_ When awake [Endnote: 1], or beginning to awake, he lay for some time in
a maze; not a disagreeable one, but thoughts were running to and fro in
his mind, all mixed and jumbled together. Reminiscences of early days,
even those that were Preadamite; referring, we mean, to those times in
the almshouse, which he could not at ordinary times remember at all;
but now there seemed to be visions of old women and men, and pallid
girls, and little dirty boys, which could only be referred to that
epoch. Also, and most vividly, there was the old Doctor, with his
sternness, his fierceness, his mystery; and all that happened since,
playing phantasmagoria before his yet unclosed eyes; nor, so mysterious
was his state, did he know, when he should unclose those lids, where he
should find himself. He was content to let the world go on in this way,
as long as it would, and therefore did not hurry, but rather kept back
the proofs of awakening; willing to look at the scenes that were
unrolling for his amusement, as it seemed; and willing, too, to keep it
uncertain whether he were not back in America, and in his boyhood, and
all other subsequent impressions a dream or a prophetic vision. But at
length something stirring near him,--or whether it stirred, or whether
he dreamed it, he could not quite tell,--but the uncertainty impelled
him, at last, to open his eyes, and see whereabouts he was.
Even then he continued in as much uncertainty as he was before, and lay
with marvellous quietude in it, trying sluggishly to make the mystery
out. It was in a dim, twilight place, wherever it might be; a place of
half-awakeness, where the outlines of things were not well defined; but
it seemed to be a chamber, antique and vaulted, narrow and high, hung
round with old tapestry. Whether it were morning or midday he could not
tell, such was the character of the light, nor even where it came from;
for there appeared to be no windows, and yet it was not apparently
artificial light; nor light at all, indeed, but a gray dimness. It was
so like his own half-awake state that he lay in it a longer time, not
incited to finish his awaking, but in a languor, not disagreeable, yet
hanging heavily, heavily upon him, like a dark pall. It was, in fact,
as if he had been asleep for years, or centuries, or till the last day
was dawning, and then was collecting his thoughts in such slow fashion
as would then be likely.
Again that noise,--a little, low, quiet sound, as of one breathing
somewhere near him. The whole thing was very much like that incident
which introduced him to the Hospital, and his first coming to his
senses there; and he almost fancied that some such accident must again
have happened to him, and that when his sight cleared he should again
behold the venerable figure of the pensioner. With this idea he let his
head steady itself; and it seemed to him that its dizziness must needs
be the result of very long and deep sleep. What if it were the sleep of
a century? What if all things that were extant when he went to sleep
had passed away, and he was waking now in another epoch of time? Where
was America, and the republic in which he hoped for such great things?
Where England? had she stood it better than the republic? Was the old
Hospital still in being,--although the good Warden must long since have
passed out of his warm and pleasant life? And himself, how came he to
be preserved? In what musty old nook had he been put away, where Time
neglected and Death forgot him, until now he was to get up friendless,
helpless,--when new heirs had come to the estate he was on the point of
laying claim to,--and go onward through what remained of life? Would it
not have been better to have lived with his contemporaries, and to be
now dead and dust with them? Poor, petty interests of a day, how
slight!
Again the noise, a little stir, a sort of quiet moan, or something that
he could not quite define; but it seemed, whenever he heard it, as if
some fact thrust itself through the dream-work with which he was
circumfused; something alien to his fantasies, yet not powerful enough
to dispel them. It began to be irksome to him, this little sound of
something near him; and he thought, in the space of another hundred
years, if it continued, he should have to arouse himself and see what
it was. But, indeed, there was something so cheering in this long
repose,--this rest from all the troubles of earth, which it sometimes
seems as if only a churchyard bed would give us,--that he wished the
noise would let him alone. But his thoughts were gradually getting too
busy for this slumberous state. He begun, perforce, to come nearer
actuality. The strange question occurred to him, Had any time at all
passed? Was he not still sitting at Lord Braithwaite's table, having
just now quaffed a second glass of that rare and curious Italian wine?
Was it not affecting his head very strangely,--so that he was put out
of time as it were? He would rally himself, and try to set his head
right with another glass. He must be still at table, for now he
remembered he had not gone to bed at all. [Endnote: 2.]
Ah, the noise! He could not bear it, he would awake now, now!--silence
it, and then to sleep again. In fact, he started up; started to his
feet, in puzzle and perplexity, and stood gazing around him, with
swimming brain. It was an antique room, which he did not at all
recognize, and, indeed, in that dim twilight--which how it came he
could not tell--he could scarcely discern what were its distinguishing
marks. But he seemed to be sensible, that, in a high-backed chair, at a
little distance from him, sat a figure in a long robe; a figure of a
man with snow-white hair and a long beard, who seemed to be gazing at
him, quietly, as if he had been gazing a hundred years. I know not what
it was, but there was an influence as if this old man belonged to some
other age and category of man than he was now amongst. He remembered
the old family legend of the existence of an ancestor two or three
centuries in age.
"It is the old family personified," thought he.
