I took a long breath, closed the door from the trunkroom into the hallthank Heaven, I did not lock itand pulling the manteldoor wide open, I stepped into the chimneyroom. I had time to get a hazy view of a small portable safe, a common wooden table and a chairthen the mantel door swung to, and clicked behind me. I stood quite still for a moment, in the darkness, unable to comprehend what had happened. Then I turned and beat furiously at the door with my fists. It was closed and locked again, and my fingers in the darkness slid over a smooth wooden surface without a sign of a knob. I was furiously angryat myself, at the mantel door, at everything. I did not fear suffocation; before the thought had come to me I had already seen a gleam of light from the two small ventilating pipes in the roof. They supplied air, but nothing else. The room itself was shrouded in blackness. I sat down in the stiffbacked chair and tried to remember how many days one could live without food and water. When that grew monotonous and rather painful, I got up and, according to the timehonored rule for people shut in unknown and inkblack prisons, I felt my way aroundit was small enough, goodness knows. I felt nothing but a splintery surface of boards, and in endeavoring to get back to the chair, something struck me full in the face, and fell with the noise of a thousand explosions to the ground. When I had gathered up my nerves again, I found it had been the bulb of a swinging electric light, and that had it not been for the accident, I might have starved to death in an illuminated sepulcher. I must have dozed off. I am sure I did not faint. I was never more composed in my life. I remember planning, if I were not discovered, who would have my things. I knew Liddy would want my heliotrope poplin, and shes a fright in lavender. Once or twice I heard mice in the partitions, and so I sat on the table, with my feet on the chair. I imagined I could hear the search going on through the house, and once someone came into the trunkroom; I could distinctly hear footsteps. In the chimney! In the chimney! I called with all my might, and was rewarded by a piercing shriek from Liddy and the slam of the trunkroom door. I felt easier after that, although the room was oppressively hot and enervating. I had no doubt the search for me would now come in the right direction, and after a little, I dropped into a doze. How long I slept I do not know. It must have been several hours, for I had been tired from a busy day, and I wakened stiff from my awkward position. I could not remember where I was for a few minutes, and my head felt heavy and congested. Gradually I roused to my surroundings, and to the fact that in spite of the ventilators, the air was bad and growing worse. I was breathing long, gasping respirations, and my face was damp and clammy. I must have been there a long time, and the searchers were probably hunting outside the house, dredging the creek, or beating the woodland. I knew that another hour or two would find me unconscious, and with my inability to cry out would go my only chance of rescue. It was the combination of bad air and heat, probably, for some inadequate ventilation was coming through the pipes. I tried to retain my consciousness by walking the length of the room and back, over and over, but I had not the strength to keep it up, so I sat down on the table again, my back against the wall. The house was very still. Once my straining ears seemed to catch a footfall beneath me, possibly in my own room. I groped for the chair from the table, and pounded with it frantically on the floor. But nothing happened I realized bitterly that if the sound was heard at all, no doubt it was classed with the other rappings that had so alarmed us recently. It was impossible to judge the flight of time. I measured five minutes by counting my pulse, allowing seventytwo beats to the minute. But it took eternities, and toward the last I found it hard to count; my head was confused. And thenI heard sounds from below me, in the house. There was a peculiar throbbing, vibrating noise that I felt rather than heard, much like the pulsing beat of fire engines in the city. For one awful moment I thought the house was on fire, and every drop of blood in my body gathered around my heart; then I knew. It was the engine of the automobile, and Halsey had come back. Hope sprang up afresh. Halseys clear head and Gertrudes intuition might do what Liddys hysteria and three detectives had failed in. After a time I thought I had been right. There was certainly something going on down below; doors were slamming, people were hurrying through the halls, and certain high notes of excited voices penetrated to me shrilly. I hoped they were coming closer, but after a time the sounds died away below, and I was left to the silence and heat, to the weight of the darkness, to the oppression of walls that seemed to close in on me and stifle me. The first warning I had was a stealthy fumbling at the lock of the manteldoor. With my mouth open to scream, I stopped. Perhaps the situation had rendered me acute, perhaps it was instinctive. Whatever it was, I sat without moving, and someone outside, in absolute stillness, ran his fingers over the carving of the mantel andfound the panel. Now the sounds below redoubled from the clatter and jarring I knew that several people were running up the stairs, and as the sounds approached, I could even hear what they said. Watch the end staircases! Jamieson was shouting. Damnationtheres no light here! And then a second later. All together now. Onetwothree The door into the trunkroom had been locked from the inside. At the second that it gave, opening against the wall with a crash and evidently tumbling somebody into the room, the stealthy fingers beyond the manteldoor gave the knob the proper impetus, andthe door swung open, and closed again. Onlyand Liddy always screams and puts her fingers in her ears at this pointonly now I was not alone in the chimney room. There was someone else in the darkness, someone who breathed hard, and who was so close I could have touched him with my hand. I was in a paralysis of terror. Outside there were excited voices and incredulous oaths. The trunks were being jerked around in a frantic search, the windows were thrown open, only to show a sheer drop of forty feet. And the man in the room with me leaned against the manteldoor and listened. His pursuers were plainly baffled I heard him draw a long breath, and turn to grope his way through the blackness. Thenhe touched my hand, cold, clammy, deathlike. A hand in an empty room! He drew in his breath, the sharp intaking of horror that fills lungs suddenly collapsed. Beyond jerking his hand away instantly, he made no movement. I think absolute terror had him by the throat. Then he stepped back, without turning, retreating foot by foot from The Dread in the corner, and I do not think he breathed. Then, with the relief of space between us, I screamed, earsplittingly, madly, and they heard me outside. In the chimney! I shrieked. Behind the mantel! The mantel! With an oath the figure hurled itself across the room at me, and I screamed again. In his blind fury he had missed me; I heard him strike the wall. That one time I eluded him; I was across the room, and I had got the chair. He stood for a second, listening, thenhe made another rush, and I struck out with my weapon. I think it stunned him, for I had a seconds respite when I could hear him breathing, and someone shouted outside Wecantgetin. Howdoesitopen? But the man in the room had changed his tactics. I knew he was creeping on me, inch by inch, and I could not tell from where. And thenhe caught me. He held his hand over my mouth, and I bit him. I was helpless, stranglingand someone was trying to break in the mantel from outside. It began to yield somewhere, for a thin wedge of yellowish light was reflected on the opposite wall. When he saw that, my assailant dropped me with a curse; thenthe opposite wall swung open noiselessly, closed again without a sound, and I was alone. The intruder was gone. In the next room! I called wildly. The next room! But the sound of blows on the mantel drowned my voice. By the time I had made them understand, a couple of minutes had elapsed. The pursuit was taken up then, by all except Alex, who was determined to liberate me. When I stepped out into the trunkroom, a free woman again, I could hear the chase far below. I must say, for all Alexs anxiety to set me free, he paid little enough attention to my plight. He jumped through the opening into the secret room, and picked up the portable safe. I am going to put this in Mr. Halseys room, Miss Innes, he said, and I shall send one of the detectives to guard it. I hardly heard him. I wanted to laugh and cry in the same breathto crawl into bed and have a cup of tea, and scold Liddy, and do any of the thousand natural things that I had never expected to do again. And the air! The touch of the cool night air on my face! As Alex and I reached the second floor, Mr. Jamieson met us. He was grave and quiet, and he nodded comprehendingly when he saw the safe. Will you come with me for a moment, Miss Innes? he asked soberly, and on my assenting, he led the way to the east wing. There were lights moving around below, and some of the maids were standing gaping down. They screamed when they saw me, and drew back to let me pass. There was a sort of hush over the scene; Alex, behind me, muttered something I could not hear, and brushed past me without ceremony. Then I realized that a man was lying doubled up at the foot of the staircase, and that Alex was stooping over him. As I came slowly down, Winters stepped back, and Alex straightened himself, looking at me across the body with impenetrable eyes. In his hand he held a shaggy gray wig, and before me on the floor lay the man whose headstone stood in Casanova churchyardPaul Armstrong. Winters told the story in a dozen words. In his headlong flight down the circular staircase, with Winters just behind, Paul Armstrong had pitched forward violently, struck his head against the door to the east veranda, and probably broken his neck. He had died as Winters reached him. As the detective finished, I saw Halsey, pale and shaken, in the cardroom doorway, and for the first time that night I lost my selfcontrol. I put my arms around my boy, and for a moment he had to support me. A second later, over Halseys shoulder, I saw something that turned my emotion into other channels, for, behind him, in the shadowy cardroom, were Gertrude and Alex, the gardener, andthere is no use mincing mattershe was kissing her! I was unable to speak. Twice I opened my mouth then I turned Halsey around and pointed. They were quite unconscious of us; her head was on his shoulder, his face against her hair. As it happened, it was Mr. Jamieson who broke up the tableau. He stepped over to Alex and touched him on the arm. And now, he said quietly, how long are you and I to play our little comedy, Mr. Bailey? XXXIV The Odds and Ends Of Doctor Walkers sensational escape that night to South America, of the recovery of over a million dollars in cash and securities in the safe from the chimney roomthe papers have kept the public well informed. Of my share in discovering the secret chamber they have been singularly silent. The inner history has never been told. Mr. Jamieson got all kinds of credit, and