By the Barrow River, and Other Stories

by Edmund Leamy

I began to feel as if I were in a dream that was not all a dream. I was conscious of the blue smoke rising from my cigar. It floated away from me like a mist. After a while the mist cleared, and I thought I saw a stream slowly gliding through woodland ways, and I followed it till it passed by the foot of a noble ash tree, that bent down and spread its lower branches half across it. And beneath the ash and against its trunk I saw a youth and a maiden sitting side by side. She held his hand in hers. His lips were moving, and he was whispering something that filled her eyes with a light as of summer stars. Her little mouth opened like a rosebud yielding to the sun, as if to answer him, when suddenly a deeper shadow than that cast by the bending branches of the ash fell upon the lovers. The youth was dragged to the ground, and as the maiden shrieked, a knife was driven into his throat by a man whose face I could not see. I strove to cry out, but my voice failed me. I struggled as if a great weight were pressing me down. At last I shook myself free with the wild scream ringing in my ears. I looked around. My companion was sitting in his chair, apparently in deep sleep. The half consumed cigar had dropped from his hands. I felt so shaken by what I had seen, or dreamed, that I was about to awaken him when a new horror took away my powers of action. Sitting on the ground close to my companion and with his head resting upon the old man’s knees, was the figure of the murdered youth whom I had seen slain beneath the ash tree. His eyes were open and staring, his face was wan and white. In his throat was a jagged gash, and around the edges were seams of clotted blood. His fingers were slashed and bloody, as if he had struggled hard with his murderer. I looked from the dead man to the sleeper. He was breathing lightly, and a smile like that of a child parted his lips. But as I continued to look at him I noticed that they began to twitch convulsively, then his whole frame shook as if a fierce tempest of passion were raging in his heart. He started from his chair—the dead man fell upon the floor. I rushed instinctively, and yet with a horrible dread, to lift him up, but as I was stretching out my hands for that purpose I felt myself gripped by the throat by the skinny hands of the old man. His eyes that I had thought so mild had a hard glitter in them, and his haggard face was convulsed with passion. It cost me a great effort, although I was young and strong, to loose his grip, but at length I flung him back on his chair. He sat for a second like one dazed. Then he raised his hands in supplication, and the tears stole from his eyes, that were again as mild looking as when I first saw them.

“I was dreaming. I—I thought—I thought—but that was long ago, and you’ll forgive me.”

I didn’t quite know how to answer him, I was not sure that I had not been, was not dreaming myself. The dead youth was, of course, only a ghastly vision, and, perhaps, the old man’s hands had been already on my throat when I fancied I saw the deed of murder under the ash tree. It seemed to me useless to seek any explanation from my unbidden guest, who began to appear to me uncanny.

“I’ll go, I’ll go,” he said as I kept looking towards him, “the morning will soon be here now. I am not afraid of the morning, only of the night—the black night, for then it all comes back to me, and I see them as I saw them on that evening so long ago. Hundreds of years ago, I think, since they and I were young. And now I am old, so old.”

“Who are they? When was it?” I asked, scarcely indeed, expecting any serious answer, but it seemed to me as if I kept the unhappy man at arm’s length by talking to him. I felt I could crush him with a blow, but I suppose it was owing to the shock which I had undergone in the hideous dream from which his attack had roused me that made me afraid of him, for afraid I was.

I had thought that at farthest only a few hours had passed since I entered the parlour, but the stranger was nearer the truth. The morning was almost at hand. Through the chinks of the shutters a grey light began to show itself. I flung them back, pulled up the blind, and could see the sea still raging, but the wind had died away, and in the east there was a faint rose-coloured streak.

When I turned back the old gentleman was pouring himself out a glass of whisky. His hand trembled as he lifted it to his lips. When he had set down the tumbler, having drained it, he said:

“The morning has come. You are very good, I go. I was wrong; but I knew not what I was doing, and I have suffered.”

I no longer feared him. As the light of the morning increased I saw only the haggard, worn old man, whose face was itself a witness of long suffering, and I felt a great pity for him. There was some bread and butter and cold meat on the sideboard, which had been left there by the housekeeper the night before. I pointed to it. He said he would take a little bread. I pressed him to eat some meat, but he refused. Then, as he turned to leave the room, I put my hand in my pocket and produced some silver. A faint flush stole into his wasted face, and I saw I had offended him. I apologised. He thanked me for my kindness in offering it to him, and also for my hospitality, and begged me to forgive him for his intrusion and the trouble he had caused. With a low bow he left the room. I followed, but he had opened the hall door himself and passed out on to the esplanade without looking back.

I returned to the parlour, and flinging myself into the chair began to recall the events of the night, and had been for some time vainly speculating on them when I was disturbed by the housekeeper entering the room to make arrangements for breakfast.