She had contrived to send the money he wanted. He would not be without legal advice and energetic and skilled support. At last the news did comea long arrear all in a gush a letter from a female friend in Shrewsbury; a return of the sentences, sent up for the Judge; and most important, because most easily got at, being told with great aplomb and brevity, the longdeferred intelligence of the Shrewsbury Assizes in the Morning Advertiser. Like an impatient reader of a novel, who reads the last page first, she read with dizzy eyes the list of the executions. Two were respited, seven were hanged; and in that capital catalogue was this line Lewis Pyneweckforgery. She had to read it halfadozen times over before she was sure she understood it. Here was the paragraph Sentence, Death7. Executed accordingly, on Friday the 13th instant, to wit Thomas Primer, alias Duckhighway robbery. Flora Guystealing to the value of 11s. 6d. Arthur Poundenburglary. Matilda Mummeryriot. Lewis Pyneweckforgery, bill of exchange. And when she reached this, she read it over and over, feeling very cold and sick. This buxom housekeeper was known in the house as Mrs. CarwellCarwell being her maiden name, which she had resumed. No one in the house except its master knew her history. Her introduction had been managed craftily. No one suspected that it had been concerted between her and the old reprobate in scarlet and ermine. Flora Carwell ran up the stairs now, and snatched her little girl, hardly seven years of age, whom she met on the lobby, hurriedly up in her arms, and carried her into her bedroom, without well knowing what she was doing, and sat down, placing the child before her. She was not able to speak. She held the child before her, and looked in the little girls wondering face, and burst into tears of horror. She thought, the Judge could have saved him. I daresay he could. For a time she was furious with him; and hugged and kissed her bewildered little girl, who returned her gaze with large round eyes. That little girl had lost her father, and knew nothing of the matter. She had been always told that her father was dead long ago. A woman, coarse, uneducated, vain, and violent, does not reason, or even feel, very distinctly; but in these tears of consternation were mingling a selfupbraiding. She felt afraid of that little child. But Mrs. Carwell was a person who lived not upon sentiment, but upon beef and pudding; she consoled herself with punch; she did not trouble herself long even with resentments; she was a gross and material person, and could not mourn over the irrevocable for more than a limited number of hours, even if she would. Judge Harbottle was soon in London again. Except the gout, this savage old epicurean never knew a days sickness. He laughed and coaxed and bullied away the young womans faint upbraidings, and in a little time Lewis Pyneweck troubled her no more; and the Judge secretly chuckled over the perfectly fair removal of a bore, who might have grown little by little into something very like a tyrant. It was the lot of the Judge whose adventures I am now recounting to try criminal cases at the Old Bailey shortly after his return. He had commenced his charge to the jury in a case of forgery, and was, after his wont, thundering dead against the prisoner, with many a hard aggravation and cynical gibe, when suddenly all died away in silence, and, instead of looking at the jury, the eloquent Judge was gaping at some person in the body of the court. Among the persons of small importance who stand and listen at the sides was one tall enough to show with a little prominence; a slight mean figure, dressed in seedy black, lean and dark of visage. He had just handed a letter to the crier, before he caught the Judges eye. That Judge descried, to his amazement, the features of Lewis Pyneweck. He has the usual faint thinlipped smile; and with his blue chin raised in air, and as it seemed quite unconscious of the distinguished notice he has attracted, he was stretching his low cravat with his crooked fingers, while he slowly turned his head from side to sidea process which enabled the Judge to see distinctly a stripe of swollen blue round his neck, which indicated, he thought, the grip of the rope. This man, with a few others, had got a footing on a step, from which he could better see the court. He now stepped down, and the Judge lost sight of him. His lordship signed energetically with his hand in the direction in which this man had vanished. He turned to the tipstaff. His first effort to speak ended in a gasp. He cleared his throat, and told the astounded official to arrest that man who had interrupted the court. Hes but this moment gone down there. Bring him in custody before me, within ten minutes time, or Ill strip your gown from your shoulders and fine the sheriff! he thundered, while his eyes flashed round the court in search of the functionary. Attorneys, counsellors, idle spectators, gazed in the direction in which Mr. Justice Harbottle had shaken his gnarled old hand. They compared notes. Not one had seen anyone making a disturbance. They asked one another if the Judge was losing his head. Nothing came of the search. His lordship concluded his charge a great deal more tamely; and when the jury retired, he stared round the court with a wandering mind, and looked as if he would not have given sixpence to see the prisoner hanged. V Caleb Searcher The Judge had received the letter; had he known from whom it came, he would no doubt have read it instantaneously. As it was he simply read the direction To the Honourable The Lord Justice Elijah Harbottle, One of his Majestys Justices of the Honourable Court of Common Pleas. It remained forgotten in his pocket till he reached home. When he pulled out that and others from the capacious pocket of his coat, it had its turn, as he sat in his library in his thick silk dressinggown; and then he found its contents to be a closelywritten letter, in a clerks hand, and an enclosure in secretary hand, as I believe the angular scrivinary of lawwritings in those days was termed, engrossed on a bit of parchment about the size of this page. The letter said Mr. Justice HarbottleMy Lord, I am ordered by the High Court of Appeal to acquaint your lordship, in order to your better preparing yourself for your trial, that a true bill hath been sent down, and the indictment lieth against your lordship for the murder of one Lewis Pyneweck of Shrewsbury, citizen, wrongfully executed for the forgery of a bill of exchange, on the th day of  last, by reason of the wilful perversion of the evidence, and the undue pressure put upon the jury, together with the illegal admission of evidence by your lordship, well knowing the same to be illegal, by all which the promoter of the prosecution of the said indictment, before the High Court of Appeal, hath lost his life. And the trial of the said indictment, I am farther ordered to acquaint your lordship is fixed for the 10th day of  next ensuing, by the right honourable the Lord ChiefJustice Twofold, of the court aforesaid, to wit, the High Court of Appeal, on which day it will most certainly take place. And I am farther to acquaint your lordship, to prevent any surprise or miscarriage, that your case stands first for the said day, and that the said High Court of Appeal sits day and night, and never rises; and herewith, by order of the said court, I furnish your lordship with a copy (extract) of the record in this case, except of the indictment, whereof, notwithstanding, the substance and effect is supplied to your lordship in this Notice. And farther I am to inform you, that in case the jury then to try your lordship should find you guilty, the right honourable the Lord ChiefJustice will, in passing sentence of death upon you, fix the day of execution for the 10th day of , being one calendar month from the day of your trial. It was signed by Caleb Searcher, Officer of the Crown Solicitor in the Kingdom of Life and Death. The Judge glanced through the parchment.  Sblood! Do they think a man like me is to be bamboozled by their buffoonery? The Judges coarse features were wrung into one of his sneers; but he was pale. Possibly, after all, there was a conspiracy on foot. It was queer. Did they mean to pistol him in his carriage? or did they only aim at frightening him? Judge Harbottle had more than enough of animal courage. He was not afraid of highwaymen, and he had fought more than his share of duels, being a foulmouthed advocate while he held briefs at the bar. No one questioned his fighting qualities. But with respect to this particular case of Pyneweck, he lived in a house of glass. Was there not his pretty, darkeyed, overdressed housekeeper, Mrs. Flora Carwell? Very easy for people who knew Shrewsbury to identify Mrs. Pyneweck, if once put upon the scent; and had he not stormed and worked hard in that case? Had he not made it hard sailing for the prisoner? Did he not know very well what the bar thought of it? It would be the worst scandal that ever blasted judge. So much there was intimidating in the matter, but nothing more. The Judge was a little bit gloomy for a day or two after, and more testy with everyone than usual. He locked up the papers; and about a week after he asked his housekeeper, one day, in the library Had your husband never a brother? Mrs. Carwell squalled on this sudden introduction of the funereal topic, and cried exemplary piggins full, as the Judge used pleasantly to say. But he was in no mood for trifling now, and he said sternly Come, madam! this wearies me. Do it another time; and give me an answer to my question. So she did. Pyneweck had no brother living. He once had one; but he died in Jamaica. How do you know he is dead? asked the Judge. Because he told me so. Not the dead man? Pyneweck told me so. Is that all? sneered the Judge. He pondered this matter; and time went on. The Judge was growing a little morose, and less enjoying. The subject struck nearer to his thoughts than he fancied it could have done. But so it is with most undivulged vexations, and there was no one to whom he could tell this one. It was now the ninth; and Mr. Justice Harbottle was glad. He knew nothing would come of it. Still it bothered him; and tomorrow would see it well over. [What of the paper I have cited? No one saw it during his life; no one, after his death. He spoke of it to Dr. Hedstone; and what purported to be a copy, in the old Judges handwriting, was found. The original was nowhere. Was it a copy of an illusion, incident to brain disease? Such is my belief.] VI Arrested Judge Harbottle went this night to the play at Drury Lane. He was one of those old fellows who care nothing for late hours, and occasional knocking about in pursuit of pleasure. He had appointed with two cronies of Lincolns Inn to come home in his coach with him to sup after the play. They were not in his box, but were to meet him near the entrance, and to get into his carriage there; and Mr. Justice Harbottle, who hated waiting, was looking a little impatiently from the window. The Judge yawned. He told the footman to watch for Counsellor Thavies and Counsellor Beller, who were coming; and, with another yawn, he laid his cockedhat on his knees, closed his eyes, leaned back in his corner, wrapped his mantle closer about him, and began to think of pretty Mrs. Abington. And being a man who could sleep like a sailor, at a moments notice, he was thinking of taking a nap. Those fellows had no business to keep a judge waiting. He heard their voices now. Those rakehell counsellors were laughing, and bantering, and sparring after their wont. The carriage swayed and jerked, as one got in, and then again as the other followed. The door clapped, and the coach was now jogging and rumbling over the pavement. The Judge was a little bit sulky. He did not care to sit up and open his eyes. Let them suppose he was asleep. He heard them laugh