 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The 930 Uptrain by S. Baring Gould, recorded by Adrian Pretzelis. In a well-authenticated ghost story, names and dates should be distinctly specified. In the following story, I am unfortunately able to give only the year and the month, for I have forgotten the date of the day and I don't keep a diary. With regard to names, my own figures as a guarantee that of the principal personage to whom the following extraordinary circumstances occurred, but the minor actors are provided with fictitious names for I am not warranted to make their real ones public. I may add that the believer in ghosts may make use of the facts which I relate to establishes theory if he finds that they will be of service to him when he has read through and weighed well the staffing account which I am about to give from my own experiences. On a fine evening in June 1860, I paid a visit to Mrs Lyons on my way to the Hassex Gate station on the London and Brighton line. This station is the first out of Brighton. As I rode to leave, I mentioned to the lady whom I was visiting that I expected a parcel of books from town and that I was going to the station to inquire whether it had arrived. Oh, she said readily. I expect Dr Lyons out from Brighton by the 930 train. If you like to drive the pony shades down and meet him, you are welcome and you can bring your parcel back with you in it. I gladly accepted her offer and in a few minutes I was seated in a little low basket carriage drawn by a pretty iron grey Welsh pony. The station road commands the line of the South Downs from Chantonbury Ring with its cap of dark furs to Mount Harry, the scene of the memorable battle of Lewis. Wolfsonbury stands out like a headland above the dark Danny woods over which the rooks were wheeling and coring previous to settling themselves in for the night. Ditchling beacon, its steep sides gashed with chalk pits was faintly flushed with light. The Clayton windmills with their sails motionless stood out darkly against the green evening sky. Close beneath opens the tunnel in which not so long before that happened one of the most fearful railway accidents on record. The evening was exquisite. The sky was kindled with light though the sun was set. A few gilded bars of cloud lay in the west. Two or three stars looked forth. One I noticed twinkling green, crimson and gold like a gem. From a field of young wheat hard by I heard the harsh grating note of the corn creak. Mist was lying on the low meadows like a mantle of snow, pure, smooth and white. The cattle stood in it to their knees. The effect was so singular that I drew up to look at it attentively. At the same moment I heard the scream of an engine and on looking toward the downs I noted the up train shooting out of the tunnel, its red signal lamps flashing brightly out of the purple gloom which bathed the roots of the hills. Seeing that I was late I whipped the Welsh pony on and proceeded at a fast trot. About a quarter of a mile from the station there is a turnpike, an odd looking building tenanted by a strange old man usually dressed in a white smock over which his long white beard flowed to his chest. This toll collector, he is dead now, had amused himself in bygone days by carving life-size heads out of wood and these were stuck along the eaves. One is the face of a drunkard, round and blotched, leering out of misty eyes at the passersby. The next has the crumpled features of a miser, worn out with toil and moil. The third has the wild scowl of a maniac and the fourth the stare of an idiot. I drove past fleeing the toll of the door and shouting to the old man to pick it up for I was in a vast hurry to reach the station before Dr Lyons left it. I whipped the little pony on and he began to trot down a cutting in the green sand through which leads the station road. Suddenly Taffy stood still, planted his feet resolutely on the grounds, threw up his head, snorted and refused to move a peg. I gee up and chushed, but all to no purpose, not a step with the little fellow advance. I saw that he was thoroughly alarmed. His flanks were quivering and his ears were thrown back. I was on the point of leaving the shays when the pony made a bound to one side and ran the carriage up into the hedge, thereby upsetting me on the road. I picked myself up and took the beast's head. I could not conceive what had frightened him. There was positively nothing to be seen, except a path of dust running up the road as such might be blown along by a passing current of air. There was nothing to be heard, except a rattle of a gig or a tax cart with one wheel loose. Probably a vehicle of this kind was being driven down the London Road which branches off at the turnpike at right angles. The sound became fainter and at last died away in the distance. The pony now refused to advance. It trembled violently and was covered with sweat. Well, upon my word, you had been driving hard, exclaimed Dr. Lyons when I met him at the station. I have not indeed, was my reply, but something has frightened Taffy but what that something was is more than I can tell. Well, ah-ha, said the doctor, looking round with a certain degree of interest in his face. So you met it, did you? Met what? Nothing, only I've heard of horses being frightened along this road after the arrival of the 930 up train. Flies never leave the moment the train comes in or horses become restive. A wonderful thing for a fly horse to become restive, isn't it? But what causes the alarm? I saw nothing. Ha! You ask me more than I can answer. I'm as ignorant as the cause as yourself. I take things as they stand and make no inquiries. When the flyman tells me that he can't start for a minute or two after the train has arrived urges his horses to reach the station before the arrival of this train giving as his reason that his brutes become wild if he does not do so. Well, then I merely say, do you think best cabbie? And I bother my head no more about the matter. I shall search this matter out, said I, resolutely. What has taken place so strangely corroborates the superstition that I shall leave it not uninvestigated? Take my advice and banish it from your thoughts. When you come to the end you will be sadly disappointed and will find that all the mystery evaporates and leaves a dull commonplace residuum. It is best that the few mysteries that remain to us unexplain should remain mysteries though we shall disbelieve in supernatural agencies altogether. We have searched out the Akana of nature and exposed all her secrets to the garish eye of day and we find in despair that the poetry and the romance of life are