I am one of those who are most sensible of the power
of the imagination: everyone is jostled by it,
but some are overthrown by it.
(Montaigne, ch. 11.)4
“Ha ha! You make me laugh uproariously!
Boasting about your reason and your courage!
It only requires the most ridiculous accident to
put the latter in default and ruin the former forever.”
(Anonymous.)
Oh, what a delightful day Lord Edgard was about to spend! To depart at daybreak for the ruins of the priory of Saint Ruth, to depart with the naïve Miss Arabella, and the witty and piquant Duchess MacMoran! And to have the mild and indulgent Milady Tornson’s carriage for a conveyance, and for a guide the jovial and knowledgeable Dr. Raleigh!
Let’s go then! Forward ho! Farewell to old Edinburgh! There isn’t a cloud in the sky; the refreshing wind is making the foliage of the oaks tremble gently. Let’s go! Onwards, onwards!
And there was, to begin with, a merry mélange of frivolous remarks, tender words, ingenious pleasantries; I would have defied the most careworn brow not to have cleared; I would have defied the most phlegmatic of men not to have felt the electric gaiety that sprang forth from every direction in sparks.
But a cloud has formed at the extremity of the horizon; it is extending like a lugubrious veil; instead of the light of a little while ago, of the radiant day that ornamented nature with a soft and living glare, everything becomes dull and inanimate; one can no longer breathe freely, one no longer experiences an indescribable wellbeing; and I don’t know what sadness comes to squeeze the heart and freeze the imagination. Still, if one were to shiver at the sudden glare of lightning, which flashes, dies and is reborn, with the majestic din of thunder...
But no; it’s a slow, gray, monotonous rain that clutches the limbs with an icy inconvenience.
They do not have their picnic on the grass; the semi-ruined arcades of the monastery do not resound to their joyful bursts of laughter; shut up in a poor cottage where an old woman is dying hoarsely on a wretched bed, they spend two long hours of rain, disappointment and sadness, without saying a word.
Finally, the horses are rested; they can leave, and quit that black dwelling where the fetid air makes it so difficult to breathe, where they have been embarrassed and inhibited beside the bed of a dying woman. A few gifts are left to a tall, pale and thin young woman, the only creature weeping by the invalid’s beside. She murmurs, by way of thanks: “This will serve, my ladies, to bury my mother.”
To complete the misfortune, the roads have become bad; the horses’ feet slip, the wheels sink into profound ruts. Night will have fallen by the time the berline reaches Edinburgh.
Night? No, it will be tomorrow, for now it’s the axle that has broken; the carriage is lying on its side in a ditch...
Thank God no one is injured! A great fright for the ladies; for everyone, a rainy night spent under the stars: those are the only inconveniences of the accident that has just occurred. It’s necessary, however to seek shelter. In which direction? They are five miles from any habitation, and how are they to reach one, with frail footwear, along muddy roads, in rain like this?
Luckily, a short distance away, there is an old ruined manor house, whose owners, if there are any, have not been in residence there in living memory; today, the only living beings to be found there are an old Scots woman and her daughter; they have come to set up home in the ruins, rather like swallows taking possession of the corner of a window to build their nests.
After holding a discussion, they decided unanimously to go seek a refuge in the old manor while one of the domestics would keep watch on the carriage and the other would go on horseback in search of laborers.
The hospitality was not as poor as might have been feared; the good woman in the manor received the strangers as best she could; dealing, as she could easily see, with people of high status, who would reward her zeal generously, she displayed the utmost reverence, and put her abode and the manor at the disposal of her guests.
To begin with, the ladies exchanged their sodden clothes for the Sunday garments of the old woman’s daughter, Betty. The travelers’ cheerfulness was briefly reanimated: that was when they saw the two young ladies dressed in scarlet skirts, whose Scottish cut allowed the sight of their legs clad in blue stockings and shoes with big buckles; for headgear they had muslin bonnets, which fell over their shoulders and were certainly not unfavorable to their charming features.
The entire evening was spent around a large fireplace where a peat fire was burning. Insensibly, the conversation became sad and lugubrious, and they began to tell terrifying ghost stories.
It was the old doctor who, seeing his audience marvelously disposed to feel the somber impressions of that kind of story, amused himself greatly in following the progress of the vague and insurmountable terror that gradually took possession of the ladies during the narrations, and even attained the gentleman, Edgard.
It must be said that the irritations of the journey, the memories of the cottage and Saint Ruth, the howling wind, the deceptive light of the fire and the walls charged with Gothic sculptures could not have seconded the doctor any better; never had he had such a satisfactory audience.
The hoarseness of his voice, and Lady Tornson eyes, which were beginning to close, indicated that if he wanted to keep such a great success intact, it was time to bring it to an end, so, taking out his watch, he announced that midnight had chimed some time ago.
The ladies then took possession of the only lamp that their hostess had in the house, and the doctor and Sir Edgard went their separate ways to lie down on pallets of straw set down in the only two rooms in the manor into which the rain did not penetrate through the dilapidated roof.
Hazard had placed Edgard in the remotest part of the building; his tender imagination, inclined to excitement, had experienced the effect of the doctor’s tales keenly. Then again, after having groped his way through a long, narrow corridor, he was alone, far away from everyone else, in the large deserted hall of a ruined building; he could not, therefore, prevent himself feeling a kind of mysterious dread.
While recognizing the absurdity of such a sensation, he was nonetheless subject to its effects; wrapped up in is cloak and lying in a corner, in the midst of a profound obscurity, he felt his heart beating forcefully. The only glimmer of light he perceived was that which the moon sometimes projected through the large clouds, which the wind as driving rapidly; the only noises that reached his ears were the hooting of an owl and the roaring of the wind.
He was nevertheless dozing off when the badly-closed door flew open with a bang. He woke up with a start: the moon half-lit the place where he was...
Great God! A white phantom was standing over him!
He tried to cry out, but his voice failed; he tried to fell, but a powerful, inexorable hand held on to his garments...
He fell unconscious.
The next morning, at daybreak, the domestics brought the berline to the old manor house, restored as best they could to a condition in which it could reach Edinburgh. At that good news, everyone assembled—but Edgard was missing.
“He’s asleep, the idler. Come on, we need to go and wake him up.”
They found him pale and motionless, with the pocket of his jacket caught on the foot of an old stone statue. His hair had turned white.
They had a great deal of difficulty bringing him round. As for his reason, he was never able to recover it.