturbed nobody—a person, you see,
not likely to provoke an enmity.”

“ Certainly not,” I agreed.

“Early in the summer of 1811, he got an order
permitting him to copy a picture in one of these sa/ons,
and came down here, to Versailles, for the purpose.
His work was getting on slowly. After a time he left
his hotel, here, and went, by way of change, to the
Dragon Volant ; there he took, by special choice, the
bedroom which has fallen to you by chance. From
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 275

this time, it appeared, he painted little ; and seldom
visited his apartments in Paris. One night he saw
the host of the Dragon Volant, and told him that he
was going into Paris, to remain for a day or two, on
very particular business; that his servant would
accompany him, but that he would retain his apart-
ments at the Dragon Volant, and return in a few
days. He left some clothes there, but packed a
portmanteau, took his dressing case, and the rest,
and, with his servant behind his carriage, drove
into Paris. You observe all this, Monsieur ?”

“ Most attentively,” I answered.

“Well, Monsieur, as soon as they were approach-
ing his lodgings, he stopped the carriage on a sudden,
told his servant that he had changed his mind; that
he would sleep elsewhere that night, that he had very
particular business in the north of France, not far
from Rouen, that he would set out before daylight on
his journey, and return in a fortnight. He calleda
fiacre, took in his hand a leather bag which, the
‘ servant said, was just large enough to hold a few
shirts and a coat, but that it was enormously heavy,
as he could testify, for he held it in his hand, while
his master took out his purse to count thirty-six
Napoleons, for which the servant was to account
when he should return. He then sent him on, in the
carriage ; and he, with the bag I have mentioned, got

into the fiacre. Up to that, you see, the narrative is
quite clear.”

“ Perfectly,” I agreed:

“Now comes the mystery,” said Monsieur Car-
maignac. “ After that, the Count Chateau Blassemare
was never more seen, so far as we can make out, by
''276 IN A GLASS DARKLY,

acquaintance or friend. We learned that the day
before the Count’s stockbroker had, by his direction,
sold all his stock in the French funds, and handed
him the cash it realized. The reason he gave him
for this measure tallied with what he said to his
servant. He told him that he was going to the north
of France to settle some claims, and did not know
exactly how much might be required. The bag,
which had puzzled the servant by its weight, contained,
no doubt, a large sum in gold. Will Monsieur try
my snuff?”

He politely tendered his open snuff-box, of which
I partook, experimentally.

“ A reward was offered,” he continued, “ when the
inquiry was instituted, for any information tending
to throw a light upon the mystery, which might be
afforded by the driver of the facre ‘employed on the
night of’ (so-and-so), ‘at about the hour of half-past
ten, by a gentleman, with a black-leather travelling-
bag in his hand, who descended from a private car-
riage, and gave his servant some money, which he
counted twice over’ About a hundred-and-fifty
drivers applied, but not one of them was the right
man. We did, however, elicit a curious and unex-
pected piece of evidence in quite another quarter.
What a racket that plaguey harlequin makes with his
sword !”

“ Intolerable!” I chimed in.

The harlequin was soon gone, and he resumed.

“The evidence I speak of, came from a boy, about
twelve years old, who knew the appearance of the
Count perfectly, having been often employed by him
as a messenger. He stated that about half-past
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 277

twelve o’clock, on the same night—upon which you
are to observe, there was a brilliant moon—he was
sent, his mother having been suddenly taken ill, for
the sage femme who lived within a stone’s throw of
the Dragon Volant. His father’s house, from which
he started, was a mile away, or more, from that inn,
in order to reach which he had to pass round the park
of the Chateau de la Carque, at the site most remote
from the point to which he was going. It passes the
old churchyard of St. Aubin, which is separated from
the road only by a very low fence, and two or three
enormous old trees. The boy was a little nervous as
he approached this ancient cemetery; and, under the
bright moonlight, he saw a man whom he distinctly
recognized as the Count, whom they designated by a
sobriquet which means ‘the man of smiles’ He
was looking rueful enough now, and was seated on
the side of a tombstone, on which he had laid a
pistol, while he was ramming home the charge of
another.

“The boy got cautiously by, on tiptoe, with his
eyes all the time on the Count Chateau Blassemare,
or the man he mistook for him: his dress was not
what he usually wore, but the witness swore that he
could not be mistaken as to his identity. He said his
face looked grave and stern; but though he did not
smile, it was the same face he knew so well. Nothing
would make him swerve from that. If that were he,
it was the last time he was seen. He has never been
heard of since. Nothing could be heard of him in
the neighbourhood of Rouen. There has been no
evidence of his death; and there is no sign that he
is living.”
''278 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“ That certainly is a most singular case,” I replied |
and was about to ask a question or two, when Tom
Whistlewick who, without my observing it, had been
taking a ramble, returned, a great deal more awake,
and a great deal less tipsy.

“TI say, Carmaignac, it is getting late, and I must
go; I really must, for the reason I told you—and,
Beckett, we must soon meet again.”

“T regret very much, Monsieur, my not being able
at present to relate to you the other case, that of
another tenant of the very same room—a case more
mysterious and sinister than the last—and which
occurred in the autumn of the same year.”

“Will you both do a very good-natured thing,

and come and dine with me at the Dragon Volant
to-morrow?”

So, as we pursued our way along the Galerie des
Glaces, I extracted their promise.

“ By Jove!” said Whistlewick, when this was done;
“look at that pagoda, or sedan chair, or whatever it
is, just where those fellows set it down, and not one
of them near it! I can’t imagine how they tell
fortunes so devilish well. Jack Nuffles—I met him
here to-night-—says they are gipsies—where are they,
I wonder? I'll go over and have a peep at the
prophet.”

I saw him plucking at the blinds, which were
constructed something on the principle of Venetian
blinds ; the red curtains were inside; but they did
not yield, and he could only peep under one that
did not come quite down.

When he rejoined us, he related : “I could scarcely
see the old fellow, it’s so dark. He is covered with

iii a
''THE DRAGON VOLANT:, 279

gold and red, and has an embroidered hat on like a
mandarin’s ; he’s fast asleep; and, by Jove, he smells
like a polecat! It’s worth going over only to have
it to say. Fiew! pooh! oh! It zs a perfume. Faugh!”

Not caring to accept this tempting invitation, we
got along slowly toward the door. I bade them good-
night, reminding them of their promise. And so found
my way at last to my carriage ; and was soon rolling
slowly toward the Dragon Volant, on the loneliest
of roads, under old trees, and the soft moonlight.

What a number of things had happened within
the last two hours! what a variety of strange and
vivid pictures were crowded together in that brief
space! What an adventure was before me!

The silent, moonlighted, solitary road, how it
contrasted with the many-eddied whirl of pleasure
from whose roar and music, lights, diamonds and
colours, I had just extricated myself.

The sight of lonely nature at such an hour, acts
like a sudden sedative. The madness and guilt of
my pursuit struck me with a momentary compunction
and horror. I wished I had never entered the
labyrinth which was leading me, I knew not whither.
It was too late to think of that now; but the bitter
was already stealing into my cup; and vague antici-
pations lay, for a few minutes, heavy on my heart. .
It would not have taken much to make me disclose
my unmanly state of mind to my lively friend, Alfred
Ogle, nor even to the milder ridicule of th agreeable
Tom Whistlewick.
''CHAPTER XVI.
THE PARC OF THE CHATEAU DE LA CARQUE.

THERE was no danger of the Dragon Volant’s
closing its doors on that occasion till three or four in
the morning. There were quartered there many
servants of great people, whose masters would not
leave the ball till the last moment, and who could not
return to their corners in the Dragon Volant, till their
last services had been rendered.

I knew, therefore, I should have ample time for
my mysterious excursion without exciting curiosity
by being shut out.

And now we pulled up under the canopy of
boughs, before the sign of the Dragon Volant, and
the light that shone from its hall-door.

I dismissed my carriage, ran up the broad stair-
case, mask in hand, with my domino fluttering about
me, and entered the large bed-room. The black
wainscoting and stately furniture, with the dark
curtains of the very tall bed, made the night there
more sombre.

An oblique patch of moonlight was thrown upon
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 281

the floor from the window to which I hastened. I
looked out upon the landscape slumbering in those
silvery beams. There stood the outline of the Chateau
de la Carque, its chimneys, and many turrets with
their extinguisher-shaped roofs black against the soft
grey sky. There, also, more in the foreground, about
midway between the window where I stood, and the
‘chateau, but a little to the left, I traced the tufted
masses of the grove which the lady in the mask had
appointed as the trysting-place, where I and the
beautiful Countess were to meet that night.

I took “the bearings” of this gloomy bit of wood,
whose foliage glimmered softly at top in the light of
the moon.

You may guess with what a strange interest and
swelling of the heart I gazed on the unknown scene
of my coming adventure.

But time was flying, and the hour already near.
I threw my robe upon a sofa; I groped out a pair
of boots, which I substituted for those thin heelless
shoes, in those days called “pumps,” without which a
gentleman could not attend an evening party. I put
on my hat, and lastly, I took a pair of loaded pistols,
which I had been advised were satisfactory com-
panions in the then unsettled state of French society ;
swarms of disbanded soldiers, some of them alleged
to be desperate characters, being everywhere to be
met with. These preparations made, I confess I took
a looking-glass to the window to see how I looked
in the moonlight ; and being satisfied, I replaced it,
and ran downstairs.

In the hall I called for my servant.

"ot. Clair,” said I; "1 mean to take’ a’ little
''282 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

moonlight ramble, only ten minutes or so. You
must not go to bed until I return. If the night is
very beautiful, I may possibly extend my ramble a
little.”

So down the steps I lounged, looking first over
my right, and then over my left shoulder, like a man
uncertain which direction to take, and I sauntered up
the road, gazing now at the moon, and now at the
thin white clouds in the opposite direction, whistling,
all the time, an air which I had picked up at one of
the theatres.

When I had gota couple of hundred yards away
from the Dragon Volant, my minstrelsy totally
ceased; and I turned about, and glanced sharply
down the road, that looked as white as hoar-frost
under the moon, and saw the gable of the old inn,
and a window, partly concealed by the foliage, with a
dusky light shining from it.

No sound of footstep was stirring; no sign of
human figure in sight. I consulted my watch, which
the light was sufficiently strong to enable me to do.
It now wanted but eight minutes of the appointed
hour. A thick mantle of ivy at this point covered
the wall and rose in a clustering head at top.

It afforded me facilities for scaling the wall, and
a partial screen for my operations, if any eye should
chance to be looking that way. And now it was
done. I was in the park of the Chateau de la Carque,
as nefarious a poacher as ever trespassed on the
grounds of unsuspicious lord!

Before me rose the appointed grove, which looked
as black as a clump of gigantic hearse plumes. It
seemed to tower higher and higher at every step;
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 283

and cast a broader and blacker shadow toward my
feet. On I marched, and was glad when I plunged
into the shadow which concealed me. Now I was
among the grand old lime and chestnut trees—my
heart beat fast with expectation.

This grove opened, a little, near the middle; and
in the space thus cleared, there stood with a surround-
ing flight of steps, a small Greek temple or shrine,
with a statue in the centre. It was built of white
marble with fluted Corinthian columns, and the
crevices were tufted with grass; moss had shown
itself on pedestal and cornice, and signs of long
neglect and decay were apparent in its discoloured
and weather-worn marble. A few feet in front of
the steps a fountain, fed from the great ponds at the
other side of the chateau, was making a constant
tinkle and plashing in a wide marble basin, and the
jet of water glimmered like a shower of diamonds in
the broken moonlight. The very neglect and half-
ruinous state of all this made it only the prettier, as
well as sadder, I was too intently watching for the
arrival of the lady, in the direction of the chateau, to
study these things ; but the half-noted effect of them
was romantic, and suggested somehow the grotto and
the fountain, and the apparition of Egeria.

As I watched a voice spoke to me, a little behind
my left shoulder. I turned, almost with a start, and
the masque, in the costume of Mademoiselle de la
Vallitre stood there.

“The Countess will be here presently,” she said.
The lady stood upon the open space, and the moon-
light fell unbroken upon her. Nothing could be more
becoming; her figure looked more graceful and
''284 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

elegant than ever. “In the meantime I shall tell
you some peculiarities of her situation. She is
unhappy ; miserable in an ill-assorted marriage, with
a jealous tyrant who now would constrain her to sell
her diamonds, which are——”

“Worth thirty thousand pounds sterling. I heard
all that from a friend. Can I aid the Countess in her
unequal struggle? Say but how, and the greater the
danger or the sacrifice, the happier will it make me.
Can I aid her?”

“Tf you despise a danger—which, yet, is not a
danger; if you despise, as she does, the tyrannical
canons of the world; and, if you are chivalrous
enough to devote yourself to a lady’s cause, with no
veward but her poor gratitude ; if you can do these
things you can aid her, and earn a foremost place,
not in her gratitude only, but in her friendship.”

At those words the lady in the mask turned away
and seemed to weep.

I vowed myself the willing slave of the Countess.
“ But,” I added, “ you told me she would soon be here.”

“That is, if nothing unforeseen should happen ;
but with the eye of the Count de St. Alyre in the
house, and open, it is seldom safe to stir.”

“Does she wish to see me?” I asked, with a
tender hesitation.

“First, say have you really thought of her,
more than once, since the adventure of the Belle
Etoile?”

“She never leaves my thoughts; day and night
her beautiful eyes haunt me; her sweet voice is

always in my ear.”
“ Mine is said to resemble hers,” said the mask.
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 285

“So it does,” I answered. “But it is only a
resemblance.”

“Oh! then mine is better ?”

“Pardon me, Mademoiselle, I did not say that.
Yours is a sweet voice, but I fany a little higher.”

“ A little shriller, you would say,” answered the
De la Valliére, I fancied a good deal vexed.

“No, not shriller: your voice is not shrill, it is
beautifully sweet ; but not so pathetically sweet as
hers.”

“That is prejudice, Monsieur; it is not true.”

I bowed ; I could not contradict a lady.

“TI see, Monsieur, you laugh at me; you think me
vain, because I claim in some points to be equal to
the Countess de St. Alyre. I challenge you to say,
my hand, at least, is less beautiful than hers.” As
she thus spoke, she drew her glove off, and extended
her hand, back upward, in the moonlight.

The lady seemed really nettled. It was undig-
nified and irritating; for in this uninteresting com-
petition the precious moments were flying, and my
interview leading apparently to nothing.

“You will admit, then, that my hand is as beautiful
as hers?”

“T cannot admit it, Mademoiselle,” said I, with
the honesty of irritation. “I will not enter into
comparisons, but the Countess de St. Alyre is,
in all respects, the most beautiful lady I ever
beheld.”

The masque laughed coldly, and then, more
and more softly, said, with a sigh, “I will prove
all I say.” And as she spoke she removed the
mask: and the Countess de St. Alyre, smiling, con-
''286 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

fused, bashful, more beautiful than ever, stood before
me!

“Good Heavens!” I exclaimed. “How mon-
strously stupid I have been. And it was to Madame
la Comtesse that I spoke for so long in the salon!”
I gazed on her in silence. And with a low sweet
laugh of good nature she extended her hand. I took
it, and carried it to my lips.

“No, you must not do that,” she said, quietly, “ we
are not old enough friends yet. I find, although you
were mistaken, that you do remember the Countess of
the Belle Etoile, and that you are a champion true
and fearless. Had you yielded to the claims just now
pressed upon you by the rivalry of Mademoiselle de
la Valliére, in her mask, the Countess de St. Alyre
should never have trusted or seen you more. I now
am sure that you are true, as well asbrave. You now
know that I have not forgotten you; and, also, that
if you would risk your life for me, I, too, would brave
some danger, rather than lose my friend for ever. I
have but a few moments more. Will you come here
again to-morrow night, at a quarter past eleven? I
will be here at that moment ; you must exercise the
most scrupulous care to prevent suspicion that you
have come here, Monsieur. You owe that to me.”

She spoke these last words with the most solemn
entreaty.

I vowed again and again, that I would die rather
than permit the least rashness to endanger the secret
which made all the interest and value of my life.

She was looking, I thought, more and more
beautiful every moment. My enthusiasm expanded
in proportion.
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 287

“You must come to-morrow night by a different
route,” she said; “and if you come again, we can
change it once more. At the other side of the
chateau there is a little churchyard, with a ruined
chapel. The neighbours are afraid to pass it by night.
The road is deserted there, and a stile opens a way
into these grounds. Cross it and you can find a
covert of thickets, to within fifty steps of this spot.”

I promised, of course, to observe her instructions
implicitly.

“JT have lived for more than a year in an agony of
irresolution. I have decided at last. I have lived a
melancholy life ; a lonelier life than is passed in the
cloister. I have had no one to confide in; no one to
advise me; no one to save me from the horrors of
my existence. I have found a brave and prompt
friend at last. Shall I ever forget the heroic tableau
of the hall of the Belle Etoile? Have you—have
you really kept the rose I gave you, as we parted?
Yes—you swear it. You need not; I trust you.
Richard, how often have I in solitude repeated your
name, learned from my servant. Richard, my hero!
Oh! Richard! Oh, my king! I love you!”

I would have folded her to my heart—thrown
myself at her feet. But this beautiful and—shall I
say it—inconsistent woman repelled me.

“No, we must not waste our moments in ex-
travagances. Understand my case. There is no such
thing as indifference in the married state. Not to
love one’s husband,” she continued, “is to hate him.
The Count, ridiculous in all else, is formidable in his
jealousy. In mercy, then, to me, observe caution,
Affect to all you speak to, the most complete ignor.
''288 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

ance of all the people in the Chateau de la Carque ;
and, ifany one in your presence mentions the Count
or Countess de St. Alyre, be sure you say you never
saw either. I shall have more to say to you to-
morrow night. I have reasons that I cannot now
explain, for all Ido, and all I postpone. Farewell.
Go! Leave me.”

She waved me back, peremptorily. I echoed her
“ farewell,” and obeyed.

This interview had not lasted, I think, more than
ten minutes. I scaled the park wall again, and
reached the Dragon Volant before its doors were
closed.

I lay awake in my bed, in a fever of elation. I
saw, till the dawn broke, and chased the vision, the
beautiful Countess de St. Alyre, always in the dark,
before me,
''CHAPTER XVII.
THE TENANT OF THE PALANQUIN.

THE Marquis called on me next day. My late break-
fast was still upon the table.

He had come, he said, to ask a favour, An
accident had happened to his carriage in the crowd
on leaving the ball, and he begged, if I were going
into Paris,a seat in mine. I was going in, and was
extremely glad of his company. He came with me
to my hotel; we went up to my rooms. I was sur-
prised to see a man seated in an easy chair, with his
back towards us, reading a newspaper. He rose. It
was the Count de St. Alyre, his gold spectacles on
his nose; his black wig, in oily curls, lying close to
his narrow head, and showing, like carved ebony
over a repulsive visage of boxwood. His black
muffler had been pulled down. His right arm was
ina sling. I don’t know whether there was anything
unusual in his countenance that day, or whether it
was but the effect of prejudice arising from all I had
heard in my mysterious interview in his park, but I

19
''290 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

thought his countenance was more strikingly for-
bidding than I had seen it before.

I was not callous enough in the ways of sin to
meet this man, injured at least in intent, thus sud-
denly, without a momentary disturbance,

He smiled.

“T called, Monsieur Beckett, in the hope of finding
you here,” he croaked, “and I meditated, I fear,
taking a great liberty, but my friend the Marquis
d’Harmonville, on whom I have perhaps some claim,
will perhaps give me the assistance I require so
much.”

“With great pleasure,” said the Marquis, “ but not
till after six o’clock. J must go this moment to a
meeting of three or four people, whom I cannot
disappoint, and I know, perfectly, we cannot break
up earlier.”

“What am I to do?” exclaimed the Count, “an
hour would have done it all. Was ever contre-temps
so unlucky ?”

“T’ll give you an hour, with pleasure,” said I.

“ How very good of you, Monsieur, I hardly dare
to hope it. The business, for so gay and charming a
man as Monsieur Beckett, is a little /uneste. Pray
read this note which reached me this morning.”

It certainly was not cheerful. It was a note
stating that the body of his, the Count’s cousin,
Monsieur de St. Amand, who had died at his house,
the Chateau Clery, had been, in accordance with his
written directions, sent for burial at Pére la Chaise,
and, with the permission of the Count de St. Alyre,
would reach his house (the Chateau de la Carque), at
about ten o’clock on the night following, to be con-
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 291

veyed thence in a hearse, with any member of the
family who might wish to attend the obsequies.

“TI did not see the poor gentleman twice in my
life,” said the Count, “but this office, as he has no
other kinsman, disagreeable as it is, I could scarcely
decline, and so I want to attend at the office to have
the book signed, and the order entered. But here is
another misery. By ill luck, I have sprained my
thumb, and can’t sign my name for a week to come.
However, one name answers as well as another.
Yours as well as mine. And as you are so good as
to come with me, all will go right.”

Away we drove. The Count gave mea memoran-
dum of the christian and surnames of the deceased,
his age, the complaint he died of, and the usual
particulars ; also a note of the exact position in which
a grave, the dimensions of which were described, of
the ordinary simple kind, was to be dug, between two
vaults belonging to the family of St. Amand. The
funeral, it was stated, would arrive at half-past one
o'clock A.M. (the next night but one); and he handed
me the money, with extra fees, for a burial by night,
It was a good deal ; and I asked him, as he entrusted
the whole affair to me, in whose name I should take
the receipt.

“Not in mine, my good friend. They wanted me
to become an executor, which I, yesterday, wrote to
decline ; and I am informed that if the receipt were
in my name it would constitute me an executor in
the eye of the law, and fix me in that position. Take
it, pray, if you have no objection, in your own
name.”

This, accordingly, I did.
''292 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“You will see, by-and-by, why I am- obliged to
mention all these particulars.”

The Count, meanwhile, was leaning back in the
carriage, with his black silk muffler up to his nose,
and his hat shading his eyes, while he dozed in his
corner ; in which state I found him on my return.

Paris had lost its charm for me. I hurried through
the little business I had to do, longed once more for
my quiet room in the Dragon Volant, the melancholy
woods of the Chateau de la Carque, and the tumul-
tuous and thrilling influence of proximity to the
object of my wild but wicked romance.

I was delayed some time by my stockbroker. I
had a very large sum, as I told you, at my banker’s,
uninvested. I cared very little for a few days’ interest
—very little for the entire sum, compared with the
image that occupied my thoughts, and beckoned me
with a white arm, through the dark, toward the
spreading lime trees and chestnuts of the Chateau de
la Carque. But I had fixed this day to meet him,
and was relieved when he told me that I had better
let it lie in my banker’s hands for a few days longer,
as the funds would certainly fall immediately. This
accident, too, was not without its immediate bearing
on my subsequent adventures.

When I reached the Dragon Volant, I found, in
my sitting-room, a good deal to my chagrin, my two
guests, whom I had quite forgotten. I inwardly
cursed my own stupidity for having embarrassed
myself with their agreeable society. It could not be
helped now, however, and a word to the waiters put
all things in train for dinner.

Tom Whistlewick was in great force; and he
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 293

commenced almost immediately with a very odd
story.

He told me that not only Versailles, but all Paris,
was in a ferment, in consequence of a revolting, and
all but sacrilegious, practical joke, played off on the
night before.

The pagoda, as he persisted in calling the palan-
quin, had been left standing on the spot where we
last saw it. Neither conjuror, nor usher, nor bearers
had ever returned. When the ball closed, and the
company at length retired, the servants who attended
to put out the lights, and secure the doors, found it
still there.

It was determined, however, to let it stand where
it was until next morning, by which time, it was
conjectured, its owners would send messengers to
remove it.

None arrived. The servants were then ordered to
take it away; and its extraordinary weight, for the
first time, reminded them of its forgotten human
occupant. Its door was forced; and, judge what was
their disgust, when they discovered, not a living man,
but a corpse! Three or four days must have passed
since the death of the burly man in the Chinese tunic
and painted cap. Some people thought it was a
trick designed to insult the Allies, in whose honour
the ball was got up. Others were of opinion that it
was nothing worse than a daring and cynical jocu-
larity which, shocking as it was, might yet be forgiven
to the high spirits and irrepressible buffoonery of
youth. Others, again, fewer in number, and mystically
given, insisted that the corpse was bona fide. necessary
to the exhibition, and that the disclosures and
''1
294 IN A GLASS DARKLY,

allusions which had astonished so many pepe: were
distinctly due to necromancy.

“ The matter, however, is now in the hands of the
police,” observed Monsieur Carmaignac, “and we are
not the body they were two or three months ago, if
the offenders against propriety and public feeling are
not traced, and convicted, unless, indeed, they have
been a great deal more cunning than such fools
generally are.”

I was thinking within myself how utterly inex-
plicable was my colloquy with the conjuror, so
cavalierly dismissed by Monsieur Carmaignac as a
“fool” ; and the more I thought the more marvellous
it seemed.

“It certainly was an original joke, though not a
very clear one,” said Whistlewick.

“Not even original,” said Carmaignac. “ Very
nearly the same thing was done, a hundred years ago
or more, at a state ball in Paris; and the rascals who
played the trick were never found out.”

In this Monsieur Carmaignac, as I afterwards
discovered, spoke truly; for, among my books of
French anecdote and memoirs, the very incident is
marked, by my own hand.

While we were thus talking, the waiter told us
that dinner was served; and we withdrew accord-
ingly ; my guests more than making amends for my
comparative taciturnity.
''CHAPTER XVIII,
THE CHURCHYARD.

Our dinner was really good, so were the wines;
better, perhaps, at this out-of-the-way inn, than at
some of the more pretentious hotels in Paris. The
moral effect of a really good dinner is immense—we
all felt it. The serenity and goodnature that follow
are more solid and comfortable than the tumultuous
benevolences of Bacchus.

My friends were happy, therefore, and very chatty ;
which latter relieved me of the trouble of talking, and
prompted them to entertain me and one another
incessantly with agreeable stories and conversation,
of which, until suddenly a subject emerged, which
interested me powerfully, I confess, so much were my
thoughts engaged elsewhere, I heard next to nothing,

“ Yes,” said Carmaignac, continuing a conversation
which had escaped me, “there was another case,
beside that Russian nobleman, odder still. Iremem-
bered it this morning, but cannot recall the name,
He was a tenant of the very same room. By-the-by,
Monsieur, might it not be as well,” he added, turning
''296 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

to me, with a laugh, half joke whole earnest, as they
say, “if you were to get into another apartment, now
that the house is no longer crowded? that is, if you
mean to make any stay here.”

“A thousand thanks! no. I’m thinking of
changing my hotel; and I can run into town so easily
at night; and though I stay here, for this night, at
least, I don’t expect to vanish like those others. But
you say there is another adventure, of the same kind,
connected with the same room. Do let us hear it.
But take some wine first.”

The story he told was curious.

“Tt happened,” said Carmaignac, “as well as I
recollect, before either of the other cases. A French
gentleman—I wish I could remember his name—the
son of a merchant, came to this inn (the Dragon
Volant), and was put by the landlord into the same
room of which we have been speaking. Your apart-
ment, Monsieur. He was by no means young—past
forty—and very far from good-looking. The people
here said that he was the ugliest man, and the most
good-natured, that ever lived. He played on the
fiddle, sang, and wrote poetry. His habits were odd
and desultory. He would sometimes sit all day in
his room writing, singing, and fiddling, and go out at
night for a walk. An eccentric man! Hewas by no
means a millionaire, but he hada modicum bonum,
you understand—a trifle more than half a million of
francs. He consulted his stockbroker about invest-
ing this money in foreign stocks, and drew the
entire sum from his banker. You now have the
situation of affairs when the catastrophe occurred.”

“ Pray fill your glass,” I said.
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 297

“Dutch courage, Monsieur, to face the catas-
trophe!” said Whistlewick, filling his own.

“Now, that was the last that ever was heard of
his money,” resumed Carmaignac. “You shall hear
about himself. The night after this financial opera-
tion, he was seized with a poetic frenzy: he sent for
the then landlord of this house, and told him that he
long meditated an epic, and meant to commence that
night, and that he was on no account to be disturbed
until nine o’clock in the morning. He had two pairs
of wax candles, a little cold supper on a side-table,
his desk open, paper enough upon it to contain the
entire Henriade, and a proportionate store of pens
and ink.

“Seated at this desk he was seen by the waiter
who brought him a cup of coffee at nine o’clock, at
which time the intruder said he was writing fast
enough to set fire to the paper—that was his phrase ;
he did not look up, he appeared too much engrossed.
But, when the waiter came back, half an hour after-
wards, the door was locked; and the poet, from
within, answered, that he must not be disturbed.

