Chapter 3

It was a beautiful day, and a crowd of idlers stood upon the jetty to
receive the packet, and enjoy the bustle of the new arrivals. Montague
walked a few paces in advance of his friend, and as he made his way
through the crowd, a little man touched his arm, and said to him, in a
broad provincial _patois_,--

"Monsieur is walking too fast; he will lose his sick comrade in the
throng, for, by my faith, the poor gentleman seems to be fainting."

Montague turned quickly, and observed that Barton did indeed look deadly
pale. He hastened to his side.

"My poor fellow, are you ill?" he asked anxiously.

The question was unheeded, and twice repeated, ere Barton stammered,--

"I saw him--by ----, I saw him!"

"_Him!_--who?--where?--when did you see him?--where is he?" cried
Montague, looking around him.

"I saw him--but he is gone," repeated Barton, faintly.

"But where--where? For God's sake, speak," urged Montague, vehemently.

"It is but this moment--_here_," said he.

"But what did he look like?--what had he on?--what did he wear?--quick,
quick," urged his excited companion, ready to dart among the crowd, and
collar the delinquent on the spot.

"He touched your arm--he spoke to you--he pointed to me. God be merciful
to me, there is no escape!" said Barton, in the low, subdued tones of
intense despair.

Montague had already bustled away in all the flurry of mingled hope and
indignation; but though the singular _personnel_ of the stranger who had
accosted him was vividly and perfectly impressed upon his recollection,
he failed to discover among the crowd even the slightest resemblance to
him. After a fruitless search, in which he enlisted the services of
several of the bystanders, who aided all the more zealously as they
believed he had been robbed, he at length, out of breath and baffled,
gave over the attempt.

"Ah, my friend, it won't do," said Barton, with the faint voice and
bewildered, ghastly look of one who has been stunned by some mortal
shock; "there is no use in contending with it; whatever it is, the
dreadful association between me and it is now established; I shall never
escape--never, never!"

"Nonsense, nonsense, my dear fellow; don't talk so," said Montague, with
something at once of irritation and dismay; "you must not; never mind, I
say--never mind, we'll jockey the scoundrel yet."

It was, however, but lost labour to endeavour henceforward to inspire
Barton with one ray of hope; he became utterly desponding. This
intangible and, as it seemed, utterly inadequate influence was fast
destroying his energies of intellect, character, and health. His first
object was now to return to Ireland, there, as he believed, and now
almost hoped, speedily to die.

To Ireland, accordingly, he came, and one of the first faces he saw upon
the shore was again that of his implacable and dreaded persecutor.
Barton seemed at last to have lost not only all enjoyment and every hope
in existence, but all independence of will besides. He now submitted
himself passively to the management of the friends most nearly
interested in his welfare. With the apathy of entire despair, he
implicitly assented to whatever measures they suggested and advised;
and, as a last resource, it was determined to remove him to a house of
Lady Rochdale's in the neighbourhood of Clontarf, where, with the advice
of his medical attendant (who persisted in his opinion that the whole
train of impressions resulted merely from some nervous derangement) it
was resolved that he was to confine himself strictly to the house, and
to make use only of those apartments which commanded a view of an
enclosed yard, the gates of which were to be kept jealously locked.
These precautions would at least secure him against the casual
appearance of any living form which his excited imagination might
possibly confound with the spectre which, as it was contended, his
fancy recognized in every figure that bore even a distant or general
resemblance to the traits with which he had at first invested it. A
month or six weeks' absolute seclusion under these conditions, it was
hoped, might, by interrupting the series of these terrible impressions,
gradually dispel the predisposing apprehension, and effectually break up
the associations which had confirmed the supposed disease, and rendered
recovery hopeless. Cheerful society and that of his friends was to be
constantly supplied, and on the whole, very sanguine expectations were
indulged in, that under this treatment the obstinate hypochondria of the
patient might at length give way.

Accompanied, therefore, by Lady Rochdale, General Montague, and his
daughter--his own affianced bride--poor Barton, himself never daring to
cherish a hope of his ultimate emancipation from the strange horrors
under which his life was literally wasting away, took possession of
the apartments whose situation protected him against the dreadful
intrusions from which he shrank with such unutterable terror.

