Part 8

A templar and a friend of mine, Mr. David Lauder, a soft, fat, good-humoured, superstitious young fellow, was sitting in his lodgings, (Devereux-court, London,) one evening at twilight. I was with him, and we were agreeably employed in eating strawberries and drinking Madeira. While chatting away in cheerful mood, and laughing loudly at some remark made by one of us, my back being toward the door, I perceived my friend’s colour suddenly change—his eyes seemed fixed and ready to start out of his head—his lips quivered convulsively—his teeth chattered—large drops of perspiration flowed down his forehead, and his hair stood nearly erect.

As I saw nothing calculated to excite these emotions, I naturally conceived my friend was seized with a fit, and rose to assist him. He did not regard my movements in the least, but seizing a knife which lay on the table, with the gait of a palsied man retreated backward—his eyes still fixed—to a distant part of the room, where he stood shivering, and attempting to pray; but not at the moment _recollecting_ any prayer, he began to repeat his _catechism_, thinking it the _next best_ thing he could do: as—“What is your name? David Lauder! Who gave you that name? My godfathers and godmothers in my baptism!” &c. &c.

I instantly concluded the man was mad; and turning about to go for some assistance, was myself not a little startled at sight of a tall, rough-looking personage, many days unshaved, in a very shabby black dress, and altogether of the most uncouth appearance. The stranger and I stood for a moment opposite each other, staring and motionless: at length he broke silence, and addressing my friend, said, in a low croaking voice, “_Don’t be frightened_, Mr. Lauder; sure ’tis _me_ that’s here.”

When Davy heard the voice, he fell on his knees, and subsequently flat upon his face, in which position he lay motionless.

The spectre (as I now began to imagine it was) stalked toward the door, and I was in hopes he intended to make his _exit_ thereby; instead of which, however, having deliberately shut and _bolted it_, he sat himself down in the chair I had previously occupied, with a countenance nearly as full of _horror_ as that of Davy Lauder himself.

I was now totally bewildered; and scarce knowing what to do, was about to throw a jug of water over my friend, to revive him if possible, when the stranger, in his croaking voice, cried—

“For the love of God, give me some of that,—for I am perishing!”—I hesitated, but at length did so: he took the jug and drank immoderately.

My friend Davy now ventured to look up a little, and perceiving that I was becoming so familiar with the goblin, his courage somewhat revived, although his speech was still confused:—he stammered, rose upon his knees, held up his hands as if in supplication, and gazed at the figure for some time, but at length made up his mind that it was tangible and mortal. The effect of this decision on the face of Davy was as ludicrous as the fright had been. He seemed quite ashamed of his former terror, and affected to be stout as a lion! though it was visible that he was not at his ease. He now roared out in the broad, cursing Kerry dialect: “Why then, blood and thunder! is that you, Lanegan?”

“Ah, Sir, speak low!” said the wretched being.

“How the devil,” resumed Davy, “did you get your four quarters stitched together again, after the hangman cut them off of you at Stephen’s Green!”

“Ah, Gentlemen!” exclaimed the poor culprit, “speak low: have mercy on me, Master Davy; you know it was I taught you your Latin.—I’m starving to death!”

“You shall not die in _that_ way, you villanous schoolmaster!” said Davy, pushing toward him a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine that stood on the table,—but standing aloof himself, as though not yet quite decided as to the _nature_ of the intruder.

The miserable creature having eaten the bread with avidity, and drunk two or three glasses of wine, the lamp of life once more seemed to brighten up. After a pause, he communicated every circumstance relating to his sudden appearance before us. He confessed having bought the arsenic at the desire of Mrs. O’Flaherty, and that he was aware of the application of it, but solemnly protested that it was _she_ who had seduced _him_; he then proceeded to inform us that after having been duly hanged, the sheriff had delivered his body to his mother, but not until the executioner had given a slight cut on each limb, just to _save the law_; which cuts bled profusely, and were probably the means of preserving his life. His mother, conceiving that the vital spark was not extinct, had put him into bed, dressed his wounded limbs, and rubbed his neck with hot vinegar. Having steadily pursued this process, and accompanied it by pouring warm brandy and water down his throat, in the course of an hour he was quite sensible, but experienced horrid pains for several weeks before his final recovery. His mother filled the coffin he was brought home in with bricks, and got some men to bury it the same night in Kilmainham burial-ground, as if ashamed to inter him in open day. For a long time he was unable to depart, being every moment in dread of discovery:—at length, however, he got off by night in a smuggling boat, which landed him on the Isle of Man, and from thence he contrived to reach London, bearing a letter from a priest at Kerry to another priest who had lived in the Borough, the purport of which was to get him admitted into a monastery in France. But finding the Southwark priest was dead, he then went to Scotland, using various disguises; and returning to town, was afraid, though possessing some little money sent him by his mother, even to buy food, for fear of detection! but recollecting that Mr. Lauder, his old scholar, lived somewhere in the Temple, he had got directed by a porter to the lodging the night before.

