The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 308: what you’re looking at

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

THR MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. experiencing. His eyes sank besesth the locks of the old steward : a profound sigh—or perhaps more correctly speaking, a low fate moan expressive of deepest igward agony, issyed from his lips. * But what wae this dreem, wy lord 2’ asked Purvis. The Duke did not immediately answer: he was evidently uncertain whether to give an explana- tion or not—until at th yielding to some irre- sistible impulse, he said, “Listen—and | will tell ou.” J “Shall I procure your Grace some wine? or will your lordship teke a gless of water? in- quired the old steward: for Marchmont ap- ed as if he were about to suffocate. “J wil] help myself,” was his response: and rising from his seat, ho moved to where there was a decanter of water. Filling a tumbler with hends which trombied so that the decanter and the glass jarred against each other, he rajsed the refreshing beverage to his lips; and it is scarcely » gure of speech to say that the water went hissing down throat as if it were pouring over bot iron, Thay he resumed the chair whence he bad risene but Purvis noticed that his countenanca wes almost as ghastly pale, though perhaps less conyulsed than a “Sleep was stealing upon me,” he thus com- menced his explanation in the same low deep voip as before,—“ when I felt as if gradually swaken- ing for some reason that I pould not comprehend. I cannot remember now-——indeed I knew not at the time whether it was a sound in the room, or whether a hand touched me, or whether a voice addressed me—but certain it is that I was thus unaceountably awakened from my slyumber-——- And yet,” ejaculated the Duke, suddenly inter- rupting himself, at tho samo time that he started up "from the chair, “it could only have been mere fancy—and nothing else! It is useless thus to enter upon the tion of an idle dream !”’ “ Yog—uselegs, my Jord,” remarked Pyrvis, “if the subject be painfal,” a scmmee’ did you say that?’ demanded the Duke, turning abruptly towards the old man as he sate up in his ‘My lord—my lord,” stammered Purvis, who really bad meant nothing more than his words had conveyed; “ 1—I—beg your Grace’s pardon— but—but—-I really——” “ Well, well,” interrupted the Duke; that all these things naturally render me nervous and excited-~—-~] mean that those myaterious in- eidents which occurred ere we went to bed—— “They naturally made 9 certain impression, my lord,” replied the steward. “For myself, I candidly oonfess that I was thinking of them until the very momen that sleep came upon my es.” “You said nothing about it to the servants, Purvis?” asked the Duke quickly, * Certainly not, my lord: i¢ was your Grace's ogder to the contrary.” to frighten “ you see “To be sure! It were needles to them :”—and the Duke lingered in the stewerd’s cbawher with every appearance of one who was afraid to return to his own. “ About this dream of mine!” he continued, after a pause, during which he first sate down—than rose up—and 299 then sate down again, in a nervous restless manner: “about this dream of mine, Purvis—— T have @ greet mind to go on telling you what ib was.” But Marchmont once more stopped short: he evidently did not want to continue on the same topie-—and yet his mind was irresistibly led by some strong influence to hover around it, painful though it were. was telling you that I had fallen asleep, when something awoke me. Tho night-lamp was burning as usual in the room—and I looked about me, bus I aaw nothing. The Jamp was visibly grow- ing fainter and fainter—there was a wax-candle on the night-table upon one side of the bed—and I lighted if : but ae I turned round, I beheld on tho other side what seemed to me to be tho tall form of a man enveloped in a cloak, and holding the cloak in such a way up to his countenance as to veil it completely from my view.” ‘ Here the Duke again stopped short,~—-leaving Purvis in a species of awful suspense “And what did your Grace do?” he at length asked as the Duke continued silent. “To confess the truth, Purvis,” was the response, I waa seized—or rather fancied I was————for of ‘course it was all @ dream-——but it appeared to me in this dream that I was scized with so sudden a terror I lay like one paralyzed. It was that sort of petrifaction of the frame, though the senses were all keenly alive, which takes possession of one when under the influence of a nightmare. Then that dark shape seemed to bend down over me——Is it not extraordinary, Purvis? But if I were to tell you all, you would agree with me that it cannot be anything else than mere fancy ?” But the Duke of Marchmont was still in such a state of trembling nervousness that his condition, both physical and mental, proved how impossible it was to bheguile himself into the belief that it was a dream: for again he rose from his seat~- again he to and fro in an agitated manper— and then he sate down once more. “A form bent, [ asy,” he continued, stil] irre- sistibly impelled to hover around the subject, like a moth fluttering about a candle,—“it bent over course in my dream, you understand ? —and it spoke a few words in such s deep un- earthly yoice that the blood ran cold in my veins ———No matter what it sajd—I forget—I did not hear-—I could not for worlds repeat it!——-Per- dition seize me! I am losing my senses !’’ The Duke stamped his foot violently upon the floor as he gave vent to that imprecation: and again springing up from the ebsir, he paced ner- vously to and frp. ‘The old steward was seriously alarmed: for he began to suspect that his master’s intellects had received a shock and were somewhat deranged. He had not failed to notion the extra- ordinary and inoongrucus expressions whieh had fallen from his lips in regard te the words breathed in big ear by the tal) eloaked form that either in imagwation or in yeality had bent over him. And now too Merohmont’s face was ghastly pale and as convulesd as it wes when he first entered the ohember; and the old steward tremblingly asked whetber he should arouse the household and send off for medical aesietance ? “Not for worlds!” ejaculated the Duke, with strange vehemence: then he immediately added, (COL ( 5 DOO CS (COL