 section 14 of the Ingallsby Legends, first series. Strange as the events detailed in the succeeding narrative may appear. They are, I have not a slightest doubt, true to the letter. Whatever impression they may make upon the reader, that produced by them on the narrator, I can aver, was neither light nor transient. Singular passage in the life of the late Henry Harris, Doctor in Divinity, as related by the Reverend Jasper Ingallsby, M.A., his friend and executor, in order that the extraordinary circumstance which I am about to relate may meet with the credit it deserves. I think it necessary to premise that my Reverend friend, among whose papers I find it recorded, was in his lifetime ever esteemed as a man of good plain understanding, strict veracity, and unimpeached morals, by no means of a nervous temperament or one likely to attach undue weight to any occurrences out of the common course of events, merely because his reflections might not, at the moment, afford him a ready solution to its difficulties. On the truth of his narrative, as far as he was personally concerned, no one who knew him would hesitate to place the most implicit reliance. His history is briefly this. He had married early in life and was a widower at the age of thirty-nine, with an only daughter, who had then arrived at puberty and was just married to a near connection of our own family. The sudden death of her husband, occasioned by a fall from his horse, only three days after her confinement, was abruptly communicated to Mrs. S. by a thoughtless girl who saw her master brought lifeless into the house, and with all that inexplicable anxiety to be the first to tell bad news, so common among the lower orders, rushed at once into the sick-room with her intelligence. The shock was too severe, and though the young widow survived the fatal event several months, yet she gradually sank under the blow and expired, leaving a boy, not a twelve-month-old, to the care of his maternal grandfather. My poor friend was sadly shaken by this melancholy catastrophe. Time, however, and a strong religious feeling succeeded at length in moderating the poignancy of his grief, a consummation much advanced by his infant charge, who now succeeded as it were by inheritance to the place in his affections left vacant by his daughter's decease. Frederick S. grew up to be a fine lad. His person and features were decidedly handsome. Still there was, as I remember, an unpleasant expression in his countenance, and an air of reserve attributed by the few persons who called occasionally at the vicarage, to the retired life led by his grandfather, and the little opportunity he had in consequence of mixing in the society of his equals in age and intellect. Brought up entirely at home, his progress in the common branches of education was, without any great display of precocity, rather in advance of the generality of boys of his own standing, partly owing, perhaps, to the turn which even his amusements took from the first. His sole associate was the son of the village apothecary, a boy about two years older than himself, whose father, being really clever in his profession, and a good operative chemist, had constructed for himself a small laboratory in which, as he was fond of children, the two boys spent a great portion of their leisure time, witnessing many of those little experiments so attractive to youth, and in time aspiring to imitate what they admired. In such society it is not surprising that Frederick S. should imbibe a strong taste for the sciences which formed his principal amusement, or that when, in process of time, it became necessary to choose his walk in life, a profession so intimately connected with his favorite pursuit, as that of medicine should be eagerly selected. No opposition was offered by my friend, who knowing that the greater part of his own income would expire with his life, and that the remainder would prove an insufficient resource to his grandchild, was only anxious that he should follow such a path as would secure him that moderate and respectable competency, which is perhaps more conducive to real happiness, than a more elevated or wealthy station. Frederick was, accordingly, at the proper age, matriculated at Oxford, with the view of studying the higher branches of medicine. A few months after his friend John W. had proceeded to Leiden for the purpose of making himself acquainted with the practice of surgery in the hospitals and lecture rooms attached to that university. The boyish intimacy of their younger days did not, as is frequently the case, yield to separation. On the contrary, a close correspondence was kept up between them. Dr. Harris was even prevailed upon to allow Frederick to take a trip to Holland to see his friend, and John returned the visit to Frederick at Oxford. Satisfactory as, for some time, were the accounts of the general course of Frederick Ass's studies. By degrees, rumors of a less pleasant nature reached the ears of some of his friends. To the vicarage, however, I have reason to believe they never penetrated. The good old doctor was too well beloved in his parish, or anyone voluntarily to give him pain. And, after all, nothing beyond whispers and surmises had reached X, when the worthy vicar was surprised, on a sudden, by a request from his grandchild, that he might be permitted to take his name off the books of the university, and proceed to finish his education in conjunction with his friend W. at Leiden. Such a proposal made too at a time when the period for his graduating could not be far distant. Both surprised and grieved the doctor. He combatted the design with more perseverance than he had ever been known to exert in opposition to any declared wish of his darling boy before. But as usual gave way when more strongly pressed, from sheer inability to persist in a refusal which seemed to give so much pain to Frederick, especially when the latter, with more energy than was quite becoming their relative situations, expressed his positive determination of not returning to Oxford, whatever might be the result of his grandfather's decision. My friend, his mind perhaps a little weakened by a short but severe nervous attack, from which he had scarcely recovered. At length yielded a reluctant consent, and Frederick quitted England. It was not till some months had elapsed after his departure that I had reason to suspect that the eager desire of availing himself of opportunities or study abroad not afforded him at home was not the sole or even the principal reason which had drawn Frederick so abruptly from his alma mater, a chance visit to the university, and a conversation with a senior fellow belonging to his late college. Convinced me of this, still I found it impossible to extract from the letter the precise nature of his offence that he had given way to most culpable indulgences I had before heard hinted, and when I recollected how he had been at once launched from a state of what might be well called seclusion into a world where so many enticements were lying in wait to allure, with liberty, example, everything to tempt him from the straight road. Regret, I frankly own, was more the predominant feeling in my mind than either surprise or condemnation. But here was evidently something more than mere ordinary excess, some act of proflicacy, perhaps of a deeper stain, which had induced his superiors, who at first had been loud in his praises, to desire him to withdraw himself quietly, but for ever, and such an intimation I found had in fact been conveyed to him from an authority which it was impossible to resist. Seeing that my informant was determined not to be explicit, I did not press for a disclosure which, if made, would in all probability only have given me pain, and that the rather, as my old friend the doctor had recently obtained a valuable living from Lord Amm, only a few miles distant from the market town in which I resided, where he now was amusing himself in putting his grounds into order, ornamenting his house and getting everything ready against his grandson's expected visit in the following autumn. October came, and with it came Frederick. He rode over more than wants to see me, sometimes accompanied by the doctor, between whom and myself, the recent loss of my poor daughter, Louisa, had drawn the cords of sympathy still closer. More than two years had flown on in this way, in which Frederick S. had as many times made temporary visits to his native country. The time was vast approaching when he was expected to return and finally take up his residence in England, when the sudden illness of my wife's father obliged us to take a journey into Lancashire, my old friend who had himself a curate, kindly offering to fix his quarters at my parsonage, and superintend the concerns of my parish till my return. Alas, when I saw him next he was on the bed of death. My absence was necessarily prolonged much beyond what I had anticipated. A letter with a foreign postmark had, as I afterwards found, been brought over from his own house to my venerable substitute in the interval, and barely giving himself time to transfer the charge he had undertaken to a neighbouring clergyman. He had hurried off at once to Leiden. His arrival there was, however, too late. Frederick was dead, killed in a duel, occasioned it was said, by no ordinary provocation on his part, although the flight of his antagonist had added to the mystery which enveloped its origin. The long journey, its melancholy termination, and the complete overthrow of all my poor friend's earthly hopes, were too much for him. He appeared too, as I was informed by the proprietor of the house in which I had found him, when his summons at length had brought me to his bedside, to have received some sudden and unaccountable shock, which even the death of his grandson was inadequate to explain. There was indeed a wildness in his fast-glazing eye, which mingled strangely with the glance of satisfaction, thrown upon me as he pressed my hand. He endeavored to raise himself, and would have spoken, but fell back in the effort, and closed his eyes for ever. I buried him there, by the side of the object of his more than parental affection, in a foreign land. It is from the papers that I discovered in his travelling case that I submit the following extracts, without, however, presuming to advance an opinion on the strange circumstances which they detail, or even as to the connection which some may fancy they discover between different parts of them. The first was evidently written at my own house, and bears date August 15, 18, blank, about three weeks after my own departure for Preston. It begins thus, Tuesday August 15, Poor girl! I forget who it is that says, The real ills of life are light in comparison with fancied evils, and certainly the scene I have just witnessed goes some way towards establishing the truth of the hypothesis, among the afflictions which flesh is heir to, a diseased imagination is far from being the lightest, even when considered separately, and without taking into the account those bodily pains and sufferings which, so closest the connection between mind and matter, are but too frequently attendant upon any disorder of the fancy. seldom has my interest been more powerfully excited than by poor Mary Graham. Her age, her appearance, her pale melancholy features, the very