The Familiar, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu [people reading books txt] 📗

CHAPTER VI

SEEN AGAIN

 

IT was not to be expected that Captain Barton’s changed and

eccentric habits should long escape remark and discussion.

Various were the theories suggested to account for it. Some

attributed the alteration to the pressure of secret

pecuniary embarrassments; others to a repugnance to fulfil

an engagement into which he was presumed to have too

precipitately entered; and others, again, to the supposed

incipiency of mental disease, which latter, indeed, was the

most plausible, as well as the most generally received, of

the hypotheses circulated in the gossip of the day.

 

From the very commencement of this change, at first so

gradual in its advances, Miss Montague had of course been

aware of it. The intimacy involved in their peculiar

relation, as well as the near interest which it inspired,

afforded, in her case, a like opportunity and motive for the

successful exercise of that keen and penetrating observation

peculiar to her sex.

 

His visits became, at length, so interrupted, and his

manner, while they lasted, so abstracted, strange, and

agitated, that Lady L–-, after hinting her anxiety and her

suspicions more than once, at length distinctly stated her

anxiety, and pressed for an explanation.

 

The explanation was given, and although its nature at

first relieved the worst solicitudes of the old lady and her

niece, yet the circumstances which attended it, and the

really dreadful consequences which it obviously indicated,

as regarded the spirits, and indeed the reason of the now

wretched man who made the strange declaration, were enough,

upon little reflection, to fill their minds with

perturbation and alarm.

 

General Montague, the young lady’s father, at length

arrived. He had himself slightly known Barton some ten or

twelve years previously and, being aware of his fortune and

connexions, was disposed to regard him as an unexceptionable

and indeed a most desirable match for his daughter. He

laughed at the story of Barton’s supernatural visitations,

and lost no time in calling upon his intended son-in-law.

 

“My dear Barton,” he continued, gaily, after a little

conversation, “my sister tells me that you are a victim to

blue devils, in quite a new and original shape.”

 

Barton changed countenance, and sighed profoundly.

 

“Come, come; I protest this will never do,” continued the

General; “you are more like a man on his way to the gallows

than to the altar. These devils have made quite a saint of

you.”

 

Barton made an effort to change the conversation.

 

“No, no, it won’t do,” said his visitor laughing; “I am

resolved to say what I have to say upon this magnificent

mock mystery of yours. You must not be angry, but really it

is too bad to see you at your time of life absolutely

frightened into good behaviour, like a naughty child, by a

bugaboo, and as far as I can learn a very contemptible one.

Seriously, I have been a good deal annoyed at what they tell

me; but at the same time thoroughly convinced that there is

nothing in the matter that may not be cleared up, with a

little attention and management, within a week at furthest.”

 

“Ah, General, you do not know –-” he began.

 

“Yes, but I do know quite enough to warrant my

confidence,” interrupted the soldier; “don’t I know that all

your annoyance proceeds from the occasional appearance of a

certain little man in a cap and greatcoat, with a red vest

and a bad face, who follows you about, and pops upon you at

corners of lanes, and throws you into ague fits. Now, my

dear fellow, I’ll make it my business to catch this

mischievous little mountebank, and either beat him to a

jelly with my own hands, or have him whipped through the

town, at the cart’s tail, before a month passes.”

 

“If you knew what I knew,” said Barton, with gloomy

agitation, “you would speak very differently. Don’t imagine

that I am so weak as to assume, without proof the most

overwhelming, the conclusion to which I have been

forced — the proofs are here, locked up here.” As he spoke

he tapped upon his breast, and with an anxious sigh

continued to walk up and down the room.

 

“Well, well, Barton,” said his visitor, “I’ll wager a rump

and a dozen I collar the ghost, and convince even you before

many days are over.”

 

He was running on in the same strain when he was suddenly

arrested, and not a little shocked, by observing Barton, who

had approached the window, stagger slowly back, like one who

had received a stunning blow; his arm extended toward the

street — his face and his very lips white as ashes — while he

muttered, “There — by heaven! — there — there!”

 

General Montague started mechanically to his feet, and

from the window of the drawing-room saw a figure

corresponding, as well as his hurry would permit him to

discern, with the description of the person whose appearance

so persistently disturbed the repose of his friend.

 

The figure was just turning from the rails of the area

upon which it had been leaning, and, without waiting to see

more, the old gentleman snatched his cane and hat, and

rushed down the stairs and into the street, in the furious

hope of securing the person, and punishing the audacity of

the mysterious stranger.

 

He looked round him, but in vain, for any trace of the

person he had himself distinctly seen. He ran breathlessly

to the nearest corner, expecting to see from thence the

retiring figure, but no such form was visible. Back and

forward, from crossing to crossing, he ran, at fault, and it

was not until the curious gaze and laughing countenances of

the passers-by reminded him of the absurdity of his pursuit,

that he checked his hurried pace, lowered his walking cane

from the menacing altitude which he had mechanically given

it, adjusted his hat, and walked composedly back again,

inwardly vexed and flurried. He found Barton pale and

trembling in every joint; they both remained silent, though

under emotions very different. At last Barton whispered,

“You saw it?”

 

“It — him — some one — you mean — to be sure I did,” replied

Montague, testily. “But where is the good or the harm of

seeing him? The fellow runs like a lamplighter. I wanted

to catch him, but he had stolen away before I could reach

the hall door. However, it is no great matter; next time, I

dare say, I’ll do better; and, egad, if I once come within

reach of him, I’ll introduce his shoulders to the weight of

my cane.”

 

Notwithstanding General Montague’s undertakings and

exhortations, however, Barton continued to suffer from the

self-same unexplained cause; go how, when, or where he

would, he was still constantly dogged or confronted by the

being who had established over him so horrible an influence.

 

Nowhere and at no time was he secure against the odious

appearance which haunted him with such diabolic

perseverance.

 

His depression, misery, and excitement became more settled

and alarming every day, and the mental agonies that

ceaselessly preyed upon him began at last so sensibly to

affect his health that Lady L–- and General Montague

succeeded, without, indeed, much difficulty, in persuading

him to try a short tour on the Continent, in the hope that

an entire change of scene would, at all events, have the

effect of breaking through the influences of local

association, which the more sceptical of his friends assumed

to be by no means inoperative in suggesting and perpetuating

what they conceived to be a mere form of nervous illusion.

 

General Montague indeed was persuaded that the figure

which haunted his intended son-in-law was by no means the

creation of his imagination, but, on the contrary, a

substantial form