Not another word did Sir Bale exchange with his companion. He sat in the stern of the boat, gloomy as a man about to glide under traitorsgate. He entered his house in the same sombre and agitated state. He entered his library, and sat for a long time as if stunned. At last he seemed to have madeup his mind to something; and applied himself quietly and diligently to arranging papers, and docketing some and burning others. Dinnertime arrived. He sent to tell Lady Mardykes that he should not join her at dinner, but would see her afterwards. It was between eight and nine, she continued, I forget the exact time, when he came to the tower drawingroom where I was. I did not hear his approach. There is a stone stair, with a thick carpet on it. He told me he wished to speak to me there. It is an outoftheway place  a small old room with very thick walls, and there is a double door, the inner one of oak  I suppose he wished to guard against being overheard. There was a look in his face that frightened me; I saw he had something dreadful to tell. He looked like a man on whom a lot had fallen to put some one to death, said Lady Mardykes. O, my poor Bale! my husband, my husband! he knew what it would be to me. Here she broke into the wildest weeping, and it was some time before she resumed. He seemed very kind and very calm, she said at last; he said but little; and, I think, these were his words I find, Janet, I have made a great miscalculation  I thought my hour of danger had passed. We have been many years together, but a parting must sooner or later be, and my time has come. I dont know what I said. I would not have so much minded  for I could not have believed, if I had not seen him  but there was that in his look and tone which no one could doubt. I shall die before tomorrow morning, he said. You must command yourself, Janet; it cant be altered now. O, Bale, I cried nearly distracted, you would not kill yourself! Kill myself! poor child! no, indeed, he said; it is simply that I shall die. No violent death  nothing but the common subsidence of life  I have made up my mind; what happens to everybody cant be so very bad; and millions of worse men than I die every year. You must not follow me to my room, darling; I shall see you by and by. His language was collected and even cold; but his face looked as if it was cut in stone; you never saw, in a dream, a face like it. Lady Walsingham here said, I am certain he is ill; hes in a fever. You must not distract and torture yourself about his predictions. You sent for Doctor Torvey; what did he say? I could not tell him all. O, no; I dont mean that; theyd only say he was mad, and we little better for minding what he says. But did the Doctor see him? and what did he say of his health? Yes; he says there is nothing wrong  no fever  nothing whatever. Poor Bale has been so kind; he saw him to please me, she sobbed again wildly. I wrote to implore of him. It was my last hope, strange as it seems; and O, would to God I could think it! But there is nothing of that kind. Wait till you have seen him. There is a frightful calmness about all he says and does; and his directions are all so clear, and his mind so perfectly collected, it is quite impossible. And poor Lady Mardykes again burst into a frantic agony of tears. Chapter 28. Sir Bale in the Gallery Now, Janet darling, you are yourself low and nervous, and you treat this fancy of Bales as seriously as he does himself. The truth is, he is a hypochondriac, as the doctors say; and you will find that I am right; he will be quite well in the morning, and I daresay a little ashamed of himself for having frightened his poor little wife as he has. I will sit up with you. But our poor Mary is not, you know, very strong; and she ought to lie down and rest a little. Suppose you give me a cup of tea in the drawingroom. I will run up to my room and get these things off, and meet you in the drawingroom; or, if you like it better, you can sit with me in my own room; and for goodness sake let us have candles enough and a bright fire; and I promise you, if you will only exert your own good sense, you shall be a great deal more cheerful in a very little time. Lady Walsinghams address was kind and cheery, and her air confident. For a moment a ray of hope returned, and her sister Janet acknowledged at least the possibility of her theory. But if confidence is contagious, so also is panic; and Lady Walsingham experienced a sinking of the heart which she dared not confess to her sister, and vainly strove to combat. Lady Walsingham went up with her sister Mary, and having seen her in her room, and spoken again to her in the same cheery tone in which she had lectured her sister Lady Mardykes, she went on; and having taken possession of her own room, and put off her cloaks and shawls, she was going downstairs again, when she heard Sir Bales voice, as he approached along the gallery, issuing orders to a servant, as it seemed, exactly in his usual tone. She turned, with a strange throb at her heart, and met him. A little sterner, a little paler than usual he looked; she could perceive no other change. He took her hand kindly and held it, as with dilated eyes he looked with a dark inquiry for a moment in her face. He signed to the servant to go on, and said, Im glad you have come, Maud. You have heard what is to happen; and I dont know how Janet could have borne it without your support. You did right to come; and youll stay with her for a day or two, and take her away from this place as soon as you can. She looked at him with the embarrassment of fear. He was speaking to her with the calmness of a leavetaking in the pressroom  the serenity that overlies the greatest awe and agony of which human nature is capable. I am glad to see you, Bale, she began, hardly knowing what she said, and she stopped short. You are come, it turns out, on a sad mission, he resumed; you find all about to change. Poor Janet! it is a blow to her. I shall not live to see tomorrows sun. Come, she said, startled, you must not talk so. No, Bale, you have no right to speak so; you can have no reason to justify it. It is cruel and wicked to trifle with your wifes feelings. If you are under a delusion, you must make an effort and shake it off, or, at least, cease to talk of it. You are not well; I know by your looks you are ill; but I am very certain we shall see you much better by tomorrow, and still better the day following. No, Im not ill, sister. Feel that pulse, if you doubt me; there is no fever in it. I never was more perfectly in health; and yet I know that before the clock, that has just struck three, shall have struck five, I, who am talking to you, shall be dead. Lady Walsingham was frightened, and her fear irritated her. I have told you what I think and believe, she said vehemently. I think it wrong and cowardly of you to torture my poor sister with your whimsical predictions. Look into your own mind, and you will see you have absolutely no reason to support what you say. How can you inflict all this agony upon a poor creature foolish enough to love you as she does, and weak enough to believe in your idle dreams? Stay, sister; it is not a matter to be debated so. If tomorrow I can hear you, it will be time enough to upbraid me. Pray return now to your sister; she needs all you can do for her. She is much to be pitied; her sufferings afflict me. I shall see you and her again before my death. It would have been more cruel to leave her unprepared. Do all in your power to nerve and tranquillise her. What is past cannot now be helped. He paused, looking hard at her, as if he had half made up his mind to say something more. But if there was a question of the kind, it was determined in favour of silence. He dropped her hand, turned quickly, and left her. Chapter 29. Dr. Torveys Opinion When Lady Walsingham reached the head of the stairs, she met her maid, and from her learned that her sister, Lady Mardykes, was downstairs in the same room. On approaching, she heard her sister Marys voice talking with her, and found them together. Mary, finding that she could not sleep, had put on her clothes again, and come down to keep her sister company. The room looked more comfortable now. There were candles lighted, and a good fire burnt in the grate; teathings stood on a little table near the fire, and the two sisters were talking, Lady Mardykes appearing more collected, and only they two in the room. Have you seen him, Maud? cried Lady Mardykes, rising and hastily approaching her the moment she entered. Yes, dear; and talked with him, and  Well? And I think very much as I did before. I think he is nervous, he says he is not ill; but he is nervous and whimsical, and as men always are when they happen to be out of sorts, very positive; and of course the only thing that can quite undeceive him is the lapse of the time he has fixed for his prediction, as it is sure to pass without any tragic result of any sort. We shall then all see alike the nature of his delusion. O, Maud, if I were only sure you thought so! if I were sure you really had hopes! Tell me, Maud, for Gods sake, what you really think. Lady Walsingham was a little disconcerted by the unexpected directness of her appeal. Come, darling, you must not be foolish, she said; we can only talk of impressions, and we are imposed upon by the solemnity of his manner, and the fact that he evidently believes in his own delusion; every one does believe in his own delusion  there is nothing strange in that. O, Maud, I see you are not convinced; you are only trying to comfort me. You have no hope  none, none, none! and she covered her face with her hands, and wept again convulsively. Lady Walsingham was silent for a moment, and then with an effort said, as she placed her hand on her sisters arm, You see, dear Janet, there is no use in my saying the same thing over and over again; an hour or two will show who is right. Sit down again, and be like yourself. My maid told me that you had sent to the parlour for Doctor Torvey; he must not find you so. What would he think? Unless you mean to tell him of Bales strange fancy; and a pretty story that would be to set afloat in Golden Friars. I think I hear him coming. So, in effect, he was. Doctor Torvey  with the florid gravity of a man who, having just swallowed a bottle of port, besides some