contour of her countenance, all conspire to remind me, but too forcibly, of one who waking or sleeping is never long absent from my thoughts. But enough of this, a fine morning had succeeded one of the most tempestuous nights I ever remember, and I was just sitting down to a substantial breakfast, which the care of my friend Ingallsby's housekeeper, kind-hearted Mrs. Wilson, had prepared for me, when I was interrupted by a summons to the sick bed of a young parishioner whom I had frequently seen in my walks, and had remarked for the regularity of her attendance at Divine Worship. Mary Graham is the elder of two daughters, residing with her mother, the widow of an attorney, who dying suddenly in the prime of life left his family but slenderly provided for. A strict, though not parsimonious, economy has, however, enabled them to live with an appearance of respectability and comfort, and from the personal attractions which both the girls possess. Their mother is evidently not without hopes of seeing one, at least of them, advantageously settled in life. As far as poor Mary is concerned, I fear she is doomed to inevitable disappointment, as I am much mistaken if consumption has not laid its wasting finger upon her, while this last recurrence of what I cannot but believe to be a formidable epileptic attack, threatens to shake out, with even added velocity, the little sand that may yet remain within the hour-glass of time. Her very delusion, too, is of such a nature as, by adding to bodily illness the agitation of superstitious terror, can scarcely fail to accelerate the catastrophe, which I think I see fast approaching. Before I was introduced into the sick-room, her sister, who had been watching my arrival from the window, took me into their little parlor, and after the usual civilities, began to prepare me for the visit I was about to pay. Her countenance was marked at once with trouble and alarm, and in a low tone of voice, which some internal emotion, rather than the fear of disturbing the invalid in a distant room, had subdued almost to a whisper, informed me that my presence was become necessary, not more as a clergyman than a magistrate, that the disorder with which her sister had, during the night, been so suddenly and unaccountably seized was one of no common kind, but attended with circumstances which, coupled with the declarations of the sufferer, took it out of all ordinary calculations, and to use her own expression, that malice was at the bottom of it. Naturally supposing that these insinuations were intended to intimate the partaking of some deleterious substance on the part of the invalid, I inquired what reason she had for imagining, in the first place, that anything of a poisonous nature had been administered at all, and secondly, what possible incitement any human being could have for the perpetration of so foul a deed towards so innocent and unoffending an individual. Her answer considerably relieved the apprehensions I had begun to entertain, lest the poor girl should, from some unknown cause, have herself been attempting to rush uncalled into the presence of her creator. At the same time it surprised me not a little by its apparent want of rationality and common sense. She had no reason to believe, she said, that her sister had taken poison, or that any attempt upon her life had been made, or was perhaps contemplated, but that still malice was at work, the malice of villains or fiends, or both combined, that no causes purely natural would suffice to account for the state in which her sister had been now twice placed, or for the dreadful suffering she had undergone while in that state, and that she was determined the whole affair should undergo a thorough investigation. Seeing that the poor girl was now herself laboring under a great degree of excitement, I did not think it necessary to enter at that moment into a discussion upon the absurdity of her opinion, but applied myself to the tranquilizing of her mind, by assurances of a proper inquiry, and then drew her attention to the symptoms of the indisposition, and the way in which it had first made its appearance. The violence of the storm last night had, I found, induced the whole family to sit up far beyond their usual hour, till wearied out at length, and as their mother observed, tired of burning fire and candle to no purpose, they repaired to their several chambers. The sisters occupied the same room. Elizabeth was already at her humble toilet, and had commenced the arrangement of her hair for the night, when her attention was at once drawn from her employment by a half smothered shriek and exclamation from her sister, who in her delicate state of health had found walking up two flights of stairs, perhaps a little more quickly than usual, an exertion, to recover from which she had seated herself in a large arm-chair. Turning hastily at the sound, she perceived Mary deadly pale, grasping as it were convulsively each arm of the chair which supported her, and bending forward in the attitude of listening, her lips were trembling and bloodless, cold drops of perspiration stood upon her forehead, and in an instant after exclaiming in a piercing tone, Hark! they are calling me again. It is—it is the same voice. Oh no, no! Oh my God! Save me, Betsy! Hold me! Save me! She fell forward upon the floor. Elizabeth flew to her assistance, raised her, and by her cries brought both her mother, who had not yet gotten to bed, and their only servant girl, to her aid. The latter was dispatched at once for medical help, but from the appearance of the sufferer, it was much to be feared that she would soon be beyond the reach of art. Her agonized parent and sister succeeded in bearing her between them, and placing her on a bed. A faint and intermittent pulsation was for a while perceptible, but in a few moments a general shudder shook the whole body. The pulse ceased. The eyes became fixed and glassy. The jaw dropped. A cold clammyness usurped the place of the genial warmth of life. Before Mr. I arrived, everything announced that dissolution had taken place, and that the freed spirit had quitted its mortal tenement. The appearance of the surgeon confirmed their worst apprehensions. A vein was opened, but the blood refused to flow, and Mr. I announced that the vital spark was indeed extinguished. The poor mother, whose attachment to her children was perhaps the more powerful, as they were the sole relatives or connections she had in the world, was overwhelmed with a grief amounting almost to frenzy. It was with difficulty that she was removed to her own room by the united strength of her daughter and medical advisor. Nearly an hour had elapsed during the endeavor at calming her transports. They had succeeded, however, to a certain extent, and Mr. I had taken his leave, when Elizabeth, re-entering the bed-chamber in which her sister lay, in order to pay the last sad duties to her corpse, was horror-struck at seeing a crimson stream of blood running down the side of the counterpane to the floor. Her exclamation brought the girl again to her side, when it was perceived to their astonishment that the sanguine stream proceeded from the arm of the body, which was now manifesting signs of returning life. The half-frantic mother flew to the room, and it was with difficulty that they could prevent her, in her agitation, from so acting as to extinguish forever the hope which had begun to rise in their bosoms. A long-drawn sigh, amounting almost to a groan, followed by several convulsive gaspings, was the prelude to the restoration of the animal functions in poor Mary. A shriek, almost preternaturally loud, considering her state of exhaustion, succeeded. But she did recover, and with the help of restoratives, was well enough towards mourning to express a strong desire that I should be sent for. A desire the more readily complied with, in as much as the strange expressions and declarations she had made since her restoration to consciousness, had filled her sister with the most horrible suspicions. The nature of these suspicions was such as would at any other time, perhaps, have raised a smile upon my lips. But the distress and even agony of the poor girl, as she half hinted and half expressed them, were such as entirely to preclude every sensation at all approaching to mirth, without endeavoring therefore, to combat ideas evidently too strongly impressed upon her mind at the moment. To admit of present refutation, I merely used a few encouraging words, and requested her to proceed me to the sick chamber. The invalid was lying on the outside of the bed, partly dressed and wearing a white dimity wrapping gown, the color of which corresponded but too well with the deadly paleness of her complexion. Her cheek was wan and sunken, giving an extraordinary prominence to her eye, which gleamed with illustrous brilliancy not unfrequently characteristic of the aberration of intellect. I took her hand. It was chill and clammy, the pulse feeble and intermittent, and the general debility of her frame was such that I would feign had persuaded her to defer any conversation which in her present state she might not be equal to support. Her positive assurance that, until she had disburdened herself of what she called her dreadful secret, she could know no rest either of mind or body, at length induced me to comply with her wish, opposition to which, in her then frame of mind, might perhaps be attended with even worse effects than its indulgence. I bowed acquiescence, and in a low and faltering voice, with frequent interruptions occasioned by her weakness, she gave me the following singular account of the sensations which she averred had been experienced by her during her trance. This, sir, she began, is not the first time that the cruelty of others has, for what purpose I am unable to conjecture, put me to a degree of torture which I can compare to no suffering either of body or mind, which I have ever before experienced. On a former occasion I was willing to believe it the mere effect of a hideous dream or what is vulgarly termed the nightmare, but this repetition and the circumstances under which I was last summoned, at a time too, when I had not even composed myself to rest, fatally convinced me of the reality of what I have seen and suffered, this is no time for concealment of any kind. It is now more than a twelve-month since I was in the habit of occasionally encountering, in my walks, a young man of prepossessing appearance and gentlemanly department. He was always alone and generally reading, but I could not be long in doubt that these encounters, which became every week more frequent, were not the effect of accident, or that his attention, when we did meet, was less directed to his book than to my sister and myself. He even seemed to wish to address us, and I have no doubt would have taken some other opportunity of doing so, had not one been afforded him by a strange dog attacking us one Sunday morning in our way to church, which he beat off, and made use of this little service to promote an acquaintance. His name, he said, was Francis Summers, and added that he was on a visit to a relation of the same name, resident a few miles from X. He gave us to understand that he was himself studying surgery with the view to a medical appointment in one of the colonies. You are not to suppose, sir, that he