The Watcher | Page 7

it occurred to him to proceed forthwith
to Lady Rochdale's, and pass the remainder of the evening with her and
his destined bride.
Accordingly, he was soon at ---- street, and chatting gaily with the
ladies. It is not to be supposed that Captain Barton had exceeded the
limits which propriety prescribes to good fellowship; he had merely
taken enough of wine to raise his spirits, without, however, in the least
degree unsteadying his mind, or affecting his manners. With this undue
elevation of spirits had supervened an entire oblivion or contempt of
those undefined apprehensions which had for so long weighed upon his
mind, and to a certain extent estranged him from society; but as the
night wore away, and his artificial gaiety began to flag, these painful
feelings gradually intruded themselves again, and he grew abstracted
and anxious as heretofore. He took his leave at length, with an
unpleasant foreboding of some coming mischief, and with a mind
haunted with a thousand mysterious apprehensions, such as, even while
he acutely felt their pressure, he, nevertheless, inwardly strove, or
affected to contemn.
It was his proud defiance of what he considered to be his own weakness,
which prompted him upon this occasion to the course which brought
about the adventure which we are now about to relate. Mr. Barton
might have easily called a coach, but he was conscious that his strong
inclination to do so proceeded from no cause other than what he
desperately persisted in representing to himself to be his own
superstitious tremors. He might also have returned home by a route
different from that against which he had been warned by his mysterious
correspondent; but for the same reason he dismissed this idea also, and
with a dogged and half desperate resolution to force matters to a crisis
of some kind, if there were any reality in the causes of his former
suffering, and if not, satisfactorily to bring their delusiveness to the
proof, he determined to follow precisely the course which he had
trodden upon the night so painfully memorable in his own mind as that

on which his strange persecution had commenced. Though, sooth to say,
the pilot who for the first time steers his vessel under the muzzles of a
hostile battery, never felt his resolution more severely tasked that did
Captain Barton, as he breathlessly pursued this solitary path--a path
which, spite of every effort of scepticism and reason, he felt to be, as
respected "him," infested by a malignant influence.
He pursued his way steadily and rapidly, scarcely breathing from
intensity of suspense; he, however, was troubled by no renewal of the
dreaded footsteps, and was beginning to feel a return of confidence, as,
more than three-fourths of the way being accomplished with impunity,
he approached the long line of twinkling oil lamps which indicated the
frequented streets. This feeling of self-congratulation was, however, but
momentary. The report of a musket at some two hundred yards behind
him, and the whistle of a bullet close to his head, disagreeably and
startlingly dispelled it. His first impulse was to retrace his steps in
pursuit of the assassin; but the road on either side was, as we have said,
embarrassed by the foundations of a street, beyond which extended
waste fields, full of rubbish and neglected lime and brick kilns, and all
now as utterly silent as though no sound had ever disturbed their dark
and unsightly solitude. The futility of, single-handed, attempting, under
such circumstances, a search for the murderer, was apparent, especially
as no further sound whatever was audible to direct his pursuit.
With the tumultuous sensations of one whose life had just been
exposed to a murderous attempt, and whose escape has been the
narrowest possible, Captain Barton turned, and without, however,
quickening his pace actually to a run, hurriedly pursued his way. He
had turned, as we have said, after a pause of a few seconds, and had
just commenced his rapid retreat, when on a sudden he met the
well-remembered little man in the fur cap. The encounter was but
momentary. The figure was walking at the same exaggerated pace, and
with the same strange air of menace as before; and as it passed him, he
thought he heard it say, in a furious whisper, "Still alive--still alive!"
The state of Mr. Barton's spirits began now to work a corresponding
alteration in his health and looks, and to such a degree that it was

impossible that the change should escape general remark. For some
reasons, known but to himself, he took no step whatsoever to bring the
attempt upon his life, which he had so narrowly escaped, under the
notice of the authorities; on the contrary, he kept it jealously to himself;
and it was not for many weeks