The Watcher | Page 9

and the aid of a few tonics, your spirits will return, and the tone of your mind be once more cheerful and tranquil as heretofore. There was, after all, more truth than we are quite willing to admit in the classic theories which assigned the undue predominance of any one affection of the mind, to the undue action or torpidity of one or other of our bodily organs. Believe me, that a little attention to diet, exercise, and the other essentials of health, under competent direction, will make you as much yourself as you can wish."
"Doctor Macklin," said Barton, with something like a shudder, "I 'cannot' delude myself with such a hope. I have no hope to cling to but one, and that is, that by some other spiritual agency more potent than that which tortures me, 'it' may be combated, and I delivered. If this may not be, I am lost--now and for ever lost."
"But, Mr. Barton, you must remember," urged his companion, "that others have suffered as you have done, and--"
"No, no, no," interrupted he with irritability; "no, sir, I am not a credulous--far from a superstitious man. I have been, perhaps, too much the reverse--too sceptical, too slow of belief; but unless I were one whom no amount of evidence could convince, unless I were to contemn the repeated, the 'perpetual' evidence of my own senses, I am now--now at last constrained to believe--I have no escape from the conviction, the overwhelming certainty, that I am hunted and dogged, go where I may, by--by a DEMON."
There was an almost preternatural energy of horror in Barton's face, as, with its damp and death like lineaments turned towards his companion, he thus delivered himself.
"God help you, my poor friend" said Doctor Macklin, much shocked. "God help you; for, indeed, you 'are' a sufferer, however your sufferings may have been caused."
"Ay, ay, God help me," echoed Barton sternly; "but 'will' he help me? will he help me?"
"Pray to him; pray in an humble and trusting spirit," said he.
"Pray, pray," echoed he again; "I can't pray; I could as easily move a mountain by an effort of my will. I have not belief enough to pray; there is something within me that will not pray. You prescribe impossibilities--literal impossibilities."
"You will not find it so, if you will but try," said the Doctor Macklin.
"Try! I 'have' tried, and the attempt only fills me with confusion and terror. I have tried in vain, and more than in vain. The awful, unutterable idea of eternity and infinity oppresses and maddens my brain, whenever my mind approaches the contemplation of the Creator; I recoil from the effort, scared, confounded, terrified. I tell you, Doctor Macklin, if I am to be saved, it must be by other means. The idea of the Creator is to me intolerable; my mind cannot support it."
"Say, then, my dear sir," urged he, "say how you would have me serve you; what you would learn of me; what can I do or say to relieve you?"
"Listen to me first," replied Captain Barton, with a subdued air, and an evident effort to suppress his excitement; "listen to me while I detail the circumstances of the terrible persecution under which my life has become all but intolerable--a persecution which has made me fear 'death' and the world beyond the grave as much as I have grown to hate existence."
Barton then proceeded to relate the circumstances which we have already detailed, and then continued, --
"This has now become habitual--an accustomed thing. I do not mean the actual seeing him in the flesh--thank God, 'that' at least is not permitted daily. Thank God, from the unutterable horrors of that visitation I have been mercifully allowed intervals of repose, though none of security; but from the consciousness that a malignant spirit is following and watching me wherever I go, I have never, for a single instant, a temporary respite. I am pursued with blasphemies, cries of despair, and appalling hatred. I hear those dreadful sounds called after me as I turn the corners of streets; they come in the night-time while I sit in my chamber alone; they haunt me everywhere, charging me with hideous crimes, and--great God!--threatening me with coming vengeance and eternal misery! Hush!--do you hear 'that'?" he cried, with a horrible smile of triumph; "there--there, will that convince you?"
The clergyman felt the chillness of horror irresistibly steal over him, while, during the wail of a sudden gust of wind, he heard, or fancied he heard, the half articulate sounds of rage and derision mingling in their sough.
"Well, what do you think of 'that'?" at length Barton cried, drawing a long breath through his teeth.
"I hear the wind," said Doctor Macklin; "what should I think of it? what is there remarkable about it?"
"The prince