The old figure made no sign, but continued to sit gazing at him in so
strangely still a manner that it made Redclyffe shiver with something
that seemed like affright. There was an aspect of long, long time about
him; as if he had never been young, or so long ago as when the world
was young along with him. He might be the demon of this old house; the
representative of all that happened in it, the grief, the long languor
and weariness of life, the deaths, gathering them all into himself, and
figuring them in furrows, wrinkles, and white hairs,--a being that
might have been young, when those old Saxon timbers were put together,
with the oaks that were saplings when Caesar landed, and was in his
maturity when the Conqueror came, and was now lapsing into extreme age
when the nineteenth century was elderly. His garb might have been of
any time, that long, loose robe that enveloped him. Redclyffe remained
in this way, gazing at this aged figure; at first without the least
wonder, but calmly, as we feel in dreams, when, being in a land of
enchantment, we take everything as if it were a matter of course, and
feel, by the right of our own marvellous nature, on terms of equal
kindred with all other marvels. So it was with him when he first became
aware of the old man, sitting there with that age-long regard directed
towards him.
But, by degrees, a sense of wonder had its will, and grew, slowly at
first, in Redclyffe's mind; and almost twin-born with it, and growing
piece by piece, there was a sense of awful fear, as his waking senses
came slowly back to him. In the dreamy state, he had felt no fear; but,
as a waking man, it was fearful to discover that the shadowy forms did
not fly from his awaking eyes. He started at last to his feet from the
low couch on which he had all this time been lying.
"What are you?" he exclaimed. "Where am I?"
The old figure made no answer; nor could Redclyffe be quite sure that
his voice had any effect upon it, though he fancied that it was shaken
a little, as if his voice came to it from afar. But it continued to
gaze at him, or at least to have its aged face turned towards him in
the dim light; and this strange composure, and unapproachableness, were
very frightful. As his manhood gathered about his heart, however, the
American endeavored to shake off this besetting fear, or awe, or
whatever it was; and to bring himself to a sense of waking things,--to
burst through the mist and delusive shows that bewildered him, and
catch hold of a reality. He stamped upon the floor; it was solid stone,
the pavement, or oak so old and stanch that it resembled it. There was
one firm thing, therefore. But the contrast between this and the
slipperiness, the unaccountableness, of the rest of his position, made
him the more sensible of the latter. He made a step towards the old
figure; another; another. He was face to face with him, within a yard
of distance. He saw the faint movement of the old man's breath; he
sought, through the twilight of the room, some glimmer of perception in
his eyes.
"Are you a living man?" asked Redclyffe, faintly and doubtfully.
He mumbled, the old figure, some faint moaning sound, that, if it were
language at all, had all the edges and angles worn off it by decay,--
unintelligible, except that it seemed to signify a faint mournfulness
and complainingness of mood; and then held his peace, continuing to
gaze as before. Redclyffe could not bear the awe that filled him, while
he kept at a distance, and, coming desperately forward, he stood close
to the old figure; he touched his robe, to see if it were real; he laid
his hand upon the withered hand that held the staff, in which he now
recognized the very staff of the Doctor's legend. His fingers touched a
real hand, though, bony and dry, as if it had been in the grave.
"Then you are real?" said Redclyffe doubtfully.
The old figure seemed to have exhausted itself--its energies, what
there were of them--in the effort of making the unintelligible
communication already vouchsafed. Then he seemed to lapse out of
consciousness, and not to know what was passing, or to be sensible that
any person was near him. But Redclyffe was now resuming his firmness
and daylight consciousness even in the dimness. He ran over all that he
had heard of the legend of the old house, rapidly considering whether
there might not be something of fact in the legend of the undying old
man; whether, as told or whispered in the chimney-corners, it might not
be an instance of the mysterious, the half-spiritual mode, in which
actual truths communicate themselves imperfectly through a medium that
gives them the aspect of falsehood. Something in the atmosphere of the
house made its inhabitants and neighbors dimly aware that there was a
secret resident; it was by a language not audible, but of impression;
there could not be such a secret in its recesses, without making itself
sensible. This legend of the undying one translated it to vulgar
apprehension. He remembered those early legends, told by the Doctor, in
his childhood; he seemed imperfectly and doubtfully to see what was
their true meaning, and how, taken aright, they had a reality, and were
the craftily concealed history of his own wrongs, sufferings, and
revenge. And this old man! who was he? He joined the Warden's account
of the family to the Doctor's legends. He could not believe, or take
thoroughly in, the strange surmise to which they led him; but, by an
irresistible impulse, he acted on it.
"Sir Edward Redclyffe!" he exclaimed.
"Ha! who speaks to me?" exclaimed the old man, in a startled voice,
like one who hears himself called at an unexpected moment.
"Sir Edward Redclyffe," repeated Redclyffe, "I bring you news of Norman
Oglethorpe!" [Endnote: 3.]
"The villain! the tyrant! mercy! mercy! save me!" cried the old man, in
most violent emotion of terror and rage intermixed, that shook his old
frame as if it would be shaken asunder. He stood erect, the picture of
ghastly horror, as if he saw before him that stern face that had thrown
a blight over his life, and so fearfully avenged, from youth to age,
the crime that he had committed. The effect, the passion, was too
much,--the terror with which it smote, the rage that accompanied it,
blazed up for a moment with a fierce flame, then flickered and went
out. He stood tottering; Redclyffe put out his hand to support him; but
he sank down in a heap on the floor, as if a thing of dry bones had
been suddenly loosened at the joints, and fell in a rattling heap.
[Endnote: 4.] _