with more malice than goodhumour, he thought, as they observed it. He would give them a dd hard knock or two when they got to his door, and till then he would counterfeit his nap. The clocks were chiming twelve. Beller and Thavies were silent as tombstones. They were generally loquacious and merry rascals. The Judge suddenly felt himself roughly seized and thrust from his corner into the middle of the seat, and opening his eyes, instantly he found himself between his two companions. Before he could blurt out the oath that was at his lips, he saw that they were two strangersevillooking fellows, each with a pistol in his hand, and dressed like Bow Street officers. The Judge clutched at the checkstring. The coach pulled up. He stared about him. They were not among houses; but through the windows, under a broad moonlight, he saw a black moor stretching lifelessly from right to left, with rotting trees, pointing fantastic branches in the air, standing here and there in groups, as if they held up their arms and twigs like fingers, in horrible glee at the Judges coming. A footman came to the window. He knew his long face and sunken eyes. He knew it was Dingly Chuff, fifteen years ago a footman in his service, whom he had turned off at a moments notice, in a burst of jealousy, and indicted for a missing spoon. The man had died in prison of the jailfever. The Judge drew back in utter amazement. His armed companions signed mutely; and they were again gliding over this unknown moor. The bloated and gouty old man, in his horror, considered the question of resistance. But his athletic days were long over. This moor was a desert. There was no help to be had. He was in the hands of strange servants, even if his recognition turned out to be a delusion, and they were under the command of his captors. There was nothing for it but submission, for the present. Suddenly the coach was brought nearly to a standstill, so that the prisoner saw an ominous sight from the window. It was a gigantic gallows beside the road; it stood threesided, and from each of its three broad beams at top depended in chains some eight or ten bodies, from several of which the cereclothes had dropped away, leaving the skeletons swinging lightly by their chains. A tall ladder reached to the summit of the structure, and on the peat beneath lay bones. On top of the dark transverse beam facing the road, from which, as from the other two completing the triangle of death, dangled a row of these unfortunates in chains, a hangman, with a pipe in his mouth, much as we see him in the famous print of the Idle Apprentice, though here his perch was ever so much higher, was reclining at his ease and listlessly shying bones, from a little heap at his elbow, at the skeletons that hung round, bringing down now a rib or two, now a hand, now half a leg. A longsighted man could have discerned that he was a dark fellow, lean; and from continually looking down on the earth from the elevation over which, in another sense, he always hung, his nose, his lips, his chin were pendulous and loose, and drawn down into a monstrous grotesque. This fellow took his pipe from his mouth on seeing the coach, stood up, and cut some solemn capers high on his beam, and shook a new rope in the air, crying with a voice high and distant as the caw of a raven hovering over a gibbet, A rope for Judge Harbottle! The coach was now driving on at its old swift pace. So high a gallows as that, the Judge had never, even in his most hilarious moments, dreamed of. He thought he must be raving. And the dead footman! He shook his ears and strained his eyelids; but if he was dreaming, he was unable to awake himself. There was no good in threatening these scoundrels. A brutum fulmen might bring a real one on his head. Any submission to get out of their hands; and then heaven and earth he would move to unearth and hunt them down. Suddenly they drove round a corner of a vast white building, and under a portecochre. VII Chief Justice Twofold The Judge found himself in a corridor lighted with dingy oillamps, the walls of bare stone; it looked like a passage in a prison. His guards placed him in the hands of other people. Here and there he saw bony and gigantic soldiers passing to and fro, with muskets over their shoulders. They looked straight before them, grinding their teeth, in bleak fury, with no noise but the clank of their shoes. He saw these by glimpses, round corners, and at the ends of passages, but he did not actually pass them by. And now, passing under a narrow doorway, he found himself in the dock, confronting a judge in his scarlet robes, in a large courthouse. There was nothing to elevate this temple of Themis above its vulgar kind elsewhere. Dingy enough it looked, in spite of candles lighted in decent abundance. A case had just closed, and the last jurors back was seen escaping through the door in the wall of the jurybox. There were some dozen barristers, some fiddling with pen and ink, others buried in briefs, some beckoning, with the plumes of their pens, to their attorneys, of whom there were no lack; there were clerks toing and froing, and the officers of the court, and the registrar, who was handing up a paper to the judge; and the tipstaff, who was presenting a note at the end of his wand to a kings counsel over the heads of the crowd between. If this was the High Court of Appeal, which never rose day or night, it might account for the pale and jaded aspect of everybody in it. An air of indescribable gloom hung upon the pallid features of all the people here; no one ever smiled; all looked more or less secretly suffering. The King against Elijah Harbottle! shouted the officer. Is the appellant Lewis Pyneweck in court? asked ChiefJustice Twofold, in a voice of thunder, that shook the woodwork of the Court, and boomed down the corridors. Up stood Pyneweck from his place at the table. Arraign the prisoner! roared the Chief; and Judge Harbottle felt the pannels of the dock round him, and the floor, and the rails quiver in the vibrations of that tremendous voice. The prisoner, in limine, objected to this pretended court, as being a sham, and nonexistent in point of law; and then, that, even if it were a court constituted by law, (the Judge was growing dazed), it had not and could not have any jurisdiction to try him for his conduct on the bench. Whereupon the chiefjustice laughed suddenly, and everyone in court, turning round upon the prisoner, laughed also, till the laugh grew and roared all round like a deafening acclamation; he saw nothing but glittering eyes and teeth, a universal stare and grin; but though all the voices laughed, not a single face of all those that concentrated their gaze upon him looked like a laughing face. The mirth subsided as suddenly as it began. The indictment was read. Judge Harbottle actually pleaded! He pleaded Not guilty. A jury were sworn. The trial proceeded. Judge Harbottle was bewildered. This could not be real. He must be either mad, or going mad, he thought. One thing could not fail to strike even him. This ChiefJustice Twofold, who was knocking him about at every turn with sneer and gibe, and roaring him down with his tremendous voice, was a dilated effigy of himself; an image of Mr. Justice Harbottle, at least double his size, and with all his fierce colouring, and his ferocity of eye and visage, enhanced awfully. Nothing the prisoner could argue, cite, or state was permitted to retard for a moment the march of the case towards its catastrophe. The chiefjustice seemed to feel his power over the jury, and to exult and riot in the display of it. He glared at them, he nodded to them; he seemed to have established an understanding with them. The lights were faint in that part of the court. The jurors were mere shadows, sitting in rows; the prisoner could see a dozen pair of white eyes shining, coldly, out of the darkness; and whenever the judge in his charge, which was contemptuously brief, nodded and grinned and gibed, the prisoner could see, in the obscurity, by the dip of all these rows of eyes together, that the jury nodded in acquiescence. And now the charge was over, the huge chiefjustice leaned back panting and gloating on the prisoner. Everyone in the court turned about, and gazed with steadfast hatred on the man in the dock. From the jurybox where the twelve sworn brethren were whispering together, a sound in the general stillness like a prolonged hissss! was heard; and then, in answer to the challenge of the officer, How say you, gentlemen of the jury, guilty or not guilty? came in a melancholy voice the finding, Guilty. The place seemed to the eyes of the prisoner to grow gradually darker and darker, till he could discern nothing distinctly but the lumen of the eyes that were turned upon him from every bench and side and corner and gallery of the building. The prisoner doubtless thought that he had quite enough to say, and conclusive, why sentence of death should not be pronounced upon him; but the lord chiefjustice puffed it contemptuously away, like so much smoke, and proceeded to pass sentence of death upon the prisoner, having named the 10th of the ensuing month for his execution. Before he had recovered the stun of this ominous farce, in obedience to the mandate, Remove the prisoner, he was led from the dock. The lamps seemed all to have gone out, and there were stoves and charcoalfires here and there, that threw a faint crimson light on the walls of the corridors through which he passed. The stones that composed them looked now enormous, cracked and unhewn. He came into a vaulted smithy, where two men, naked to the waist, with heads like bulls, round shoulders, and the arms of giants, were welding redhot chains together with hammers that pelted like thunderbolts. They looked on the prisoner with fierce red eyes, and rested on their hammers for a minute; and said the elder to his companion, Take out Elijah Harbottles gyves; and with a pincers he plucked the end which lay dazzling in the fire from the furnace. One end locks, said he, taking the cool end of the iron in one hand, while with the grip of a vice he seized the leg of the Judge, and locked the ring round his ankle. The other, he said with a grin, is welded. The iron band that was to form the ring for the other leg lay still redhot upon the stone floor, with brilliant sparks sporting up and down its surface. His companion in his gigantic hands seized the old Judges other leg, and pressed his foot immovably to the stone floor; while his senior in a twinkling, with a masterly application of pincers and hammer, sped the glowing bar round his ankle so tight that the skin and sinews smoked and bubbled again, and old Judge Harbottle uttered a yell that seemed to chill the very stones, and make the iron chains quiver on the wall. Chains, vaults, smiths, and smithy all vanished in a moment; but the pain continued. Mr. Justice Harbottle was suffering torture all round the ankle on which the infernal smiths had just been operating. His friends Thavies and Beller were startled by the Judges roar in the midst of their elegant trifling about a marriage lamode case which was going on. The Judge was in panic as well as pain. The streetlamps and the light of his own halldoor restored him. Im very bad, growled he between his set teeth; my foots blazing. Who was he that hurt my foot? Tis the gouttis the gout! he said, awaking completely. How many hours have we been coming from the playhouse? Sblood, what has happened on the way? Ive slept half the night? There had been no hitch or delay, and they had driven home at a good pace. The Judge, however, was in gout; he was feverish too; and the attack, though very short, was sharp; and when, in about a fortnight, it subsided, his ferocious joviality did not return. He could not get this dream, as he chose to call it, out of his head. VIII Somebody Has Got Into the House People remarked that the Judge was in