The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 382: what you’re looking at

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hed lacerated, tortured, scourged, persecuted, and goaded him so cruelly—so maddeningly! Yes— ¥ breathed a curse——~not aloud——no, it was to myself: for that curse ~was too swful—too hideous —tso damnable to be shaped in words or clothed 4n language, until the mind had become familiar with it by frequent contemplation. And now, that I have so long—so steadfastly—so continuously viewed that curse face to face, I may unhesitatingly tell thee, Mr. Meagles, that it summed up all the mischiefs I would possibly work against society and all the horrors with which I could startle it. I Jooked upon the world as a pandemonium—and I determined to have a fiend'’s revenge. At all events, if this earth were not really hell already,— then I vowed to open hell at the feet of all whom my influence could reach. I wandered out into the suburbe of St. Pancras with these thoughts uppermost in my mind; and I saw a funeral pass. I beheld the mourners weeping—the friends and relatives with their countenances buried in their handkerchiefs. I beard the sobs of some of them, and thence knew that their grief was real. Me- ehanically I followed the funeral into Old S¢. Pancras Churchyard :—I saw the coffin lowered into the earth—I beheld the sofl shovelied down upon it—I marked the intense anguish of the mourners. And.as I thus gazed upon them, I was suddenly struck by the features of the chief mourner as he withdrew his handkerchief from his face for a few moments. Heavens! it was the peace-officer to whom I had entrusted the money and the letter at Woolwich, and who had robbed my poor family of the gold they so nmuch wanted. Yes—the peace- officer it was: and fortunate was it that his grief was so absorbing as to prevent him from taking any notiee of me—or else he might have recog- nised me, despite my sailor's apparel. Mingling with the spectators, I learnt that it was the peace- officer’s own father whose remains had just been committed to the grownd. Oh! at that moment al) hell seemed to flame up and rage in my bosom: terrible thoughts took possession of my brain— tremendous ideas began floating vaguely about in my imagination, a8 monstrous serpents would seem in the depths of the green sea-waters. Shuddering at the appalling promptings which were beginning to influence me—goaded to frenzy by my own thougitts, and endeavouring to outstrip them, I fied from the place. For three or four days, how- ever, I haunted the neighbourhood,—circling as it were about that lonely churchyard, as a vulture flies round and round the carcase on which it is about te pounce, each time narrowing the circum- ference of its whirl. At last the fearful ideas which were agitating in my brain, seemed to combine ail their force—concentrate all their power—and act as a tremendous spel! upon me. A violent head- ache—a cruehy painful nervousness—an audible beating of the heart—and a fever-heat all over my body,—these were now the principal symptcms of the frightful monemania that was gaining so ap- palling an ascendancy over me. It was an impul- sive insanity which I could not resist,—a frenzy exercising an indomitable control over my pas- sions, my senses, and my very actions,—the con- centration as it were of all the venom, all the rage, all the fary, and all the fire of that stupendous curse which the hell of my feelings had thrown up in their despair! At length, unable to bear ~=e Gute om & + = THE MYSTERIES, SEP 2 Ee 87 / up against the torrent of impulses whieh were overwhelming me, I went and purchased a spade; —end when night came, I entered the chervh- yard of Old St. Pancras—I dug open the grave ~— I tore up ‘the corpse of the peace-cfflicer’s father — and I mutilated it horribly with the shove.” “Eternal God! this is dreadful!” oxclaimed Meagles, bounding upon ‘his chair, while his cheeks grew blanched and his lips quivered with ind@e- scribable feelings of terror and disgust. “ Ah! I told you that it was necessary to prepare yourself to hear appalling things,” ‘said Mebmoth, with a hollow mocking laugh. “Shall I cease ?— or shall I continue?” he demanded, after a pause and in a tone of indifference. “Proceed, proceed,” returned Meagles: “and you must make allowances for any display of won- der or exeHement on my part. I will however re- strain myself as wellas I amabile. Goon. You were telling me that you exhumed the corpee of the peace-officer’s father—and that you mutilated it horribly.” “And the moon shone cold, serene, and placid upon the deed,” observed Melmoth. “ But no sooner had I accomplished it—no sooner had I hacked and -hewed the seaseless corse of the -old man with as furious a vindictivences and as ferocious a heartiness as if it had been the living peace-officer himself—no sooner had I thus yielded,I say, to that monomania of so frightfal a character, when an awfol reantion took place within me. The hereu- lean strength that I bad manifested in hollowing the grave, dissolved rapidly into a child’s weakness ; —the raging excitement that had hdrried me along subsided imto the deepest despondency ;—the feverish heat that had made my whole frame ap. pear as if every artery and vem were boiling with a lava-stream, was succeeded by a cold sweat ;— and a sense of overpowering debility coming upon me,.as if my very life were ebbmg away, I sank down by the side of the corpse which I had muti- lated. Oonsciousness abandoned me-—-and when I awoke to life ayain, the deep tone of the church clock proclaimed the hour of one in the morning, I had remained an hour in that profeund lethargy —a lethargy s0 closely resembling death itvelf, while it lasted! And on thus returning to a com- prehension of the hideous scene in which I wa: the principal actor—cr at least, the Hving one—I was seized with a mortal terror: and enatching up my spade, I fled from the spot. For the remainder of that night I wandered about like one demented,— now under the influence of a etupendous horror— now giving way to the anguish of indescribable excrnciations;—at one time rushing madly on as if lashed by imvisible fiends wielding whips of scor- pions—at another time dragging myself slowly and pamfully along as if drooping and sinking beneath the weight of an intolerable burthen ;—now gloat. ing over the revenge which I had consummated— and then recoiling from the bareidea of so tremend.- ous a monstrosity. In the morning I repa:red to one of the low lodging-howses which abound in all the vile neighbourhoods and pauper districts of Lon- don: and there I rested for many bours. In the evening I heard the frequenters of the place talk- ing of the hideous deed of sacrilege that had been committed on the previous night in Old St. Pan- cras Churchyard; and [I learnt that the whole vicinage of the sceno of my fearfnl exploit was ElOOO® SS