some of it he deserved, but if Jack Bailey, as Alex, had not traced Halsey and insisted on the disinterring of Paul Armstrongs casket, if he had not suspected the truth from the start, where would the detective have been? When Halsey learned the truth, he insisted on going the next morning, weak as he was, to Louise, and by night she was at Sunnyside, under Gertrudes particular care, while her mother had gone to Barbara Fitzhughs. What Halsey said to Mrs. Armstrong I never knew, but that he was considerate and chivalrous I feel confident. It was Halseys way always with women. He and Louise had no conversation together until that night. Gertrude and AlexI mean Jackhad gone for a walk, although it was nine oclock, and anybody but a pair of young geese would have known that dew was falling, and that it is next to impossible to get rid of a summer cold. At half after nine, growing weary of my own company, I went downstairs to find the young people. At the door of the livingroom I paused. Gertrude and Jack had returned and were there, sitting together on a divan, with only one lamp lighted. They did not see or hear me, and I beat a hasty retreat to the library. But here again I was driven back. Louise was sitting in a deep chair, looking the happiest I had ever seen her, with Halsey on the arm of the chair, holding her close. It was no place for an elderly spinster. I retired to my upstairs sittingroom and got out Eliza Klinefelters lavender slippers. Ah, well, the foster motherhood would soon have to be put away in camphor again. The next day, by degrees, I got the whole story. Paul Armstrong had a besetting evilthe love of money. Common enough, but he loved money, not for what it would buy, but for its own sake. An examination of the books showed no irregularities in the past year since John had been cashier, but before that, in the time of Anderson, the old cashier, who had died, much strange juggling had been done with the records. The railroad in New Mexico had apparently drained the bankers private fortune, and he determined to retrieve it by one stroke. This was nothing less than the looting of the banks securities, turning them into money, and making his escape. But the law has long arms. Paul Armstrong evidently studied the situation carefully. Just as the only good Indian is a dead Indian, so the only safe defaulter is a dead defaulter. He decided to die, to all appearances, and when the hue and cry subsided, he would be able to enjoy his money almost anywhere he wished. The first necessity was an accomplice. The connivance of Doctor Walker was suggested by his love for Louise. The man was unscrupulous, and with the girl as a bait, Paul Armstrong soon had him fast. The plan was apparently the acme of simplicity a small town in the west, an attack of heart disease, a body from a medical college dissectingroom shipped in a trunk to Doctor Walker by a colleague in San Francisco, and palmed off for the supposed dead banker. What was simpler? The woman, Nina Carrington, was the cog that slipped. What she only suspected, what she really knew, we never learned. She was a chambermaid in the hotel at C, and it was evidently her intention to blackmail Doctor Walker. His position at that time was uncomfortable to pay the woman to keep quiet would be confession. He denied the whole thing, and she went to Halsey. It was this that had taken Halsey to the doctor the night he disappeared. He accused the doctor of the deception, and, crossing the lawn, had said something cruel to Louise. Then, furious at her apparent connivance, he had started for the station. Doctor Walker and Paul Armstrongthe latter still lame where I had shot himhurried across to the embankment, certain only of one thing. Halsey must not tell the detective what he suspected until the money had been removed from the chimneyroom. They stepped into the road in front of the car to stop it, and fate played into their hands. The car struck the train, and they had only to dispose of the unconscious figure in the road. This they did as I have told. For three days Halsey lay in the box car, tied hand and foot, suffering tortures of thirst, delirious at times, and discovered by a tramp at Johnsville only in time to save his life. To go back to Paul Armstrong. At the last moment his plans had been frustrated. Sunnyside, with its hoard in the chimneyroom, had been rented without his knowledge! Attempts to dislodge me having failed, he was driven to breaking into his own house. The ladder in the chute, the burning of the stable and the entrance through the cardroom windowall were in the course of a desperate attempt to get into the chimneyroom. Louise and her mother had, from the first, been the great stumblingblocks. The plan had been to send Louise away until it was too late for her to interfere, but she came back to the hotel at C just at the wrong time. There was a terrible scene. The girl was told that something of the kind was necessary, that the bank was about to close and her stepfather would either avoid arrest and disgrace in this way, or kill himself. Fanny Armstrong was a weakling, but Louise was more difficult to manage. She had no love for her stepfather, but her devotion to her mother was entire, selfsacrificing. Forced into acquiescence by her mothers appeals, overwhelmed by the situation, the girl consented and fled. From somewhere in Colorado she sent an anonymous telegram to Jack Bailey at the Traders Bank. Trapped as she was, she did not want to see an innocent man arrested. The telegram, received on Thursday, had sent the cashier to the bank that night in a frenzy. Louise arrived at Sunnyside and found the house rented. Not knowing what to do, she sent for Arnold at the Greenwood Club, and told him a little, not all. She told him that there was something wrong, and that the bank was about to close. That his father was responsible. Of the conspiracy she said nothing. To her surprise, Arnold already knew, through Bailey that night, that things were not right. Moreover, he suspected what Louise did not, that the money was hidden at Sunnyside. He had a scrap of paper that indicated a concealed room somewhere. His inherited cupidity was aroused. Eager to get Halsey and Jack Bailey out of the house, he went up to the east entry, and in the billiardroom gave the cashier what he had refused earlier in the eveningthe address of Paul Armstrong in California and a telegram which had been forwarded to the club for Bailey, from Doctor Walker. It was in response to one Bailey had sent, and it said that Paul Armstrong was very ill. Bailey was almost desperate. He decided to go west and find Paul Armstrong, and to force him to disgorge. But the catastrophe at the bank occurred sooner than he had expected. On the moment of starting west, at Andrews Station, where Mr. Jamieson had located the car, he read that the bank had closed, and, going back, surrendered himself. John Bailey had known Paul Armstrong intimately. He did not believe that the money was gone; in fact, it was hardly possible in the interval since the securities had been taken. Where was it? And from some chance remark let fall some months earlier by Arnold Armstrong at a dinner, Bailey felt sure there was a hidden room at Sunnyside. He tried to see the architect of the building, but, like the contractor, if he knew of the room, he refused any information. It was Halseys idea that John Bailey come to the house as a gardener, and pursue his investigations as he could. His smooth upper lip had been sufficient disguise, with his change of clothes, and a haircut by a country barber. So it was Alex, Jack Bailey, who had been our ghost. Not only had he alarmed Louiseand himself, he admittedon the circular staircase, but he had dug the hole in the trunkroom wall, and later sent Eliza into hysteria. The note Liddy had found in Gertrudes scrapbasket was from him, and it was he who had startled me into unconsciousness by the clothes chute, and, with Gertrudes help, had carried me to Louises room. Gertrude, I learned, had watched all night beside me, in an extremity of anxiety about me. That old Thomas had seen his master, and thought he had seen the Sunnyside ghost, there could be no doubt. Of that story of Thomas, about seeing Jack Bailey in the footpath between the club and Sunnyside, the night Liddy and I heard the noise on the circular staircasethat, too, was right. On the night before Arnold Armstrong was murdered, Jack Bailey had made his first attempt to search for the secret room. He secured Arnolds keys from his room at the club and got into the house, armed with a golfstick for sounding the walls. He ran against the hamper at the head of the stairs, caught his cufflink in it, and dropped the golfstick with a crash. He was glad enough to get away without an alarm being raised, and he took the owl train to town. The oddest thing to me was that Mr. Jamieson had known for some time that Alex was Jack Bailey. But the face of the pseudogardener was very queer indeed, when that night, in the cardroom, the detective turned to him and said How long are you and I going to play our little comedy, Mr. Bailey? Well, it is all over now. Paul Armstrong rests in Casanova churchyard, and this time there is no mistake. I went to the funeral, because I wanted to be sure he was really buried, and I looked at the step of the shaft where I had sat that night, and wondered if it was all real. Sunnyside is for saleno, I shall not buy it. Little Lucien Armstrong is living with his stepgrandmother, and she is recovering gradually from troubles that had extended over the entire period of her second marriage. Anne Watson lies not far from the man she killed, and who as surely caused her death. Thomas, the fourth victim of the conspiracy, is buried on the hill. With Nina Carrington, five lives were sacrificed in the course of this grim conspiracy. There will be two weddings before long, and Liddy has asked for my heliotrope poplin to wear to the church. I knew she would. She has wanted it for three years, and she was quite ugly the time I spilled coffee on it. We are very quiet, just the two of us. Liddy still clings to her ghost theory, and points to my wet and muddy boots in the trunkroom as proof. I am gray, I admit, but I havent felt as well in a dozen years. Sometimes, when I am bored, I ring for Liddy, and we talk things over. When Warner married Rosie, Liddy sniffed and said what I took for faithfulness in Rosie had been nothing but mawkishness. I have not yet outlived Liddys contempt because I gave them silver knives and forks as a wedding gift. So we sit and talk, and sometimes Liddy threatens to leave, and often I discharge her, but we stay together somehow. I am talking of renting a house next year, and Liddy says to be sure there is no ghost. To be perfectly frank, I never really lived until that summer. Time has passed since I began this story. My neighbors are packing up for another summer. Liddy is having the awnings put up, and the window boxes filled. Liddy or no Liddy, I shall advertise tomorrow for a house in the country, and I dont care if it has a Circular Staircase. Colophon The Circular Staircase was published in 1908 by Mary Roberts Rinehart. This ebook was produced for Standard Ebooks by Brad Taylor, and is based on a transcription produced in 1996 by Project Gutenberg and on digital scans from the Internet Archive. The cover page is adapted from