glasses of sherry, is admitted to the presence of ladies whom he respects  entered the room, made what he called his leg and his compliments, and awaited the ladies commands. Sit down, Doctor Torvey, said Lady Walsingham, who in the incapacity of her sister undertook the doing of the honours. My sister, Lady Mardykes, has got it into her head somehow that Sir Bale is ill. I have been speaking to him; he certainly does not look very well, but he says he is quite well. Do you think him well?  that is, we know you dont think there is anything of importance amiss  but she wishes to know whether you think him perfectly well. The Doctor cleared his voice and delivered his lecture, a little thickly at some words, upon Sir Bales case; the result of which was that it was no case at all; and that if he would only live something more of a country gentlemans life, he would be as well as any man could desire  as well as any man, gentle or simple, in the country. The utmost I should think of doing for him would be, perhaps, a little quinine, nothing mo shurely  he is really and toory a very shoun shtay of health. Lady Walsingham looked encouragingly at her sister and nodded. Ive been shen for, Lay Walsh  Walse  Walsing  ham; old Jack Amerald  he likshe his glass o port, he said roguishly, and shuvversh accordnly, he continued, with a compassionating paddle of his right hand; one of thoshe aw  odd feels in his stomach; and as I have pretty well done all I can mannge down here, I must be off, ye shee. Wind up from Golden Friars, and a little flutter ovv zhnow, thazh all; and with some remarks about the extreme cold of the weather, and the severity of their night journey, and many respectful and polite parting speeches, the Doctor took his leave; and they soon heard the wheels of his gig and the tread of his horse, faint and muffled from the snow in the courtyard, and the Doctor, who had connected that melancholy and agitated household with the outer circle of humanity, was gone. There was very little snow falling, halfadozen flakes now and again, and their flight across the window showed, as the Doctor had in a manner boasted, that the wind was in his face as he returned to Golden Friars. Even these desultory snowflakes ceased, at times, altogether; and returning, as they say, by fits and starts, left for long intervals the landscape, under the brilliant light of the moon, in its wide white shroud. The curtain of the great window had not been drawn. It seemed to Lady Walsingham that the moonbeams had grown more dazzling, that Snakes Island was nearer and more distinct, and the outstretched arm of the old tree looked bigger and angrier, like the uplifted arm of an assassin, who draws silently nearer as the catastrophe approaches. Cold, dazzling, almost repulsive in this intense moonlight and white sheeting, the familiar landscape looked in the eyes of Lady Walsingham. The sisters gradually grew more and more silent, an unearthly suspense overhung them all, and Lady Mardykes rose every now and then and listened at the open door for step or voice in vain. They all were overpowered by the intenser horror that seemed gathering around them. And thus an hour or more passed. Chapter 30. Hush! Pale and silent those three beautiful sisters sat. The horrible quietude of a suspense that had grown all but insupportable oppressed the guests of Lady Mardykes, and something like the numbness of despair had reduced her to silence, the dreadful counterfeit of peace. Sir Bale Mardykes on a sudden softly entered the room. Reflected from the floor near the window, the white moonlight somehow gave to his fixed features the character of a smile. With a warning gesture, as he came in, he placed his finger to his lips, as if to enjoin silence; and then, having successively pressed the hands of his two sistersinlaw, he stooped over his almost fainting wife, and twice pressed her cold forehead with his lips; and so, without a word, he went softly from the room. Some seconds elapsed before Lady Walsingham, recovering her presence of mind, with one of the candlesticks from the table in her hand, opened the door and followed. She saw Sir Bale mount the last stair of the broad flight visible from the hall, and candle in hand turn the corner of the massive banister, and as the light thrown from his candle showed, he continued, without hurry, to ascend the second flight. With the irrepressible curiosity of horror she continued to follow him at a distance. She saw him enter his own private room, and close the door. Continuing to follow she placed herself noiselessly at the door of the apartment, and in breathless silence, with a throbbing heart, listened for what should pass. She distinctly heard Sir Bale pace the floor up and down for some time, and then, after a pause, a sound as if some one had thrown himself heavily on the bed. A silence followed, during which her sisters, who had followed more timidly, joined her. She warned them with a look and gesture to be silent. Lady Haworth stood a little behind, her white lips moving, and her hands clasped in a silent agony of prayer. Lady Mardykes leaned against the massive oak doorcase. With her hand raised to her ear, and her lips parted, Lady Walsingham listened for some seconds  for a minute, two minutes, three. At last, losing heart, she seized the handle in her panic, and turned it sharply. The door was locked on the inside, but some one close to it said from within, Hush, hush! Much alarmed now, the same lady knocked violently at the door. No answer was returned. She knocked again more violently, and shook the door with all her fragile force. It was something of horror in her countenance as she did so, that, no doubt, terrified Lady Mardykes, who with a loud and long scream sank in a swoon upon the floor. The servants, alarmed by these sounds, were speedily in the gallery. Lady Mardykes was carried to her room, and laid upon her bed; her sister, Lady Haworth, accompanying her. In the meantime the door was forced. Sir Bale Mardykes was found stretched upon his bed. Those who have once seen it, will not mistake the aspect of death. Here, in Sir Bale Mardykes room, in his bed, in his clothes, is a stranger, grim and awful; in a few days to be insupportable, and to pass alone into the prisonhouse, and to be seen no more. Where is Sir Bale Mardykes now, whose rooftree and whose place at board and bed will know him no more? Here lies a chapfallen, fisheyed image, chilling already into clay, and stiffening in every joint. There is a marble monument in the pretty church of Golden Friars. It stands at the left side of what antiquarians call the high altar. Two pillars at each end support an arch with several armorial bearings on as many shields sculptured above. Beneath, on a marble flooring raised some four feet, with a cornice round, lies Sir Bale Mardykes, of Mardykes Hall, ninth Baronet of that ancient family, chiseled in marble with kneebreeches and buckledshoes, and ailes de pigeon, and singlebreasted coat and long waistcoat, ruffles and sword, such as gentlemen wore about the year 1770, and bearing a strong resemblance to the features of the second Charles. On the broad marble which forms the background is inscribed an epitaph, which has perpetuated to our times the estimate formed by his inconsolable widow, the Dowager Lady Mardykes, of the virtues and accomplishments of her deceased lord. Lady Walsingham would have qualified two or three of the more highlycoloured hyperboles, at which the Golden Friars of those days sniffed and tittered. They dont signify now; there is no contemporary left to laugh or whisper. And if there be not much that is true in the letter of that inscription, it at least perpetuates something that is true  that wonderful glorificaion of partisanship, the affection of an idolising wife. Lady Mardykes, a few days after the funeral, left Mardykes Hall for ever. She lived a great deal with her sister, Lady Walsingham; and died, as a line cut at the foot of Sir Bale Mardykes epitaph records, in the year 1790; her remains being laid beside those of her beloved husband in Golden Friars. The estates had come to Sir Bale Mardykes free of entail. He had been pottering over a will, but it was never completed, nor even quite planned; and after much doubt and scrutiny, it was at last ascertained that, in default of a will and of issue, a clause in the marriagesettlement gave the entire estates to the Dowager Lady Mardykes. By her will she bequeathed the estates to her cousin, also a kinsman of the late Sir Bale Mardykes her husband, William Feltram, on condition of his assuming the name and arms of Mardykes, the arms of Feltram being quartered in the shield. Thus was oddly fulfilled the prediction which Philip Feltram had repeated, that the estates of Mardykes were to pass into the hands of a Feltram. About the year 1795 the baronetage was revived, and William Feltram enjoyed the title for fifteen years, as Sir William Mardykes.