My friend Davy, though he did not half like it, suffered this poor devil to sit in the chamber till the following evening. He then procured him a place in the night coach to Rye, from whence he got to St. Vallery, and was received, as I afterward learnt from a very grateful letter which he sent to Lauder, into the monastery of La Trappe, near Abbeville, where he lived in strict seclusion, and died, as I heard, some years since.

This incident is not related as a mere isolated anecdote, unconnected with any serious general considerations; but rather with a view to show how many deceptions a man’s imagination may hastily subject him to; and to impress the consideration that nothing should be regarded as supernatural, which can by _possibility_ be the result of human interference.

In the present case, if Lanegan had withdrawn before Lauder had arisen and spoken to him, no reasoning upon earth could ever have convinced the Templar of the materiality of the vision. As Lanegan’s restoration to life after execution had not at that time been spoken of, nor even suspected, Lauder would have willingly deposed, upon the Holy Evangelists, that he had seen the _actual ghost_ of the schoolmaster who had been hanged and quartered in Dublin a considerable time before; his identification of the man’s person being rendered unequivocal from the circumstance of his having been formerly Lanegan’s pupil. And I must confess that I should myself have seen no reason to doubt Lauder’s assertions, had the man withdrawn from the chamber before he spoke to me—to do which, under the circumstances, it was by no means improbable fear might have induced him.

Thus one of the “best authenticated ghost stories ever related” has been lost to the history of supernatural occurrences. The circumstance, however, did not cure Davy Lauder in the least of his dread of apparitions, which was excessive.

Nor have I much right to reproach my friend’s weakness in this particular. I have, on the other hand, throughout my observations admitted—nay, I fear, occasionally boasted—that I was myself _superstitious_. The species of reading I adopted and ardently pursued from my infancy upward may, I admit, have impressed my mind indelibly; and the consciousness of this fact should have served to render me rather _sceptical_ than _credulous_ upon any subject that bore a mysterious character.

My relations, whilst I was a boy, took it into their heads that I was a decided coward in this way, which though I in round terms denied, I freely admitted at the same time my coyness with regard to trying any unnecessary experiments or making any superstitious invocations, particularly on _Allhallow-eve_,[28] or other mysterious days, whereupon a sort of bastard witchcraft is always practised in Ireland.

Footnote 28:

The pranks formerly played in Ireland on _Allhallow-eve_, were innumerable. The _devil_ was supposed to be at large on that night, and permitted to make what prey he could among the human species, by bringing them together. His principal occupation was therefore thought to be match-making, and it was whispered that he got more subjects, and set more Christians by the ears, through the sacrament of matrimony, than all his other schemes put together. Matches were then frequently made by burning nuts, turning shifts, &c.

Hence I was universally ridiculed on those anniversaries for my timidity; and, one Allhallow-eve, my father proposed to have a prayer-book, with a £5 bank-note in it, left on a certain tomb-stone in an old catholic burial-ground quite apart from any road, and covered with trees. It was two or three fields’ distance from the dwelling-house; and the proposal was, that if I would go there at twelve o’clock at night, and bring back the book and a dead man’s bone, (many of which latter were scattered about the cemetery,) the note should be mine; and, as an additional encouragement, I was never after to be charged with cowardice. My pride took fire, and I determined, even though I might burst a blood-vessel through agitation, or break my neck in running home again, I would perform the feat, and put an end to the imputation.

The matter therefore was fully arranged. The night proved very dark; the path was intricate, but I was accustomed to it. There were two or three stiles to be crossed; and the Irish always conceive that if a ghost is any where in the neighbourhood, he invariably chooses a stile at which to waylay the passengers.

However, at the appointed hour I set out. I dare say most ladies and gentlemen who may read this know what _palpitation of the heart_ means; if so, let them be so good as to fancy an excess of that feeling, and they may then form some idea of the sensations with which I first touched the cold grave-stones of the dead, who, if they had possessed any spirit, would have arisen, _en masse_, to defend their bones from being made the subject of ridiculous experiment.

Having groped for some time in the dark, I found the book, but my hand refused to lift it, and I sat down panting and starting at every rustle of the foliage: through the gloom wherewith the trunks and branches of the trees were invested, my excited imagination conjured up figures and shapes which I expected, at every glance, would open into skeletons or shrouded spectres! I would, at that moment, have given the world to be at home again!—but I really could not stir: my breath had got too short, and my eyesight too confused, for motion.