had entered thus into his concerns at the first interview. It was not till our acquaintance had ripened, and he had visited our house more than once with my mother's sanction, that these particulars were illicit. He never disguised from the first, that an attachment to myself was his object originally in introducing himself to our notice. As his prospects were comparatively flattering, my mother did not raise any impediment to his attentions, and I own I receive them with pleasure. Days and weeks elapsed, and although the distance at which his relation resided prevented the possibility of an uninterrupted intercourse, yet neither was it so great as to preclude his frequent visits. The interval of a day or at most of two was all that intervened, and these temporary absences certainly did not decrease the pleasure of the meetings with which they terminated. At length a pensive expression began to exhibit itself upon his countenance, and I could not but remark that at every visit he became more abstracted and reserved. The eye of affection is not slow to detect any symptom of uneasiness in a quarter dear to it. I spoke to him, questioned him on the subject. His answer was evasive, and I said no more. My mother, too, however had marked the same appearance of melancholy and pressed him more strongly. He at length admitted that his spirits were depressed and that their depression was caused by the necessity of an early, though but a temporary separation. His uncle and only friend, he said, had long insisted on his spending some months on the continent, with the view of completing his professional education, and that the time was now fast approaching when it would be necessary for him to commence his journey. A look made the inquiry which my tongue refused to utter. Yes, dearest Mary, was his reply. I have communicated our attachment to him, partially at least, and though I dare not say that the intimation was received as I could have wished, yet I have, perhaps on the whole, no fair reason to be dissatisfied with his reply. The completion of my studies and my settlement in the world must, my uncle told me, be the first consideration. When these material points were achieved, he should not interfere with any arrangement that might be found essential to my happiness. At the same time he has positively refused to sanction any engagement at present which may, he says, have a tendency to divert my attention from those pursuits, on the due prosecution of which my future situation in life must depend. A compromise between love and duty was eventually rung from me, though reluctantly. I have pledged myself to proceed immediately to my destination abroad, with a full understanding that, on my return, a twelve-month hence, no obstacle shall be thrown in the way of what I trust our mutual wishes. I will not attempt to describe the feelings with which I received this communication, nor will it be necessary to say anything of what passed at the few interviews which took place before Francis quitted X. The evening immediately previous to that of his departure he passed in this house, and before we separated renewed his protestations of an unchangeable affection, requiring a similar assurance from me in return. I did not hesitate to make it. Be satisfied, my dear Francis, said I, that no diminution in the regard I have avowed can ever take place, and though absent in body, my heart and soul will still be with you. Swear this, he cried, with a suddenness and energy which surprised and rather startled me. Promise that you will be with me in spirit, at least, when I am far away. I gave him my hand, but that was not sufficient. One of these dark shining ringlets, my dear Mary, said he, as a pledge that you will not forget your vow. I suffered him to take the scissors from my work-box and to sever a lock of my hair, which he placed in his bosom. The next day he was pursuing his journey, and the waves were already bearing him from England. I had letters from him repeatedly during the first three months of his absence. They spoke of his health, his prospects, and of his love, but by degrees the intervals between each arrival became longer, and I fancied I perceived some falling off from that warmth of expression which had at first characterized his communications. One night I had retired to rest, rather later than usual, having sat by the bedside comparing his last brief note with some of his earlier letters, and was endeavoring to convince myself that my apprehensions of his fickleness were unfounded when an undefinable sensation of restlessness and anxiety seized upon me. I cannot compare it to anything I had ever experienced before. My pulse fluttered. My heart beat with a quickness in violence which alarmed me, and a strange tremor shook my whole frame. I retired hastily to bed, in hopes of getting rid of so unpleasant a sensation. But in vain, a vague apprehension of I knew not what occupied my mind, and vainly did I endeavor to shake it off. I can compare my feelings to nothing but those which we sometimes experience when about to undertake a long and unpleasant journey, leaving those we love behind us. More than once did I raise myself in my bed and listen, fancying that I heard myself called, and on each of those occasions the fluttering of my heart increased. Twice I was on the point of calling to my sister, who then slept in an adjoining room, but she had gone to bed indisposed, and an unwillingness to disturb either her or my mother checked me. The large clock in the room below, at this moment, began to strike the hour of twelve. I distinctly heard its vibrations, but air its sounds had ceased. A burning heat, as if a hot iron had been applied to my temple, was succeeded by a dizziness, a swoon, a total loss of consciousness as to where or in what situation I was. A pain, violent, sharp, and piercing as though my whole frame were lacerated by some keen-edged weapon, roused me from this stupor. But where was I? Everything was strange around me. A shadowy dimness rendered every object indistinct and uncertain. Me thought, however, that I was seated in a large, antique, high-backed chair, several of which were near. Their tall, black-carved frames and seats interwoven with the latticework of Cain. The apartment in which I sat was one of moderate dimensions, and from its sloping roof seemed to be the upper story of the edifice, a fact confirmed by the moon shining without, in full effulgence, on a huge round tower, which its light rendered plainly visible through the open casement, and the summit of which appeared but little superior in elevation to the room I occupied. Rather to the right and in the distance the spire of some cathedral or lofty church was visible, while sundry gable-ands and tops of houses told me I was in the midst of a populous but unknown city. The Apartment itself had something strange in its appearance, and in the character of its furniture and the pertinences, or little or no resemblance to any I had ever seen before. The fireplace was large and wide, with a pair of what are sometimes called andirons, betokening that wood was the principal, if not the only fuel consumed within its recess. A fierce spire was now blazing in it, the light from which rendered visible the remotest parts of the chamber. Over a lofty old-fashioned mantelpiece, carved heavily in imitation of fruits and flowers, hung the half-length portrait of a gentleman in a dark-colored foreign habit, with a peaked beard and moustaches, one hand resting upon a table, the other supporting a sort of baton, or short military staff, the summit of which was surmounted by a silver falcon. Several antique chairs, similar in appearance to those already mentioned, surrounded a massive oaken table, the length of which much exceeded its width. At the lower end of this piece of furniture stood the chair I occupied. On the upper was placed a small chafing-dish filled with burning coals, and darting forth occasionally long flashes of various colored fire, the brilliance of which made itself visible, even above the strong illumination emitted from the chimney. Two huge black chappan cabinets with clawed feet, reflecting from their polished surfaces the effulgence of the flame, were placed one on each side the casement window to which I have eluded, and with a few shelves loaded with books, many of which were also strewed in disorder on the floor, completed the list of the furniture in the apartment. Some strange-looking instruments of unknown form and purpose lay on the table near the chafing-dish, on the other side of which a miniature portrait of myself hung, reflected by a small oval mirror in a dark-colored frame, while a large, open volume, traced with strange characters of the color of blood, lay in front. A goblet containing a few drops of liquid of the same and sanguine hue, was by its side, but of the objects which I have endeavored to describe, none arrested my attention so forcibly as two others. These were the figures of two young men in the prime of life, only separated from me by the table. They were dressed alike, each in a long flowing gown, made of some sad-colored stuff, and confined at the waist by a crimson girdle. One of them, the shorter of the two, was occupied in feeding the embers of the chafing-dish with a resinous powder, which produced and maintained a brilliant but flickering blaze, to the action of which his companion was exposing a long lock of dark chestnut hair that shrank and shriveled as it approached the flame. But, oh God, that hair, and the form of him who held it, that face, those features, not for one instant could I entertain a doubt. It was he, Francis, the lock he grasped was mine, the very pledge of affection I had given him, and still, as it partially encountered the fire, a burning heat seemed to scorch the temple from which it had been taken, conveying a torturing sensation that affected my very brain. How shall I proceed? But no, it is impossible. Not even to you, sir, can I, dare I, recount the proceedings of that unhallowed night of horror and of shame, where my life extended to a term commensurate with that of the patriarchs of old, never could its detestable, its damning pollutions, be effaced from my remembrance. And, oh, above all, never could I forget the diabolical glee which sparkled in the eyes of my fiendish tormentors, as they witnessed the worst than useless struggles of their miserable victim. Oh, why was it not permitted me to take refuge in unconsciousness? Nay, in death itself, from the abominations of which I was compelled to be not only a witness, but a partaker. But it is enough, sir. I will not further shock your nature by dwelling longer on a scene, the full horrors of which words if I even dared employ any would be inadequate to express. Suffice it to say that after being subjected to it, how long I knew not, but certainly for more than an hour, a noise from below seemed to alarm my persecutors. A pause ensued, the lights were extinguished, and as the sound of a footstep ascending a staircase became more distinct, my forehead felt again the excruciating sensation of heat, while the embers kindling into a momentary flame, betrayed another portion of the ringlet consuming in the blaze. Fresh agonies succeeded, not less severe, and of a similar description to those which had seized upon me at first. Oblivion