"I promised to obey all her injunctions. The curtains of the other bed were closely drawn-I never felt so awkward in my life-but I had promised; yet one peep before the light vanished-no-perhaps the lady would wake and scream, and I should be forthwith ejected. I resolved to keep my faith, at all events till mine hostess was herself asleep, and then see-as far as utter darkness would permit-how the affair would terminate. 66 Accordingly I hurried off my clothes-washed my face, hands, and mouth as gently and quietly as possible, and having concluded my brief preparations for depositing myself in my much longed-for bed, gave the concerted signal, and scarcely was well in my place before my dear landlady entered the room on tip-toe, and coming up close to the bedside and whispering Now remember your promise'-took the glimmering light away, and left me in the dark with my fair and slumbering companion. "There was something very strange in my position," said Daly; "I was tired to death, but somehow I could not sleep. I lay and listened to hear whether my fair incognita would sneeze-or cough or cry 'hem'-or play off any little coquettish trick, which, under the circumstances, I thought probable enough. I durst not move, for I knew I was watched; however, I sat up in the bed and began to wonder. Is it," thought I," an old woman or a young woman?-an invalid is interesting, and, bless her, she must be uncommonly genteel, for she does not snore in the least; a few minutes served to convince me that my landlady did and I rather rejoiced in the sound of her slumbers, since I thought I might perhaps succeed in attracting the attention of my sleeping partner; and the fact that a gentleman of my very respectable pretensions was so whimsically associated with her-knowing mine hostess's archness-induced me to attribute her readiness to quarter me upon the slumbering beauty, to a foreknowledge on her part that my introduction would not be considered an intrusion. "After I had satisfied myself that my landlady was really safe, I had recourse to some slight coughs, which do occasionally infest one; but no, my signals were not answered: the dose of laudanum had been particularly strong that night. At last I thought I heard a slight movement. I began to listen, till I heard the beating of my own heart, and a sort of drumming in my ears. I held my breath: 'psha, thought I, this woman has been cheating me, the other bed is tenantless,-a trick to try me; and for what a stupid dolt she will set me down if I don't convince her that I had at least curiosity enough in my composition to ascertain what was in it. "My feelings fired at the thought. Up I got,-groped my way across the room, the white dimity drapery being just visible amidst the 'palpable obscure.' I reached the bed,-I paused,-I heard nothing; -I partly opened the curtains at the side, and said in a soft, very soft voice, Hem!' No answer. 'Ma'am,--Ma'am,'-still silent ;- are you there?' said I;-and, placing my hand on the pillow, found she Dear, unconscious creature, there she lay, comfortably cuddled up in the clothes, and sleeping, or seeming to sleep, so soundly. I was proceeding to awaken her, in order to announce my presence, when, in stepping towards the head of the bed, my foot came in contact with a chair which stood on its right-hand side, which was overthrown with a crash that, in an instant, roused, not my dear opium-drinker, but my was. lynx-like landlady. I heard her jump out of her bed. I jumped into mine; but, in less than two minutes, there she was, like Margaret's 'grimly ghost,' standing at the foot of my bed, loading me with reproaches, and ordering me, in the most peremptory terms, to take the candle, descend the stairs, and dress myself in the parlour behind the bar, and wait until she came down to eject me from the house; seeing that she could have no kind of confidence in a gentleman who had so much confidence in himself. "Vain were my pantomimic supplications: she would listen to nothing but immediate abdication, and I could not well be angry with her, for she had put faith in me, and perhaps run a risk of losing a valuable customer by indulging me with the luxuries of ease and rest which, under no other circumstances, she could have afforded me. I implicitly obeyed her commands; and, as soon as she had retired to dress herself, I collected my wearing apparel, and slunk down stairs to prepare for my departure, which seemed inevitable. As I passed along the passages, Í heard multifarious snorings in all directions, which convinced me of the truth of my landlady's assertions as to the influx of company, and made me repent more sorely than before, that I could not for once in my life act with discretion and decorum. "I had scarcely finished dressing myself when my landlady made her appearance in the parlour. "I really am surprised, Sir,' said she, 'at your conduct. I thought, as a gentleman, you might have been trusted, considering the circumstances under which I ventured to put you into that room.' "Really," said I, I thought you were playing me a trick, and I could not bear your having the laugh against me, and so I certainly did venture just to ascertain "Ascertain!' cried the landlady, that's just the very thing you ought upon no consideration whatever to have done. Did not I tell you the lady was an invalid? Oh! Mr. Daly, Mr. Daly! I believe you are the d 66 6 evil be, Ma'am,' said I, interrupting her, to him who evil thinks. I meant no harm, and "You might have ruined me, Sir,' said mine hostess. Might I said I,—' when?' "This very night, Sir,' said she; 'this very hour. Why, what would have been thought of me and my house, if it had been known that I had allowed you to sleep in that room? Nobody would have believed that I did it out of pure regard for your comfort, tired and knocked up as you were, and because I had not a hole or corner besides into which you could have poked yourself: however, it will be a lesson for me another time; and now, Mr. Daly, if you will take my advice, the lads are getting up in the yard,--you will let me order out a chaise and pair, and go on to Guildford, where they have plenty of beds I have no doubt, and where you may get some comfortable rest; and as the brother of the lady in No. 3 is sleeping here to-night, something unpleasant to all parties might happen in the morning, and you would do me a favour if you would go.' "I felt