“Away went the garcon; and next morning at nine
o'clock knocked at his door, and receiving no answer,
looked through the key-hole; the lights were still
burning, the window-shutters were closed as he had
left them ; he renewed his knocking, knocked louder,
no answer came. He reported this continued and
alarming silence to the innkeeper, who, finding that
his guest had not left his key in the lock, succeeded
in finding another that opened it. The candles were
just giving up the ghost in their sockets, but there
was light enough to ascertain that the tenant of the
''€

298 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

room was gone! The bed had not been disturbed ;
the window-shutter was barred. He must have let
himself out, and, locking the door on the outside, put
the key in his pocket, and so made his way out of
the house. Here, however, was another difficulty,
the Dragon Volant shut its doors and made all fast
at twelve o'clock ; after that hour no one could leave
the house, except by obtaining the key and letting
himself out, and of necessity leaving the door un-
secured, or else by collusion and aid of some person
in the house.

“ Now it happened that, some time after the doors
were secured, at half-past twelve, a servant who had
not been apprised of his order to be left undisturbed,
seeing a light shine through the key-hole, knocked at
the door to inquire whether the poet wanted any-
thing. He was very little obliged to his disturber,
and dismissed him with a renewed charge that he
was not to be interrupted again during the night.
This incident established the fact that he was in the
house after the doors had been locked and barred.
The inn-keeper himself kept the keys, and swore
that he found them hung on the wall above his head,
in his bed, in their usual place, in the morning; and
that nobody could have taken them away without
awakening him. That was all we could discover.
The Count de St. Alyre, to whom this house belongs,
was very active and very much chagrined. But
nothing was discovered.”

“ And nothing heard since of the epic poet?” I
asked.

“ Nothing—not the slightest clue—he never turned
up again. I suppose he is dead; if he is not, he must
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 299

have got into some devilish bad scrape, of which we
have heard nothing, that compelled him to abscond
with all the secresy and expedition in his power. All
that we know for certain is that, having occupied the
room in which you sleep, he vanished, nobody ever
knew how, and never was heard of since.”

“You have now mentioned three cases,’ I said,
“and all from the same room,”

“Three. Yes, all equally unintelligible. When
men are murdered, the great and immediate difficulty
the assassins encounter is how to conceal the body.
It is very hard to believe that three persons should
have been consecutively murdered, in the same room,
and their bodies so effectually disposed of that no
trace of them was ever discovered.”

From this we passed to other topics, and the grave
Monsieur Carmaignac amused us with a perfectly
prodigious collection of scandalous anecdote, which
his opportunities in the police department had
enabled him to accumulate.

My guests happily had engagements in Paris, and
left me about ten.

I went up to my room, and looked out upon the
grounds of the Chateau de la Carque. The moon-
light was broken by clouds, and the view of the park
in this desultory light, acquired a melancholy and
fantastic character.

The strange anecdotes recounted of the room in
which I stood, by Monsieur Carmaignac, returned
vaguely upon my mind, drowning in sudden shadows
the gaiety of the more frivolous stories with which he
had followed them. I looked round me on the room
that lay in ominous gloom, with an almost disagree.
''300 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

able sensation. I took my pistols now with an
undefined apprehension that they might be really
needed before my return to-night. This feeling, be
- it understood, in no wise chilled my ardour. Never
had my enthusiasm mounted higher. My adventure
absorbed and carried me away; but it added a
strange and stern excitement to the expedition.

I loitered fora time in my room. I had ascer-
tained the exact point at which the little churchyard
lay. It was abouta mile away. I did not wish to
reach it earlier than necessary,

I stole quietly out, and sauntered along the road
to my left, and thence entered a narrower track,
still to my left, which, skirting the park wall, and
describing a circuitous route, all the way, under grand
old trees, passes the ancient cemetery. That ceme-
tery is embowered in trees, and occupies little more
than half an acre of ground, to the left of the road,
interposing between it and the park of the Chateau
de la Carque.

Here, at this haunted spot, I paused and listened.
The place was utterly silent. A thick cloud had
darkened the moon, so that I could distinguish little
more than the outlines of near objects, and that
vaguely enough ; and sometimes, as it were, floating
in black fog, the white surface of a tombstone
emerged.

Among the forms that met my eye against the
iron-grey of the horizon, were some of those shrubs
or trees that grow like our junipers, some six feet
high, in form like a miniature poplar, with the darker
foliage of the yew. I do not know the name of the
plant, but I have often seen it in such funereal places,
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 301

Knowing that I was a little too early, I sat down
upon the edge of a tombstone to wait, as, for aught I
knew, the beautiful Countess might have wise reasons
for not caring that I should enter the grounds of the
chateau earlier than she had appointed. In the list-
less state induced by waiting, I sat there, with my
eyes on the object straight before me, which chanced
to be that faint black outline I have described. It
was right before me, about half-a-dozen steps away.

The moon now began to escape from under the
skirt of the cloud that had hid her face for so long;
and, as the light gradually improved, the tree on
which I had been lazily staring began to take a new
shape. It was no longer a tree, but a man standing
motionless. Brighter and brighter grew the moon-
light, clearer and clearer the image became, and at
last stood out perfectly distinctly. It was Colonel
Gaillarde.

Luckily, he was not looking toward me. I could
only see him in profile; but there was no mistaking
the white moustache, the farouche visage, and the
gaunt six-foot stature. There he was, his shoulder
toward me, listening and watching, plainly, for some
signal or person expected, straight in front of him.

If he were, by chance, to turn his eyes in my
direction, I knew that I must reckon upon an instan-
taneous renewal of the combat only commenced in
the hall of the Belle Etoile. In any case, could
malignant fortune have posted, at this place and
hour, a more dangerous watcher? What ecstasy to
him, by a single discovery, to hit me so hard, and

blast the Countess de St. Alyre, whom he seemed to
hate.
''302 IN A GLASS DARKLY,

He raised his arm ; he whistled softly; I heard an
answering whistle as low; and, to my relief, the
Colonel advanced in the direction of this sound,
widening the distance between us at every step;
and immediately I heard talking, but in a low and
cautious key.

I recognized, I thought, even so, the peculiar voice
of Gaillarde.

I stole softly forward in the direction in which
those sounds were audible. In doing so, I had, of
course, to use the extremest caution.

I thought I sawa hat above a jagged piece of
ruined wall, and then a second—yes, I saw two hats
conversing ; the voices came from underthem. They
moved off, not in the direction of the park, but of
the road, and I lay along the grass, peeping over
a grave, as a skirmisher might, observing the enemy.
One after the other, the figures emerged full into
view as they mounted the stile at the roadside. The
Colonel, who was last, stood on the wall for awhile,
looking about him, and then jumped down on the
road. I heard their steps and talk as they moved
away together, with their backs toward me, in the
direction which led them farther and farther from
the Dragon Volant.

I waited until these sounds were quite lost in
distance before I entered the park. I followed the
instructions I had received from the Countess de
St. Alyre, and made my way among brushwood and
thickets to the point nearest the ruinous temple, and
crossed the short intervening space of open ground
rapidly.

I was now once more under the gigantic boughs
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 303

of the old lime and chestnut trees; softly, and with a
heart throbbing fast, I approached the little structure.

The moon was now shining steadily, pouring down
its radiance on the soft foliage, and here and there
mottling the verdure under my feet.

I reached the steps; I was among its worn marble
shafts. She was not there, nor in the inner sanctuary,
the arched windows of which were screened almost
entirely by masses of ivy. The lady had not yet
arrived,
''CHAPTER XIX.

THE KEY,

I STOOD now upon the steps, watching and listening.
In a minute or two I heard the crackle of withered
sticks trod upon, and, looking in the direction, I saw
a figure approaching among the trees, wrapped ina
mantle.

I advanced eagerly. It was the Countess. She
did not speak, but gave me her hand, and I led her
to the scene of our last interview. She repressed the
ardour of my impassioned greeting with a gentle but
peremptory firmness. She removed her hood, shook
back her beautiful hair, and, gazing on me with sad
and glowing eyes, sighed deeply. Some awful thought
seemed to weigh upon her. .

“ Richard, I must speak plainly. The crisis of my
life has come. I am sure you would defend me. [
think you pity me ; perhaps you even love me.”

At these words I became eloquent, as young
madmen in my plight do. She silenced me, however
with the same melancholy firmness.

“Listen, dear friend, and then say whether you
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 305

can aid me. Howmadly I am trusting you ; and yet
my heart tells me how wisely! To meet you here as
I do—what insanity it seems! How poorly you
must think of me! But when you know all, you will
judge me fairly. Without your aid I cannot accom-
plish my purpose. That purpose unaccomplished, I
must die. I am chained to a man whom I despise—
whom I abhor. I have resolved to fly. I have jewels,
principally diamonds, for which I am offered thirty
thousand pounds of your English money. They are
my separate property by my marriage settlement; I
will take them with me. You are ajudge, no doubt, of
jewels. I was counting mine when the hour came,
and brought this in my hand to show you. Look.”

“Tt is magnificent!” I exclaimed, asa collar of
diamonds twinkled and flashed in the moonlight,
suspended from her pretty fingers. I thought, even
at that tragic moment, that she prolonged the show,
with a feminine delight in these brilliant toys.

“Yes,” she said, “I shall part with them all. I
will turn them into money, and break, for ever, the
unnatural and wicked bonds that tied me, in the name
of a sacrament, to a tyrant. Aman young, handsome,
generous, brave as you can hardly be rich, Richard
you say you love me; you shall share all this with
me. We will fly together to Switzerland; we will
evade pursuit; my powerful friends will intervene and
arrange a separation, and I shall, at length, be hap, y
and reward my hero,”

You may suppose the style, florid and vehement,
in which I poured forth my gratitude, vowed the
devotion of my life, and placed myself absolutely at
her disposal.

20
''306 IN A GLASS DARKLY,

“To-morrow night,” she said, “my husband will
attend the remains of his cousin, Monsieur de St.
Amand, to Pere la Chaise. The hearse, he says, will
leave this at half-past nine. You must be here, where
we stand, at nine o’clock.”

I promised punctual obedience.

“T will notmeet you here; but you see a red light in
the window of the tower at that angle of the chateau?”

I assented.

“T placed it there, that, to-morrow night, when it
comes, you may recognize it. So soon as that rose-
coloured light appears at that window, it will bea
signal to you that the funeral has left the chateau,
and that you may approach safely. Come, then, to
that window ; I will open it and admit you. Five
minutes after a travelling-carriage, with four horses,
shall stand ready inthe forte-cochére. I will place my
diamonds in your hands ; and so soon as we enter the
carriage, our flight commences. We shall have at
least five hours’ start; and with energy, stratagem,
and resource, I fear nothing. Are you ready to
undertake all this for my sake?”

Again I vowed myself her slave.

“My only difficulty,” she said, “is how we shall
quickly enough convert my diamonds into money; I
dare not remove them while my husband is in the
house.”

Here was the opportunity I wished for. I now
told her that I had in my banker’s hands no less a
sum than thirty thousand pounds, with which, in the
shape of gold and notes, I should come furnished,
and thus the risk and loss of disposing of her
diamonds in too much haste would be avoided.
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 307

“Good Heaven!” she exclaimed, with a kind of
disappointment. “You are rich, then? and I have
lost the felicity of making my generous friend more
happy. Be itso! since so it must be. Let us con-
tribute, each, in equal shares, to our common fund.
Bring you, your money; I, my jewels. There is a
happiness to me even in mingling my resources with
yours.”

On this there followed a romantic colloquy, all
poetry and passion, such as I should, in vain,
endeavour to reproduce.

Then came a very special instruction.

“T have come provided, too, with a key, the use of
which I must explain.”

It was a double key—a long, slender stem, with a
key at each end—one about the size which opens an
ordinary room door; the other, as small, almost, as
the key of a dressing-case.

“You cannot employ too much caution to-morrow
night. An interruption would murder all my hopes.
I have learned that you occupy the haunted room in
the Dragon Volant. It is the very room I would
have wished you in. I will tell you why—there isa
story of a man who having shut himself up in that
room one night, disappeared before morning. The
truth is, he wanted, I believe, to escape from creditors ;
and the host of the Dragon Volant, at that time,
being a rogue, aided him in absconding. My husband
investigated the matter, and discovered how his
escape was made, It was by means ofthis key. Here
is a memorandum and a plan describing how they
are to be applied. I have taken them from the Count’s
escritoire. And now, once more I must leave to your
''308 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

ingenuity how to mystify the people at the Dragon
Volant. Be sure you try the keys first, to see that the
locks turn freely. I will have my jewels ready. You,
whatever we divide, had better bring your money,
because it may be many months before you can
revisit Paris, or disclose our place of residence to any
one: and our passports—arrange all that; in what
names, and whither, you please. And now, dear
Richard ” (she leaned her arm fondly on my shoulder,
and looked with ineffable passion in my eyes, with
her other hand clasped in mine), “ my very life is in
your hands; I have staked all on your fidelity.”

As she spoke the last word, she, on a sudden,
grew deadly pale, and gasped, “Good God! who is
here ?”

At the same moment she receded through the
door in the marble screen, close to which she stood,
and behind which was a small roofless chamber,
as small as the shrine, the window of which was
darkened by a clustering mass of ivy so dense that
hardly a gleam of light came through the leaves,

I stood upon the threshold which she had just
crossed, looking in the direction in which she had
thrown that one terrified glance. No wonder she was
frightened. Quite close upon us, not twenty yards
away, and approaching ata quick step, very distinctly
lighted by the moon, Colonel Gaillarde and his com-
panion were coming. The shadow of the cornice
and a piece of wall were upon me. Unconscious of
this, I was expecting the moment when, with one of
his frantic yells, he should spring forward to assail
me.

I made a step backward, drew one of my pistols
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 309

from my pocket, and cocked it. It was obvious he
had not seen me.

I stood, with my finger on the trigger, determined
to shoot him dead if he should attempt to enter the
place where the Countess was. It would, no doubt,
have been a murder; but, in my mind,I had no
question or qualm about it. When once we engage
in secret and guilty practices we are nearer other and
greater crimes than we at all suspect.

There’s the statue,” said the Colonel, in his brief
discordant tones. “ That’s the figure.”

“ Alluded to in the stanzas?” inquired his com-
panion.

“The very thing. We shall see more next time.
Forward, Monsieur ; let us march.”

And, much to my relief, the gallant Colonel
turned on his heel, and marched through the trees,
with his back toward the chateau, striding over the
grass, as I quickly saw, to the park wall, which they
crossed not far from the gables of the Dragon
Volant.

I found the Countess trembling in no affected,
but avery real terror, She would not hear of my
accompanying her toward the chateau. But I told
her that I would prevent the return of the mad
Colonel ; and upon that point, at least, that she need
fear nothing. She quickly recovered, again bade me
a fond and lingering good-night, and left me, gazing
after her, with, the key in my hand, and such a
phantasmagoria floating in my brain as amounted
very nearly to madness.

There was I, ready to brave all dangers, all right
and reason, plunge into murder itself, on the first
''310 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

summons, and entangle myself in consequences
inextricable and horrible (what cared I?) for a
woman of whom I knew nothing, but that she was
beautiful and reckless !

I have often thanked heaven for its mercy in
conducting me through the labyrinths in which I
had ai! but lost myself,
''CHAPTER XX.
A HIGH-CAULD-CAP.,

I WAS now upon the road, within two or three hun-
dred yards of the Dragon Volant. I had undertaken
an adventure with a vengeance! And by way of
prelude, there not improbably awaited me, at my inn,
another encounter, perhaps, this time, not so lucky,
with the grotesque sabreur.

I was glad I had my pistols. I certainly was
bound by no law to allow a ruffian to cut me down,
unresisting.

Stooping boughs from the old park, gigantic
poplars on the other side, and the moonlight over all,
made the narrow road to the inn-door picturesque.

TI could not think very clearly just now; events
were succeeding one another so rapidly, and I
involved in the action of a drama so extravagant.
and guilty, hardly knew myself or believed my own
story, as I slowly paced towards the still open door
of the Flying Dragon.

No sign of the Colonel, visible or audible, was
there. In the hall I inquired. No gentleman had
''312 IN A GLASS DARKLY

arrived at the inn for the last half hour. I looked
into the public room. It was deserted. The clock
struck twelve, and I heard the servant barring the
great door. I took my candle. The lights in this rural
hostelry were by this time out, and the house had
the air of one that had settled to slumber for many
hours. The cold moonlight streamed in at the
window on the landing as I ascended the broad
staircase; and I paused for a moment to look over
the wooded grounds to the turreted chateau, to me,
so full of interest. I bethought me, however, that
prying eyes might read a meaning in this midnight
gazing, and possibly the Count himself might, in his
jealous mood, surmise a signal in this unwonted light
in the stair-window of the Dragon Volant.

On opening my room door, with a little start, I
met an extremely old woman with the longest face I
ever saw; she had what used to be termed, a high-
cauld-cap, on, the white border of which contrasted
with her brown and yellow skin, and made her
wrinkled face more ugly. See raised her curved
shoulders, and looked up in my face, with eyes un-
naturally black and bright.

“T have lighted a little wood, Monsieur, because
the night is chill.”

I thanked her, but she did not go. She stood
with her candle in her tremulous fingers.

“Excuse an old woman, Monsieur,” she said ; “ but
what on earth can a young English mz/ord, with all
Paris at his feet, find to amuse him in the Dragon
Volant ?”

Had I been at the age of fairy tales, and in daily
intercourse with the delightful Countess d’Aulnois,
''THE DRAGON VOLANYT. 313

I should have seen in this withered apparition, the
genius loci, the malignant fairy, at the stamp of whose
foot the ill-fated tenants of this very room had, from
time to time, vanished. I was past that, however ;
but the old woman’s dark eyes were fixed on mine,
with a steady meaning that plainly told me that my
secret was known. I was embarrassed and alarmed ;
I never thought of asking her what business that was
of hers.

“These old eyes saw you in the park of the
chateau to-night.”

“7!” I began, with all the scornful surprise I
could affect.

“Tt avails nothing, Monsieur; I know why you
stay here; and I tell you to begone. Leave this
house to-morrow morning, and never come again.”

She lifted her disengaged hand, as she looked at
me with intense horror in her eyes.

“There is nothing on earth—I don’t know what
you mean,” I answered ; “and why should you care
about me?”

“TI don’t care about you, Monsieur—I care about
the honour of an ancient family, whom I served in
their happier days, when to be noble was to be
honoured. But my words are thrown away, Mon-
sieur ; you are insolent. I will keep my secret, and
you, yours; that is all. You will soon find it hard
enough to divulge it.”

The old woman went slowly from the room and
shut the door, before I had made up my mind to say
anything. I was standing where she had left me,
nearly five minutes later. The jealousy of Monsieur
the Count, I assumed, appears to this old creature
''314 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

about the most terrible thing in creation. Whatever
contempt I might entertain for the dangers which
this old lady so darkly intimated, it was by no means
pleasant, you may suppose, that a secret so dangerous
should be so much as suspected by a stranger, and
that stranger a partisan of the Count de St. Alyre.

Ought I not, at all risks, to apprise the Countess,
who had trusted me so generously, or, as she said
herself, so madly, of the fact that our secret was, at
least, suspected by another? But was there not
greater danger in attempting to communicate? What
did the beldame mean by saying, “ Keep your secret,
and I’ll keep mine?”

I had a thousand distracting questions before me.
My progress seemed like a journey through the
Spessart, where at every step some new goblin or
monster starts from the ground or steps from behind
a tree.

Peremptorily I dismissed these harassing and
frightful doubts. I secured my door, sat myself
down at my table, and with a candle at each side,
placed before me the piece of vellum which contained
the drawings and notes on which I was to rely for
full instructions as to how to use the key.

When I had studied this for awhile, I made my
investigation. The angle of the room at the right
side of the window was cut off by an oblique turn in
the wainscot. I examined this carefully, and, on
pressure, a small bit of the frame of the woodwork
slid aside, and disclosed a keyhole. On removing
my finger, it shot back to its place again, with a
spring. So far I had interpreted my * instructions
successfully. A similar search, next the door, and
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 315

directly under this, was rewarded by a like discovery.
The small end of the key fitted this, as it had the
upper keyhole; and now, with two or three hard
jerks at the key, a door in the panel opened, showing
a strip of the bare wall, and a narrow, arched door-
way, piercing the thickness of the wall; and within
which I saw a screw staircase of stone.

Candle in hand, I stepped in. I do not know
~ whether the quality of air, long undisturbed, is pecu-
liar; tome it has always seemed so, and the damp
smell of the old masonry hung in this atmosphere.
My candle faintly lighted the bare stone wall that
enclosed the stair, the foot of which I could not see.
Down I went, and a few turns brought me to the
stone floor. Here was another door, of the simple,
old, oak kind, deep sunk in the thickness of the wall.
The large end of the key fitted this. The lock was stiff;
I set the candle down upon the stair, and applied
both hands; it turned with difficulty, and as it
revolved, uttered a shriek that alarmed me for my
secret.

For some minutes 1 did not move. In a little
time, however, I took courage, and opened the door.
The night-air floating in, puffed out the candle.
There was a thicket of holly and underwood, as
dense as a jungle, close about the door. I should
have been in pitch-darkness, were it not that through
the topmost leaves, there twinkled, here and there, a
glimmer of moonshine.

Softly, lest any one should have opened his
window, at the sound of the rusty bolt, I struggled
through this, till I gained a view of the open grounds.
Here I found that the brushwood spread a good way
''316 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

up the park, uniting with the wood that approached
the little temple I have described.

A general could not have chosen a more effectu-
ally-covered approach from the Dragon Volant to the
trysting-place where hitherto I had conferred with
the idol of my lawless adoration.

Looking back upon the old inn, I discovered that
the stair I descended was enclosed in one of those
slender turrets that decorate such buildings. It was
placed at that angle which corresponded with the
part of the panelling of my room indicated in the plan
I had been studying.

Thoroughly satisfied with my experiment, I made
my way back to the door, with some little difficulty,
remounted to my room, locked my secret door again ;
kissed the mysterious key that her hand had pressed
that night, and placed it under my pillow, upon
which, very soon after, my giddy head was laid, not,
for some time, to sleep soundly.
''CHAPTER XXI.
1 SEE THREE MEN IN A MIRROR,

I AWOKE very early next morning, and was too excited
to sleep again. As soon as I could, without exciting
remark, I saw my host. I told him that I was going
into town that night, and thence to , where I
had to see some people on business, and requested
him to mention my being there to any friend who
might call. That I expected to be back in about a
week, and that in the meantime my servant, St. Clair,
would keep the key of my room, and look after my
things.

Having prepared this mystification for my land-
lord, I drove into Paris, and there transacted the
financial part of the affair. The problem was to
reduce my balance, nearly thirty thousand pounds,
to a shape in which it would be not only easily port-
able, but available, wherever I might go, without
involving correspondence, or any other incident which
would disclose my place of residence, for the time
being. All these points were as nearly provided for
as they could be, I need not trouble you about my

 
''318 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

arrangements for passports. It is enough to say that
the point I selected for our flight was, in the spirit of
romance, one of the most beautiful and sequestered
nooks in Switzerland.

Luggage, I should start with none. The first
considerable town we reached next morning, would
supply an extemporized wardrobe. It was now two
o'clock ; only two! Howon earth was I to dispose
of the remainder of the day?

I had not yet seen the cathedral of Notre Dame
and thither I drove. I spent an hour or more there ;
and then to the Conciergerie, the Palais de Justice,
and the beautiful Sainte Chapelle. Still there re-
mained some time to get rid of, and I strolled into
the narrow streets adjoining the cathedral. I re-
collect seeing, in one of them, an old house with a
mural inscription stating that it had been the resi-
dence of Canon Fulbert, the uncle of Abelard’s Eloise.
I don’t know whether these curious old streets, in
which I observed fragments of ancient Gothic churches
fitted up as warehouses, are still extant. I lighted
among other dingy and eccentric shops, upon one
that seemed that of a broker of all sorts of old deco-
rations, armour, china, furniture. I entered the shop;
it was dark, dusty, and low. The proprietor was
busy scouring a piece of inlaid armour, and allowed
me to poke about his shop, and examine the curious
things accumulated there, just as I pleased. Gradu-
ally I made my way to the farther end of it, where
there was but one window with many panes, each
with a bull’s-eye in it, and in the dirtiest possible
state. When I reached this window, I turned about,
and in a recess, standing at right angles with the side
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 319

wall of the shop, was a large mirror in an old-fashioned
dingy frame. Reflected in this I saw, what in old
houses I have heard termed an “alcove,” in which,
among lumber, and various dusty articles hanging on
the wall, there stood a table, at which three persons
were seated, as it seemed to me, in earnest conversa-
tion. Two of these persons I instantly recognized ;
one was Colonel Gaillarde, the other was the Marquis
d’Harmonville. The third, who was fiddling with a
pen, was a lean, pale man, pitted with the small-pox,
with lank black hair, and about as mean-looking a
person as I had ever seen in my life. The Marquis
looked up, and his glance was instantaneously
followed by his two companions, For a moment I
hesitated what to do. But it was plain that I was
not recognized, as indeed I could hardly have been,
the light from the window being behind me, and the
portion of the shop immediately before me, being
very dark indeed.

Perceiving this, I had presence of mind to affect
being entirely engrossed by the objects before me,
and strolled slowly down the shop again. I paused
fora moment to hear whether I was followed, and
was relieved when I heard no step. You may he
sure I did not waste more time in that shop, where
I had just made a discovery so curious and so un-
expected.

It was no business of mine to inquire what
brought Colonel Gaillarde and the Marquis together,
in so shabby, and even dirty a place, or who the
mean person, biting the feather end of his pen, might
be. Such employments as the Marquis had accepted
sometimes make strange bed-fellows.
''320 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

I was glad to get away, and just as the sun set,
I had reached the steps of the Dragon Volant, and
dismissed the vehicle in which I arrived, carrying in
my hand a strong box, of marvellously small
dimensions considering all it contained, strapped in
a leather cover, which disguised its real character.

When I got to my room, I summoned St. Clair.
I told him nearly the same story I had already told
my host. I gave him fifty pounds, with orders to
expend whatever was necessary on himself, and in
payment for my rooms till my return. I then ate a
slight and hasty dinner. My eyes were often upon
the solemn old clock over the chimney-piece, which
was my sole accomplice in keeping tryst in this
iniquitous venture. The sky favoured my design,
and darkened all things with a sea of clouds.

The innkeeper met me in the hall, to ask whether
I should want a vehicle to Paris? Iwas prepared
for this question, and instantly answered that I meant
to walk to Versailles, and take a carriage there. I
called St. Clair.

“ Go,” said I, “and drink a bottle of wine with your
friends. I shall call you if I should want anything;
in the meantime, here is the key of my room; I shall
be writing some notes, so don’t allow any one to
disturb me, for at least half an hour. At the end of
that time you will probably find that I have left this
for Versailles; and should you not find me in the
room, you may take that for granted ; and you take
charge of everything, and lock the door, you under-
stand ?”

St. Clair took his leave, wishing me all happiness,
and no doubt promising himself some little amuse-
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 321

ment with my money. With my candle in my hand,
I hastened upstairs. It wanted now but five minutes
to the appointed time. Ido not think there is any-
thing of the coward in my nature; but I confess, as
the crisis approached, I felt something of the suspense
and awe of a soldier going into action. Would I
have receded? Not for all this earth could offer,

I bolted my door, put on my greatcoat, and
placed my pistols, one in each pocket. I now applied
my key to the secret locks; drew the wainscot-door
a little open, took my strong box under my arm,
extinguished my candle, unbolted my door, listened
at it for a few moments to be sure that no one was
approaching, and then crossed the floor of my room
swiftly, entered the secret door, and closed the spring
lock after me. Iwas upon the screw-stair in total

darkness, the key in my fingers. Thus far the under-
taking was successful.

2T
''CHAPTER XXII.
RAPTURE.

Down the screw-stair I went in utter darkness ; and
having reached the stone floor, I discerned the door
and groped out the key-hole. With more caution,
and less noise than upon the night before, I opened
the door, and stepped out into the thick brushwood.
It was almost as dark in this jungle.

Having secured the door, I slowly pushed my way
through the bushes, which soon became less dense.
Then, with more ease, but still under thick cover, I
pursued in the track of the wood, keeping near its
edge.

At length, in the darkened air, about fifty yards
away, the shafts of the marble temple rose like
phantoms before me, seen through the trunks of the
old trees. Everything favoured my enterprise. I
had effectually mystified my servant and the people
of the Dragon Volant, and so dark was the night,
that even had I alarmed the suspicions of all the
tenants of the inn, I might safely defy their united
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 323

curiosity, though posted at every window of the
house.

