I knew it the moment the door was opened. A strong sickly odor, like nothing ever felt before, told me so. I said to myself on the instant, “It is the smell of yellow fever.” And no one, I think, would have failed to give it its own dreadful name—that is, if they were in a situation where the fever was probable. There is no odor on earth to which it is comparable. The soul loathes, and sickens, and trembles in its presence; for there is no straighter or surer avenue to the soul than the sense of smell.
I went home thoroughly frightened, and Robert I think was not sorry. He had often told me I was too indifferent—not 270 to the discomfort of the situation—but to its danger. We found on reaching home that Calvin and Alexander had not gone to bed, and then both boys cried in our arms and said they dared not go to their rooms upstairs.
“There are evil spirits there, Papa,” sobbed Calvin, “and they walk about and stand and look at us. They emptied my drawers last night. They pulled the clothes off our bed. Oh, they are so wicked, and so dreadful! Save us from them, Papa! We cannot go upstairs tonight.”
We were astounded, the more so as Mary and Lilly had a similar story to tell. The dear children had been consulting in our absence, whether we must be told, or whether they should try to bear it a little longer—until Mamma felt better. Those four words smote me like a whip.
Of course we comforted them, and gave the boys a room downstairs beside us. Then I went to the kitchen to make some inquiries of the servant, who also slept upstairs. She was a sensible middle-aged Dutch woman, as little likely to be psychic, or even imaginative, as was the bed upon which she slept. I found that she had gone home to sleep, but would be back early in the morning. When she came in the morning, I said to her, “Why did you go home last night, Gertrude?”
“Because it is impossible to sleep here, Madame,” she answered. “There are such strange noises, and I see dreadful men going up and down stairs all night. I am afraid of them.”
I told Robert what she said, and he answered in a sad, slow voice, “I hear such things wherever I turn Milly. It is astonishing what some men have told me. I could almost fear we were all in hell and did not know it. During the great cholera year in Glasgow, 1847-8, people told the same things, but the spiritual terror is far, far greater here, and now, than it was there, and then.”
“Do you think such a calamity as this is the work of evil spirits, Robert?”
“It may be. But if so, they are only the agents of a wise and merciful God who permits them so far, and no further. There is the case of Job, and when Daniel prayed for help, the help, though sent by the Archangel Michael, was delayed 271 twenty-one days; for Michael had to fight the Evil Ones, who opposed him.” Then we were silent and thoughtful, and I had suddenly a childish fear, that it was not well to talk of the Evil Ones. They could perhaps hear what we said.
I will try to write as little as possible about the spiritual terror of this time, but ignoring a subject does not annihilate it, and this subject was one of general concern and absorbing interest. There were few people—men and women both—who had not some strange or terrible experience to relate. Nor were these experiences confined to the vulgar, the ignorant, the superstitious or the irreligious; they affected every class, without any distinction of social standing, age or culture.