Joseph Wilmot, or, The Memoirs of a Man-Servant — page 380: what you’re looking at

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

JOSEPH WILMOT; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A MAN-SERVANT. ——— member my sensations as well as if I were at this moment in the same situation overagain. Gra- dually the conviction stole upon me that I saw this figure clad in black with my outward vision, and not through the medium of fancy only. I recollect too that I attempted to rise—that I endeavoured to throw off all the lingering influence of sleep—but that terror, vague and undefined, paralyzed all my powers of motion and of speech. I continued to survey that form which was thus before me: it was the shape of a female, who seemed to be dressed in mourning garments ; but I could not obtain a glimpse of her countenance. Nor was the shape sufficiently defined to my vision to enable me’to discern whether her countenance was averted—whether it was covered with a thick black veil—or whether indeed she had any face at all. The shape stopped short midway between the door and myself,—thus being at a distance of about four yards from me ; for the chamber was spacious. Then I heard a low moan: the figure retreated ; and as if a spell were lifted off me, I suddenly started up wide awake. I must have suffered the acutest terror through- out the endurance of that series of visions. I was trembling all over: my heart was palpitating with such violence that I could hear it plainly: to use a vulgar expression, it was literally thumping against my side. My forehead was bathed in a cold perspiration: and as I glanced towards the mirror over the mantel, I actually recoiled from the reflection of my own countenance, so ghastly pale was it—the eyes so full of unspeakable horror —the lips so ashy white. I glanced towards the door, and saw that it stood half-way open. This circumstance changed the nature of my terror all in a moment,—relieving me from the superstitious influence which was hitherto upon me, and filling me with alarms of a more real and earthly nature. Could any treachery have been intended? and had my sudden waking up terrified the person who was about to perpetrate it? I was in a strange mansion, in a lonely part ofa strange country. All the dreadful tales I had ever heard or read of travellers being ensnared aud murdered in cold blood, swept through my brain. Was it possible that the cowrier himself was in league with a gang of assassins? I plunged my hand into the breast of my coat: my pocket-book containing my money was safe: my purse too was in my breeches-pocket: my watch was in my waistcoat; and mechanically drawing it forth, I saw that it was half-past two in the morning. I had therefore slept nearly an hour and a half: the tapers were burning, and the fire was still alight. I knew not what to think nor what todo I advanced to the bed—looked behind the draperies —but saw nothing to confirm my apprehensions. I looked under the bed—I carried my inspection to the cupboards in the apartment—I entered an adjacent dressing-room: no brigand form crouch. ing in ambush, did I see. The only circumstance which seemed to confirm my idea that some per- son had really entered the chamber, was the fact of the door standing open: for I perfectly well recollected that the footman had shut it when he bade me good night. But then I thought to myself, how foolish it was on my part to attach any importance to an incident which might be so easily explained. The lock was probably a bad 367 one; and this was likely enough in an old man- sion such as the chateau was. The wind blowing along the corridor, might have forced open the door. All this seemed feasible enough; and yet I could not satisfy myself that it was in reality as I sought to explain it and wished to think it. No —there was something more than a doubt hovers ing in my mind: there was a suspicion bordering close upon a conviction that I had either been visited by a shape from another world, or else by a living being of this one. I had long ceased to be superstitious; and yet back to my mind flashed the coincidence that Violet, Annabel’s twin-sister, had breathed her last under those peculiar circumstances which have been narrated to the reader in an earlier chapter of my eventful history. lief that it was a being of flesh and blood which I had ere now seen in my chamber ; and the thought of intended treachery—perhaps of danger still im- pendine—occurred forcefully to my mind IfI were really in a den of robbers and assassins, it might have been that a woman in the first instance had come to deal me my death-blow—but that as she had been scared away, her accomplices would presertly make their appearance to consummate that which she had recoiled from effecting. Again however I strove to reason myself out of these apprehensions: but I felt it impossible to seek the couch prepared for my reception, unless the room door was carefully secured. But there were no means of fastening it—no key nor bolt. I opened it to examine it more carefully; and just as I was about to close it again, my ear caught a low moan, expressive of ineffable anguish, coming from the direction of the landing. The slanting beams of the moon were penetrating through a skylight; and as I turned my eyes in that quarter, I beheld a dark figure pass through the argentine glimmering. It instantaneously disappeared. LI listened with suspended breath: methought I was enabled to catch a light footfall and the rustling of a dress—but I was not sure. At all events the figure was not approaching my chamber; and as I re-entered it, I thought that it was possibly the same female form that had startled up me from my slumber. It was evident that some one was about; and what could this be for? what meant that deep moan of anguish? Had I been disturbed by some person of uneasy mind—perhaps a somnambulist P and were all my apprehensions relative to treachery, impending danger, assassination, and so forth, utterly baseless and unfounded? I began to think so—and likewise to be ashamed of my fears. I therefore thought of retiring to my couch without troubling myself any farther in respect to the means of securing the door,—when, as I was standing near the table in the act of winding up my watch, I distinctly heard some one pass by the chamber—the garments rustling against the door, and continuing to sweep the wall until the foot- steps were no longer audible. There was some- thing mysterious in these unquiet wanderings of the individual, whoever it might be; and I confess that I was seized with a vague and solemn awe, partly superstitious—partly inspired by terror, as if I were in a mansion where some conscience- stricken criminal walked about at night. While I was under the influence of that sensation, the Te Nevertheless, I rather inclined to the be-- €|OCY) 5) co im