Through the trunks, over the roots of the old trees,
I reached the appointed place of observation. I laid
my treasure, in its leathern case, in the embrasure,
and leaning my arms upon it, looked steadily in
the direction of the chateau. The outline of the
building was scarcely discernible, blending dimly, as
it did, with the sky. No light in any window
was visible. I was plainly to wait; but for how
long?

Leaning on my box of treasure, gazing toward the
massive shadow that represented the chateau, in the
midst of my ardent and elated longings, there came
upon me an odd thought, which you will think might
well have struck me long before. It seemed on a
sudden, as it came that the darkness deepened, and a
chill stole into the air around me.

Suppose I were to disappear finally, like those
other men whose stories I had listened to! Had I
not been at all the pains that mortal could to
obliterate every trace of my real proceedings, and to
mislead every one to whom I spoke as to the direc-
tion in which I had gone?

This icy, snake-like thought stole through my
mind, and was gone.

It was with me the full-blooded season of youth,
conscious strength, rashness, passion, pursuit, the
adventure! Here were a pair of double-barrelled
pistols, four lives in my hands? What could possibly
happen? The Count—except for the sake of my
dulcinea, what was it to me whether the old coward
whom I had seen, in an ague of terror before the
''324 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

brawling Colonel, interposed or not? Iwas assuming
the worst that could happen. But with an ally so
clever and courageous as my beautiful Countess,
could any such misadventure befall? Bah! I laughed
at all such fancies.

As I thus communed with myself, the signal light
sprang up. The rose-coloured light, couleur de rose,
emblem of sanguine hope, and the dawn of a happy
day.

Clear, soft, and steady, glowed the light from the
window. The stone shafts showed black against it.
Murmuring words of passionate love as I gazed upon
the signal, I grasped my strong box under my arm,
and with rapid strides approached the Chateau de la
Carque. No sign of light or life, no human voice, no
tread of foot, no bark of dog indicated a chance of
interruption. A blind was down; and as I came
close to the tall window, I found that half-a-dozen
steps led up to it, and that a large lattice, answering
for a door, lay open.

A shadow from within fell upon the blind; it was
drawn aside, and as I ascended the steps, a soft voice
murmured—*“ Richard, dearest Richard, come, oh!
come! how I have longed for this moment?”

Never did she look so beautiful. My love rose to
passionate enthusiasm. I only wished there were
some real danger in the adventure worthy of sucha
creature. When the first tumultuous greeting was
over, she made me sit beside her on a sofa. There
we talked for a minute or two. She told me that the
Count had gone, and was by that time more than a
mile on his way, with the funeral, to Pére la Chaise.
Here were her diamonds. She exhibited, hastily, an
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 325

open casket containing a profusion of the largest
brilliants.

“What is this?” she asked.

“A box containing money to the amount of
thirty thousand pounds,” I answered.

“What! all that money ?” she exclaimed.

“Every sou.”

“Was it not unnecessary to bring so much, seeing
all these,’ she said, touching her diamonds. “It
would have been kind of you, to allow me to provide
for both for a time, at least. It would have made me
happier even than I am,”

“ Dearest, generous angel!” Such was my extra-
vagant declamation. “You forget that it may be
necessary, for a long time, to observe silence as to
where we are, and impossible to communicate safely
with any one.”

“You have then here this great sum—are you
certain ; have you counted it ?”

“Yes, certainly ; I received it to-day,” I answered,
perhaps showing a little surprise in my face. “I
counted it, of course,on drawing it from my bankers.”

“It makes me feel a little nervous, travelling with
so much money ; but these jewels make as greata
danger; that can add but little to it. Place them side
by side; you shall take off your greatcoat when we
are ready to go, and with it manage to conceal these
boxes. I should not like the drivers to suspect that
we were conveying sucha treasure. I must ask you
now to close the curtains of that window, and bar the
shutters.”

I had hardly done this when a knock was heard
at the room door.
''326 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“] know who this is,” she said, in a whisper to me.

I saw that she was not alarmed. She went softly
to the door, and a whispered conversation for a
minute followed. ;

“My trusty maid, who is coming with us. She
says we cannot safely go sooner than ten minutes,
She is bringing some coffee to the next room.”

She opened the door and looked in.

“T must tell her not to take too much luggage.
She is so odd! Don’t follow—stay where you are—
it is better that she should not see you.”

She left the room with a gesture of caution.

A change had come over the manner of this
beautiful woman. For the last few minutes a shadow
had been stealing over her, an air of abstraction, a
look bordering on suspicion. Why was she pale?
Why had there come that dark look in her eyes?
Why had her very voice become changed? Had
anything gone suddenly wrong? Did some danger
threaten ?

This doubt, however, speedily quieted itself. If
there had been anything of the kind, she would, of
course, have told me. It was only natural that, as
the crisis approached, she should become more and
more nervous. She did not return quite so soon as I
had expected. To a man in my situation absolute
quietude is next to impossible. I moved restlessly
about the room. It was a small one. There
was a door at the other end. I opened it, rashly
enough. I listened, it was perfectly silent. I was in
an excited, eager state, and every faculty engrossed
about what was coming, and in so far detached from
the immediate present. I can’t account, in any other
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 327

way, for my having done so many foolish things that
night, for I was, naturally, by no means deficient in
cunning. About the most stupid of those was, that
instead of immediately closing that door, which I .
never ought to have opened, I actually took a candle
and walked into the room.

There I made, quite unexpectedly, a rather start-
ling discovery.
''CHAPTER XXIII.
A CUP OF COFFEE,

THE room was carpetless. On the floor were a
quantity of shavings, and some score of bricks.
Beyond these, on a narrow table, lay an object, which
I could hardly believe I saw aright.

I approached and drew from it a sheet which had
very slightly disguised its shape. There was no mis-
take about it. It was a coffin; and on the lid wasa
plate, with the inscription in French :—

PIERRE DE LA ROCHE ST. AMAND.
AGEE DE XXIII. ANS.

I drew back with a double shock. So, then, the
funeral after all had not yet left! Here lay the body.
I had been deceived. This, no doubt, accounted for
the embarrassment so manifest in the Countess’s
manner. She would have done more wisely had she
told me the true state of the case.

I drew back from this melancholy room, and
closed the door. Her distrust of me was the worst
rashness she could have committed. Thereis nothing
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 329

more dangerous than misapplied caution. In entire
ignorance of the fact I had entered the room, and
there I might have lighted upon some of the very
persons it was our special anxiety that I should
avoid,

_ These reflections were interrupted, almost as soon
as begun, by the return of the Countess de St. Alyre.
I saw at a glance that she detected in my face some
evidence of what had happened, for she threw a hasty
look towards the door.

“Have you seen anything—anything to disturb
you, dear Richard? Have you been out of this
room ?”

I answered promptly, “Yes,” and told her frankly
what had happened.

“Well, I did not like to make you more uneasy
than necessary. Besides, it is disgusting and horrible.
The body zs there; but the Count had departed a
quarter of an hour before I lighted the coloured lamp,
and prepared to receive you. The body did not
arrive till eight or ten minutes after he had set out.
He was afraid lest the people at Pére la Chaise should
suppose that the funeral was postponed. He knew
that the remains of poor Pierre would certainly reach
this to-night, although an unexpected delay has
occurred ; and there are reasons why he wishes the
funeral completed before to-morrow. The hearse
with the body must leave this in ten minutes. So
soon as it is gone, we shall be free to set out upon
our wild and happy journey. The horses are to the
carriage in the forte-cochére. As for this /funeste

horror (she shuddered very prettily), let us think of
it no more.”
''330 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

She bolted the door of communication, and when
she turned, it was with such a pretty penitence in her
face and attitude, that I was ready to throw myself at
her feet.

“Tt is the last time,” she said, in a sweet sad little
pleading, “I shall ever practise a deception on my
brave and beautiful Richard—my hero? Am I for-
given?”

Here was another scene of passionate effusion,
and lovers’ raptures and declamations, but only
murmured, lest the ears of listeners should be busy.

At length, on a sudden, she raised her hand, as if
to prevent my stirring, her eyes fixed on me, and her
ear toward the door of the room in which the coffin
was placed, and remained breathless in that attitude
fora few moments. Then, with a little nod towards
me, she moved on tip-toe to the door, and listened,
extending her hand backward as if to warn me
against advancing ; and, after a little time, she re-
turned, still on tip-toe, and whispered to me, “ They
are removing the coffin—come with me.”

I accompanied her into the room from which her
maid, as she told me, had spoken to her. Coffee and
some old china cups, which appeared to me quite
beautiful, stood on a silver tray; and some liqueur
glasses, with a flask, which turned out to be noyeau,
on a salver beside it.

“TJ shall attend you. I’m to be your servant here ;
I am to have my own way; I shall not think myself
forgiven by my darling if he refuses to indulge me in
anything.”

She filled a cup with coffee, and handed it to me
with her left hand, her right arm she fondly passed over
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 331

my shoulder, and with her fingers through my curls
caressingly, she whispered, “ Take this, I shall take
some just now.”

It was excellent; and when I had done she
handed me the liqueur, which I also drank.

“ Come back, dearest, to the next room,” she said.
“ By this time those terrible people must have gone
away, and we shall be safer there, for the present,
than here.”

“You shall direct, and I obey; you shall command
me, not only now, but always, and in all things, my
beautiful queen!” I murmured.

My heroics were unconsciously, I daresay, founded
upon my ideal of the French school of lovemaking.
Iam, even now, ashamed asI recall the bombast to
which I treated the Countess de St. Alyre.

“There, you shall have another miniature glass—
a fairy glass—of noyeau,” she said, gaily. In this
volatile creature, the funereal gloom of the moment
before, and the suspense of an adventure on which all
her future was staked, disappeared in a moment.
She ran and returned with another tiny glass, which,
with an eloquent or tender little speech, I placed to
my lips and sipped.

I kissed her hand, I kissed her lips, I gazed in her
beautiful eyes, and kissed her again unresisting.

“You call me Richard, by what name am I to call
my beautiful divinity?” I asked.

“You call me Eugenie, itis myname. Let us be
quite real; that is, if you love as entirely as I do.”

“Eugenie!” I exclaimed, and broke into a new
rapture upon the name.

It ended by my telling her how impatient I was
''332 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

to set out upon our journey; and, as I spoke,
suddenly an odd sensation overcame me. It was not
in the slightest degree like faintness, I can find no
phrase to describe it, but a sudden constraint of the
brain ; it was as if the membrane in which it lies, if
there be such a thing, contracted, and became in-
flexible.

“Dear Richard! what is the matter?” she ex-
claimed, with terror in her looks. “Good Heavens!
are you ill? I conjure you, sit down ; sit in this chair.”
She almost forced me into one; I was in no condition
to offer the least resistance. I recognized but too
truly the sensations that supervened. I was lying
back in the chair in which I sat without the power, by
this time, of uttering a syllable, of closing my eyelids,
of moving my eyes, of stirring a muscle. I had in a
few seconds glided into precisely the state in which I
had passed so many appalling hours when approach-
ing Paris, in my night-drive with the Marquis
d’Harmonville.

Great and loud was the lady’sagony. Sheseemed
to have lost all sense of fear. She called me by my
name, shook me by the shoulder, raised my arm and
let it fall, all the time imploring of me, in distracting
sentences, to make the slightest sign of life, and
vowing that if I did not, she would make away with
herself.

These ejaculations, after a minute or two, suddenly
subsided. The lady was perfectly silent and cool.
In avery business-like way she took a candle and
stood before me, pale indeed, very pale, but with an
expression only of intense scrutiny with a dash of
horror in it. She moved the candle before my eyes
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 333

slowly, evidently watching the effect. She then set
it down, and rang a handbell two or three times
sharply. She placed the two cases (I mean hers con-
taining the jewels, and my strong box), side by side
on the table; and I saw her carefully lock the door
that gave access to the room in which I had just now
sipped my coffee,
''CHAPTER XXIV.
HOPE,

SHE had scarcely set down my heavy box, which she
seemed to have considerable difficulty in raising on
the table, when the door of the room in which I had
seen the coffin, opened, and a sinister and unexpected
apparition entered.

It was the Count de St. Alyre, who had been, as
I have told you, reported to me to be, for some
considerable time, on his way to Pére la Chaise. He
stood before me for a moment, with the frame of the
doorway and a background of darkness enclosing
him, like a portrait. His slight, mean figure was
draped in the deepest mourning. He hada pair of
black gloves in his hand, and his hat with crape
round it.

When he was not speaking his face showed signs
of agitation ; his mouth was puckering and working.
He looked damnably wicked and frightened.

“ Well, my dear Eugenie? Well, child—eh? Well,
it all goes admirably ?”

“Yes,” she answered, ina low, hard tone. “But
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. — 335.

you and Planard should not have left that door
open.”

This she said sternly. “He went in there and
looked about wherever he liked ; it was fortunate he
did not move aside the lid of the coffin.”

“Planard should have seen to that,” said the
Count, sharply. “Ja foi! I can’t be everywhere !”
He advanced half-a-dozen short quick steps into the
room toward me, and placed his glasses to his eyes,

“Monsieur Beckett,’ he cried sharply, two or
three times, “Hi! don’t you know me?”

He approached and peered more closely in my
face; raised my hand and shook it, calling me again,
then let it drop, and said—*It has set in admirably,
my pretty mzgnonne. When did it commence?”

The Countess came and stood beside him, and
looked at me steadily for some seconds.

You can’t conceive the effect of the silent gaze of
those two pairs of evil eyes.

The lady glanced to where, I recollected, the
mantel-piece stood, and upon it a clock, the regular
click of which I sharply heard.

“ Four—five—six minutes and a half,” she said
slowly, in a cold hard way.

“Brava! Bravissima! my beautiful queen! my
little Venus! my Joan of Arc! my heroine! my
paragon of women!”

He was gloating on me with an odious curiosity,
smiling, as he groped backward with his thin brown
fingers to find the lady’s hand ; but she, not (I dare
say) caring for his caresses, drew back a little.

“Come, ma chére, let us count these things. What
is it? Pocket-book? Or—or—what?”
''336 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“It is that!” said the lady, pointing with a look
of disgust to the box, which lay in its leather case
on the table.

“Oh! Let us see—let us count—let us see,” he
said, as he was unbuckling the straps with his
tremulous fingers. “We must count them—we must
see to it. I have pencil and pocket-book—but—
where’s the key? See this cursed lock! My ——!
What is it? Where’s the key?”

He was standing before the Countess, shuffling
his feet, with his hands extended and all his fingers
quivering.

“J have not gotit; how could I? It is in his
pocket, of course,” said the lady.

In another instant the fingers of the old miscreant
were in my pockets; he plucked out everything they
contained, and some keys among the rest.

I lay in precisely the state in which I had been
during my drive with the Marquis to Paris. This
wretch I knew was about to rob me. The whole
drama, and the Countess’s vé/e in it, I could not yet
comprehend. I could not be sure—so much more
presence of mind and histrionic resource have women
than fall to the lot of our clumsy sex—whether the
return of the Count was not, in truth, a surprise to
her; and this scrutiny of the contents of my strong
box, an extempore undertaking of the Count’s. But
it was clearing more and more every moment: and I
was destined, very soon, to comprehend minutely my
appalling situation.

I had not the power of turning my eyes this way
or that, the smallest fraction of a hair’s breadth.
But let any one, placed as I was at the end of a
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 333

room, ascertain for himself by experiment how wide
is the field of sight, without the slightest alteration
in the line of vision, he will find that it takes in the
entire breadth of a large room, and that up to a very
short distance before him; and imperfectly, by a
refraction, I believe, in the eye itself, to a point very
near indeed. Next to nothing that passed in the
room, therefore, was hidden from me.

The old man had, by this time, found the key.
The leather case was open. The box cramped round
with iron was next unlocked. He turned out its
contents upon the table.

“ Rouleaux of a hundred Napoleons each. One,
two, three. Yes, quick. Write down a _ thousand
Napoleons. One, two; yes, right. Another thou-
sand, write!” Andso on and on till the gold was
rapidly counted. Then came the notes,

“Ten thousand francs. Write. Ten thousand
francs again: is it written? Another ten thousand
francs: is itdown? Smaller notes would have been °
better. They should have been smaller. These are
horribly embarrassing. Bolt that door again ; Planard
would become unreasonable if he knew the amount.
Why did you not tell him to get it in smaller notes?
No matter now—go on—it can’t be helped—w~rite—
another ten thousand francs — another — another.”
And so on, till my treasure was counted out, before
my face, while I saw and heard all that passed with
the sharpest distinctness, and my mental perceptions
were horribly vivid. Butin all other respects I was
dead.

He had replaced in the box every note and
rouleau as he counted it, and now having ascertained

22
''‘338 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

the sum total, he locked it, replaced it, very metho-
dically, in its cover, opened a buffet in the wains-
coting, and, having placed the Countess’ jewel-case
and my strong box in it, he locked it; and
immediately on completing these arrangements he
began to complain, with fresh acrimony and male-
dictions of Planard’s delay.

He unbolted the door, looked in the dark room
beyond, and listened. He closed the door again, and
returned. The old man was in a fever of suspense.

“J have kept ten thousand francs for Planard,”
said the Count, touching his waistcoat pocket.

“Will that satisfy him ?” asked the lady.

“ Why—curse him!” screamed the Count. “ Has
he no conscience? I'll swear to him it’s half the
entire thing.”

He and the lady again came and looked at me
anxiously for a while, in silence; and then the old
Count began to grumble again about Planard, and to
compare his watch with the clock. The lady seemed
less impatient; she sat no longer looking at me, but
across the room, so that her profile was toward me
—and strangely changed, dark and witch-like it
looked. My last hope died as I beheld that jaded
face from which the mask had dropped. I was
certain that they intended to crown their robbery
by murder. Why did they not despatch me at
once? What object could there be in postponing the
catastrophe which would expedite their own safety.
I cannot recall, even to myself, adequately the horrors
unutterable that I underwent. You must suppose a
real night-mare—I mean a night-mare in which the
objects and the danger are real, and the spell of
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 339

corporal death appears to be protractable at the
pleasure of the persons who preside at your un-
earthly torments. I could have no doubt as to the
cause of the state in which I was.

In this agony, to which I could not give the
slightest expression, I saw the door of the room
where the coffin had been, open slowly, and the
Marquis d’Harmonville entered the room,
''CHAPTER XXV.
DESPAIR.

A MOMENT’s hope, hope violent and fluctuating, hope
that was nearly torture, and then came a dialogue
and with it the terrors of despair.

“ Thank Heaven, Planard, you have come at last,”
said the Count, taking him, with both hands, by the
arm and clinging to it, and drawing him toward me.
“ See, look at him. It has all gone sweetly, sweetly,
sweetly up to this. Shall I hold the candle for you?”

My friend d’Harmonville, Planard, whatever he
was, came to me, pulling off his gloves, which he
popped into his pocket.

“The candle, a little this way,” he said, and
stooping over me he looked earnestly in my face.
He touched my forehead, drew his hand across it,
and then looked in my eyes for a time.

“Well, doctor, what do you think?” whispered
the Count.

“ How much did you give him?” said the Mar-
quis, thus suddenly stunted down to a doctor.

“ Seventy drops,” said the lady.
''THE DRAGON VOLANT, 341

“In the hot coffee ?”

“Yes; sixty in a hot cup of coffee and ten in the
liqueur.”

Her voice, low and hard, seemed to me to tremble
a little. It takes a long course of guilt to subjugate
nature completely, and prevent those exterior signs
of agitation that outlive all good.

The doctor, however, was treating me as coolly as
he might a subject which he was about to place on
the dissecting-table for a lecture.

He looked into my eyes again for awhile, took
my wrist, and applied his fingers to the pulse.

“That action suspended,” he said to himself.

Then again he placed something that, for the
moment I saw it, looked like a piece of gold-beater’s
leaf, to my lips, holding his head so far that his own
breathing could not affect it.

_ “Yes,” he said in soliloquy, very low.

Then he plucked my shirt-breast open and applied
the stethoscope, shifted it from point to point, listened
with his ear to its end, as if for a very far off sound,
raised his head, and said, in like manner, softly to
himself, “All appreciable action of the lungs has
subsided.”

Then turning from the sound, as I conjectured,
he said:

“ Seventy drops, allowing ten for waste, ought to
hold him fast for six hours and a-half—that is ample.
The experiment I tried in the carriage was only
thirty drops, and showed a highly sensitive brain. It
would not do to kill him, you know. You are certain
you did not exceed seventy ?”

“ Perfectly,” said the lady.
''342 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“If he were to die the evaporation would be
arrested, and foreign matter, some of it poisonous,
would be found in the stomach, don’t you see? If
you are doubtful, it would be well to use the stomach-
pump.”

“Dearest Eugenie, be frank, be frank, do be
frank,” urged the Count.

“T am zot doubtful, I am certazn,” she answered.

“How long ago, exactly? I told you to observ
the time.” ;

“T did; the minute-hand was exactly there, under
the point of that Cupid’s foot.

“Tt will last, then, probably for seven hours. He
will recover then ; the evaporation will be complete,
and not one particle of the fluid will remain in the
stomach.”

It was reassuring, at all events, to hear that there
was no intention to murder me. No one who has
not tried it knows the terror of the approach of
death, when the mind is clear, the instincts of life
unimpaired, and no excitement to disturb the appre-
ciation of that entirely new horror.

The nature and purpose of this tenderness was
very, very peculiar, and as yet I had not a suspicion
of it.

“You leave France, I suppose?” said the ex-
Marquis.

“Yes, certainly, to-morrow,” answered the Count.

“ And where do you mean to go?”

“That I have not yet settled,” he answered quickly.

“ You won’t tell a friend, eh?”

“T can’t till I know. This has turned out an
unprofitable affair.”
''THE DRAGON VOLANT, 343

“We shall settle that by-and-by.”

“It is time we should get him lying down, eh,”
said the Count, indicating me with one finger.

“Yes, we must proceed rapidly now. Are his
night-shirt and night-cap—you understand—here ?”

“ All ready,” said the Count.

“Now, Madame,” said the doctor, turning to the
lady, and making her, in spite of the emergency, a
bow, “it is time you should retire.”

The lady passed into the room, in which I had
taken my cup of treacherous coffee, and I saw her
no more.

The Count took a candle, and passed through the
door at the further end of the room, returning with a
roll of linen in his hand. He bolted first one door
then the other.

They now, in silence, proceeded to undress me
rapidly. They were not many minutes in accom-
plishing this.

What the doctor had termed my night-shirt, a
long garment which reached below my feet, was now
on, and a cap, that resembled a female nightcap more
than anything I had ever seen upon a male head,
was fitted upon mine, and tied under my chin.

And now, I thought, I shall be laid in a bed, to
recover how I can, and,in the meantime, the con-
spirators will have escaped with their booty, and
pursuit be in vain.

This was my best hope at the time; but it was
soon clear that their plans were very different.

The Count and Planard now went, together, into
the room that lay straight before me. I heard them
talking low, and a sound of shuffling feet; then a
''344 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

long rumble; it suddenly stopped; it recommenced ;
it continued; side by side they came in at the
door, their backs toward me. They were drag-
ging something along the floor that made a
continued boom and rumble, but they interposed
between me and it, so that I could not see it until
they had dragged it almost beside me; and then,
merciful heaven! I saw it plainly enough. It was
the coffin I had seen in the next room. It lay now
flat on the floor, its edge against the chair in which
I sat. Planard removed the lid. The coffin was

empty.
''CHAPTER XXVI.
CATASTROPHE,

“THOSE seem to be good horses, and we change on
the way,” said Planard. “You give the men a
Napoleon or two; we must do it within three hours
and a quarter. Now, come; I’ll lift him, upright, so
as to place his feet in their proper berth, and you
must keep them together, and draw the white shirt
well down over them.”

In another moment I was placed, as he described,
sustained in Planard’s arms, standing at the foot of the
coffin, and so lowered backward, gradually, till I lay
my length in it. Then the man, whom he called
Planard, stretched my arms by my sides, and care-
fully arranged the frills at my breast, and the folds of
the shroud, and after that, taking his stand at the
foot of the coffin, made a survey which seemed to
satisfy him.

The Count, who was very methodical, took my
clothes, which had just been removed, folded them
rapidly together and locked them up, as I afterwards
''346 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

heard, in one of the three presses which opened by
doors in the panel.

I now understood their frightful plan. This coffin
had been prepared for me, the funeral of St. Amand
was ashamto mislead inquiry; I had myself given
the order at Pere la Chaise, signed it, and paid the
fees for the interment of the fictitious Pierre de St.
Amand, whose place I was to take, to lie in his
coffin with his name on the plate above my breast,
and with a ton of clay packed down upon me; to
waken from this catalepsy, after I had been for hours
in the grave, there to perish by a death the most
horrible that imagination can conceive.

If, hereafter, by any caprice of curiosity or sus-
picion, the coffin should be exhumed, and the body
it enclosed examined, no chemistry could detect a
trace of poison, nor the most cautious examination
the slightest mark of violence.

I had myself been at the utmost pains to mystify
inquiry, should my disappearance excite surmises,
and had even written to my few correspondents in
England to tell them that they were not to look for
a letter from me for three weeks at least.

In the moment of my guilty elation death had
caught me, and there was no escape. I tried to pray
to God in my unearthly panic, but only thoughts of
terror, judgment, and eternal anguish, crossed the
distraction of my immediate doom.

I must not try to recall what is indeed indescri-
bable—the multiform horrors of my own thoughts.
I will relate, simply, what befell, every detail of which
remains sharp in my memory as if cut in steel.

“Theundertaker’s menarein thehall,”saidthe Count
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 347

“They must not come till this is fixed,” answered
Planard. “Be good enough to take hold of the
lower part while I take this end.” I was not left long
to conjecture what was coming, for in a few seconds
more something slid across,a few inches above my
face, and entirely excluded the light, and muffled
sound, so that nothing that was not very distinct
reached my ears henceforward; but very distinctly
came the working of a turnscrew, and the crunching
home of screws in succession. Than these vulgar
sounds, no doom spoken in thunder could have been
more tremendous.

The rest I must relate, not as it then reached my
ears, which was too imperfectly and interruptedly
to supply a connected narrative, but as it was after-
wards told me by other people.

The coffin-lid being screwed down, the two gen-
tlemen arranged the room, and adjusted the coffin so
that it lay perfectly straight along the boards, the
Count being specially anxious that there should be
no appearance of hurry or disorder in the room,
which might have suggested remark and conjecture.

When this was done, Doctor Planard said he
would go to the hall to summon the men who were
to carry the coffin out and place it in the hearse.
The Count pulled on his black gloves, and held his
white handkerchief in his hand, a very impressive
chief-mourner. He stood a little behind the head of
the coffin, awaiting the arrival of the persons who
accompanied Planard, and whose fast steps he soon
heard approaching.

Planard came first. He entered the room through
the apartment in which the coffin had been originally
''348 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

placed. His manner was changed; there was some-
thing of a swagger in it.

“ Monsieur le Comte,” he said, as he strode through
the door, followed by half-a-dozen persons. “I am
sorry to have to announce to you a most unseason-
able interruption. Here is Monsieur Carmaignac, a
gentleman holding an office in the police department,
who says that information to the effect that large
quantities of smuggled English and other goods
have been distributed in this neighbourhood, and that
a portion of them is concealed in your house. I
have ventured to assure him, of my own knowledge,
that nothing can be more false than that information,
and that you would be only too happy to throw open
for his inspection, at a moment’s notice, every room,
closet, and cupboard in your house.”

“Most assuredly,” exclaimed the Count, with a
stout voice, but a very white face. “Thank you, my
good friend, for having anticipated me. I will place
my house and keys at his disposal, for the purpose
of his scrutiny, so soon as he is good enough to
inform me of what specific contraband yoods he
comes in search.”

“The Count de St. Alyre will pardon me,”
answered Carmaignac, a little drily. “I am for-
bidden by my instructions to make that disclosure ;
and that I am instructed to make a general search,
this warrant will sufficiently apprise Monsieur le
Comte.”

“Monsieur Carmaignac, may I hope,” interposed
Planard, “that you will permit the Count de St.
Alyre to attend the funeral of his kinsman, who lies
here, as you see—” (he pointed to the plate upon the
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 349

coffin)—“and to convey whom to Pére la Chaise, a
hearse waits at this moment at the door.”

“That, I regret to say, I cannot permit. My
instructions are precise; but the delay, I trust, will
be but trifling. Monsieur le Comte will not suppose
for a moment that I suspect him; but we have a
duty to perform, and I must act as if I did. When
I am ordered to search, I search; things are some-
times hid in such dzzarre places. I can’t say, for
instance, what that coffin may contain.”

