Welsh Rarebit Tales

by Harle Oren Cummins

I have seen many men in my life who have drunk too much, and are tasting that bitter after draught by which an abused system avenges itself, and I looked to find a far different sight from that which met my eyes as they made room for me about the couch. In the white drawn face before me there was nothing but fear, not ordinary healthy fear such as every man at times experiences, but a kind of speechless horror; and his eyes, as they turned toward me, had in them the fathomless misery of a lost soul.

His lips moved, and I heard him pleading faintly with somebody or something to go away and leave him for a little while; but as entreaties did no good he tried to bribe the thing, and offered a thousand, ten thousand pounds to be left in peace. Then, as nothing seemed to avail, his voice rose to a frenzied scream, and he cursed the thing that haunted him, the God that made him, yes, and the mother who bore him.

At last, worn out and exhausted, he sank back to the floor, and I succeeded in getting him into a fitful sleep, while that crowd of tawdry, painted women and drunken men crept past him out of the room, with all the laughter gone from their faces.

“The next day I was surprised by a visit from the young man.” (See page 167.)

The next day I was surprised by a visit from the young man, who, as might be expected of one in his position, was thoroughly frightened. I explained to him, as a man of medicine, just what his condition the night before meant, and he promised solemnly, and of his own accord, not to touch anything more for a year. Then he told me what he had seen the night before; for, strange to say, he remembered perfectly all he had been through. As he lay there, he said, he could see across the room, slowly forming itself out of nothing, and yet having a frightful form, some hideous thing which, neither man nor beast, and yet resembling both, approached slowly, grinning at him. He could not describe it more definitely, for he had not learned to know it as he afterwards did. All that I could find out was that it was a great flabby creature that waddled as it walked; and though it had a face, it was not like anything he had ever seen.

As regards this pledge to me, I think he kept it, for I heard indirectly from him several times during the year, and the report was always good. He was back again in Paris, but had given up all his old companions, and was working faithfully. That year one of his pictures received a prize in the salon, and he was prophesied a great future.

I was away during the next year and a half, looking up interests of mine in America, and heard little that was going on among my own people. On the evening of my return to our village, therefore, I was surprised to see the big house at Redfern gaily illuminated, and was told by the servants that there had been bad doings up on the hill for many a day. The temptation of the old life had been too strong; he had gathered his all too willing crowd of former associates around him, and was “celebrating” with all the pent up passion of a roué who has walked in the narrow path for nearly a year.

He was sick with his old trouble twice that month, and both times for old friendship’s sake I did what I could for him; but I saw there must come an end before many months. But such an end!

I was surprised one day to hear the servants talking in the next room, for they said that all the crowd at Redfern had left for the city that morning, with the exception of Master Richard, who was shut up in his room working all day like mad on some picture, and drinking furiously at night.