Tales of the Wonder Club Volume I Part 3

"Have I then lived to hold converse with a being of the lower world?" I muttered, to myself. "Am I awake, or is this but a continuation of the dream?" I gave my arm a pinch, a hard twisted pinch, with all my might and main, to ascertain if I were sleeping or waking, but the scene before me remained the same, and my recollections of the past night were as vivid as ever. I took off my hat to wipe my brow and let the cool breeze play with my locks and about my heated temples. I gazed at the smiling scene around me. What a contrast to the h.e.l.l I bore within.

"O glorious...o...b.." I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "author and vivifier of all nature, through every grade of creation, illumine the haunted chambers of my dark soul with thy golden beams; bring balm to my jaded spirit and renew the bright hope of my earlier years. Give me strength to bear my tottering limbs to the end of my pilgrimage; or, if that be not granted me, take all there is left--take my life, great orb of day! Type of my own once aspiring youth, quicken my flagging energies and breathe into me new life, new hope, new strength."

Whilst thus apostrophising the rising sun, I experienced something like the fire of my boyish days returning to my frame. I actually felt an appet.i.te. I rose from my seat considerably refreshed, and continued my journey. I walked on with buoyant step; I had all but forgotten the adventure of the past night. If it rose up before me again at intervals, I speedily chased it from my mind.

At length I espied the village in the distance. Another half-mile led me up to the door of "The Swan Inn." It was then about seven o'clock. A raw country youth, evidently the boots, was beating a mat outside the door.

"Is the Baron within?" I asked.

"Wal, he b'ain't up yet, zur," replied the youth.

"Oh, never mind," I said, "I will wait, and as soon as he is up tell him a gentleman is waiting to see him."

"Very well, zur."

"Would you like to wait here in the parlour, sir?" said the buxom landlady, who had overheard our dialogue. "The Baron can't be long; he is generally up by this time, or if you will follow me, sir, I will knock at his door, and you can wait in his sitting-room till he comes out."

"Thank you," I said, as I followed the landlady upstairs, and was led into the sitting-room. The landlady knocked at the Baron's door. No answer.

"Don't awake him, pray," said I, "if he's asleep."

"Oh, but the Baron told me to call him early, sir."

She knocked again. Again no answer. The landlady paused a few moments to listen if he was getting up, then tapped again louder, louder still, but all was silent. The hostess ventured to open the door ajar. The Baron was in bed. She entered the room. A pause, a slight scream, and the landlady came running out to me, pale and terrified.

"Oh, sir," she said, in a faint voice, "the Baron--the Baron--is--_dead_!"

"_Dead!_" I exclaimed. "When? how?"

"It is true, sir. Come and see."

I entered the Baron's chamber. There he lay, sure enough, to all appearance dead. I touched him; he was as cold as ice. I was much struck with the singular resemblance of the defunct Baron before me to the portrait of Baron Ralph that hung over the mantelpiece in my chamber. It is true that the Baron before me was a younger man, that he wore a shaven face instead of a moustache and peaked beard, that the livid colour of the corpse was unlike the florid complexion of Baron Ralph; but the features were exact, the shape of the head, the colour of the hair and the way it grew; the same tufted red eyebrows, the right one considerably higher than the left; the same bent flat nose and tightly compressed lips, with cruel lines at the corners; the chin, the jaw, the deep line between the brows, in fact, the whole man seemed the exact counterpart of the old Baron.

A horrible recollection pa.s.sed through my mind. I remembered having seen the criminal before alluded to after his execution. What a startling likeness between the features of the executed criminal and those of the Baron's corpse before me. I shuddered. A portion of the phantom's conversation on the preceding night occurred to me suddenly. What if--could it be that----

I called the landlady. The whole inn was in a state of confusion. The news of the Baron's death had circulated through the whole village by this time.

"Perhaps," said I, "the Baron may not be quite dead, he may be in a trance, he may be---- At any rate, don't you think it would be best to send for the doctor, to hear his opinion?"

The doctor was accordingly sent for, and arriving shortly, was at once shown into the Baron's room. The landlady and a great part of the household followed.

"Why, of course he's dead," replied the leech, brusquely, in answer to their eager questions. "Can't you see that?"