gone. Are we there happier for knowing that there are no ghosts, no fairies, no witches, no mermaids, no wood spirits? Were not our forefathers happier in thinking every lake to be the abode of a fairy, a forest to be the bower of a yellow-haired sylph? Every moorland sweet to be tripped over by elf and pixie? I found my little boy one day lying on his face in a fairy ring crying Oh, oh dear, dear, little fairies I will believe in you though Papas says you are all longsons. I used in my childish days to think when a silence fell upon a company that an angel was passing through the room. Alas, I now know that it results only from the subject of weather having been talked to death and no new subject having been started. Believe me, science has done good to mankind but it has done mischief too. If we wish to be poetical or romantic we must shut our eyes to facts. The head and the heart of a wage mutual war now a lover preserves a lock of his mistress's hair as a holy relic. Yet he must know perfectly well that for all practical purposes a bit of rhinoceros hide would do as well. The chemical constituents are identical. If I adore a fair lady and feel the thrill through all my veins when I touch her hand a moment's consideration tells me phosphate of lime number one is a touching phosphate of lime number two. Nothing more if for a moment I forget myself so far as to wave my cap and cheer for king or queen or prince I laugh at my folly next moment for having paid reverence to one disgusting machine over another. I cut Dr. Short as he was lapsing into his favourite subject of discussion and asked him whether he would lend me pony shays on the following evening that I might drive to the station again and try to unravel the mystery. I will lend you the pony, said he, but not the shays as I'm afraid of it being injured should taffy take fright and run up into the hedge again. I've got a saddle. Next evening I was on my way to the station considerably before the time at which the train was due. I stopped at the turnpike and chatted with the old man who kept it. I asked him whether he could throw any light upon the matter which I was investigating. He shrugged his shoulders saying that he know nothing about it at all. What, nothing at all? I don't trouble my head with matters of this sort, was the reply. People do say that something out of the common passes along the road and turns down the other road leading to Clayton and Brighton. But I pays no attention to what them people says. Do you ever hear anything? After the arrival of the 930 train I does at times hear the rattle as of a mail cart and the trot of a horse along the road and the sound of it is as though one of the wheels is loose. I've been out many a time to take the toll but law bless thee, them spirits if spirits them be don't go for a pay toll. Have you never inquired into the matter? Why should I? Anything as don't go for a pay toll don't concern me. Do we think that I know how many people and dogs go through this here gate in a day? Not I, them don't pay toll so them's no odds to me. Look here my man, said I. Do you object to my putting the bar across the road immediately upon the rival of the train? Not a bit, please yourself but you don't have much time to lose for there comes the key trade out Clayton Tunnel. I shut the gate, mounted taffy and drew up across the road a little way below the turnpike. I heard the train arrive, I saw it puff off at the same moment I distinctly heard a trap coming up the road one of the real wheels rattling as though it were loose I repeat deliberately that I heard it I cannot account for it though I heard it yet I saw nothing whatsoever at the same time the pony became restless it tossed its head, pricked up its ears it started pranced then made a bound to one side entirely regardless of whip and rain it tried to scramble up the sandbank in its alarm and I had to throw myself off and catch its head I then cast a glance behind me at the turnpike I saw the bar bent as though someone were passing against it and then with a click it flew open and was dashed violently back against the white post to which it was usually hasp in the daytime there it remained quivering from the shock immediately I heard the rattle rattle rattle of the tax cart I confess that my first impulse was to laugh the idea of a ghostly tax cart was so essentially ludicrous but the reality of the whole scene soon brought me to a graver mood and remounting taffy I rode down to the station the officials were taking their ease as another train was not due for some while so I stepped up to the station master and entered into conversation with him after a few desultory remarks I mentioned the circumstances which had occurred to me on the road and my ability to account for them so that's what you're after said the master somewhat bluntly while I can tell you nothing about it spirits don't come in my way saving and accepting those which can be taken inwardly a mighty comforting war in things they be when they so taken so you ask me about other sorts of spirits I tell you flatly I don't believe in them though I don't mind drinking their health and then what does perhaps you may have the chance if you are a little more communicative well I'll tell you all I know and that's precious little answered the worthy man I know one thing for certain that one compartment of a second class carriage is always left vacant between Brighton and Hassex Gate by the 930 up train for what purpose? now that's more than I can fully explain before the orders came to this effect people went into fits and like that in one of their carriages any particular carriage the first compartment of the second class carriage nearest the engine is locked at Brighton and I unlock it at this station what do you mean by saying that people had fits? I mean that I used to find men and women are screeching in a hollering like mad to be let out they'd seen some had frightened them as they were passing through the Clayton Tunnel that was before they made the arrangement I told you of very strange I said meditatively very much so but true for all that I don't believe in nothing but spirits of a woman and a cheer in nature them and sought a founding Clayton Tunnel to my thinking there was evidently nothing more to be got out of my friend I hope that he drank my health that night if he admitted to do so it was his fault not mine revolving in my mind all that I had heard and seen I became more and more settled in my determination to thoroughly investigate the matter the best means that I could adopt for so doing would be to come out from Brighton by the 930 train in the