Room Interior with Winding Staircase, a painting completed before 1912 by Francis Davis Millet. The cover and title pages feature the League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by The League of Moveable Type. This edition was released on November 7, 2024, 947 p.m. and is based on revision 7eba5fc. The first edition of this ebook was released on February 27, 2024, 504 a.m. You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at standardebooks.orgebooksmaryrobertsrinehartthecircularstaircase. The volunteerdriven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org. Imprint This ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain. This particular ebook is based on a transcription from Project Gutenberg and on digital scans from the Internet Archive. The source text and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. They may still be copyrighted in other countries, so users located outside of the United States must check their local laws before using this ebook. The creators of, and contributors to, this ebook dedicate their contributions to the worldwide public domain via the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. For full license information, see the Uncopyright at the end of this ebook. Standard Ebooks is a volunteerdriven project that produces ebook editions of public domain literature using modern typography, technology, and editorial standards, and distributes them free of cost. You can download this and other ebooks carefully produced for true book lovers at standardebooks.org. List of Illustrations The plan of the first floor of Sunnyside. The main entrance is at the center of south wall and opens to a hall and the main staircase. To the right of the hall is the east wing going counterclockwise is a living room, drawing room, billiard room, card room, the circular staircase, and a library. There is a veranda outside the east wall that provides access to the circular staircase and billiard room. To the left of the main hall is the west wing going clockwise is a dining room, breakfast room, butlers pantry, kitchen, scullery, servants dining room, basement stairs, housekeepers office, and a smaller hall. There is a terrace and conservatory on the southwest corner. There is a porch on the west that provides access to the kitchen. There is a back entrance on the north wall opposite the main entrance. The Circular Staircase By Mary Roberts Rinehart. Uncopyright May you do good and not evil. May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others. May you share freely, never taking more than you give. Copyright pages exist to tell you that you cant do something. Unlike them, this Uncopyright page exists to tell you that the writing and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. The United States public domain represents our collective cultural heritage, and items in it are free for anyone in the United States to do almost anything at all with, without having to get permission. Copyright laws are different all over the world, and the source text or artwork in this ebook may still be copyrighted in other countries. If youre not located in the United States, you must check your local laws before using this ebook. Standard Ebooks makes no representations regarding the copyright status of the source text or artwork in this ebook in any country other than the United States. Nonauthorship activities performed on items that are in the public domainsocalled sweat of the brow workdont create a new copyright. That means that nobody can claim a new copyright on an item that is in the public domain for, among other things, work like digitization, markup, or typography. Regardless, the contributors to this ebook release their contributions under the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, thus dedicating to the worldwide public domain all of the work theyve done on this ebook, including but not limited to metadata, the titlepage, imprint, colophon, this Uncopyright, and any changes or enhancements to, or markup on, the original text and artwork. This dedication doesnt change the copyright status of the source text or artwork. We make this dedication in the interest of enriching our global cultural heritage, to promote free and libre culture around the world, and to give back to the unrestricted culture that has given all of us so much. Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint I I Take a Country House II A Link CuffButton III Mr. John Bailey Appears IV Where Is Halsey? V Gertrudes Engagement VI In the East Corridor VII A Sprained Ankle VIII The Other Half of the Line IX Just Like a Girl X The Traders Bank XI Halsey Makes a Capture XII One Mystery for Another XIII Louise XIV An Eggnog and a Telegram XV Liddy Gives the Alarm XVI In the Early Morning XVII A Hint of Scandal XVIII A Hole in the Wall XIX Concerning Thomas XX Doctor Walkers Warning XXI Fourteen Elm Street XXII A Ladder Out of Place XXIII While the Stables Burned XXIV Flinders XXV A Visit from Louise XXVI Halseys Disappearance XXVII Who Is Nina Carrington? XXVIII A Tramp and the Toothache XXIX A Scrap of Paper XXX When Churchyards Yawn XXXI Between Two Fireplaces XXXII Anne Watsons Story XXXIII At the Foot of the Stairs XXXIV The Odds and Ends List of Illustrations Colophon Uncopyright Landmarks The Circular Staircase List of Illustrations


MELMOTH THE WANDERER BY CHARLES ROBERT MATURIN 1820 Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin. This edition was created and published by Global Grey GlobalGrey 2019 Get more free ebooks at globalgreyebooks.com Contents Preface Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Preface The hint of this Romance (or Tale) was taken from a passage in one of my Sermons, which (as it is to be presumed very few have read) I shall here take the liberty to quote. The passage is this. At this moment is there one of us present, however we may have departed from the Lord, disobeyed his will, and disregarded his word  is there one of us who would, at this moment, accept all that man could bestow, or earth afford, to resign the hope of his salvation?  No, there is not one  not such a fool on earth, were the enemy of mankind to traverse it with the offer! This passage suggested the idea of Melmoth the Wanderer. The Reader will find that idea developed in the following pages, with what power or success he is to decide. The Spaniards Tale has been censured by a friend to whom I read it, as containing too much attempt at the revivification of the horrors of RadcliffeRomance, of the persecutions of convents, and the terrors of the Inquisition. I defended myself, by trying to point out to my friend, that I had made the misery of conventual life depend less on the startling adventures one meets with in romances, than on that irritating series of petty torments which constitutes the misery of life in general, and which, amid the tideless stagnation of monastic existence, solitude gives its inmates leisure to invent, and power combined with malignity, the full disposition to practise. I trust this defence will operate more on the conviction of the Reader, than it did on that of my friend. For the rest of the Romance, there are some parts of it which I have borrowed from real life. The story of John Sandal and Elinor Mortimer is founded in fact. The original from which the Wife of Walberg is imperfectly sketched is a living woman, and long may she live. I cannot again appear before the public in so unseemly a character as that of a writer of romances, without regretting the necessity that compels me to it. Did my profession furnish me with the means of subsistence, I should hold myself culpable indeed in having recourse to any other, but  am I allowed the choice? Dublin, 31st August 1820 Chapter 1 Alive again? Then show me where he is; Ill give a thousand pounds to look upon him. Shakespeare. In the autumn of 1816, John Melmoth, a student in Trinity College, Dublin, quitted it to attend a dying uncle on whom his hopes for independence chiefly rested. John was the orphan son of a younger brother, whose small property scarce could pay Johns college expences; but the uncle was rich, unmarried, and old; and John, from his infancy, had been brought up to look on him with that mingled sensation of awe, and of the wish, without the means to conciliate, (that sensation at once attractive and repulsive), with which we regard a being who (as nurse, domestic, and parent have tutored us to believe) holds the very threads of our existence in his hands, and may prolong or snap them when he pleases. On receiving this summons, John set immediately out to attend his uncle. The beauty of the country through which he travelled (it was the county Wicklow) could not prevent his mind from dwelling on many painful thoughts, some borrowed from the past, and more from the future. His uncles caprice and moroseness,  the strange reports concerning the cause of the secluded life he had led for many years,  his own dependent state,  fell like blows fast and heavy on his mind. He roused himself to repel them,  sat up in the mail, in which he was a solitary passenger,  looked out on the prospect,  consulted his watch;  then he thought they receded for a moment,  but there was nothing to fill their place, and he was forced to invite them back for company. When the mind is thus active in calling over invaders, no wonder the conquest is soon completed. As the carriage drew near the Lodge, (the name of old Melmoths seat), Johns heart grew heavier every moment. The recollection of this awful uncle from infancy,  when he was never permitted to approach him without innumerable lectures,  not to be troublesome,  not to go too near his uncle,  not to ask him any questions,  on no account to disturb the inviolable arrangement of his snuffbox, handbell, and spectacles, nor to suffer the glittering of the goldheaded cane to tempt him to the mortal sin of handling it,  and, finally, to pilot himself aright through his perilous course in and out of the apartment without striking against the piles of books, globes, old newspapers, wigblocks, tobaccopipes, and snuffcannisters, not to mention certain hidden rocks of rattraps and mouldy books beneath the chairs,  together with the final reverential bow at the door, which was to be closed with cautious gentleness, and the stairs to be descended as if he were shod with felt.  