By degrees these sensations subsided. I obtained a little confidence; the moving of a branch no longer startled me, and I should have got on well enough had not an unlucky goat, which came roaming near the place, though with a different object, thrown me into a complete relapse. At the conclusion of about half an hour, however, which appeared to me at least five-and-twenty years, I secured the book snugly in my pocket, together with a dead man’s thigh-bone, which I tied up in a cloth brought with me for the purpose; and, fastening this round my waist, lest it should drop during my flight, I made a very rapid exit from this scene of perilous achievement.

Having reached the house in triumph, and taken a large tumbler of wine, I proceeded to exhibit my book, put the bank-note in my pocket, and with an affectation of unconcern untied my cloth and flung my huge thigh-bone upon the supper-table. I had my full revenge! The girls, who had been amusing themselves by telling each other’s fortunes, tossing coffee, burning nuts, turning shifts, writing _abracadabras_, &c. &c. &c., were cruelly shocked—they all set up a loud shriek, and whilst some were half swooning, others ran headlong out of the room, or rolled over the chairs. My courage now grew rampant: I laughed at their terrors, saying, if they pleased, they might leave the bone on the top of my bed till morning, and that would sufficiently show, who was most in dread of dead people!—

Confidence was at length restored on all sides. I was half cured of my superstitious fears, and the family universally admitted that I certainly should make a brave general if I went into the army. We made merry till a late hour, when I retired joyously to bed, and sleep very soon began to make still further amends for my terrors.

While dreaming away most agreeably, I was suddenly aroused by a rustling noise for which I could not account. I sat up, and, upon listening, found it to proceed from the top of my bed, whereon something was in rapid motion. The dead man’s thigh-bone immediately started into my recollection, and horrible ideas flashed across my mind. A profuse perspiration burst out at once on my forehead, my hair rose, the cramp seized both my legs, and just gathering power to call out “Murder, Murder!—help, help!” I buried my head under the clothes. In this situation, I could neither hear nor see, and was besides almost suffocated: after awhile, I began to think I might have been dreaming, and with that idea thrusting my head fearfully out, the bone (for that it certainly was) sprang with a tremendous crash from the bed down beside me upon the floor, where it exhibited as many signs of life (probably more) than when its original owner was in legal possession of it. Upon viewing this, my spirits sank again, I shook like a man in an ague, gave some inarticulate screams, and at length dropped back, nearly senseless, upon the pillow with my eyes covered.

How long I lay thus, I know not; I only remember that the bone still continued its movements, and now and then striking a chair or table, warned me of my probable fate from its justly enraged proprietor, who, I was apprehensive, would soon appear to demand his undoubted property. Had the scene continued long, I actually believe I should scarce have survived it: but at last, paradise seemed all on the sudden to be regained, though in no very orthodox way. A loud laugh at the door clearly announced that I had been well played off upon by the ladies, for my abrupt display of a dead man’s bone on a supper-table. The whole of the young folks entered my room in a body, with candles; and after having been reassured, and nourished by a tumbler of buttered white wine, I obtained, by degrees, knowledge of the trick which had occasioned a laugh so loud, so long, and so mortifying to my self-conceit.

The device was simple enough: a couple of cords had been tied to the bone, and drawn under the door, which was at the bed’s foot; and by pulling these alternately, the conspirators kept the bone in motion, until their good-humoured joke had well nigh resulted in the loss of their kinsman’s reason.

My character for bravery as to supernaturals was thus finally demolished;—and my general courage was also considered as a doubtful matter, in consequence of a most plausible piece of argument used by old Christopher Julian, a retired exciseman, who occasionally came down from his little cottage to take some shrub-punch at my father’s house. He was very humourous, and we all liked him.

“Sure, Master Jonah,” said the old gauger, “cowardice is occasioned only by the fear of death?”

I assented.

“And whether a man comes to that death by another man or by a ghost, it’s just the same thing to him?”

“Certainly,” said I, very inconsiderately giving in to him.

“Then,” said Kit Julian, triumphantly, “how the devil can a man be stout as to a man, and afraid of a ghost? If I knew any such shy cocks, they never should get into the revenue. The devil a smuggler ever they’d face; and then heigh for the potsheen, and contrabands! If a man’s not afraid for his own carcass, he’d never dread another man’s winding sheet!”

“That’s true,” said my father, and the laugh was turned completely against me.

ADOPTION OF THE LAW.

Marriage of my eldest brother—The bridesmaid, Miss D. W.—Female attractions not dependent on personal beauty—Mutual attachment—Illustration of the French phrase _je ne sais quoi_—Betrothal of the author, and his departure for London, to study for the Bar.