very compartment of the second class carriage from which the public were considerably excluded somehow I felt no shrinking from the attempt my curiosity was so intense that it overcame all apprehension as to the consequences my next free day was Thursday and I had hoped to execute my plan in this however I was disappointed as I found that a battalion drill was fixed for that very evening and I was desirous of attending it being somewhat behind hand in the regulation number of drills I was consequently obliged to postpone my Brighton trip on the Thursday evening about 5 o'clock I started in regimentals with my rifle over my shoulder for the drilling ground a piece of fursy common near the railway station I was speedily overtaken by Mr Ball a corporal in the rifle corps a capital shot and a most efficient in his drill Mr Ball was driving his gig he stopped on seeing me and offered me a seat beside him I gladly accepted as the distance to the station is a mile and three quarters by the road and two miles by what is commonly supposed to be the short cart across the fields after some conversation on volunteering matters about which Corporal Ball was enthused we turned out of the lanes into the station road and I took the opportunity of averting to the subject which was uppermost to my mind I've heard a great deal about that I said the corporal might work would often told me some cockable story of that kind I can't say how as I believe him what you tell me is however very remarkable I never add it on such good authority a foyer still I can't believe that there's anything supernatural about it I don't yet know what to believe I replied for the whole matter is to me perfectly inexplicable you know of course I gave ride to the superstition not I pray tell it to me hmm just about seven years ago why you must remember the circumstances as well as I do there was a man drove from I can't say where for it never was actually has attained but from the Hemfield direction in a light cart he went to the station in the reins to John Thomas the Osler batting to take up the track and bring it around to meet the 930 train by which he calculated to return from Brighton John Thomas said how the stranger was quite unbeknown to him and they looked as though he had had some matter on his mind when he went up to the train it was a queer sort of a chap with thick gray hair and a beard and delicate white hands just like a ladies the trap was ran to the station door as he ordered by the arrival of the 930 train the osler observed then that the man was ashen pale and that his hands trembled as he took the reins that the stranger stared at him in a wild abstracted way and that he would have driven off without tendering payment and he not being respectfully reminded that the all had been given a feeder of notes. John Thomas made a observation to the gent relative to the wheel which was loose but that observation meant with no corresponding answer. The driver whipped his horse and went off. He passed the turnpike and was seen to take the Brighton road instead of that by which he had come a workman had observed the trap next on the downs above Clayton chalk pits He didn't pay much attention to it, but he said the driver was on his legs at the edge of the orcs. Next morning, when the quarryman went to the pit, they found a shattered tax cart at the bottom, and the orcs and driver, dead, the latter, with his neck broken. What was curious, too, was that an anchor chief was bound round the brute's eyes so that he must have driven over the edge blindfolded. Hard, wasn't it? Well, folks say the gent and his tax cart passes along that road every evening after the arrival of the 930 train. I don't believe it. I ain't a bit superstitious, not I. But next week, I was again disappointed in my expectation of being able to put my scheme into execution. But on the third Saturday after my conversation with Corporal Ball, I walked into Brighton in the afternoon, a distance being about 9 miles. I spent an hour on the shore watching the boats, and then I sauntered around the pavilion, ardently longing that fire make break forth and consume that architectural monstrosity. I believed that I afterwards had a cup of coffee at the refreshment rooms at the station, and capital refreshment rooms they are, or were, very moderate and very good. I think I partook of a bun, and if I put my oath I could not swear to the fact. A flunting reminiscence of bun lingers in the chamber of memory, but I cannot be positive, and I wish this paper to advance nothing but reliable facts. I squandered precious time in reading the advertisements of baby junkpers, which no mother should be without, which are indispensable in the nursery and the greatest acquisition in the parlour, the greatest discovery of modern times, etc. etc. I perused the notice of the advantage of metallic brushes, and admired the young lady with her hair white on one side, and black on the other. I studied the Chinese letter commentary of Horniman's Tea and the Inferior English Translation, and counted up the number of agents in Great Britain's in Ireland. In length the ticket office opened, and I booked for Hassett's Gate Second Class Fair One Shilling. I ran along the platform till I came to the compartment of the Second Class carriage, which I wanted. The door was locked, so I shouted for a guard. Put me in here, please. Can't there, sir? Next, please. Empty one woman and a baby. I particularly wished to enter. This carriage, said I. Can't be. Locked. Orders. Company. Replied the guard, turning on his heel. What reason is there for the public being excluded, may I ask? Don't know. Express orders. Can't let you in. Next carriage, please. Now then, quick, please. I knew the guard, and he knew me by sight, for I often travelled to and fro on the line, so I thought it best to be candid with him. I briefly told him my reason for making the request, and begged him to assist me in executing my plan. He then consented, although with reluctance. At the own way, he said, Only if anything happens, don't blame me. Never fear, laughed I, jumping into the carriage. The guard left the carriage unlocked, and in two minutes we were off. I did not feel, in the slightest degree, nervous. There was no light in the carriage, but that did not matter, as there was twilight. I sat, facing the engine on the left side, and every now and then I looked out at the downs, with the soft haze of light still hanging over them. We swept into a cutting, and I watched the lines of flint in the chalk, and longed to be geologizing among them with my hammer. Picking out shepherd's crowns and shark's teeth, the