very much inclined, for many reasons, to accede to what appeared the very reasonable desire of mine hostess: first of all, I might do her a mischief by staying; in the second place, the lady might complain to her brother; in the third place, the White Hart at Guildford was a remarkably good inn, and a well-made bed, in a well-warmed bed-room, would be a most comfortable thing by comparison with the chilly atmosphere and the chair-slumber of the parlour behind the bar. To Guildford I must eventually proceed;-and why not now? So with the best possible grace, I told mine hostess that I was at her command, and that she might dispose of me as she thought fit. "I paid her for the horses, the repast, and the portion of my night's rest which I ought to have had, liberally; and when I stepped into the ' yellow and two,' I shook hands with her, and she gave me a look as much as to say again and again, Daly, Daly! you are not to be trusted.' "Well, Sir," continued Daly, "away I went, glasses rattling, and wind whistling: a short stage, as you know; and before four we reached the White Hart. I had forestalled my Guildford sleep in the chaise; however, we soon made them hear at the inn, and in less than threequarters of an hour I was again rolled up in the sheets, having, before I went to bed, written a note to my servant at Wrigglesworth, which I desired might be sent off early in the morning, directing him, after leaving word with Sir Marmaduke's men that I was alive, if not merry, to come to me with clothes and other requisites for dressing by ten o'clock. "From my servant I learned that my friends at Wrigglesworth had really expressed great anxiety on my account, which did not displease me. I like to create an effect; but I did not hear that dear Lady Wrigglesworth had either absented herself from dinner, or disappeared for the evening in consequence of my absence. "After breakfast I strolled out. I like Guildford; it is a nice, clean, handsome, healthy town; the hill in the street I admit to be a nuisance; the alternation between climbing up and sliding down is tiresome and even dangerous; but I overlooked that. "As I approached the door of the White Hart and just as my man was bringing out my horses, my eye was attracted by a funeral procession, consisting merely of a hearse, one mourning coach, and a private carriage, which had halted before the door; two persons who had occupied the coach having entered the house while fresh horses were put to the three vehicles. A natural and not very blameable curiosity prompted me to ask a jolly, merry-looking undertaker whose funeral it was, whither they were going, and whence they had come? 66 6 Why, Sir,' said the man, what you see here isn't the regular job as I hopes to turn it out at Chichester next Tuesday, which is the day fixed for the interment of the cropse. Short notice, you see; could not do everything in a minute, Sir.' "What is the name of the- ?' I hesitatingly asked. 6 "Miss Barmingfield, Sir,' said the man, is the name of the young lady. She was as well as you and me three days ago, and was a coming down to Chichester to spend a month with her mother; when all at once she was taken ill at Ripley, and went out for all the world like the snuff of a candle.' "At Ripley!' said I she lived at Ripley?" "No, Sir, she didn't,' said the undertaker; she died there.' "But she must have lived there first, I presume,' said I, rather angrily, for a joker hates to be joked upon. A very short time,' said the jolly undertaker. She arrived at the Talbot the day before yesterday, about twelve o'clock in the day, in high health, and by six at night she was a cropse.' "At the Talbot!' said I. the Talbot inn ?' "Yes, Sir,' said the man, 6 'And are you bringing the body from on our way to Chichester. We could not move her, poor dear young lady, afore, because I couldn't get the coffin ready till this morning.' "Pray,' said I, with a degree of agitation which evidently astonished my companion in the crape, 'where-in what part of the Talbot at Ripley did the young lady die?' "In Number 3, that 'ere double-bedded room right over the gateway,' said the man. 'We only packed her up this morning.' "My dear Gurney," said Daly," you may conceive what my feelings were. Only conceive the idea,-turned into a double-bedded room in the dark with a dead woman! It was lucky that the horses were pronounced ready, and that Major Barmingfield, whose residence at Ripley mine hostess so truly had announced, made his appearance just at the moment that the undertaker had enlightened me on the subject. I felt a mingled sensation of horror at the event, of joy at my escape from the place where it occurred, of repentance for my misconduct towards my landlady, who had so good-naturedly strained a point for my accommodation, that I have not a notion what I should have done, if it had not been that the coldness of the weather afforded me an excuse for drinking off a glass of brandy, and the lateness of the hour forced me to mount my nag and begin my canter to Wrigglesworth forthwith." When Daly had finished this little episode in his eccentric and eventful life, I felt particularly sick,-I might say sympathetically sick. He perceived the effect his story had produced, and, calling for Dejex himself, he prescribed some Garus, at that time the popular liqueur; and then whispering some directions about egged-wine, desired me to finish the claret, and commence a new course of drinking. The subsequent events of that evening require a new chapter. THOUGHTS DURING SICKNESS. BY MRS. HEMANS. I. INTELLECTUAL POWERS. O THOUGHT! O Memory! gems for ever heaping Thy lamp's lone star mid shadowy hosts enshrined; At fever's fiery touch apart they fall, Your glorious combinations !—-broken all. As the sand-pillars by the desert's wind Scattered to whirling dust!-O soon uncrown'd! Well may your parting swift, your strange return, How by meek faith heaven's portals must be past Ere it can hold your gifts inalienably fast. II. SICKNESS LIKE NIGHT. Thou art like night, O sickness! deeply stilling With low, sweet voices, by life's tumult drown'd. III. ON RETZCH'S DESIGN OF THE ANGEL OF DEATH.* Well might thine awful image thus arise, For Him with permanence?-Who make those gleams IV. REMEMBRANCES OF NATURE. O Nature! thou didst rear me for thine own, * Suggested by the beautiful and remarkable description in Mrs. Jameson's "Visits and Sketches." |