After a little time, a steady persistence in this system began to
manifest its results in a very marked though gradual improvement alike
in the health and spirits of the invalid. Not, indeed, that anything
at all approaching to complete recovery was yet discernible. On the
contrary, to those who had not seen him since the commencement of his
strange sufferings, such an alteration would have been apparent as might
well have shocked them. The improvement, however, such as it was, was
welcomed with gratitude and delight, especially by the poor young lady,
whom her attachment to him, as well as her now singularly painful
position, consequent on his mysterious and protracted illness, rendered
an object of pity scarcely one degree less to be commiserated than
himself.

A week passed--a fortnight--a month--and yet no recurrence of the hated
visitation had agitated and terrified him as before. The treatment had,
so far, been followed by complete success. The chain of association had
been broken. The constant pressure upon the overtasked spirits had been
removed, and, under these comparatively favourable circumstances, the
sense of social community with the world about him, and something of
human interest, if not of enjoyment, began to reanimate his mind.

It was about this time that Lady Rochdale, who, like most old ladies of
the day, was deep in family receipts, and a great pretender to medical
science, being engaged in the concoction of certain unpalatable mixtures
of marvellous virtue, despatched her own maid to the kitchen garden with
a list of herbs which were there to be carefully culled and brought back
to her for the purpose stated. The hand-maiden, however, returned with
her task scarce half-completed, and a good deal flurried and alarmed.
Her mode of accounting for her precipitate retreat and evident agitation
was odd, and to the old lady unpleasantly startling.

It appeared that she had repaired to the kitchen garden, pursuant to
her mistress's directions, and had there begun to make the specified
selection among the rank and neglected herbs which crowded one corner of
the enclosure, and while engaged in this pleasant labour she carelessly
sang a fragment of an old song, as she said, "to keep herself company."
She was, however, interrupted by a sort of mocking echo of the air she
was singing; and looking up, she saw through the old thorn hedge, which
surrounded the garden, a singularly ill-looking, little man, whose
countenance wore the stamp of menace and malignity, standing close to
her at the other side of the hawthorn screen. She described herself as
utterly unable to move or speak, while he charged her with a message for
Captain Barton, the substance of which she distinctly remembered to have
been to the effect that he, Captain Barton, must come abroad as usual,
and show himself to his friends out of doors, or else prepare for a
visit in his own chamber. On concluding this brief message, the stranger
had, with a threatening air, got down into the outer ditch, and seizing
the hawthorn stems in his hands, seemed on the point of climbing through
the fence, a feat which might have been accomplished without much
difficulty. Without, of course, awaiting this result, the girl, throwing
down her treasures of thyme and rosemary, had turned and run, with the
swiftness of terror, to the house. Lady Rochdale commanded her, on pain
of instant dismissal, to observe an absolute silence respecting all that
portion of the incident which related to Captain Barton; and, at the
same time, directed instant search to be made by her men in the garden
and fields adjacent. This measure, however, was attended with the usual
unsuccess, and filled with fearful and indefinable misgivings, Lady
Rochdale communicated the incident to her brother. The story, however,
until long afterwards, went no further, and of course it was jealously
guarded from Barton, who continued to mend, though slowly and
imperfectly.

Barton now began to walk occasionally in the courtyard which we have
mentioned, and which, being surrounded by a high wall, commanded no view
beyond its own extent. Here he, therefore, considered himself perfectly
secure; and, but for a careless violation of orders by one of the
grooms, he might have enjoyed, at least for some time longer, his
much-prized immunity. Opening upon the public road, this yard was
entered by a wooden gate, with a wicket in it, which was further
defended by an iron gate upon the outside. Strict orders had been given
to keep them carefully locked; but, in spite of these, it had happened
that one day, as Barton was slowly pacing this narrow enclosure, in his
accustomed walk, and reaching the further extremity, was turning to
retrace his steps, he saw the boarded wicket ajar, and the face of his
tormentor immovably looking at him through the iron bars. For a few
seconds he stood riveted to the earth, breathless and bloodless, in the
fascination of that dreaded gaze, and then fell helplessly upon the
pavement.