THE HAUNTED MAN AND THE GHOSTS BARGAIN BY CHARLES DICKENS 1848 The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain By Charles Dickens. This edition was created and published by Global Grey GlobalGrey 2019 globalgreyebooks.com Contents Chapter 1. The Gift Bestowed Chapter 2. The Gift Diffused Chapter 3. The Gift Reversed Chapter 1. The Gift Bestowed Everybody said so. Far be it from me to assert that what everybody says must be true. Everybody is, often, as likely to be wrong as right. In the general experience, everybody has been wrong so often, and it has taken, in most instances, such a weary while to find out how wrong, that the authority is proved to be fallible. Everybody may sometimes be right; but thats no rule, as the ghost of Giles Scroggins says in the ballad. The dread word, Ghost, recalls me. Everybody said he looked like a haunted man. The extent of my present claim for everybody is, that they were so far right. He did. Who could have seen his hollow cheek; his sunken brilliant eye; his blackattired figure, indefinably grim, although wellknit and wellproportioned; his grizzled hair hanging, like tangled seaweed, about his face,as if he had been, through his whole life, a lonely mark for the chafing and beating of the great deep of humanity,but might have said he looked like a haunted man? Who could have observed his manner, taciturn, thoughtful, gloomy, shadowed by habitual reserve, retiring always and jocund never, with a distraught air of reverting to a bygone place and time, or of listening to some old echoes in his mind, but might have said it was the manner of a haunted man? Who could have heard his voice, slowspeaking, deep, and grave, with a natural fulness and melody in it which he seemed to set himself against and stop, but might have said it was the voice of a haunted man? Who that had seen him in his inner chamber, part library and part laboratory,for he was, as the world knew, far and wide, a learned man in chemistry, and a teacher on whose lips and hands a crowd of aspiring ears and eyes hung daily,who that had seen him there, upon a winter night, alone, surrounded by his drugs and instruments and books; the shadow of his shaded lamp a monstrous beetle on the wall, motionless among a crowd of spectral shapes raised there by the flickering of the fire upon the quaint objects around him; some of these phantoms (the reflection of glass vessels that held liquids), trembling at heart like things that knew his power to uncombine them, and to give back their component parts to fire and vapour;who that had seen him then, his work done, and he pondering in his chair before the rusted grate and red flame, moving his thin mouth as if in speech, but silent as the dead, would not have said that the man seemed haunted and the chamber too? Who might not, by a very easy flight of fancy, have believed that everything about him took this haunted tone, and that he lived on haunted ground? His dwelling was so solitary and vaultlike,an old, retired part of an ancient endowment for students, once a brave edifice, planted in an open place, but now the obsolete whim of forgotten architects; smokeageandweatherdarkened, squeezed on every side by the overgrowing of the great city, and choked, like an old well, with stones and bricks; its small quadrangles, lying down in very pits formed by the streets and buildings, which, in course of time, had been constructed above its heavy chimney stalks; its old trees, insulted by the neighbouring smoke, which deigned to droop so low when it was very feeble and the weather very moody; its grassplots, struggling with the mildewed earth to be grass, or to win any show of compromise; its silent pavements, unaccustomed to the tread of feet, and even to the observation of eyes, except when a stray face looked down from the upper world, wondering what nook it was; its sundial in a little brickedup corner, where no sun had straggled for a hundred years, but where, in compensation for the suns neglect, the snow would lie for weeks when it lay nowhere else, and the black east wind would spin like a huge hummingtop, when in all other places it was silent and still. His dwelling, at its heart and corewithin doorsat his firesidewas so lowering and old, so crazy, yet so strong, with its worneaten beams of wood in the ceiling, and its sturdy floor shelving downward to the great oak chimneypiece; so environed and hemmed in by the pressure of the town yet so remote in fashion, age, and custom; so quiet, yet so thundering with echoes when a distant voice was raised or a door was shut,echoes, not confined to the many low passages and empty rooms, but rumbling and grumbling till they were stifled in the heavy air of the forgotten Crypt where the Norman arches were halfburied in the earth. You should have seen him in his dwelling about twilight, in the dead winter time. When the wind was blowing, shrill and shrewd, with the going down of the blurred sun. When it was just so dark, as that the forms of things were indistinct and bigbut not wholly lost. When sitters by the fire began to see wild faces and figures, mountains and abysses, ambuscades and armies, in the coals. When people in the streets bent down their heads and ran before the weather. When those who were obliged to meet it, were stopped at angry corners, stung by wandering snowflakes alighting on the lashes of their eyes,which fell too sparingly, and were blown away too quickly, to leave a trace upon the frozen ground. When windows of private houses closed up tight and warm. When lighted gas began to burst forth in the busy and the quiet streets, fast blackening otherwise. When stray pedestrians, shivering along the latter, looked down at the glowing fires in kitchens, and sharpened their sharp appetites by sniffing up the fragrance of whole miles of dinners. When travellers by land were bitter cold, and looked wearily on gloomy landscapes, rustling and shuddering in the blast. When mariners at sea, outlying upon icy yards, were tossed and swung above the howling ocean dreadfully. When lighthouses, on rocks and headlands, showed solitary and watchful; and benighted seabirds breasted on against their ponderous lanterns, and fell dead. When little readers of storybooks, by the firelight, trembled to think of Cassim Baba cut into quarters, hanging in the Robbers Cave, or had some small misgivings that the fierce little old woman, with the crutch, who used to start out of the box in the merchant Abudahs bedroom, might, one of these nights, be found upon the stairs, in the long, cold, dusky journey up to bed. When, in rustic places, the last glimmering of daylight died away from the ends of avenues; and the trees, arching overhead, were sullen and black. When, in parks and woods, the high wet fern and sodden moss, and beds of fallen leaves, and trunks of trees, were lost to view, in masses of impenetrable shade. When mists arose from dyke, and fen, and river. When lights in old halls and in cottage windows, were a cheerful sight. When the mill stopped, the wheelwright and the blacksmith shut their workshops, the turnpikegate closed, the plough and harrow were left lonely in the fields, the labourer and team went home, and the striking of the church clock had a deeper sound than at noon, and the churchyard wicket would be swung no more that night. When twilight everywhere released the shadows, prisoned up all day, that now closed in and gathered like mustering swarms of ghosts. When they stood lowering, in corners of rooms, and frowned out from behind halfopened doors. When they had full possession of unoccupied apartments. When they danced upon the floors, and walls, and ceilings of inhabited chambers, while the fire was low, and withdrew like ebbing waters when it sprang into a blaze. When they fantastically mocked the shapes of household objects, making the nurse an ogress, the rockinghorse a monster, the wondering child, halfscared and halfamused, a stranger to itself,the very tongs upon the hearth, a straddling giant with his arms akimbo, evidently smelling the blood of Englishmen, and wanting to grind peoples bones to make his bread. When these shadows brought into the minds of older people, other thoughts, and showed them different images. When they stole from their retreats, in the likenesses of forms and faces from the past, from the grave, from the deep, deep gulf, where the things that might have been, and never were, are always wandering. When he sat, as already mentioned, gazing at the fire. When, as it rose and fell, the shadows went and came. When he took no heed of them, with his bodily eyes; but, let them come or let them go, looked fixedly at the fire. You should have seen him, then. When the sounds that had arisen with the shadows, and come out of their lurkingplaces at the twilight summons, seemed to make a deeper stillness all about him. When the wind was rumbling in the chimney, and sometimes crooning, sometimes howling, in the house. When the old trees outside were so shaken and beaten, that one querulous old rook, unable to sleep, protested now and then, in a feeble, dozy, highup Caw! When, at intervals, the window trembled, the rusty vane upon the turrettop complained, the clock beneath it recorded that another quarter of an hour was gone, or the fire collapsed and fell in with a rattle. When a knock came at his door, in short, as he was sitting so, and roused him. Whos that? said he. Come in! Surely there had been no figure leaning on the back of his chair; no face looking over it. It is certain that no gliding footstep touched the floor, as he lifted up his head, with a start, and spoke. And yet there was no mirror in the room on whose surface his own form could have cast its shadow for a moment; and, Something had passed darkly and gone! Im humbly fearful, sir, said a freshcoloured busy man, holding the door open with his foot for the admission of himself and a wooden tray he carried, and letting it go again by very gentle and careful degrees, when he and the tray had got in, lest it should close noisily, that its a good bit past the time tonight. But Mrs. William has been taken off her legs so often By the wind? Ay! I have heard it rising. By the wind, sirthat its a mercy she got home at all. Oh dear, yes. Yes. It was by the wind, Mr. Redlaw. By the wind. He had, by this time, put down the tray for dinner, and was employed in lighting the lamp, and spreading a cloth on the table. From this employment he desisted in a hurry, to stir and feed the fire, and then resumed it; the lamp he had lighted, and the blaze that rose under his hand, so quickly changing the appearance of the room, that it seemed as if the mere coming in of his fresh red face and active manner had made the pleasant alteration. Mrs. William is of course subject at any time, sir, to be taken off her balance by the elements. She is not formed superior to that. No, returned Mr. Redlaw goodnaturedly, though abruptly. No, sir. Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by Earth; as for example, last Sunday week, when sloppy and greasy, and she going out to tea with her newest sisterinlaw, and having a pride in herself, and wishing to appear perfectly spotless though pedestrian. Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by Air; as being once overpersuaded by a friend to try a swing at Peckham Fair, which acted on her constitution instantly like a steamboat. Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by Fire; as on a false alarm of engines at her mothers, when she went two miles in her nightcap. Mrs. William may be taken off her balance by Water; as at Battersea, when rowed into the piers by her young nephew, Charley Swidger junior, aged twelve, which had no idea of boats whatever. But these are elements. Mrs. William must be taken out of elements for the strength of her character to come into play. As he stopped for a reply, the reply was Yes, in the same tone as before. Yes, sir. Oh dear, yes! said Mr. Swidger, still proceeding with his preparations, and checking them off as he made them. Thats where it is, sir. Thats what I always say myself, sir. Such a many of us Swidgers!Pepper. Why theres my father, sir, superannuated keeper and custodian of this Institution, eightyseven year old. Hes a Swidger!Spoon. True, William, was the patient and abstracted answer, when he stopped again. Yes, sir, said Mr. Swidger. Thats what I always say, sir. You may call him the trunk of the tree!Bread. Then you come to his successor, my unworthy selfSaltand Mrs. William, Swidgers both.Knife and fork. Then you come to all my brothers and their families, Swidgers, man and woman, boy and girl. Why, what with cousins, uncles, aunts, and relationships of this, that, and tother degree, and whatnot degree, and marriages, and lyingsin, the SwidgersTumblermight take hold of hands, and make a ring round England! Receiving no reply at all here, from the thoughtful man whom he addressed, Mr. William approached, him nearer, and made a feint of accidentally knocking the table with a decanter, to rouse him. The moment he succeeded, he went on, as if in great alacrity of acquiescence. Yes, sir! Thats just what I say myself, sir. Mrs. William and me have often said so. Theres Swidgers enough, we say, without our voluntary contributions,Butter. In fact, sir, my father is a family in himselfCastorsto take care of; and it happens all for the best that we have no child of our own, though its made Mrs. William rather quietlike, too. Quite ready for the fowl and mashed potatoes, sir? Mrs. William said shed dish in ten minutes when I left the Lodge. I am quite ready, said the other, waking as from a dream, and walking slowly to and fro. Mrs. William has been at it again, sir! said the keeper, as he stood warming a plate at the fire, and pleasantly shading his face with it. Mr. Redlaw stopped in his walking, and an expression of interest appeared in him. What I always say myself, sir. She will do it! Theres a motherly feeling in Mrs. Williams breast that must and will have went. What has she done? Why, sir, not satisfied with being a sort of mother to all the young gentlemen that come up from a variety of parts, to attend your courses of lectures at this ancient foundationits surprising how stonechaney catches the heat this frosty weather, to be sure! Here he turned the plate, and cooled his fingers. Well? said Mr. Redlaw. Thats just what I say myself, sir, returned Mr. William, speaking over his shoulder, as if in ready and delighted assent. Thats exactly where it is, sir! There aint one of our students but appears to regard Mrs. William in that light. Every day, right through the course, they puts their heads into the Lodge, one after another, and have all got something to tell her, or something to ask her. Swidge is the appellation by which they speak of Mrs. William in general, among themselves, Im told; but thats what I say, sir. Better be called ever so far out of your name, if its done in real liking, than have it made ever so much of, and not cared about! Whats a name for? To know a person by. If Mrs. William is known by something better than her nameI allude to Mrs. Williams qualities and dispositionnever mind her name, though it is Swidger, by rights. Let em call her Swidge, Widge, BridgeLord! London Bridge, Blackfriars, Chelsea, Putney, Waterloo, or Hammersmith Suspensionif they like. The close of this triumphant oration brought him and the plate to the table, upon which he half laid and half dropped it, with a lively sense of its being thoroughly heated, just as the subject of his praises entered the room, bearing another tray and a lantern, and followed by a venerable old man with long grey hair. Mrs. William, like Mr. William, was a simple, innocentlooking person, in whose smooth cheeks the cheerful red of her husbands official waistcoat was very pleasantly repeated. But whereas Mr. Williams light hair stood on end all over his head, and seemed to draw his eyes up with it in an excess of bustling readiness for anything, the dark brown hair of Mrs. William was carefully smoothed down, and waved away under a trim tidy cap, in the most exact and quiet manner imaginable. Whereas Mr. Williams very trousers hitched themselves up at the ankles, as if it were not in their irongrey nature to rest without looking about them, Mrs. Williams neatlyflowered skirtsred and white, like her own pretty facewere as composed and orderly, as if the very wind that blew so hard out of doors could not disturb one of their folds. Whereas his coat had something of a flyaway and halfoff appearance about the collar and breast, her little bodice was so placid and neat, that there should have been protection for her, in it, had she needed any, with the roughest people. Who could have had the heart to make so calm a bosom swell with grief, or throb with fear, or flutter with a thought of shame! To whom would its repose and peace have not appealed against disturbance, like the innocent slumber of a child! Punctual, of course, Milly, said her husband, relieving her of the tray, or it wouldnt be you. Heres Mrs. William, sir!He looks lonelier than ever tonight, whispering to his wife, as he was taking the tray, and ghostlier altogether. Without any show of hurry or noise, or any show of herself even, she was so calm and quiet, Milly set the dishes she had brought upon the table,Mr. William, after much clattering and running about, having only gained possession of a butterboat of gravy, which he stood ready to serve. What is that the old man has in his arms? asked Mr. Redlaw, as he sat down to his solitary meal. Holly, sir, replied the quiet voice of Milly. Thats what I say myself, sir, interposed Mr. William, striking in with the butterboat. Berries is so seasonable to the time of year!Brown gravy! Another Christmas come, another year gone! murmured the Chemist, with a gloomy sigh. More figures in the lengthening sum of recollection that we work and work at to our torment, till Death idly jumbles all together, and rubs all out. So, Philip! breaking off, and raising his voice as he addressed the old man, standing apart, with his glistening burden in his arms, from which the quiet Mrs. William took small branches, which she noiselessly trimmed with her scissors, and decorated the room with, while her aged fatherinlaw looked on much interested in the ceremony. My duty to you, sir, returned the old man. Should have spoke before, sir, but know your ways, Mr. Redlawproud to sayand wait till spoke to! Merry Christmas, sir, and Happy New Year, and many of em. Have had a pretty many of em myselfha, ha!and may take the liberty of wishing em. Im eightyseven! Have you had so many that were merry and happy? asked the other. Ay, sir, ever so many, returned the old man. Is his memory impaired with age? It is to be expected now, said Mr. Redlaw, turning to the son, and speaking lower. Not a morsel of it, sir, replied Mr. William. Thats exactly what I say myself, sir. There never was such a memory as my fathers. Hes the most wonderful man in the world. He dont know what forgetting means. Its the very observation Im always making to Mrs. William, sir, if youll believe me! Mr. Swidger, in his polite desire to seem to acquiesce at all events, delivered this as if there were no iota of contradiction in it, and it were all said in unbounded and unqualified assent. The Chemist pushed his plate away, and, rising from the table, walked across the room to where the old man stood looking at a little sprig of holly in his hand. It recalls the time when many of those years were old and new, then? he said, observing him attentively, and touching him on the shoulder. Does it? Oh many, many! said Philip, half awaking from his reverie. Im eightyseven! Merry and happy, was it? asked the Chemist in a low voice. Merry and happy, old man? Maybe as high as that, no higher, said the old man, holding out his hand a little way above the level of his knee, and looking retrospectively at his questioner, when I first remember em! Cold, sunshiny day it was, out awalking, when some oneit was my mother as sure as you stand there, though I dont know what her blessed face was like, for she took ill and died that Christmastimetold me they were food for birds. The pretty little fellow thoughtthats me, you understandthat birds eyes were so bright, perhaps, because the berries that they lived on in the winter were so bright. I recollect that. And Im eightyseven! Merry and happy! mused the other, bending his dark eyes upon the stooping figure, with a smile of compassion. Merry and happyand remember well? Ay, ay, ay! resumed the old man, catching the last words. I remember em well in my school time, year after year, and all the merrymaking that used to come along with them. I was a strong chap then, Mr. Redlaw; and, if youll believe me, hadnt my match at football within ten mile. Wheres my son William? Hadnt my match at football, William, within ten mile! Thats what I always say, father! returned the son promptly, and with great respect. You ARE a Swidger, if ever there was one of the family! Dear! said the old man, shaking his head as he again looked at the holly. His mothermy son Williams my youngest sonand I, have sat among em all, boys and girls, little children and babies, many a year, when the berries like these were not shining half so bright all round us, as their bright faces. Many of em are gone; shes gone; and my son George (our eldest, who was her pride more than all the rest!) is fallen very low but I can see them, when I look here, alive and healthy, as they used to be in those days; and I can see him, thank God, in his innocence. Its a blessed thing to me, at eightyseven. The keen look that had been fixed upon him with so much earnestness, had gradually sought the ground. When my circumstances got to be not so good as formerly, through not being honestly dealt by, and I first come here to be custodian, said the old man, which was upwards of fifty years agowheres my son William? More than half a century ago, William! Thats what I