William Shakespeare as He Lived: An Historical Tale

by Henry Curling

Indeed two or three did remain at Clopton the next day; not for the purpose of recreating themselves with the old knight's hawks, but from their anxiety about the illness of the fair Charlotte, and in the hope of seeing her re-appear from her room with renewed health.

Such, however, was not to be the case, as she grew rapidly worse, and it was found necessary to summon the leech from Stratford. Soon after his arrival, the faithful Martin, with a face of alarm, took upon himself to dismiss the guests. His charge, he said, was extremely ill. Her complaint was pronounced by the leech to be both infectious and dangerous, and under such circumstances, it was advisable for them to shorten their visit. "Neither should I be acting rightly," he added, "if I concealed it, although the rumour may possibly be without foundation, but I have just heard the plague hath broken out in Stratford."

Thus were the halls of Clopton—and which but a few short hours before had displayed such a scene of gaiety and revelling,—as suddenly changed to gloom and melancholy.

The domestics seemed to glide about with noiseless step, hardly having heart to arrange the different rooms, so that many of them were left in the confusion and disarray they had been in when the mirth of the party was so suddenly interrupted; and, if the succeeding day was fraught with melancholy, the night was filled with terrors. Strange and awful sounds were heard in some of the rooms. Sounds which none could account for or discover the meaning of, although, at first attributing them to natural causes, the domestics made search through those parts of the house where they had been heard.

Coming thus at a time of grief and misfortune, and following sickness and the rumours of so dire a disease as the plague, these sounds had an ominous and awful appearance. The domestics, much as they loved their employers, and commiserated them in their present distress, were so much scared, that several fled from the Hall to their own homes; and, as the mysterious sounds continued night after night growing more violent, and even extending from the part of the house to which they had at first been confined; with the exception of two or three of the upper servants, the numerous domestics of the establish meat had almost all deserted it.

The faithful Martin was sorely troubled. Living in an age when men's minds were easily affected by superstitious terrors, and a general belief existed in supernatural agency, he however possessed an uncommon degree of firmness and mental energy. At first he tried to laugh at the terrors and complaints of the different servants, as they brought continued reports of dreadful sounds existing in the western wing of the Hall, and where the secret hiding-places existed. Then, as his own ears confirmed their reports, he shut himself up, well armed, for a whole night in the apartments where the spirit was said to be most troublesome.

On this night, which was the third after the departure of Sir Hugh, the sounds were most terrific and awful. As if the evil genius of the house of Clopton was either rejoicing over the present state of the family, or impatient for their utter destruction, it seemed inclined to drive the inmates to despair by its violence.

Martin, having thrown himself upon the bed in the apartment we have before seen tenanted by the maniac Parry, was reclining in a half-dozing state, a couple of huge petronels in his belt and a drawn rapier upon tho table, when he was suddenly conscious of some one entering the room, and sitting down beside the bed.

As he had carefully locked the door he was in something surprised at this visitation; but suspecting that some influence from without was at work, and distrusting the Jesuitical priest Eustace, after a while he quietly and cautiously rose, and then leaping suddenly from the bed, confronted the supposed visitant petronel in hand.

To his astonishment, however, no person was there,—"He looked but on a stool." The door, which had been violently burst in, was still wide open, but no one was in the room besides himself. This was the more extraordinary as Martin was confident he had distinctly heard the person enter, and with swift step passing into the apartment, seat itself by his bedside. Nay, so quick and sudden seemed the visit, that though a bold and determined man, Martin had felt paralyzed and unable to move for the first minute or two. His heart beat violently; he was certain some one was within a few inches of him as he lay, and yet he could not move a limb; till at length, shaking off the feeling, he rose to confront the intruder. Pistol in hand, he looked in every part of the small room, "searching impossible places" in his anxiety. He then descended the narrow staircase, and looked into every nook and corner of the apartment beneath, but found not even a cobweb amiss.