the vapours. His doctor said he should go for a fortnight to Buxton. Whenever the Judge fell into a brown study, he was always conning over the terms of the sentence pronounced upon him in his visionin one calendar month from the date of this day; and then the usual form, and you shall be hanged by the neck till you are dead, etc. That will be the 10thIm not much in the way of being hanged. I know what stuff dreams are, and I laugh at them; but this is continually in my thoughts, as if it forecast misfortune of some sort. I wish the day my dream gave me were passed and over. I wish I were well purged of my gout. I wish I were as I used to be. Tis nothing but vapours, nothing but a maggot. The copy of the parchment and letter which had announced his trial with many a snort and sneer he would read over and over again, and the scenery and people of his dream would rise about him in places the most unlikely, and steal him in a moment from all that surrounded him into a world of shadows. The Judge had lost his iron energy and banter. He was growing taciturn and morose. The Bar remarked the change, as well they might. His friends thought him ill. The doctor said he was troubled with hypochondria, and that his gout was still lurking in his system, and ordered him to that ancient haunt of crutches and chalkstones, Buxton. The Judges spirits were very low; he was frightened about himself; and he described to his housekeeper, having sent for her to his study to drink a dish of tea, his strange dream in his drive home from Drury Lane playhouse. He was sinking into the state of nervous dejection in which men lose their faith in orthodox advice, and in despair consult quacks, astrologers, and nursery storytellers. Could such a dream mean that he was to have a fit, and so die on the 10th? She did not think so. On the contrary, it was certain some good luck must happen on that day. The Judge kindled; and for the first time for many days, he looked for a minute or two like himself, and he tapped her on the cheek with the hand that was not in flannel. Odsbud! odsheart! you dear rogue! I had forgot. There is young Tomyellow Tom, my nephew, you know, lies sick at Harrogate; why shouldnt he go that day as well as another, and if he does, I get an estate by it? Why, lookee, I asked Doctor Hedstone yesterday if I was like to take a fit any time, and he laughed, and swore I was the last man in town to go off that way. The Judge sent most of his servants down to Buxton to make his lodgings and all things comfortable for him. He was to follow in a day or two. It was now the 9th; and the next day well over, he might laugh at his visions and auguries. On the evening of the 9th, Doctor Hedstones footman knocked at the Judges door. The doctor ran up the dusky stairs to the drawingroom. It was a March evening, near the hour of sunset, with an east wind whistling sharply through the chimneystacks. A wood fire blazed cheerily on the hearth. And Judge Harbottle, in what was then called a brigadierwig, with his red roquelaure on, helped the glowing effect of the darkened chamber, which looked red all over like a room on fire. The Judge had his feet on a stool, and his huge grim purple face confronted the fire and seemed to pant and swell, as the blaze alternately spread upward and collapsed. He had fallen again among his blue devils, and was thinking of retiring from the Bench, and of fifty other gloomy things. But the doctor, who was an energetic son of sculapius, would listen to no croaking, told the Judge he was full of gout, and in his present condition no judge even of his own case, but promised him leave to pronounce on all those melancholy questions, a fortnight later. In the meantime the Judge must be very careful. He was overcharged with gout, and he must not provoke an attack, till the waters of Buxton should do that office for him, in their own salutary way. The doctor did not think him perhaps quite so well as he pretended, for he told him he wanted rest, and would be better if he went forthwith to his bed. Mr. Gerningham, his valet, assisted him, and gave him his drops; and the Judge told him to wait in his bedroom till he should go to sleep. Three persons that night had specially odd stories to tell. The housekeeper had got rid of the trouble of amusing her little girl at this anxious time by giving her leave to run about the sittingrooms and look at the pictures and china, on the usual condition of touching nothing. It was not until the last gleam of sunset had for some time faded, and the twilight had so deepened that she could no longer discern the colours on the china figures on the chimneypiece or in the cabinets, that the child returned to the housekeepers room to find her mother. To her she related, after some prattle about the china, and the pictures, and the Judges two grand wigs in the dressingroom off the library, an adventure of an extraordinary kind. In the hall was placed, as was customary in those times, the sedanchair which the master of the house occasionally used, covered with stamped leather, and studded with gilt nails, and with its red silk blinds down. In this case, the doors of this oldfashioned conveyance were locked, the windows up, and, as I said, the blinds down, but not so closely that the curious child could not peep underneath one of them, and see into the interior. A parting beam from the setting sun, admitted through the window of a back room, shot obliquely through the open door, and lighting on the chair, shone with a dull transparency through the crimson blind. To her surprise, the child saw in the shadow a thin man dressed in black seated in it; he had sharp dark features; his nose, she fancied, a little awry, and his brown eyes were looking straight before him; his hand was on his thigh, and he stirred no more than the waxen figure she had seen at Southwark fair. A child is so often lectured for asking questions and on the propriety of silence, and the superior wisdom of its elders, that it accepts most things at last in good faith; and the little girl acquiesced respectfully in the occupation of the chair by this mahoganyfaced person as being all right and proper. It was not until she asked her mother who this man was, and observed her scared face as she questioned her more minutely upon the appearance of the stranger, that she began to understand that she had seen something unaccountable. Mrs. Carwell took the key of the chair from its nail over the footmans shelf, and led the child by the hand up to the hall, having a lighted candle in her other hand. She stopped at a distance from the chair, and placed the candlestick in the childs hand. Peep in, Margery, again, and try if theres anything there, she whispered; hold the candle near the blind so as to throw its light through the curtain. The child peeped, this time with a very solemn face, and intimated at once that he was gone. Look again, and be sure, urged her mother. The little girl was quite certain; and Mrs. Carwell, with her mobcap of lace and cherrycoloured ribbons, and her dark brown hair, not yet powdered, over a very pale face, unlocked the door, looked in, and beheld emptiness. All a mistake, child, you see. There, maam! see there! Hes gone round the corner, said the child. Where? said Mrs. Carwell, stepping backward a step. Into that room. Tut, child! twas the shadow, cried Mrs. Carwell angrily, because she was frightened. I moved the candle. But she clutched one of the poles of the chair, which leant against the wall in the corner, and pounded the floor furiously with one end of it, being afraid to pass the open door the child had pointed to. The cook and two kitchenmaids came running upstairs, not knowing what to make of this unwonted alarm. They all searched the room; but it was still and empty, and no sign of anyones having been there. Some people may suppose that the direction given to her thoughts by this odd little incident will account for a very strange illusion which Mrs.


Carwell herself experienced about two hours later. IX The Judge Leaves His House Mrs. Flora Carwell was going up the great staircase with a posset for the Judge in a china bowl, on a little silver tray. Across the top of the wellstaircase there runs a massive oak rail; and, raising her eyes accidentally, she saw an extremely oddlooking stranger, slim and long, leaning carelessly over with a pipe between his finger and thumb. Nose, lips, and chin seemed all to droop downward into extraordinary length, as he leant his odd peering face over the banister. In his other hand he held a coil of rope, one end of which escaped from under his elbow and hung over the rail. Mrs. Carwell, who had no suspicion at the moment, that he was not a real person, and fancied that he was someone employed in cording the Judges luggage, called to know what he was doing there. Instead of answering, he turned about, and walked across the lobby, at about the same leisurely pace at which she was ascending, and entered a room, into which she followed him. It was an uncarpeted and unfurnished chamber. An open trunk lay upon the floor empty, and beside it the coil of rope; but except herself there was no one in the room. Mrs. Carwell was very much frightened, and now concluded that the child must have seen the same ghost that had just appeared to her. Perhaps, when she was able to think it over, it was a relief to believe so; for the face, figure, and dress described by the child were awfully like Pyneweck; and this certainly was not he. Very much scared and very hysterical, Mrs. Carwell ran down to her room, afraid to look over her shoulder, and got some companions about her, and wept, and talked, and drank more than one cordial, and talked and wept again, and so on, until, in those early days, it was ten oclock, and time to go to bed. A scullerymaid remained up finishing some of her scouring and scalding for some time after the other servantswho, as I said, were few in numberthat night had got to their beds. This was a lowbrowed, broadfaced, intrepid wench with black hair, who did not vally a ghost not a button, and treated the housekeepers hysterics with measureless scorn. The old house was quiet, now. It was near twelve oclock, no sounds were audible except the muffled wailing of the wintry winds, piping high among the roofs and chimneys, or rumbling at intervals, in under gusts, through the narrow channels of the street. The spacious solitudes of the kitchen level were awfully dark, and this sceptical kitchenwench was the only person now up and about, in the house. She hummed tunes to herself, for a time; and then stopped and listened; and then resumed her work again. At last, she was destined to be more terrified than even was the housekeeper. There was a backkitchen in this house, and from this she heard, as if coming from below its foundations, a sound like heavy strokes, that seemed to shake the earth beneath her feet. Sometimes a dozen in sequence, at regular intervals; sometimes fewer. She walked out softly into the passage, and was surprised to see a dusky glow issuing from this room, as if from a charcoal fire. The room seemed thick with smoke. Looking in, she very dimly beheld a monstrous figure, over a furnace, beating with a mighty hammer the rings and rivets of a chain. The strokes, swift and heavy as they looked, sounded hollow and distant. The man stopped, and pointed to something on the floor, that, through the smoky haze, looked, she thought, like a dead body. She remarked no more; but the servants in the room close by, startled from their sleep by a hideous scream, found her in a swoon on the flags, close to the door, where she had just witnessed this ghastly vision. Startled by the girls incoherent asseverations that she had seen the Judges corpse on the floor, two servants having first searched the lower part of the house, went rather frightened upstairs to inquire whether their master was well. They