again followed, and on being in the abominations of the flame again followed, and on being at length restored to consciousness, I found myself as you see me now, faint and exhausted, weakened in every limb, and every fiber quivering with agitation. My groans soon brought my sister to my aid. It was long before I could summon resolution to confide even to her the dreadful secret, and when I had done so her strongest efforts were not wanting, to persuade me that I had been laboring under a severe attack of nightmare, I ceased to argue, but I was not convinced. The whole scene was then too present, too awfully real, to permit me to doubt the character of the transaction, and if, when a few days had elapsed, the hopelessness of imparting to others the conviction I entertained myself, produced in me an apparent acquiescence with their opinion, I have never been the less satisfied, that no cause reducible to the known laws of nature occasioned my sufferings on that hellish evening. Whether that firm belief might have eventually yielded to time, whether I might at length have been brought to consider all that had passed, and the circumstances which I could never cease to remember, as a mere phantasm, the offspring of a heated imagination, acting upon an enfeeble body, I know not. Last night, however, would in any case have dispelled the flattering illusion. Last night, last night was the whole horrible scene acted over again. The place, the actors, the whole infernal apparatus were the same. The same insults, the same torments, the same brutalities, all were renewed, save that the period of my agony was not so prolonged. I became sensible to an incision in my arm, though the hand that made it was not visible, at the same moment my persecutors paused. They were manifestly disconcerted, and the companion of him whose name shall never more pass my lips muttered something to his a better, in evident agitation. The formula of an oath of horrible import was dictated to me in terms fearfully distinct. I refused it unhesitatingly. Again and again was it proposed. With menaces I trembled to think on. But I refused. The same sound was heard. Interruption was evidently apprehended. The same ceremony was hastily repeated, and I again found myself released, lying on my own bed, with my mother and my sister weeping over me. Oh God, oh God, when and how is this to end? When will my spirit be left in peace? Where or with whom shall I find refuge? It is impossible to convey any adequate idea of the emotions with which this unhappy girl's narrative affected me. It must not be supposed that her story was delivered in the same continuous and uninterrupted strain in which I have transcribed its substance. On the contrary, it was not without frequent intervals, of longer or shorter duration, that her account was brought to a conclusion. Indeed, many passages of her strange dream were not without the greatest difficulty and reluctance communicated at all. My task was no easy one. Never in the course of a long life spent in the active duties of my Christian calling never had I been summoned to such a conference before. To the half avowed and paliated confession of committed guilt I had often listened and pointed out the only road to secure its forgiveness I had succeeded in cheering the spirit of despondency and sometimes even in calming the ravings of despair. But here I had a different enemy to combat, an ineradicable prejudice to encounter, evidently backed by no common share of superstition and confirmed by the mental weakness attendant upon severe bodily pain. To argue the sufferer out of an opinion, so rooted was a hopeless attempt. I did, however, essay it. I spoke to her of the strong and mysterious connection maintained between our waking images and those which haunt us in our dreams, and more especially during that morbid oppression commonly called nightmare. I was even enabled to adduce myself as a strong and living instance of the excess to which fancy sometimes carries her freaks on those occasions, while by an odd coincidence the impression made upon my own mind, which I adduced as an example for no slight resemblance to her own. I stated to her that on my recovery from the fit of epilepsy which had attacked me about two years since, just before my grandson Frederick left Oxford, it was with the greatest difficulty I could persuade myself that I had not visited him during the interval in the rooms at Bray's nose and even conversed with himself and his friend W, seated in his arm chair and gazing through the window full upon the statue of Cain as it stands in the center of the quadrangle. I told her of the pain I underwent both at the commencement and termination of my attack, of the extreme lassitude that succeeded, but my efforts were all in vain. She listened to me, indeed with almost breathless, especially when I informed her of my having actually experienced the very burning sensation in the brain alluded to, no doubt a strong attendant symptom of this peculiar affection and a proof of the identity of the complaint, but I could plainly perceive that I failed entirely in shaking a rooted opinion which possessed her, that her spirit had, by some nefarious and unhallowed means, been actually subtracted for a time from its earthly tenement. The next extract which I shall give from my old friend's memoranda is dated August 24th, more than a week subsequent to his first visit at Mrs. Graham's. He appears from his papers to have visited the poor young woman more than once during the interval, and to have afforded her those spiritual consolations, which no one was more capable of communicating. His patient, for so in a religious sense she may well be termed, had been sinking under the agitation she had experienced, and the constant dredge she was under of similar sufferings operated so strongly on a frame already innervated that life at length seemed to hang only by a thread. His papers go on to say, I have just seen poor Mary Graham. I fear for the last time. Nature is evidently quite worn out. She is aware that she is dying, and looks forward to the termination of her existence here, not only with resignation, but with joy. It is clear that her dream, or what she persists in calling her subtraction, has much to do with this. For the last three days her behavior has been altered. She has avoided conversing on the subject of her delusion, and seems to wish that I should consider her as a convert, to my view of her case. This may perhaps be partly owing to the flippancies of her medical attendant upon the subject. For Mr. I has, somehow or other, got an inkling that she has been much agitated by a dream, and thinks to laugh off the impression, in my opinion injudiciously. But though a skillful and a kind hearted he is a young man, and of a disposition perhaps, rather too mercurial for the chamber of a nervous invalid. Her manner has since been much more reserved to both of us, in my case probably because she expects me of betraying her secret. August 26th Mary Graham is yet alive, but sinking fast. Her cordiality towards me has returned since her sister confessed yesterday, that she had herself told Mr. I, that his patient's mind had been affected by a terrible vision. I am evidently restored to her confidence. She asked me this morning, with much earnestness, what I believed to be the state of departed spirits during the interval between dissolution and the final day of account, and whether I thought they would be safe in another world, from the influence of wicked persons employing an agency more than human. Poor child, one cannot mistake the prevailing bias of her mind. Poor child. August 27th it is nearly over. She is sinking rapidly, but quietly and without pain. I have just administered to her the sacred elements of which her mother partook. Elizabeth declined doing the same. She cannot, she says, yet bring herself to forgive the villain who has destroyed her sister. It is singular that she, a young woman of good plain sense in ordinary matters, should so easily adopt and so pertenaciously retain a superstition so purile and ridiculous. This must be matter of a future conversation between us. At present with the form of the dying girl before her eyes it were vain to argue with her. The mother I find has written to young Summers stating the dangerous situation of his affianced wife, indignant as she justly is at his long silence. It is fortunate that she has no knowledge of the suspicions entertained by her daughter. I have seen her letter. It is addressed to Mr. Francis Summers in the Hogabert at Leiden, a fellow student, then, of Frederick's. I must remember to inquire if he is acquainted with this young man. Mary Graham, it appears, died the same night. Before her departure she repeated to my friend the singular story she had before told him, without any material variation from the detail she had formerly given. To the last she persisted in believing that her unworthy lover had practiced upon her by forbidden arts. She once more described the apartment with great minuteness, and even the person of Francis alleged companion, who was, she said, about the middle height, hard featured, with a rather remarkable scar upon his left cheek, extending in a transverse direction from below the eye to the nose. Several pages of my reverent friend's manuscript are filled with reflections upon this extraordinary confession, which, joined with its melancholy termination, seems to have produced no common effect upon him. He alludes to more than one subsequent discussion with the surviving sister, and peaks himself on having made some progress in convincing her of the folly of her fury respecting the origin and nature of the illness itself. His memoranda on this and other subjects are continued till about the middle of September, when a break ensues, occasioned, no doubt, by the unwelcome news of his grandson's dangerous state, which induced him to set out forthwith for Holland. His arrival at Leiden was, as I have already said, too late. Frederick S. had expired after thirty hours' intense suffering, from a wound received in a duel with a brother student. The cause of quarrel was variously related, but in his landlord's version it had originated in some silly dispute about a dream of his antagonists, who had been the challenger. Such at least was the account given to him, as he said, by Frederick's friend and fellow lodger, W., who had acted a second on the occasion, thus acquitting himself of an obligation of the same kind due to the deceased whose services he had put in position about a year before on a similar occasion, when he had himself been severely wounded in the face. From the same authority I learned that my poor friend was much affected on finding that his arrival had been deferred too long. Every attention was shown him by the proprietor of the house, a respectable tradesman, and a chamber was prepared for his accommodation. The books and few effects of his deceased grandson were delivered over to him, duly inventoried. And late as it was in the evening when he reached Leiden, he insisted on being conducted immediately to the apartments which Frederick had occupied, there to indulge the first evolutions of his sorrows, before he retired to his own. Madame Miller accordingly led the way to an upper room, which being situated at the top of