There was he found a few minutes afterwards, and conveyed to his
room, the apartment which he was never afterwards to leave alive.
Henceforward, a marked and unaccountable change was observable in the
tone of his mind. Captain Barton was now no longer the excited and
despairing man he had been before; a strange alteration had passed upon
him, an unearthly tranquillity reigned in his mind; it was the
anticipated stillness of the grave.

"Montague, my friend, this struggle is nearly ended now," he said,
tranquilly, but with a look of fixed and fearful awe. "I have, at last,
some comfort from that world of spirits, from which my _punishment_ has
come. I know now that my sufferings will be soon over."

Montague pressed him to speak on.

"Yes," said he, in a softened voice, "my punishment is nearly ended.
From sorrow perhaps I shall never, in time or eternity, escape; but
my _agony_ is almost over. Comfort has been revealed to me, and what
remains of my allotted struggle I will bear with submission, even with
hope."

"I am glad to hear you speak so tranquilly, my dear fellow," said
Montague; "peace and cheerfulness of mind are all you need to make you
what you were."

"No, no, I never can be that," said he, mournfully. "I am no longer fit
for life. I am soon to die: I do not shrink from death as I did. I am to
see _him_ but once again, and then all is ended."

"He said so, then?" suggested Montague.

"_He?_ No, no; good tidings could scarcely come through him; and these
were good and welcome; and they came so solemnly and sweetly, with
unutterable love and melancholy, such as I could not, without saying
more than is needful or fitting, of other long-past scenes and persons,
fully explain to you." As Barton said this he shed tears.

"Come, come," said Montague, mistaking the source of his emotions, "you
must not give way. What is it, after all, but a pack of dreams and
nonsense; or, at worst, the practices of a scheming rascal that enjoys
his power of playing upon your nerves, and loves to exert it; a sneaking
vagabond that owes you a grudge, and pays it off this way, not daring to
try a more manly one."

"A grudge, indeed, he owes me; you say rightly," said Barton, with a
sullen shudder; "a grudge as you call it. Oh, God! when the justice of
heaven permits the Evil One to carry out a scheme of vengeance, when
its execution is committed to the lost and frightful victim of sin, who
owes his own ruin to the man, the very man, whom he is commissioned to
pursue; then, indeed, the torments and terrors of hell are anticipated
on earth. But heaven has dealt mercifully with me: hope has opened to me
at last; and if death could come without the dreadful sight I am doomed
to see, I would gladly close my eyes this moment upon the world. But
though death is welcome, I shrink with an agony you cannot understand;
a maddening agony, an actual frenzy of terror, from the last encounter
with that--that DEMON, who has drawn me thus to the verge of the chasm,
and who is himself to plunge me down. I am to see him again, once more,
but under circumstances unutterably more terrific than ever."

As Barton thus spoke, he trembled so violently that Montague was really
alarmed at the extremity of his sudden agitation, and hastened to lead
him back to the topic which had before seemed to exert so tranquillizing
an effect upon his mind.

"It was not a dream," he said, after a time; "I was in a different
state, I felt differently and strangely; and yet it was all as real, as
clear and vivid, as what I now see and hear; it was a reality."

"And what _did_ you see and hear?" urged his companion.

"When I awakened from the swoon I fell into on seeing _him_," said
Barton, continuing, as if he had not heard the question, "it was slowly,
very slowly; I was reclining by the margin of a broad lake, surrounded
by misty hills, and a soft, melancholy, rose-coloured light illuminated
it all. It was indescribably sad and lonely, and yet more beautiful than
any earthly scene. My head was leaning on the lap of a girl, and she was
singing a strange and wondrous song, that told, I know not how, whether
by words or harmony, of all my life, all that is past, and all that is
still to come. And with the song the old feelings that I thought had
perished within me came back, and tears flowed from my eyes, partly
for the song and its mysterious beauty, and partly for the unearthly
sweetness of her voice; yet I know the voice, oh! how well; and I was
spell-bound as I listened and looked at the strange and solitary scene,
without stirring, almost without breathing, and, alas! alas! without
turning my eyes toward the face that I knew was near me, so sweetly
powerful was the enchantment that held me. And so, slowly and softly,
the song and scene grew fainter, and ever fainter, to my senses, till
all was dark and still again. And then I wakened to this world, as you
saw, comforted, for I knew that I was forgiven much." Barton wept again
long and bitterly.