found him, not in his bed, but in his room. He had a table with candles burning at his bedside, and was getting on his clothes again; and he swore and cursed at them roundly in his old style, telling them that he had business, and that he would discharge on the spot any scoundrel who should dare to disturb him again. So the invalid was left to his quietude. In the morning it was rumoured here and there in the street that the Judge was dead. A servant was sent from the house three doors away, by Counsellor Traverse, to inquire at Judge Harbottles halldoor. The servant who opened it was pale and reserved, and would only say that the Judge was ill. He had had a dangerous accident; Doctor Hedstone had been with him at seven oclock in the morning. There were averted looks, short answers, pale and frowning faces, and all the usual signs that there was a secret that sat heavily upon their minds, and the time for disclosing which had not yet come. That time would arrive when the coroner had arrived, and the mortal scandal that had befallen the house could be no longer hidden. For that morning Mr. Justice Harbottle had been found hanging by the neck from the banister at the top of the great staircase, and quite dead. There was not the smallest sign of any struggle or resistance. There had not been heard a cry or any other noise in the slightest degree indicative of violence. There was medical evidence to show that, in his atrabilious state, it was quite on the cards that he might have made away with himself. The jury found accordingly that it was a case of suicide. But to those who were acquainted with the strange story which Judge Harbottle had related to at least two persons, the fact that the catastrophe occurred on the morning of the 10th March seemed a startling coincidence. A few days after, the pomp of a great funeral attended him to the grave; and so, in the language of Scripture, the rich man died, and was buried. The Familiar Prologue Out of about two hundred and thirty cases, more or less nearly akin to that I have entitled Green Tea, I select the following, which I call The Familiar. To this MS., Doctor Hesselius has, after his wont, attached some sheets of letterpaper, on which are written, in his hand nearly as compact as print, his own remarks upon the case. He says In point of conscience, no more unexceptionable narrator, than the venerable Irish Clergyman who has given me this paper, on Mr. Bartons case, could have been chosen. The statement is, however, medically imperfect. The report of an intelligent physician, who had marked its progress, and attended the patient, from its earlier stages to its close, would have supplied what is wanting to enable me to pronounce with confidence. I should have been acquainted with Mr. Bartons probable hereditary predispositions; I should have known, possibly, by very early indications, something of a remoter origin of the disease than can now be ascertained. In a rough way, we may reduce all similar cases to three distinct classes. They are founded on the primary distinction between the subjective and the objective. Of those whose senses are alleged to be subject to supernatural impressionssome are simply visionaries, and propagate the illusions of which they complain, from diseased brain or nerves. Others are, unquestionably, infested by, as we term them, spiritual agencies, exterior to themselves. Others, again, owe their sufferings to a mixed condition. The interior sense, it is true, is opened; but it has been and continues open by the action of disease. This form of disease may, in one sense, be compared to the loss of the scarfskin, and a consequent exposure of surfaces for whose excessive sensitiveness, nature has provided a muffling. The loss of this covering is attended by an habitual impassability, by influences against which we were intended to be guarded. But in the case of the brain, and the nerves immediately connected with its functions and its sensuous impressions, the cerebral circulation undergoes periodically that vibratory disturbance, which, I believe, I have satisfactorily examined and demonstrated, in my MS. essay, A. 17. This vibratory disturbance differs, as I there prove, essentially from the congestive disturbance, the phenomena of which are examined in A. 19. It is, when excessive, invariably accompanied by illusions. Had I seen Mr. Barton, and examined him upon the points, in his case, which need elucidation, I should have without difficulty referred those phenomena to their proper disease. My diagnosis is now, necessarily, conjectural. Thus writes Doctor Hesselius; and adds a great deal which is of interest only to a scientific physician. The narrative of the Rev. Thomas Herbert, which furnishes all that is known of the case, will be found in the chapters that follow. I Footsteps I was a young man at the time, and intimately acquainted with some of the actors in this strange tale; the impression which its incidents made on me, therefore, were deep, and lasting. I shall now endeavour, with precision, to relate them all, combining, of course, in the narrative, whatever I have learned from various sources, tending, however imperfectly, to illuminate the darkness which involves its progress and termination. Somewhere about the year 1794, the younger brother of a certain baronet, whom I shall call Sir James Barton, returned to Dublin. He had served in the navy with some distinction, having commanded one of His Majestys frigates during the greater part of the American war. Captain Barton was apparently some two or threeandforty years of age. He was an intelligent and agreeable companion when he pleased it, though generally reserved, and occasionally even moody. In society, however, he deported himself as a man of the world, and a gentleman. He had not contracted any of the noisy brusqueness sometimes acquired at sea; on the contrary, his manners were remarkably easy, quiet, and even polished. He was in person about the middle size, and somewhat strongly formedhis countenance was marked with the lines of thought, and on the whole wore an expression of gravity and melancholy; being, however, as I have said, a man of perfect breeding, as well as of good family, and in affluent circumstances, he had, of course, ready access to the best society of Dublin, without the necessity of any other credentials. In his personal habits Mr. Barton was unexpensive. He occupied lodgings in one of the then fashionable streets in the south side of the townkept but one horse and one servantand though a reputed freethinker, yet lived an orderly and moral lifeindulging neither in gaming, drinking, nor any other vicious pursuitliving very much to himself, without forming intimacies, or choosing any companions, and appearing to mix in gay society rather for the sake of its bustle and distraction, than for any opportunities it offered of interchanging thought or feeling with its votaries. Barton was therefore pronounced a saving, prudent, unsocial sort of fellow, who bid fair to maintain his celibacy alike against stratagem and assault, and was likely to live to a good old age, die rich, and leave his money to an hospital. It was now apparent, however, that the nature of Mr. Bartons plans had been totally misconceived. A young lady, whom I shall call Miss Montague, was at this time introduced into the gay world, by her aunt, the Dowager Lady L. Miss Montague was decidedly pretty and accomplished, and having some natural cleverness, and a great deal of gaiety, became for a while a reigning toast. Her popularity, however, gained her, for a time, nothing more than that unsubstantial admiration which, however, pleasant as an incense to vanity, is by no means necessarily antecedent to matrimonyfor, unhappily for the young lady in question, it was an understood thing, that beyond her personal attractions, she had no kind of earthly provision. Such being the state of affairs, it will readily be believed that no little surprise was consequent upon the appearance of Captain Barton as the avowed lover of the penniless Miss Montague. His suit prospered, as might have been expected, and in a short time it was communicated by old Lady L to each of her hundredandfifty particular friends in succession, that Captain Barton had actually tendered proposals of marriage, with her approbation, to her niece, Miss Montague, who had, moreover, accepted the offer of his hand, conditionally upon the consent of her father, who was then upon his homeward voyage from India, and expected in two or three weeks at the furthest. About this consent there could be no doubtthe delay, therefore, was one merely of formthey were looked upon as absolutely engaged, and Lady L, with a rigour of oldfashioned decorum with which her niece would, no doubt, gladly have dispensed, withdrew her thenceforward from all further participation in the gaieties of the town. Captain Barton was a constant visitor, as well as a frequent guest at the house, and was permitted all the privileges of intimacy which a betrothed suitor is usually accorded. Such was the relation of parties, when the mysterious circumstances which darken this narrative first begun to unfold themselves. Lady L resided in a handsome mansion at the north side of Dublin, and Captain Bartons lodgings, as we have already said, were situated at the south. The distance intervening was considerable, and it was Captain Bartons habit generally to walk home without an attendant, as often as he passed the evening with the old lady and her fair charge. His shortest way in such nocturnal walks, lay, for a considerable space, through a line of street which had as yet merely been laid out, and little more than the foundations of the houses constructed. One night, shortly after his engagement with Miss Montague had commenced, he happened to remain unusually late, in company with her and Lady L. The conversation had turned upon the evidences of revelation, which he had disputed with the callous scepticism of a confirmed infidel. What were called French principles, had in those days found their way a good deal into fashionable society, especially that portion of it which professed allegiance to Whiggism, and neither the old lady nor her charge were so perfectly free from the taint, as to look upon Mr. Bartons views as any serious objection to the proposed union. The discussion had degenerated into one upon the supernatural and the marvellous, in which he had pursued precisely the same line of argument and ridicule. In all this, it is but truth to state, Captain Barton, was guilty of no affectationthe doctrines upon which he insisted, were, in reality, but, too truly the basis of his own fixed belief, if so it might be called; and perhaps not the least strange of the many strange circumstances connected with my narrative, was the fact, that the subject of the fearful influences I am about to describe, was himself, from the deliberate conviction of years, an utter disbeliever in what are usually termed preternatural agencies. It was considerably past midnight when Mr. Barton took his leave, and set out upon his solitary walk homeward. He had now reached the lonely road, with its unfinished dwarf walls tracing the foundations of the projected row of houses on either sidethe moon was shining mistily, and its imperfect light made the road he trod but additionally drearythat utter silence which has in it something indefinably exciting, reigned there, and made the sound of his steps, which alone broke it, unnaturally loud and distinct. He had proceeded thus some way, when he, on a sudden, heard other footfalls, pattering at a measured pace, and, as it seemed, about two score steps behind him. The suspicion of being dogged is at all times unpleasant; it is, however, especially so in a spot so lonely; and this suspicion became so strong in the mind of Captain Barton, that he abruptly turned about to confront his pursuer, but, though