The House by the Church-Yard

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

'Corpse—hey!'

'So Toole says. Hollo! Toole—Doctor Toole—I say. Here's Mr. Slowe hasn't heard about poor Nutter.'

'Ho! neighbour Slowe—give you good-day, Sir—not heard it? By Jove, Sir—poor Nutter!—'tis true—his body's found—picked up this morning, just at sunrise, by two Dunleary fishermen, off Bullock. Justice Lowe has seen it—and Spaight saw it too. I've just been speaking with him, not an hour ago, in Thomas Street. It lies at Ringsend—and an inquest in the morning.'

And so on in Doctor Toole's manner, until he saw Dr. Walsingham, the good rector, pausing in his leisurely walk just outside the row of houses that fronted the turnpike, in one of which were the lodgings of Dick Devereux.

The good Doctor Toole wondered what brought his reverence there, for he had an inkling of something going on. So he bustled off to him, and told his story with the stern solemnity befitting such a theme, and that pallid, half-suppressed smile with which an exciting horror is sometimes related. And the good rector had many ejaculations of consternation and sympathy, and not a few enquiries to utter. And at last, when the theme was quite exhausted, he told Toole, who still lingered on, that he was going to pay his respects to Captain Devereux.

'Oh!' said cunning little Toole, 'you need not, for I told him the whole matter.'

'Very like, Sir,' answered the doctor; 'but 'tis on another matter I wish to see him.'

'Oh!—ho!—certainly—very good, Sir. I beg pardon—and—and—he's just done his breakfast—a late dog, Sir—ha! ha! Your servant, Doctor Walsingham.'

Devereux puzzled his comrade Puddock more than ever. Sometimes he would descend with his blue devils into the abyss, and sit there all the evening in a dismal sulk. Sometimes he was gayer even than his old gay self; and sometimes in a bitter vein, talking enigmatical ironies, with his strange smile; and sometimes he was dangerous and furious, just as the weather changes, without rhyme or reason. Maybe he was angry with himself, and thought it was with others; and was proud, sorry, and defiant, and let his moods, one after another, possess him as they came.

They were his young days—beautiful and wicked—days of clear, rich tints, and sanguine throbbings, and gloria mundi—when we fancy the spirit perfect, and the body needs no redemption—when, fresh from the fountains of life, death is but a dream, and we walk the earth like heathen gods and goddesses, in celestial egotism and beauty. Oh, fair youth!—gone for ever. The parting from thee was a sadness and a violence—sadder, I think, than death itself. We look behind us, and sigh after thee, as on the pensive glories of a sunset, and our march is toward the darkness. It is twilight with us now, and will soon be starlight, and the hour and place of slumber, till the reveille sounds, and the day of wonder opens. Oh, grant us a good hour, and take us to Thy mercy! But to the last those young days will be remembered and worth remembering; for be we what else we may, young mortals we shall never be again.