PURSUIT
William Maubray, in obedience to orders, went to his bed, having locked his chamber door. He grew tired of listening for sound or signal from the picket in the parlour; as he lay in his bed reading, his eyes failed him. He had walked fifteen miles that day, and in spite of his determination to remain awake, perhaps partly in consequence of it he fell into a profound slumber, from which he was awakened in a way that surprised him.
The sages in the study had drawn their armchairs about the fire. The servants had gone to bed—all was quiet, and it was now past one o’clock. The conversation was hardly so vigorous as at first—there were long pauses, during which the interlocutors yawned furtively into their hands, and I am sorry to add, that while Mr. Wagget was, at the physician’s request, expounding to him the precise point on which two early heresies differed, Doctor Drake actually sank into a deep slumber, and snored so loud as to interrupt the speaker, who smiled, shrugged, shook his head, and being a charitable man, made excuses for his drowsiness, and almost immediately fell fast asleep himself.
The clergyman was wakened by some noise. He must have been asleep a long time, for the fire had subsided, and he felt cold, and was so stiff from long sitting in the same posture that he could hardly get up—one of the candles had burned out in the socket, and the other was very low.
On turning in the direction of the noise, the clergyman saw a gaunt figure in white gliding from the room. On seeing this form I am bound to confess the clergyman was so transported with horror, that he seized the sleeping doctor by the head, and shook it violently.
Up started the doctor, and also saw in the shadow the spectre which had paused in the hall, looking awfully tall.
The doctor’s hand was on the candlestick, and uttering a prayer, he flung it, in a paroxysm of horror; but it was a wild shot, and hit the sofa near the study door, and rebounded under the table. The study was now dark, but not so the hall. One tall window admitted a wide sheet of moonlight. The clatter of the doctor’s projectile seemed to affect the apparition, for it suddenly began to run round and round the hall, in wide circles, regularly crossing the broad strip of moonlight, and displaying its white draperies every time for half a second; the philosophers in the study could not tell whether each new revolution might not bring it into the room, to deal with them in some unknown way. One word they did not utter, but groped and pulled one another fiercely, and groaned, and panted, and snorted, like two men wrestling, and I am afraid that each would have liked to get his friend between himself and the object, which, after whirling some half dozen times round the hall, passed off as it seemed in the direction of the kitchen or the back stair.
The gentlemen in the study, still holding one another, though with a relaxed grasp, were now leaning with their backs to the chimney-piece.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha!” panted Doctor Drake nervously, and the rector sighed two or three times in great exhaustion. The physician was first to speak.