Part 18 (1/2)
”'Mr. Feversham, for the love of the Holy Virgin do not leave me! I have seen that which I cannot look upon and live.'
”I soothed her as best I might, and at last persuaded her to allow me to leave her with her own maid in order to visit my other patient, promising to return shortly.
”I found no change whatever in Miss Collingham. Sir James was in the room trying to establish some degree of calmness and order among the terrified women. We succeeded in persuading most of them to take a restorative and return to bed, and leaving two of the most self-possessed to watch beside Miss Collingham, who was still completely insensible, we went together to Miss Patricia's room.
”'Brother, I have seen her!' she exclaimed on Sir James' entrance.
”'Seen who, my dear Patricia?'
”'The pale lady-the spectre of our house,' she replied, shuddering from head to foot. 'She pa.s.sed through the room, her hand upraised, and the blood-spots on her garment. Oh, James! my time is come, and Father O'Connor is not here.'
”Sir James did not attempt to combat his sister's superst.i.tious terrors, but appeared, on the contrary, almost as deeply impressed as herself, and questioned her closely about the apparition. Her answers led to some mention of the strange vision which Miss Collingham was describing in her trance just before the scream was heard. At Sir James' request I put down in writing, as nearly as I could remember, all she had said, and so great was the impression it made on my mind that I believe I recalled her very words. Knowing all we did of her abnormal condition while in a state of trance, it was impossible not to fear that she might have been describing a scene that was actually occurring at the time; and Sir James determined to send out a party, as soon as daylight came, on the road by which Don Luis must arrive.
”The morning dawned brightly, with a keen frost, and several men were sent off along the road to -- with the first rays of light.
”Some hours afterward Father O'Connor arrived, having made his way with considerable difficulty across the hill. Miss Patricia claimed his first attention, for my unhappy charge remained senseless and motionless as ever.
”After a long conference, he came to me with grave looks.
”'She is at the window this day,' he said, shaking his head sorrowfully, when I had told him my share of the last night's singular experiences.
'The pale lady is there; I saw her as I came by the bridge as plainly as now I see you. We shall have evil tidings of that poor lad before nightfall, or I am strangely mistaken.'
”Evil tidings indeed they were that reached us on the return of some of the exploring-party. They were first attracted from following as nearly as they could the line of road, blocked as it was with drifts of snow by hearing the howling of a dog at some little distance, in the direction of the precipitous ravine which went by the name of 'Armstrong's Clough.' Following the sound, they came upon traces of wheels in the hill-side, where no carriage could have gone had it not been for the deep snow which concealed and smoothed away the inequalities of the ground. These marks were traced here and there till they led to the verge of the precipice, where a struggle had evidently taken place, and ma.s.ses of snow had been dislodged and fallen into the ravine.
”Looking below, the only thing they could see in the waste of snow was a little dog, who was known to be in the habit of running with the post-horses from --, which was sc.r.a.ping wildly in the snow and filling the air with its dismal howlings. A considerable circuit had to be made before the bottom of the clough could be reached, and then the whole tragedy was revealed. There lay the broken carriage, the dead horses, and two stiffened corpses under the snow, that had drifted over and around them.
”I need not pursue the melancholy story; I was an old fool for telling it to you,” said the Doctor.
”But Miss Collingham-what became of her?” asked an eager listener.
”Well, she did not recover,” answered the Doctor with a slight trembling in his voice. ”It was a sad matter altogether; and within a short time she lay beside her betrothed in the family vault below the chapel. Sir James broke up his establishment and went abroad, and I never saw any of the family again.”
”And what did you do, Doctor?”
”I went to London, to seek my fortune as best I might; and I hope you may all prosper as well, my young friends.”
”And is it all really true?” asked Amy, who had listened with breathless attention.
”That is the worst of it; it really is,” said the Doctor.
THE SECRET OF THE TWO PLASTER CASTS.
Years before the accession of her Majesty Queen Victoria, and yet at not so remote a date as to be utterly beyond the period to which the reminiscences of our middle-aged readers extend, it happened that two English gentlemen sat at table on a summer's evening, after dinner, quietly sipping their wine and engaged in desultory conversation. They were both men known to fame. One of them was a sculptor whose statues adorned the palaces of princes, and whose chiselled busts were the pride of half the n.o.bility of his nation; the other was no less renowned as an anatomist and surgeon. The age of the anatomist might have been guessed at fifty, but the guess would have erred on the side of youth by at least ten years. That of the sculptor could scarcely be more than five-and-thirty. A bust of the anatomist, so admirably executed as to present, although in stone, the perfect similitude of life and flesh, stood upon a pedestal opposite to the table at which sat the pair, and at once explained at least one connecting-link of companions.h.i.+p between them. The anatomist was exhibiting for the criticism of his friend a rare gem which he had just drawn from his cabinet: it was a crucifix magnificently carved in ivory, and incased in a setting of pure gold.
”The carving, my dear sir,” observed Mr. Fiddyes, the sculptor, ”is indeed, as you say, exquisite. The muscles are admirably made out, the flesh well modelled, wonderfully so for the size and material; and yet-by the bye, on this point you must know more than I-the more I think upon the matter, the more I regard the artistic conception as utterly false and wrong.”
”You speak in a riddle,” replied Dr. Carnell; ”but pray go on, and explain.”