delicate reconella, and the quaint verniculite. I remembered a not very distant occasion, on which I had actually ventured there, and been chased off by the guard, having brought down an avalanche of chalk debris, in a manner dangerous to traffic, while endeavoring to extricate a magnificent ammonite, which I had found, and alas, left, protruding from the side of the cutting. I wondered whether that ammonite was still there. I looked about to identify the exact spot, as we whizzed along, and at that moment we shot into the tunnel. I cannot explain how it was that now, all of a sudden, a feeling of terror came over me. It seemed to drop over me like a wet sheep, and wrap me round and round. I felt that someone was seated opposite me, someone in the darkness, with his eyes fixed on me. Many persons possessed of keen, nervous sensibility are well aware, when they are in the presence of another, even though they can see no one, and I believe that I possessed this power strongly. If I were blindfolded, I think I should know, when anyone was looking fixately at me, and I am certain, that I should instinctively know, that I was not alone, if I entered a dark room into which another person was seated, even though he made no noise. I remember a college friend of mine, who dabbled in anatomy, telling me that a little Italian violinist once called upon him to give him a lesson on that instrument. The foreigner, a singularly nervous individual, moved restlessly from the place where he had been standing, casting many a furtive glance over his shoulder, at a press which was behind him. At last the little fellow tossed aside his violin, saying, I cannot give the lesson, if someone will look at me from behind. There's somebody in the cupboard I know. You're right, there is, laughed my anatomical friend, flinging open the door of the press, and discovering a skeleton. The horror which possessed me was numbing. For a few moments I could neither lift my hands, nor start a finger. I was tongue-tied. I seemed paralyzed in every member. I fancied that I felt eyes staring at me through the glue. A cold breath seemed to play over my face. I believed that fingers touched my chest, and plucked at my coat. I drew back against the partition. My heart stood still. My flesh became stiff. My muscles rigid. I do not know whether I breathed. A blue mist swam before my eyes and my head span. The rattle and roar of the train dashing through the tunnel drowned out every other sound. Suddenly we rushed past a light fixed against the wall in the side, and it sent a flash instantaneous as that of lightning through the carriage. At that moment I saw what I shall never, never forget. I saw a face opposite me, livid as that of a corpse, hideous with passion, like that of a gorilla. I cannot describe it accurately, for I saw it but for a second. Yet there rises before me now as I write. The low, broad brow seemed with wrinkles. The shaggy, overhanging gray eyebrows. The wild, ashen eyes which glared as those of a demoniac. The coarse mouth with its fleshy lips compressed until they were white. The profusion of wolf-grey hair about the cheeks and the chin. The thin, bloodless hands raised and half open extended toward me as though they would clutch and tear me. In the madness of terror I flung myself along the seat to the further window. Then I felt it moving slowly down, and was opposite me again. I lifted my hand to let down the window, and I touched something. I thought it was a hand. Yes, yes, it was a hand, for it folded over mine and began to contract on it. I felt each finger separately. They were cold, dullly cold. I wrenched my hand away. I slipped back to my former place in the carriage by the open window, and in frantic horror I opened the door, clean to it with both hands around the window-jam, swinging myself out with my feet on the floor, and my head turned from the carriage. If the cold fingers had but touched my woven hands, mine would have given way. Had I but turned my head and seen that hellish countenance peering out at me, I must have lost my hold. Ah, I saw the light from the tunnel-mouth it smote upon my face. The engine rushed out with a piercing whistle. The roaring echoes of the tunnel died away. The cool fresh breeze blew over my face and tossed my hair. The speed of the train was relaxed. The lights of the station became brighter. I heard the bell ringing loudly. I saw people waiting for the train. I felt the vibration as the brake was put on. We stopped, and then my fingers gave way. I dropped as a sack on the platform, and then, then, not till then, I awoke. There now, from beginning to end, the whole thing had been a frightful dream, caused by my having too many blankets over my bed. Ah! If I must have penned a moral, don't sleep too hot. End of the 9.30 up train by S. Baring Gould. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, and to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Clare Voliance by Algernon Blackwood. In the darkest corner where the firelight could not reach him, he sat listening to the stories. His young hostess occupied the corner on the other side. She was also screened by shadows, and between them stretched the horseshoe of eager, frightened faces that seemed all eyes. Behind, gone the blackness of the big room, running as it were without a break into the night. Someone crossed on tiptoe and drew a blind up with a rattle, and at the sound all started. Through the window, opened at the top, came a rustle of the poplar leaves that stirred like footsteps in the wind. There's a strange man walking past the shrubberies, whispered a nervous girl. I saw him crouch and hide. I saw his eyes. Nonsense, came sharply from a male member of the group. It's far too dark to see. You heard the wind. For mist had risen from the river just below the lawn, pressing close against the windows of the old house like a soft gray hand, and through it the stir of leaves was faintly audible. Then, while several called for lights, others remembered that hop pickers were still about in the lanes, and the tramps this autumn over-bold and insolent. All, perhaps, wished secretly for the sun. Only the elderly man in the corner sat quiet and unmoved, contributing nothing. He had told no fearsome story. He had evaded, indeed, many openings expressly made for him, though fully aware that to his well-known interest in psychical things was partly due his presence in the weekend party. I never have experiences that way, he said shortly, when someone asked him point blank for a tale. I have no unusual powers. There was perhaps the merest hint of contempt in his tone, but the hostess from