the house had been from its privacy and distance from the street selected by Frederick as his study. The doctor entered, and taking the lamp from his conductorous motion to be left alone, his implied wish was of course complied with, and nearly two hours had elapsed before his kind-hearted hostess re-ascended, in the hope of prevailing upon him to return with her. And partake of that refreshment which he had in the first instance, peremptorily declined. Her application for admission was unnoticed. She repeated it more than once without success, then becoming somewhat alarmed at the continued silence, opened the door and perceived her new inmate stretched on the floor in a fainting fit. Restoratives were instantly administered, and prompt medical aid succeeded at length in restoring him to consciousness. But his mind had received a shock from which, during the few weeks he survived, it never entirely recovered. His thoughts wandered perpetually, and though from the very slight acquaintance which his hosts had with the English language, the greater part of what fell from him remained unknown. Yet enough was understood to induce them to believe that something more than the mere death of his grandson had contributed thus to paralyse his faculties. When his situation was first discovered, a small miniature was found tightly grasped in his right hand. It had been the property of Frederick, and had more than once been seen by the Millers in his possession. To this the patient made continued reference, and would not suffer at one moment from his sight. It was in his hand when he expired. At my request it was produced to me. The portrait was that of a young woman, in an English morning dress, whose pleasing and regular features, with their mild and somewhat pensive expression, were not, I thought, altogether unknown to me. Her age was apparently about twenty. A profusion of dark-chestnut hair was arranged in the Madonna-style, above a brow of unsullied whiteness, a single ringlet depending on the left side, a glossy lock of the same color, and evidently belonging to the original, appeared beneath a small crystal, inlaid in the back of a picture, which was plainly set in gold, and bore in a cipher the letters M-G, with the date 18 blank. From the inspection of this portrait I could at the time collect nothing, nor from that of the doctor himself, which also I found the next morning in Frederick's desk, accompanied by two separate portions of hair. One of them was a lock, short and deeply tinged with gray, and had been taken I have little doubt, from the head of my old friend himself. The other corresponded in color and appearance, with that at the back of the miniature. It was not till a few days had elapsed, and I had seen the worthy doctors remains quietly consigned to the narrow house. That while arranging his papers, previous to my intended return upon the morrow, I encountered the narrative I have already transcribed. The name of the unfortunate young woman connected with it forcibly arrested my attention. I recollected it immediately as one belonging to a parishioner of my own, and at once recognized the original of the female portrait as its owner. I rose not from the perusal of his very singular statement, till I had gone through the whole of it. It was late, and the rays of the single lamp by which I was reading, did but very faintly illumine the remote parts of the room in which I sat. The brilliancy of an unclouded November moon, then some twelve nights old, and shining full into the apartment, did much towards remedying the defect. My thoughts filled with the melancholy details I had read. I rose and walked to the window. The beautiful planet rose high in the firmament, and gave to the snowy roofs of the houses and pendant icicles all the sparkling radiance of clustering gems. The stillness of the scene harmonized well with the state of my feelings. I threw open the casement and looked abroad, far below me, the water of the principal canal, shone like a broad mirror in the moonlight. To the left rose the birkt, a huge round tower of remarkable appearance, pierced with embrasures at its summit. While a little to the right and in the distance, the spire and pinnacles of the cathedral of Leiden rose in all their majesty, presenting a coup d'etat of surpassing those simple beauty. To a spectator of calm, unoccupied mind, the scene would have been delightful. On me it acted with an electric effect. I turned hastily to survey the apartment in which I had been sitting. It was the one designated as the study of the late Frederick S. The sides of the room were covered with dark wainscot. The spacious fireplace opposite to me, with its polished andirons, was surmounted by a large, old-fashioned mantelpiece, heavily carved in the Dutch style with fruits and flowers. Above it frowned a portrait in a van dyke dress, with a peaked beard and mustaches. One hand of the figure rested on a table, while the other bore a marshal's staff, surmounted with a silver falcon. And either my imagination, already heated by the scene, deceived me. For a smile as of malicious triumph curled the lip and glared in the cold leaden eye that seemed fixed upon my own. The heavy antique cane-backed chairs. The large oaken table. The bookshelves. The scattered volumes. All. All were there. While to complete the picture, to my right and left, as half-breathless I leaned my back against the casement, rose on each side a tall, dark, ebony cabinet, in whose polished sides the single lamp upon the table shone reflected as in a mirror. What am I to think? Can it be that the story I have been reading was written by my poor friend here and under the influence of delirium? Impossible. Besides, they all assure me that from the fatal night of his arrival he never left his bed, never put pen to paper. His very directions to have me summoned from England were verbally given, during one of those few and brief intervals in which reason seemed partially to resume her sway. Can it then be possible that—W—where is he who alone may be able to throw light on this horrible mystery? No one knows. He have scondid, it seems, immediately after the duel. No trace of him exists. Nor, after repeated and anxious inquiries, can I find that any student has ever been known in the University of Leiden by the name of Francis Summers. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. END OF SECTION XV Besides the manuscripts now at Tappington, he was the author of two controversial treatises on the connection between the papal hierarchy and the nine of diamonds. From his well-known loyalty, evinced by secret services to the royal cause during the protectorate, he was accepted by name out of the acts against the papists, became superintendent of the Queen Dowager's chapel at Somerset House, and enjoyed a small pension until his death, which took place in the third year of Queen Anne, 1704, at the mature age of ninety-six. He was an ecclesiastic of great learning and piety, but from the stiff and antiquated phraseology which he adopted, I have thought it necessary to modernize it a little. This will account for certain anachronisms that have unavoidably crept in the substance of his narratives has, however, throughout been strictly adhered to. His hair-shirt, almost as good as new, is still preserved at Tappington, but nobody ever wears it. The Jack-Daw of Reems Tung Miser Corbus, adeo conscientiai, stimulus compunctus wheat, et exocratio am tonto perae ex carne fika wheat, but exinde tavis gare in kipparet, machium contraheret, omnum kibum adverserator, nec amplius crocheterit, penai praiteria e de fluebont, et alis pendulis omnis vacchettius intermissit, et tam macher aparuit, put omnis aius miserisint, tung abas saccadotibus mandavit, put rursus furum absolverint, cofacto corbus omnibus merantibus, propadium canvaluit et prestinum sanitatum recuperuit, de illustri ordo chisterciani. The Jack-Daw sat on the cardinal's chair, bishop and abbot and prier were there, many a monk and many a friar, many a knight and many a squire, with a great many more of lesser degree, ensuth a goodly company, and they served the Lord Primit on bended knee. Never I wean was a prouder seen, read of him books or dreamt of him dreams, than the cardinal Lord Archbishop of Reems. In and out through the motley route that little Jack-Daw kept hopping about, here and there, like a dog in a fair, over comfits and kates, and dishes and plates, cowl and cope, and rochet and pall, miter and crowsier he hopped upon all, with saucy air he perched on the chair, where in state the great Lord Cardinal sat, in the great Lord Cardinal's great red hat, and he peered in the face of his Lordship's grace, with a satisfied look, as if he would say, we too are the greatest folks here today, and the priests with awe, as such freaks they saw, said the devil must be in that little Jack-Daw. The feast was over, the board was cleared, the flans and the custards had all disappeared, and six little singing boys, dear little souls, in nice clean faces and nice white stoles, came in order due, two by two, marching that grand refectory through. A nice little boy held a golden ewer, embossed and filled with water as pure as any that flows between Reems and Namur, which a nice little boy stood ready to catch in a fine golden hand basin made to match. Two nice little boys, rather more grown, carried lavender water, and owed to cologne, and a nice little boy had a nice cake of soap, worthy of washing the hands of the Pope. One little boy more, a napkin bore, of the best white diaper, fringed with pink, and a cardinal's hat, marked in permanent ink, the great Lord Cardinal turns at the sight of these nice little boys dressed all in white, from his finger he draws his costly turquoise, and not thinking at all about little jackdaws, deposits it straight by the side of his plate, while the nice little boys on his eminence wait till when nobody's dreaming of any such thing, that little jackdaw hops off with the ring. There's a cry and a shout, and a deuce of a rout, and nobody seems to know what they're about. But the monks have their pockets all turned inside out. The friars are kneeling and hunting and feeling the carpet, the floors, and the walls, and the ceiling. The cardinal drew off each plum-colored shoe, and left his red stockings exposed to the view. He peeps and he feels in the toes and the heels. They turn up the dishes. They turn up the plates. They take up the poker and poke out the grates. They turn up the rugs. They examine the mugs. But no, no such thing. They can't find the ring. And the abbot declared that, when nobody twigged it, some rascal or other had popped in and pricked it. The cardinal rose with a dignified look. He called for his candle, his bell, and his book. In holy anger and pious grief, he solemnly cursed that rascally thief. He cursed him at board. He cursed him in bed, from the sole of his feet to the crown of his head. He cursed him in sleeping, that every night he should dream of the devil and wake in a fright. He cursed him in eating. He cursed him in drinking. He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking. He cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying. He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying. He cursed him in living. He cursed him in dying. Never was heard such a