The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 159: what you’re looking at

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

er 146 THE MYSTERIES. ‘ Yes—the moon was shining faintly and fecbl y ecnly: CHAPTER CLXL and the tombs in the churchyard wore a ghustly sonnor! aspect. Grey in the sickly gleaming appeared the old church itself—the windows shining with a leaden dimness ; and deep was the shade in the arched en- trance and in the angles and nooks formed by the projecting buttresses. So black and dark, too, were the intervals between the tombstones in the cemetery, that it seemed as if every one was a yawning abyss which had opened, and that the entire churchyard was an assemblage of innume- rable gulfs the edges whereof weve pinnacled with the monuments of the dead. And solemn—prefeund!ly solemn was the silence which reigned in that place. The stillness was | Wx must break off the thread of our narrative for | a short space, while we record an episode of horror , that characterised the same night, and the same | hour of the night, as the incidents contained in the preceding chapter. ? For it was while the dark-coloured barouche was . yet rolling along from Hyde Park towards its place of destination, that a man was advancing stealthily ‘down @ narrow lane skirting one of the church- vards on the northern suburb of London. | This man was roughly dressed in the garb of a | Sailor : but the broad brim of his hat shaded a countenance the expression of which no mortal language can properly delineate. That counte- nance was ghastly pale : but the eyes were wild and bloodshot—the lips were cracked and bleeding, as if with a horrible thirst—and the workings of the features were of a nature that seemed to denote an awful struggle in the mind between a poignant an- guish and an infernal ferocity. Agony and horror were combined in that dread expression which was | Stamped upon the man’s ghastly countenance ;— and as every step brought him nearer and nearer to the gate of the churchyard, his anguish seemed to grow more intense—his horror more profound,— and the tempest whieh raged in his soul, became the more excraciating —the more awful in its violence—the more tremendous in its absorbing potency. It seemed as if the irresistible hand of some -in- fernal destimy was hurrying the wretch along to the performance of a task whence his soul, appalled aod horror-stricken, shrank with a fearfal loathing. That agony which convulsed his countenance and which bathed him in perspiration, was the awful index of a frightful struggle waged by his mind against the doom that he was thus obeying: it was the better nature of the man battling with the hellish instincts of the fiend. Under the rough jacket which hung loosely upon him, the man carried a spade. Once or twice he paused in the midst of the lane—tossed the imple- ment away from him with a movement of the deepest disgust—and then appeared to experience a feeling of satisfaction at having thus rid himself of a thing which he evidently regarded with as much horror and aversion as if it were a coiling, writhing, clammy serpent. Bat ecarcely had he cast the shovel away, when his destiny seized upon him again—grasped him as with an invisible hand of fron—forced him tosteop down and pick up the implement once more—and then hurried him along the lane, despite of every wid, desperate, maddening effort which the man made to throw off the thraldom that some supernal end indomitable influence thus exercised ever | ‘The moon was shining faintly and feebly ;—and on reaching the churchyard gate, the man paused. He leant against the railing—he buried his face in his hands—he wept bitterly, bitterly. Profeund indeed that of death ; and the night air was fraught with the icy coldness of the tomb. “T'was a silence only too well calculated to enhance the desolation of heart experienced by any homeless outcast and wandering wretch who might happen to pause for a moment there to lean against the gate and rest his weary limbs ;—and it was a chill that could not fail to pierce into the vary marrow of his bones. And over the gate bent the man whom a hideous destiny seemed to have impelled thither :—over the gate he bent, looking round upon the church- yard with eyes the haggard wildness and despair- ing frenzy of which were further proofs of the poignant anguish that wrung his soul. He clung to the gate—and yet he would have been overjoyed to hasten away: with an iron tenacity did he seem to grasp those railings—and yet he would have given worlds, had he posses$e@ them, to be enabled to throw off the spell that was upen him and fiee with precipitation from that spet! Bathe was not his own master: his better inciimaliens urged him in one direction—his ferociens émetincts impelled him in another;—the intelligence of the man was warring against the wnnateral sensation of the fiend ;—and the letter influence was triumphant! Yes—e spell of a tremendous and appalling na- ture was now upem the unhappy man ;—and, with convulsing ftmbs—a form bathed from head to foot in the sweat ef his agony—eyes glaring with ferocious wildness—featares working horribly— and foam oozing from the tongue and speckled with the blopd that came from the cracked lips, in this wretched, unnatural, awfal plight it was that the man suddenly climbed the gate and leapt over into the churchyard. And now, instead of either keeping in the or striking off into the intervals between tombs and the graves, the man studionsly avoided touching the ground at all with his fect: but be walked from stone to stono—ate ing easily from ene to another when they wore close, capsag the intervening space with a sure foot and an un- erring dexterity when they were farther apart. From time to time he paused, and listened: then, if the sound of a footstep in the lane happened to meet his ear, he would throw himself upon some monumental etone and there lie until all was still again. But if it were the barking of a deg which his ear caught, a frightful trembling would -! come over him as he fung his form on the nearest sobs convulsed him—as if the very fountains of his | horizontal stone ;—and there would he lie in con- | heart's agony were completely broken up ;—and | valsive writhings wntil.the menacing sound was the strong yuscular form of that man writhed like | heard no more ! a stricken reptile beneath the invisible influence that had fastened its accursed spell upon him ! eee In all and every ease, however, was he carefpl to avoid touching the ground with his feet. Froin (COU (C DOO (CO