This recollection was carried on to his schoolboy years, when at Christmas and Easter, the ragged poney, the jest of the school, was dispatched to bring the reluctant visitor to the Lodge,  where his pastime was to sit visavis to his uncle, without speaking or moving, till the pair resembled Don Raymond and the ghost of Beatrice in the Monk,  then watching him as he picked the bones of lean mutton out of his mess of weak broth, the latter of which he handed to his nephew with a needless caution not to take more than he liked,  then hurried to bed by daylight, even in winter, to save the expence of an inch of candle, where he lay awake and restless from hunger, till his uncles retiring at eight oclock gave signal to the governante of the meagre household to steal up to him with some fragments of her own scanty meal, administering between every mouthful a whispered caution not to tell his uncle. Then his college life, passed in an attic in the second square, uncheered by an invitation to the country; the gloomy summer wasted in walking up and down the deserted streets, as his uncle would not defray the expences of his journey;  the only intimation of his existence, received in quarterly epistles, containing, with the scanty but punctual remittance, complaints of the expences of his education, cautions against extravagance, and lamentations for the failure of tenants and the fall of the value of lands. All these recollections came over him, and along with them the remembrance of that last scene, where his dependence on his uncle was impressed on him by the dying lips of his father. John, I must leave you, my poor boy; it has pleased God to take your father from you before he could do for you what would have made this hour less painful to him. You must look up, John, to your uncle for every thing. He has oddities and infirmities, but you must learn to bear with them, and with many other things too, as you will learn too soon. And now, my poor boy, may He who is the father of the fatherless look on your desolate state, and give you favour in the eyes of your uncle. As this scene rose to Johns memory, his eyes filled fast with tears, which he hastened to wipe away as the carriage stopt to let him out at his uncles gate. He alighted, and with a change of linen in a handkerchief, (his only travelling equipment), he approached his uncles gate. The lodge was in ruins, and a barefooted boy from an adjacent cabin ran to lift on its single hinge what had once been a gate, but was now a few planks so villainously put together, that they clattered like a sign in a high wind. The stubborn post of the gate, yielding at last to the united strength of John and his barefooted assistant, grated heavily through the mud and gravel stones, in which it left a deep and sloughy furrow, and the entrance lay open. John, after searching his pocket in vain for a trifle to reward his assistant, pursued his way, while the lad, on his return, cleared the road at a hop step and jump, plunging through the mud with all the dabbling and amphibious delight of a duck, and scarce less proud of his agility than of his sarving a gentleman. As John slowly trod the miry road which had once been the approach, he could discover, by the dim light of an autumnal evening, signs of increasing desolation since he had last visited the spot,  signs that penury had been aggravated and sharpened into downright misery. There was not a fence or a hedge round the domain an uncemented wall of loose stones, whose numerous gaps were filled with furze or thorns, supplied their place. There was not a tree or shrub on the lawn; the lawn itself was turned into pastureground, and a few sheep were picking their scanty food amid the pebblestones, thistles, and hard mould, through which a few blades of grass made their rare and squalid appearance. The house itself stood strongly defined even amid the darkness of the evening sky; for there were neither wings, or offices, or shrubbery, or tree, to shade or support it, and soften its strong harsh outline. John, after a melancholy gaze at the grassgrown steps and boarded windows, addressed himself to knock at the door; but knocker there was none loose stones, however, there were in plenty; and John was making vigorous application to the door with one of them, till the furious barking of a mastiff, who threatened at every bound to break his chain, and whose yell and growl, accompanied by eyes that glow and fangs that grin, savoured as much of hunger as of rage, made the assailant raise the siege on the door, and betake himself to a wellknown passage that led to the kitchen. A light glimmered in the window as he approached he raised the latch with a doubtful hand; but, when he saw the party within, he advanced with the step of a man no longer doubtful of his welcome. Round a turffire, whose wellreplenished fuel gave testimony to the masters  indisposition, who would probably as soon have been placed on the fire himself as seen the whole kish emptied on it once, were seated the old housekeeper, two or three followers, (i.e. people who ate, drank, and lounged about in any kitchen that was open in the neighbourhood, on an occasion of grief or joy, all for his honors sake, and for the great rispict they bore the family), and an old woman, whom John immediately recognized as the doctress of the neighbourhood,  a withered Sybil, who prolonged her squalid existence by practising on the fears, the ignorance, and the sufferings of beings as miserable as herself. Among the better sort, to whom she sometimes had access by the influence of servants, she tried the effects of some simples, her skill in which was sometimes productive of success. Among the lower orders she talked much of the effects of the evil eye, against which she boasted a counterspell, of unfailing efficacy; and while she spoke, she shook her grizzled locks with such witchlike eagerness, that she never failed to communicate to her halfterrified, halfbelieving audience, some portion of that enthusiasm which, amid all her consciousness of imposture, she herself probably felt a large share of; still, when the case at last became desperate, when credulity itself lost all patience, and hope and life were departing together, she urged the miserable patient to confess there was something about his heart; and when this confession was extorted from the weariness of pain and the ignorance of poverty, she nodded and muttered so mysteriously, as to convey to the bystanders, that she had had difficulties to contend with which were invincible by human power. When there was no pretext, from indisposition, for her visiting either his honors  kitchen, or the cottars hut,  when the stubborn and persevering convalescence of the whole country threatened her with starvation,  she still had a resource if there were no lives to be shortened, there were fortunes to be told;  she worked by spells, and by such daubry as is beyond our element. No one twined so well as she the mystic yarn to be dropt into the limekiln pit, on the edge of which stood the shivering inquirer into futurity, doubtful whether the answer to her question of who holds? was to be uttered by the voice of demon or lover. No one knew so well as she to find where the four streams met, in which, on the same portentous season, the chemise was to be immersed, and then displayed before the fire, (in the name of one whom we dare not mention to ears polite), to be turned by the figure of the destined husband before morning. No one but herself (she said) knew the hand in which the comb was to be held, while the other was employed in conveying the apple to the mouth,  while, during the joint operation, the shadow of the phantomspouse was to pass across the mirror before which it was performed. No one was more skilful or active in removing every iron implement from the kitchen where these ceremonies were usually performed by the credulous and terrified dupes of her wizardry, lest, instead of the form of a comely youth exhibiting a ring on his white finger, an headless figure should stalk to the rack, (Anglic, dresser), take down a long spit, or, in default of that, snatch a poker from the fireside, and mercilessly take measure with its iron length of the sleeper for a coffin. No one, in short, knew better how to torment or terrify her victims into a belief of that power which may and has reduced the strongest minds to the level of the weakest; and under the influence of which the cultivated sceptic, Lord Lyttleton, yelled and gnashed and writhed in his last hours, like the poor girl who, in the belief of the horrible visitation of the vampire, shrieked aloud, that her grandfather was sucking her vital blood while she slept, and expired under the influence of imaginary horror. Such was the being to whom old Melmoth had committed his life, half from credulity, and (Hibernic speaking) more than half from avarice. Among this groupe John advanced,  recognising some,  disliking more,  distrusting all. The old housekeeper received him with cordiality;  he was always her whiteheaded boy, she said,  (imprimis, his hair was as black as jet), and she tried to lift her withered hand to his head with an action between a benediction and a caress, till the difficulty of the attempt forced on her the conviction that that head was fourteen inches higher than her reach since she had last patted it. The men, with the national deference of the Irish to a person of superior rank, all rose at his approach, (their stools chattering on the broken flags), and wished his honor a thousand years, and long life to the back of that; and would not his honor take something to keep the grief out of his heart; and so saying, five or six red and bony hands tendered him glasses of whiskey all at once. All this time the Sybil sat silent in the ample chimneycorner, sending redoubled whiffs out of her pipe. John gently declined the offer of spirits, received the attentions of the old housekeeper cordially, looked askance at the withered crone who occupied the chimney corner, and then glanced at the table, which displayed other cheer than he had been accustomed to see in his honors time. There was a wooden dish of potatoes, which old Melmoth would have considered enough for a weeks subsistence. There was the salted salmon, (a luxury unknown even in London. Vide Miss Edgeworths Tales, The Absentee). There was the slinkveal, flanked with tripe; and, finally, there were lobsters and fried turbot enough to justify what the author of the tale asserts, suo periculo, that when his great grandfather, the Dean of Killala, hired servants at the deanery, they stipulated that they should not be required to eat turbot or lobster more than twice aweek. There were also bottles of Wicklow ale, long and surreptitiously borrowed from his honors  cellar, and which now made their first appearance on the kitchen hearth, and manifested their impatience of further constraint, by hissing, spitting, and bouncing in the face of the fire that provoked its animosity. But the whiskey (genuine illegitimate potsheen, smelling strongly of weed and smoke, and breathing defiance to excisemen) appeared, the veritable Amphitryon of the feast; every one praised, and drank as deeply as he praised. John, as he looked round the circle, and thought of his dying uncle, was forcibly reminded of the scene at Don Quixotes departure, where, in spite of the grief caused by the dissolution of the worthy knight, we are informed that nevertheless the niece eat her victuals, the housekeeper drank to the repose of his soul, and even Sancho cherished his little carcase. After returning, as he might, the courtesies of the party, John asked how his uncle was. As bad as he can be;  Much better, and many thanks to your honor, was uttered in such rapid and discordant unison by the party, that John turned from one to the other, not knowing which or what to believe. They say his honour has had a fright, said a fellow, upwards of six feet high, approaching by way of whispering, and then bellowing the sound six inches above Johns head. But then his honor has had a cool since, said a man who was quietly swallowing the spirits that John had refused. At these words the Sybil who sat in the chimney corner slowly drew her pipe from her mouth, and turned towards the party The oracular movements of a Pythoness on her tripod never excited more awe, or impressed for the moment a deeper silence. Its not here, said she, pressing her withered finger on her wrinkled forehead, nor here,  nor here; and she extended her hand to the foreheads of those who were near her, who all bowed as if they were receiving a benediction, but had immediate recourse to the spirits afterwards, as if to ensure its effects.  