her darkened corner quickly and tactfully covered his retreat. And he wondered. For he knew why she invited him. The haunted room, he was well aware, had been specially allotted to him. And then, most opportunely, the door opened noisily, and the host came in. He sniffed at the darkness, rang at once for lamps, puffed at his big curved pipe, and generally, by his mere presence, made the group feel rather foolish. Light streamed past him from the corridor. His white hair shone like silver, and with him came the atmosphere of common sense, of shooting, agriculture, motors, and the rest. Age entered at that door, and his young wife sprang up instantly to greet him, as though his disapproval of this kind of entertainment might need humoring. It might have been the light, that wichery of half lights from the fire in the corridor, or it may have been the abrupt entrance of the practical upon the soft imaginative that traced the outline with such pitiless sharp conviction. At any rate, the contrast, for those who had this interclervalent sight all had been preting of so glibly, was unmistakably revealed. It was poignantly dramatic, pain somewhere in it, naked pain. For, as she paused a moment there beside him in the light, this childless wife of three years standing, picture of youth and beauty, there stood upon the threshold of that room the presence of a true ghost story. And most marvelously she changed, her lineaments, her very figure, her whole presentment. Etched against the gloom, the delicate, unmarked face shown suddenly keen and anguished, and a rich maturity, deeper than any mere age, flushed all her little person with its secret grandeur. Lines started into being upon the pale skin of the girlish face, lines of pleading, pity, and love the daylight did not show, and with them an air of magic tenderness that betrayed, though for a second only, the full soft glory of a motherhood denied, yet somehow mysteriously enjoyed. About her slenderness rose all the deep bosom sweetness of maternity, a potential mother of the world, and a mother, though she might know no dear fulfillment, who yet yearned to sweep into her immense embrace all the little helpless things that ever lived. Light, like emotion, can play strangest tricks, the change pressed almost upon the edge of revelation. Yet, when a moment later lamps were brought, it is doubtful if any but the silent guest who had told no marvelous tale knew no psychical experience, and disclaimed the smallest clairvoyant faculty had received and registered the vivid poignant picture. For an instant it had flashed there, mercilessly clear for all to see who were not blind to subtle spiritual wonder thick with pain. And it was not so much mere picture of youth and age ill-matched as of youth that yearned with the oldest craving in the world, and of age that had slipped beyond the power of sympathetically divining it. It passed, and all was as before. The husband laughed with genial good nature, not one whit annoyed. They've been frightening you with stories, child, he said in his jolly way, and put a protective arm about her. Haven't they now? Tell me the truth. Much better, he added, have joined me instead at billiards, or for a game of patience, eh? She looked up shyly into his face, and he kissed her on the forehead. Perhaps they have. A little, dear, she said. But now that you've come, I feel all right again. Another night of this, he added in a graver tone, and you'd be at your old trick of putting guests to sleep in the haunted room. I was right after all, you see, to make it out of bounds. He glanced fondly, paternally, down upon her. Then he went over and poked the fire into a blaze. Someone struck up a waltz on the piano, and couples danced. All trace of nervousness vanished, and the butler presently brought in the tray with drinks and biscuits. And slowly the group dispersed. Candles were lit. They passed down the passage into the big hall, talking in lowered voices of tomorrow's plans. The laughter died away as they went up the stairs to bed, the silent guest and the young wife lingering a moment over the embers. You have not, after all, then put me in your haunted room? He asked quietly. You mentioned, you remember, in your letter. I admit, she replied at once, her manner gracious beyond her years, her voice quite different, that I wanted you to sleep there. Someone, I mean, who really knows, and is not merely curious. But forgive my saying so. When I saw you, she laughed very slowly. And when you told no marvelous story like the others, I somehow felt, but I never see anything, he put in hurriedly. You feel, though, she interrupted swiftly, the passionate tenderness in her voice, but half suppressed. I can tell it from your others, then, he interrupted abruptly, almost bluntly. Have slept there, sat up, rather? Not recently. My husband stopped it. She paused a second, then added, I had that room, for a year, when first we married. The others' anguished look flew back upon her little face like a shadow, and was gone, while at the side of it there rose in himself a sudden, deep rush of wonderful amazement beckoning almost toward worship. He did not speak, for his voice would tremble. I had to give it up, she finished, very low. Was it so terrible? After a pause, he ventured. She bowed her head. I had to change, she repeated softly. And since then, now, you see nothing, he asked. Her reply was singular, because I will not, not because it's gone. He followed her in silence to the door, and as they passed along the passage, again that curious great pain of emptiness, of loneliness, of yearning, rose upon him, as of a sea that never, never can swim beyond the shore to reach the flowers that it loves. Hurry up, child, or a ghost will catch you, cried her husband, leaning over the banisters, as the pair moved slowly up the stairs towards him. There was a moment's silence when they met. The guest took his lighted candle and went down the corridor. Good nights were set again. They moved away, she to her loneliness, he to his unhaunted room. And at his door he turned. At the far end of the passage, silhouetted against the candlelight, he watched them, the fine old man with his silvered hair and heavy shoulders, and the slim young wife with that amazing air as of some great bountiful mother of the world for whom the years yet passed hungry and unharvested. They turned the corner, and he went in and closed his door. Sleep took him very quickly, and while the mist rose up and veiled the countryside, something else, veiled equally for all other sleepers in that house but two, drew on towards its climax. Some hours later he awoke. The