say, father, replied the son, as promptly and dutifully as before, thats exactly where it is. Two times oughts an ought, and twice five ten, and theres a hundred of em. It was quite a pleasure to know that one of our foundersor more correctly speaking, said the old man, with a great glory in his subject and his knowledge of it, one of the learned gentlemen that helped endow us in Queen Elizabeths time, for we were founded afore her dayleft in his will, among the other bequests he made us, so much to buy holly, for garnishing the walls and windows, come Christmas. There was something homely and friendly in it. Being but strange here, then, and coming at Christmas time, we took a liking for his very picter that hangs in what used to be, anciently, afore our ten poor gentlemen commuted for an annual stipend in money, our great Dinner Hall.A sedate gentleman in a peaked beard, with a ruff round his neck, and a scroll below him, in old English letters, Lord! keep my memory green! You know all about him, Mr. Redlaw? I know the portrait hangs there, Philip. Yes, sure, its the second on the right, above the panelling. I was going to sayhe has helped to keep my memory green, I thank him; for going round the building every year, as Im a doing now, and freshening up the bare rooms with these branches and berries, freshens up my bare old brain. One year brings back another, and that year another, and those others numbers! At last, it seems to me as if the birthtime of our Lord was the birthtime of all I have ever had affection for, or mourned for, or delighted in,and theyre a pretty many, for Im eightyseven! Merry and happy, murmured Redlaw to himself. The room began to darken strangely. So you see, sir, pursued old Philip, whose hale wintry cheek had warmed into a ruddier glow, and whose blue eyes had brightened while he spoke, I have plenty to keep, when I keep this present season. Now, wheres my quiet Mouse? Chatterings the sin of my time of life, and theres half the building to do yet, if the cold dont freeze us first, or the wind dont blow us away, or the darkness dont swallow us up. The quiet Mouse had brought her calm face to his side, and silently taken his arm, before he finished speaking. Come away, my dear, said the old man. Mr. Redlaw wont settle to his dinner, otherwise, till its cold as the winter. I hope youll excuse me rambling on, sir, and I wish you good night, and, once again, a merry Stay! said Mr. Redlaw, resuming his place at the table, more, it would have seemed from his manner, to reassure the old keeper, than in any remembrance of his own appetite. Spare me another moment, Philip. William, you were going to tell me something to your excellent wifes honour. It will not be disagreeable to her to hear you praise her. What was it? Why, thats where it is, you see, sir, returned Mr. William Swidger, looking towards his wife in considerable embarrassment. Mrs. Williams got her eye upon me. But youre not afraid of Mrs. Williams eye? Why, no, sir, returned Mr. Swidger, thats what I say myself. It wasnt made to be afraid of. It wouldnt have been made so mild, if that was the intention. But I wouldnt like toMilly!him, you know. Down in the Buildings. Mr. William, standing behind the table, and rummaging disconcertedly among the objects upon it, directed persuasive glances at Mrs. William, and secret jerks of his head and thumb at Mr. Redlaw, as alluring her towards him. Him, you know, my love, said Mr. William. Down in the Buildings. Tell, my dear! Youre the works of Shakespeare in comparison with myself. Down in the Buildings, you know, my love.Student. Student? repeated Mr. Redlaw, raising his head. Thats what I say, sir! cried Mr. William, in the utmost animation of assent. If it wasnt the poor student down in the Buildings, why should you wish to hear it from Mrs. Williams lips? Mrs. William, my dearBuildings. I didnt know, said Milly, with a quiet frankness, free from any haste or confusion, that William had said anything about it, or I wouldnt have come. I asked him not to. Its a sick young gentleman, sirand very poor, I am afraidwho is too ill to go home this holidaytime, and lives, unknown to any one, in but a common kind of lodging for a gentleman, down in Jerusalem Buildings. Thats all, sir. Why have I never heard of him? said the Chemist, rising hurriedly. Why has he not made his situation known to me? Sick!give me my hat and cloak. Poor!what house?what number? Oh, you mustnt go there, sir, said Milly, leaving her fatherinlaw, and calmly confronting him with her collected little face and folded hands. Not go there? Oh dear, no! said Milly, shaking her head as at a most manifest and selfevident impossibility. It couldnt be thought of! What do you mean? Why not? Why, you see, sir, said Mr. William Swidger, persuasively and confidentially, thats what I say. Depend upon it, the young gentleman would never have made his situation known to one of his own sex. Mrs. Williams has got into his confidence, but thats quite different. They all confide in Mrs. William; they all trust her. A man, sir, couldnt have got a whisper out of him; but woman, sir, and Mrs. William combined! There is good sense and delicacy in what you say, William, returned Mr. Redlaw, observant of the gentle and composed face at his shoulder. And laying his finger on his lip, he secretly put his purse into her hand. Oh dear no, sir! cried Milly, giving it back again. Worse and worse! Couldnt be dreamed of! Such a staid matteroffact housewife she was, and so unruffled by the momentary haste of this rejection, that, an instant afterwards, she was tidily picking up a few leaves which had strayed from between her scissors and her apron, when she had arranged the holly. Finding, when she rose from her stooping posture, that Mr. Redlaw was still regarding her with doubt and astonishment, she quietly repeatedlooking about, the while, for any other fragments that might have escaped her observation Oh dear no, sir! He said that of all the world he would not be known to you, or receive help from youthough he is a student in your class. I have made no terms of secrecy with you, but I trust to your honour completely. Why did he say so? Indeed I cant tell, sir, said Milly, after thinking a little, because I am not at all clever, you know; and I wanted to be useful to him in making things neat and comfortable about him, and employed myself that way. But I know he is poor, and lonely, and I think he is somehow neglected too.How dark it is! The room had darkened more and more. There was a very heavy gloom and shadow gathering behind the Chemists chair. What more about him? he asked. He is engaged to be married when he can afford it, said Milly, and is studying, I think, to qualify himself to earn a living. I have seen, a long time, that he has studied hard and denied himself much.How very dark it is! Its turned colder, too, said the old man, rubbing his hands. Theres a chill and dismal feeling in the room. Wheres my son William? William, my boy, turn the lamp, and rouse the fire! Millys voice resumed, like quiet music very softly played He muttered in his broken sleep yesterday afternoon, after talking to me (this was to herself) about some one dead, and some great wrong done that could never be forgotten; but whether to him or to another person, I dont know. Not by him, I am sure. And, in short, Mrs. William, you seewhich she wouldnt say herself, Mr. Redlaw, if she was to stop here till the new year after this next one said Mr. William, coming up to him to speak in his ear, has done him worlds of good! Bless you, worlds of good! All at home just the same as evermy father made as snug and comfortablenot a crumb of litter to be found in the house, if you were to offer fifty pound ready money for itMrs. William apparently never out of the wayyet Mrs. William backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, up and down, up and down, a mother to him! The room turned darker and colder, and the gloom and shadow gathering behind the chair was heavier. Not content with this, sir, Mrs. William goes and finds, this very night, when she was coming home (why its not above a couple of hours ago), a creature more like a young wild beast than a young child, shivering upon a doorstep. What does Mrs. William do, but brings it home to dry it, and feed it, and keep it till our old Bounty of food and flannel is given away, on Christmas morning! If it ever felt a fire before, its as much as ever it did; for its sitting in the old Lodge chimney, staring at ours as if its ravenous eyes would never shut again. Its sitting there, at least, said Mr. William, correcting himself, on reflection, unless its bolted! Heaven keep her happy! said the Chemist aloud, and you too, Philip! and you, William! I must consider what to do in this. I may desire to see this student, Ill not detain you any longer now. Goodnight! I thankee, sir, I thankee! said the old man, for Mouse, and for my son William, and for myself. Wheres my son William? William, you take the lantern and go on first, through them long dark passages, as you did last year and the year afore. Ha ha! I rememberthough Im eightyseven! Lord, keep my memory green! Its a very good prayer, Mr. Redlaw, that of the learned gentleman in the peaked beard, with a ruff round his neckhangs up, second on the right above the panelling, in what used to be, afore our ten poor gentlemen commuted, our great Dinner Hall. Lord, keep my memory green! Its very good and pious, sir. Amen! Amen! As they passed out and shut the heavy door, which, however carefully withheld, fired a long train of thundering reverberations when it shut at last, the room turned darker. As he fell a musing in his chair alone, the healthy holly withered on the wall, and droppeddead branches.