there was quite sufficient moonlight to disclose any object upon the road he had traversed, no form of any kind was visible there. The steps he had heard could not have been the reverberation of his own, for he stamped his foot upon the ground, and walked briskly up and down, in the vain attempt to awake an echo; though by no means a fanciful person, therefore he was at last fain to charge the sounds upon his imagination, and treat them as an illusion. Thus satisfying himself, he resumed his walk, and before he had proceeded a dozen paces, the mysterious footfall was again audible from behind, and this time, as if with the special design of showing that the sounds were not the responses of an echothe steps sometimes slackened nearly to a halt, and sometimes hurried for six or eight strides to a run, and again abated to a walk. Captain Barton, as before, turned suddenly round, and with the same resultno object was visible above the deserted level of the road. He walked back over the same ground, determined that, whatever might have been the cause of the sounds which had so disconcerted him, it should not escape his searchthe endeavour, however, was unrewarded. In spite of all his scepticism, he felt something like a superstitious fear stealing fast upon him, and with these unwonted and uncomfortable sensations, he once more turned and pursued his way. There was no repetition of these haunting sounds, until he had reached the point where he had last stopped to retrace his stepshere they were resumedand with sudden starts of running, which threatened to bring the unseen pursuer up to the alarmed pedestrian. Captain Barton arrested his course as formerlythe unaccountable nature of the occurrence filled him with vague and disagreeable sensationsand yielding to the excitement that was gaining upon him, he shouted sternly, Who goes there? The sound of ones own voice, thus exerted, in utter solitude, and followed by total silence, has in it something unpleasantly dismaying, and he felt a degree of nervousness which, perhaps, from no cause had he ever known before. To the very end of this solitary street the steps pursued himand it required a strong effort of stubborn pride on his part, to resist the impulse that prompted him every moment to run for safety at the top of his speed. It was not until he had reached his lodging, and sat by his own fireside, that he felt sufficiently reassured to rearrange and reconsider in his own mind the occurrences which had so discomposed him. So little a matter, after all, is sufficient to upset the pride of scepticism and vindicate the old simple laws of nature within us. II The Watcher Mr. Barton was next morning sitting at a late breakfast, reflecting upon the incidents of the previous night, with more of inquisitiveness than awe, so speedily do gloomy impressions upon the fancy disappear under the cheerful influence of day, when a letter just delivered by the postman was placed upon the table before him. There was nothing remarkable in the address of this missive, except that it was written in a hand which he did not knowperhaps it was disguisedfor the tall narrow characters were sloped backward; and with the selfinflicted suspense which we often see practised in such cases, he puzzled over the inscription for a full minute before he broke the seal. When he did so, he read the following words, written in the same hand Mr. Barton, late captain of the Dolphin, is warned of danger. He will do wisely to avoid  street[here the locality of his last nights adventure was named]if he walks there as usual he will meet with something unluckylet him take warning, once for all, for he has reason to dread The Watcher. Captain Barton read and reread this strange effusion; in every light and in every direction he turned it over and over; he examined the paper on which it was written, and scrutinized the handwriting once more. Defeated here, he turned to the seal; it was nothing but a patch of wax, upon which the accidental impression of a thumb was imperfectly visible. There was not the slightest mark, or clue of any kind, to lead him to even a guess as to its possible origin. The writers object seemed a friendly one, and yet he subscribed himself as one whom he had reason to dread. Altogether the letter, its author, and its real purpose were to him an inexplicable puzzle, and one, moreover, unpleasantly suggestive, in his mind, of other associations connected with his last nights adventure. In obedience to some feelingperhaps of prideMr. Barton did not communicate, even to his intended bride, the occurrences which I have just detailed. Trifling as they might appear, they had in reality most disagreeably affected his imagination, and he cared not to disclose, even to the young lady in question, what she might possibly look upon as evidences of weakness. The letter might very well be but a hoax, and the mysterious footfall but a delusion or a trick. But although he affected to treat the whole affair as unworthy of a thought, it yet haunted him pertinaciously, tormenting him with perplexing doubts, and depressing him with undefined apprehensions. Certain it is, that for a considerable time afterwards he carefully avoided the street indicated in the letter as the scene of danger. It was not until about a week after the receipt of the letter which I have transcribed, that anything further occurred to remind Captain Barton of its contents, or to counteract the gradual disappearance from his mind of the disagreeable impressions then received. He was returning one night, after the interval I have stated, from the theatre, which was then situated in Crowstreet, and having there seen Miss Montague and Lady L into their carriage, he loitered for some time with two or three acquaintances. With these, however, he parted close to the college, and pursued his way alone. It was now fully one oclock, and the streets were quite deserted. During the whole of his walk with the companions from whom he had just parted, he had been at times painfully aware of the sound of steps, as it seemed, dogging them on their way. Once or twice he had looked back, in the uneasy anticipation that he was again about to experience the same mysterious annoyances which had so disconcerted him a week before, and earnestly hoping that he might see some form to account naturally for the sounds. But the street was desertedno one was visible. Proceeding now quite alone upon his homeward way, he grew really nervous and uncomfortable, as he became sensible, with increased distinctness, of the wellknown and now absolutely dreaded sounds. By the side of the dead wall which bounded the college park, the sounds followed, recommencing almost simultaneously with his own steps. The same unequal pacesometimes slow, sometimes for a score yards or so, quickened almost to a runwas audible from behind him. Again and again he turned; quickly and stealthily he glanced over his shoulderalmost at every halfdozen steps; but no one was visible. The irritation of this intangible and unseen pursuit became gradually all but intolerable; and when at last he reached his home, his nerves were strung to such a pitch of excitement that he could not rest, and did not attempt even to lie down until after the daylight had broken. He was awakened by a knock at his chamberdoor, and his servant entering, handed him several letters which had just been received by the penny post. One among them instantly arrested his attentiona single glance at the direction aroused him thoroughly. He at once recognized its character, and read as follows You may as well think, Captain Barton, to escape from your own shadow as from me; do what you may, I will see you as often as I please, and you shall see me, for I do not want to hide myself, as you fancy. Do not let it trouble your rest, Captain Barton; for, with a good conscience, what need you fear from the eye of The Watcher. It is scarcely necessary to dwell upon the feelings that accompanied a perusal of this strange communication. Captain Barton was observed to be unusually absent and out of spirits for several days afterwards, but no one divined the cause. Whatever he might think as to the phantom steps which followed him, there could be no possible illusion about the letters he had received; and, to say the least, their immediate sequence upon the mysterious sounds which had haunted him, was an odd coincidence. The whole circumstance was, in his own mind, vaguely and instinctively connected with certain passages in his past life, which, of all others, he hated to remember. It happened, however, that in addition to his own approaching nuptials, Captain Barton had just thenfortunately, perhaps, for himselfsome business of an engrossing kind connected with the adjustment of a large and longlitigated claim upon certain properties. The hurry and excitement of business had its natural effect in gradually dispelling the gloom which had for a time occasionally oppressed him, and in a little while his spirits had entirely recovered their accustomed tone. During all this time, however, he was, now and then, dismayed by indistinct and halfheard repetitions of the same annoyance, and that in lonely places, in the daytime as well as after nightfall. These renewals of the strange impressions from which he had suffered so much, were, however, desultory and faint, insomuch that often he really could not, to his own satisfaction, distinguish between them and the mere suggestions of an excited imagination. One evening he walked down to the House of Commons with a Member, an acquaintance of his and mine. This was one of the few occasions upon which I have been in company with Captain Barton. As we walked down together, I observed that he became absent and silent, and to a degree that seemed to argue the pressure of some urgent and absorbing anxiety. I afterwards learned that during the whole of our walk, he had heard the wellknown footsteps tracking him as we proceeded. This, however, was the last time he suffered from this phase of the persecution, of which he was already the anxious victim. A new and a very different one was about to be presented. III An Advertisement Of the new series of impressions which were afterwards gradually to work out his destiny, I that evening witnessed the first; and but for its relation to the train of events which followed, the incident would scarcely have been now remembered by me. As we were walking in at the passage from CollegeGreen, a man, of whom I remember only that he was short in stature, looked like a foreigner, and wore a kind of fur travellingcap, walked very rapidly, and as if under fierce excitement, directly towards us, muttering to himself, fast and vehemently the while. This oddlooking person walked straight toward Barton, who was foremost of the three, and halted, regarding him for a moment or two with a look of maniacal menace and fury; and then turning about as abruptly, he walked before us at the same agitated pace, and disappeared at a side passage. I do distinctly remember being a good deal shocked at the countenance and bearing of this man, which indeed irresistibly impressed me with an undefined sense of danger, such as I have never felt before or since from the presence of anything human; but these sensations were, on my part, far from amounting to anything so disconcerting as to flurry or excite meI had seen only a singularly evil countenance, agitated, as it seemed, with the excitement of madness. I was absolutely astonished, however, at the effect of this apparition upon Captain Barton. I knew him to be a man of proud courage and coolness in real dangera circumstance which made his conduct upon this occasion the more conspicuously odd. He recoiled a step or two as the stranger advanced, and clutched my arm in silence, with what seemed to be a spasm of agony or terror! and then, as the figure disappeared, shoving me roughly back, he