The Familiar - Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (best summer reads .TXT) 📗

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 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 imperfectly

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 anything 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-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 its 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 bedside, he drew the curtains 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; 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,

withdrawing 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

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

connexion 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

bitterness — his treatment of the unfortunate girl — by a

systematic exercise of those terrible and arbitrary

severities which the regulations of the navy placed at 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 punishments.

 

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 however 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 ipsissima 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. Papers of Dr. Hesselius].