Its all here  its all about the heart; and as she spoke she spread and pressed her fingers on her hollow bosom with a force of action that thrilled her hearers.  Its all here, she added, repeating the action, (probably excited by the effect she had produced), and then sunk on her seat, resumed her pipe, and spoke no more. At this moment of involuntary awe on the part of John, and of terrified silence on that of the rest, an unusual sound was heard in the house, and the whole company started as if a musket had been discharged among them it was the unwonted sound of old Melmoths bell. His domestics were so few, and so constantly near him, that the sound of his bell startled them as much as if he had been ringing the knell for his own interment. He used always to rap down for me, said the old housekeeper, hurrying out of the kitchen; he said pulling the bells wore out the ropes. The sound of the bell produced its full effect. The housekeeper rushed into the room, followed by a number of women, (the Irish prfic); all ready to prescribe for the dying or weep for the dead,  all clapping their hard hands, or wiping their dry eyes. These hags all surrounded the bed; and to witness their loud, wild, and desperate grief, their cries of Oh! hes going, his honors going, his honors going, one would have imagined their lives were bound up in his, like those of the wives in the story of Sinbad the Sailor, who were to be interred alive with their deceased husbands. Four of them wrung their hands and howled round the bed, while one, with all the adroitness of a Mrs. Quickly, felt his honors feet, and upward and upward, and all was cold as any stone. Old Melmoth withdrew his feet from the grasp of the hag,  counted with his keen eye (keen amid the approaching dimness of death) the number assembled round his bed,  raised himself on his sharp elbow, and pushing away the housekeeper, (who attempted to settle his nightcap, that had been shoved on one side in the struggle, and gave his haggard, dying face, a kind of grotesque fierceness), bellowed out in tones that made the company start,  What the devil brought ye all here? The question scattered the whole party for a moment; but rallying instantly, they communed among themselves in whispers, and frequently using the sign of the cross, muttered The devil,  Christ save us, the devil in his mouth the first word he spoke. Aye, roared the invalid, and the devil in my eye the first sight I see. Where,  where? cried the terrified housekeeper, clinging close to the invalid in her terror, and halfhiding herself in the blanket, which she snatched without mercy from his struggling and exposed limbs. There, there, he repeated, (during the battle of the blanket), pointing to the huddled and terrified women, who stood aghast at hearing themselves arointed as the very demons they came to banish. Oh! Lord keep your honors head, said the housekeeper in a more soothing tone, when her fright was over; and sure your honour knows them all, isnt her name,  and her name,  and her name,  and she pointed respectively to each of them, adding their names, which we shall spare the English reader the torture of reciting, (as a proof of our lenity, adding the last only, Cotchleen OMulligan), Ye lie, ye b  h, growled old Melmoth; their name is Legion, for they are many,  turn them all out of the room,  turn them all out of doors,  if they howl at my death, they shall howl in earnest,  not for my death, for they would see me dead and damned too with dry eyes, but for want of the whiskey that they would have stolen if they could have got at it, (and here old Melmoth grasped a key which lay under his pillow, and shook it in vain triumph at the old housekeeper, who had long possessed the means of getting at the spirits unknown to his honor), and for want of the victuals you have pampered them with. Pampered, oh Ch  st! ejaculated the housekeeper. Aye, and what are there so many candles for, all fours, and the same below I warrant. Ah! you  you  worthless, wasteful old devil. Indeed, your honor, they are all sixes. Sixes,  and what the devil are you burning sixes for, dye think its the wake already? Ha? Oh! not yet, your honor, not yet, chorussed the beldams; but in Gods good time, your honor knows, in a tone that spoke ill suppressed impatience for the event. Oh! that your honor would think of making your soul. Thats the first sensible word you have said, said the dying man, fetch me the prayerbook,  youll find it there under that old bootjack,  blow off the cobwebs;  it has not been opened this many a year. It was handed to him by the old governante, on whom he turned a reproaching eye. What made you burn sixes in the kitchen, you extravagant jade? How many years have you lived in this house? I dont know, your honor. Did you ever see any extravagance or waste in it? Oh never, never, your honor. Was any thing but a farthing candle ever burned in the kitchen? Never, never, your honor. Were not you kept as tight as hand and head and heart could keep you, were you not? answer me that. Oh yes, sure, your honor; every sowl about us knows that,  every one does your honor justice, that you kept the closest house and closest hand in the country,  your honor was always a good warrant for it. And how dare you unlock my hold before death has unlocked it, said the dying miser, shaking his meagre hand at her. I smelt meat in the house,  I heard voices in the house,  I heard the key turn in the door over and over. Oh that I was up, he added, rolling in impatient agony in his bed, Oh that I was up, to see the waste and ruin that is going on. But it would kill me, he continued, sinking back on the bolster, for he never allowed himself a pillow; it would kill me,  the very thought of it is killing me now. The women, discomfited and defeated, after sundry winks and whispers, were huddling out of the room, till recalled by the sharp eager tones of old Melmoth.  Where are ye trooping to now? back to the kitchen to gormandize and guzzle? Wont one of ye stay and listen while theres a prayer read for me? Ye may want it one day for yourselves, ye hags. Awed by this expostulation and menace, the train silently returned, and placed themselves round the bed, while the housekeeper, though a Catholic, asked if his honor would not have a clergyman to give him the rights, (rites) of his church. The eyes of the dying man sparkled with vexation at the proposal. What for,  just to have him expect a scarf and hatband at the funeral. Read the prayers yourself, you old ; that will save something. The housekeeper made the attempt, but soon declined it, alleging, as her reason, that her eyes had been watery ever since his honor took ill. Thats because you had always a drop in them, said the invalid, with a spiteful sneer, which the contraction of approaching death stiffened into a hideous grin.  Here,  is not there one of you thats gnashing and howling there, that can get up a prayer to keep me from it? So adjured, one of the women offered her services; and of her it might truly be said, as of the most desartless man of the watch in Dogberrys time, that her reading and writing came by nature; for she never had been at school, and had never before seen or opened a Protestant prayer book in her life; nevertheless, on she went, and with more emphasis than good discretion, read nearly through the service for the churching of women; which in our prayerbooks following that of the burial of the dead, she perhaps imagined was someway connected with the state of the invalid. She read with great solemnity,  it was a pity that two interruptions occurred during the performance, one from old Melmoth, who, shortly after the commencement of the prayers, turned towards the old housekeeper, and said, in a tone scandalously audible, Go down and draw the niggers of the kitchen fire closer, and lock the door, and let me hear it locked. I cant mind any thing till thats done. The other was from John Melmoth gliding into the room, hearing the inappropriate words uttered by the ignorant woman, taking quietly as he knelt beside her the prayerbook from her hands, and reading in a suppressed voice part of that solemn service which, by the forms of the Church of England, is intended for the consolation of the departing. That is Johns voice, said the dying man; and the little kindness he had ever shewed this unfortunate lad rushed on his hard heart at this moment, and touched it. He saw himself, too, surrounded by heartless and rapacious menials; and slight as must have been his dependence on a relative whom he had always treated as a stranger, he felt at this hour he was no stranger, and grasped at his support like a straw amid his wreck. John, my good boy, you are there.  I kept you far from me when living, and now you are nearest me when dying.  John, read on. John, affected deeply by the situation in which he beheld this poor man, amid all his wealth, as well as by the solemn request to impart consolation to his dying moments, read on;  but in a short time his voice became indistinct, from the horror with which he listened to the increasing hiccup of the patient, which, however, he struggled with from time to time, to ask the housekeeper if the niggers were closed. John, who was a lad of feeling, rose from his knees in some degree of agitation. What, are you leaving me like the rest? said old Melmoth, trying to raise himself in the bed. No, Sir, said John; but, observing the altered looks of the dying man, I think you want some refreshment, some support, Sir. Aye, I do, I do, but whom can I trust to get it for me. They, (and his haggard eye wandered round the groupe), they would poison me. Trust me, Sir, said John; I will go to the apothecarys, or whoever you may employ. The old man grasped his hand, drew him close to his bed, cast a threatening yet fearful eye round the party, and then whispered in a voice of agonized constraint, I want a glass of wine, it would keep me alive for some hours, but there is not one I can trust to get it for me,  theyd steal a bottle, and ruin me. John was greatly shocked. Sir, for Gods sake, let me get a glass of wine for you. Do you know where? said the old man, with an expression in his face John could not understand. No, Sir; you know I have been rather a stranger here, Sir. Take this key, said old Melmoth, after a violent spasm; take this key, there is wine in that closet,  Madeira. I always told them there was nothing there, but they did not believe me, or I should not have been robbed as I have been. At one time I said it was whiskey, and then I fared worse than ever, for they drank twice as much of it. John took the key from his uncles hand; the dying man pressed it as he did so, and John, interpreting this as a mark of kindness, returned the pressure. He was undeceived by the whisper that followed,  John, my lad, dont drink any of that wine while you are there. Good God! said John, indignantly throwing the key on the bed; then, recollecting that the miserable being before him was no object of resentment, he gave the promise required, and entered the closet, which no foot but that of old Melmoth had entered for nearly sixty years. He had some difficulty in finding out the wine, and indeed staid long enough to justify his uncles suspicions,  but his mind was agitated, and his hand unsteady. He could not but remark his uncles extraordinary look, that had the ghastliness of fear superadded to that of death, as he gave him permission to enter his closet. He could not but see the looks of horror which the women exchanged as he approached it. And, finally, when he was in it, his memory was malicious enough to suggest some faint traces of a story, too horrible for imagination, connected with it. He remembered in one moment most distinctly, that no one but his uncle had ever been known to enter it for many years. Before he quitted it, he held up the dim light, and looked around him with a mixture of terror and curiosity. There was a great deal of decayed and useless lumber, such as might be supposed to be heaped up to rot in a misers closet; but Johns eyes were in a moment, and as if by magic, rivetted on a portrait that hung on the wall, and appeared, even to his untaught eye, far superior to the tribe of family pictures that are left to moulder on the walls of a family mansion. It represented a man of middle age. There was nothing remarkable in the costume, or in the countenance, but the eyes, John felt, were such as one feels they wish they had never seen, and feels they can never forget. Had he been acquainted with the poetry of Southey, he might have often exclaimed in his afterlife, Only the eyes had life, They gleamed with demon light.  