followed it for a few paces, stopped in great disorder, and sat down upon a form. I never beheld a countenance more ghastly and haggard. For Gods sake, Barton, what is the matter? said , our companion, really alarmed at his appearance. Youre not hurt, are you?or unwell? What is it? What did he say?I did not hear itwhat was it? asked Barton, wholly disregarding the question. Nonsense, said , greatly surprised; who cares what the fellow said. You are unwell, Bartondecidedly unwell; let me call a coach. Unwell! Nonot unwell, he said, evidently making an effort to recover his selfpossession; but, to say the truth, I am fatigueda little overworkedand perhaps over anxious. You know I have been in chancery, and the winding up of a suit is always a nervous affair. I have felt uncomfortable all this evening; but I am better now. Come, comeshall we go on? No, no. Take my advice, Barton, and go home; you really do need rest! you are looking quite ill. I really do insist on your allowing me to see you home, replied his friend. I seconded s advice, the more readily as it was obvious that Barton was not himself disinclined to be persuaded. He left us, declining our offered escort. I was not sufficiently intimate with  to discuss the scene we had both just witnessed. I was, however, convinced from his manner in the few commonplace comments and regrets we exchanged, that he was just as little satisfied as I with the extempore plea of illness with which he had accounted for the strange exhibition, and that we were both agreed in suspecting some lurking mystery in the matter. I called next day at Bartons lodgings, to enquire for him, and learned from the servant that he had not left his room since his return the night before; but that he was not seriously indisposed, and hoped to be out in a few days. That evening he sent for Dr. R, then in large and fashionable practice in Dublin, and their interview was, it is said, an odd one. He entered into a detail of his own symptoms in an abstracted and desultory way which seemed to argue a strange want of interest in his own cure, and, at all events, made it manifest that there was some topic engaging his mind of more engrossing importance than his present ailment. He complained of occasional palpitations and headache. Doctor R, asked him among other questions, whether there was any irritating circumstance or anxiety then occupying his thoughts. This he denied quickly and almost peevishly; and the physician thereupon declared his opinion, that there was nothing amiss except some slight derangement of the digestion, for which he accordingly wrote a prescription, and was about to withdraw, when Mr. Barton, with the air of a man who recollects a topic which had nearly escaped him, recalled him. I beg your pardon, Doctor, but I really almost forgot; will you permit me to ask you two or three medical questionsrather odd ones, perhaps, but a wager depends upon their solution, you will, I hope, excuse my unreasonableness. The physician readily undertook to satisfy the inquirer. Barton seemed to have some difficulty about opening the proposed interrogatories, for he was silent for a minute, then walked to his bookcase, and returned as he had gone; at last he sat down and said Youll think them very childish questions, but I cant recover my wager without a decision; so I must put them. I want to know first about lockjaw. If a man actually has had that complaint, and appears to have died of itso much so, that a physician of average skill pronounces him actually deadmay he, after all, recover? The physician smiled, and shook his head. Butbut a blunder may be made, resumed Barton. Suppose an ignorant pretender to medical skill; may he be so deceived by any stage of the complaint, as to mistake what is only a part of the progress of the disease, for death itself? No one who had ever seen death, answered he, could mistake it in a case of lockjaw. Barton mused for a few minutes.


I am going to ask you a question, perhaps, still more childish; but first, tell me, are the regulations of foreign hospitals, such as that of, let us say, Naples, very lax and bungling. May not all kinds of blunders and slips occur in their entries of names, and soforth? Doctor R professed his incompetence to answer that query. Well, then, Doctor, here is the last of my questions. You will, probably, laugh at it; but it must out, nevertheless. Is there any disease, in all the range of human maladies, which would have the effect of perceptibly contracting the stature, and the whole framecausing the man to shrink in all his proportions, and yet to preserve his exact resemblance to himself in every particularwith the one exception, his height and bulk; any disease, markno matter how rarehow little believed in, generallywhich could possibly result in producing such an effect? The physician replied with a smile, and a very decided negative. Tell me, then, said Barton, abruptly, if a man be in reasonable fear of assault from a lunatic who is at large, can he not procure a warrant for his arrest and detention? Really that is more a lawyers question than one in my way, replied Dr. R; but I believe, on applying to a magistrate, such a course would be directed. The physician then took his leave; but, just as he reached the halldoor, remembered that he had left his cane upstairs, and returned. His reappearance was awkward, for a piece of paper, which he recognised as his own prescription, was slowly burning upon the fire, and Barton sitting close by with an expression of settled gloom and dismay. Doctor R had too much tact to observe what presented itself; but he had seen quite enough to assure him that the mind, and not the body, of Captain Barton was in reality the seat of suffering. A few days afterwards, the following advertisement appeared in the Dublin newspapers. If Sylvester Yelland, formerly a foremastman on board his Majestys frigate Dolphin, or his nearest of kin, will apply to Mr. Hubert Smith, attorney, at his office, Dame Street, he or they may hear of something greatly to his or their advantage. Admission may be had at any hour up to twelve oclock at night, should parties desire to avoid observation; and the strictest secrecy, as to all communications intended to be confidential, shall be honourably observed. The Dolphin, as I have mentioned, was the vessel which Captain Barton had commanded; and this circumstance, connected with the extraordinary exertions made by the circulation of handbills, etc., as well as by repeated advertisements, to secure for this strange notice the utmost possible publicity, suggested to Dr. R the idea that Captain Bartons extreme uneasiness was somehow connected with the individual to whom the advertisement was addressed, and he himself the author of it. This, however, it is needless to add, was no more than a conjecture. No information whatsoever, as to the real purpose of the advertisement was divulged by the agent, nor yet any hint as to who his employer might be. IV He Talks with a Clergyman Mr. Barton, although he had latterly begun to earn for himself the character of an hypochondriac, was yet very far from deserving it. Though by no means lively, he had yet, naturally, what are termed even spirits, and was not subject to undue depressions. He soon, therefore, began to return to his former habits; and one of the earliest symptoms of this healthier tone of spirits was, his appearing at a grand dinner of the Freemasons, of which worthy fraternity he was himself a brother. Barton, who had been at first gloomy and abstracted, drank much more freely than was his wontpossibly with the purpose of dispelling his own secret anxietiesand under the influence of good wine, and pleasant company, became gradually (unlike himself) talkative, and even noisy. It was under this unwonted excitement that he left his company at about halfpast ten oclock; and, as conviviality is a strong incentive to gallantry, it occurred to him to proceed forthwith to Lady Ls and pass the remainder of the evening with her and his destined bride. Accordingly, he was soon at  street, and chatting gaily with the ladies. It is not to be supposed that Captain Barton had exceeded the limits which propriety prescribes to good fellowshiphe had merely taken enough wine to raise his spirits, without, however, in the least degree unsteadying his mind, or affecting his manners. With this undue elevation of spirits had supervened an entire oblivion or contempt of those undefined apprehensions which had for so long weighed upon his mind, and to a certain extent estranged him from society; but as the night wore away, and his artificial gaiety began to flag, these painful feelings gradually intruded themselves again, and he grew abstracted and anxious as heretofore. He took his leave at length, with an unpleasant foreboding of some coming mischief, and with a mind haunted with a thousand mysterious apprehensions, such as, even while he acutely felt their pressure, he, nevertheless, inwardly strove, or affected to contemn. It was this proud defiance of what he regarded as his own weakness, which prompted him upon the present occasion to that course which brought about the adventure I am now about to relate. Mr. Barton might have easily called a coach, but he was conscious that his strong inclination to do so proceeded from no cause other than what he desperately persisted in representing to himself to be his own superstitious tremors. He might also have returned home by a route different from that against which he had been warned by his mysterious correspondent; but for the same reason he dismissed this idea also, and with a dogged and half desperate resolution to force matters to a crisis of some kind, if there were any reality in the causes of his former suffering, and if not, satisfactorily to bring their delusiveness to the proof, he determined to follow precisely the course which he had trodden upon the night so painfully memorable in his own mind as that on which his strange persecution commenced. Though, sooth to say, the pilot who for the first time steers his vessel under the muzzles of a hostile battery, never felt his resolution more severely tasked than did Captain Barton as he breathlessly pursued this solitary patha path which, spite of every effort of scepticism and reason, he felt to be infested by some (as respected him) malignant being. He pursued his way steadily and rapidly, scarcely breathing from intensity of suspense; he, however, was troubled by no renewal of the dreaded footsteps, and was beginning to feel a return of confidence, as more than threefourths of the way being accomplished with impunity, he approached the long line of twinkling oil lamps which indicated the frequented streets. This feeling of selfcongratulation was, however, but momentary. The report of a musket at some hundred yards behind him, and the whistle of a bullet close to his head, disagreeably and startlingly dispelled it. His first impulse was to retrace his steps in pursuit of the assassin; but the road on either side was, as we have said, embarrassed by the foundations of a street, beyond which extended waste fields, full of rubbish and neglected lime and brickkilns, and all now as utterly silent as though no sound had ever disturbed their dark and unsightly solitude. The futility of, singlehanded, attempting, under such circumstances, a search for the murderer, was apparent, especially as no sound, either of retreating steps or any other kind, was audible to direct his pursuit. With the tumultuous sensations of one whose life has just been exposed to a murderous attempt, and whose escape has been the narrowest possible, Captain Barton turned again; and without, however, quickening his pace actually to a run, hurriedly pursued his way. He had turned, as I have said, after a pause of a few seconds, and had just commenced his rapid retreat, when on a sudden he met the wellremembered