As the gloom and shadow thickened behind him, in that place where it had been gathering so darkly, it took, by slow degrees,or out of it there came, by some unreal, unsubstantial processnot to be traced by any human sense,an awful likeness of himself! Ghastly and cold, colourless in its leaden face and hands, but with his features, and his bright eyes, and his grizzled hair, and dressed in the gloomy shadow of his dress, it came into his terrible appearance of existence, motionless, without a sound. As he leaned his arm upon the elbow of his chair, ruminating before the fire, it leaned upon the chairback, close above him, with its appalling copy of his face looking where his face looked, and bearing the expression his face bore. This, then, was the Something that had passed and gone already. This was the dread companion of the haunted man! It took, for some moments, no more apparent heed of him, than he of it. The Christmas Waits were playing somewhere in the distance, and, through his thoughtfulness, he seemed to listen to the music. It seemed to listen too. At length he spoke; without moving or lifting up his face. Here again! he said. Here again, replied the Phantom. I see you in the fire, said the haunted man; I hear you in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night. The Phantom moved its head, assenting. Why do you come, to haunt me thus? I come as I am called, replied the Ghost. No. Unbidden, exclaimed the Chemist. Unbidden be it, said the Spectre. It is enough. I am here. Hitherto the light of the fire had shone on the two facesif the dread lineaments behind the chair might be called a faceboth addressed towards it, as at first, and neither looking at the other. But, now, the haunted man turned, suddenly, and stared upon the Ghost. The Ghost, as sudden in its motion, passed to before the chair, and stared on him. The living man, and the animated image of himself dead, might so have looked, the one upon the other. An awful survey, in a lonely and remote part of an empty old pile of building, on a winter night, with the loud wind going by upon its journey of mysterywhence or whither, no man knowing since the world beganand the stars, in unimaginable millions, glittering through it, from eternal space, where the worlds bulk is as a grain, and its hoary age is infancy. Look upon me! said the Spectre. I am he, neglected in my youth, and miserably poor, who strove and suffered, and still strove and suffered, until I hewed out knowledge from the mine where it was buried, and made rugged steps thereof, for my worn feet to rest and rise on. I am that man, returned the Chemist. No mothers selfdenying love, pursued the Phantom, no fathers counsel, aided me. A stranger came into my fathers place when I was but a child, and I was easily an alien from my mothers heart. My parents, at the best, were of that sort whose care soon ends, and whose duty is soon done; who cast their offspring loose, early, as birds do theirs; and, if they do well, claim the merit; and, if ill, the pity. It paused, and seemed to tempt and goad him with its look, and with the manner of its speech, and with its smile. I am he, pursued the Phantom, who, in this struggle upward, found a friend. I made himwon himbound him to me! We worked together, side by side. All the love and confidence that in my earlier youth had had no outlet, and found no expression, I bestowed on him. Not all, said Redlaw, hoarsely. No, not all, returned the Phantom. I had a sister. The haunted man, with his head resting on his hands, replied I had! The Phantom, with an evil smile, drew closer to the chair, and resting its chin upon its folded hands, its folded hands upon the back, and looking down into his face with searching eyes, that seemed instinct with fire, went on Such glimpses of the light of home as I had ever known, had streamed from her. How young she was, how fair, how loving! I took her to the first poor roof that I was master of, and made it rich. She came into the darkness of my life, and made it bright.She is before me! I saw her, in the fire, but now. I hear her in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night, returned the haunted man. Did he love her? said the Phantom, echoing his contemplative tone. I think he did, once. I am sure he did. Better had she loved him lessless secretly, less dearly, from the shallower depths of a more divided heart! Let me forget it! said the Chemist, with an angry motion of his hand. Let me blot it from my memory! The Spectre, without stirring, and with its unwinking, cruel eyes still fixed upon his face, went on A dream, like hers, stole upon my own life. It did, said Redlaw. A love, as like hers, pursued the Phantom, as my inferior nature might cherish, arose in my own heart. I was too poor to bind its object to my fortune then, by any thread of promise or entreaty. I loved her far too well, to seek to do it. But, more than ever I had striven in my life, I strove to climb! Only an inch gained, brought me something nearer to the height. I toiled up! In the late pauses of my labour at that time,my sister (sweet companion!) still sharing with me the expiring embers and the cooling hearth,when day was breaking, what pictures of the future did I see! I saw them, in the fire, but now, he murmured. They come back to me in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night, in the revolving years. Pictures of my own domestic life, in aftertime, with her who was the inspiration of my toil. Pictures of my sister, made the wife of my dear friend, on equal termsfor he had some inheritance, we nonepictures of our sobered age and mellowed happiness, and of the golden links, extending back so far, that should bind us, and our children, in a radiant garland, said the Phantom. Pictures, said the haunted man, that were delusions. Why is it my doom to remember them too well! Delusions, echoed the Phantom in its changeless voice, and glaring on him with its changeless eyes. For my friend (in whose breast my confidence was locked as in my own), passing between me and the centre of the system of my hopes and struggles, won her to himself, and shattered my frail universe. My sister, doubly dear, doubly devoted, doubly cheerful in my home, lived on to see me famous, and my old ambition so rewarded when its spring was broken, and then Then died, he interposed. Died, gentle as ever; happy; and with no concern but for her brother. Peace! The Phantom watched him silently. Remembered! said the haunted man, after a pause. Yes. So well remembered, that even now, when years have passed, and nothing is more idle or more visionary to me than the boyish love so long outlived, I think of it with sympathy, as if it were a younger brothers or a sons. Sometimes I even wonder when her heart first inclined to him, and how it had been affected towards me.Not lightly, once, I think.But that is nothing. Early unhappiness, a wound from a hand I loved and trusted, and a loss that nothing can replace, outlive such fancies. Thus, said the Phantom, I bear within me a Sorrow and a Wrong. Thus I prey upon myself. Thus, memory is my curse; and, if I could forget my sorrow and my wrong, I would! Mocker! said the Chemist, leaping up, and making, with a wrathful hand, at the throat of his other self. Why have I always that taunt in my ears? Forbear! exclaimed the Spectre in an awful voice. Lay a hand on Me, and die! He stopped midway, as if its words had paralysed him, and stood looking on it. It had glided from him; it had its arm raised high in warning; and a smile passed over its unearthly features, as it reared its dark figure in triumph. If I could forget my sorrow and wrong, I would, the Ghost repeated. If I could forget my sorrow and my wrong, I would! Evil spirit of myself, returned the haunted man, in a low, trembling tone, my life is darkened by that incessant whisper. It is an echo, said the Phantom. If it be an echo of my thoughtsas now, indeed, I know it is, rejoined the haunted man, why should I, therefore, be tormented? It is not a selfish thought. I suffer it to range beyond myself. All men and women have their sorrows,most of them their wrongs; ingratitude, and sordid jealousy, and interest, besetting all degrees of life. Who would not forget their sorrows and their wrongs? Who would not, truly, and be happier and better for it? said the Phantom. These revolutions of years, which we commemorate, proceeded Redlaw, what do they recall! Are there any minds in which they do not reawaken some sorrow, or some trouble? What is the remembrance of the old man who was here tonight? A tissue of sorrow and trouble. But common natures, said the Phantom, with its evil smile upon its glassy face, unenlightened minds and ordinary spirits, do not feel or reason on these things like men of higher cultivation and profounder thought. Tempter, answered Redlaw, whose hollow look and voice I dread more than words can express, and from whom some dim foreshadowing of greater fear is stealing over me while I speak, I hear again an echo of my own mind. Receive it as a proof that I am powerful, returned the Ghost. Hear what I offer! Forget the sorrow, wrong, and trouble you have known! Forget them! he repeated. I have the power to cancel their remembranceto leave but very faint, confused traces of them, that will die out soon, returned the Spectre. Say! Is it done? Stay! cried the haunted man, arresting by a terrified gesture the uplifted hand. I tremble with distrust and doubt of you; and the dim fear you cast upon me deepens into a nameless horror I can hardly bear.I would not deprive myself of any kindly recollection, or any sympathy that is good for me, or others. What shall I lose, if I assent to this? What else will pass from my remembrance? No knowledge; no result of study; nothing but the intertwisted chain of feelings and associations, each in its turn dependent on, and nourished by, the banished recollections. Those will go. Are they so many? said the haunted man, reflecting in alarm. They have been wont to show themselves in the fire, in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night, in the revolving years, returned the Phantom scornfully. In nothing else? The Phantom held its peace. But having stood before him, silent, for a little while, it moved towards the fire; then stopped. Decide! it said, before the opportunity is lost! A moment! I call Heaven to witness, said the agitated man, that I have never been a hater of any kind,never morose, indifferent, or hard, to anything around me. If, living here alone, I have made too much of all that was and might have been, and too little of what is, the evil, I believe, has fallen on me, and not on others. But, if there were poison in my body, should I not, possessed of antidotes and knowledge how to use them, use them? If there be poison in my mind, and through this fearful shadow I can cast it out, shall I not cast it