A Thin Ghost | Page 4

He therefore set
them tasks to be written and brought to him. Three times, if not oftener,
Frank knocked at the study door, and each time the doctor chanced to
be engaged with some visitor, and sent the boy off rather roughly,
which he later regretted. Two clergymen were at dinner this day, and
both remarked--being fathers of families--that the lad seemed sickening
for a fever, in which they were too near the truth, and it had been better
if he had been put to bed forthwith: for a couple of hours later in the
afternoon he came running into the house, crying out in a way that was
really terrifying, and rushing to Mrs. Ashton, clung about her, begging
her to protect him, and saying, "Keep them off! keep them off!"
without intermission. And it was now evident that some sickness had
taken strong hold of him. He was therefore got to bed in another
chamber from that in which he commonly lay, and the physician
brought to him: who pronounced the disorder to be grave and affecting
the lad's brain, and prognosticated a fatal end to it if strict quiet were
not observed, and those sedative remedies used which he should
prescribe.
We are now come by another way to the point we had reached before.
The minster clock has been stopped from striking, and Lord Saul is on
the threshold of the study.
"What account can you give of this poor lad's state?" was Dr. Ashton's
first question. "Why, sir, little more than you know already, I fancy. I
must blame myself, though, for giving him a fright yesterday when we
were acting that foolish play you saw. I fear I made him take it more to
heart than I meant." "How so?" "Well, by telling him foolish tales I had
picked up in Ireland of what we call the second sight." "Second sight!
What kind of sight might that be?" "Why, you know our ignorant

people pretend that some are able to foresee what is to
come--sometimes in a glass, or in the air, maybe, and at Kildonan we
had an old woman that pretended to such a power. And I daresay I
coloured the matter more highly than I should: but I never dreamed
Frank would take it so near as he did." "You were wrong, my lord, very
wrong, in meddling with such superstitious matters at all, and you
should have considered whose house you were in, and how little
becoming such actions are to my character and person or to your own:
but pray how came it that you, acting, as you say, a play, should fall
upon anything that could so alarm Frank?" "That is what I can hardly
tell, sir: he passed all in a moment from rant about battles and lovers
and Cleodora and Antigenes to something I could not follow at all, and
then dropped down as you saw." "Yes: was that at the moment when
you laid your hand on the top of his head?" Lord Saul gave a quick
look at his questioner--quick and spiteful--and for the first time seemed
unready with an answer. "About that time it may have been," he said. "I
have tried to recollect myself, but I am not sure. There was, at any rate,
no significance in what I did then." "Ah!" said Dr. Ashton, "well, my
lord, I should do wrong were I not to tell you that this fright of my poor
nephew may have very ill consequences to him. The doctor speaks very
despondingly of his state." Lord Saul pressed his hands together and
looked earnestly upon Dr. Ashton. "I am willing to believe you had no
bad intention, as assuredly you could have no reason to bear the poor
boy malice: but I cannot wholly free you from blame in the affair." As
he spoke, the hurrying steps were heard again, and Mrs. Ashton came
quickly into the room, carrying a candle, for the evening had by this
time closed in. She was greatly agitated. "O come!" she cried, "come
directly. I'm sure he is going." "Going? Frank? Is it possible? Already?"
With some such incoherent words the doctor caught up a book of
prayers from the table and ran out after his wife. Lord Saul stopped for
a moment where he was. Molly, the maid, saw him bend over and put
both hands to his face. If it were the last words she had to speak, she
said afterwards, he was striving to keep back a fit of laughing. Then he
went out softly, following the others.
Mrs. Ashton was sadly right in her forecast. I have no inclination to
imagine the last scene in detail. What Dr. Ashton records is, or may be

taken to be, important to