little man in the fur cap. The encounter was but momentary. The figure was walking at the same exaggerated pace, and with the same strange air of menace as before; and as it passed him, he thought he heard it say, in a furious whisper, Still alivestill alive! The state of Mr. Bartons spirits began now to work a corresponding alteration in his health and looks, and to such a degree that it was impossible that the change should escape general remark. For some reasons, known but to himself, he took no step whatsoever to bring the attempt upon his life, which he had so narrowly escaped, under the notice of the authorities; on the contrary, he kept it jealously to himself; and it was not for many weeks after the occurrence that he mentioned it, and then in strict confidence, to a gentleman, whom the torments of his mind at last compelled him to consult. Spite of his blue devils, however, poor Barton, having no satisfactory reason to render to the public for any undue remissness in the attentions exacted by the relation subsisting between him and Miss Montague was obliged to exert himself, and present to the world a confident and cheerful bearing. The true source of his sufferings, and every circumstance connected with them, he guarded with a reserve so jealous, that it seemed dictated by at least a suspicion that the origin of his strange persecution was known to himself, and that it was of a nature which, upon his own account, he could not or dared not disclose. The mind thus turned in upon itself, and constantly occupied with a haunting anxiety which it dared not reveal or confide to any human breast, became daily more excited, and, of course, more vividly impressible, by a system of attack which operated through the nervous system; and in this state he was destined to sustain, with increasing frequency, the stealthy visitations of that apparition which from the first had seemed to possess so terrible a hold upon his imagination. It was about this time that Captain Barton called upon the then celebrated preacher, Dr. , with whom he had a slight acquaintance, and an extraordinary conversation ensued. The divine was seated in his chambers in college, surrounded with works upon his favourite pursuit, and deep in theology, when Barton was announced. There was something at once embarrassed and excited in his manner, which, along with his wan and haggard countenance, impressed the student with the unpleasant consciousness that his visitor must have recently suffered terribly indeed, to account for an alteration so strikingalmost shocking. After the usual interchange of polite greeting, and a few commonplace remarks, Captain Barton, who obviously perceived the surprise which his visit had excited, and which Doctor  was unable wholly to conceal, interrupted a brief pause by remarking This is a strange call, Doctor , perhaps scarcely warranted by an acquaintance so slight as mine with you. I should not under ordinary circumstances have ventured to disturb you; but my visit is neither an idle nor impertinent intrusion. I am sure you will not so account it, when I tell you how afflicted I am. Doctor  interrupted him with assurances such as good breeding suggested, and Barton resumed I am come to task your patience by asking your advice. When I say your patience, I might, indeed, say more; I might have said your humanityyour compassion; for I have been and am a great sufferer. My dear sir, replied the churchman, it will, indeed, afford me infinite gratification if I can give you comfort in any distress of mind! butyou know I know what you would say, resumed Barton, quickly; I am an unbeliever, and, therefore, incapable of deriving help from religion; but dont take that for granted. At least you must not assume that, however unsettled my convictions may be, I do not feel a deepa very deepinterest in the subject. Circumstances have lately forced it upon my attention, in such a way as to compel me to review the whole question in a more candid and teachable spirit, I believe, than I ever studied it in before. Your difficulties, I take it for granted, refer to the evidences of revelation, suggested the clergyman. Whynonot altogether; in fact I am ashamed to say I have not considered even my objections sufficiently to state them connectedly; butbut there is one subject on which I feel a peculiar interest. He paused again, and Doctor  pressed him to proceed. The fact is, said Barton, whatever may be my uncertainty as to the authenticity of what we are taught to call revelation, of one fact I am deeply and horribly convinced, that there does exist beyond this a spiritual worlda system whose workings are generally in mercy hidden from usa system which may be, and which is sometimes, partially and terribly revealed. I am sureI know, continued Barton, with increasing excitement, that there is a Goda dreadful Godand that retribution follows guilt, in ways the most mysterious and stupendousby agencies the most inexplicable and terrific;there is a spiritual systemgreat God, how I have been convinced!a system malignant, and implacable, and omnipotent, under whose persecutions I am, and have been, suffering the torments of the damned!yes, siryesthe fires and frenzy of hell! As Barton spoke, his agitation became so vehement that the Divine was shocked, and even alarmed. The wild and excited rapidity with which he spoke, and, above all, the indefinable horror that stamped his features, afforded a contrast to his ordinary cool and unimpassioned selfpossession striking and painful in the last degree. V Mr. Barton States His Case My dear sir, said Doctor , after a brief pause, I fear you have been very unhappy, indeed; but I venture to predict that the depression under which you labour will be found to originate in purely physical causes, and that with a change of air, and the aid of a few tonics, your spirits will return, and the tone of your mind be once more cheerful and tranquil as heretofore. There was, after all, more truth than we are quite willing to admit in the classic theories which assigned the undue predominance of any one affection of the mind, to the undue action or torpidity of one or other of our bodily organs. Believe me, that a little attention to diet, exercise, and the other essentials of health, under competent direction, will make you as much yourself as you can wish. Doctor  said Barton, with something like a shudder, I cannot delude myself with such a hope. I have no hope to cling to but one, and that is, that by some other spiritual agency more potent than that which tortures me, it may be combated, and I delivered. If this may not be, I am lostnow and forever lost. But, Mr. Barton, you must remember, urged his companion, that others have suffered as you have done, and No, no, no, interrupted he, with irritabilityno, sir, I am not a credulousfar from a superstitious man. I have been, perhaps, too much the reversetoo sceptical, too slow of belief; but unless I were one whom no amount of evidence could convince, unless I were to contemn the repeated, the perpetual evidence of my own senses, I am nownow at last constrained to believeI have no escape from the convictionthe overwhelming certaintythat I am haunted and dogged, go where I may, byby a demon! There was a preternatural energy of horror in Bartons face, as, with its damp and deathlike lineaments turned towards his companion, he thus delivered himself. God help you, my poor friend, said Dr. , much shocked, God help you; for, indeed, you are a sufferer, however your sufferings may have been caused. Ay, ay, God help me, echoed Barton, sternly; but will he help mewill he help me? Pray to himpray in an humble and trusting spirit, said he. Pray, pray, echoed he again; I cant prayI could as easily move a mountain by an effort of my will. I have not belief enough to pray; there is something within me that will not pray. You prescribe impossibilitiesliteral impossibilities. You will not find it so, if you will but try, said Doctor . Try! I have tried, and the attempt only fills me with confusion; and, sometimes, terror; I have tried in vain, and more than in vain. The awful, unutterable idea of eternity and infinity oppresses and maddens my brain whenever my mind approaches the contemplation of the Creator; I recoil from the effort scared. I tell you, Doctor , if I am to be saved, it must be by other means. The idea of an eternal Creator is to me intolerablemy mind cannot support it. Say, then, my dear sir, urged he, say how you would have me serve youwhat you would learn of mewhat I can do or say to relieve you? Listen to me first, replied Captain Barton, with a subdued air, and an effort to suppress his excitement, listen to me while I detail the circumstances of the persecution under which my life has become all but intolerablea persecution which has made me fear death and the world beyond the grave as much as I have grown to hate existence. Barton then proceeded to relate the circumstances which I have already detailed, and then continued This has now become habitualan accustomed thing. I do not mean the actual seeing him in the fleshthank God, that at least is not permitted daily. Thank God, from the ineffable horrors of that visitation I have been mercifully allowed intervals of repose, though none of security; but from the consciousness that a malignant spirit is following and watching me wherever I go, I have never, for a single instant, a temporary respite. I am pursued with blasphemies, cries of despair and appalling hatred. I hear those dreadful sounds called after me as I turn the corners of the streets; they come in the nighttime, while I sit in my chamber alone; they haunt me everywhere, charging me with hideous crimes, andgreat God!threatening me with coming vengeance and eternal misery. Hush! do you hear that? he cried with a horrible smile of triumph; there, there, will that convince you? The clergyman felt a chill of horror steal over him, while, during the wail of a sudden gust of wind, he heard, or fancied he heard, the half articulate sounds of rage and derision mingling in the sough. Well, what do you think of that? at length Barton cried, drawing a long breath through his teeth. I heard the wind, said Doctor . What should I think of itwhat is there remarkable about it? The prince of the powers of the air, muttered Barton, with a shudder. Tut, tut! my dear sir, said the student, with an effort to reassure himself; for though it was broad daylight, there was nevertheless something disagreeably contagious in the nervous excitement under which his visitor so miserably suffered. You must not give way to those wild fancies; you must resist these impulses of the imagination. Ay, ay; resist the devil and he will flee from thee,  said Barton, in the same tone; but how resist him? ay, there it isthere is the rub. Whatwhat am I to do? what can I do? My dear sir, this is fancy, said the man of folios; you are your own tormentor. No, no, sirfancy has no part in it, answered Barton, somewhat sternly. Fancy! was it that made you, as well as me, hear, but this moment, those accents of hell? Fancy, indeed! No, no. But you have seen this person frequently, said the ecclesiastic; why have you not accosted or secured him? Is it not a little precipitate, to say no more, to assume, as you have done, the existence of preternatural agency, when, after all, everything may be easily accountable, if only proper means were taken to sift the matter. There are circumstances connected with thisthis appearance, said Barton, which it is needless to disclose, but which to me are proof of its horrible nature. I know that the being that follows me is not humanI say I know this; I could prove it to your own conviction. He paused for a minute, and then added, And as to accosting it, I dare not, I could not; when I see it I am powerless; I stand in the gaze of death, in the triumphant presence of infernal power and malignity. My