My father still conceived that the military profession was best suited to my ardent and volatile spirit. I was myself, however, of a different opinion; and fortune shortly fixed my determination. An accident occurred, which, uniting passion, judgment, and ambition, led me to decide that the Bar was the only road to my happiness or celebrity; and accordingly I finally and irrevocably resolved that the law should be the future occupation of my life and studies.

The recollection of the incident to which I have alluded excites, even at this moment, all the sensibility and regret which can survive a grand climacteric, and four-and-forty years of vicissitude. I shall not dilate upon it extensively; and, in truth, were it not that these personal fragments would be otherwise still more incomplete, I should remain altogether silent on a subject which revives in my mind so many painful reflections.

My elder brother married the only daughter of Mr. Edwards, of Old Court, County Wicklow (niece to Mr. Tennison, M. P. County Monaghan). The individuals of both families attended that marriage, which was indeed a public one. The bridemaid of Miss Edwards was the then admired Miss D. Whittingham. This lady was about my own age: her father had been a senior fellow of Dublin University, and had retired on large church preferments. Her uncle, with whom she was at that time residing, was a very eminent barrister in the Irish capital. She had but one sister, and I was soon brought to think she had no equal whatever.

They who read this will perhaps anticipate a story of a volatile lad struck, in the midst of an inspiring ceremony, by the beauty of a lively and engaging female, and surrendering without resistance his boyish heart to the wild impulse of the moment. This supposition is, I admit, a natural one; but it is unfounded. Neither beauty, nor giddy passion, nor the glare of studied attractions, ever enveloped me in their labyrinths. Nobody admired female loveliness more than myself; but beauty in _the abstract_ never excited within me that delirium which has so impartially made fools of kings and beggars—of heroes and cowards; and to which the wisest professors of law, physic, and divinity, have from time immemorial surrendered their liberty and their reason.

Regularity of feature is very distinct from expression of countenance, which I never yet saw mere symmetry successfully rival. I thank Heaven, that I never was either the captive or the victim of “perfect beauty;” in fact, I never loved any handsome woman save one, who still lives, and I hope will do so long: those whom I admired most (when I was of an age to admire any) had no great reason to be grateful for her munificence to creating Nature.

Were I to describe the person of D. Whittingham, I should say that she had no beauty; but, on the contrary, seemed rather to have been selected as a foil to set off the almost transparent delicacy of the bride whom she attended. Her figure was graceful, it is true: her limbs fine, her countenance _speaking_; yet I incline to think that few ladies would have envied her perfections. Her dark and deep-sunk, yet animated and penetrating eyes could never have reconciled their looking-glasses to the sombre and swarthy complexion which surrounded them; nor the carmine of her pouting lips to the disproportioned extent of feature which it tinted. In fine, as I began, so will I conclude my personal description—she had _no beauty_. But she seems this moment before me as in a vision. I see her countenance, busied in unceasing converse with her heart;—now illuminated by wit, now softened by sensibility—the wild spirit of the former changing like magic into the steadier movements of the latter;—the serious glance silently commanding caution, whilst the counteracting smile at the same moment set caution at defiance. But upon this subject I shall desist, and only remark further, that before I was aware of the commencement of its passion, my whole heart was hers!

Miss Whittingham was at that time _the fashion_ in high society: many admired, but I know of none who loved her save myself; and it must have been through some attractive congeniality of mind that our attachment became mutual.

It will doubtless appear unaccountable to many, whence the spell arose by which I was so devoted to a female, from whom personal beauty seems to have been withheld by Nature. I am unable to solve the enigma. I once ventured myself to ask D. Whittingham if she could tell me _why_ I loved her? She _answered_ by _returning the question_; and hence, neither of us being able to give an explicit reason, we mutually agreed that the query was _unanswerable_.

There are four short words in the French language which have a power of expressing what in English is inexplicable—_Je ne sais quoi_; and to these, in my dilemma, I resorted. I do not now wish the phrase to be understood in a mere _sentimental_ vein,—or, in the set terms of young ladies, as “a _nice_ expression!” In my mind it is an _amatory idiom_; and, in those few words, conveys more meaning than could a hundred pages: I never recollect its being seriously applied by any man till he had got into a decided _partiality_.

I have said that the phrase is inexplicable; but, in like manner as we are taught to aim at perfection whilst we know it to be unattainable, so will I endeavour to characterise the _Je ne sais quoi_ as meaning a species of indefinable grace which gives despotic power to a female. When we praise in detail the abstract beauties or merits of a woman, each of them may form matter for argument, or a subject for the exercise of various tastes; but of the _Je ne sais quoi_ there is no specification, and upon it there can be no reasoning. It is that fascinating enigma which expresses _all_ without expressing _any thing_; that mysterious source of attraction which we can neither discover nor account for; and which nor beauty, nor wit, nor education, nor any thing, but _nature_, ever can create.