out? Say, said the Spectre, is it done? A moment longer! he answered hurriedly. I would forget it if I could! Have I thought that, alone, or has it been the thought of thousands upon thousands, generation after generation? All human memory is fraught with sorrow and trouble. My memory is as the memory of other men, but other men have not this choice. Yes, I close the bargain. Yes! I WILL forget my sorrow, wrong, and trouble! Say, said the Spectre, is it done? It is! It is. And take this with you, man whom I here renounce! The gift that I have given, you shall give again, go where you will. Without recovering yourself the power that you have yielded up, you shall henceforth destroy its like in all whom you approach. Your wisdom has discovered that the memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble is the lot of all mankind, and that mankind would be the happier, in its other memories, without it. Go! Be its benefactor! Freed from such remembrance, from this hour, carry involuntarily the blessing of such freedom with you. Its diffusion is inseparable and inalienable from you. Go! Be happy in the good you have won, and in the good you do! The Phantom, which had held its bloodless hand above him while it spoke, as if in some unholy invocation, or some ban; and which had gradually advanced its eyes so close to his, that he could see how they did not participate in the terrible smile upon its face, but were a fixed, unalterable, steady horror melted before him and was gone. As he stood rooted to the spot, possessed by fear and wonder, and imagining he heard repeated in melancholy echoes, dying away fainter and fainter, the words, Destroy its like in all whom you approach! a shrill cry reached his ears. It came, not from the passages beyond the door, but from another part of the old building, and sounded like the cry of some one in the dark who had lost the way. He looked confusedly upon his hands and limbs, as if to be assured of his identity, and then shouted in reply, loudly and wildly; for there was a strangeness and terror upon him, as if he too were lost. The cry responding, and being nearer, he caught up the lamp, and raised a heavy curtain in the wall, by which he was accustomed to pass into and out of the theatre where he lectured,which adjoined his room. Associated with youth and animation, and a high amphitheatre of faces which his entrance charmed to interest in a moment, it was a ghostly place when all this life was faded out of it, and stared upon him like an emblem of Death. Halloa! he cried. Halloa! This way! Come to the light! When, as he held the curtain with one hand, and with the other raised the lamp and tried to pierce the gloom that filled the place, something rushed past him into the room like a wildcat, and crouched down in a corner. What is it? he said, hastily. He might have asked What is it? even had he seen it well, as presently he did when he stood looking at it gathered up in its corner. A bundle of tatters, held together by a hand, in size and form almost an infants, but in its greedy, desperate little clutch, a bad old mans. A face rounded and smoothed by some halfdozen years, but pinched and twisted by the experiences of a life. Bright eyes, but not youthful. Naked feet, beautiful in their childish delicacy,ugly in the blood and dirt that cracked upon them. A baby savage, a young monster, a child who had never been a child, a creature who might live to take the outward form of man, but who, within, would live and perish a mere beast. Used, already, to be worried and hunted like a beast, the boy crouched down as he was looked at, and looked back again, and interposed his arm to ward off the expected blow. Ill bite, he said, if you hit me! The time had been, and not many minutes since, when such a sight as this would have wrung the Chemists heart. He looked upon it now, coldly; but with a heavy effort to remember somethinghe did not know whathe asked the boy what he did there, and whence he came. Wheres the woman? he replied. I want to find the woman. Who? The woman. Her that brought me here, and set me by the large fire. She was so long gone, that I went to look for her, and lost myself. I dont want you. I want the woman. He made a spring, so suddenly, to get away, that the dull sound of his naked feet upon the floor was near the curtain, when Redlaw caught him by his rags. Come! you let me go! muttered the boy, struggling, and clenching his teeth. Ive done nothing to you. Let me go, will you, to the woman! That is not the way. There is a nearer one, said Redlaw, detaining him, in the same blank effort to remember some association that ought, of right, to bear upon this monstrous object. What is your name? Got none. Where do you live? Live! Whats that? The boy shook his hair from his eyes to look at him for a moment, and then, twisting round his legs and wrestling with him, broke again into his repetition of You let me go, will you? I want to find the woman. The Chemist led him to the door. This way, he said, looking at him still confusedly, but with repugnance and avoidance, growing out of his coldness. Ill take you to her. The sharp eyes in the childs head, wandering round the room, lighted on the table where the remnants of the dinner were. Give me some of that! he said, covetously. Has she not fed you? I shall be hungry again tomorrow, shant I? Aint I hungry every day? Finding himself released, he bounded at the table like some small animal of prey, and hugging to his breast bread and meat, and his own rags, all together, said There! Now take me to the woman! As the Chemist, with a newborn dislike to touch him, sternly motioned him to follow, and was going out of the door, he trembled and stopped. The gift that I have given, you shall give again, go where you will! The Phantoms words were blowing in the wind, and the wind blew chill upon him. Ill not go there, tonight, he murmured faintly. Ill go nowhere tonight. Boy! straight down this longarched passage, and past the great dark door into the yard,you see the fire shining on the window there. The womans fire? inquired the boy. He nodded, and the naked feet had sprung away. He came back with his lamp, locked his door hastily, and sat down in his chair, covering his face like one who was frightened at himself. For now he was, indeed, alone. Alone, alone. Chapter 2. The Gift Diffused A small man sat in a small parlour, partitioned off from a small shop by a small screen, pasted all over with small scraps of newspapers. In company with the small man, was almost any amount of small children you may please to nameat least it seemed so; they made, in that very limited sphere of action, such an imposing effect, in point of numbers. Of these small fry, two had, by some strong machinery, been got into bed in a corner, where they might have reposed snugly enough in the sleep of innocence, but for a constitutional propensity to keep awake, and also to scuffle in and out of bed. The immediate occasion of these predatory dashes at the waking world, was the construction of an oystershell wall in a corner, by two other youths of tender age; on which fortification the two in bed made harassing descents (like those accursed Picts and Scots who beleaguer the early historical studies of most young Britons), and then withdrew to their own territory. In addition to the stir attendant on these inroads, and the retorts of the invaded, who pursued hotly, and made lunges at the bedclothes under which the marauders took refuge, another little boy, in another little bed, contributed his mite of confusion to the family stock, by casting his boots upon the waters; in other words, by launching these and several small objects, inoffensive in themselves, though of a hard substance considered as missiles, at the disturbers of his repose,who were not slow to return these compliments. Besides which, another little boythe biggest there, but still littlewas tottering to and fro, bent on one side, and considerably affected in his knees by the weight of a large baby, which he was supposed by a fiction that obtains sometimes in sanguine families, to be hushing to sleep. But oh! the inexhaustible regions of contemplation and watchfulness into which this babys eyes were then only beginning to compose themselves to stare, over his unconscious shoulder! It was a very Moloch of a baby, on whose insatiate altar the whole existence of this particular young brother was offered up a daily sacrifice. Its personality may be said to have consisted in its never being quiet, in any one place, for five consecutive minutes, and never going to sleep when required. Tetterbys baby was as well known in the neighbourhood as the postman or the potboy. It roved from doorstep to doorstep, in the arms of little Johnny Tetterby, and lagged heavily at the rear of troops of juveniles who followed the Tumblers or the Monkey, and came up, all on one side, a little too late for everything that was attractive, from Monday morning until Saturday night. Wherever childhood congregated to play, there was little Moloch making Johnny fag and toil. Wherever Johnny desired to stay, little Moloch became fractious, and would not remain. Whenever Johnny wanted to go out, Moloch was asleep, and must be watched. Whenever Johnny wanted to stay at home, Moloch was awake, and must be taken out. Yet Johnny was verily persuaded that it was a faultless baby, without its peer in the realm of England, and was quite content to catch meek glimpses of things in general from behind its skirts, or over its limp flapping bonnet, and to go staggering about with it like a very little porter with a very large parcel, which was not directed to anybody, and could never be delivered anywhere. The small man who sat in the small parlour, making fruitless attempts to read his newspaper peaceably in the midst of this disturbance, was the father of the family, and the chief of the firm described in the inscription over the little shop front, by the name and title of A. Tetterby and Co., Newsmen. Indeed, strictly speaking, he was the only personage answering to that designation, as Co. was a mere poetical abstraction, altogether baseless and impersonal. Tetterbys was the corner shop in Jerusalem Buildings. There was a good show of literature in the window, chiefly consisting of picturenewspapers out of date, and