“The body of my kinsman, Monsieur Pierre de
St. Amand,” answered the Count, loftily,

“Oh! then you’ve seen him ?”

“Seen him? Often, too often?” The Count
was evidently a good deal moved.

“TI mean the body ?”

The Count stole a quick glance at Planard.

“N—no, Monsieur—that is, I mean only for a
moment.” Another quick glance at Planard.

“But quite lang enough, I fancy, to recognize
him?” insinuated that gentleman.

“Of course — of course; instantly — perfectly.
What! Pierre de St. Amand? Not know him at a
glance? No, no, poor fellow, I know him too well
for that.”

“The things I am in search of,’ said Monsieur
Carmaignac, “would fit in a narrow compass—ser-
vants are so ingenious sometimes. Let us raise the
lid.”

“Pardon me, Monsieur,” said the Count, peremp-
torily, advancing to the side of the coffin, and
extending his arm across it, “I cannot permit that
indignity—that desecration.”
''350 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“There shall be none, sir,—simply the raising of
the lid; you shall remain in the room. If it should
prove as we all hope, you shall have the pleasure of
one other look, really the last, upon your beloved
kinsman.”

* But, sir, can’t.”

“ But, Monsieur, I must.”

“But, besides, the thing, the turnscrew, broke
when the last screw was turned; and I give you my
sacred honour there is nothing but the body in this
coffin.”

“ Of course, Monsieur le Comte believes all that ;
but he does not know so well as I the legerdemain
in use among servants, who are accustomed to smug-
gling. Here, Philippe, you must take off the lid of
that coffin.”

The Count protested; but Philippe—a man with
a bald head, and a smirched face, looking like a
working blacksmith—placed on the floor a leather
bag of tools, from which, having looked at the coffin,
and picked with his nail at the screw-heads, he
selected a turnscrew, and, with a few deft twirls at
each of the screws, they stood up like little rows of
mushrooms, and the lid was raised. I saw the light,
of which I thought I had seen my last, once more ;
but the axis of vision remained fixed. As I was
reduced to the cataleptic state in a position nearly
perpendicular, I continued looking straight before
me, and thus my gaze was now fixed upon the
ceiling. I saw the face of Carmaignac leaning over
me with a curious frown. It seemed to me that
there was no recognition in his eyes. Oh, Heaven!
that I could have uttered were it but one cry! I saw
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 351

the dark, mean mask of the little Count staring down
at me from the other side ; the face of the pseudo-
Marquis also peering at me, but not so full in the
line of vision ; there were other faces also,

“T see, I see,” said Carmaignac, withdrawing.
“Nothing of the kind there.”

“You will be good enough to direct your man to
re-adjust the lid of the coffin, and to fix the screws,”
said the Count, taking courage; “and—and—really
the funeral must proceed. It is not fair to the people
who have but moderate fees for night-work, to keep
them hour after hour beyond the time.”

“Count de St. Alyre, you shall go in a very few
minutes. I will direct, just now, all about the coffin.”

The Count looked toward the door, and there saw
a gendarme; and two or three more grave and stal-
wart specimens of the same force were also in the
room. The Count was very uncomfortably excited ;
it was growing insupportable.

“As this gentleman makes a difficulty about my
attending the obsequies of my kinsman, I will ask
you, Planard, to accompany the funeral in my stead.”

“In a few minutes,” answered the incorrigible
Carmaignac. “I must first trouble you for the key
that opens that press.”

He pointed direct at the press, in which the
clothes had just been locked up.

“J—I have no objection,” said the Count—“ none,
of course ; only they have not been used for an age,
I’ll direct some one to look for the key.”

“If you have not got it about you, it is quite un-
necessary. Philippe, try your skeleton-keys with
that press. I want it opened. Whose clothes are
''352 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

these?” inquired Carmaignac, when, the press having
been opened, he took out the suit that had been
placed there scarcely two minutes since.

“T can’t say,” answered the Count. “I know
nothing of the contents of that press. A roguish
servant, named Lablais, whom I dismissed about a
year ago, had the key. I have not seen it open for
ten years or more. The clothes are probably his.”

“Here are visiting cards, see, and here a marked
pocket-handkerchief—‘ R. B” upon it. He must have
stolen them from a person named Beckett—R.
Beckett. ‘Mr. Beckett, Berkley Square, the card
says; and, my faith! here’s a watch and a bunch of
seals; one of them with the initials ‘R. B. upon it.
That servant, Lablais, must have been a consummate
rogue!”

“ So he was ; you are right, sir.”

“Tt strikes me that he possibly stole these clothes,”
continued Carmaignac, “from the man in the coffin,
who, in that case, would be Monsieur Beckett, and
not Monsieur de St. Amand. For, wonderful to
relate, Monsieur, the watch is still going! That man
in the coffin, I believe is not dead, but simply
drugged. And for having robbed and intended to
murder him, I arrest you, Nicolas de la Marque,
Count de St. Alyre.”

In another moment the old villain was a prisoner.
I heard his discordant voice break quaveringly into
sudden vehemence and volubility; now croaking—
now shrieking, as he oscillated between protests,
threats, and impious appeals to the God who will
“judge the secrets of men!” And thus lying and
raving, he was removed from the room, and placed
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 353

in the same coach with his beautiful and abandoned
accomplice, already arrested; and, with two gen-
darmes sitting beside them, they were immediately
driving at a rapid pace towards the Conciergerie.

There were now added to the general chorus two
voices, very different in quality; one was that of the
gasconading Colonel Gaillarde, who had with difficulty
been kept in the background up to this; the other
was that of my jolly friend Whistlewick, who had
come to identify me.

I shall tell you, just now, how this project against
my property and life, so ingenious and monstrous,
was exploded. I must first say a word about myself.
I was placed in a hot bath, under the direction of
Planard, as consummate a villain as any of the gang,
but now thoroughly in the interests of the prosecu-
tion. Thence I was laid in a warm bed, the window
of the room being open. These simple measures
restored me in about three hours ; I should otherwise,
probably, have continued under the spell for nearly
seven.

The practices of these nefarious conspirators had
been carried on with consummate skill and secrecy.
Their dupes were led, as I was, to be themselves
auxiliary to the mystery which made their own
destruction both safe and certain.

A. search was, of course, instituted. Graves were
opened in Pére la Chaise. The bodies exhumed had
lain there too long, and were too much decomposed
to be recognized. One only was identified. The
notice for the burial, in this particular case, had been
signed, the order given, and the fees paid, by Gabriel
Gaillarde, who was known to the official clerk, who

23
''354 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

. had to transact with him this little funereal business.
The very trick that had been arranged for me, had
been successfully practised in his case. The person
for whom the grave had been ordered, was purely
fictitious; and Gabriel Gaillarde himself filled the
coffin, on the cover of which that false name was
inscribed as well as upon a tomb-stone over the
grave. Possibly, the same honour, under my pseu-
donym, may have been intended for me.

The identification was curious. This Gabriel
Gaillarde had had a bad fall from a runaway horse,
about five years before his mysterious disappearance.
He had lost an eye and some teeth, in this accident,
besides sustaining a fracture of the right leg, imme-
diately above the ankle. He had kept the injuries to
his face as profound a secret as he could. The result
was, that the glass eye which had done duty for the
one he had lost, remained in the socket, slightly dis-
placed, of course, but recognizable by the “artist ”
who had supplied it.

More pointedly recognizable were the teeth, pecu-
liar in workmanship, which one of the ablest dentists
in Paris had himself adapted to the chasms, the
cast of which, owing to peculiarities in the accident,
he happened to have preserved. This cast precisely
fitted the gold plate found in the mouth of the skull.
The mark, also, above the ankle, in the bone, where
it had re-united, corresponded exactly with the place
where the fracture had knit in the limb of Gabriel
Gaillarde.

The Colonel, his younger brother, had been
furious about the disappearance of Gabriel, and still
more so about that of his money, which he had long
''THE DRAGON VOLANT. 355

regarded as his proper keepsake, whenever death
should remove his brother from the vexations of
living. He had suspected for a long time, for certain
adroitly discovered reasons, that the Count de St.
Alyre and the beautiful lady, his companion, countess,
or whatever else she was, had pigeoned him. To this
suspicion were added some others of a still darker
kind; but in their first shape, rather the exagger-
ated reflections of his fury, ready to believe anything,
than well-defined conjectures.

At length an accident had placed the Colonel
very nearly upon the right scent; a chance, possibly
lucky for himself, had apprised the scoundrel Planard
that the conspirators—himself among the number—
were in danger. The result was that he made terms
for himself, became an informer, and concerted with
the police this visit made to the Chateau de la
Carque, at the critical moment when every measure
had been completed that was necessary to construct
a perfect case against his guilty accomplices.

I need not describe the minute industry or fore-
thought with which the police agents collected all the
details necessary to support the case. They had brought
an able physician, who, even had Planard failed,
would have supplied the necessary medical evidence.

My trip to Paris, you will believe, had not turned
out quite so agreeably as I had anticipated. I was
the principal witness for the prosecution in this cause
célébre, with all the agrémens that attend that envi-
able position. Having had an escape, as my friend
Whistlewick said, “with a squeak” for my life, I
innocently fancied that I should have been an object
of considerable interest to Parisian society; but, a
''356 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

good deal to my mortification, I discovered that I
was the object of a good-natured but contemptuous
merriment. I was a balourd, a lenét, un dne, and
figured even in caricatures, I became a sort of
public character, a dignity,

“Unto which I was not born,”

and from which I fled as soon as I conveniently could,
without even paying my friend, the Marquis d’Har-
monville, a visit at his hospitable chAteau.

The Marquis escaped scot-free. His accomplice,
the Count, was executed. The fair Eugenie, under
extenuating circumstances—consisting, so far as I
could discover of her good looks—got off for six
years’ imprisonment.

Colonel Gaillarde recovered some of his brother’s
money, out of the not very affluent estate of the
Count and sot-disant Countess. This, and the
execution of the Count, put him in high good
humour. So far from insisting on a hostile meeting,
he shook me very graciously by the hand, told me
that he looked upon the wound on his head, in-
flicted by the knob of my stick, as having been
received in an honourable, though irregular duel, in
which he had no disadvantage or unfairness to com-
plain of.

I think I have only two additional details to
mention. The bricks discovered in the room with
the coffin, had been packed in it, in straw, to supply
the weight of a dead body, and to prevent the sus-
picions and contradictions that might have been
excited by the arrival of an empty coffin at the chateau.

Secondly, the Countess’s magnificent brilliants
were examined by a lapidary, and pronounced to be
''THE DRAGON VOLANT, 357

_worth about five pounds to a tragedy queen, who
happened to be in want of a suite of paste.

The Countess had figured some years before as
one of the cleverest actresses on the minor stage of
Paris, where she had been picked up by the Count,
and used as his principal accomplice.

She‘it was who, admirably disguised, had rifled
my papers in the carriage on my memorable night-
journey to Paris. She also had figured as the inter-
preting magician of the palanquin at the ball at
Versailles. So far as I was affected by that elaborate
mystification it was intended to re-animate my in-
terest, which, they feared, might flag in the beautiful
Countess. It had its design and action upon other
intended victims also; but of them there is, at present,
no need to speak. The introduction of a real corpse
—procured from a person who supplied the Parisian
anatomists—involved no real danger, while it height-
ened the mystery and kept the prophet alive in the
gossip of the town and in the thoughts of the noodles
with whom he had conferred.

I divided the remainder of the summer and
autumn between Switzerland and Italy.

As the well-worn. phrase goes, I was a sadder if
not a wiser man. A great deal of the horrible im-
pression left upon my mind was due, of course, to the
mere action of nerves and brain. But serious feelings
of another and deeper kind remained. My after life
was ultimately formed by the shock I had then
received. Those impressions led me— but not till
after many years—to happier though not less serious
thoughts; and I have deep reason to be thankful to
the all-merciful Ruler of events, for an early and
terrible lesson in the ways of sin,
''CARMILLA

on

PROLOGUE.

follows, Doctor Hesselius has written a rather
elaborate note, which he accompanies with a reference
to his Essay on the strange subject which the MS.
illuminates.

This mysterious subject he treats, in that Essay,
with his usual learning and acumen, and with remark-
able directness and condensation. It will form but
one volume of the series of that extraordinary man’s
collected papeis.

As I publish the case, in this volume, simply to
interest the “laity,” I shall forestal the intelligent
lady, who relates it, in nothing ; and, after due con-
sideration, I have determined, therefore, to abstain
from presenting any préczs of the learned Doctor's
reasoning, or extract from his statement on a subject
which he describes as “involving, not improbably,

| | PON a paper attached to the Narrative which
''CARMILLA. 359

some of the profoundest arcana of our dual existence,
and its intermediates.”

I was anxious, on discovering this paper, to re-
open the correspondence commenced by Doctor
Hesselius, so many years before, with a person so
clever and careful as his informant seems to have
been. Much to my regret, however, I found that she
had died in the interval.

She, probably, could have added little to the
Narrative which she communicates in the following
pages, with, so far as I can pronounce, such a
conscientious particularity.
''CHAPTER I.
AN EARLY FRIGHT.

IN Styria, we, though by no means magnificent
people, inhabit a castle, or schloss. A small income,

in that part of the world, goes a great way. Eight

or nine hundred a year does wonders. Scantily

oa enough ours would have .answered among wealthy
< m Peo le athome. My father is English, and I bear an
“ath name, although I never saw England. But
i *in this lonely and primitive place, where every-
_ ®o lg is so marvellously cheap, I really don’t see how
‘ e er so much more money would at all materially

idd to our comforts, or even luxuries.

My father was in the Austrian service, and retired
upon a pension and his patrimony, and purchased
this feudal residence, and the small estate on which it

» ___ stands, a bargain.

Nothing can be more picturesque or solitary. It
stands ‘on a slight eminence in a forest. The road,
very old and narrow, passes in front of its drawbridge,
never raised in my time, and its moat, stocked with

 
 
 
 

Ger
''CARMILLA. 361

perch, and sailed over by many swans, and floating
on its surface white fleets of water-lilies,

Over all this the schloss shows its many-windowed
front ; its towers, and its Gothic chapel.

The forest opens in an irregular and very
picturesque glade before its gate, and at the right
a steep Gothic bridge carries the road over a stream
that winds in deep shadow through the wood.

I have said that this is a very lonely place. Judge
whether I say truth. Looking from the hall door
towards the road, the forest in which our castle stands
extends fifteen miles to the right, and twelve to the
left. The nearest inhabited village is about seven of
your English miles to the left. The nearest inhabited
schloss of any historic associations, is that of old
General Spielsdorf, nearly twenty miles away to the
right.

I have said “the nearest zwhabited village,” because
there is, only three miles westward, that is to say in
the direction of General Spielsdorf’s schloss, a ruined
village, with its quaint little church, now roof in
the aisle of which are the mouldering tombs of § ¢
proud family of Karnstein, now extinct, who ols ia
owned the equally-desolate chateau which, in t
thick of the forest, overlooks the silent ruins of thy
town.

Respecting the cause of the desertion of this
striking and melancholy spot,.there is a legend which
I shall relate to you another time.

I must tell you now, how very small is the party
who constitute the inhabitants of our castle. I don’t
include servants, or those dependants who occupy
rooms in the buildings attached to the schloss,
''362 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

Listen, and wonder! My father, who is the kindest ~
man on earth, but growing old; and I, at the date
of my story, only nineteen. Eight years have passed
since then. I and my father constituted the family
at the schloss. My mother,a Styrian lady, died ix
my infancy, but I had a good-natured governess, who
had been with me from, I might almost say, my
infancy. I could not remember the time when her
fat, benignant face was not a familiar picture in my
memory. This was Madame Perrodon, a native of
Berne, whose care and good nature in part supplied
to me the loss of my mother, whom I do not even
remember, so early I lost her. She made a third at
our little dinner party. There was a fourth, Made-
moiselle De Lafontaine, a lady such as you term, I
believe, a “finishing governess.” She spoke French
and German, Madame Perrodon French and broken
English, to which my father and I added English,
which, partly to prevent its becoming a lost language
among us, and partly from patriotic motives, we
spoke every day. The consequence was a Babel, at
which strangers used to laugh, and which I shall
make no attempt to reproduce in this narrative.
And there were two or three young lady friends
besides, pretty nearly of my own age, who were
occasional visitors, for longer or shorter terms; and
these visit I sometimes returned.

These were our regular social resources; but of
course there were chance visits from “neighbours ” of
only five or six leagues’ distance. My life was, not-
withstanding, rather a solitary one, I can assure you.

My gouvernantes had just so much control over
me as you might conjecture such sage persons would
''CARMILLA. 363

have in the case of a rather spoiled girl, whose only
parent allowed her pretty nearly her own way in
everything.

The first occurrence in my existence, which pro-
duced a terrible impression upon my mind, which, in
fact, never has been effaced, was one of the very
earliest incidents of my life which I can recollect.
Some people will think it so trifling that it should not
be recorded here. You will see, however, by-and-by,
why I mention it. The nursery, as it was called,
though I had it all to myself, was a large room in the
upper story of the castle, with a steep oak roof. I
can’t have been more than six years old, when one
night I awoke, and looking round the room from my
bed, failed to see the nursery-maid. Neither was my
nurse there ; and I thought myself alone. I was not
frightened, for I was one of those happy children
who are studiously kept in ignorance of ghost stories,’
of fairy tales, and of all such lore as makes us cover
up our heads when the door creaks suddenly, or the

flicker of an expiring candle makes the shadow of a
_ bed-post dance upon the wall, nearer to our faces, I
was vexed and insulted at finding myself, as I con-
ceived, neglected, and I began to whimper, prepara-
tory to a hearty bout of roaring; when to my
surprise, I saw a solemn, but very pretty face looking
at me from the side of the bed. It was that of a
young lady who was kneeling, with her hands under
the coverlet. I looked at her with a kind of pleased
wonder, and ceased whimpering. She caressed me
with her hands, and lay down beside me on the bed,
and drew me towards her, smiling ; I felt immediately
delightfully soothed, and fell asleep again. I was
''364 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

wakened by a sensation as if two needles ran into my
breast very deep at the same moment, and I cried
loudly. The lady started back, with her eyes fixed
on me, and then slipped down upon the floor, and, as
I thought, hid herself under the bed.

I was now for the first time frightened, and I
yelled with all my might and main. Nurse, nursery-
maid, housekeeper, all came running in, and hearing
my story, they made light of it, soothing me all they
could meanwhile. But, child as I was, I could
perceive that their faces were pale with an unwonted
look of anxiety, and I saw them look under the bed,
and about the room, and peep under tables and pluck
open cupboards; and the housekeeper whispered to
the nurse: “ Lay your hand along that hollow in the
bed ; some one @d lie there, so sure as you did not;
the place is still warm.”

I remember the nursery-maid petting me, and all
three examining my chest, where I told them I felt
the puncture, and pronouncing that there was
no sign visible that any such thing had happened
to me.

The housekeeper and the two other servants who
were in charge of the nursery, remained sitting up all
night; and from that time a servant always sat up
in the nursery until I was about fourteen.

I was very nervous for a long time after this. A
doctor was called in, he was pallid andelderly. How
well I remember his long saturnine face, slightly
pitted with small-pox, and his chestnut wig. For a
good while, every second day, he came and gave me
medicine, which of course I hated.

The morning after I saw this apparition I was in
''CARMILLA. 365

a state of terror, and could not bear to be left alone, -
daylight though it was, for a moment.

I remember my father coming up and standing at
the bedside, and talking cheerfully, and asking the
nurse a number of questions, and laughing very
heartily at one of the answers; and patting me on
the shoulder, and kissing me, and telling me not to
be frightened, that it was nothing but a dream and
could not hurt me.

But I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of
the strange woman was zot a dream; and I was
awfully frightened.

I was a little consoled by the nursery-maid’s
assuring me that it was she who had come and looked
at me, and lain down beside me in the bed, and that
I must have been half-dreaming not to have known
her face. But this, though supported by the nurse,
did not quite satisfy me.

I remember, in the course of that day, a venerable
old man, in a black cassock, coming into the room
with the nurse and housekeeper, and talking a little
to them, and very kindly to me; his face was very
sweet and gentle, and he told me they were going to
pray, and joined my hands together, and desired me
to say, softly, while they were praying, “Lord, hear
all good prayers for us, for Jesus’ sake.” I think
these were the very words, for I often repeated them
to myself, and my nurse used for years to make me
say them in my prayers.

I remember so well the thoughtful sweet face of
that white-haired old man, in his black cassock, as he
stood in that rude, lofty, brown room, with the clumsy
furniture.of a fashion three hundred years old, about
''366 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

him, and the scanty light entering its shadowy
atmosphere through the small lattice. He kneeled,
and the three women with him, and he prayéd aloud
with an earnest quavering voice for, what appeared to
me, along time. I forget all my life preceding that
event, and for some time after it is all obscure also;
but the scenes I have just described stand out vivid
as the isolated pictures of the phantasmagoria sur-
rounded by darkness,
''CHAPTER ITI.
A GUEST.

I AM now going to tell you something so strange
that it will require all your faith in my veracity to
‘believe my story. It is not only true, nevertheless, -
but truth of which I have been an eye-witness.

It was a sweet summer evening, and my father
asked me, as he sometimes did, to take a little ramble
with him along that beautiful forest vista which I
have mentioned as lying in front of the schloss,

“General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon
as I had hoped,” said my father, as we pursued our
walk.

He was to have paid us a visit of some weeks,
and we had expected his arrival next day. He was
to have brought with him a young lady, his niece
and ward, Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt, whom I had
never seen, but whom I had heard described as a
very charming girl, and in whose society I had
promised myself many happy days. I was more
disappointed than a young lady living in a town, or
a bustling neighbourhood can possibly imagine.
''368 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

This visit, and the new acquaintance it promised,
had furnished my day dream for many weeks.

“ And how soon does he come ?” I asked.

“Not till autumn. Not for two months, I dare
say,’ he answered. “And I am very glad now, dear,
that you never knew Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt.”

“ And why ?” I asked, both mortified and curious.

“ Because the poor young lady is dead,” he replied.
“T quite forgot I had not told you, but you were not
in the room when I received the General’s letter this
evening.”

I was very much shocked. General Spielsdorf
had mentioned in his first letter, six or seven weeks
before, that she was not so well as he would wish her,
but there was nothing to suggest the remotest
suspicion of danger.

“ Here is the General’s letter,” he said, handing it
tome. “I am afraid he is in great affliction; the
letter appears to me to have been written very nearly
in distraction.”

We sat down on a rude bench, under a group of
magnificent lime trees. The sun was setting with
all its melancholy splendour behind the sylvan _hori-
zon, and the stream that flows beside our home, and
passes under the steep old bridge I have mentioned,
wound through many a group of noble trees, almost
at our feet, reflecting in its current the fading crimson
of the sky. General Spieldorf’s letter was so extra-
ordinary, so vehement, and in some places so self-
contradictory, that I read it twice over—the second
time aloud to my father — and was still unable to
account for it, except by supposing that grief had
unsettled his mind.
''CARMILLA. 369

It said, “I have lost my darling daughter, for as
such I loved her. During the last days of dear Bertha’s
illness I was not able to write to you. Before then I
had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and now
learn al/, too late. She died in the peace of inno- >.
cence, and in the glorious hope of a blessed futurity.
The fiend who betrayed our infatuated hospitality
has done it all. I thought I was receiving into my
house innocence, gaiety, a charming companion for
my lost Bertha. Heavens! what a fool have I been!
I thank God my child died without a suspicion of the
cause of her sufferings. She is gone without so much
as conjecturing the nature of her illness, and the
accursed passion of the agent of all this misery. I
devote my remaining days to tracking and extin-
guishing a monster. I am told I may hope to
accomplish my righteous and merciful purpose. At
present there is scarcely a gleam of light to guide
me. I curse my conceited incredulity, my despicable
affectation of superiority, my blindness, my obstinacy
—all—too late. I cannot write or talk collectedly
now. I am distracted. So soon as I shall havea
little recovered, I mean to devote myself for a time
to enquiry, which may possibly lead me as far as
Vienna. Some time in the autumn, two months
hence, or earlier ,if I live, I will see you—that is, if
you permit me; I will then tell you all that I scarce
dare put upon paper now. Farewell. Pray for me,
dear friend.”

In these terms ended this strange letter. Though
I had never seen Bertha Rheinfeldt, my eyes filled
with tears at the sudden intelligence ; I was startled,
as well as profoundly disappointed.

24
''370 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the
time I had returned the General’s letter to my father.

It was a soft clear evening, and we loitered, specu-
lating upon the possible meanings of the violent and
incoherent sentences which I had just been reading.
We had nearly a mile to walk before reaching the
road that passes the schloss in front, and by that time
the moon was shining brilliantly. At the drawbridge
we met Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De
Lafontaine, who had come out, without their bonnets,
to enjoy the exquisite moonlight.

We heard their voices gabbling in animated
dialogue as we approached. We joined them at the
drawbridge, and turned about to admire with them
the beautiful scene.

The glade through which we had just walked lay
before us. At our left the narrow road wound away
under clumps of lordly trees, and was lost to sight
amid the thickening forest. At the right the same
road cresses the steep and picturesque bridge, near
which stands a ruined tower, which once guarded that
pass; and beyond the bridge an abrupt eminence
rises, covered with trees, and showing in the shadow
some grey .ivy-clustered rocks.

Over the sward and low grounds, a thin film of
mist was stealing, like smoke, marking the distances
with a transparent veil; and here and there we could
see the river faintly flashing in the moonlight.

No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined. The
news I had just heard made it melancholy; but
nothing could disturb its character of profound
- serenity, and the enchanted glory and vagueness of
the prospect.
''CARMILLA. 371°

My father, who enjoyed the picturesque, and I,
stood looking in silence over the expanse beneath us.
The two good governesses, standing a little way be-
hind us, discoursed upon the scene, and were eloquent
upon the moon.

Madame Perrodon was fat, middle-aged, and
romantic, and talked and sighed poetically. Made-
moiselle De Lafontaine—in right of her father, who
was a German, assumed to be psychological, meta-
physical, and something of a mystic—now declared
that when the moon shone with a light so intense it
was well known that it indicated a special spiritual
activity. The effect of the full moon in such a state
of brilliancy was manifold. It acted on dreams, it
acted’on lunacy, it acted on nervous people ; it had
marvellous physical influences connected with life.
Mademoiselle related that her cousin, who.was mate
of a merchant ship, having taken a nap on deck on
such a night, lying on his back, with his face full in
the light of the moon, had wakened, after a dream of
an old woman clawing him by the cheek, with his
features horribly drawn to one side; and his counte-
nance had never quite recovered its equilibrium.

“The moon, this night,” she said, “is full of odylic
and magnetic influence— and see, when you look
behind you at the front of the schloss, how all its
windows flash and twinkle with that silvery splendour,
as if unseen hands had lighted up the rooms to
receive fairy guests,”

There are indolent states of the spirits in which,
indisposed to talk ourselves, the talk of others is
pleasant to our listless ears ; and I gazed on, pleased
with the tinkle of the ladies’ conversation.
''372 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“I have got into one of my moping moods to-
night,” said my father, after a silence, and quoting
Shakespeare, whom, by way of keeping up our
English, he used to read aloud, he said :—

“Tn truth I know not why I am so sad:
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I got it—came by it.’

“TI forget the rest. But I feel as if some great
misfortune were hanging over us. I suppose the poor
General’s afflicted letter has had something to do
with it.”

At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage
wheels and many hoofs upon the road, arrested our
attention.

They seemed to be approaching from the high
ground overlooking the bridge, and very soon the
equipage emerged from that point. Two horsemen
first crossed the bridge, then ‘came a carriage drawn
by four horses, and two men rode behind.

It seemed to be the travelling carriage of a person
of rank; and we were all immediately absorbed in
watching that very unusual spectacle. It became, in
a few moments, greatly more interesting, for just as
the carriage had passed the summit of the steep
bridge, one of the leaders, taking fright, communi-
cated his panic to the rest, and, after a plunge or
two, the whole team broke into a wild gallop together,
and dashing between the horsemen who rode in
front, came thundering along the road towards ug
with the speed of a hurricane.

The excitement of the scene was made more
''CARMILLA. 373

painful by the clear, long-drawn screams of a female
voice from the carriage window.

We all advanced in curiosity and horror; my
father in silence, the rest with various ejaculations of
terror.

Our suspense did not last long. Just before you
reach the castle drawbridge, on the route they were
coming, there stands by the roadside a magnificent
lime tree, on the other stands an ancient stone cross,
at sight of which the horses, now going at a pace
that was perfectly frightful, swerved so as to bring the ©
wheel over the projecting roots of the tree.