terrible curse. But what gave rise to no little surprise? Nobody seemed one penny the worse. The day was gone. The night came on. The monks and the friars they searched till dawn, when the sacristan saw, on crumpled claw, come limping a poor little lame jack-daw. No longer gay, as on yesterday, his feathers all seemed to be turned the wrong way. His pinions drooped, he could hardly stand. His head was as bald as the palm of your hand. His eyes so dim, so wasted each limb, that heedless of grammar, they all cried, That's him. That's the scamp that has done this scandalous thing. That's the thief that has got my Lord Cardinal's ring. The poor little jack-daw, when the monks he saw, feebly gave vent to the ghost of a claw, and turned his bald head as much as to say, Pray be so good as to walk this way, slower and slower he limped on before, till they came to the back of the bell-free door, where the first thing they saw, midst the sticks and the straw, was the ring in the nest of that little jack-daw. Then the great Lord Cardinal called for his book, and off that terrible curse he took, the mute expression served in lieu of confession, and being thus coupled with full restitution, the jack-daw got plenary absolution. When those words were heard, that poor little bird was so changed in a moment, it was really absurd. He grew sleek and fat. In addition to that, a fresh crop of feathers came thick as a mat. His tail waggled more even than before. But no longer it wagged with an impudent air. No longer he perched on the Cardinal's chair, he hopped now about with a gate devout. At Matins, at Vespers, he never was out. And so far from any more pilfering deeds, he always seemed telling the confessor's beads. If anyone lied, or if anyone swore, or slumbered in prayer-time and happened to snore, that good jack-daw would give a great call, as much as to say, Don't do so any more. While many remarked, as his manners they saw, that they never had known such a pious jack-daw, he long lived the pride of that countryside, and at last in the odor of sanctity died. When his words were too faint his merits to paint, the conclave determined to make him a saint, and on newly made saints and popes as you know. It's the custom at Rome new names to bestow, so they canonized him by the name of Jim Crow. End of Section 16 Section 17 of the Ingallsby Legends, first series. This sleeper-box recording is in the public domain. The Ingallsby Legends, first series by Richard Harris Barum. Section 17. A Lay of St. Dunstan. This holy child Dunstan was born in Yee-Year-a-Bar-Lord 925, that time reigning in this land, King Appleston. When it so was that St. Dunstan was weary of prayer, then used he to work in goldsmith's work with his own hands, or to eschew idleness, gold and legend. St. Dunstan stood in his ivied tower. Alembic crucible all were there, when in came Nick to play him a trick, in guise of a damsel passing there. Everyone knows how the story goes. He took up the tongs and caught hold of his nose, but I beg that you won't for a moment suppose, that I mean to go through in detail, to you, a story at least as trite as it's true. Nor do I intend an instant to spend on the tale how he treated his monarch and friend, when bolting away to a chamber remote, inconceivably bored by his written gamote, yet we left them all joking and drinking and smoking. So tipsily grand they'd stand nonsense from no king, but sent the archbishop their sovereign to fish up with a hint that perchance on his crown he might feel taps. Unless he came back straight and took off his heel taps, you must not be plagued with the same story twice, and perhaps have seen this one by W. Dice, at the Royal Academy, very well done, and marked in the catalogue 471. You might there view the saint who in sable a raid is, coercing the monarch away from the ladies. His right hand was hold of his majesty's jerken, his left shows the door, and he seems to say, Sir King, your most faithful commons won't hear of your shirking. Quit your tea and return to your Barclay and Perkin, or by Djingo air mourning no longer alive a sad victim you'll lie, to your love for Al-Gaiva, no farther to treat of this un-gallant feet. What I mean to do now is succinctly to paint, one particular fact in the life of the saint, which somehow for want of due care I presume has escaped the researches of Rappen and Hume. In recounting a miracle both of them men, who a great deal fall short of Jacques Bishop of Genoa, and historian who likes deeds like these to record, see his Aurea Legenda by Winkin' de Ward. St. Dunstan stood again in his tower olympic crucible all complete. He had been standing a good half hour, and now he uttered the words of power, and called to his broomstick to bring him a seat, the words of power and what be they, to which in broomsticks bow and obey. Why, tour uncommonly hard to say, as the Prelate I named has recorded none of them, what they may be, but I know they are three, and abracadabra I take it is one of them, for I'm told that most cobalists use that identical, word written thus in what they call a pentacle. However that be you'll doubtless agree, it signifies little to you or to me, as not being dabblers in grammerie. Still it must be confessed for a saint to repeat, such language allowed is scarcely discreet, for as Solomon hints to folks given to chatter, a bird of the air may carry the matter, and in sooth from my youth I remember a truth insisted on much in my earlier years. To wit little pitchers have very long ears. Now just such a pitcher as those I allude to was outside the door which his ears appeared glued to. Peter the lay-brother, meager and thin, five feet one in his sandal shewn, while the saint thought him sleeping was listening and peeping and watching his master the whole afternoon. This Peter the saint had picked out from his fellows to look to his fire and to blow with the bellows, to put on the wall's end and lamp-tons whenever he chose to indulge in a little orfevery. Of course you have read that Saint Dunstan was bred, a goldsmith and never quite gave up the trade. The company, richest in London, tis said, acknowledged him still as their patron in head, nor is it so long since a capital song, in his praise now recorded their archives among. Delighted the noble and dignified throng of their guests who the newspapers told the whole town. With cheers pledged the wine-cup to Dunstan's renown. When Lord Lindhurst, the Duke, and Sir Robert were dining at the hall sometimes since with the primordian twining. I am sadly digressing, a fault which sometimes one can hardly avoid in these gossiping rhymes. A slight deviations were given, but then this is too long I fear for a decent parenthesis. So I'll rain up my Pegasus sharp and retreat or you'll think I've forgotten the lay-brother Peter whom the Saint, as I said, kept to turn down his bed, dress his paw-freeze and cobs, and do other odd jobs. As reducing to writing, whatever he might in, the course of the day or the night, be inditing, and cleaning the plate of his miter with whiting, performing in short all those duties and offices, habits exact from lay-brothers and novices, it occurs to me here you'll perhaps think it queer that Saint Dunstan should have such a personage near, when he'd only to say those words be what they may, and his broomstick at once his commands would obey. That's true, but the fact is, it was rarely his practice. Such aid to resort to, or such means apply, unless he'd some dignified not to untie. Adopting those sometimes as now he'd reverse it, old Horus is maxim, neck broomstick interset, Peter the lay-brother meager and thin, heard all the Saint was saying within, Peter the lay-brother sallow and spare, peeped through the keyhole, and what saw he there? Why a broomstick bringing a rush-bottomed chair. What Shakespeare observes in his play of King John is undoubtedly right, that oft times the sight of means to do ill deeds will make ill deeds done. Here's Peter the lay-brother pale-faced and meager, a good sort of man only rather too eager to listen to what other people are saying, when he ought to be minding his business, or praying, gets into a scrape, and an awkward one too, as you'll find if you're patience enough to go through the whole of the story I'm laying before you, entirely from having the means in his view of doing a thing which he ought not to do, still rings in his ear distinct and clear, abracadabra, that word of fear, and the two which I never yet happened to hear, still doth he spy with fancy's eye, the broomstick at work, and the Saint standing by, and he chuckles and says to himself with glee, aha that broomstick shall work for me, hark that swell or flood and or fell, mountain and dingle and moss covered dell, list is the sound of the cumblin bell, and Saint Dunstan is quitting his ivied cell, Peter I wot is off like a shot, or a little dog scalded by something that's hot, for he hears his master approaching the spot, where he'd listened so long though he knew he ought not. Peter remembered his master's frown, he trembled, he'd not have been caught for a crown, how ere you may laugh, he'd rather by half, have run up to the top of the tower and jump down. The cumblin hour is past and gone, evening service is over and done, the monks repair to their frugal fare, a snug little supper of something light and digestible ere they retire for the night, for in Saxon times in respect to their cheer, Saint Austen's rule was by no means severe, but allowed from the Beverly roll to it appear bread and cheese and spring onions and sound table beer, and even green peas when they were not too dear. Not like the rule of Latrap, whose chief marities said to consist in its greater austerities, and whose monks if I rightly remember their laws, ne'er are suffered to speak, think only in Greek, and subsist as the bearers do by sucking their paws. Astonished I am, the gay barren garram with his head sabering more of the lion than lamb, could ere be persuaded to join such a set I, extend the remark to senior Ambrogeti, for a monk of Latrap is as thin as a rat, while an Austen friar was jolly and fat, though of course the fare to which I elude, with as good table beer as ever was brood, was all caviar to the multitude. Extending alone to the clergy, together in Hall assembled and not to lay brethren, Saint Dunston himself sits there at his post on what they say is called a deus, or looking the whole of his clerical host and eating poached eggs with spinach and toast. Five lay brothers stand behind his chair, but where's the sixth? Where's Peter? I wear. Tis an evening in June, and a little half moon, a brighter no-fond lover ever set eyes on, gleaming and beaming, and dancing the stream in, has made her appearance above the horizon. Just such a half moon as you'll see in a play, on the turban of Mustapha Mouly Bay, or the fair Turk who weds with the noble Lord Bateman, feed a plate in George Crookshank's memoirs of that great man, she shines on a turret remote and lone, a turret with ivy and moss overgrown, and likens that thrive on the cold, dank stone, such a tower as a poet of no mean Caliber, I once knew and loved, or diraginaled hebear, assigns to oblivion a den for a shebear. Within it are found, strewed above and around, on the hearth, on the table, the shelves, and the ground, all sorts of