THE SUPERNATURAL OMNIBUS (95 page)

‘At length and at last, I could stand it no longer, and one night I got up from my bed and made my way to the graveyard. ‘Twas in the dark hour before the crowing of the cocks, when wandering spirits are warned home to their house of clay.’

‘And did you half expect to see the Watcher o’ the Dead?’ I asked.

‘Did I? And why not?’ he asked in turn, by way of reply.

‘With your mind disturbed that way,’ I went on, ‘the wonder is you didn’t see her, if only in fancy.’

I meant to be kind. He faced me testily.

‘I did see her, as sure as I’m a living man! ’ he declared.

I had not the heart to urge my view that it was only a brain- born figure.

‘I no sooner crossed the stile,’ he said softly, ‘than I got clear sight of herself. She was moving through the graves she guarded, and a kindly look in her two eyes. The dead image I thought her of the Nuns you see in the sick ward of the poorhouse in Bally- brosna, and she taking a look at the beds in their little rows, and fearing to waken the tired sleepers in her charge. There she was, in truth, as I had seen her a thousand times in my own mind.’ ‘In your own mind!’ I said after him. ‘It was on your eyes, so to speak, and you merely saw what was in your mind already. Was it not more natural to see the figment that never left your sight than not to see it at all?’

It was all very clear to me, and I felt this was sound talk; and isn’t it a caution the way the rage of battle will rise in a body and set the tongue loose! But Tim’s reply put a stop to any dispute or war of words.

‘It was in my mind, for sure,’ he said. ‘But tell me, you who have the book learning, why was it in my mind? When a man’s brain begins to work, what gives it the start, or sets it going - or does it start to go of itself?’

I had to give in that I always left such vexed questions to wiser heads, adding, whimsically enough as it seems to me now, that I was not such a great fool as to attempt an answer where they failed. In a way I was put out by the reflection that this old man, who ‘didn’t know his letters’, was making a mockery of me on the head of my few books and my small store of book learning.

‘There is nothing hard about the case I am after putting before you,’ he said. ‘It was on my mind because the thing was taking place in Gort na Marbh night after night, was taking place in the Field of the Dead, though there was no living eye to see it!’

I had no reply to that, whether it was a head-made ghost or not. Where was the use of starting to argue that nothing really takes place if not within the knowledge of man? I told myself weakly that such visions were due to the queer strain in the old man the neighbours spoke about this day. It might be that, in his present state, all this had only come into his head as the two of us talked together. It did not occur to me then, and I have too much respect for the dead to credit it now, that he was ‘taking a rise’ out of me, as the plain saying is.

Tim became a little rambling in his speech and asked me to let him lie flat in the bed. I gathered from the words he mumbled and jumbled that he made a promise to the departed spirit to take her place till his own time came in real earnest: that he had bid her go to her rest, in the Name of God, much, I could not help but think, as one might banish an evil spirit to the ‘red sea’ to make ropes of the sand; that he had kept his word, which brought great peace to his breast: and that he never set eyes on her again from that hour, there or there else.

I had no doubt he had but laid the ghost of his own troubled thoughts. It is not every poor mortal can do that same, even by dint of hard sacrifice. Tim was growing worse. I tried hard to cheer him. It was all to no use. I talked of his son, Michael, who was far away on the fishing grounds. We had already sent word for him to come home, and he might be here any stroke, if it was a long ways off, itself.

‘Michael will never be here in time !’ the father groaned. ‘That is my great trouble. I never could ask another to do it. It would be again’ reason.’

‘There is nothing you could name I would not gladly do! ’ I declared; and, in all fair speaking, I meant it.

‘There are things no man should ask of his friend,’ he said to that, with a slight shake of the head.

‘And who else should he ask but his friend?’ I laughed, trying to rouse him. ‘But, first, I’ll send for the Doctor

‘The Doctor, how are ye! ’ he broke in on me. ‘That is not what I want. What can the like of himself do for a body who has seen the Watcher o’ the Dead?’

‘What harm if you did itself?’ I asked. ‘The sign of a long life it is, as likely as not. It would be another story, entirely, one’s “fetch” to be seen in the late hours of the day. An early death that would signify.’