I knew what was coming. I covered my eyes,
unable to see it out, and turned my head away; at
the same moment I heard a cry from my lady-friends,
who had gone on a little.

Curiosity opened my eyes, and I sawa scene of
utter confusion. Two of the horses were on the
ground, the carriage lay upon its side, with two
wheels in the air; the men were busy removing the
traces, and a lady, with a commanding air and figure
had got out, and stood with clasped hands, raising the
handkerchief that was in them every now and then
to her eyes. Through the carriage door was now
lifted a young lady, who appeared to be lifeless. My
dear old father was already beside the elder lady,
with his hat in his hand, evidently tendering his aid
and the resources of his schloss. The lady did not
appear to hear him, or to have eyes for anything but
the slender girl who was being placed against the
slope of the bank.

I approached; the young lady was apparently
stunned, but she was certainly not dead. My

aR
''374 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

father, who piqued himself on being something of a
physician, had just had his fingers to her wrist and
assured the lady, who declared herself her mother,
that her pulse, though faint and irregular, was un-
doubtedly still distinguishable. The lady clasped her
hands and looked upward, as if in a momentary
transport of gratitude; but immediately she broke
out again in that theatrical way which is, I believe,
natural to some people.

She was what is called a fine-looking woman for
her time of life, and must have been handsome; she
was tall, but not thin, and dressed in black velvet, and
looked rather pale, but with a proud and command-
ing countenance, though now agitated strangely.

“Was ever being so born to calamity?” I heard
her say, with clasped hands,as Icameup. “ Here am
I, on a journey of life and death, in prosecuting
which to lose an hour is possibly to lose all. My
child will not have recovered sufficiently to resume
her route for who can say how long. I must leave
her; I cannot, dare not, delay. How far on, sir, can
you tell, is the nearest village? I must leave her
there; and shall not see my darling, or even hear of
her till my return, three months hence.”

I plucked my father by the coat, and whispered
earnestly in his ear, “Ob! papa, pray ask her to let
her stay with us—it would be so delightful. Do,
pray.”

“If Madame will entrust her child to the care of
my daughter, and of her good gouvernante, Madame
Perrodon, and permit her to remain as our guest,
- under my charge, until her return, it will confer a
distinction and an obligation upon us, and we shall

&
''CARMILLA. 375

treat her with all the care and devotion which so
sacred a trust deserves.”

“T cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your
kindness and chivalry too cruelly,’ said the lady,
distractedly.

“It would, on the contrary, be to confer on usa
very great kindness at the moment when we most
need it. My daughter has just been disappointed by
a cruel misfortune, in a visit from which she had long
anticipated a great deal of happiness. If you confide
this young lady to our care it will be her best conso-
lation. The nearest village on your route is distant,
and affords no such inn as you could think of placing
your daughter at; you cannot allow her to continue
her journey for any considerable distance without
danger. If, as you say, you cannot suspend your
journey, you must part with her to-night, and no-
where could you do so with more honest assurances
of care and tenderness than here.”

There was something in this lady’s air and
appearance so distinguished, and even imposing, and
in her manner so engaging, as to impress one, quite
apart from the dignity of her equipage, with a con-
viction that she was a person of consequence.

By this time the carriage was replaced in its
upright position, and the horses, quite tractable, in
the traces again. oa

The lady threw on her daughter a glance which I
fancied was not quite so affectionate as one might
have anticipated from the beginning of the scene ;/
then she beckoned slightly to my father, and with-
drew two or three steps with him out of hearing ;
and talked to him with a fixed and stern countenance,
''376 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

not at all like that with which she had hitherto
spoken.

I was filled with wonder that my father did not
seem to perceive the change, and also unspeakably
curious to learn what it could be that she was
speaking, almost in his ear, with so much earnest-
ness and rapidity.

Two or three minutes at most, I think, she re-
mained thus employed, then she turned, and a few
steps brought her to where her daughter lay, sup-
ported by Madame Perrodon. She kneeled beside
her for a moment and whispered, as Madame sup-
posed, a little benediction in her ear; then hastily
kissing her, she stepped into her carriage, the door
was closed, the footmen in stately liveries jumped up
behind, the outriders spurred on, the postilions
cracked their whips, the horses plunged and broke
suddenly into a furious canter that threatened soon
again to become a gallop, and the carriage whirled
away, followed at the same rapid pace by the twe
horsemen in the rear,
''CHAPTER III.
WE COMPARE NOTES.

WE followed the cortége with our eyes until it was
swiftly lost to sight in the misty wood ; and the-very
sound of the hoofs and wheels died away in the silent
night air.

Nothing remained to assure us that the adventure
had not been an illusion of a moment but the young
lady, who just at that moment opened her eyes. I
could not see, for her face was turned from me, but
she raised her head, evidently looking about her, and
I heard a very sweet voice ask complainingly, “ Where
is mamma ?”

Our good Madame Perrodon answered tenderly,
and added some comfortable assurances,

I then heard her ask :

“Where am I? What is this place?” and after
that she said, “I don’t see the carriage; and Matska,
where is she?” :

Madame answered all her questions in so far as
she understood them; and gradually the young lady
remembered how the misadventure came about, and
''378 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

was glad to hear that no one in, or in attendance on,
the carriage was hurt; and on learning that her
mamma had left her here, till her return in about
three months, she wept.

I was going to add my consolations to those of
Madame Perrodon when Mademoiselle de Lafon-
taine placed her hand upon my arm, saying:

“Don’t approach, one at a time is as much as she
can at present converse with ; a very little excitement
would possibly overpower her now.”

As soon as she is comfortably in bed, I thought, I
will run up to her room and see her.

My father in the meantime had sent a servant on ~
horseback for the physician, who lived about two
leagues away; and a bedroom was being prepared
for the young lady’s reception.

The stranger now rose, and leaning on Madame’s
arm, walked slowly over the drawbridge and into the
castle gate.

In the hall, servants waited to receive her, and she
was conducted forthwith to her room.

The room we usually sat in as our drawing-room
is long, having four windows, that looked over the
moat and drawbridge, upon the forest scene I have
just described.

It is furnished in old carved oak, with large carved
cabinets, and the chairs are cushioned with crimson
Utrecht velvet. The walls are covered with tapestry,
and surrounded with great gold frames, the figures
being as large as life, in ancient and very curious
costume, and the subjects represented are hunting,
hawking, and generally festive. It is not too stately
to be extremely comfortable; and here we had our
''CARMILLA. 379

tea, for with his usual patriotic leanings he insisted
that the national beverage should make its appearance
regularly with our coffee and chocolate.

We sat here this night, and with candles lighted,
were talking over the adventure of the evening.

Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafon-
taine were both of our party. The young stranger
had hardly lain down in her bed when she sank into
a deep sleep; and those ladies had left her in the
care of a servant.

“ How do you like our guest?” I asked, as soon
as Madame entered. “Tell me all about her?”

“T like her extremely,’ answered Madame, “she
is, 1 almost think, the prettiest creature I ever saw;
about your age, and so gentle and nice.”

“She is absolutely beautiful,” threw in Made-
moiselle, who had peeped for a moment into the
stranger’s room.

“And such a sweet voice!” added Madame
Perrodon.

“Did you remark a woman in the carriage, after
it was set up again, who did not get out,” inquired
Mademoiselle, “ but only looked from the window?”

No, we had not seen her.

Then she described a hideous black woman, with
a sort of coloured turban on her head, who was
gazing all the time from the carriage window, nodding
and grinning derisively towards the ladies, with
gleaming eyes and large white eye-balls, and her
teeth set as if in fury.

“Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of
men the servants were?” asked Madame.

“Yes,” said my father, who had just come in,
''380 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“ugly, hang-dog looking fellows, as ever I beheld in
my life. I hope they mayn’t rob the poor lady in the
forest. They are clever rogues, however; they got
everything to rights in a minute.”

“TI dare say they are worn out with too long
travelling,” said Madame. “Besides looking wicked,
their faces were so strangely lean, and dark, and
sullen. I am very curious, I own; but I dare say
the young lady will tell us all about it to-morrow, if
she is sufficiently recovered.”

“JT don’t think she will,” said my father, with a
mysterious smile, and a little nod of his head, as if he
knew more about it than he cared to tell us.

This made me all the more inquisitive as to what
had passed between him and the lady in the black
velvet, in the brief but earnest interview that had
immediately preceded her departure.

We were scarcely alone, when I entreated him to
tell me. He didnot need much pressing.

“There is no particular reason why I should not
tell you. She expressed a reluctance to trouble us
with the care of her daughter, saying she was in
delicate health, and nervous, but not subject to any
kind of seizure—she volunteered that—nor to any
illusion ; being, in fact, perfectly sane.”

“ How very odd to say all that!” I interpolated.
“Tt was so unnecessary.”

“ At all events it was said,” he laughed, “and as
you wish to know all that passed, which was indeed
very little, I tell you. She then said, ‘I am making
a long journey of vzta/ importance’—she emphasized
the word—‘rapid and secret ; I shall return for my
child in three months ; in the meantime, she will be
''CARMILLA. 381

silent as to who we are, whence wecome, and whither
we are travelling.’ That is all she said. She spoke
very pure French. When she said the word ‘secret,’
she paused for a few seconds, looking sternly, her
eyes fixed-on mine. I fancy she makes a great point
of that. You saw how quickly shewas gone. I hope
I have not done a very foolish thing, in taking charge
of the young lady.”

For my part, I was delighted. I was longing to
see and talk to her; and only waiting till the doctor
should give me leave. You, who live in towns, can
have no idea how great an event the introduction of
a new friend is, in such a solitude as surrounded us,

The doctor did not arrive till nearly one o'clock;
but I could no more have gone to my bed and slept,
than I could have overtaken, on foot, the carriage in
which the princess in black velvet had driven away.

When the physician came down to the drawing-
room, it was to report very favourably upon his
patient. She was now sitting up, her pulse quite
regular, apparently perfectly well. She had sustained
no injury, and the little shock to her nerves had
passed away quite harmlessly. There could be no
harm certainly in my seeing her, if we both wished it ;
and, with this permission, I sent, forthwith, to know
whether she would allow me to visit her for a few
minutes in her room.

The servant returned immediately to say that she
desired nothing more.

You may be sure I was not long in availing myself
of this permission,

_ Our visitor lay in one of the handsomest rooms
in the schloss, It was, perhaps a little stately. There
''382 IN A GLASS DARKLY. r

was a sombre piece of tapestry opposite the foot of
the bed, representing Cleopatra with the asps to her
bosom; and other solemn classic scenes were dis-
played, a little faded, upon the other walls. But
there was gold carving, and rich and varied colour
enough in the other decorations of the room, to. more
than redeem the gloom of the old tapestry.

There were candles at the bed side. She was
sitting up; her slender pretty figure enveloped in the
soft silk dressing-gown, embroidered with flowers,
and lined with thick quilted silk, which her mother
had thrown over her feet as she lay upon the ground.

What was it that, as I reached the bed side and
had just begun my little greeting, struck me dumb
in a moment, and made me recoil a step or two from
before her? I will tell you.

I saw the very face which had visited me in my
childhood at night, which remained so fixed in my
memory, and on which I had for so many years so
often ruminated with horror, when no one suspected
of what I was thinking.

It was pretty, even beautiful ; and when I first
beheld it, wore the same melancholy expression.

But this almost instantly lighted into a strange
fixed smile of recognition.

There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at
length she spoke ; / could not.

“How wonderful!” she exclaimed. “ Twelve
years ago, I saw your face in a dream, and it has
haunted me ever since.”

“ Wonderful indeed !” I repeated, overcoming with
an effort the horror that had for a time suspended my
utterances, “Twelve years ago, in vision or reality, /
''CARMILLA., 383

certainly saw you. I could not forget your face. It
has remained before my eyes ever since.”

Her smile had softened. Whatever I had fancied
strange in it, was gone, and it and her dimpling
cheeks were now delightfully pretty and intelligent.

I felt reassured, and continued more in the vein
which hospitality indicated, to bid her welcome, and
to tell her how much pleasure her accidental arrival
had given us all, and especially what a happiness it
was to me,

I took her hand asI spoke. I was a little shy,
as lonely people are, but the situation made me
eloquent, and even bold. She pressed my hand, she
laid hers upon it, and her eyes glowed, as, looking
hastily into mine, she smiled again, and blushed.

She answered my welcome very prettily. I sat
down beside her, still wondering ; and she said :

“T must tell you my vision about you; it is so
very strange that you and I should have had, each of
the other so vivid a dream, that each should have
seen, I you and you me, looking as we do now, when
of course we both were mere children. I was a child,
about six years old, and I awoke from a confused
and troubled dream, and found myself in a room,
unlike my nursery, wainscoted clumsily in some dark
wood, and with cupboards and bedsteads, and chairs,
and benches placed about it. The beds were, I
thought, all empty, and the room itself without any
one but myself in it ; and I, after looking about me
for some time, and admiring especially an iron
candlestick, with two branches, which 1 should cer-
tainly know again, crept under one of the beds to
reach the window; but as I got from under the bed,
''384 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

I heard some one crying ; and looking up, while I was
still upon my knees, I saw you—most assuredly you
—as I see you now; a beautiful young lady, with
golden hair and large blue eyes, and lips—your lips—
you, as you are here. Your looks won me; I climbed
on the bed and put my arms about you, and I think
we both fell asleep. I was aroused bya scream; you
were sitting up screaming. I was frightened, and
slipped down upon the ground, and, it seemed to me,
lost consciousness for a moment; and when I came to
myself, I was again in my nursery at home. Your
face I have never forgotten since. I could not be
misled by mere resemblance. You ave the lady whom
I then saw.”

It was now my turn to relate my corresponding
vision, which I did, to the undisguised wonder of my
new acquaintance.

“T don’t know which should be most afraid of
the other,’ she said, again smiling. “If you were
less pretty I think I should be very much afraid of
you, but being as you are, and you and I both so
young, I feel only that I have made your acquaint-
ance twelve years ago, and have already a right to
your intimacy ; at all events, it does seem as if we
were destined, from our earliest childhood, to be
friends. I wonder whether you feel as strangely
drawn towards me as I do to you; I have never had
a friend—shall I find one now?” She sighed, and
her fine dark eyes gazed passionately on me. :

Now the truth is, I felt rather unaccountably
towards the beautiful stranger. I did feel, as she
said, “drawn towards her,” but there was also some-
thing of repulsion. In this ambiguous feeling,
''CARMILLA. 385

however, the sense of attraction immensely prevailed
She interested and won me; she was so beautiful
and so indescribably engaging.

I perceived now something of languor and ex-
haustion stealing over her, and hastened to bid her
good-night.

“The doctor thinks,” I added, “that you ought
to have a maid to sit up with you to-night; one of
ours is waiting, and you will find her a very useful
and quiet creature.”

“ How kind of you, but I could not sleep, I never
could with an attendant in the room. I shan’t require |
any assistance—and, shall I confess my weakness, I
am haunted with a terror of robbers, Our house
was robbed once, and two servants murdered, so I
always lock my door. It has become a habit—and
you look so kind I know you will forgive me. I see
there is a key in the lock.”

She held me close in her pretty arms for a
moment and whispered in my ear, “Good-night,
darling, it is very hard to part with you, but good-
night; to-morrow, but not early, I shall see you
again.”

She sank back on the pillow with a sigh, and her
fine eyes followed me with a fond and melancholy
gaze, and she murmured again “Good-night, dear
friend.”

Young people like, and even love, on impulse. I
was flattered by the evident, though as yet un-
deserved, fondness she showed me. I liked the
confidence with which she at once received me. She
was determined that we should be very dear friends.

Next day came and we met again. I was de-

25
''386 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

_ lighted with my companion; that is to say, in many
respects.

Her looks lost nothing in daylight— she was
certainly the most beautiful creature I had ever seen,
and the unpleasant remembrance of the face pre-
sented in my early dream, had lost the effect of the
first unexpected recognition.

She confessed that she had experienced a similar
shock on seeing me, and precisely the same faint
antipathy that had mingled with my admiration of
her. We now laughed together over our momentary
horrors.
''CHAPTER IV.
HER HABITS—A SAUNTER.

I TOLD you that I was charmed with her in most
particulars,

There were some that did not please me so well.

She was above the middle height of women. I
shall begin by describing her. She was slender, and
wonderfully graceful. Except that her movements
were languid — very languid — indeed, there was
nothing in her appearance to indicate an invalid.
Her complexion was rich and brilliant; her features
“were small and beautifully formed; her eyes large,
dark, and lustrous ; her hair was quite wonderful, I
never saw hair so magnificently thick and long when
it was down about her shoulders ; I have often placed
my hands under it, and laughed with wonder at its
weight. It was exquisitely fine and soft, and in
colour a rich very dark brown, with something of
gold. I loved to let it down, tumbling with its own
weight, as, in her room, she lay back in her chair
talking in her sweet low voice, I used to fold and
''388 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

braid it, and spread it out and play with it. Heavens!
If I had but known all!

I said there were particulars which did not please
me. I have told you that her confidence won me
the first night “I saw her; but I found that she
exercised with respect to herself, her mother, her
history, everything in fact connected with her life,
plans, and people, an ever-wakeful reserve. I dare
_ say I was unreasonable, perhaps I was wrong; I dare

say I ought to have respected the solemn injunction
laid upon my father by the stately lady in black
velvet. But curiosity is a restless and unscrupulous
passion, and no one girl can endure, with patience,
that her’s should be baffled by another. What harm
could it do anyone to tell me what I so ardently
desired to know? Had she no trust in my good
sense or honour? Why would she not believe me
when I assured her, so solemnly, that I would not
divulge one syllable of what she told me to any
mortal breathing.

There was a coldness, it seemed to me, beyond
her years, in her smiling melancholy persistent refusal
to afford me the least ray of light.

I cannot say we quarrelled upon this point, for -
she would not quarrel upon any, It was, of course,
very unfair of me to press her, very ill-bred, but I
really could not help it; and I might just as well
have let it alone.

What she did tell me amounted, in my uncon-
scionable estimation—to nothing.

It was all summed up in three very vague dis-
closures : ©

First—Her name was Carmilla.
''CARMILLA., 389

Second.—Her family was very ancient and noble.

Third.— Her home lay in the direction of the
west. ten
She would not tell me the name of her family,
nor their armorial bearings, nor the name of their
estate, nor even that of the country they lived in.

You are not to suppose that I worried her in-
cessantly on these subjects. I watched opportunity,
and rather insinuated than urged my inquiries. Once
or twice, indeed, I did attack her more directly. But
no matter what my tactics, utter failure was in-
variably the result. Reproaches and caresses were
all lost upon her. But I must add this, that her
evasion was conducted with so pretty a melancholy
and deprecation, with so many, and even passionate
declarations of her liking for me, and trust in my
honour, and with so. many promises that I should at
last know all, that I could not find it in my heart
long to be offended with her. ‘

She used to place her pretty arms about my
neck, draw me to her, and laying her cheek to mine,
murmur with her lips near my ear, “ Dearest, your
little heart is wounded ; think me not cruel because
I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weak-
ness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart
bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous
humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall
die—die, sweetly die—into mine. I cannot help it ;
as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw
near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty,
which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no
more of me and mine, but trust me with all your
loving spirit.”

: te
''390 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she
would press me more closely in her trembling em-
brace, and her lips in soft ‘kisses gently glow upon
my cheek,

Her agitations and her language were unintel-
ligible to me.

From these foolish embraces, which were not of
very frequent occurrence, I must allow, I used to
wish to ¢xtricate myself; but my energies seemed to
failme. Her murmured words sounded like a lullaby
in my ear, and soothed my resistance into a trance,
from which I only seemed to recover myself when
she withdrew her arms,

In these mysterious moods I did not like her. I
experienced a strange tumultuous excitement that
was pleasurable, ever and anon, mingled with a
vague sense of fear and disgust. I had no distinct
thoughts about her while such scenes lasted, but I
was conscious of a love growing into adoration, and
also of abhorrence. This I know is paradox, but I.
can make no other attempt to explain the feeling.

I now write, after an interval of more than ten years,
with a trembling hand, with a confused and horrible
recollection of certain occurrences and situations, in the
ordeal through which I was unconsciously passing ;
though with a vivid and very sharp remembrance of
the main current of my story. But, I suspect, in all
lives there are certain emotional scenes, those in
which our passions have been most wildly and
terribly roused, that are of all others the most
vaguely and dimly remembered. :

Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange
and beautiful companion would take my hand and
''CARMILLA. 391

hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and
again; blushing softly, gazing in my face with lan-
guid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that
her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respira-
tion. It was like the ardour of a lover; it embarrassed
me; it was hateful and yet overpowering ; and with
gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips
travelled along my cheek in kisses ; and she would
_whisper, almost in sobs, “You are mine, you shall
be mine, and you and I are one for ever.” Then
she has thrown herself back in her chair, with her
small hands over her eyes, leaving me trembling.

“Are we related,” I used to ask; “what can you
mean by all this? I remind you perhaps of some
one whom you love; but you must not, I hate it; I
don’t know you —I don’t know myself when you
look so and talk so.”

She used to sigh at my vehemence, then turn
away and drop my hand.

Respecting these very extraordinary manifesta-
tions I strove in vain to form any satisfactory theory
--I could not refer them to affectation or trick. It
was unmistakably the momentary breaking out of
suppressed instinct and emotion. Was she, notwith-
standing her mother’s volunteered denial, subject to
brief visitations of insanity ; or was there here a
disguise and a romance? I had read in old story
books of such things. What if a boyish lover had
found his way into the house, and sought to pro-
secute his suit in masquerade, with the assistance of
a clever old adventuress. Butthere were many things
against this hypothesis, highly interesting as it wa3
to my vanity.
''302 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

I could boast of no little attentions such as
masculine gallantry delights to offer. Between these
passionate moments there were long intervals of
common-place, of gaiety, of brooding melancholy,
during which, except that I detected her eyes so full
of melancholy fire, following me, at times I might
have been as nothing to her. Except in these brief
periods of mysterious excitement her ways were
girlish; and there was always a languor about her,
quite incompatible with a masculine system in a state
of health

In some respects her habits were odd. Perhaps
not so singular in the opinion of a town lady like you,
as they appeared to us rustic people. She used to
come down very late, generally not till one o’clock,
she would then take a cup of chocolate, but eat
nothing; we then went out for a walk, which was a
mere saunter, and she seemed, almost immediately,
exhausted, and either returned to the schloss or sat
on one of the benches that were placed, here and
there, among the trees. This was a bodily languor
in which her mind did not sympathise. She was
always an animated talker, and very intelligent.

She sometimes alluded for a moment to her own
home, or mentioned an adventure or situation, or an
early recollection, which indicated a people of strange
manners, and described customs of which we knew
nothing. I gathered from these chance hints that
her native country was much more remote than I
had at first fancied.

As we sat thus one afternoon under the trees a
funeral passed us by. It was that of a pretty young
girl, whom I had often seen, the daughter of one of
''CARMILLA. 393

the rangers of the forest. The poor man was walking
behind the coffin of his darling ; she was his only
child, and he looked quite heartbroken. Peasants
walking two-and-two came behind, they were singing
a funeral hymn.

I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and
joined in the hymn.they were very sweetly singing.

My companion shook me a little roughly, and I
turned surprised.

She said brusquely, “Don’t you perceive how
discordant that is?”

“J think it very sweet, on the contrary,” I
answered, vexed at the interruption, and very un-
comfortable, lest the people who composed the little
procession should observe and resent what was
passing.

I resumed, therefore, instantly, and was again
interrupted. “You pierce my ears,” said Carmilla,
almost angrily, and stopping her ears with her tiny
fingers. “Besides, how can you tell that your
religion and mine are the same; your forms wound
me, and I hate funerals. What a fuss! Why, you
must die—everyone must die; and all are happier
when they do. Come home.”

“My father has gone on with the clergyman to
the churchyard. I thought you knew she was to be
buried to-day.”

“ She? Idon’t trouble my head about peasants,
I don’t know who she is,” answered Carmilla, with a
flash from her fine eyes.

“She is the poor girl who fancied she saw a
ghost a fortnight ago, and has been dying ever since,
till yesterday, when she expired,”
''304 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“Tell me nothing about ghosts, I shan’t sleep
to-night if you do.”

“JT hope there is no plague or fever coming ; all
this looks very like it,’ 1 continued. “The swine-
herd’s young wife died only a week ago, and she
thought something seized her by the throat as she
lay in-her bed, and nearly strangled her. Papa says
such horrible fancies do accompany some forms of
fever. She was quite well the day before. She sank
afterwards, and died before a week.”

“ Well, der funeral is over, I hope, and er hymn
sung; and our ears shan’t be tortured with that
discord and jargon. It has made me nervous. Sit
down here, beside me; sit close; hold my hand ;
press it hard—hard—harder.”

We had moved a little back, and had come to
another seat.

She sat down. Her face underwent a change
that alarmed and even terrified me fora moment. It
darkened, and became horribly livid; her teeth and
hands were clenched, and she frowned and com-
pressed her lips, while she stared down upon the
ground at her feet, and trembled all over with a
continued shudder as irrepressible as ague. All her
energies seemed strained to suppress a fit, with which
she was then breathlessly tugging ; and at lengtha
low convulsive cry of suffering broke from her, and
gradually the hysteria subsided. “There! That
comes of strangling people with hymns!” she said
at last. “Hold me, hold me still. It is passing
away.”

And so gradually it did; and perhaps to dissi-
pate the sombre impression which the spectacle had
''CARMILLA. 395

left upon me, she became unusually animated and
chatty ; and so we got home.

This was the first time I had seen her exhibit any
definable symptoms of that delicacy of health which
her mother had spoken of. It was the first time,
also, I had seen her exhibit anything like temper.

Both passed away like a summer cloud; and
never but once afterwards did I witness on her part
a momentary “ve of anger. I will tell you how it
happened.

She and I were looking out of one of the long
drawing-room windows, when there entered the
court-yard, over the drawbridge, a figure of a wan-
derer whom I knew very well. He used to visit the
schloss generally twice a year.

It was the figure of -a~hunchback, with the sharp
lean features that generally accompany deformity.
He wore a pointed black beard, and he was smiling
from ear to ear, showing his white fangs. He was
dressed in buff, black, and scarlet, and crossed with
more straps and belts than I could count, from which
hung all manner of things. Behind, he carried a magic-
lantern, and two boxes, which I well knew, in one of
which was a salamander, and in the other a man-
drake, These monsters used to make my father
laugh, They were compounded of parts of monkeys,
parrots, squirrels, fish, and hedgehogs, dried and
stitched together with great neatness and startling

effect. He had a fiddle, a box of conjuring appa-
- ratus,a pair of foils and masks attached to his belt,
several other mysterious cases dangling about him,
and a black staff with copper ferrules in his hand.
His companion was a rough spare dog, that followed
''396 IN A GLASS DARKLY,

at his heels, but stopped short, suspiciously at the
drawbridge, and in a little while began to howl
dismally.

In the meantime, the mountebank, standing in
the midst of the court-yard, raised his grotesque hat,
and made us a very ceremonious bow, paying his
compliments very volubly in execrable French, and
German not much better. Then, disengaging his
fiddle, he began to scrape a lively air, to which he
sang with a merry discord, dancing with ludicrous
airs and activity, that made me laugh, in spite of
the dog’s howling.

Then he advanced to the window with many
smiles and salutations, and his hat in his left hand,
his fiddle under his arm, and with a fluency that
never took breath, he gabbled a long advertisement
of all his accomplishments, and the resources of the
various arts which he placed at our service, and the
curiosities and entertainments which it was in his
power, at our bidding to display.

“ Will your ladyships be pleased to buy an amulet
against the oupire, which is going like the wolf, I
hear, through these woods,” he said, dropping his
hat on the pavement. “They are dying of it right
and left, and here is a charm that never fails; only
pinned to the pillow, and you may laugh in his
face.”

These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum,
with cabalistic ciphers and diagrams upon them.

Carmilla instantly purchased one, and so did I.

He was looking up, and we were smiling down
upon him, amused ; at least, I can answer for myself.
His piercing black eye, as he looked up in our faces,
''CARMILLA. 397

seemed to detect something that fixed for a moment
his curiosity.

In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of
all manner of odd little steel instruments.

“See here, my lady,” he said, displaying it, and
addressing me, “I profess, among other things less
useful, the art of dentistry. Plague take the dog!”
he interpolated. “Silence, beast! He howls so that
your ladyships can scarcely heara word. Your noble
friend, the young lady at your right, has the sharpest
tooth—long, thin, pointed, like an awl, like a needle;
ha, ha! With my sharp and long sight, as I look
up, I have seen it distinctly ; now if it happens to
hurt the young lady, and I think it must, here am I,
here are my file, my punch, my nippers; I will make
it round and blunt, if her ladyship pleases ; no longer
the tooth of a fish, but of a beautiful young lady as
she is. Hey? Is the young lady displeased? Have
I been too bold? Have I offended her ?”