instruments, all sorts of tools, to name which and their uses would puzzle the schools, and make very wise people look very like fools, pincers and hooks and black-letter books, all sorts of pokers and all sorts of tongs, and all sorts of hammers, and all that belongs to Goldsmith's work chemistry alchemy all, in short that a sage in that erudite age could require was at hand, or at least within call. In the midst of the room lies a broomstick and there a lay-brother sits in a rush-bottomed chair, abracadabra, that fearful word, and the two which I said I have never yet heard, are uttered, tis done, peter full of his fun, cries broomstick, you rubberly son of a gun, bring ale, bring a flagon, a hog-set, a ton, tis the same thing to you, I have nothing to do, and for George I'll sit here and I'll drink till all's blue. No doubt you've remarked how uncommonly quick. A Newfoundland puppy runs after a stick, brings it back to its master, and gives it him well, so potent the spell the broomstick perceived it was vain to rebel. So ran off like that puppy, some cellar was near, for in less than ten seconds twas back with the beer. Peter seizes the flagon, but he can suck its contents or enjoy what he thinks is good luck. The broomstick comes in with a tub in a truck, continues to run at the rate it begun, and Opie de Lett next brings in a ton. A fresh one succeeds, then a third, then another, discomforting much the astounded lay-brother, who had he possessed fifty pitchers or stoops, they all had been too few for arranging in groups. The barrels the broomstick next started the hoops. The ale deluged the floor, but still through the door said broomstick kept bolting and bringing in more. In Macbeth to Macduff would have cried, hold enough, if half as well drenched with such perilous stuff, and Peter who did not expect such a rough visit, cried lustily, stop, that will do broomstick, sufficit. But ah well a day, the devil, they say, tis easier at all times to raise than to lay. Again and again Peter roared out in vain, his abracadabra and other words twain, as well might one try a pack in full cry to check and call off from their headlong career, by bawling out sticks with one's hand at one's earer. The longer he roared in the louder and quicker, the faster the broomstick was bringing in liquor. The poor lay-brother knew not on earth what to do. He caught hold of the broomstick and snapped it in two. Worse and worse like a dart each part made a start, and he found he'd been adding more fuel to fire. For both now came loaded, with Moe's entire. Combs Delefield's Hanbury's Truman's, no stopping. Goading's Clarenton's Whitbread's continued to drop in, with Hodson's pale ale, from the Sun Brewhouse whopping. The firms differed then, but I can't put a tax on my memory to say what their names were in Saxon, to be sure the best beer of all did not appear. For I've said twas in June and so late in the year, the Trinity audit ale is not come atable, as I've found to my great grief when dining at that table. Now extremely alarmed Peter screamed without ceasing. For a flood of brown stout he was up to his knees in, which thanks to the broomstick continued increasing. He feared he'd be drowned, and he yelled till the sound of his voice winged by terror at last reached the ear of Saint Dunstan himself, who had finished his beer, and had put off his miter, dalmatic and shoes, and was just stepping into his bed for a snooze. His holiness paused when he heard such a clatter. He could not conceive what on earth was the matter. Slipping on a few things for the sake of decorum, he issued forthwith, from his sanctum sanctorum, and calling a few of the others near him, who were not yet in bed, and who happened to hear him, at once led the way without farther delay, to the tower where he'd been in the course of the day. Poor Peter, alas, though Saint Dunstan was quick. There were two there before him, Grim, Death, and Old Nick. When they opened the door, out the malt liquor flowed, just as when the great vat burst in Tottenham Court Road. The lay brothers nearest were up to their necks, in an instant and swimming in strong double-X, while Peter, whose spite of himself now had drank hard, while floating a while like a toast in a tankard, to the bottom had sunk and was spied by a monk, stoned dead like poor Clarence, half drowned and half drunk. In vain did Saint Dunstan exclaim, what a retro strong berum discade a lay fra tre petro. Queer Latin, you'll say, that prefix of lay. And strong berum, I own they'd have called me a blockheadive. At school I had ventured to use such a vocative. Tis a barbarous word, and to me it's a query, if you'll find it in Patrick Morell or Morellery. But the fact is the Saint was uncommonly flurried, and apt to be loose in his Latin when hurried. The brown stout, however, obeys to the letter, quite as well as it talked to, in Latin, much better, by a grave-came-bridge Johnian, or Graver-Oxonian, whose language we all know is quite Ciceroanian. It retires from the corpse which is left high and dry. But in vain do they snuff and hot towels apply, and other means used by the faculty try. When once a man's dead there is no more to be said. Peter's beer with an E was his beer with an I. Moral, by way of a moral permit me to pop in, the following maxims. Beware of eaves-dropping. Don't make use of language that isn't well scanned. Don't meddle with matters you don't understand. Above all what I'd wish to impress on both sexes is, keep clear of broomsticks, old nick, and three Xs. Lanvoix. In Goldsmith's Hall there's a handsome glass case, and in it a stone figure, found on the place. When thinking the old hall no longer a pleasant one, they pulled it all down and erected the present one. If you look you'll perceive that this stone figure twists a thing like a broomstick in one of its fists. It's so injured by time you can't make out a feature, but it is not St. Dunstan, so doubtless it's Peter. St. Jingo or Django, Djangoffas, sometimes styled the living Django from the great tenaciousness of vitality exhibited by his severed members, see his legend as recorded hereafter in the present volume. End of note. End of Section 17. Section 18 of the Inglesby Legends, first series. This leap of box recording is in the public domain. The Inglesby Legends, first series by Richard Harris Barham. Section 18. Djangoffas, or as he is usually styled in this country, Django, was perhaps more in the mouths of the general than any other event, on occasions of adoration. See note. Mr. Simpkinson from Bath had kindly transmitted me a portion of a primitive ballad which has escaped the researches of Ritson and Ellis, but is yet replete with beauties of no common order. I am happy to say that since these legends first appeared, I have recovered the whole of it. Vidae Infra. A Franklin's dog leaped over a style, and his name was Little Bingo. B with a Y, Y with an N. N with a G, G with an O. They called him Little Bingo. The Franklin sirs he brood good ale, and he called it Rare Good Stingo. S-T-Y-N-G-O. He called it Rare Good Stingo. Now is this not a pretty song? I think it is by Django. J with a Y-N-G-O. I swear it is by Django. A lay of St. Jengulfus. Non molto post Jengulfus endomos what dormiens, achisus est a quodum clerico, qui cum uxero sua adulterare solebot, coios corpum dum infereto, insopulterum portarator, multi infermi, detactu senati sunt, cum hoc ilios uxori referator ab ansila sua, skillet dominum sum, coa martiram sanctum, miracula facari, iridens illa, et subsurans eit, ita jengulfus miracula facetat, but pulvinarium meum cantat, et cetera et cetera. Wulfi memorabilia. Djengulfus comes from the holy land, with his script and his bottle and sandal shun, fo many a day hath he been away, yet his lady deems him returned fo soon. fo many a day hath he been away, yet scarce had he crossed Ayant the sea, ere a spruce-young spark of a learned clark had called on his lady and stopped to tea. This spruce-young guest so trimly dressed stayed with that lady her rebels to crown. They laughed and they ate and they drank of the best, and they turned the old castle quite upside down. They would walk in the park that spruce-young clark, with that frolicksome lady so frank and free, trying balls and plays and all manner of ways to get rid of what French people called ennui. Now the festive board with viands is stored. Savory dishes, be there, I ween. Rich puddings and big, a barbecued pig and ox-tail soup in a china terrine. There's a flagon of ale as large as a pail, when cockle on hat, and staff in hand, while on knot they are thinking, save eating and drinking, gin-golfous walks in from the holy land. You must be pretty deep to catch weasels asleep, says the proverb, that is take the fair unawares. A maid of the banisters chancing to peep whispers, ma'am, here's gin-golfous a coming upstairs. Pie pudding and soup, the electrified group with the flagon, pop under the sofa in haste, and contrive to deposit the clark in the closet, as the dish leased of all to gin-golfous taste. Then oh what rapture, what joy was expressed, when poor dear gin-golfous at last appeared. She kissed and she pressed the dear man to her breast, in spite of his great long frisly beard. Such hugging and squeezing twas almost unpleasing, a smile on her lip and a tear in her eye. She was so very glad that she seemed half mad, and did not know whether to laugh or to cry. Then she called up the maid and the tablecloth slayed, and she sends for a pint of the best brown stout. On the fire too she pops some nice mutton chops, and she mixes a stiff glass of cold without. Then again she began at the poor dear man. She pressed him to drink, and she pressed him to eat, and she brought a foot-pan with hot water and bran to comfort his poor dear travel-worn feet. Nor night nor day since he'd been away had she had any rest, she vowed and declared. She never could eat one morsel of meat, for thinking how poor dear gin-golfous fared. She really did think she had not slept a wink since he left her, although he'd been absent so long. He here shook his head, right little, he said, but he thought she was coming at rather too strong. Now his palate she tickles with the chops and the pickles, till so great the effect of that stiff gin grog. His weakened body, subdued by the toddy, falls out of the chair, and he lies like a log. Then out comes the clerk from his secret lair. He lifts up the legs and she lifts up the head. And between them this most reprehensible pair undressed poor gin-golfous and put him to bed. Then the bolster they place a thwart his face, and his nightcap into his mouth they cram, and she pinches his nose underneath the clothes till the poor dear soul goes off like a lamb. And now they tried the deed to hide, for a little bird whispered her chants you may swing. Here's a corpse in the case with a sad swelled face, and a medical crowner's a queer sort of thing. So the clerk and the wife, they each took a knife, and the nippers that nipped the sugarloaf for tea, with the edges and points they severed the joints, at the clavicle, elbow, hip, ankle, and knee. Thus limb from limb they dismembered him, so entirely that they could not eat when they came to his wrists. With those great sugar nippers they nipped off his flippers, as the clerk very flippantly termed his fists. When they'd