world was still, and it seemed the whole house listened. For with that clear vision which some bring out of sleep, he remembered that there had been no direct denial, and of a sudden realized that this big gaunt chamber where he lay was, after all, the haunted room. For him, however, the entire world, not merely separate rooms in it, was ever haunted, and he knew no terror to find the space about him charged with thronging life quite other than his own. He rose and lit the candle, crossed over to the window where the mist shone gray, knowing that no barriers of walls or door or ceiling could keep out this host of presences that poured so thickly everywhere about him. It was like a wall of being, with peering eyes, small hands stretched out, a thousand pattering wee feet, and tiny voices crying in a chorus very faintly and beseeching. The haunted room. Was it not rather a temple vestibule, prepared and sanctified by yearning rites few men might ever guess for all the childless women of the world? How could she know that he would understand, this woman he had seen but twice in all his life? And how entrust to him so great a mystery that was her secret? Had she so easily divined in him a similar yearning to which, long years ago, death had denied fulfillment? Was she clairvoyant in the true sense, and did all faces bear on them so legibly this great map that sorrow traced? And then, with awful suddenness, mere feelings dipped away and something concrete happened. The handle of the door had faintly rattled. He turned. The round brass knob was slowly moving. And first, at the sight, something of common fear did grip him, as though his heart had missed a beat. But on the instant he heard the voice of his own mother, now long beyond the stars, calling to him to go softly yet with speed. He watched a moment the feeble efforts to undo the door, yet never afterwards could swear that he saw actual movement. For something in him, tragic as blindness, rose through a mist of tears and darkened vision utterly. He went towards the door. He took the handle very gently, and very softly then he opened it. Beyond was darkness. He saw the empty passage, the edge of the banisters where the great hall yawned below, and dimly the outline of the alpine photograph and the stuffed deers had upon the wall. And then he dropped upon his knees and opened wide his arms to something that came in upon uncertain, viewless feet. All the young winds and flowers and do's of dawn passed with it, filling him to the brim, covering closely his breast and eyes and lips. There clung to him all the small beginnings of life that cannot stand alone, the little helpless hands and arms that have no confidence. And when the wealth of tears and love that flooded his heart seemed to break upon the frontiers of some mysterious yet impossible fulfillment, he rose and went with curious small steps towards the window to taste the cooling misty air of that other dark emptiness that waited so patiently there above the entire world. He drew the sash up. The air felt soft and tender, as though there were somewhere children in it too, children of stars and flowers, of mists and wings and music, all that the universe contains unborn and tiny. And when at length he turned again, the door was closed. The room was empty of any life but that which lay so wonderfully blessed within himself. And this, he felt, had marvelously increased and multiplied. Sleep then came back to him, and in the morning he left the house before the others were a stir, pleading some overlooked engagement. For he had seen ghosts indeed, but yet no ghost that he could talk about with others round an open fire. End of Claire Voyance by Algernon Blackwood. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Green Tea by Joseph Sheridan LaFannou Read by Chris Turtle Part 1 Prologue Martin Heselius, the German Physician Though carefully educated in medicine and surgery, I have never practiced 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 Heselius, a wanderer like myself, like me a physician, and like me an enthusiast in his profession. Unlike me in this, that his wanderings were voluntary, and he a man if not a 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 Heselius 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 modification chiefly of language, and of course a change of names, I copy the following. The narrator is Dr. Martin Heselius. I find it among the voluminous notes of cases which he made during a tour in England about sixty-four years ago. It is related in a series of letters to his friend, Professor Van Lu of Leiden. 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 valuable 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. Heselius. They are written some in English, some in French, but the greater part in German. I'm 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 disguise names, I have interpolated nothing. One. Dr. Heselius relates how he met the Reverend Mr. Jennings. The Reverend 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 handsome, are well formed, and their expression extremely kind, but also shy. I met him one evening at Lady Mary Hayduke's. The modesty and benevolence of his countenance are extremely prepossessing. We were but a small party, and he joined agreeably 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 is a great favourite of Lady Mary's, who it seems consults him upon many things, and thinks in the most happy and blessed person on earth. Little, as she knows about him. The Reverend Mr. Jennings is a bachelor, and has, they say, £60,000 in the funds. He is a charitable man. He is most anxious to be actively 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 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 his 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 instance 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 opinions about that. There are degrees, of course, which I'll see. Mr. Jennings is a perfectly gentleman-like man. People however remark something odd. There's an impression, a little ambivalent, there's an impression, a little ambiguous. One thing which certainly contributes to its people I think don't remember, or perhaps distinctly remark, but I did almost immediately. Mr. Jennings has a way of looking side-long upon the carpet, as if his eye follows 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 scrutinized with more time at command, and consequently 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, impertently 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 the 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 which alone it has its life. I believe that the essential man is a spirit, that the spirit is an organized substance, but is 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 power. 