THALABA. From an impulse equally resistless and painful, he approached the portrait, held the candle towards it, and could distinguish the words on the border of the painting,  Jno. Melmoth, anno 1646. John was neither timid by nature, or nervous by constitution, or superstitious from habit, yet he continued to gaze in stupid horror on this singular picture, till, aroused by his uncles cough, he hurried into his room. The old man swallowed the wine. He appeared a little revived; it was long since he had tasted such a cordial,  his heart appeared to expand to a momentary confidence. John, what did you see in that room? Nothing, Sir. Thats a lie; every one wants to cheat or to rob me. Sir, I dont want to do either. Well, what did you see that you  you took notice of? Only a picture, Sir. A picture, Sir!  the original is still alive. John, though under the impression of his recent feelings, could not but look incredulous.


John, whispered his uncle;  John, they say I am dying of this and that; and one says it is for want of nourishment, and one says it is for want of medicine,  but, John, and his face looked hideously ghastly, I am dying of a fright. That man, and he extended his meagre arm toward the closet, as if he was pointing to a living being; that man, I have good reason to know, is alive still. How is that possible, Sir? said John involuntarily, the date on the picture is 1646. You have seen it,  you have noticed it, said his uncle. Well,  he rocked and nodded on his bolster for a moment, then, grasping Johns hand with an unutterable look, he exclaimed, You will see him again, he is alive. Then, sinking back on his bolster, he fell into a kind of sleep or stupor, his eyes still open, and fixed on John. The house was now perfectly silent, and John had time and space for reflection. More thoughts came crowding on him than he wished to welcome, but they would not be repulsed. He thought of his uncles habits and character, turned the matter over and over again in his mind, and he said to himself, The last man on earth to be superstitious. He never thought of any thing but the price of stocks, and the rate of exchange, and my college expences, that hung heavier at his heart than all; and such a man to die of a fright,  a ridiculous fright, that a man living 150 years ago is alive still, and yet  he is dying. John paused, for facts will confute the most stubborn logician. With all his hardness of mind, and of heart, he is dying of a fright. I heard it in the kitchen, I have heard it from himself,  he could not be deceived. If I had ever heard he was nervous, or fanciful, or superstitious, but a character so contrary to all these impressions;  a man that, as poor Butler says, in his Remains, of the Antiquarian, would have sold Christ over again for the numerical piece of silver which Judas got for him,  such a man to die of fear! Yet he is dying, said John, glancing his fearful eye on the contracted nostril, the glazed eye, the dropping jaw, the whole horrible apparatus of the facies Hippocratica displayed, and soon to cease its display. Old Melmoth at this moment seemed to be in a deep stupor; his eyes lost that little expression they had before, and his hands, that had convulsively been catching at the blankets, let go their short and quivering grasp, and lay extended on the bed like the claws of some bird that had died of hunger,  so meagre, so yellow, so spread. John, unaccustomed to the sight of death, believed this to be only a sign that he was going to sleep; and, urged by an impulse for which he did not attempt to account to himself, caught up the miserable light, and once more ventured into the forbidden room,  the blue chamber of the dwelling. The motion roused the dying man;  he sat bolt upright in his bed. This John could not see, for he was now in the closet; but he heard the groan, or rather the choaked and guggling rattle of the throat, that announces the horrible conflict between muscular and mental convulsion. He started, turned away; but, as he turned away, he thought he saw the eyes of the portrait, on which his own was fixed, move, and hurried back to his uncles bedside. Old Melmoth died in the course of that night, and died as he had lived, in a kind of avaricious delirium. John could not have imagined a scene so horrible as his last hours presented. He cursed and blasphemed about three halfpence, missing, as he said, some weeks before, in an account of change with his groom, about hay to a starving horse that he kept. Then he grasped Johns hand, and asked him to give him the sacrament. If I send to the clergyman, he will charge me something for it, which I cannot pay,  I cannot. They say I am rich,  look at this blanket;  but I would not mind that, if I could save my soul. And, raving, he added, Indeed, Doctor, I am a very poor man. I never troubled a clergyman before, and all I want is, that you will grant me two trifling requests, very little matters in your way,  save my soul, and (whispering) make interest to get me a parish coffin,  I have not enough left to bury me. I always told every one I was poor, but the more I told them so, the less they believed me. John, greatly shocked, retired from the bedside, and sat down in a distant corner of the room. The women were again in the room, which was very dark. Melmoth was silent from exhaustion, and there was a deathlike pause for some time. At this moment John saw the door open, and a figure appear at it, who looked round the room, and then quietly and deliberately retired, but not before John had discovered in his face the living original of the portrait. His first impulse was to utter an exclamation of terror, but his breath felt stopped. He was then rising to pursue the figure, but a moments reflection checked him. What could be more absurd, than to be alarmed or amazed at a resemblance between a living man and the portrait of a dead one! The likeness was doubtless strong enough to strike him even in that darkened room, but it was doubtless only a likeness; and though it might be imposing enough to terrify an old man of gloomy and retired habits, and with a broken constitution, John resolved it should not produce the same effect on him. But while he was applauding himself for this resolution, the door opened, and the figure appeared at it, beckoning and nodding to him, with a familiarity somewhat terrifying. John now started up, determined to pursue it; but the pursuit was stopped by the weak but shrill cries of his uncle, who was struggling at once with the agonies of death and his housekeeper. The poor woman, anxious for her masters reputation and her own, was trying to put on him a clean shirt and nightcap, and Melmoth, who had just sensation enough to perceive they were taking something from him, continued exclaiming feebly, They are robbing me,  robbing me in my last moments,  robbing a dying man. John, wont you assist me,  I shall die a beggar; they are taking my last shirt,  I shall die a beggar.  And the miser died. Chapter 2 You that wander, scream, and groan, Round the mansions once your own. ROWE A few days after the funeral, the will was opened before proper witnesses, and John was found to be left sole heir to his uncles property, which, though originally moderate, had, by his grasping habits, and parsimonious life, become very considerable. As the attorney who read the will concluded, he added, There are some words here, at the corner of the parchment, which do not appear to be part of the will, as they are neither in the form of a codicil, nor is the signature of the testator affixed to them; but, to the best of my belief, they are in the handwriting of the deceased. As he spoke he shewed the lines to Melmoth, who immediately recognized his uncles hand, (that perpendicular and penurious hand, that seems determined to make the most of the very paper, thriftily abridging every word, and leaving scarce an atom of margin), and read, not without some emotion, the following words I enjoin my nephew and heir, John Melmoth, to remove, destroy, or cause to be destroyed, the portrait inscribed J. Melmoth, 1646, hanging in my closet. I also enjoin him to search for a manuscript, which I think he will find in the third and lowest lefthand drawer of the mahogany chest standing under that portrait,  it is among some papers of no value, such as manuscript sermons, and pamphlets on the improvement of Ireland, and such stuff; he will distinguish it by its being tied round with a black tape, and the paper being very mouldy and discoloured. He may read it if he will;  I think he had better not. At all events, I adjure him, if there be any power in the adjuration of a dying man, to burn it. After reading this singular memorandum, the business of the meeting was again resumed; and as old Melmoths will was very clear and legally worded, all was soon settled, the party dispersed, and John Melmoth was left alone. We should have mentioned, that his guardians appointed by the will (for he was not yet of age) advised him to return to College, and complete his education as soon as proper; but John urged the expediency of paying the respect due to his uncles memory, by remaining a decent time in the house after his decease. This was not his real motive. Curiosity, or something that perhaps deserves a better name, the wild and awful pursuit of an indefinite object, had taken strong hold of his mind. His guardians (who were men of respectability and property in the neighbourhood, and in whose eyes Johns consequence had risen rapidly since the reading of the will), pressed him to accept of a temporary residence in their respective houses, till his return to Dublin. This was declined gratefully, but steadily. They called for their horses, shook hands with the heir, and rode off  Melmoth was left alone. The remainder of the day was passed in gloomy and anxious deliberation,  in