J. S. Le Fanus Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 | Page 4

instinct
which he could not explain, that the running figure was directing his
steps, with a sinister purpose, towards himself.
The form was that of a man with a loose coat about him, which, as he
ran, he disengaged, and as well as Larkin could see, for the moon was
again wading in clouds, threw from him. The figure thus advanced until
within some two score yards of him, it arrested its speed, and
approached with a loose, swaggering gait. The moon again shone out
bright and clear, and, gracious God! what was the spectacle before him?
He saw as distinctly as if he had been presented there in the flesh, Ned
Moran, himself, stripped naked from the waist upward, as if for
pugilistic combat, and drawing towards him in silence. Larkin would
have shouted, prayed, cursed, fled across the Park, but he was
absolutely powerless; the apparition stopped within a few steps, and
leered on him with a ghastly mimicry of the defiant stare with which
pugilists strive to cow one another before combat. For a time, which he
could not so much as conjecture, he was held in the fascination of that
unearthly gaze, and at last the thing, whatever it was, on a sudden
swaggered close up to him with extended palms. With an impulse of
horror, Larkin put out his hand to keep the figure off, and their palms
touched--at least, so he believed--for a thrill of unspeakable agony,
running through his arm, pervaded his entire frame, and he fell
senseless to the earth.
Though Larkin lived for many years after, his punishment was terrible.
He was incurably maimed; and being unable to work, he was forced,
for existence, to beg alms of those who had once feared and flattered
him. He suffered, too, increasingly, under his own horrible
interpretation of the preternatural encounter which was the beginning of
all his miseries. It was vain to endeavour to shake his faith in the reality
of the apparition, and equally vain, as some compassionately did, to try
to persuade him that the greeting with which his vision closed was

intended, while inflicting a temporary trial, to signify a compensating
reconciliation.
"No, no," he used to say, "all won't do. I know the meaning of it well
enough; it is a challenge to meet him in the other world--in Hell, where
I am going--that's what it means, and nothing else."
And so, miserable and refusing comfort, he lived on for some years,
and then died, and was buried in the same narrow churchyard which
contains the remains of his victim.
I need hardly say, how absolute was the faith of the honest inhabitants,
at the time when I heard the story, in the reality of the preternatural
summons which, through the portals of terror, sickness, and misery,
had summoned Bully Larkin to his long, last home, and that, too, upon
the very ground on which he had signalised the guiltiest triumph of his
violent and vindictive career.
I recollect another story of the preternatural sort, which made no small
sensation, some five-and-thirty years ago, among the good gossips of
the town; and, with your leave, courteous reader, I shall relate it.

The Sexton's Adventure
Those who remember Chapelizod a quarter of a century ago, or more,
may possibly recollect the parish sexton. Bob Martin was held much in
awe by truant boys who sauntered into the churchyard on Sundays, to
read the tombstones, or play leap frog over them, or climb the ivy in
search of bats or sparrows' nests, or peep into the mysterious aperture
under the eastern window, which opened a dim perspective of
descending steps losing themselves among profounder darkness, where
lidless coffins gaped horribly among tattered velvet, bones, and dust,
which time and mortality had strewn there. Of such horribly curious,
and otherwise enterprising juveniles, Bob was, of course, the special
scourge and terror. But terrible as was the official aspect of the sexton,
and repugnant as his lank form, clothed in rusty, sable vesture, his
small, frosty visage, suspicious grey eyes, and rusty, brown scratch-wig,
might appear to all notions of genial frailty; it was yet true, that Bob
Martin's severe morality sometimes nodded, and that Bacchus did not
always solicit him in vain.
Bob had a curious mind, a memory well stored with "merry tales," and
tales of terror. His profession familiarized him with graves and goblins,

and his tastes with weddings, wassail, and sly frolics of all sorts. And
as his personal recollections ran back nearly three score years into the
perspective of the village history, his fund of local anecdote was
copious, accurate, and edifying.
As his ecclesiastical revenues were by no means considerable, he was
not unfrequently obliged, for the indulgence of his tastes, to arts which
were, at the