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 discussing the consequences of this too generally unrecognized state of facts. In pursuance of my habit I was covertly observing Mr. Jennings, with all my caution I think he perceived it, and I saw plainly that he was as cautiously observing me. Lady Mary happened to address me by my name as Dr. Heselius. I saw that he glanced at me more sharply, and then became thoughtful for a few minutes. After this, as I conversed with the 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 clergyman approached me by and by, and in a little time we got into conversation. When two people who like reading and know books and places having travelled wish to discuss 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 when an impenetrable reserve, from not only the world but from 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 respecting his position, or my surmises about his plans respecting myself. We chatted upon in different subjects for a time, but at last he said, I was very much interested by some paper of yours, Dr. Heselius, upon what you term metaphysical 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. I 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 flattens me as an author to find that you have not forgotten my little book, although, I added laughing, 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 glanced inquiry, a sudden embarrassment disturbed Mr. Jennings, analogous to that which makes a young lady blush and look foolish. He dropped his eyes and folded his hands together uneasily, and looking 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 on 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 a disease again. In a moment, I almost despaird. I don't know how to thank you. Pray don't say a word. The thing is of 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 conversation on a variety of subjects he took his departure. Two. The doctor questions Lady Mary, and she answers. I 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 Dallbridge, 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. It is pleasant to hear so good an account of his naively 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 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 stop, yes. And although he only drank a little coffee here to-night, he likes tea, at least did like it, extravagantly. Yes, that's quite true. He drank green tea at Goode's deal, didn't he? I pursued. Well, that's very odd. Green tea was a subject on which we used almost a 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 Dallbridge. 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. Heselius. Condurer or no, haven't I said right? I answered merrily. It was certainly half, and it was his father. He was a silent, whimsical man, unused 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 remembered it particularly, because I was so afraid of him. This story was 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 as a conjurer, I think I must say good night, said I. But how did you find it out? By the planets, of course, as the gypsies 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 supported by Lady Mary's answers to my parting questions. I should like to ascertain more from his own lips. But what can I do consistent with good breeding to invite a confession? Nothing. I rather think he meditates one. At all events, my dear Van Lu, I shan't make myself difficult of access. I mean to return his visit to tomorrow. It will only be civil and return for his politeness to ask to see him. Perhaps something may come of it. Whether much, very little, or nothing, my dear Van Lu, you shall hear. Three. Dr. Heselius picks up something in Latin books. Well, I have called at Bolton Street. On inquiring at the door, I was told by the servant 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, look at me a little more attentively than well-bred persons of his order usually do, whether I was Dr. Heselius, 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, and promised 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 stacked with books on every side from the floor to the ceiling. The upper carpet, for to my tread it felt that there were two or three, was a turkey carpet. My steps fell noiselessly. The way the bookcases stood 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 somber 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 immediately under them, with their backs upwards on the floor, I lighted upon a complete set of Swedenborg's Arkana Celestia, in the original Latin, a very fine folio set, bound in the Natalie livery which theology affects, pure vellum, namely, with gold letters and carmine edges. There were paper markers in several of these volumes. I raised and set 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 penciled 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, which cannot possibly be made visible to the bodily sight. 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 spirits. 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 descent of the thought is perceived as something secretly creeping along with 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 himself 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 separated from him, if they could flow into the things of his body, they would attempt by a thousand means to destroy him, for they hate man with a deadly hatred. 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 the life of all who are in hell, but I have been continually protected by the Lord. Hence it appears how dangerous it is for man to be in a living consult with spirits, unless he be in the good of faith. Nothing is more carefully guarded from the knowledge of associate spirits than there being thus conjoined 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 to 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 miseriato ame. May God's compassionate 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 cognizance of the outer world, nor to remember where I was. I was reading some pages which refer to representatives and correspondence 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, fetta, which represents their particular lust and life in aspect direful and atrocious. This is a long passage, and particular eyes as a number of those bestial forms. Four 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, I came in and asked how you did, but without succeeding in awaking you from your book, so I could not restrain my curiosity, and very impertinently, 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 metaphysical medicine, which you are so good as to remember. Although my friend affected a gaiety of manner, there was a slight flush in his face, and I could perceive 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 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. I never read a book that I go with so entirely as that of yours, he continued. I sought once that 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 practiced in England. I did, having exchanged letters with him and experienced from him great courtesy and considerable assistance during my visits to England. I think that the man one of the 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. In his profession, he answered. I smiled. I 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 willful. 