From this time, as we have said, the prevailing tone of his mind was one
of profound and tranquil melancholy. This, however, was not without its
interruptions. He was thoroughly impressed with the conviction that
he was to experience another and a final visitation, illimitably
transcending in horror all he had before experienced. From this
anticipated and unknown agony he often shrunk in such paroxysms of
abject terror and distraction, as filled the whole household with dismay
and superstitious panic. Even those among them who affected to discredit
the supposition of preternatural agency in the matter, were often in
their secret souls visited during the darkness and solitude of night
with qualms and apprehensions which they would not have readily
confessed; and none of them attempted to dissuade Barton from the
resolution on which he now systematically acted, of shutting himself up
in his own apartment. The window-blinds of this room were kept jealously
down; and his own man was seldom out of his presence, day or night, his
bed being placed in the same chamber.

This man was an attached and respectable servant; and his duties, in
addition to those ordinarily imposed upon _valets_, but which Barton's
independent habits generally dispensed with, were to attend carefully
to the simple precautions by means of which his master hoped to exclude
the dreaded intrusion of the "Watcher," as the strange letter he had
at first received had designated his persecutor. And, in addition to
attending to these arrangements, which consisted merely in anticipating
the possibility of his master's being, through any unscreened window
or opened door, exposed to the dreaded influence, the valet was never
to suffer him to be for one moment alone: total solitude, even for a
minute, had become to him now almost as intolerable as the idea of going
abroad into the public ways; it was an instinctive anticipation of what
was coming.

It is needless to say, that, under these mysterious and horrible
circumstances, no steps were taken toward the fulfilment of that
engagement into which he had entered. There was quite disparity enough
in point of years, and indeed of habits, between the young lady and
Captain Barton, to have precluded anything like very vehement or
romantic attachment on her part. Though grieved and anxious, therefore,
she was very far from being heart-broken; a circumstance which, for the
sentimental purposes of our tale, is much to be deplored. But truth must
be told, especially in a narrative whose chief, if not only, pretensions
to interest consist in a rigid adherence to facts, or what are so
reported to have been.

Miss Montague, nevertheless, devoted much of her time to a patient but
fruitless attempt to cheer the unhappy invalid. She read for him, and
conversed with him; but it was apparent that whatever exertions he made,
the endeavour to escape from the one constant and ever-present fear that
preyed upon him was utterly and miserably unavailing.

Young ladies, as all the world knows, are much given to the cultivation
of pets; and among those who shared the favour of Miss Montague was a
fine old owl, which the gardener, who caught him napping among the ivy
of a ruined stable, had dutifully presented to that young lady.

The caprice which regulates such preferences was manifested in the
extravagant favour with which this grim and ill-favoured bird was at
once distinguished by his mistress; and, trifling as this whimsical
circumstance may seem, I am forced to mention it, inasmuch as it is
connected, oddly enough, with the concluding scene of the story.
Barton, so far from sharing in this liking for the new favourite,
regarded it from the first with an antipathy as violent as it was
utterly unaccountable. Its very vicinity was insupportable to him. He
seemed to hate and dread it with a vehemence absolutely laughable, and
to those who have never witnessed the exhibition of antipathies of
this kind, his dread would seem all but incredible.

With these few words of preliminary explanation, I shall proceed to
state the particulars of the last scene in this strange series of
incidents. It was almost two o'clock one winter's night, and Barton
was, as usual at that hour, in his bed; the servant we have mentioned
occupied a smaller bed in the same room, and a candle was burning. The
man was on a sudden aroused by his master, who said,--

"I can't get it out of my head that that accursed bird has escaped
somehow, and is lurking in some corner of the room. I have been dreaming
of him. Get up, Smith, and look about; search for him. Such hateful
dreams!"