The young lady, indeed, looked very angry as
she drew back from the window.

“How dares that mountebank insult us so?
Where is your father? I shall demand redress from
him. My father would have had the wretch tied
up to the pump, and flogged with a cart-whip, and
burnt to the bones with the castle brand !”

She retired from the windowa step or two, and
sat down, and had hardly lost sight of the offender,
when her wrath subsided as suddenly as it had risen,
and she gradually recovered her usual tone, and
seemed to forget the little hunchback and his follies.

My father was out of spirits that evening. On
coming in he told us that there had been another
''308 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

case very similar to the two fatal ones which had
lately occurred. The sister of a young peasant on
his estate, only a mile away, was very ill, had been,
as she described it, attacked very nearly in the same
way, and was now slowly but steadily sinking.

“ All this,” said my father, “is strictly referable
to natural causes. These poor people infect one
another with their superstitions, and so repeat in
imagination the images of terror that have infested
their neighbours.”

“But that very circumstance frightens one hor-
ribly,” said Carmilla.

“ How so?” inquired my father.

“JT am so afraid of fancying I see such things; I
think it would be as bad as reality.”

“We are in God’s hands; nothing can happen
without His permission, and all will end well for
those who love Him. He is our faithful creator; He
has made us all, and will take care of us.”

“Creator! Nature!” said the young lady in
answer to my gentle father. “And this disease that
invades the country is natural. Nature. All things
proceed from Nature—don’t they? All things in
the heaven, in the earth, and under the earth, act
and live as Nature ordains? I think so.”

“The doctor said he would come here to-day,”
said my father, after a silence. “I want to know
what he thinks about it, and what he thinks we had
better do.”

“Doctors never did me any good,” said Carmilla.

“Then you have been ill?” I asked.

“More ill than ever you were,” she answered.

“Long ago?”
''CARMILLA. 3909

“Yes, a long time. I suffered from this very
illness ; but I forget all but my pain and weakness,
and they were not so bad as are suffered in other
diseases.”

“You were very young then ?”

“JT dare say; let us talk no more of it. You
would not wound a friend?” She looked languidly
in my eyes, and passed her arm round my waist
lovingly, and led me out of the room. My father
was busy over some papers near the window.

“Why does your papa like to frighten us?” said
the pretty girl, with a sigh and a little shudder.

“ He doesn’t, dear Carmilla, it is the very furthest
thing from his mind.” ’

“ Are you afraid, dearest ?”

“T should be very much if I fancied there was
any real danger of my being attacked as those poor
people were.”

“You are afraid to die?”

“Yes, every one is,”

“But to die as lovers may—to die together, so
that they may live together. Girls are caterpillars
while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies
when the summer comes; but in the meantime there
are grubs and larvz, don’t you see—each with their
peculiar propensities, necessities and structure. So says
Monsieur Buffon, in his big book, in the next room.”

Later in the day the doctor came, and was
closeted with papa for some time. He was a skilful
man, of sixty and upwards, he wore powder, and
shaved his pale face as smooth asa pumpkin. He
and papa emerged from the room together, and I
heard papa laugh, and say as they came out:
''400 IN A GEASS DARKLY.

“ Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you. What
do you say to hippogriffs and dragons?”

The doctor was smiling, and made answer, shaking
his head—

“Nevertheless, life and death are mysterious
states, and we know little of the resources of either,”

And so they walked on, and I heard no more, I
did not then know what the doctor had been broach-
ing, but I think I guess it now.
''CHAPTER V.
A WONDERFUL LIKENESS.

THIS evening there arrived from Gratz the grave,
dark-faced son of the picture-cleaner, with a horse
and cart laden with two large packing-cases, having
many pictures in each. It was a journey of ten
leagues, and whenever a messenger arrived at the
schloss from our little capital of Gratz, we used to
crowd about him in the hall, to hear the news.

This arrival created in our secluded quarters |
quite a sensation. The cases remained in the hall,
and the messenger was taken charge of by the
servants till he had eaten his supper. Then with
assistants, and armed with hammer, ripping chisel,
and turnscrew, he met us in the hall, where we had
assembled to witness the unpacking of the cases.

Carmilla sat looking listlessly on, while one after
the other the old pictures, nearly all portraits, which
had undergone the process of renovation, were brought
to light. My mother was of an old Hungarian
family, and most of these pictures, which were about

\ ' 26

¢
''402, IN A GLASS DARKLY.

to be restored to their places, had come to us through
her. :

My father had a list in his hand, from which he
read, as the artist rummaged out the corresponding
numbers. I don’t know that the pictures were very
good, but they were, undoubtedly very old, and some
of them very curious also. They had, for the most
part, the merit of being now seen by me, I may say,
for the first time; for the smoke and dust of time
had all but obliterated them.

“There is a picture that I. have not seen yet,”
said my father. “In one corner, at the’ top of it, is
the name, as well as I could read, ‘ Marcia Karnstein,
and the date ‘1698 ; and I am curious to see how it
has turned out.”

I remembered it; it was a small picture, about a
foot and a half high, and nearly square, without a
frame; but it was so blackened by age that I could
not make it out.

The artist now produced it, with evident pride
It was quite beautiful ; it was startling; it seemed to
live. It was the effigy of Carmilla!

“Carmilla, dear, here is an absolute miracle.
Here you are, living, smiling, ready to speak, in this
picture. Isn’t it beautiful, papa? And see, even the
little mole on her throat.”

My father laughed, and said “Certainly it is a
wonderful likeness,” but he looked away, and to my
surprise seemed but little struck by it, and went on
talking to the picture-cleaner, who was also some-
thing of an artist, and discoursed with intelligence
about the portraits or other works, which his art had
just brought into light and colour, while 7 was more
''  

CARMILLA. ca
and more lost in wonder the more I looked at the
picture.

“Will you let me hang this picture in my room,
papa?” I asked.

“ Certainly, dear,” said he, smiling, “I’m very glad
you think it so like. It must be prettier even than I
thought it, if it is.”

The young lady did not acknowledge this pretty
speech, did not seem to hear it. She was leaning
back in her seat, her fine eyes under their long lashes
gazing on me in contemplation, and she smiled in a
kind of rapture.

“And now you can read quite plainly the name
that is written in the corner. It is not Marcia; it
looks as if it was done in gold. The name is
Mircalla, Countess Karstein, and this is a little
coronet over it, and underneath A.D. 1698. I am
descended from the Karnsteins; that is, mamma
was.”

“Ah!” said the lady, languidly, “so am I, I
think, a very long descent, very ancient. Are there
any Karsteins living now?”

“None who bear the name, I believe. The family
were ruined, I believe, in some civil wars, long ago
but the ruins of the castle are only about three
miles away,”

“ How interesting!” she said, languidly. “ But see
what beautiful moonlight!” She glanced through
the hall door, which stood a little open. “Suppose
you take a little ramble round the court, and look
down at the road and river.”

“It is so like the night you came to us,” I said.

She sighed, smiling.
''404 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

She rose, and each with her arm about the other’s
waist, we walked out upon the pavement.

In silence, slowly we walked down to the draw-
bridge, where the beautiful landscape opened before
us.

“ And so you were thinking of the night I came
here?” she almost whispered. “Are you glad I
came?”

“ Delighted, dear Carmilla,” I answered.

“ And you ask for the picture you think like me,
to hang in your room,” she murmured with a sigh,
as she drew her arm closer about my waist, and let
her pretty head sink upon my shoulder.

“How romantic you are, Carmilla,” I said.
“ Whenever you tell me your story, it will be made
up chiefly of some one great romance.”

She kissed me silently.

“T am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love;
that there is, at this moment, an affair of the heart
going on.”

“T have been in love with no one, and never
shall,” she whispered, “unless it should be with
you.”

How beautiful she looked in the moonlight !

Shy and strange was the look with which she
quickly hid her face in my neck and hair, with
tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob, and
pressed in mine a hand that trembled.

Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. “ Dar-
ling, darling,” she murmured, “TI live in you; and you
would die for me, I love you so.”

I started from her.

She was gazing on me with eyes from which all
''CARMILLA. 4os

fire, all meaning had flown, and a face colourless and
apathetic.

“Is there a chill in the air, dear?” she said
drowsily. “I almost shiver; have I been dreaming?
Let us come in. Come, come; come in.”

“You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You cer-
tainly must take some wine,” I said.

“Yes, I will. I’m better now. I shall be quite
well in a few minutes. Yes, do give me a little
wine,” answered Carmilla, as we approached the
door. “Let us look again for a moment; it is the
last time, perhaps, I shall see the moonlight with
you.”

“How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you
really better ?” I asked.

I was beginning to take alarm, lest she should
have been stricken with the strange epidemic that
they said had invaded the country about us.

“Papa would be grieved beyond measure,’ I
added, “if he thought you were ever so little ill,
without immediately letting us know. We have a
very skilful doctor near this, the physician who was
with papa to-day.” . r

“T’m sure he is. I know how kind you all are;
but, dear child, I am quite well again. There is
nothing ever wrong with me, but a little weakness.
People say I am languid ; I am incapable of exertion ;
I can scarcely walk as far as a child of three years
old; and every now and then the’ little strength I
have falters, and I become as you have just seen me.
But after all I am very easily set up again; in a
moment I am perfectly myself. See how I have
recovered,”
''406 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

So, indeed, ‘she had; and she and I talked a great
deal, and very animated she was; and the remainder
of that evening passed without any recurrence of what
I called her infatuations. I mean her crazy talk and
looks, which embarrassed, and even frightened me.

But there occurred that night an event which gave
my thoughts quite a new turn, and seemed to startle
even Carmilla’s languid nature into momentary
energy.

 
''CHAPTER Vi
A VERY STRANGE AGONY

WHEN we got into the drawing-room, and had sat
down to our coffee and chocolate, although Carmilla
did not take any, she seemed quite herself again, and
Madame, and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, joined us,
and made a little card party, in the course of which
papa came in for what he called his “ dish of tea.”

When the game was over he sat down beside
Carmilla on the sofa, and asked her, a little anxiously,
whether she had heard from her mother since her
arrival.

She answered “ No.”

He then asked her whether she knew where a
letter would reach her at present.

“TI cannot tell,” she answered, ambiguously, “ but
I have been thinking of leaving you; you have been
already too hospitable and too kind to me. I have
given you an infinity of trouble, and I should wish to
take a carriage to-morrow, and post in pursuit of her ;
I know where I shall ultimately find her, although J
dare not yet tell you.”

we
''408 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“But you must not dream of any such thing,”
exclaimed my father, to my great relief. “We can’t
afford to lose you so, and I won’t consent to your
leaving us,except under the care of your mother, who
was so good as to consent to your remaining with us
till she should herself return. I should be quite
happy if I knew that you heard from her; but this ~
evening the accounts of the progress of the mysterious
disease that has invaded our neighbourhood, grow even
more alarming; and my beautiful guest, I do feel the
responsibility, unaided by advice from your mother,
very much. But I shall do my best; and one thing
is certain, that you must not think of leaving us
without her distinct direction to that effect. We
should suffer too much in parting from you to consent
to it easily.”

“Thank you, sir, a thousand times for your
hospitality,” she answered, smiling bashfully. “ You
have all been too kind to me; I have seldom been so
happy in all my life before, as in your beautiful
chateau, under your care, and in the society of your
dear daughter.”

So he gallantly, in his old-fashioned way, kissed
her hand, smiling, and pleased at her little speech.

I accompanied Carmilla as usual to her room, and
sat and chatted with her while she was preparing for
bed.

“Do you think,” I said, at length, “that you will
ever confide fully in me?”

She turned round smiling, but made no answer,
only continued to smile on me.

“You won’t answer that?” I said. “You can’t
answer pleasantly ; I ought not to have asked you,”

-
''CARMILLA. 409

“You were quite right to ask me that, or any-
thing. You do not know how dear you are to me, or
you could not think any confidence too great to look
for. But 1 am under vows, no nun half so awfully,
and I dare not tell my story yet, even to you. The
time is very near when you shall know everything.
You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is
always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish.
How jealous I am you cannot know. You must
come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me,
and still come with me, and “ating me through death
and after. There is no such word as indifference in
my apathetic nature.”

“Now, Carmilla, you are going to talk your wild
nonsense again,” I said hastily.

“Not I, silly little fool as I am, and full of whims
and fancies ; for your sake I’ll talk like a sage. Were
you ever ata ball?”

“No; how you dorun on, What isitlike? How
charming it must be.”

“TI almost forget, it is years ago.”

I laughed.

“You are notso old. Your first ball can hardly
be forgotten yet.”

“T remember everything about it—with an effort.
I see it all, as divers see what is going on above
them, through a medium, dense, rippling, but trans-
parent. There occurred that night what has confused
the picture, and made its colours faint. I was all but
assassinated in my bed, wounded ere,’ she touched
her breast, “and never was the same since,”

“Were you near dying ?”

* Yes, very—a cruel love—strange love, that would

Ay:
''410 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

have taken my life. Love will have its sacrifices.
No sacrifice without blood. Let us go to sleep now;
I feel so lazy. How can I get up just now and lock
my door?”

She was lying with her tiny hands buried in her
rich wavy hair, under her cheek, her little head upon
the pillow, and her glittering eyes followed me wher-
ever I moved, with a kind of shy smile that I could
not decipher.

I bid her good-night, and crept from the room
with an uncomfortable sensation.

I often wondered whether our pretty guest ever
said her prayers. certainly had never seen her upon
her knees. In the morning she never came down
until long after our family prayers were over, and at
night she never left the drawing-room to attend our
brief evening prayers in the hall.

If it had not been that it had casually come out
in one of our careless talks that she had been baptised,
I should have doubted her being a Christian. Religion
was a subject on which I had never heard her speak
a word. If I had known the world better, this parti-
cular neglect or antipathy would not have so much
surprised me.

The precautions of nervous people are infectious,
and persons of a like temperament are pretty sure,
after a time, to imitate them. I had adopted Car-
milla’s habit of locking her bed-room door, having
taken into my head all her whimsical alarms about
midnight invaders, and prowling assassins. I had
also adopted her precaution of making a brief search
through her room, to satisfy herself that no lurking
assassin or robber was “ ensconced.”
''CARMILLA. 4it

These wise measures taken, I got into my bed
and fell asleep. A light was burning in my room.
This was an old habit, of very early date, and which
nothing could have tempted me to dispense with.

Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace.
But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark
rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make
their exits and their entrances as they please, and
laugh at locksmiths.

I had a.dream that night that was the beginning
ofa very _strange-agony.

I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite
conscious of being asleep. But I was equally con-
scious of being in my room, and lying in bed,
precisely as I actually was. I saw, or fancied I saw,
the room and its furniture just as I had seen it last,
except that it was very dark, and I saw something
moving round the foot of the bed, which at first I
could not accurately distinguish. But I soon saw that
it was a sooty-black animal that resembled a mon-
strous-cat, It appeared to me about four or five feet
long, for it measured fully the length of the hearth-
rug as it passed over it; and it continued to-ing and
fro-ing with the lithe sinister restlessness of a beast in
a cage. I could not cry out, although as you may
suppose, I was terrified. Its pace was growing faster,
and the room rapidly darker and darker, and at
length so dark that I could no longer see anything of
it but its eyes. I felt it spring lightly. on the bed.
The two broad eyes approached my face, and sud-
denly I felt a stinging pain as if two large needles
darted, an inch or two apart, deep into my breast.
I waked with a scream. The room was lighted by
''412 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

the candle that burnt there all through the night, and
I saw a female gure standing at the foot of the ©
- bed. a little atthe tight Side. It was in a dark loose
dress, and its hair was down and covered its should-
“ers. A block of stone could not have been more
still. There was not the slightest stir of respiration.
As I stared at it, the figure appeared to have changed
its place, and was now nearer the door ; then, close to
it, the door opened, and it passed out.

I was now relieved, and able to breathe and move.
My first thought was that Carmilla had been playing
me a trick, and that I had forgotten to secure my
door. I hastened to it, and found it locked as usual
on the inside. I was afraid to open it—I was horrified.
I sprang into miy bed and covered my head up in the
bed-clothes, and lay there more dead than alive till
morning,
''CHAPTER VII.

DESCENDING.

IT would be vain my attempting to tell you the
horror with which, even now, I recall the occurrence
of that night. It was no such transitory terror as a
dream leaves behind it. It seemed to deepen by
time, and communicated itself to the room and the
very furniture that had encompassed the apparition.

I could not bear next day to be alone for a
moment. I should have told papa, but for two
opposite reasons. At one time I thought he would
laugh at my story, and I could not bear its being
treated as a jest; and at another, I thought he might
fancy that I had been attacked by the mysterious
complaint which had invaded our neighbourhood. I
had myself no misgivings of the kind, and as he had
been rather an invalid for some time, I was afraid of
alarming him,

I was comfortable enough with my good-natured
companions, Madame Perrodon, and the vivacious
Mademoiselle Lafontaine. They both perceived that
I was out of spirits and nervous, and at length I told
them what lay so heavy at my heart.
''414 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

Mademoiselle laughed, but I fancied that Madame
Perrodon looked anxious.

“ By-the-by,” said Mademoiselle, laughing, “the
long lime tree walk, behind Carmilla’s bedroom
window, is haunted!”

“ Nonsense!” exclaimed Madame, who probably
thought the theme rather inopportune, “and who tells
that story, my dear?”

“Martin says that he came up twice, when the
old yard-gate was being repaired before sunrise, and
twice saw the same female figure walking down the
lime tree avenue.”

“So he well might, as long as there are cows tc
milk in the river fields,” said Madame.

“I daresay; but Martin chooses to be frightened,
and never did I see fool more frightened.”

“You must not say a word about it to Carmilla,
because she can see down that walk from her room
window,” I interposed, “and she is, if possible, a
greater coward than I.”

Carmilla came down rather later than usual that
day.

“TI was so frightened last night,” she said, so soon
as we were together, “and I am sure I should have
seen something dreadful if it had not been for that
charm I bought from the poor little hunchback whom
I called such hard names. I had a dream of some-
thing black coming round my bed, and I awoke ina
perfect horror, and I really thought, for some seconds,
I saw a dark figure near the chimney piece, but I felt
under my pillow for my charm, and the moment my
fingers touched it, the figure disappeared, and I felt
quite certain, only that I had it by me, that something
''CARMILLA. AIS

frightful would have made its appearance, and,
perhaps, throttled me, as it did those poor people we
heard of.”

“Well, listen to me,’ I began, and recounted my
adventure, at the recital of which she appeared
horrified.

“And had you the charm near you?” she asked,
earnestly.

“No, I had dropped it into a china vase in the
drawing-room, but I shall certainly take it with me
to-night, as you have so much faith in it.”

At this distance of time I cannot tell you, or
even understand, how I overcame my horror so effectu-
ally as to lie alonein my room that night. I remem-
ber distinctly that I pinned the charm to my pillow.
I fell asleep almost immediately, and slept even more
soundly than usual all night.

Next night I pased as well. My sleep was delight-
fully deep and dreamless. But I wakened with a
sense of lassitude and melancholy, which, however,
did not exceed a degree that was almost luxurious,

“Well, I told you so,” said Carmilla, when I de-
scribed my quiet sleep, “I had such delightful sleep
myself last night; I pinned the charm to the breast
of my nightdress. It was too far away the night
before. Iam quite sure it was all fancy, except the
dreams. I used to think that evil spirits made
dreams, but our doctor told me it is no such thing.
Only a fever passing by, or some other malady, as
they often do, he said, knocks at the door, and not
being able to get in, passes on, with that alarm.”

“ And what do you think the charm is?” said I.

“It has been fumigated or immersed in some
''416 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

drug, and is an antidote against the malaria,” she
answered.

“Then it acts only on the body ?”

“Certainly ; you don’t suppose that evil spirits
are frightened by bits of ribbon, or the perfumes of
a druggist’s shop? No, these complaints, wandering
in the air, begin by trying the nerves, and so infect
the brain; but before they can seize upon you, the
antidote repels them. That I am sure is what the
charm has done for us. It is nothing magical, it is
simply natural.”

I should have been happier if I could quite have
agreed with Carmilla, but I did my best, and the
impression was a little losing its force.

For some nights I slept profoundly ; but still
every morning I felt the same lassitude, and a
languor weighed upon me all day. I felt myself a
changed girl. A strange melancholy was stealing
over me, a melancholy that I would not have inter-
rupted. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and
an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and,
somehow, not unwelcome possession of me. If it
was sad, the tone of mind which this induced was
also sweet. Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced
in it.

I would not admit that I was ill, I would not
consent to tell my papa, or to have the doctor sent for.

Carmilla became more devoted to me than ever,
and her strange paroxysms of languid adoration
more frequent. She used to gloat on me with in-
creasing ardour the more my strength and spirits
waned. This always shocked me like a momentary
glare of insanity.
''CARMILLA, 417

Without knowing it, I was now in a pretty
advanced stage of the strangest illness under which
mortal ever suffered. There was an unaccountable
fascination in its earlier symptoms that more than
reconciled me to the incapacitating effect of that
stage of the malady. This fascination increased for
a time, until it reached a certain point, when gradu-
ally a sense of the horrible mingled itself with it,
deepening, as you shall hear, until it discoloured and
perverted the whole state of my life.

The first change I experienced was rather agree-
able. It was very near the turning point from which
began the descent of Avernus.

Certain vague and strange sensations visited me
in my sleep. The prevailing one was of that pleasant,
peculiar cold thrill which we feel in bathing, when we
move against the current of a river. This was soon
accompanied by dreams that seemed interminable,
and were so vague that I could never recollect their
scenery and persons, or any one connected portion of
their action. But they left an awful impression, and
a sense of exhaustion, as if I had passed through a
long period of great mental exertion and danger,
After all these dreams there remained on waking a
remembrance of having been ina place very nearly
dark, and of having spoken to people whom I could
not see ; and especially of one clear voice, of a female’s,
very deep, that spoke as if at a distance, slowly, and
producing always the same sensation of indescribable
solemnity and fear. Sometimes there came a sensa-
tion as if a hand was drawn softly along my cheek
and neck. Sometimes it was as if warm lips kissed
me, and longer and more lovingly as they reached

27
''418 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

my throat, but there the caress fixed itself. My heart
beat faster, my breathing rose and fell rapidly and
full drawn; a sobbing, that rose into a sense of
strangulation, supervened, and turned into a dreadful
convulsion, in which my senses left me, and I became
unconscious.

It was now three weeks since the commencement
of this unaccountable state. My sufferings had,
during the last week, told upon my appearance. I
had grown pale, my eyes were dilated and darkened
underneath, and the languor which I had long felt
began to display itself in my countenance,

My father asked me often whether I was ill; but,
with an obstinacy which now seems to me unaccount-
able, I persisted in assuring him that I was quite well.

In a sense this was true. I had no pain, I could
complain of no bodily derangement. My complaint
seemed to be one of the imagination, or the
nerves, and, horrible as my _ sufferings were, I
kept them, with a morbid reserve, very nearly to
myself.

It could not be that terrible complaint which the
peasants call the oupire, for I had now been suffering
for three weeks, and they were seldom ill for much
more than three days, when death put an end to their
miseries.

Carmilla complained of dreams and_ feverish
sensations, but by no means of so alarming a kind
as mine. I say that mine were extremely alarming.
Had I been capable of comprehending my condition,
I would have invoked aid and advice on my knees.
The narcotic of an unsuspected influence was acting
upon me, and my perceptions were benumbed.
''CARMILLA. : 419

T am going to tell you now of a dream that led
immediately to an odd discovery. f

One night, instead of the voice 1 was accustomed
to hear in the dark, I heard one, sweet..and tender,
and at the same time terrible, which said, “ Your
mother warns you to beware of the assassin.” At the if
same time a light unexpectedly sprang up, and I saw
Carmilla, standing, near the foot of my bed, in her
white nightdress, bathed, from her chin to her feet, in
one great stain of blood.

I wakened with a shriek, possessed with the one
idea that Carmilla was being murdered. I remember
springing from my bed, and my next recollection is
that of standing on the lobby, crying for help.

Madame and Mademoiselle came scurrying out of
their rooms in alarm; a lamp burned always on the
lobby, and seeing me, they soon learned the cause of
my terror. i

I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla’s door.
Our knocking was unanswered. It soon became a
pounding and an uproar. We shrieked her name,
but all was vain.

We all grew frightened, for the door was locked.
We hurried back, in panic,to my room. There we
rang the bell long and furiously. If my father’s
room had been at that side of the house, we would
have called him up at once to our aid. But, alas! he
was quite out of hearing, and to reach him involved
an excursion for which we none of us had courage.

Servants, however, soon came running up the
stairs; I had got on my dressing-gown and slippers
meanwhile, and my companions were already similarly
furnished. Recognizing the voices of the servants on
''420 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

the lobby, we sallied out together; and having
renewed, as fruitlessly, our summons at Carmilla’s
door, I ordered the men to force the lock. They did
so, and we stood, holing our lights aloft, in the door-
way, and so stared into the room.

We called her by name; but there was still no
reply. We looked round the room. Everything was
undisturbed. It was exactly in the state in which I
left it on bidding her good night. But Carmilla was
gone,
''CHAPTER VIIL

SEARCH.

AT sight of the room, perfectly undisturbed except
for our violent entrance, we began to cool a little, and
soon recovered our senses sufficiently to dismiss the
men. It had struck Mademoiselle that possibly
Carmilla had been wakened by the uproar at her
door, and in her first panic had jumped from her bed,
and hid herself in a press, or behind a curtain, from
which she could not, of course, emerge until the
majordomo and his myrmidons had withdrawn. We
now recommenced our search, and began to call her
by name again.

It was all to no purpose. Our perplexity and
agitation increased. We examined the windows, but
they were secured. I implored of Carmilla, if she
had concealed herself, to play this cruel trick no
longer—to come out, and to end our anxieties. It
was all useless. I was by this time convinced that
she was not in the room, nor in the dressing-room,
the door of which was still locked on this side. She
could not have passed it. I was utterly puzzled,
''422 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

Had Carmilla discovered one of those secret passages
which the old housekeeper said were known to exist
in the schloss, although the tradition of their exact
situation had been lost. A little time would, no
doubt, explain all—utterly perplexed as, for the pre-
sent, we were.

It was past four o'clock, and I preferred passing
the remaining hours of darkness in Madame’s room.
Daylight brought no solution of the difficulty.

The whole household, with my father at its head,
was in a state of agitation next morning. Every part
of the chateau was searched. The grounds were ex-
plored. Not a trace of the missing lady could be
discovered. The stream was about to be dragged ;
my father was in distraction; what a tale to have to
tell the poor girl’s mother on her return. I, too, was
almost beside myself, though my grief was quite of a
different kind.

The morning was passed in alarm and excitement.
It was now one o'clock, and still no tidings. I ran
up to Carmilla’s room, and found her standing at her
dressing-table. I was astounded. I could not believe
my eyes. She beckoned me to her with her pretty
finger, in silence. Her face expressed extreme
fear.

I ran to her in an ecstasy of joy; I kissed and
embraced her again and again. I ran to the bell and
rang it vehemently, to bring others to the spot, who
might at once relieve my father’s anxiety.

“Dear Carmilla, what has become of you all this
time? We have been in agonies of anxiety about
you,” I exclaimed. ‘“ Where have you been? How
did you come back?”
''CARMILLA. 423

“Last night has been a night of wonders,” she
said.

“ For mercy’s sake, explain all you can.”

“Tt was past two last night,” she said, “when I
went to sleep as usual in my bed, with my doors
locked, that of the dressing-room, and that opening
upon the gallery. My sleep was uninterrupted, and,
so far as I know, dreamless; but I awoke just now
on the sofa in the dressing-room there, and I found
the door between the rooms open, and the other door
forced. How could all this have happened without
my being wakened? It must have been accompanied
with a great deal of noise,and I am particularly
easily wakened ; and how could I have been carried
out of my bed without my sleep having been inter-
rupted, I whom the slightest stir startles ?”

By this time, Madame, Mademoiselle, my father,
and a number of the servants were in the room.
Carmilla was, of course, overwhelmed with inquiries,
congratulations, and welcomes. She had but one
story to tell, and seemed the least able of all the
party to suggest any way of accounting for what had
happened.

My father took a turn up and down the room,
thinking. I saw Carmilla’s eye follow him for a
moment with a sly, dark glance.

