The Watcher | Page 5

like foreigner, and wore a kind
of travelling-cap, walked very rapidly, and as if under some fierce
excitement, directly towards them, muttering to himself fast and
vehemently the while. This odd-looking person walked straight toward
Barton, who was foremost, and halted, regarding him for a moment or
two with a look of menace and fury almost maniacal; and then turning
about as abruptly, he walked before them at the same agitated pace, and
disappeared by a side passage.
Norcott distinctly remembered being a good deal shocked at the
countenance and bearing of this man, which indeed irresistibly
impressed him with an undefined sense of danger, such as he never felt
before or since from the presence of anything human; but these
sensations were far from amounting to anything so disconcerting as to
flurry or excite him--he had seen only a singularly evil countenance,
agitated, as it seemed, with the excitement of madness. He was
absolutely astonished, however, at the effect of this apparition upon
Captain Barton. He knew him to be a man of proved courage and
coolness in real danger, a circumstance which made his conduct upon
this occasion the more conspicuously odd. He recoiled a step or two as

the stranger advanced, and clutched his companion's arm in silence,
with a spasm of agony or terror; and then, as the figure disappeared,
shoving him roughly back, he followed it for a few paces, stopped in
great disorder, and sat down upon a form. A countenance more ghastly
and haggard it was impossible to fancy.
"For God's sake, Barton, what is the matter?" said Norcott, really
alarmed at his appearance. "You're not hurt, are you? nor unwell? What
is it?"
"What did he say?--I did not hear it--what was it?" asked Barton,
wholly disregarding the question.
"Tut, tut--nonsense." said Norcott, greatly surprised; "who cares what
the fellow said? You are unwell--Barton, decidedly unwell; let me call
a coach."
"Unwell! Yes--no--not exactly unwell," he said, evidently making an
effort to recover his self-possession; "but to say the truth, I am
fatigued--a little overworked -- and perhaps over anxious. You know I
have been in Chancery, and the winding up of a suit is always a
nervous affair. I have felt uncomfortable all this evening; but I am
better now. Come, come; shall we go on?"
"No, no. Take my advice, Barton, and go home; you really do need rest;
you are looking absolutely ill. I really do insist on your allowing me to
see you home," replied his companion.
It was obvious that Barton was not himself disinclined to be persuaded.
He accordingly took his leave, politely declining his friend's offered
escort. Notwithstanding the few commonplace regrets which Norcott
had expressed, it was plain that he was just as little deceived as Barton
himself by the extempore plea of illness with which he had accounted
for the strange exhibition, and that he even then suspected some lurking
mystery in the matter.
Norcott called next day at Barton's lodgings, to inquire for him, and
learned from the servant that he had not left his room since his return

the night before; but that he was not seriously indisposed, and hoped to
be out again in a few days. That evening he sent for Doctor Richards,
then in large and fashionable practice in Dublin, and their interview
was, it is said, an odd one.
He entered into a detail of his own symptoms in an abstracted and
desultory kind of way, which seemed to argue a strange want of interest
in his own cure, and, at all events, made it manifest that there was some
topic engaging his mind of more engrossing importance than his
present ailment. He complained of occasional palpitations, and headach.
Doctor Richards asked him, among other questions, whether there was
any irritating circumstance or anxiety to account for it. This he denied
quickly and almost peevishly; and the physician thereupon declared his
opinion, that there was nothing amiss except some slight derangement
of the digestion, for which he accordingly wrote a prescription, and was
about to withdraw, when Mr. Barton, with the air of a man who
suddenly recollects a topic which had nearly escaped him, recalled him.
"I beg your pardon, doctor, but I had really almost forgot; will you
permit me to ask you two or three medical questions--rather odd ones,
perhaps, but as a wager depends upon their solution, you will, I hope,
excuse any unreasonableness."
The physician readily undertook to satisfy the inquirer.
Barton seemed to have some difficulty about opening the proposed
interrogatories, for he was silent for a minute, then walked to his
book-case and returned as he had gone; at last he sat down, and said,--
"You'll think them very childish questions, but I can't recover my
wager without a decision; so I