The servant rose, and examined the chamber, and while engaged in so
doing, he heard the well-known sound, more like a long-drawn gasp than a
hiss, with which these birds from their secret haunts affright the quiet
of the night. This ghostly indication of its proximity, for the sound
proceeded from the passage upon which Barton's chamber-door opened,
determined the search of the servant, who, opening the door, proceeded a
step or two forward for the purpose of driving the bird away. He had,
however, hardly entered the lobby, when the door behind him slowly swung
to under the impulse, as it seemed, of some gentle current of air; but
as immediately over the door there was a kind of window, intended in the
daytime to aid in lighting the passage, and through which the rays of
the candle were then issuing, the valet could see quite enough for
his purpose. As he advanced he heard his master (who, lying in a
well-curtained bed had not, as it seemed, perceived his exit from the
room) call him by name, and direct him to place the candle on the table
by his bed. The servant, who was now some way in the long passage, did
not like to raise his voice for the purpose of replying, lest he should
startle the sleeping inmates of the house, began to walk hurriedly and
softly back again, when, to his amazement, he heard a voice in the
interior of the chamber answering calmly, and the man actually saw,
through the window which over-topped the door, that the light was slowly
shifting, as if carried across the chamber in answer to his master's
call. Palsied by a feeling akin to terror, yet not unmingled with a
horrible curiosity, he stood breathless and listening at the threshold,
unable to summon resolution to push open the door and enter. Then came
a rustling of the curtains, and a sound like that of one who in a low
voice hushes a child to rest, in the midst of which he heard Barton say,
in a tone of stifled horror--"Oh, God--oh, my God!" and repeat the same
exclamation several times. Then ensued a silence, which again was broken
by the same strange soothing sound; and at last there burst forth, in
one swelling peal, a yell of agony so appalling and hideous, that, under
some impulse of ungovernable horror, the man rushed to the door, and
with his whole strength strove to force it open. Whether it was that, in
his agitation, he had himself but imperfectly turned the handle, or that
the door was really secured upon the inside, he failed to effect an
entrance; and as he tugged and pushed, yell after yell rang louder and
wilder through the chamber, accompanied all the while by the same
hushing sounds. Actually freezing with terror, and scarce knowing what
he did, the man turned and ran down the passage, wringing his hands in
the extremity of horror and irresolution. At the stair-head he was
encountered by General Montague, scared and eager, and just as they met
the fearful sounds had ceased.

"What is it?--who--where is your master?" said Montague, with the
incoherence of extreme agitation. "Has anything--for God's sake, is
anything wrong?"

"Lord have mercy on us, it's all over," said the man, staring wildly
towards his master's chamber. "He's dead, sir; I'm sure he's dead."

Without waiting for inquiry or explanation, Montague, closely followed
by the servant, hurried to the chamber-door, turned the handle, and
pushed it open. As the door yielded to his pressure, the ill-omened bird
of which the servant had been in search, uttering its spectral warning,
started suddenly from the far side of the bed, and flying through the
doorway close over their heads, and extinguishing, in its passage, the
candle which Montague carried, crashed through the skylight that
overlooked the lobby, and sailed away into the darkness of the outer
space.

"There it is, God bless us!" whispered the man, after a breathless
pause.

"Curse that bird!" muttered the general, startled by the suddenness of
the apparition, and unable to conceal his discomposure.

"The candle was moved," said the man, after another breathless pause;
"see, they put it by the bed!"

"Draw the curtains, fellow, and don't stand gaping there," whispered
Montague, sternly.

The man hesitated.

"Hold this, then," said Montague, impatiently, thrusting the candlestick
into the servant's hand; and himself advancing to the bedside, he drew
the curtains apart. The light of the candle, which was still burning at
the bedside, fell upon a figure huddled together, and half upright, at
the head of the bed. It seemed as though it had shrunk back as far as
the solid panelling would allow, and the hands were still clutched in
the bed-clothes.

