J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 — John Shaqi
J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan
Science
J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan
Ghost stories
They at length prevailed upon her to lie down upon the bed, where she
continued to urge them to stay by her. She frequently uttered incoherent
sentences, repeating, again and again, "the dead and the living cannot
be one: God has forbidden it." And then again, "Rest to the
wakeful--sleep to the sleep-walkers." These and such mysterious and
broken sentences, she continued to utter until the clergyman arrived.
Gerard Douw began to fear, naturally enough, that terror or
ill-treatment, had unsettled the poor girl's intellect, and he half
suspected, by the suddenness of her appearance, the unseasonableness of
the hour, and above all, from the wildness and terror of her manner,
that she had made her escape from some place of confinement for
lunatics, and was in imminent fear of pursuit. He resolved to summon
medical advice as soon as the mind of his niece had been in some measure
set at rest by the offices of the clergyman whose attendance she had so
earnestly desired; and until this object had been attained, he did not
venture to put any questions to her, which might possibly, by reviving
painful or horrible recollections, increase her agitation. The clergyman
soon arrived--a man of ascetic countenance and venerable age--one whom
Gerard Douw respected very much, forasmuch as he was a veteran polemic,
though one perhaps more dreaded as a combatant than beloved as a
Christian--of pure morality, subtle brain, and frozen heart. He entered
the chamber which communicated with that in which Rose reclined and
immediately on his arrival, she requested him to pray for her, as for
one who lay in the hands of Satan, and who could hope for deliverance
only from heaven.
That you may distinctly understand all the circumstances of the event
which I am going to describe, it is necessary to state the relative
position of the parties who were engaged in it. The old clergyman and
Schalken were in the anteroom of which I have already spoken; Rose lay
in the inner chamber, the door of which was open; and by the side of the
bed, at her urgent desire, stood her guardian; a candle burned in the
bedchamber, and three were lighted in the outer apartment. The old man
now cleared his voice as if about to commence, but before he had time to
begin, a sudden gust of air blew out the candle which served to
illuminate the room in which the poor girl lay, and she, with hurried
alarm, exclaimed:----
"Godfrey, bring in another candle; the darkness is unsafe."
Gerard Douw forgetting for the moment her repeated injunctions, in the
immediate impulse, stepped from the bedchamber into the other, in order
to supply what she desired.
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