cut off his head, entertaining a dread, lest folk should remember gin-golfous face, they determined to throw it where no one could know it, down the well, and the limbs in some different place. But first the long beard from the chin they sheared, and managed to stuff that sanctified hair, with a good deal of pushing, all into the cushion, that filled up the seat of a large arm-chair. They contrived to pack up the trunk in a sack, which they hid in an osier bed outside the town, the clerk bearing arms, legs, and all on his back, as that vile Mr. Greenacre served Mrs. Brown. To see now how strangely things sometimes turn out, and that, in a manner the least expected, who could surmise a man ever could rise, who'd been thus carbonado'd, cut up, and dissected, no doubt would surprise the pupils at guise. I am no unbeliever, no man could save Atomy, but St. Thomas himself would scarce trust his own eyes if he saw such a thing in his school of anatomy. You may deal as you please with Hindus and Chinese, or a Musselman making his heathen salamor, a Jew or a Turk, but its other guesswork, when a man has to do with a pilgrim or palmer. By chance the Prince-Bishop, a royal divine, sends his cards round the neighborhood next day, and urges his, which to receive a snug party to dine, of the resident clergy, the treasury, and burgesses. At a quarter past five they are all alive at the palace, or coaches are fast rolling in, and to every guest his card had expressed, half past as the hour, for a greasy chin. Some thirty are seated and handsomely treated, with the choicest rind wines in his highness's stock, when a count of the empire who felt himself heated requested some water to mix with his hawk. The butler who saw it, sent a maid out to draw it, but scarce had she given the windlass a twirl, ere jengulf his head from the wells-bottom said in mild accents, Do help us out, that's a good girl. Only fancy her dread when she saw a great head in her bucket, with fright she was ready to drop. Conceive if you can how she roared and she ran, with the head rolling after her bawling out stop. She ran and she roared till she came to the board, where the prince-bishop sat with his party around, when jengulf his pole which continued to roll, at her feet on the table bounced up with a bound. Never touching the cakes or the dishes or plates, the decanters or glasses, the sweetmeats or fruits, the head smiles and begs them to bring him his legs, as a well-spoken gentleman asks for his boots. Kicking open the casement to each one's amazement, straight a right leg steps in, all impediment scorns. And near the head stopping a left follows hopping behind, for the left leg was troubled with corns. Next before the beholders two great brawny shoulders and arms on their bent elbows danced through the throng. While two hands assist, though nipped off at the wrist, the said shoulders in bearing a body along. They march up to the head, not one syllable said, for the thirty guests all stare in wonder and doubt. As the limbs in their sight arrange and unite, till jengulf us, though dead, looks as sound as a trout, I will venture to say from that hour to this day, near did such an assembly behold such a scene, or a table divide fifteen guests to a side, with a dead body placed in the center between. Yes, they stared while they might at so novel a sight. No one uttered a whisper, a sneeze or a ham, but sat all bold upright and pale with a fright, and they gazed at the dead man, the dead man at them. The Princebishop's jester, on punning intent as he viewed the whole thirty in jocular terms, said they put him in mind of a council of Trent, engaged in reviewing the diet of worms. But what should they do? Oh, nobody knew. What was best to be done either stranger or resident? The Chancellor's self read his puffin door through in vain for his books could not furnish a precedent. The Princebishop muttered a curse and a prayer, which his double capacity hit to a nicety. His princely or lay half induced him to swear. His episcopal moiety said, Benedictity, the coroner sat on the body that night, and the jury agreed not a doubt could they harbor that the chin of the corpse, the sole thing brought to light, had been recently shaved by a very bad barber. They sent out Von Townsend, Von Birney, Von Rowe, Von Mann, and Von Rowens, through Chalet and Chateau. Towns' villages' hamlets they told them to go, and they stuck up placards on the walls of the Stodhoe. Murder! Whereas a dead gentleman's surname unknown has been recently found at his highness's banquet, rather shabbily dressed in an amus or gown, in appearance resembling a second-hand blanket. And whereas there's reason indeed to suspect that some ill-disposed person or persons with malice, a forethought have killed and begun to dissect, the said gentleman, not very far from the palace. This is to give notice, whoever shall seize, and such person or persons to justice surrender, shall receive such reward as his highness shall please. On conviction of him, he aforesaid offender, and in order the matter more clearly to trace, to the bottom, his highness the prince-bishop further, of his clemency offers free pardon and grace, to all such as have not been concerned in the mirther. Done this day at her palace, July 25, by command, signed Johann Von Rissell N. B., deceased rather in years, had a squint when alive, and smell slightly of gin, linen marked with a G. The newspapers, too, made no little adieu, though a different version each managed to dish up. Some said the prince-bishop had run a man through. Others said an assassin had killed the prince-bishop. The Gent-Herald fell foul of the Brussels Gazette, the Brussels Gazette with much sneering ironical, scorned to remain in the Gent-Herald's debt, and the Amsterdam Times quizzed the Nuremberg Chronicle. In one thing indeed all the journals agreed, spite of politics, bias, or party collision, is to give when they'd further accounts of the deed, full particulars soon in a later edition. But now while on all sides they rode and they ran, trying all sorts of means to discover the catiffs, losing patience the holy Gengalpas began to think it high time to astonish the natives. First a Rittmeister's frow who was weak in both eyes, and supposed the most short-sighted woman in Holland, found great relief to her joy and surprise, from one glimpse of his squint than from glasses by Dahlund, but the slightest approach to the tip of his nose, Meegrum's headache and vapours were put to the rout, and one single touch of his precious great toes, was a certain specific for chill-blanes and gout. Rheumatic sciatica, tic doulerou, applied to his shin bones not one of them lingers, all billious complaints in an instant withdrew if the patient was tickled with one of his fingers. Much virtue was found to reside in his thumbs. When applied to the chest they cured scatness of breathing. Sea sickness and colic, or rubbed on the gums, were a blessing to mothers, for intense in teething. Whoever saluted the nape of his neck, where the mark remained visible still of the knife, not withstanding East Wind's inspiration might check, was safe from sore throat for the rest of his life. Thus, while each acute and each chronic complaint, giving way, proved an influence clearly divine, they perceived the dead gentleman must be a saint, so they locked him up body and bones in a shrine, through country and town his new saintships renown, as a first-rate physician kept daily increasing. Till as Alderman Curtis told Alderman Brown, it seemed as if wonders had never done ceasing. The three kings of Cologne began it was known a sad falling off in their offerings to find. His feats were so many, still the greatest of any, in every sense of the word was behind, for the German police were beginning to cease from exertions which each day more fruitless appeared, when Djingolfus himself, his fame still to increase, unraveled the whole by the help of his beard. If you look back you'll see the aforesaid Barb Gris, when divorced from the chin of its murdered proprietor, have been stuffed in the seat of a kind of setee, or double-armed chair, to keep the thing quieter. It may seem rather strange that it did not arrange itself in its place when the limbs joined together. Perhaps it could not get out, for the cushion was stout, and constructed of good strong maroon-colored leather. Or what is more likely Djingolfus might choose, for saints in when dead still retain their volition, it should rest there to aid some particular views, produced by his very peculiar position. Be that as it may, on the very first day that the widow Djingolfus sat down on that setee, what occurred almost frightened her senses away, besides scaring her handmaidens Gertrude and Betty. They were telling their mistress the wonderful deeds of the new saint to whom all the towns said their orisons, and especially how as regards invalids, his miraculous cures far outrivaled von Morrison's. The cripples said they, fling their crutches away, and people born blind now can easily see us. But she, we presume a disciple of Hume, shook her head and said angrily, Craydot, Judeus, those rascally liars, the monks and the friars, to bring grist to their mill, these devices have hit on. He works miracles, poo! I'd believe it of you, just as soon you great geese, or the chair that I sit on. The chair at that word it seems really absurd, but the truth must be told what contortions and grins distorted her face. She sprang up from her place just as though she'd been sitting on needles and pins, for as if the saint's beard the rash challenge had heared, which she uttered of what was beneath her forgetful, each particular hair stood on end in the chair, like a porcupine's quills when the animals fretful. That stout maroon leather they pierced altogether, like tenterhooks holding when clenched from within, and the maids cried good gracious, how very tenacious, they as well might endeavor to pull off her skin. She shrieked with the pain, but all efforts were vain. In vain did they strain every sinew and muscle. The cushion stuck fast, from that hour to her last. She could never get rid of that comfortless bustle. And Ena's Macbeth, when devising the death of his king, heard the very stone's prait of his whereabouts. So this shocking bad wife heard a voice all her life, crying murder, resound from the cushion, or thereabouts. With regard to the quark we are left in the dark as to what his fate was. But I cannot imagine he, God of scot-free, though unnoticed it be, both by Ribba Danara and Jacques de Voragini, for cutthroats were sure, can be never secure, and history's muse still to prove it her penholds. As you'll see, if you look in a rather scarce book, God's revenge against murder by one Mr. Reynolds. Moral, now you grave-married pilgrims who wander away, like Ulysses of old, Vidae Homer and Neso. Don't lengthen your stay to three years and a day, and when you are coming home, just write and say so. And you learned clarks who are not given to Rome. Stick close to your books, nor lose sight of decorum. Don't visit a house when the master's from home. Shun drinking and study the vitae sanctorum. Above all, you gay ladies, who fancy neglect in your spouses, allow not your patience to fail, but remember Gengolfa's wife and reflect on the moral enforced by her terrible tale.