"If, nevertheless," said I, timidly, "you would not mind opening a vein----"

"I'll open a vein, if you like," he answered, bluntly; "but, I tell you, the man's dead!"

Then, taking out his lancet, he opened a vein in the right arm.

"You see now, I hope," said the leech, "that it is utterly useless; there is not a drop of blood."

"Then," said the landlady, "the Baron really _is_--dead?"

"Dead! _Dead as mutton_," replied the doctor.

At this juncture the face of the corpse grew violently convulsed, his eyes rolled, the colour returned suddenly to his cheeks, and leaping from the bed with terrific energy, he seized the bolster, with which he belaboured the terrified inmates of "The Swan" right and left, knocking over the little doctor, and sending me into the landlady's lap, and the "boots" flying out of the room with a yell of terror, besides upsetting every utensil of crockery that stood in the way.

"Dead, am I!" roared the Baron, "dead, eh! Where's that scurvy apothecary--that spreader of plaisters, that pill-maker, that cow-bleeder--that dared to open one of _my_ veins?"

The little doctor had crept under the bed.

"And you, sir," cried he, turning upon me, "for advising him to try his filthy experiments upon me," and swinging round his bolster, sent me tottering against the wall.

"Dead as _mutton_, eh! By the blood of my ancestors, I never had such foul language used to me before. What! compare the aristocratic flesh of one descended from such a line of ancestors as mine to mutton! Ugh!

_Mutton_, quotha? I'll mutton _you_," cried the Baron, aiming a blow at the little doctor's head, which he caught peeping from beneath the bed.

The doctor ducked in his head, and attempted a clandestine escape on his hands and knees by the door, but was immediately pulled back by the coat-tails by the Baron.

"Not so easily, young vein-opener, do you escape the clutches of the Baron. Bind up my wound, Sir Shaveling, and think yourself lucky that I spare your paltry life for the vile trick which you, in your blind ignorance of this phenomenon of my aristocratic const.i.tution, dared to practise upon me. Keep that instrument for the bleeding of cows and horses. That's more in your line than the flesh of great n.o.bles like me."

The Baron's wound was bleeding profusely. The floor was covered with pools of blood. The landlady had fallen into hysterics, and had to be carried out of the room. The leech stammered out a sort of apology and set meekly about his task of binding up the Baron's wound.

"Silence!" roared the Baron, "and no more prattle."

The arm being at length bound up, the doctor took his departure without further severity on the part of the Baron, who had now cooled down considerably.

Whether it was the loss of blood, or what, a marked change had taken place in the Baron's demeanour. He apologised amply to me for the effects of hereditary temper of which he was the victim, and invited me to breakfast. The breakfast was brought up by the landlord himself, as everyone else refused to enter the Baron's apartments, saying that the Baron must be the devil himself, and no one else.

"I'm afraid," said the Baron, addressing the landlord, "that I frightened your good lady dreadfully this morning, eh?"

"Well, my lord," said the host, "she did take on about it a little, but----"

"I am sincerely sorry for my rudeness," apologised the Baron, "but my infirmity is ungovernable. It is a disease I inherit from my ancestors; I am given every now and then to some uncontrollable burst of pa.s.sion when my nerves are a little out of order, which is generally the first thing in the morning."

"Indeed, my lord," said the good-hearted landlord, with some compa.s.sion in his face, "but your lords.h.i.+p's sudden coming to life again after the doctor had p.r.o.nounced you dead, that was what staggered us all downstairs."

"Ha! ha!" laughed the Baron. "Yes; well, I dare say it did appear rather startling, but it is nothing to those who know me. The fact is, I am subject to a peculiar sort of trance, much resembling death; that also I inherit from my ancestors."

"Well, my lord, it's strange. I hope it's nothing dangerous. At any rate, I am glad to see your lords.h.i.+p looking so well again," said the host.

"Thank you, thank you, my good host," replied the Baron.

"It would have been an ugly thing, you know, my lord, for your lords.h.i.+p to have died suddenly in my inn. It would have looked like foul play,"

said the landlord.

"True, true, my good host; I understand," replied his lords.h.i.+p. "I trust you'll convey my best apologies to your good lady for----"

"Oh, I trust your lords.h.i.+p won't mention it," said the landlord; "and if there is anything else your lords.h.i.+p may require----"