traversing his late uncles room,  approaching the door of the closet, and then retreating from it,  in watching the clouds, and listening to the wind, as if the gloom of the one, or the murmurs of the other, relieved instead of increasing the weight that pressed on his mind. Finally, towards evening, he summoned the old woman, from whom he expected something like an explanation of the extraordinary circumstances he had witnessed since his arrival at his uncles . The old woman, proud of the summons, readily attended, but she had very little to tell,  her communication was nearly in the following words (We spare the reader her endless circumlocutions, her Irishcisms, and the frequent interruptions arising from her applications to her snuffbox, and to the glass of whiskey punch with which Melmoth took care to have her supplied). The old woman deposed, That his honor (as she always called the deceased) was always intent upon the little room inside his bedchamber, and reading there, within the last two years;  that people, knowing his honor had money, and thinking it must be there, had broke into that room, (in other words, there was a robbery attempted there), but finding nothing but some papers, they had retired;  that he was so frightened, he had bricked up the window; but she thought there was more in it than that, for when his honor missed but a halfpenny, he would make the house ring about it, but that, when the closet was bricked up, he never said a word;  that afterwards his honor used to lock himself up in his own room, and though he was never fond of reading, was always found, when his dinner was brought him, hanging over a paper, which he hid the moment any one came into the room, and once there was a great bustle about a picture that he tried to conceal;  that knowing there was an odd story in the family, she did her best to come at it, and even went to Biddy Brannigans, (the medical Sybil before mentioned), to find out the rights of it; but Biddy only shook her head, filled her pipe, uttered some words she did not understand, and smoked on;  that it was but two evenings before his honor was struck, (i.e. took ill), she was standing at the door of the court, (which had once been surrounded by stables, pigeonhouse, and all the usual etceteras of a gentlemans residence, but now presented only a ruinous range of dismantled outoffices, thatched with thistles, and tenanted by pigs), when his honor called to her to lock the door, (his honor was always keen about locking the doors early); she was hastening to do so, when he snatched the key from her, swearing at her, (for he was always very keen about locking the doors, though the locks were so bad, and the keys so rusty, that it was always like the cry of the dead in the house when the keys were turned);  that she stood aside for a minute, seeing he was angry, and gave him the key, when she heard him utter a scream, and saw him fall across the doorway;  that she hurried to raise him, hoping it was a fit;  that she found him stiff and stretched out, and called for help to lift him up;  that then people came from the kitchen to assist;  that she was so bewildered and terrified, she hardly knew what was done or said; but with all her terror remembered, that as they raised him up, the first sign of life he gave was lifting up his arm, and pointing it towards the court, and at that moment she saw the figure of a tall man cross the court, and go out of the court, she knew not where or how, for the outer gate was locked, and had not been opened for years, and they were all gathered round his honor at the other door;  she saw the figure,  she saw the shadow on the wall,  she saw him walk slowly through the court, and in her terror cried, Stop him, but nobody minded her, all being busy about her master; and when he was brought to his room, nobody thought but of getting him to himself again. And further she could not tell. His honor (young Melmoth) knew as much as she,  he had witnessed his last illness, had heard his last words, he saw him die,  how could she know more than his honor. True, said Melmoth, I certainly saw him die; but  you say there was an odd story in the family, do you know any thing about it? Not a word, it was long before my time, as old as I am. Certainly it must have been so; but, was my uncle ever superstitious, fanciful?  and Melmoth was compelled to use many synonymous expressions, before he could make himself understood. When he did, the answer was plain and decisive, No, never, never. When his honor sat in the kitchen in winter, to save a fire in his own room, he could never bear the talk of the old women that came in to light their pipes betimes, (from time to time). He used to shew such impatience of their superstitious nonsense, that they were fain to smoke them in silence, without the consolatory accompaniment of one whisper about a child that the evil eye had looked on, or another, that though apparently a mewling, peevish, crippled brat all day, went regularly out at night to dance with the good people on the top of a neighbouring mountain, summoned thereto by the sound of a bagpipe, which was unfailingly heard at the cabin door every night. Melmoths thoughts began to take somewhat of a darker hue at this account. If his uncle was not superstitious, might he not have been guilty, and might not his strange and sudden death, and even the terrible visitation that preceded it, have been owing to some wrong that his rapacity had done the widow and the fatherless. He questioned the old woman indirectly and cautiously on the subject,  her answer completely justified the deceased. He was a man, she said, of a hard hand, and a hard heart, but he was as jealous of anothers right as of his own. He would have starved all the world, but he would not have wronged it of a farthing. Melmoths last resource was to send for Biddy Brannigan, who was still in the house, and from whom he at least hoped to hear the odd story that the old woman confessed was in the family. She came, and, on her introduction to Melmoth, it was curious to observe the mingled look of servility and command, the result of the habits of her life, which was alternately one of abject mendicity, and of arrogant but clever imposture. When she first appeared, she stood at the door, awed and curtseying in the presence, and muttering sounds which, possibly intended for blessings, had, from the harsh tone and witchlike look of the speaker, every appearance of malediction; but when interrogated on the subject of the story, she rose at once into consequence,  her figure seemed frightfully dilated, like that of Virgils Alecto, who exchanges in a moment the appearance of a feeble old woman for that of a menacing fury. She walked deliberately across the room, seated, or rather squatted herself on the hearthstone like a hare in her form, spread her bony and withered hands towards the blaze, and rocked for a considerable time in silence before she commenced her tale. When she had finished it, Melmoth remained in astonishment at the state of mind to which the late singular circumstances had reduced him,  at finding himself listening with varying and increasing emotions of interest, curiosity, and terror, to a tale so wild, so improbable, nay, so actually incredible, that he at least blushed for the folly he could not conquer. The result of these impressions was, a resolution to visit the closet, and examine the manuscript that very night. This resolution he found it impossible to execute immediately, for, on inquiring for lights, the gouvernante confessed the very last had been burnt at his honors wake; and a barefooted boy was charged to run for life and death to the neighbouring village for candles; and if you could borry a couple of candlesticks, added the housekeeper. Are there no candlesticks in the house? said Melmoth. There are, honey, plinty, but its no time to be opening the old chest, for the plated ones, in regard of their being at the bottom of it, and the brass ones thats in it (in the house), one of them has no socket, and the other has no bottom. And how did you make shift yourself, said Melmoth. I stuck it in a potatoe, quoth the housekeeper. So the gossoon ran for life and death, and Melmoth, towards the close of the evening, was left alone to meditate. It was an evening apt for meditation, and Melmoth had his fill of it before the messenger returned. The weather was cold and gloomy; heavy clouds betokened a long and dreary continuance of autumnal rains; cloud after cloud came sweeping on like the dark banners of an approaching host, whose march is for desolation. As Melmoth leaned against the window, whose dismantled frame, and pieced and shattered panes, shook with every gust of wind, his eye encountered nothing but that most cheerless of all prospects, a misers garden,  walls broken down, grassgrown walks whose grass was not even green, dwarfish, doddered, leafless trees, and a luxuriant crop of nettles and weeds rearing their unlovely heads where there had once been flowers, all waving and bending in capricious and unsightly forms, as the wind sighed over them. It was the verdure of the churchyard, the garden of death. He turned for relief to the room, but no relief was there,  the wainscotting dark with dirt, and in many places cracked and starting from the walls,  the rusty grate, so long unconscious of a fire, that nothing but a sullen smoke could be coaxed to issue from between its dingy bars,  the crazy chairs, their torn bottoms of rush drooping inwards, and the great leathern seat displaying the stuffing round the worn edges, while the nails, though they kept their places, had failed to keep the covering they once fastened,  the chimneypiece, which, tarnished more by time than by smoke, displayed for its garniture half a pair of snuffers, a tattered almanack of 1750, a timekeeper dumb for want of repair, and a rusty fowlingpiece without a lock.  