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. I'll tell you. I know I shall sometime 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? I should be only too happy, I assured him. Very good of you. I'm 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 anyone, any of my friends you know, that I'm hippish now, for instance. No one knows. Not even Lady Mary, that I've seen Dr. Harley, or any other doctor, so pray don't mention it. And if I should have any threatening of 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, I 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 would never hit on it. He shook his head, smiling, and over that wintery 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 I took my leave. Five. Dr. Heselius is summoned to Richmond. We parted cheerfully, but he was not cheerful, nor was I. There are certain expressions of that powerful 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 evening, 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 repeated what his note had advanced, and told me that he was actually in Warwickshire, having resumed his clerical duties at Kenlis, and she answered, I begin to think that he is really perfectly well, other than 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 had 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 in 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's 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 likely, what a world of suffering is sometimes hidden. Nearly five weeks had passed without any further news of Mr Jennings. At the end of that time I received a note from him, he wrote. I have been in the country and have had a change of air, change of scene, change of faces, change of everything, and in everything but myself. I have made up my mind, so far as the most irresolate creature on earth can do it, to tell my case fully to you. If your engagements will permit, pray come to me to-day, tomorrow 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 Bolton 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. There a short double-row of somber elms to a very old-fashioned brick-house, darkened by the foliage of these trees which overtopped nearly surrounded it. It was a perverse choice, for nothing could be imagined more treased 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, he had come out here, probably because being furnished and his own, he was relieved of the thought and delay of selection by coming here. The sun had already set, and the red reflected light of the west and 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 come out of 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 communicating with the front-room opened, and the tall figure of Mr. Jennings, faintly seen in the ruddy twilight, came, with quiet, stealthy steps into the room. We shook hands, and taking a chair to the window, 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. 6. 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 us the 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 depressing 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 Shulkin's, before its background of darkness. It began, he said, on the fifteenth of October, three years and eleven weeks ago, and two days I keep very accurate count for every day as torment, if I leave anywhere at Kazamin my narrative tell me. About four years ago I began a work which had 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 Christian 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 grading fascination at the nemesis shore. God forgive me. I 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 ought 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. I believe that everyone who sets about writing an 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 should be hourly supplied 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 uncomfortable symptom from it. I began to take a little green tea. I found the effect pleasanter. It cleared and 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 little kettle on my table that swung over a 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 not a monk, and although I spent an hour or two in a library hunting up authorities and looking out lights within 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 on the whole existence had never been, I think, so pleasant before. I had met with a man who had some odd old books, German editions and medieval Latin, and I was only too happy to be permitted access to them. This obliging person's books were in the city, a very out-of-the-way part of it. I had rather overstayed 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 to the door, ruminating pleasantly. The interior of the omnibus was nearly dark. I had observed in the corner opposite to me at the other side, and at the end next to 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 man 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 near 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 those two dull lamps, again together near the floor, again they disappeared, and again in their old corner I saw them. So, keeping my eyes upon 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 now dimly saw its teeth grinning at me. I drew back, not knowing whether it might not meditate a spring. I fancied that one of the passengers 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, through it. For through it and back and forward it passed without the slightest resistance. I 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. I stopped the bus and got out. I perceived the man looking oddly at me as I passed him. I dare say there was something unusual in my looks and manner, for I'd never felt so strangely before.