"Barton, Barton, Barton!" cried the general, with a strange mixture of
awe and vehemence.

He took the candle, and held it so that it shone full upon his face.
The features were fixed, stern and white; the jaw was fallen, and the
sightless eyes, still open, gazed vacantly forward toward the front of
the bed.

"God Almighty, he's dead!" muttered the general, as he looked upon this
fearful spectacle. They both continued to gaze upon it in silence for a
minute or more. "And cold, too," said Montague, withdrawing his hand
from that of the dead man.

"And see, see; may I never have life, sir," added the man, after another
pause, with a shudder, "but there was something else on the bed with
him! Look there--look there; see that, sir!"

As the man thus spoke, he pointed to a deep indenture, as if caused by a
heavy pressure, near the foot of the bed.

Montague was silent.

"Come, sir, come away, for God's sake!" whispered the man, drawing close
up to him, and holding fast by his arm, while he glanced fearfully
round; "what good can be done here now?--come away, for God's sake!"

At this moment they heard the steps of more than one approaching, and
Montague, hastily desiring the servant to arrest their progress,
endeavoured to loose the rigid grip with which the fingers of the dead
man were clutched in the bed-clothes, and drew, as well as he was able,
the awful figure into a reclining posture. Then closing the curtains
carefully upon it, he hastened himself to meet those who were
approaching.

* * * * *

It is needless to follow the personages so slightly connected with this
narrative into the events of their after lives; it is enough for us to
remark that no clue to the solution of these mysterious occurrences was
ever afterwards discovered; and so long an interval having now passed,
it is scarcely to be expected that time can throw any new light upon
their inexplicable obscurity. Until the secrets of the earth shall be no
longer hidden these transactions must remain shrouded in mystery.

The only occurrence in Captain Barton's former life to which reference
was ever made, as having any possible connection with the sufferings
with which his existence closed, and which he himself seemed to regard
as working out a retribution for some grievous sin of his past life, was
a circumstance which not for several years after his death was brought
to light. The nature of this disclosure was painful to his relatives and
discreditable to his memory.

It appeared, then, that some eight years before Captain Barton's final
return to Dublin, he had formed, in the town of Plymouth, a guilty
attachment, the object of which was the daughter of one of the ship's
crew under his command. The father had visited the frailty of his
unhappy child with extreme harshness, and even brutality, and it was
said that she had died heart-broken. Presuming upon Barton's implication
in her guilt, this man had conducted himself towards him with marked
insolence, and Barton resented this--and what he resented with still
more exasperated bitterness, his treatment of the unfortunate girl--by
a systematic exercise of those terrible and arbitrary severities with
which the regulations of the navy arm those who are responsible for its
discipline. The man had at length made his escape, while the vessel was
in port at Lisbon, but died, as it was said, in an hospital in that
town, of the wounds inflicted in one of his recent and sanguinary
punishments.

Whether these circumstances in reality bear or not upon the occurrences
of Barton's after-life, it is of course impossible to say. It seems,
however, more than probable that they were, at least in his own mind,
closely associated with them. But however the truth may be as to the
origin and motives of this mysterious persecution, there can be no
doubt that, with respect to the agencies by which it was accomplished,
absolute and impenetrable mystery is like to prevail until the day of
doom.

Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess.

The following paper is written in a female hand, and was no doubt
communicated to my much regretted friend by the lady whose early history
it serves to illustrate, the Countess D----. She is no more--she long
since died, a childless and a widowed wife, and, as her letter sadly
predicts, none survive to whom the publication of this narrative can
prove "injurious, or even painful." Strange! two powerful and wealthy
families, that in which she was born, and that into which she had
married, are utterly extinct.

To those who know anything of the history of Irish families, as they
were less than a century ago, the facts which immediately follow will
at once suggest the names of the principal actors; and to others
their publication would be useless--to us, possibly, if not probably
injurious. I have therefore altered such of the names as might, if
stated, get us into difficulty; others, belonging to minor characters in
the strange story, I have left untouched.