No wonder the spectacle of desolation drove Melmoth back to his own thoughts, restless and uncomfortable as they were. He recapitulated the Sybils story word by word, with the air of a man who is crossexamining an evidence, and trying to make him contradict himself. The first of the Melmoths, she says, who settled in Ireland, was an officer in Cromwells army, who obtained a grant of lands, the confiscated property of an Irish family attached to the royal cause. The elder brother of this man was one who had travelled abroad, and resided so long on the Continent, that his family had lost all recollection of him. Their memory was not stimulated by their affection, for there were strange reports concerning the traveller. He was said to be (like the damned magician, great Glendower,) a gentleman profited in strange concealments. It must be remembered, that at this period, and even to a later, the belief in astrology and witchcraft was very general. Even so late as the reign of Charles II. Dryden calculated the nativity of his son Charles, the ridiculous books of Glanville were in general circulation, and Delrio and Wierus were so popular, that even a dramatic writer (Shadwell) quoted copiously from them, in the notes subjoined to his curious comedy of the Lancashire witches. It was said, that during the lifetime of Melmoth, the traveller paid him a visit; and though he must have then been considerably advanced in life, to the astonishment of his family, he did not betray the slightest trace of being a year older than when they last beheld him. His visit was short, he said nothing of the past or the future, nor did his family question him. It was said that they did not feel themselves perfectly at ease in his presence. On his departure he left them his picture, (the same which Melmoth saw in the closet, bearing date 1646), and they saw him no more. Some years after, a person arrived from England, directed to Melmoths house, in pursuit of the traveller, and exhibiting the most marvellous and unappeasable solicitude to obtain some intelligence of him. The family could give him none, and after some days of restless inquiry and agitation, he departed, leaving behind him, either through negligence or intention, a manuscript, containing an extraordinary account of the circumstances under which he had met John Melmoth the Traveller (as he was called). The manuscript and portrait were both preserved, and of the original a report spread that he was still alive, and had been frequently seen in Ireland even to the present century,  but that he was never known to appear but on the approaching death of one of the family, nor even then, unless when the evil passions or habits of the individual had cast a shade of gloomy and fearful interest over their dying hour. It was therefore judged no favourable augury for the spiritual destination of the last Melmoth, that this extraordinary person had visited, or been imagined to visit, the house previous to his decease. Such was the account given by Biddy Brannigan, to which she added her own solemnlyattested belief, that John Melmoth the Traveller was still without a hair on his head changed, or a muscle in his frame contracted;  that she had seen those that had seen him, and would confirm their evidence by oath if necessary;  that he was never heard to speak, seen to partake of food, or known to enter any dwelling but that of his family;  and, finally, that she herself believed that his late appearance boded no good either to the living or the dead. John was still musing on these things when the lights were procured, and, disregarding the pallid countenances and monitory whispers of the attendants, he resolutely entered the closet, shut the door, and proceeded to search for the manuscript. It was soon found, for the directions of old Melmoth were forcibly written, and strongly remembered. The manuscript, old, tattered, and discoloured, was taken from the very drawer in which it was mentioned to be laid. Melmoths hands felt as cold as those of his dead uncle, when he drew the blotted pages from their nook. He sat down to read,  there was a dead silence through the house. Melmoth looked wistfully at the candles, snuffed them, and still thought they looked dim, (perchance he thought they burned blue, but such thought he kept to himself.) Certain it is, he often changed his posture, and would have changed his chair, had there been more than one in the apartment. He sunk for a few moments into a fit of gloomy abstraction, till the sound of the clock striking twelve made him start,  it was the only sound he had heard for some hours, and the sounds produced by inanimate things, while all living beings around are as dead, have at such an hour an effect indescribably awful. John looked at his manuscript with some reluctance, opened it, paused over the first lines, and as the wind sighed round the desolate apartment, and the rain pattered with a mournful sound against the dismantled window, wished  what did he wish for?  he wished the sound of the wind less dismal, and the dash of the rain less monotonous.  He may be forgiven, it was past midnight, and there was not a human being awake but himself within ten miles when he began to read. Chapter 3 Apparebat eidolon senex. PLINY The manuscript was discoloured, obliterated, and mutilated beyond any that had ever before exercised the patience of a reader. Michaelis himself, scrutinizing into the pretended autograph of St Mark at Venice, never had a harder time of it.  Melmoth could make out only a sentence here and there. The writer, it appeared, was an Englishman of the name of Stanton, who had travelled abroad shortly after the Restoration. Travelling was not then attended with the facilities which modern improvement has introduced, and scholars and literati, the intelligent, the idle, and the curious, wandered over the Continent for years, like Tom Coryat, though they had the modesty, on their return, to entitle the result of their multiplied observations and labours only crudities. Stanton, about the year 1676, was in Spain; he was, like most of the travellers of that age, a man of literature, intelligence, and curiosity, but ignorant of the language of the country, and fighting his way at times from convent to convent, in quest of what was called Hospitality, that is, obtaining board and lodging on the condition of holding a debate in Latin, on some point theological or metaphysical, with any monk who would become the champion of the strife. Now, as the theology was Catholic, and the metaphysics Aristotelian, Stanton sometimes wished himself at the miserable Posada from whose filth and famine he had been fighting his escape; but though his reverend antagonists always denounced his creed, and comforted themselves, even in defeat, with the assurance that he must be damned, on the double score of his being a heretic and an Englishman, they were obliged to confess that his Latin was good, and his logic unanswerable; and he was allowed, in most cases, to sup and sleep in peace. This was not doomed to be his fate on the night of the 17th August 1677, when he found himself in the plains of Valencia, deserted by a cowardly guide, who had been terrified by the sight of a cross erected as a memorial of a murder, had slipped off his mule unperceived, crossing himself every step he took on his retreat from the heretic, and left Stanton amid the terrors of an approaching storm, and the dangers of an unknown country. The sublime and yet softened beauty of the scenery around, had filled the soul of Stanton with delight, and he enjoyed that delight as Englishmen generally do, silently. The magnificent remains of two dynasties that had passed away, the ruins of Roman palaces, and of Moorish fortresses, were around and above him;  the dark and heavy thunderclouds that advanced slowly, seemed like the shrouds of these spectres of departed greatness; they approached, but did not yet overwhelm or conceal them, as if nature herself was for once awed by the power of man; and far below, the lovely valley of Valencia blushed and burned in all the glory of sunset, like a bride receiving the last glowing kiss of the bridegroom before the approach of night. Stanton gazed around. The difference between the architecture of the Roman and Moorish ruins struck him. Among the former are the remains of a theatre, and something like a public place; the latter present only the remains of fortresses, embattled, castellated, and fortified from top to bottom,  not a loophole for pleasure to get in by,  the loopholes were only for arrows; all denoted military power and despotic subjugation a loutrance. The contrast might have pleased a philosopher, and he might have indulged in the reflection, that though the ancient Greeks and Romans were savages, (as Dr Johnson says all people who want a press must be, and he says truly), yet they were wonderful savages for their time, for they alone have left traces of their taste for pleasure in the countries they conquered, in their superb theatres, temples, (which were also dedicated to pleasure one way or another), and baths, while other conquering bands of savages never left any thing behind them but traces of their rage for power. So thought Stanton, as he still saw strongly defined, though darkened by the darkening clouds, the huge skeleton of a Roman amphitheatre, its arched and gigantic colonnades now admitting a gleam of light, and now commingling with the purple thundercloud; and now the solid and heavy mass of a Moorish fortress, no light playing between its impermeable walls,  the image of power, dark, isolated, impenetrable. Stanton forgot his cowardly guide, his loneliness, his danger amid an approaching storm and an inhospitable country, where his name and country would shut every door against him, and every peal of thunder would be supposed justified by the daring intrusion of a heretic in the dwelling of an old Christian, as the Spanish Catholics absurdly term themselves, to mark the distinction between them and the baptised Moors.  All this was forgot in contemplating the glorious and awful scenery before him,  light struggling with darkness,  and darkness menacing a light still more terrible, and announcing its menace in the blue and livid mass of cloud that hovered like a destroying angel in the air, its arrows aimed, but their direction awfully indefinite. But he ceased to forget these local and petty dangers, as the sublimity of romance would term them, when he saw the first flash of the lightning, broad and red as the banners of an insulting army whose motto is V victis, shatter to atoms the remains of a Roman tower;  the rifted stones rolled down the hill and fell at the feet of Stanton. He stood appalled, and awaiting his summons from the Power in whose eye pyramids, palaces, and the worms whose toil has formed them, and the worms who toil out their existence under their shadow or their pressure, are perhaps all alike contemptible, he stood collected, and for a moment felt that defiance of danger which danger itself excites, and we love to encounter it as a physical enemy, to bid it do its worst, and feel that its worst will perhaps be ultimately its best for us. He stood and saw another flash dart its bright, brief, and malignant glance over the ruins of ancient power, and the luxuriance of recent fertility. Singular contrast! The relics of art for ever decaying,  the productions of nature for ever renewed.  (Alas! for what purpose are they renewed, better than to mock at the perishable monuments which men try in vain to rival them by). The pyramids themselves must perish, but the grass that grows between their disjointed stones will be renewed from year to year. Stanton was thinking thus, when all power of thought was suspended, by seeing two persons bearing between them the body of a young, and apparently very lovely girl, who had been struck dead by the lightning. Stanton approached, and heard the voices of the bearers repeating, There is none who will mourn for her! There is none who will mourn for her! said other voices, as two more bore in their arms the blasted and blackened figure of what had once been a man, comely and graceful;  there is not one to mourn for her now! They were lovers, and he had been consumed by the flash that had destroyed her, while in the act of endeavouring to defend her. As they were about to remove the bodies, a person approached with a calmness of step and demeanour, as if he were alone unconscious of danger, and incapable of fear; and after looking on them for some time, burst into a laugh so loud, wild, and protracted, that the peasants, starting with as much horror at the sound as at that of the storm, hurried away, bearing the corse with them. Even Stantons fears were subdued by his astonishment, and, turning to the stranger, who remained standing on the same spot, he asked the reason of such an outrage on humanity.