strength, and faculties, and memory, all forsake me. O God, I fear, sir, you know not what you speak of. Mercy, mercy; heaven have pity on me! He leaned his elbow on the table, and passed his hand across his eyes, as if to exclude some image of horror, muttering the last words of the sentence he had just concluded, again and again. Doctor , he said, abruptly raising himself, and looking full upon the clergyman with an imploring eye, I know you will do for me whatever may be done. You know now fully the circumstances and the nature of my affliction. I tell you I cannot help myself; I cannot hope to escape; I am utterly passive. I conjure you, then, to weigh my case well, and if anything may be done for me by vicarious supplicationby the intercession of the goodor by any aid or influence whatsoever, I implore of you, I adjure you in the name of the Most High, give me the benefit of that influencedeliver me from the body of this death. Strive for me, pity me; I know you will; you cannot refuse this; it is the purpose and object of my visit. Send me away with some hope, however little, some faint hope of ultimate deliverance, and I will nerve myself to endure, from hour to hour, the hideous dream into which my existence has been transformed. Doctor  assured him that all he could do was to pray earnestly for him, and that so much he would not fail to do. They parted with a hurried and melancholy valediction. Barton hastened to the carriage that awaited him at the door, drew down the blinds, and drove away, while Doctor  returned to his chamber, to ruminate at leisure upon the strange interview which had just interrupted his studies. VI Seen Again It was not to be expected that Captain Bartons changed and eccentric habits should long escape remark and discussion. Various were the theories suggested to account for it. Some attributed the alteration to the pressure of secret pecuniary embarrassments; others to a repugnance to fulfil an engagement into which he was presumed to have too precipitately entered; and others, again, to the supposed incipiency of mental disease, which latter, indeed, was the most plausible as well as the most generally, received, of the hypotheses circulated in the gossip of the day. From the very commencement of this change, at first so gradual in its advances, Miss Montague had of course been aware of it. The intimacy involved in their peculiar relation, as well as the near interest which it inspired afforded, in her case, a like opportunity and motive for the successful exercise of that keen and penetrating observation peculiar to her sex. His visits became, at length, so interrupted, and his manner, while they lasted, so abstracted, strange, and agitated, that Lady L, after hinting her anxiety and her suspicions more than once, at length distinctly stated her anxiety, and pressed for an explanation. The explanation was given, and although its nature at first relieved the worst solicitudes of the old lady and her niece, yet the circumstances which attended it, and the really dreadful consequences which it obviously indicated, as regarded the spirits, and indeed the reason of the now wretched man, who made the strange declaration, were enough, upon little reflection, to fill their minds with perturbation and alarm. General Montague, the young ladys father, at length arrived. He had himself slightly known Barton, some ten or twelve years previously, and being aware of his fortune and connections, was disposed to regard him as an unexceptionable and indeed a most desirable match for his daughter. He laughed at the story of Bartons supernatural visitations, and lost no time in calling upon his intended soninlaw. My dear Barton, he continued, gaily, after a little conversation, my sister tells me that you are a victim to blue devils, in quite a new and original shape. Barton changed countenance, and sighed profoundly. Come, come; I protest this will never do, continued the General; you are more like a man on his way to the gallows than to the altar. These devils have made quite a saint of you. Barton made an effort to change the conversation. No, no, it wont do, said his visitor laughing; I am resolved to say what I have to say upon this magnificent mock mystery of yours. You must not be angry, but really it is too bad to see you at your time of life, absolutely frightened into good behaviour, like a naughty child by a bugaboo, and as far as I can learn, a very contemptible one. Seriously, I have been a good deal annoyed at what they tell me; but at the same time thoroughly convinced that there is nothing in the matter that may not be cleared up, with a little attention and management, within a week at furthest. Ah, General, you do not know he began. Yes, but I do know quite enough to warrant my confidence, interrupted the soldier, dont I know that all your annoyance proceeds from the occasional appearance of a certain little man in a cap and greatcoat, with a red vest and a bad face, who follows you about, and pops upon you at corners of lanes, and throws you into ague fits. Now, my dear fellow, Ill make it my business to catch this mischievous little mountebank, and either beat him to a jelly with my own hands, or have him whipped through the town, at the cartstail, before a month passes. If you knew what I knew, said Barton, with gloomy agitation, you would speak very differently. Dont imagine that I am so weak as to assume, without proof the most overwhelming, the conclusion to which I have been forcedthe proofs are here, locked up here. As he spoke he tapped upon his breast, and with an anxious sigh continued to walk up and down the room. Well, well, Barton, said his visitor, Ill wager a rump and a dozen I collar the ghost, and convince even you before many days are over. He was running on in the same strain when he was suddenly arrested, and not a little shocked, by observing Barton, who had approached the window, stagger slowly back, like one who had received a stunning blow; his arm extended toward the streethis face and his very lips white as asheswhile he muttered, Thereby heaven!therethere! General Montague started mechanically to his feet, and from the window of the drawingroom, saw a figure corresponding as well as his hurry would permit him to discern, with the description of the person, whose appearance so persistently disturbed the repose of his friend. The figure was just turning from the rails of the area upon which it had been leaning, and, without waiting to see more, the old gentleman snatched his cane and hat, and rushed down the stairs and into the street, in the furious hope of securing the person, and punishing the audacity of the mysterious stranger. He looked round him, but in vain, for any trace of the person he had himself distinctly seen. He ran breathlessly to the nearest corner, expecting to see from thence the retiring figure, but no such form was visible. Back and forward, from crossing to crossing, he ran, at fault, and it was not until the curious gaze and laughing countenances of the passersby reminded him of the absurdity of his pursuit, that he checked his hurried pace, lowered his walking cane from the menacing altitude which he had mechanically given it, adjusted his hat, and walked composedly back again, inwardly vexed and flurried. He found Barton pale and trembling in every joint; they both remained silent, though under emotions very different. At last Barton whispered, You saw it? It!himsomeoneyou meanto be sure I did, replied Montague, testily. But where is the good or the harm of seeing him? The fellow runs like a lamplighter. I wanted to catch him, but he had stole away before I could reach the halldoor. However, it is no great matter; next time, I dare say, Ill do better; and egad, if I once come within reach of him, Ill introduce his shoulders to the weight of my cane. Notwithstanding General Montagues undertakings and exhortations, however, Barton continued to suffer from the selfsame unexplained cause; go how, when, or where he would, he was still constantly dogged or confronted by the being who had established over him so horrible an influence. Nowhere and at no time was he secure against the odious appearance which haunted him with such diabolic perseverance. His depression, misery, and excitement became more settled and alarming every day, and the mental agonies that ceaselessly preyed upon him, began at last so sensibly to affect his health, that Lady L and General Montague succeeded, without, indeed, much difficulty, in persuading him to try a short tour on the Continent, in the hope that an entire change of scene would, at all events, have the effect of breaking through the influences of local association, which the more sceptical of his friends assumed to be by no means inoperative in suggesting and perpetuating what they conceived to be a mere form of nervous illusion. General Montague indeed was persuaded that the figure which haunted his intended soninlaw was by no means the creation of his imagination, but, on the contrary, a substantial form of flesh and blood, animated by a resolution, perhaps with some murderous object in perspective, to watch and follow the unfortunate gentleman. Even this hypothesis was not a very pleasant one; yet it was plain that if Barton could ever be convinced that there was nothing preternatural in the phenomenon which he had hitherto regarded in that light, the affair would lose all its terrors in his eyes, and wholly cease to exercise upon his health and spirits the baleful influence which it had hitherto done. He therefore reasoned, that if the annoyance were actually escaped by mere locomotion and change of scene, it obviously could not have originated in any supernatural agency. VII Flight Yielding to their persuasions, Barton left Dublin for England, accompanied by General Montague. They posted rapidly to London, and thence to Dover, whence they took the packet with a fair wind for Calais. The Generals confidence in the result of the expedition on Bartons spirits had risen day by day, since their departure from the shores of Ireland; for to the inexpressible relief and delight of the latter, he had not since then, so much as even once fancied a repetition of those impressions which had, when at home, drawn him gradually down to the very depths of despair. This exemption from what he had begun to regard as the inevitable condition of his existence, and the sense of security which began to pervade his mind, were inexpressibly delightful; and in the exultation of what he considered his deliverance, he indulged in a thousand happy anticipations for a future into which so lately he had hardly dared to look; and in short, both he and his companion secretly congratulated themselves upon the termination of that persecution which had been to its immediate victim a source of such unspeakable agony. It was a beautiful day, and a crowd of idlers stood upon the jetty to receive the packet, and enjoy the bustle of the new arrivals. Montague walked a few paces in advance of his friend, and as he made his way through the crowd, a little man touched his arm, and said to him, in a broad provincial patois Monsieur is walking too fast; he will lose his sick comrade in the throng, for, by my faith, the poor gentleman seems to be fainting. Montague turned quickly, and observed that Barton did indeed look deadly pale. He hastened to his side. My dear fellow, are you ill? he asked anxiously. The question was unheeded and twice, repeated, ere Barton stammered I saw himby, I saw him! Him!the wretchwhowhere now?where is he? cried Montague, looking around him. I saw himbut he is gone, repeated Barton, faintly. But wherewhere? For Gods sake speak, urged Montague, vehemently. It is but this momenthere, said he. But what did he look likewhat had he onwhat did he wearquick, quick, urged his excited companion, ready to dart among the crowd and collar the delinquent on the spot.