‘The man,’ he made answer, ‘the man who lays eyes on the Watcher o’ the Dead, late or early, if the like could come to pass at all before dark, that man will soon be only a shadow himself. I am saying, he will soon be among the silent company. The time I took the woman’s place, the woman who held my heart for years, I knew rightly, it would not be for long. It is for that reason and no other I am after telling you my secret sorrow. I will never be able to put out this night, if I live through this night of the nights, or any night for the future; and if it was a thing I failed her, sure herself would be disturbed in her rest.’

I took a grip of his hand and looked down steadily into his eyes.

‘Put your trust in me!’ I said. ‘I’ll take your place till such time as you are laid in the clay!’

Who is it, though he might throw doubt on the very stars above his head, would not try to humour an old man or a little child?

‘God sent you for a friend,’ he said, ‘praised be His holy Name! For all I know, I may not want you to do so much: I may want you to do a little more, but in another way. I want you to take my place till Michael comes, and not an hour more; I want you, as well as that, to tell him all I have told you and to give him my dying wish, if it is a thing he does not come before I go for ever. Whisper! You’ll tell Michael, in case I’m too far through myself, that I am dying happy knowing he will not refuse a last favour to the father who reared him. It is this: That he will become the Watcher o’ the Dead, though a living man, like myself, and let me, after so much fret and torment, go straight to herself, to his mother, in Heaven. Tell him I know he will do this, for the rest of his mortal days, if it comes to that. Tell him I know that, after that again, if he gets no release he will have his bones laid in Gort na Marbh and wait his own turn. I have done my share of watching, God knows!’

Some kind neighbours gathered during the course of the day, and the priest of the parish was sent for. Father Malachy was a man of the world, without being worldly. It is not for the knowing, and never will be in this world, whether Tim told him about the Watcher o’ the Dead. As a man, his reverence knew all the customs and beliefs of the people, for he was one of them himself. Deep in his nature a body might expect to find a kindly toleration for the harmless ‘superstitions’, as some would call them, lingering from the pagan days of Firbolg or Tuatha de Danaan. As a priest, he had, no doubt, full knowledge of the rites of the Church for dealing with ‘appearances’ from the other world, which shows it to be no harm to give heed to such things.

Tim kept quiet till the night wore on. Then he got restless and began to mutter to himself. The use of his speech was well-nigh gone. I caught such words as ‘Gort na Marbh’, and ‘Herself’, and ‘the Watcher o’ the Dead’. His grip was tight on my fist when I said in his ear that I would not fail him, dead or alive, till Michael came. The kind neighbours did not let on to hear the pair of us, and I left him in their charge while I set out for the strange duty I had taken on myself so lightly, taken on, indeed, with a certain zest, in the vague hope of enlarging my experience. It was clear from Tim’s behaviour that the hour of the night had come when he felt the ‘call’ to the graveyard, and still there was no sign of Michael. The moon was in the sky. The night was cold. There was no stir. The place held no terrors for me. I set little store by Tim’s story, except as a ‘study’ in delusion. The old man was much in my thoughts, for he was passing rapidly away. I saw him in my mind, as he us£d to say, and he walking here and there through the graves that now held nothing but cold clay, passing by fallen stones, broken and moss-grown. I tried hard to banish such airy pictures, for I did not want to begin seeing sights.

What was that story Tim told me a few days ago as we stood before a headstone in Gort na Marbh? It was a true tale of revenge, revenge both on the living and the dead, and it was a poor sort of revenge at that. Before long I would be seeing again the spot where the dead man he spoke about was laid in the clay. His relations, in blood and law, hoped to benefit largely by his death. But he left all to his son. The boy was an only child whose mother died the hour he came into the world. He came home, a likely youth, to be at the father’s funeral. For the first time in his young life he saw the place that was now to be his own. It was natural for him to ask why the usual black plumes did not wave above the hearse instead of white. The errors of the past, if any, should have been covered by charity. Feuds are forgiven, if not forgotten, in the hour of death. It is what they told him, with wild malice, that black plumes were only for people who were lawfully joined in wedlock.

