We talked long over the matter then and many times afterwards, and could find no solution of the mystery; but I could not help asking myself, as I do now, if the apparition were not in the nature of a message from the dead to tell the true story of the fate of my kinsman whom in appearance I so much resembled, and who, we had believed, had fallen in the Spanish expedition to Ireland, three hundred years before.
A VISION OF THE NIGHT.
One wild, stormy night over twenty years ago I entered a second-class smoking carriage in the last train from Dublin to Bray. So wild was the night that it was with great difficulty my cab horse had been able to drag along his rumbling vehicle through the streets swept clear of pedestrians by the blinding sheets of rain. The station was, except for one or two porters, completely deserted. I arrived just as the train, which was almost empty, was about to start, and I entered a carriage with two compartments, in neither of which was there any other passenger. All the windows were closed, and for the few seconds before the train started I enjoyed the luxury of the quiet that contrasted so pleasantly with the storm that was howling outside. But as soon as the train had moved out from the station the rain began to rattle like hail against the windows, and I could hear the wind strike the carriages, and the oil lamps in the roof flash and flicker, so that I expected them every moment to go out. I was muffled up to the throat, and was solacing myself with a cigar and the thought of the bright fire that I knew would greet me on arriving at my destination, and helped to raise my feelings. I was staying at Bray in the house of my sister, who, however, was with her husband in Scotland, and would not return for some days, and the only other occupant of the house besides myself was an old woman who acted as housekeeper for me. She would have gone to bed long before my arrival, but I knew from experience that she would take care to leave for me in the parlour a cheery fire and a comfortable supper.
I took no note of the stations at which we stopped, and it is only a conjecture on my part that it was at a station about half way between Dublin and Bray that an old gentleman entered the compartment in which I was. As he came in, a cold blast of air swept into the carriage, and made little whirlpools of the sawdust that had been spread on the floor. I shivered as the icy blast caught me, but I was almost ashamed of my weakness, well-clad as I was, when I looked at the old gentleman who sat opposite me. He was thinly clad in an ill-fitting coat; his face was wan and haggard; his slouched hat was shining with wet; and the rain was streaming from his white beard that descended to his breast. He took off his hat and shook and squeezed it. I then noticed that his white hair was scant. His brow was furrowed by many wrinkles. His eyebrows were white and bushy. His eyes were light blue, the lightest, I think, I had ever seen, and they were very mild—mild almost to sadness. I made some remark upon the weather. My fellow traveller answered in a weak, thin voice that it ‘was cold, very cold, and cut to the bone like a knife.’ I felt somehow that the old gentleman was poor and miserable. Indeed, he shivered visibly several times. He did not appear in a mood for conversation, and I continued to smoke in silence till we reached Bray. Here the porters opened the door, and I stepped out. I gave my hand to the old gentleman and helped him to alight, for which he thanked me in a mild voice. The station, as that of Dublin had been, was deserted but for the porters. The old gentleman and myself were the only passengers. I went down to the van to get some heavy luggage and give it in charge of the porters as there was no chance of getting it brought to my house that night. When I had seen to this I left the station. I saw no sign of my fellow-traveller and supposed he had gone his way. I could not help thinking of him as I pursued mine, and I was irritating myself with the question whether he might not have been in need of some help which I could have given him. But I ceased to think of him and his needs when I reached the esplanade.
The storm was sweeping the spray from the roaring waves right up against the faces of the houses, and the night was so intensely dark and most of the lamps having been blown out, it was with difficulty I kept the path. My house was half way between the railway station and Bray Head. A few steps led up to the door. The fierce wind almost carried me up the steps, and when by means of my latch-key I opened the door it swept inwards with a bang against the wall, and the pictures hanging in the hall were lifted up and fell back with a succession of slaps loud as pistol shots. With the utmost difficulty I pressed back the door. I was so cold and drenched with the rain and spray that I did not wait to lock it, but closed it securely. Flinging off my overcoat I hurried into the parlour where a light was burning and a bright fire blazing. I was shivering from head to foot. Having taken off my boots that were damp, I flung myself into the armchair in front of the fire.
The influence of the fire quickly asserted itself, and a feeling of pleasant languor crept over me, although the wind that buffeted the windows and made them rattle moaned like a soul in pain. Soon the sound seemed to grow fainter and fainter, and I felt the lids closing on my eyes, and was half conscious that sleep was gently dulling my senses, when suddenly a cold blast of air chilled the room, and the loud booming of the sea sounded almost at my ear. I jumped up and turned towards the parlour door. It was open, and on the threshold stood my fellow traveller. Although I was wide awake I looked upon him as if he were a spectre, and I found it impossible to utter a word. His hat was in his hand, and his white hair fell over his face, and from his long beard the rain was dripping. He advanced towards me timidly, and, bowing low, said—
“I hope you will forgive me, sir. I am a stranger here, and I know not where to seek a bed to-night. I followed you aimlessly, but when you came up the steps and entered your house, and I found myself alone with the sea and the wind and the night, I knew not what to do. I felt the need of being near some human being, and I crept up to your door, intending to pass the night against it, the other houses were all so cold and dark. I was standing for a few minutes when a flash of lightning showed me the latch-key which you had forgotten to remove. An impulse, impossible to resist, overcame me. I opened the door as softly as I could, taking advantage of a lull in the storm, and entered the hall. I would have remained there, but the light that shone from your room tempted me, and I pushed open the door. It was wrong, I know; but I am old and lonely and somewhat fearsome, and you’ll forgive me.”
I recovered my composure as the old man was speaking, and there was so deep a pathos in his voice, and he swayed so as he spoke, that a feeling of compassion took possession of me, to the exclusion of all other feelings. I forgot completely the strangeness of the situation, and taking the old man by the hand I led him to the chair which I had just occupied, and placed before him the decanter. It seemed to me that a strange glitter troubled the soft blue eyes. He poured out a tumblerful and drained it in a breath. Taking another chair I sat at the side of the fire, lit a cigar, and handed one to my companion. Smoking, as every lover of the weed knows, is conducive to silence, and my mind soon became lazily occupied in watching the smoke-wreath from my cigar mingle with that of my companion. He spoke not, and after a while I noticed that he had ceased to smoke, and that the cigar was going out, as his right hand, in the fingers of which he was holding it, remained motionless on his knee. His head had dropped on his breast, and his heavy breathing satisfied me that he was asleep.