And at the recollection of what he had seen, or fancied he had seen, he shook violently, as though every nerve in his body was shattered.
“Seen who, sir?” exclaimed Colin, though turning pale with the instant flash of consciousness that he knew who, as well as he that sat there unmanned and trembling.
“She has been back to me, true enough,” said he again; and shaking his head just as might a man upon whom the awful doubt of an after-life has just been made a woful certainty,—a plain and demonstrative certainty,—by the vision of an immateriality far more positive in itself, than the plainest of those whom Shelley has so finely described as
“The ghastly people of the realm of dream.”
“Never heed it now, sir,” rejoined the young man; “endeavour to calm yourself, and try to forget it.”
“Forget it!” repeated Mr. Lupton incredulously: “never,—never!—Oh no,—no!” And as he spoke with more energy, and raised his voice in a pathetic manner as addressing some being unseen, he continued,—“Oh, my wife, my wife!—I am indeed wretched, very wretched!”
Again Colin endeavoured to persuade him out of this painful fear; but it was not until a considerable time had elapsed in these efforts that he even partially succeeded. Having, however, at length done so, he sat down beside his father and remained with him, engaged in serious conversation until daylight on the following morning. During that discourse it is believed Mr. Lupton informed his son of every particular touching the sight or the imagination which had thus affected him; but farther than that they were never made known. Mr. Lupton himself, during the whole remainder of his life, was never known upon any occasion even to allude to such a circumstance as having ever even happened; and no one ever ventured to speak of it before him. While Colin himself, who on various occasions was questioned by his friends as to the nature of the occurrences on that mysterious night, invariably returned this answer, “that if any supernatural revelation had been made to his father, to him alone it belonged to reveal it if he would: but as for himself, he could not have anything to do with the especial secrets and the bosom business of another individual.”
This latter sentiment, however praiseworthy, I very strongly suspect to be but a variation of one which he had often heard, and had picked up in the learned school of Mr. Peter Veriquear.
Deprived as the curious thus were and are of information in that direction, it yet became well known all over the country-side, some time afterwards, that Mr. Lupton had become remarkably serious very soon after his wife's death; and, unlike many in similar predicaments, from whom such conduct might more have been expected, had actually continued so ever since.
All the able theories that had been set afloat touching his second marriage, for everybody, who knew nothing about it, believed he would be married again, were found, day after day, and month after month, never to be carried out on his part by any corresponding action; so that at length the interested portion of the neighbourhood in this question were fain to give him credit for being a good widower, who could not find in his heart to marry again.