When my father had sent the servants away,
Mademoiselle having gone in search of a little bottle
of valerian and sal-volatile, and there being no one
now in the room with Carmilla except my father,
Madame, and myself, he came to her thoughtfully,
took her hand very kindly, led her to the sofa, and
sat down beside her.
''424 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“Will you forgive me, my dear, if I risk a con-
jecture, and ask a question ?”

“Who can have a better right?” she said. “Ask
what you please, and I will tell youeverything. But
my story is simply one of bewilderment and darkness.
I know absolutely nothing. Put any question you
please. But you know, of course, the limitations
mamma has placed me under.”

“ Perfectly, my dear child. I need not approach
the topics on which she desires our silence. Now,
the marvel of last night consists in your having
been removed from your bed and your room
without being wakened, and this removal having
occurred apparently while the windows were still
secured, and the two doors locked upon the inside.
I will tell you my theory, and first ask you a ques-
tion.”

Carmilla was leaning on her hand dejectedly ;
Madame and I were listening breathlessly.

“Now, my question is this. Have you ever been
suspected of walking in your sleep?”

“ Never since I was very young indeed.”

“But you did walk in your sleep when you were
young ?”

“Yes; I know I did. Ihave been told so often
by my old nurse.”

My father smiled and nodded.

“Well, what has happened is this. You got up
in your sleep, unlocked the door, not leaving the key,
as usual, in the lock, but taking it out and locking
it on the outside; you again took the key out, and
carried it away with you to some one of the five-and-
twenty rooms on this floor, or perhaps upstairs or
''CARMILLA. 425

downstairs. There are so many rooms and closets,
so much heavy furniture, and such accumulations of
lumber, that it would require a week to search this
old house thoroughly. Do you see, now, what I
mean?”

“JT do, but not all,” she answered,

“ And how, papa, do you account for her finding
herself on the sofa in the dressing-room, which we
had searched so carefully ?”

“ She came there after you had searched it, still in
her sleep, and at last awoke spontaneously, and was
as much surprised to find herself where she was as
any one else. I wish all mysteries were as easily and
innocently explained as yours, Carmilla,” he said,
laughing. “And so we may congratulate ourselves
on the certainty that the most natural explanation of
the occurrence is one that involves no drugging, no
tampering with locks, no burglars, or poisoners, or
witches—nothing that need alarm Carmilla, or any
one else, for our safety.”

Carmilla was looking charmingly. Nothing could
be more beautiful than her tints. Her beauty was,
I think, enhanced by that graceful languor that was
peculiar toher. I think my father was silently con-
trasting her looks with mine, for he said :—

“T wish my poor Laura was looking more like
herself;’ and he sighed. ,

So our alarms were happily ended, and Carmilla
restored to her friends,
''CHAPTER IX.
THE DOCTOR.

As Carmilla would not hear of an attendant sleeping
in her room, my father arranged that a servant should
sleep outside her door, so that she could not attempt
to make another such excursion without being
arrested at her own door.

That night passed quietly; and next morning
early, the doctor, whom my father had sent for with-
out telling me a word about it, arrived to see me.

Madame accompanied me to the library; and
there the grave little doctor, with white hair and
spectacles, whom I mentioned before, was waiting to
receive me.

« I told him my story, and as I proceeded he grew
graver and graver.

We were standing, he and I, in the recess of one
of the windows, facing one another. When my state-
ment was over, he leaned with his shoulders against
the wall, and with his eyes fixed on me earnestly
with an interest in which was a dash of borror.
''CARMILLA. 427

After a minute’s reflection, he asked Madame if
he could see my father.

He was sent for accordingly, and as he entered,
smiling, he said :

“T dare say, doctor, you are going to tell me that
I am an old fool for having brought you here; I hope
I am.”

But his smile faded into shadow as the doctor,
with a very grave face, beckoned him to him.

He and the doctor talked for some time in the
same recess where I had just conferred with the
physician. It seemed an earnest and argumentative
conversation. The room is very large, and I and
Madame stood together, burning with curiosity, at the
further end. Nota word could we hear, however, for
they spoke in a very low tone, and the deep recess of
the window quite concealed the doctor from view,
and very nearly my father, whose foot, arm, and
shoulder only could we see; and the voices were, I
suppose, all the less audible for the sort of closet
which the thick wall and window formed.

After a time my father’s face looked into the
room; it was pale, thoughtful, and, I fancied,
agitated.

“Laura, dear, come here fora moment. Madame,
we shan’t trouble you, the doctor says, at present.”

Accordingly I approached, for the first time a
little alarmed ; for, although I felt very weak, I did
not feel ill; and strength, one always fancies, is a
thing that may be picked up when we please.

My father held out his hand to me as I drew near,
but he was looking at the doctor, and he said:

“Tt certainly zs very odd; I don’t understand it
''428 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

quite. Laura, come here, dear ; now attend to Doctor
Spielsberg, and recollect yourself.”

“You mentioned a sensation like that of two
needles piercing the skin, somewhere about your neck,
on the night when you experienced your first horrible
dream. Is there still any soreness ?”

“None at all,” I answered.

“Can you indicate with your finger about the
point at which you think this occurred ?”

“Very little below my throat—/ere,” I answered.

I wore a morning dress, which covered the place

I pointed to.

“ Now you can satisfy yourself,’ said the doctor.
“You won’t mind your papa’s lowering your dress a
very little. It is necessary, to detect a symptom
of the complaint under which -you have been
suffering.”

I acquiesced. It was only an inch or two below
the edge of my collar.

“ God bless me !—so it is,” exclaimed my father,
growing pale.

“You see it now with your own eyes,” said the
doctor, with a gloomy triumph.

“What is it?” I exclaimed, beginning t to be
frightened.

“Nothing, my dear young’ lady, but a small blue
spot, about the size of the tip of your little finger;
and now,” he continued, turning to papa, “ the ques-
tion is what is best to be done?”

“Ts there any danger?” I urged, in great trepida-
tion.

“J trust not, my dear,” answered the doctor. “I
don’t see why you should not recover. I don’t see
''CARMILLA. 429

why you should not begin zmmediately to get better.
That is the point at which the sense of strangulation
begins?”

“ Yes,’ I answered.

“ And—recollect as well as you can—the same
point was a kind of centre of that thrill which you
described just now, like the current of a cold stream
running against you ?”

“It may have been ; I think it was.”

“ Ay, you see?” he added, turning to my father.
“ Shall I say a word to Madame?”

“ Certainly,” said my father.

He called Madame to him, and said:

“JT find my young friend here far from well. It
won't be of any great consequence, I hope; but it
will be necessary that some steps be taken, which I
will explain by-and-by; but in the meantime,
Madame, you will be so good as not to let Miss
Laura be alone for one moment. That is the only
direction I need give for the present. It is indispen-
sable.”

“We may rely upon your kindness, Madame, I
know,” added my father.

Madame satisfied him eagerly.

“ And you, dear Laura, I know you will observe
the doctor’s direction.”

“T shall have to ask your opinion upon another
patient, whose symptoms slightly resemble those of
my daughter, that have just been detailed to you—
very much milder in degree, but I believe quite of
the same sort. She is a young lady—our guest; but
as you say you will be passing this way again this
evening, you can’t do better than take your supper
''43¢e IN A GLASS DARKLY,

here, and you can then see her. She does not come
down till the afternoon.”

“T thank you,” said the doctor. “TI shall be with
you, then, at about seven this evening.”

And then they repeated their directions to me and
to Madame, and with this parting charge my father
left us, and walked out with the doctor; and I saw
them pacing together up and down between the road
and the moat, on the grassy platform in front of the
castle, evidently absorbed in earnest conversation.

The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his
horse there, take his leave, and ride away eastward
through the forest. Nearly at the same time I saw
the man arrive from Dranfeld with the letters, and
dismount and hand the bag to my father.

In the meantime, Madame and I were both busy,
lost in conjecture as to the reasons of the singular
and earnest direction which the doctor and my father
had concurred in imposing. Madame, as she after-
wards told me, was afraid the doctor apprehended a
sudden seizure, and that, without prompt assistance,
I might either lose my life in a fit, or at least be
seriously hurt. ;

This interpretation did not strike me; and I
fancied, perhaps luckily for my nerves, that the
arrangement was prescribed simply to secure a com-
panion, who would prevent my taking too much
exercise, or eating unripe fruit, or doing any of the
fifty foolish things to which young people are sup-
posed to be prone.

About half-an-hour after my father came in—he
had a letter in his hand—and said :

“ This letter had been delayed ; it is from General
''CARMILLA. 431

Spielsdorf. He might have been here yesterday
he may not come till to-morrow, or he may be here
to-day.”

He put the open letter into my hand; but he did
not look pleased, as he used when a guest, especially
one so much loved as the General, was coming. On
the contrary, he looked as if he wished him at the
bottom of the Red Sea. There was plainly some-
thing on his mind which he did not choose to divulge.

“Papa, darling, will you tell me this?” said I,
suddenly laying my hand on his arm, and looking, I
am sure, imploringly in his face.

“Perhaps,’ he answered, smoothing my hair
caressingly over my eyes.

“ Does the doctor think me very ill ?”

“No, dear; he thinks, if right steps are taken,
you will be quite well again, at least on the high road
toa complete recovery, in a day or two,” he answered,
a little drily. “I wish our good friend, the General,
had chosen any other time ; that is, I wish you had
been perfectly well to receive him.”

“ But do tell me, papa,” I insisted, “what does he
think is the matter with me?”

“Nothing; you must not plague me with ques-
tions,’ he answered, with more irritation than I ever
remember him to have displayed before ; and seeing
that I looked wounded, I suppose, he kissed me, and
added, “ You shall know all about it in a day or two;
that is,all that 7 know. In the meantime, you are
not to trouble your head about it.”

He turned and left the room, but came back
before I had done wondering and puzzling over the
oddity of all this; it was merely to say that he was
''432 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

going to Karnstein, and had ordered the carriage to
be ready at twelve, and that I and Madame should
accompany him ; he was going to see the priest who
lived near those picturesque grounds, upon business,
and as Carmilla had never seen them, she could
follow, when she came down, with Mademoiselle, who
would bring materials for what you call a pic-nic,
which might be laid for us in the ruined castle.

At twelve o’clock, accordingly, I was ready, and
not long after, my father, Madame and I set out upon
our projected drive. Passing the drawbridge we
turn to the right, and follow the road over the steep
Gothic bridge, westward, to reach the deserted village
and ruined castle of Karnstein.

No sylvan drive can be fancied prettier. The
ground breaks into gentle hills and hollows, all
clothed with beautiful wood, totally destitute of the
comparative formality which artificial planting and
early culture and pruning impart.

The irregularities of the ground often lead the
road out of its course, and cause it to wind beautifully
round the sides of broken hollows and the steeper
sides of the hills, among varieties of ground almost
inexhaustible.

Turning one of these points, we suddenly en-
countered our old friend, the General, riding towards
us, attended by a mounted servant. His portman-
teaus were following ina hired waggon, such as we
term a cart.

The General dismounted as we pulled up, and,
after the usual greetings, was easily persuaded to
accept the vacant seat in the carriage, and send his
horse on with his servant to the schloss,
''CHAPTER X.
BEREAVED,

IT was about ten months since we had last seen him ;
but that time had sufficed to make an alteration of
years in his appearance. He had grown thinner ;
something of gloom and anxiety had taken the place
of that cordial serenity which used to characterise
his features. His dark blue eyes, always penetrating,
now gleamed with a sterner light from under his
shaggy grey eyebrows. It was not such a change as
grief alone usually induces, and angrier passions
seemed to have had their share in bringing it about.

We had not long resumed our drive, when the
General began to talk, with his usual soldierly direct-
ness, of the bereavement, as he termed it, which he
had sustained in the death of his beloved niece and
ward; and he then broke out in a tone of intense
bitterness and fury, inveighing against the “hellish
arts” to which she had fallen a victim, and expressing
with more exasperation than piety, his wonder that
Heaven should tolerate so monstrous an indulgence
of the lusts and malignity of hell.

28
''434 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

My father, who saw at once that something very
extraordinary had befallen, asked him, if not too
painful to him, to detail the circumstances which he
thought justified the strong terms in which he ex- —
pressed himself.

“T shonld tell you all with pleasure,” said the
General, “ but you would not believe me.”

“Why should I not?” he asked.

“Because,” he answered testily, “you believe in
nothing but what consists with your own prejudices
and illusions. I remember when I was like you, but
I have learned better.”

“Try me,” said my father; “I am not such a
dogmatist as you suppose. Besides which, I very
well know that you generally require proof for
what you believe, and am, therefore, very strongly
predisposed to respect your conclusions.”

“You are right in supposing that I have not been
led lightly into a belief in the marvellous—for what I
have experienced zs marvellous—and I have been
forced by extraordinary evidence to credit that which
ran counter, diametrically, to all my theories. I have
been made the dupe of a preternatural conspiracy.”

Notwithstanding his professions of confidence in
the General’s penetration, I saw my father, at this
point, glance at the General, with, as I thought, a
marked suspicion of his sanity.

The General did not see it, luckily. He was
looking gloomily and curiously into the glades and
vistas of the woods that were opening before us.

“You are going to the Ruins of Karnstein?” he
said. “Yes, it is a lucky coincidence; do you know
I was going to ask you to bring me there to inspect
''CARMILLA. 435

them. I have a special object in exploring. There
is a ruined chapel, ain’t there, with a great many
tombs of that extinct family ?”

“So there are—highly interesting,’ said my
father. “I hope you are thinking of claiming the
title and estates?”

My father said this gaily, but the General did not
recollect the laugh, or even the smile, which courtesy
exacts for a friend’s joke ; on the contrary, he looked
grave and even fierce, ruminating.on a matter that
stirred his anger and horror.

“Something very different,” he said, gruffly. “I
mean to unearth some of those fine people. I hope,
by God’s blessing, to accomplish a pious sacrilege
here, which will relieve our earth of certain monsters,
and enable honest people to sleep in their beds with-
out being assailed by murderers. I have strange
things to tell you, my dear friend, such as I myself
would have scouted as incredible a few months since.”

My father looked at him again, but this time not
with a glance of suspicion—with an eye, rather, of
keen intelligence and alarm.

“The house of Karnstein,” he said, “has been
long extinct: a hundred years at least... My dear wife
was maternally descended from the Karnsteins, But
the name and title have long ceased to exist. The
castle is a ruin; the very village is deserted; it is
fifty years since the smoke of a chimney was seen
there ; not a roof left.”

“Quite true. I have heard a great deal about
that since I last saw you; a great deal that will
astonish you. But I had better relate everything in
the order in which it occurred,” said the General,
''436 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“You saw my dear ward—my child, I may call her.
No creature could have been more beautiful, and
only three months ago none more blooming.”

“Yes, poor thing! when I saw her last she cer-
tainly was quite lovely,” said my father. “I was
grieved and shocked more than I can tell you, my
dear friend ; I knew what a blow it was to you.”

He took the General’s hand, and they exchanged
a kind pressure. Tears gathered in the old soldier’s
eyes. He did not.seek to conceal them. He said:

“We have been very old friends; I knew you
would feel for me, childless as I am. She had
become an objéct of very dear interest to me, and
repaid my care by an affection that cheered my
home and made my life happy. That is all gone.
The years that remain to me on earth may not be
very long; but by God’s mercy I hope to accomplish
a service to mankind before I die, and to subserve
the vengeance of Heaven upon the fiends who have
murdered my poor child in the spring of her hopes
and beauty!”

“You said, just now, that you intended relating
everything as it occurred,” said my father. “ Pray
do; I assure you that it is not mere curiosity that
prompts me.”

By this time we had reached the point at which
the Drunstall road, by which the General had come,
diverges from the road which we were travelling to
Karnstein.

“ How far is it to the ruins?” inquired the General,
looking anxiously forward.

“ About halfa league,” answered my father. “Pray
let us hear the story you were so good as to promise.”
''CHAPTER XI,
THE STORY.

“WITH all my heart,” said the General, with an
effort ; and after a short pause in which to arrange
his subject, he commenced one of the strangest
narratives I ever heard.

“My dear child was looking forward with great
pleasure to the visit you had been so good as to
arrange for her to your charming daughter.” Here
he made me a gallant but melancholy bow. “In the
meantime we had an invitation to my old friend the
Count Carlsfeld, whose schloss is about six leagues
to the other side of Karnstein. It was to attend the
series of fétes which, you remember, were given by
him in honour of his illustrious visitor, the Grand
Duke Charles.”

“Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were,”
said my father.

“Princely! But then his hospitalities are quite
regal. He has Aladdin’s lamp. The night from
which my sorrow dates was devoted to a magnificent
masquerade. The grounds were thrown open, the
''438 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

trees hung with coloured lamps. There was such a
display of fireworks as Paris itself had never wit-
nessed. And such music—music, you know, is my
weakness—such ravishing music! The finest instru-
mental band, perhaps, in the world, and the finest
singers who could be collected from all the great
operas in Europe. As you wandered through these
fantastically illuminated grounds, the moon-lighted
chateau throwing a rosy light from its long rows of
windows, you would suddenly hear these ravishing
voices stealing from the silence of some grove, or
rising from boats upon the lake. I felt myself, as I
looked and listened, carried back into the romance
and poetry of my early youth.

“When the fireworks were ended, and the ball
beginning, we returned to the noble suite of rooms
that were thrown open to the dancers. A masked
ball, you know, is a beautiful sight ; but so brilliant a
spectacle of the kind I never saw before.

“Tt was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself
almost the only ‘nobody’ present.

“My dear child was looking quite beautiful. She
wore no mask. Her excitement and delight added
an unspeakable charm to her features, always lovely.
I remarked a young lady, dressed magnificently, but
wearing a mask, who appeared to me to be observing
my ward with extraordinary interest. I had seen
her, earlier in the evening, in the great hall, and
again, for a few minutes, walking near us, on the
terrace under the castle windows, similarly employed.
A lady, also masked, richly and gravely dressed, and
with a stately air, like a person of rank, accompanied
her asa chaperon. Had the young lady not worn
''CARMILLA. 439

a mask, I could, of course, have been much more
certain upon the question whether she was really
watching my poor darling. Iam now well assured
that she was.

“We were now in one of the salons. My poor
dear child had been dancing, and was resting a little
in one of the chairs near the door; I was standing
near. The two ladies I have mentioned had ap-
proached, and the younger took the chair next my
ward; while her companion stood beside me, and for
a little time addressed herself, in a low tone, to her
charge.

“Availing herself of the privilege of her mask,
she turned to me, and in the tone of an old friend,
and calling me by my name, cpened a conversation
with me, which piqued my curiosity a good deal.
She referred to many scenes where she had met me
—at Court, and at distinguished houses. She alluded
to little incidents which I had long ceased to think
of, but which, I found, had only lain in abeyance in
my memory, for they instantly started into life at her
touch.

“T became more and more curious to ascertain
who she was, every moment. She parried my attempts
to discover very adroitly and pleasantly. The know-
ledge she showed of many passages in my life seemed
to me all but unaccountable; and she appeared to
‘take a not unnatural pleasure in foiling my curiosity,
and in seeing me flounder, in my eager perplexity,
from one conjecture to another.

“In the meantime the young lady, whom her
mother called by the odd name of Millarca, when
she once or twice addressed her, had, with the
''440, IN A GLASS DARKLY.

same ease and grace, got into conversation with my
ward.

“ She introduced herself by saying that her mother
was a very old acquaintance of mine. She spoke of
the agreeable audacity which a mask rendered prac-
ticable; she talked like a friend; she admired her
dress, and insinuated very prettily her admiration of
her beauty. She amused her with laughing criticisms
upon the people who crowded the ballroom, and
laughed at my poor child’s fun. She was very witty
and lively when she pleased, and after a time they
nad grown very good friends, and the young stranger
lowered her mask, displaying a remarkably beautiful
face. I had never seen it before, neither had my dear
child. But though it was new to us, the features
were so engaging, as well as lovely, that it was im-
possible not to feel the attraction powerfully. My
poor girl did so. I never saw anyone more taken
with another at first sight, unless, indeed, it was the
stranger herself, who seemed quite to have lost her
heart to her.

“Tn the meantime, availing myself of the licence ofa
masquerade, I put not a few questions to the elder lady.

“Vou have puzzled me utterly, I said, laughing.
‘Is that not enough? won’t you, now, consent to
stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness to
remove your mask?’

“Can any request be more unreasonable ?’ she
replied. ‘Ask a lady to yield an advantage! Beside,
how do you know you should recognize me? Years
make changes.’

“¢ As you see,’ I said, with a bow, and, I suppose,
a rather melancholy little laugh.
''CARMILLA. 441

“* As philosophers tell us, she said; ‘and how do
you know that a sight of my face would help you ?’

“¢T should take chance for that, I answered. ‘It
is vain trying to make yourself out an old woman;
your figure betrays you.’

““Vears, nevertheless, have passed since I saw
you, rather since you saw me, for that is what I am
considering. Millarca, there, is my daughter; I
cannot then be young, even in the opinion of people
whom time has~taught to be indulgent, and I may
not like to be compared with what you remember
me. You have no mask to remove. You can offer
me nothing in exchange.’

“*My petition is to your pity, to remove it.’

“¢ And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,’
she replied. :

“* Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you
are French or German; you speak both languages
so perfectly.’

“¢T don’t think I shall tell you that, General;
you intend a surprise, and are meditating the par-
ticular point of attack.’

“¢ At all events, you won’t deny this,’ I said, ‘ that
being honoured by your permission to converse, I
ought to know how to address you. Shall I say
Madame la Comtesse ?’

“She laughed, and she would, no doubt, have
met me with another evasion—if, indeed, I can treat
any occurrence in an interview every circumstance of
which was pre-arranged, as I now believe, with the
profoundest cunning, as liable to be modified by
accident.

“*As to that, she began; but she was inter-
''442 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

rupted, almost as she opened her lips, by a gentle-
man, dressed in black, who looked particularly elegant
and distinguished, with this drawback, that his face
was the most deadly pale I ever saw, except in death.
He was in no masquerade —in the plain evening
dress of a gentleman ; and he said, without a smile,
but with a courtly and unusually low bow :—

“Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a
very few words which may interest her ?’

“The lady turned quickly to him, and touched
her lip in token of silence; she then said to me,
‘Keep my place for me, General; I shall return
when I have said a few words.’

“And with this injunction, playfully given, she
walked a little aside with the gentleman in black, and
talked for some minutes, apparently very earnestly.
They then walked away slowly together in the crowd,
and I lost them for some minutes.

“T spent the interval in cudgelling my brains for
conjecture as to the identity of the lady who seemed
to remember me so kindly, and I was thinking of
turning about and joining in the conversation between
my pretty ward and the Countess’s daughter, and
trying whether, by the time she returned, I might
not have a surprise in store for her, by having her
name, title, chateau, and estates at my fingers’ ends.
But at this moment she returned, accompanied by
the pale man in black, who said :

“*T shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse
when her carriage is at the door.’

“ He withdrew with a bow.”
''CHAPTER XII.
A PETITION.

“* THEN we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I
hope only for a few hours, I said, with a low bow.

“*Tt may be that only, or it may be a few weeks.
It was very unlucky his speaking to me just now as
he did. Do you now know me?”

“T assured her I did not.

“*You shall know me,’ she said, ‘but not at
present. We are older and better friends than,
perhaps, you suspect. I cannot yet declare myself.
I shall in three weeks pass your beautiful schloss
about which I have been making enquiries, I shall
then look in upon you for an hour or two, and
renew a friendship which I never think of without
a thousand pleasant recollections. This moment a
piece of news has reached me like a thunderbolt.
I must set out now, and travel by a devious route,
nearly a hundred miles, with all the dispatch I can
possibly make. My perplexities multiply. I am
only deterred by the compulsory reserve I practise
as to my name from making a very singular request
''444 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

of you. My poor child has not quite recovered her
strength. Her horse fell with her, at a hunt which
she had ridden out to witness, her nerves have not
yet recovered the shock, and our physician says that
she must on no account exert herself for some time
to come. We came here, in consequence, by very
easy stages—hardly six leaguesa day. I must now
travel day and night, on a mission of life and death
—a mission the critical and momentous nature of
which I shall be able to explain to you when we
meet, as I hope we shall, in a few weeks, without the
necessity of any concealment.’

“She went on to make her petition, and it was
in the tone of a person from whom such a request
amounted to conferring, rather than seeking a favour.
This was only in manner, and, as it seemed, quite
unconsciously. Than the terms in which it was
expressed, nothing could be more deprecatory. It
was simply that I would consent to take charge of
her daughter during her absence.

“This was, all things considered, a strange, not to
say, an audacious request. She in some sort dis-
armed me, by stating and admitting everything that
could be urged against it, and throwing herself
entirely upon my chivalry. At the same moment, by
a fatality that seems to have predetermined all that
happened, my poor child came to my side, and, in an
undertone, besought me to invite her new friend,
Millarca, to pay us a visit. She had just been sound-
ing her, and thought, if her mamma would allow her,
she would like it extremely.

“ At another time I should have told her to wait
a little, until, at least, we knew who they were. But
''CARMILLA. » 445

I had not a moment to think in. The two ladies
assailed me together, and I must confess the refined
and beautiful face of the young lady, about which
there was something extremely engaging, as well as
the elegance and fire of high birth, determined me;
and quite overpowered, I submitted, and under-
took, too easily, the care of the young lady, whom
her mother called Millarca,

“The Countess beckoned to her daughter, who
listened with grave attention while she told her, in
general terms, how suddenly and peremptorily she
had been summoned, and also of the arrangement
she had made for her under my care, adding that I
was one of her earliest and most valued friends.

“JT made, of course, such speeches as the case
seemed to call for, and found myself, on reflection, in
a position which I did not half like.

“The gentleman in black returned, and very cere-
moniously conducted the lady from the room,

“The demeanour of this gentleman was such as
to impress me with the conviction that the Countess
was a lady of very much more importance than her
modest title alone might have led me to assume,

“ Her last charge to me was that no attempt was
to be made to learn more about her than I might
have already guessed, until her return. Our distin-
guished host, whose guest she was, knew her reasons,

“But here, she said, ‘neither I nor my daughter
could safely remain for more than a day. I removed
my mask imprudently for a moment, about an hour
ago, and, too late, I fancied you saw me. So I
resolved to seek an opportunity of talking a little to
you. Had I found that you “ad seen me, 1 should
''446 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

have thrown myself on your high sense of honour
to keep my secret for some weeks, As it is, 1am
satisfied that you did not see me; but if you now
suspect, or, on reflection, should suspect, who I am, I
commit myself, in like manner, entirely to your
honour. My daughter will observe the same secresy,
and I well know that you will, from time to time,
remind her, lest she should thoughtlessly disclose
it.’

“She whispered a few words to her daughter,
kissed her hurriedly twice, and went away, accom-
panied by the pale gentleman in black, and disappeared
in the crowd.

“*In the next room, said Millarca, ‘there is a
window that looks upon the hall door. I should like
to see the last of mamma, and to kiss my hand to
her.’

“We assented, of course, and accompanied her
to the window. We looked out, and saw a hand-
some old-fashioned carriage, with a troop of couriers
and footmen. We saw the slim figure of the pale
gentleman in black, as he held a thick velvet cloak,
and placed it about her shoulders and threw the hood
over her head. She nodded to him, and just touched
his hand with hers. He bowed low repeatedly as
the door closed, and the carriage began to move.

“« She is gone,’ said Millarca, with a sigh.

“« She is gone, I repeated to myself, for the first
time—in the hurried moments that had elapsed since
my consent—reflecting upon the folly of my act.

“*She did not look up, said the young lady,
plaintively.

“« The Countess had taken off her mask, perhaps,
''CARMILLA. 447

and did not care to show her face,’ I said ; ‘and she
could not know that you were in the window.’

“ She sighed and looked in my face. She was so
beautiful that I relented. I was sorry I had fora
moment repented of my hospitality, and I determined
to make her amends for the unavowed churlishness
of my reception.

“The young lady, replacing her mask, joined my
ward in persuading me to return to the grounds,
where the concert was soon to be renewed. We did
so, and walked up and down the terrace that lies
under. the castle windows. Millarca became very
intimate with us, and amused us with lively descrip-
tions and stories of most of the great people whom
we saw upon the terrace. I liked her more and
more every minute. Her gossip, without being ill-
natured, was extremely diverting to me, who had
been so long out of the great world. I thought what
life she would give to our sometimes lonely evenings
at home.

“This ball was not over until the morning sun
had almost reached the horizon. It pleased the
Grand Duke to dance till then, so loyal people could
not go away, or think of bed.