Here I found the elements of tragedy, but the story only helped to keep the figure of Tim before me. I was stepping over the stile and thinking of the nights he spent walking about in the dreary waste, for, after so much neglect, that is what it had by now sunk to. I felt the nettles rank and dank as I set foot on the ground; and then - it was not wild phantasy! -I got sight of Tim moving in the moonlight among the shadows of the headstones and the trees.

‘In the Name of God!’ I cried, profanely, I am half afraid, ‘leave the place at once, and let me keep my promise in peace.’

I was furious with the neighbours for letting him rise and he in a fever. But were they to be blamed? I crossed hastily and found myself alone! This gave me a start, and I began to wonder whether in that strange ground - for, surely, the place was not ‘right’! - I, in my turn, saw what was on my eyes only! Had Tim been there in the flesh or was it that I, in my turn, had laid but the ghost of a deranged imagination? Could it be that the queer strain of the family, if there is such a thing, runs in my own blood? Or does a sane man put such a question to himself? Without waiting for the crowing of the cocks, I made haste back to the house. My heart was beating loudly.

‘We were going to call after you,’ the neighbours said to me. ‘Hardly was your back turned when the end came! ’

Tim was stretched there in his long sleep, his features set free by the kindly touch of death!

Last night at the same hour we dug his grave. I was heartened by the presence of the neighbours and lingered over the work till the dawn broke, walking about from time to time, ‘by way of no harm’, trying to keep my promise to the dead man. More than once the shadows, moving with the shifting lanthorn, took a start out of me. There were a few of the neighbours would not put out with us. One was a strong young man who was so free of the tongue this day.

‘Why do you want to choose such an unreasonable hour?’ they grumbled. ‘It is not lucky to turn up the sod in the dead of the night.’

‘As likely as not,’ I heard another make answer, ‘he was waiting to see would Michael come on the long car.’

I did not put him right. If we were waiting for Michael only the work could have been left over till morning. It is the long wait we would have, for the same Michael, God rest the poor boy! God rest him! I say, for before Tim was taken out this day word came that the hardy young fisherman had been lost a week ago in the depths of the salt water. The hungry, angry sea did not give up its dead. And now his death comes home to me! Michael’s bones will never be laid in Gort na Marbh. Michael will never, never, either in life or death, become the Watcher o’ the Dead! And I have pledged my word to the man who is gone, the father, to take his place till such time as Michael should come home! That will be never, never!

What way can I break my word to the dead, whether I credit his story or doubt it? It was part of his own belief, part of himself. What odds does it make even if he was out of his mind, or if I am a madman myself? A promise, a promise to one passed away, is sacred.

Where is the good of talking of common sense? Half the world is stupid with common sense, if there is any such quality. But I see a dismal prospect before me, till the end of my days, as likely as not, let alone, for all I know, till the Day of Judgement itself! Already I feel there is a stir in my blood, the time has come for me to get up and make my lonely vigil: for I have been putting this down in black and white for many hours. It is a true word for Tim; every man has his own story, his own agony. But I set out to tell of his troubles, which, for sure, are at an end, and not of my own, which, for all a body can see, are only in their birth throes.

from "Real Ghost Stories" (Second Series),
Pearson's Magazine
, April 1899;

***

"I hold," Mr. Flaxman Low, the eminent psychologist, was saying, "that there are no other laws in what we term the realm of the supernatural but those which are the projections or extensions of natural laws."

"Very likely that's so," returned Naripse, with suspicious humility. "But, all the same, Konnor Old House presents problems that won't work in with any natural laws I'm acquainted with. I almost hesitate to give voice to them, they sound so impossible and—and absurd."

"Let's judge of them," said Low.

"It is said," said Naripse, standing up with his back to the fire, "it is said that a Shining Man haunts the place. Also a light is frequently seen in the library—I've watched it myself of a night from here—yet the dust there, which happens to lie very thick over the floor and the furniture, has afterwards shown no sign of disturbance."

"Have you satisfactory evidence of the presence of the Shining Man?"