Joseph Wilmot, or, The Memoirs of a Man-Servant — page 36: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

aout ——————————————— JOSEPH WILMOT; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A MAN-SERVANT. 23 darkness. I stood still and listened: but I could | to fix an imploring glance upon Mr. 'Tadiy,--- eatch no sound of footsteps nor of voices; and | | when ali of a sudden I found it was the hideous- therefore I thought it might be imagination on | looking Lanover that had me in his power. Again my part. Nevertheless, I abtenitied to inquire; | he appeared to grin horribly: his form dilated and \,len Edward answered the gate-bell, which I | into monstrous proportions, preserving however rang, I asked whether any persons had called | its distorted shape ;—and as he stretched out his within the last few minutes. He replied in the | long baboon-like arms to fold me in his loathsome negative ; and I explained to him wherefore I | embrace, fT awoke with a sudden start. made the inquiry. He said that the two men Was it indeed only a dream? My chamber might possibly be labourers returning later than | was as dark as pitch, so that I could not satisfy usual from their work; and as there were two or | myself by means of my eyes that I was really three cottages situated about half-a-mile in the | there: and such an awful consternation was upon rear of the mansion—consequently in the same | me that I could not even stretch out my arms to direction which those persons (if it were not my | grasp the curtains, to feel the texture, and thus fancy) were pursuing — Frederick’s explanation | convince myself that I was in my own bed. I lay seemed probable enough, ‘Therefore nothing more motionless for upwards of a minute, while my was said upon the subject; and after remaining a | thoughts settled themselves into a more composed few minutes in the servants’ hall, I took a candle | state. The wind was blowing freshly; it appeared and ascended to my own chamber. to moan round the building like human tones and When I went to bed, it was some time before | lamentations of distress,—sometiiaes rising into a I could get to sleep. Naturally enough, the in- | sweeping blast, the sound of which to my fevered cidents of the afternoon kept forcing “themselves imagination appeared to bear the cry of murder upon my mind: I grew feverish and uneasy with | upon it. I was not at all inclined to be super- restlessness—I looked forward with apprehension | stitious: but I felt alarmed—my mind had become to any farther designs which might develop them- | attenuated by the hideous dreams through which I selves on Mr. Lanover’s part—and I dreaded lest | had been passing, and which I seemed to have the by pushing matters to extremes, he might compel Mar. Delmar to part with me. Gradually, how- ever, my thoughts fell into confusion; and sleep came upon my eyes. Then the objects of terror which had been uppermost in my mind while I was awake, began to haunt me in my dreams. At first I fancied that Mr. Jukes, stern and im- placable, was dragging me into the entrance-way of the gloomy workhouse at Leicester; and that the porter with the repulsive countenance, was grinning in fiendish mockery at my inefiectual endeavours to escape from my persecutor’s clutches. All of a sudden Mr. Jukes appeared to have changed into Mr. Lanover, who was dragging me along: but instead of the place being the Leicester workhouse, it was some dark and dreadful cavern, With a steep descent down which I was thus being forced. Nevertheless, methought that though the yawning abyss was dark as a Sepulchre, and with unseen horrors lurking in its depths, it appeared as if the form of Mr. Lanover was distinctly visible; and that instead of being apparclied in a new suit of black, his deformed shape was wrapped in the loathsome rags of beggary. 1 fancied, too, that his eyes—with their half-weasel, half-snake- like expression—glared at me, penetratingly thouch eold; and that his apish mouth grinned horribly in mockery and scorn. Again the scene chanced; and I found myself, in imagination, accompanying Mr. Taddy through some of those vile dens and abhorrent scenes amidst which he had dragged me when we distributed the circulars. Methought that he was walking behind, compelling me to go on in front through fear that I should run away from him; and that some spell which I could not shake off, compelled me thus to remain subser- vient to his will. Horrors appeared to be deepen- ing around me: the squalid shapes of poverty and nameless forms of vice, passing to and fro, as- sumed the aspect of hideous spectres and ghasily objects belonging to another world. I felt my blood stagnating and freezing into ice in my veins : my feet grew heavy as lead—I could not drag myself along any farther, I turned round was & sensation upon me as if a presentiment of evil were at work within me—as if, too, I had the intuitive consciousness of some dread deed of turpi- tude being accomplished. I recollected those two forms I had scen—or fancied to have seen—near the servants’ entrance; and these shapes associated themselves with the forebodings which were in my mind. I felt that I should not be able to compose myseif to sleep again for at least some time: I longed to get up, light a candle, and take a book to read: but so great was the nervous terrcer— vague and indefinite though it were—which was upon me, that I dared not step forth from my bed. IT really had the apprehension that I should fail into the arms of Lanover, or else of some monster, if I did so. It was the first time in my life I had ever been under the influence of such an awful species of alarm; and vainly did I endeavour to reason myself out of it. While I was lying in this condition, in the pitchy darkness of my chamber,—for the black nicht seemed to hang like a sable pall against the window facing the bed, so that the gloom which surrounded me was unbroken in its denseness,— methought I heard the sound of a gate closing having escaped from the hand of some one going out or coming in, it was banged to by the wind. I felt assured also that it was the gate of the ser- yants’ entrance, and not any other within the enclosure-walls. This circumstance gave renewed poignancy to my terrors, but turned them into another channel. [I lost all sense of superstitious awe; and was smitten with the apprehension lest my foreboding with regard to real and positive wrong-doing should prove correct.. That I had heard the sound of the gate, I felt convinced : but then, might it not have been accidentally left open? ‘This was scarcely probable, as the servants of the establishment were steady in their habits and regular in the performance of their duties ; and I knew that Edward the footman never retired to rest at night till he had seen the back premises eee eee eee ee... with some little degree of violence, just as if knowledge of having lasted for some hours. There ~ CORNIELOO@ <S (CO)