“We had just got through a crowded saloon, when
my ward asked me what had become of Millarca.
I thought she had been by her side, and she fancied
she was by mine. The fact was, we had lost her.

“All my efforts to find her were vain. I feared
that she had mistaken, in the confusion of a momen-
tary separation from us, other people for her new
friends, and had, possibly, pursued and lost them in
the extensive grounds which were thrown open to us.
''448 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“Now, in its full force, I recognized a new folly
in my having undertaken the charge of a young
lady without so much as knowing her name; and
fettered as I was by promises, of the reasons for
imposing which I knew nothing, I could not even
point my inquiries by saying that the missing young
lady was the daughter of the Countess who had
taken her departure a few hours before.

“Morning broke. It was clear daylight before I
gave up my search. It was not till near two o'clock
next day that we heard anything of my missing
charge.

“ At about that time a servant knocked at my niece’s
door, to say that he had been earnestly requested by
a young lady, who appeared to be in great distress,
to make out where she could find the General Baron
Spielsdorf and the young lady, his daughter, in
whose charge she had been left by her mother.

“There could be no doubt, notwithstanding the
slight inaccuracy, that our young friend had turned
up; and so she had. Would to Heaven we had
lost her !

“ She told my poor child a story to account for her
having failed to recover us for so long. Very late,
she said, she had got into the housekeeper’s bedroom
in despair of finding us, and had then fallen into a
deep sleep which, long as it was, had hardly sufficed
to recruit her strength after the fatigues of the ball.

“That day Millarca came home with us. I was
only too happy, after all, to have secured so charming
a companion for my dear girl,
''CHAPTER XIII.
THE WOOD-MAN,

“THERE soon, however, appeared some drawbacks.
In the first place, Millarca complained of extreme
languor—the weakness that remained after her late
illness—and she never emerged from her room till
the afternoon was pretty far advanced. In the next
place, it was accidentally discovered, although she
always locked her door on the inside, and never
disturbed the key from its place, till she admitted
the maid to assist at her toilet, that she was undoubt-
edly sometimes absent from her room in the very
early morning, and at various times later in the day,
before she wished it to be understood that she was
stirring. She was repeatedly seen from the windows -
of the schloss, in the first faint grey of the morning,
walking through the trees, in an easterly direction,
and looking like a person in a trance. This con-
vinced me that she walked in her sleep. But this
hypothesis did not solve the puzzle. How did she
pass out from her room, leaving the door locked on

29
''450 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

the inside. How did she escape from tne house with-
out unbarring door or window?

“In the midst of my perplexities,an anxiety of
a far more urgent kind presented itself.

“My dear child began to lose her looks and
health, and that in a manner so mysterious, and even
horrible, that I became thoroughly frightened.

“She was at first visited by appalling dreams;
then, as she fancied, by a spectre, sometimes resem-
bling Millarca, sometimes in the shape of a beast,
indistinctly seen, walking round the foot of her bed,
from side to side. Lastly came sensations. One,
not unpleasant, but very peculiar, she said, resembled
the flow of an icy stream against her breast. At a
later time, she felt something like a pair of large
needles pierce her, a little below the throat, with a
very sharp pain. A few nights after, followed a
gradual and convulsive sense of strangulation ; then
came unconsciousness.”

I could hear distinctly every word the kind old
General was saying, because by this time we were
driving upon the short grass that spreads on either
side of the road as you approach the roofless village
which had not shown the smoke of a chimney for
more than half a century.

You may guess how strangely I felt as I heard
my own symptoms so exactly described in those
which had been experienced by the poor girl who,
but for the catastrophe which followed, would have
been at that moment a visitor at my father’s chateau.
You may suppose, also, how I felt as I heard him
detail habits and mysterious peculiarities which were,
in fact, those of our beautiful guest, Carmilla !
''CARMILLA. 4s

A vista opened in the forest; we were on a
sudden under the chimneys and gables of the ruined
village, and the towers and battlements of the dis-
mantled castle, round which gigantic trees are
grouped, overhung us from a slight eminence.

In a frightened dream I got down from the car-
riage, and in silence, for we had each abundant matter
for thinking ; we soon mounted the ascent, and were
among the spacious chambers, winding stairs, and
dark corridors of the castle.

“ And this was once the palatial residence of the
Karnsteins !” said the old General at length, as from
a great window he looked out across the village, and
saw the wide, undulating expanse of forest. “It was
a bad family, and here its blood-stained annals were
written,” he continued. “It is hard that they should,
after death, continue to plague the human race with
their atrocious lusts. That is the chapel of the
Karnsteins, down there.”

He pointed down to the grey walls of the Gothic
building, partly visible through the foliage, a little
way down the steep. “And I hear the axe of a
woodman,” he added, “ busy among the trees that sur-
round it; he possibly may give us the information of
which I am in search, and point out the grave of
Mircalla, Countess of Karnstein. These rustics pre-
serve the local traditions of great families, whose
stories die out among the rich and titled so soon as
the families themselves become extinct.”

“We have a portrait, at home, of Mircalla, the
Countess Karnstein; should you like to see it?”
asked my father.

“Time enough,” dear friend, replied the General.
''452 1 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“T believe that I have seen the original; ard one
motive which has led me to you earlier than I at
first intended, was to explore the chapel which we
are now approaching.”

“What! see the Countess Mircalla,” exclaimed
my father; “why, she has been dead more than a
' century !”

“ Not so dead as you fancy, I am told,” answered
the General.

“JI confess, General, you puzzle me utterly,” re-
plied my father, looking at him, I fancied, for a
moment with a return of the suspicion I detected
before. But although there was anger and detesta-
tion, at times, in the old General’s manner, there was
nothing flighty,

“There remains to me,” he said, as we passed
under the heavy arch of the Gothic church—for its
dimensions would have justified its being so styled—
“but one object which can interest me during the
few years that remain to me on earth, and that is to
wreak on her the vengeance which, I thank God,
may still be accomplished by a mortal arm.”

“What vengeance can you mean?” asked my
father, in increasing amazement.

“J mean, to decapitate the monster,” he answered,
with a fierce flush, and a stamp that echoed mourn-
fully through the hollow ruin, and his clenched hand
was at the same moment raised, as if it grasped the
handle of an axe, while he shook it ferociously in
the air.

“What!” exclaimed my father, more than ever
bewildered.

“To strike her head off.”
''CARMILLA. 453

“ Cut her head off!”

“ Aye, with a hatchet, with a spade, or with any-
thing that can cleave through her murderous throat.
You shall hear,” he answered, trembling with rage.
And hurrying forward he said :

“That beam will answer for a seat; your dear
child is fatigued ; let her be seated, and I will, in a
few sentences, close my dreadful story.”

The squared block of wood, which lay on the
grass-grown pavement of the chapel, formed a bench
on which I was very glad to seat myself, and in the
meantime the General called to the woodman, who
had been removing some boughs which leaned upon
the old walls ; and, axe in hand, the hardy old fellow
stood before us.

He could not tell us anything of these monu-
ments ; but there was an old man, he said, a ranger
of this forest, at present sojourning in the house of
the priest, about two miles away, who could point out
every monument of the old Karnstein family; and,
for a trifle, he undertook to bring him back with him,
if we would lend him one of our horses, in little more
than half-an-hour.

“Have you been long employed about this
forest ?” asked my father of the old man,

“T have been a woodman here,” he answered in
his patozs, “under the forester, all my days; so has
my father before me, and so on, as many generations
as I can count up. I could show you the very house in
the village here, in which my ancestors lived.”

“How came the village to be deserted ?” asked
the General.

“Tt was troubled by vevenants, sir; several were
''454 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

tracked to their graves, there detected by the usual
tests, and extinguished in the usual way, by deca-
pitation, by the stake, and by burning ; but not until
many of the villagers were killed.

“But after all these proceedings according to
law,” he continued—* so many graves opened, and so
many vampires deprived of their horrible animation
—the village was not relieved. But a Moravian noble-
man, who happened to be travelling this way, heard
how matters were, and being skilled—as many people
are in his country—in such affairs, he offered to
deliver the village from its tormentor. He did so
thus: There being a bright moon that night, he
ascended, shortly after sunset, the tower of the
chapel here, from whence he could distinctly see the
churchyard beneath him; you can see it from that
window. From this point he watched until he saw
the vampire come out of his grave, and place near
it the linen clothes in which he had been folded,
and glide away towards the village to plague its
inhabitants.

“The stranger, having seen all this, came down
from the steeple, took the linen wrappings of the
vampire, and carried them up to the top of the tower,
which he again mounted. When _the-vampire returned
from his prowlings and missed his clothes, he cried
furiously to the Moravian, whom he saw at the
summit of the tower, and who, in reply, beckoned
him to ascend and take them. Whereupon the
vampire, accepting his invitation, began to climb the
steeple, and so soon as he had reached the battle-
ments, the Moravian, with a stroke of his sword,
clove his skull in twain, hurling him down to the
''CARMILLA. 455

churchyard, whither, descending by the winding
stairs, the stranger followed and cut his head off, and
next day delivered it and the body to the villagers,
who duly impaled and burnt them.

“This Moravian nobleman had authority from the
then head of the family to remove the tomb of
Mircalla, Countess Karnstein, which he did effectually,
so that in a little while its site was quite forgotten.”

“Can you point out where it stood?” asked the
General, eagerly.

The forester shook his head and smiled.

“Not a soul living could tell you that now,” he
said ; “ besides, they say her body was removed ; but
no one is sure of that either.”

Having thus spoken, as time pressed, he dropped
his axe and departed, leaving uS* to hear the re-
mainder of the General’s strange story.
''CHAPTER XIV.
THE MEETING.

“ My beloved child,” he resumed “was now growing
rapidly worse. The physician who attended her had
failed to produce the slightest impression upon her
disease, for such I then supposed it to be. He saw
my alarm, and suggested a consultation. I called in
an abler physician, from Gratz. Several days elapsed
before he arrived. He was a good and pious, as well
as a learned man. Having seen my poor ward
together, they withdrew to my library to confer and
discuss. I, from the adjoining room, where I awaited
their summons, heard these two gentlemen’s voices
raised in something sharper than a strictly philoso-
phical discussion, I knocked at the door and entered,
I found the old physician from Gratz maintaining his
theory. His rival was combating it with undis-
guised ridicule, accompanied with bursts of laughter.
This unseemly manifestation subsided and the alter-
cation ended on my entrance.

“« Sir, said my first physician, ‘my learned brother
seems to think that you want a conjuror, and not a
doctor.’
''CARMILLA. 457

“Pardon me,’ said the old physician from Gratz,
looking displeased, ‘I shall state my own view of the
case in my own way another time. I grieve, Monsieur
le Général, that by my skill and science I can be of
no use. Before I go I shall do myself the honour to
suggest something to you.’

“He seemed thoughtful, and sat down at a table,
and began to write. Profoundly disappointed, I made
my bow, and as I turned to go, the other doctor
pointed over his shoulder to his companion who was
writing, and then, with a shrug, significantly touched
his forehead.

“This consultation, then, left me precisely where
Iwas. I walked out into the grounds, all but dis-
tracted. The doctor from Gratz, in ten or fifteen
minutes, overtook me. He apologised for having
followed me, but said that he could not conscientiously
take his leave without a few words more. He told
me that he could not be mistaken; no natural disease
exhibited the same symptoms; and that death was
already very near. There remained, however, a day,
or possibly two, of life. If the fatal seizure were at
once arrested, with great care and skill her strength
might possibly return. But all hung now upon the
confines of the irrevocable. One more assault might
extinguish the last spark of vitality which is, every
moment, ready to die.

“« And what is the nature of the seizure you speak
of?’ I entreated.

“*T have stated all fully in this note, which I
place in your hands, upon the distinct condition that
you send for the nearest clergyman, and open my
letter in his presence, and on no account read it till
''458 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

he is with you ; you would despise it else, and it is a
matter of life and death. Should the priest fail you,
then, indeed, you may read it.’

“He asked me, before taking his leave finally,
whether I would wish to see a man curiously learned
upon the very subject, which, after I had read his
letter, would probably interest me above all others,
and he urged me earnestly to invite him to visit him
there; and so took his leave.

“The ecclesiastic was absent, and I read the
letter by myself. At another time, or in another case,
it might have excited my ridicule. But into what
quackeries will not people rush for a last chance,
where all accustomed means have failed, and the life
of a beloved object is at stake?

“Nothing, you will say, could be more absurd
than the learned man’s letter. It was monstrous
enough to have consigned him to a madhouse. He
said that the patient was suffering from the visits of
a vampire! The punctures which she described as
having occurred near the throat, were, he insisted, the
insertion of those two long, thin, and sharp teeth
which, it is well known, are peculiar to vampires; and
there could be no doubt, he added, as to the well-
defined presence of the small livid mark which all
concurred in describing as that induced by the
demon’s lips, and every symptom described by the
sufferer was in exact conformity with those recorded
in every case of a similar visitation.

“Being myself wholly sceptical as to the exist-
ence of any such portent as the vampire, the super-
natural theory of the good doctor furnished, in my
opinion, but another instance of learning and intelli-
''CARMILLA. 459

gence oddly associated with some one hallucination.
I was so miserable, however, that, rather than try
nothing, I acted upon the instructions of the letter.

“T concealed myself in the dark dressing-room,
that opened upon the poor patient’s room, in which
a candle was burning, and watched there till she was
fast asleep. I stood at the door, peeping through the
small crevice, my sword laid on the table beside me,
as my directions prescribed, until, a little after one, I
saw a large black object, very ill-defined, crawl, as it
seemed to me, over the foot of the bed, and swiftly
spread itself up to the poor girl’s throat, where
it swelled, in a moment, into a great, palpitating
mass.

“For a few moments I had stood petrified. I now
sprang forward, with my sword in my hand. The
black creature suddenly contracted toward the foot of
the bed, glided over it, and, standing on the floor
about a yard below the foot of the bed, with a glare
of skulking ferocity and horror fixed on me, I saw
Millarca. Speculating I know not what, I struck at
her instantly with my sword ; but I saw her standing
near the door, unscathed. Horrified, I pursued, and
struck again. She was gone! and my sword flew to
shivers against the door.

“T can’t describe to you all that passed on that
horrible night. The whole house was up and stirring.
The spectre Millarca was gone. But her victim was
sinking fast, and before the morning dawned, she
died.”

The old General was agitated. We did not speak
to him. My father walked to some little distance,
and began reading the inscriptions on the tomb-
''460 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

stones ; and thus occupied, he strolled into the door
of a side chapel to prosecute his researches. The
General leaned against the wall, dried his eyes, and
sighed heavily. I was relieved on hearing the voices
of Carmilla and Madame, who were at that moment
approaching. The voices died away.

In this solitude, having just listened to so strange
a story, connected, as it was, with the great and
titled dead, whose monuments were mouldering
among the dust and ivy round us, and every inci-
dent of which bore so awfully upon my own myste-
rious case —in this haunted spot, darkened by the
towering foliage that rose on every side, dense and
high above its noiseless walls—a horror began to steal
over me, and my heart sank as I thought that my
friends were, after all, not about to enter and disturb
this triste and ominous scene.

The old General’s eyes were fixed on the ground,
as he leaned with his hand upon the basement of a
shattered monument.

Under a narrow, arched doorway, surmounted by
one of those demoniacal grotesques in which the
cynical and ghastly fancy of old Gothic carving
delights, I saw very gladly the beautiful face and
figure of Carmilla enter the shadowy chapel.

I was just about to rise and speak, and nodded
smiling, in answer to her peculiarly engaging smile ;
when with a cry, the old man by my side caught up
the woodman’s hatchet, and started forward. On
seeing him a brutalised change came over her feat-
ures. It was an instantaneous and horrible transfor-
mation, as she made a crouching step backwards.
Before I could utter a scream, he struck at her with
''4 CARMILLA. 461

all his force, but she dived under his blow, and
unscathed, caught him in her tiny grasp by the wrist.
He struggled for a moment to release his arm, but
his hand opened, the axe fell to the ground, and the
girl was gone.

He staggered against the wall. His grey hair
stood upon his head, and a moisture shone over his
face, as if he were at the point of death.

The frightful scene had passed in a moment.
The first thing I recollect after, is Madame standing
before me, and impatiently repeating again and again,
the question, “Where is Mademoiselle Carmilla ?”

I answered at length, “I don’t know—I can’t tell -
—she went there,” and I pointed to the door through
which Madame had just entered; “only a minute or
two since.”

“But I have been standing there, in the passage,
ever since Mademoiselle Carmilla entered ; and she
did not return.”

She then began to call “ Carmilla” through every
door and passage and from the windows, but no
answer came.

“ She called herself Carmilla? ” asked the General,
still agitated.

“Carmilla, yes,” I answered.

“ Aye,” he said; that is Millarca. That is the
same person who long ago was called Mircalla,
Countess Karnstein. Depart from this accursed
ground, my poor child, as quickly as youccan. Drive
to the clergyman’s house, and stay there till we come.
Begone! May you never behold Carmilla more;
you will not find her here.”
''CHAPTER XV.
ORDEAL AND EXECUTION. |

As he spoke one of the strangest-looking men I ever
beheld, entered the chapel at the door through which
Carmilla had made her entrance and her exit. He
was tall, marrow-chested, stooping, with high
shoulders, and dressed in black. His face was brown
and dried in with deep furrows ; he wore an oddly-
shaped hat with a broad leaf. His hair, long and
grizzled, hung on his shoulders. He wore a pair of
gold spectacles, and walked slowly, with an odd
shambling gait, with his face sometimes turned up
to the sky, and sometimes bowed down toward the
ground, seemed to wear a perpetual smile; his long
thin arms were swinging, and his lank hands, in old
black gloves ever so much too wide for them, waving
and gesticulating in utter abstraction.

“The very man!” exclaimed the General, ad-
vancing with manifest delight. “My dear Baron,
how happy I am to see you, I had no hope of.
meeting you so soon.” He signed to my father, who
''CARMILLA. 463

had by this time returned, and leading the fantastic
old gentleman, whom he called the Baron, to meet
him. He introduced him formally, and they at once
entered into earnest conversation. The stranger took
a roll of paper from his pocket, and spread it on the
worn surface of a tomb that stood by. He had a
pencil case in his fingers, with which he traced
imaginary lines from point to point on the paper,
which from their often glancing from it, together, at
certain points of the building, I concluded to be a
plan of the chapel. He accompanied, what I may
term his lecture, with occasional readings from a dirty
little book, whose yellow leaves were closely written
over.

They sauntered together down the side aisle,
opposite to the spot where I was standing, conversing
as they went; then they begun measuring distances
by paces, and finally they all stood together, facing
a piece of the side-wall, which they began to examine
with great minuteness ; pulling off the ivy that clung
over it, and rapping the plaster with the ends of their
sticks, scraping here, and knocking there. At length
they ascertained the existence of a broad marble
tablet, with letters carved in relief upon it, ;

With the assistance of the woodman, who soon
returned, a monumental inscription, and carved
escutcheon, were disclosed. They proved to be those
of the long lost monument of Mircalla, Countess
Karnstein.

The old General, though not I fear given to the
praying mood, raised his hands and eyes to heaven,
in mute thanksgiving for some moments,

“To-morrow,” I heard him say; “the commis-
''464 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

sioner will be here, and the Inquisition will be held
according to law.”

Then turning to the old man with the gold
spectacles, whom I have described, he shook him
warmly by both hands and said:

“Baron, how can I thank you? How can we all
thank you? You will have delivered this region from
a plague that has scourged its inhabitants for more
than a century. The horrible enemy, thank God, is
at last tracked.”

My father led the stranger aside, and the General
followed. I knew that he had led them out ot
hearing, that he might relate my case, and I saw
them glance often quickly at me, as the discussion
proceeded.

My father came to me, kissed me again and again,
and leading me from the chapel, said :

“It is time to return, but before we go hore,
we must add to our party the good priest, who lives
but a little way from this; and persuade him to
accompany us to the schloss.” :

In this quest we were successful: and I was glad,
being unspeakably fatigued when we reached home.
But my satisfaction was changed to dismay, on dis-
covering that there were no tidings of Carmilla. Of
the scene that had occurred in the ruined chapel, no
explanation was offered to me, and it was clear that
it was a secret which my father for the present deter-
mined to keep from me.

The sinister absence of Carmilla made the remem-
.brance of the scene more horrible to me. The
arrangements for that night were singular. Two
servants and Madame were to sit up in my room that
''CARMILLA. 465

night; and the ecclesiastic with my father kept
watch in the adjoining dressing-room.

The priest had performed certain solemn rites that
night, the purport of which I did not understand any
more than I comprehended the reason of this extra-
ordinary precaution taken for my safety during sleep.

I saw all clearly a few days later.

The disappearance of Carmilla was followed by
the discontinuance of my nightly sufferings.

You have heard, no doubt, of the appalling super-
stition that prevails in Upper and Lower Styria, in
Moravia, Silesia, in Turkish Servia, in Poland, even in
Russia; the superstition, so we must call it, of the
vampire.

If human testimony, taken with every care and
solemnity, judicially, before commissions innumerable,
each consisting of many members, all chosen for
integrity and intelligence, and constituting reports
more voluminous perhaps than exist upon any one
other class of cases, is worth anything, it is difficult
to deny, or even to doubt the existence of such a
phenomenon as the vampire.

For my part I have heard no theory by which to
explain what I myself have witnessed and experi-
enced, other than that supplied by the ancient and
well-attested belief of the country.

The next day the formal proceedings took place
in the Chapel of Karnstein. The grave of the
Countess Mircalla was opened; and the General
and my father recognized each his perfidious and
beautiful guest, in the face now disclosed to
view. The features, though a hundred and fifty
years had passed since her funeral, were tinted

30
''466 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

with the warmth of life. Her eyes were open;
no cadaverous smell exhaled from the coffin. The
two medical men, one officially present, the other on
the part of the promoter of the inquiry, attested the
marvellous fact, that there was a faint but appreciable
respiration, and a corresponding action of the heart.
The limbs were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic;
and the leaden coffin floated with blood, in which _to
a depth of seven inches, the body lay immersed.
Here then, were all the admitted signs and proofs of
vampirism. The body, therefore, in accordance with
the ancient practice, was raised, and a sharp stake
driven through the heart of the vampire, who uttered
a piercing shriek at the moment, in all respects
such as might escape from a living person in the last
agony. Then the head was struck off, and a torrent
of blood flowed from the severed neck. The body
and head were next placed on a pile of wood, and
reduced to ashes, which were thrown upon the river
and borne away, and that territory has never since
been plagued by the visits of a vampire.

My father has a copy of the report of the Imperial
Commission, with the signatures of all who were
present at these proceedings, attached in verification
of the statement. It is from this official paper that
I have summarized my account of this last shocking

scene,
''CHAPTER XVI.
CONCLUSION.

I WRITE all this you suppose with composure. But
far from it; I cannot think of it without agitation.
Nothing but your earnest desire so repeatedly ex-
pressed, could have induced me to sit down toa
task that has unstrung my nerves for months to
come, and reinduced a shadow of the unspeakable
horror which years after my deliverance continued to
make my days and nights dreadful, and solitude in-
supportably terrific.

Let me add a word or two about that quaint
Baron Vordenburg, to whose curious lore we were
indebted for the discovery of the Countess Mircalla’s
grave.

He had taken up his abode in Gratz, where, living
‘upon a mere pittance, which was all that remained to
him of the once princely estates of his family, in
Upper Styria, he devoted himself to the minute and
laborious investigation of the marvellously authenti-
cated tradition of vampirism. He had at his fingers’
ends all the great and little works upon the subject,
''468 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

“Magia Posthuma,” “Phlegon de Mirabilibus,”
“ Augustinus de cura pro Mortuis,” “ Philosophice et
Christiane Cogitationes de Vampiris,’ by John
Christofer Herenberg ; and a thousand others, among
which I remember only a few of those which he lent
to my father. He had a voluminous digest of all the
judicial cases, from which he had extracted a system
of principles that appear to govern—some always,
and others occasionally only—the condition of the
vampire. I may mention, in passing, that the deadly
pallor attributed to that sort of vevenants, is a mere
melodramatic fiction, They present, in the grave,
and when they show themselves in human society, the
appearance of healthy life. When disclosed to light
in their coffins, they exhibit all the symptoms that
are enumerated as those which proved the vampire-life
of the long-dead Countess Karnstein.

How they escape from their graves and return to
them for certain hours every day, without displacing
the clay or leaving any trace of disturbance in the
state of the coffin or the cerements, has always been
admitted to be utterly inexplicable. The amphibious
existence of the vampire is sustained by daily
renewed slumber in the grave. Its horrible lust for
living blood supplies the vigour of its waking exist-
ence. The vampire is prone to be fascinated with
an engrossing vehemence, resembling the passion of
love, by particular persons, In pursuit of these it
will exercise inexhaustible patience and stratagem,
for access to a particular object may be obstructed in
a hundred ways. It will never desist until it has
satiated its passion, and drained the very life of its
coveted victim. But it will, in these cases, husband
''CARMILLA. 469

and protract its murderous enjoyment with the
refinement of an epicure, and heighten it by the
gradual approaches of an artful courtship. In these
cases it seems to yearn for something like sympathy
and consent. In ordinary ones it goes direct to its
object, overpowers with violence, and strangles and
exhausts often at a single feast.

The vampire is, apparently, subject, in certain
situations, to special conditions. In the particular
instance of which I have given you a relation, Mircalla
seemed to be limited to a name which, if not her real
one, should at least reproduce, without the omission
or addition of a single letter, those, as we say,
anagrammatically, which compose it. Carmilla did
this ; so did Mil/arca.

My father related to the Baron Vordenburg, who
remained with us for two or three weeks after the
expulsion of Carmilla, the story about the Moravian
nobleman and the vampire at Karnstein churchyard,
and then he asked the Baron how he had discovered
the exact position of the long-concealed tomb of the
Countess Millarca? The Baron’s grotesque features
puckered up into a mysterious smile; he looked
down, still smiling on his worn spectacle-case and
fumbled with it. Then looking up, he said:

“I have many journals, and other papers, written
by that remarkable man; the most curious among
them is one treating of the visit of which you speak,
to Karnstein. The tradition, of course, discolours
and distorts a little. He might have been termed a
Moravian nobleman, for he had changed his abode
to that territory, and was, beside, a noble. But he
was, in truth, a native of Upper Styria. It is enough
''470 IN A GLASS DARKLY.

to say that in very early youth he had been a passion-
ate and favoured lover of the beautiful Mircalla,
Countess Karnstein. Her early death plunged him
into inconsolable grief. It is the nature of vampires
toincrease and multiply, but according to an ascer-
tained and ghostly law.

“Assume, at starting, a territory perfectly free
from that pest. How does it begin, and how does it
multiply itself? I will tell you. A person, more or
less wicked, puts an end to himself. A suicide, under
certain circumstances, becomes a vampire. That
spectre visits living people in their slumbers; they
die, and almost invariably, in the grave, develope into
vampires. This happened in the case of the beautiful
Mircalla, who was haunted by one of those demons.
My ancestor, Vordenburg, whose title I still bear,
soon discovered this, and in the course of the studies
to which he devoted himself, learned a great deal
more.

“ Among other things, he concluded that suspicion
of vampirism would probably fall, sooner or later,
upon the dead Countess, who in life had been his idol.
He conceived a horror, be she what she might, of
her remains being profaned by the outrage of a pos-
thumous execution. He has left a curious paper
to prove that the vampire, on its expulsion from its
amphibious existence, is projected into a far more
horrible life; and he resolved to save his once
beloved Mircalla from this.

“He adopted the stratagem of a journey here, a
pretended removal of her remains, and a real oblitera-
tion of her monument. When age had stolen upon
him, and from the vale of years he looked back on
''CARMILLA. 471

the scenes he was leaving, he considered, in a different
spirit, what he had done, and a horror took possession
of him. He made the tracings and notes which have
guided me to the very spot, and drew up a confession
of the deception that he had practised. If he had
intended any further action in this matter, death pre-
vented him; and the hand of a remote descendant
has, too late for many, directed the pursuit to the
lair of the beast.”

We talked a little more, and among other things
he said was this :

“One sign of the vampire is the power of the
hand. The slender hand of Mircalla closed like a
vice of steel on the General’s wrist when he raised the
hatchet to strike. But its power is not confined to
its grasp; it leaves a numbness in the limb it seizes,
which is slowly, if ever, recovered from.”

The following Spring my father took me a tour
through Italy. We remained away for more than a
year. It was long before the terror of recent events
subsided ; and to this hour the image of Carmilla
returns to memory with ambiguous alternations—
sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl ; some-
times the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church;
and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I

heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing-room
door,

~

THE END.
'' 
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