serial pirates, and footpads. Walkingsticks, likewise, and marbles, were included in the stock in trade. It had once extended into the light confectionery line; but it would seem that those elegancies of life were not in demand about Jerusalem Buildings, for nothing connected with that branch of commerce remained in the window, except a sort of small glass lantern containing a languishing mass of bullseyes, which had melted in the summer and congealed in the winter until all hope of ever getting them out, or of eating them without eating the lantern too, was gone for ever. Tetterbys had tried its hand at several things. It had once made a feeble little dart at the toy business; for, in another lantern, there was a heap of minute wax dolls, all sticking together upside down, in the direst confusion, with their feet on one anothers heads, and a precipitate of broken arms and legs at the bottom. It had made a move in the millinery direction, which a few dry, wiry bonnetshapes remained in a corner of the window to attest. It had fancied that a living might lie hidden in the tobacco trade, and had stuck up a representation of a native of each of the three integral portions of the British Empire, in the act of consuming that fragrant weed; with a poetic legend attached, importing that united in one cause they sat and joked, one chewed tobacco, one took snuff, one smoked but nothing seemed to have come of itexcept flies. Time had been when it had put a forlorn trust in imitative jewellery, for in one pane of glass there was a card of cheap seals, and another of pencilcases, and a mysterious black amulet of inscrutable intention, labelled ninepence. But, to that hour, Jerusalem Buildings had bought none of them. In short, Tetterbys had tried so hard to get a livelihood out of Jerusalem Buildings in one way or other, and appeared to have done so indifferently in all, that the best position in the firm was too evidently Co.s; Co., as a bodiless creation, being untroubled with the vulgar inconveniences of hunger and thirst, being chargeable neither to the poorsrates nor the assessed taxes, and having no young family to provide for. Tetterby himself, however, in his little parlour, as already mentioned, having the presence of a young family impressed upon his mind in a manner too clamorous to be disregarded, or to comport with the quiet perusal of a newspaper, laid down his paper, wheeled, in his distraction, a few times round the parlour, like an undecided carrierpigeon, made an ineffectual rush at one or two flying little figures in bedgowns that skimmed past him, and then, bearing suddenly down upon the only unoffending member of the family, boxed the ears of little Molochs nurse. You bad boy! said Mr. Tetterby, havent you any feeling for your poor father after the fatigues and anxieties of a hard winters day, since five oclock in the morning, but must you wither his rest, and corrode his latest intelligence, with your wicious tricks? Isnt it enough, sir, that your brother Dolphus is toiling and moiling in the fog and cold, and you rolling in the lap of luxury with awith a baby, and everything you can wish for, said Mr. Tetterby, heaping this up as a great climax of blessings, but must you make a wilderness of home, and maniacs of your parents? Must you, Johnny? Hey? At each interrogation, Mr. Tetterby made a feint of boxing his ears again, but thought better of it, and held his hand. Oh, father! whimpered Johnny, when I wasnt doing anything, Im sure, but taking such care of Sally, and getting her to sleep. Oh, father! I wish my little woman would come home! said Mr. Tetterby, relenting and repenting, I only wish my little woman would come home! I aint fit to deal with em. They make my head go round, and get the better of me. Oh, Johnny! Isnt it enough that your dear mother has provided you with that sweet sister? indicating Moloch; isnt it enough that you were seven boys before without a ray of gal, and that your dear mother went through what she did go through, on purpose that you might all of you have a little sister, but must you so behave yourself as to make my head swim? Softening more and more, as his own tender feelings and those of his injured son were worked on, Mr. Tetterby concluded by embracing him, and immediately breaking away to catch one of the real delinquents. A reasonably good start occurring, he succeeded, after a short but smart run, and some rather severe crosscountry work under and over the bedsteads, and in and out among the intricacies of the chairs, in capturing this infant, whom he condignly punished, and bore to bed. This example had a powerful, and apparently, mesmeric influence on him of the boots, who instantly fell into a deep sleep, though he had been, but a moment before, broad awake, and in the highest possible feather. Nor was it lost upon the two young architects, who retired to bed, in an adjoining closet, with great privacy and speed. The comrade of the Intercepted One also shrinking into his nest with similar discretion, Mr. Tetterby, when he paused for breath, found himself unexpectedly in a scene of peace. My little woman herself, said Mr. Tetterby, wiping his flushed face, could hardly have done it better! I only wish my little woman had had it to do, I do indeed! Mr. Tetterby sought upon his screen for a passage appropriate to be impressed upon his childrens minds on the occasion, and read the following. It is an undoubted fact that all remarkable men have had remarkable mothers, and have respected them in after life as their best friends. Think of your own remarkable mother, my boys, said Mr. Tetterby, and know her value while she is still among you! He sat down again in his chair by the fire, and composed himself, crosslegged, over his newspaper. Let anybody, I dont care who it is, get out of bed again, said Tetterby, as a general proclamation, delivered in a very softhearted manner, and astonishment will be the portion of that respected contemporary!which expression Mr. Tetterby selected from his screen. Johnny, my child, take care of your only sister, Sally; for shes the brightest gem that ever sparkled on your early brow. Johnny sat down on a little stool, and devotedly crushed himself beneath the weight of Moloch. Ah, what a gift that baby is to you, Johnny! said his father, and how thankful you ought to be! It is not generally known, Johnny, he was now referring to the screen again, but it is a fact ascertained, by accurate calculations, that the following immense percentage of babies never attain to two years old; that is to say Oh, dont, father, please! cried Johnny. I cant bear it, when I think of Sally. Mr. Tetterby desisting, Johnny, with a profound sense of his trust, wiped his eyes, and hushed his sister. Your brother Dolphus, said his father, poking the fire, is late tonight, Johnny, and will come home like a lump of ice. Whats got your precious mother? Heres mother, and Dolphus too, father! exclaimed Johnny, I think. Youre right! returned his father, listening. Yes, thats the footstep of my little woman. The process of induction, by which Mr. Tetterby had come to the conclusion that his wife was a little woman, was his own secret. She would have made two editions of himself, very easily. Considered as an individual, she was rather remarkable for being robust and portly; but considered with reference to her husband, her dimensions became magnificent. Nor did they assume a less imposing proportion, when studied with reference to the size of her seven sons, who were but diminutive. In the case of Sally, however, Mrs. Tetterby had asserted herself, at last; as nobody knew better than the victim Johnny, who weighed and measured that exacting idol every hour in the day. Mrs. Tetterby, who had been marketing, and carried a basket, threw back her bonnet and shawl, and sitting down, fatigued, commanded Johnny to bring his sweet charge to her straightway, for a kiss. Johnny having complied, and gone back to his stool, and again crushed himself, Master Adolphus Tetterby, who had by this time unwound his torso out of a prismatic comforter, apparently interminable, requested the same favour. Johnny having again complied, and again gone back to his stool, and again crushed himself, Mr. Tetterby, struck by a sudden thought, preferred the same claim on his own parental part. The satisfaction of this third desire completely exhausted the sacrifice, who had hardly breath enough left to get back to his stool, crush himself again, and pant at his relations. Whatever you do, Johnny, said Mrs. Tetterby, shaking her head, take care of her, or never look your mother in the face again. Nor your brother, said Adolphus. Nor your father, Johnny, added Mr. Tetterby. Johnny, much affected by this conditional renunciation of him, looked down at Molochs eyes to see that they were all right, so far, and skilfully patted her back (which was uppermost), and rocked her with his foot. Are you wet, Dolphus, my boy? said his father. Come and take my chair, and dry yourself. No, father, thankee, said Adolphus, smoothing himself down with his hands. I ant very wet, I dont think. Does my face shine much, father? Well, it does look waxy, my boy, returned Mr. Tetterby. Its the weather, father, said Adolphus, polishing his cheeks on the worn sleeve of his jacket. What with rain, and sleet, and wind, and snow, and fog, my face gets quite brought out into a rash sometimes. And shines, it doesoh, dont it, though! Master Adolphus was also in the newspaper line of life, being employed, by a more thriving firm than his father and Co., to vend newspapers at a railway station, where his chubby little person, like a shabbilydisguised Cupid, and his shrill little voice (he was not much more than ten years old), were as well known as the hoarse panting of the locomotives, running in and out. His juvenility might have been at some loss for a harmless outlet, in this early application to traffic, but for a fortunate discovery he made of a means of entertaining himself, and of dividing the long day into stages of interest, without neglecting business. This ingenious invention, remarkable, like many great discoveries, for its simplicity, consisted in varying the first vowel in the word paper, and substituting, in its stead, at different periods of the day, all the other vowels in grammatical succession.