Poor child!thought I,how many an older head might learn wisdom from thee --how many a luxurious philosopher,who is skilled to preach but not to suffer,might not thy patient words put to the blush!The manner and language of this child were alike above her years and station;and,indeed,in all cases in which the cares and sorrows of life have anticipated their usual date,and have fallen,as they sometimes do,with melancholy prematurity to the lot of childhood,I have observed the result to have proved uniformly the same.A young mind,to which joy and indulgence have been strangers,and to which suffering and self-denial have been familiarised from the first,acquires a solidity and an elevation which no other discipline could have bestowed,and which,in the present case,communicated a striking but mournful peculiarity to the manners,even to the voice,of the child.We paused before a narrow,crazy door,which she opened by means of a latch,and we forthwith began to ascend the steep and broken stairs which led upwards to the sick man's room.
As we mounted flight after flight towards the garret-floor,I heard more and more distinctly the hurried talking of many voices.I could also distinguish the low sobbing of a female.On arriving upon the uppermost lobby these sounds became fully audible.
'This way,your honour,'said my little conductress;at the same time,pushing open a door of patched and half-rotten plank,she admitted me into the squalid chamber of death and misery.But one candle,held in the fingers of a scared and haggard-looking child,was burning in the room,and that so dim that all was twilight or darkness except within its immediate influence.The general obscurity,however,served to throw into prominent and startling relief the death-bed and its occupant.The light was nearly approximated to,and fell with horrible clearness upon,the blue and swollen features of the drunkard.I did not think it possible that a human countenance could look so terrific.
The lips were black and drawn apart;the teeth were firmly set;the eyes a little unclosed,and nothing but the whites appearing.
Every feature was fixed and livid,and the whole face wore a ghastly and rigid expression of despairing terror such as Inever saw equalled.His hands were crossed upon his breast,and firmly clenched;while,as if to add to the corpse-like effect of the whole,some white cloths,dipped in water,were wound about the forehead and temples.
As soon as I could remove my eyes from this horrible spectacle,I observed my friend Dr.D--,one of the most humane of a humane profession,standing by the bedside.
He had been attempting,but unsuccessfully,to bleed the patient,and had now applied his finger to the pulse.
'Is there any hope?'I inquired in a whisper.
A shake of the head was the reply.
There was a pause while he continued to hold the wrist;but he waited in vain for the throb of life--it was not there:and when he let go the hand,it fell stiffly back into its former position upon the other.
'The man is dead,'said the physician,as he turned from the bed where the terrible figure lay.
Dead!thought I,scarcely venturing to look upon the tremendous and revolting spectacle.Dead!without an hour for repentance,even a moment for reflection;dead I without the rites which even the best should have.Is there a hope for him?The glaring eyeball,the grinning mouth,the distorted brow--that unutterable look in which a painter would have sought to embody the fixed despair of the nethermost hell.These were my answer.
The poor wife sat at a little distance,crying as if her heart would break--the younger children clustered round the bed,looking with wondering curiosity upon the form of death never seen before.
When the first tumult of uncontrollable sorrow had passed away,availing myself of the solemnity and impressiveness of the scene,I desired the heart-stricken family to accompany me in prayer,and all knelt down while I solemnly and fervently repeated some of those prayers which appeared most applicable to the occasion.Iemployed myself thus in a manner which,I trusted,was not unprofitable,at least to the living,for about ten minutes;and having accomplished my task,I was the first to arise.
I looked upon the poor,sobbing,helpless creatures who knelt so humbly around me,and my heart bled for them.With a natural transition I turned my eyes from them to the bed in which the body lay;and,great God!what was the revulsion,the horror which I experienced on seeing the corpse-like terrific thing seated half upright before me;the white cloths which had been wound about the head had now partly slipped from their position,and were hanging in grotesque festoons about the face and shoulders,while the distorted eyes leered from amid them--'A sight to dream of,not to tell.'
I stood actually riveted to the spot.The figure nodded its head and lifted its arm,I thought,with a menacing gesture.Athousand confused and horrible thoughts at once rushed upon my mind.I had often read that the body of a presumptuous sinner,who,during life,had been the willing creature of every satanic impulse,after the human tenant had deserted it,had been known to become the horrible sport of demoniac possession.
I was roused from the stupefaction of terror in which I stood,by the piercing scream of the mother,who now,for the first time,perceived the change which had taken place.She rushed towards the bed,but stunned by the shock,and overcome by the conflict of violent emotions,before she reached it she fell prostrate upon the floor.
I am perfectly convinced that had I not been startled from the torpidity of horror in which I was bound by some powerful and arousing stimulant,I should have gazed upon this unearthly apparition until I had fairly lost my senses.As it was,however,the spell was broken--superstition gave way to reason:the man whom all believed to have been actually dead was living!