The Macabre Megapack: 25 Lost Tales from the Golden Age

by John Galt

  I happened one day to dine at a little inn situated at the mouth of a wooded gorge, where it lay tucked away so closely beneath the ponderous limbs of a large tulip tree, that the blue smoke from the kitchen fire alone betrayed its locality. My host proved to one of those talkative worthies, who, being supplied with but little information to exercise his tongue upon, make amends for the defects of education and circumstance by dwelling with exaggeration upon every trivial incident around him. Such people, in polished society, become the scandal mongers of the circle in which they move, while in more simple communities they are only the chroniclers of everything marvellous that had ever occurred in the neighborhood “within the memory of the oldest inhabitant.” I had hardly placed myself at the dinner table, before my garrulous entertainer began to display his retentive facilities by giving me the exact year and day upon which every chicken with two heads, or calf with five legs, had been born throughout the whole country around. Then followed the most minute particulars about a murder or two which had been perpetrated within the last twenty years; and after this I was drilled into the exact situation and bearings of a haunted house which I should probably see the next day by pursuing the road I was then traveling; finally, I was inducted into all the arcana of a remarkable cavern in the vicinity—where are moon-elf or water-sprite had taken up her residence, to the great annoyance of everyone except my landlord’s buxom daughter, who was said to be upon the most enviable terms with the freakish lady of the grotto. The animated and really eloquent description which mine host gave of this cavern, made me readily overlook the puerile credulity with which he would up his account of its peculiarities. It interested me, indeed, so much, that I determined to stable my horse for the night, and proceed at once to explore the place. A fresh and blooming girl, with the laughing eye and free step of a mountaineer, volunteered to be my guide on the occasion, hinting, at the same time, while she gave me a mischievous look at her father, that I would find it difficult to procure a cicerone other than herself in the neighborhood. She then directed me how to find the principal entrance to the cave, where she promised to join me soon after.

  A rough scramble in the hills soon brought me to the place of meeting, and entering the first chamber of the cavern, I stretched myself upon a rocky ledge which leaned over a brook that meandered through the place, and, lulled by the dash of a distant waterfall, surrendered myself to a thousand musing fancies. Fatigue, or possibly too liberal a devotion to the good things which had been placed before me at table, caused me soon to be overtaken by sleep. My slumbers, however, were broken and uneasy, and after repeatedly opening my eyes to look with some impatience at my watch, as I tossed upon my stony couch, I abandoned the idea of a nap entirely, while momentarily expecting that my guide would make her appearance, and contented myself with gazing listlessly upon the streamlet which rippled over its pebbled bed beneath me. I must have remained for some time in this vacant mood, when my idle musings were interrupted by a new source of interest presenting itself.

  A slight rustling near disturbed me, and turning round as I opened my eyes, a female figure in a drapery of snowy whiteness appeared to flit before them, and retire behind a tall cascade immediately in front of me. The uncertain light of the place, with the spray of the waterfall, which partially impeded my view of the farther part of the cavern made me at first doubt the evidence of my senses; but gradually a distinct form was perceptible amid the mist, apparently moving slowly from me, and beckoning the while to follow. The height of the figure struck me immediately as being about the same as that of the frank daughter of my landlord; and, though the proportions seemed more slender, I had no doubt, upon recalling her arch expression of countenance while her father was relating to me the wild superstitions of the cavern, that a ready solution of one of its mysteries at least was at hand. Some woman’s whim, I had no doubt, prompted the girl to get up a little diversion at my expense, and sent her thither to put the freak in execution. I had been told that there were a dozen outlets to the cavern, and presumed that I was now to be involved in its labyrinths for the purpose of seeing in what part of the mountain I might subsequently make my exit. He is no true lover of a pair of bright eyes who will mar the jest of a pretty woman. The lady beckoned, and I followed.

  I had some difficulty in scaling the precipice, over which tumbled the waterfall, but after slipping once or twice upon the wet ledges of rock which supplied a treacherous foot-hold, I at last gained the summit, and stood within a few yards of my whimsical conductor. She had paused upon the farthest side of the chamber into which the cavern here expanded. It was a vast and noble apartment. The lofty ceiling swelling almost into a perfect dome, save where a ragged aperture at the top admitted the noonday sun, whose rays, as they fell through the vines and wild flowers that embowered the orifice, were glinted back from a thousand sparry points and pillars around. The walls, indeed, were completely fretted with stalactites. In some places, small, and apparently freshly formed, they hung in fringed rows from the ceiling to the ground. In others they drooped so heavily as to knit the glistening roof to the marble floor beneath it, or rose in slender pyramids from the floor itself, until they appeared to sustain the vault above.

  The motion of the air created by the cascade gave a delightful coolness to this apartment, while the murmur of the falling water was echoed back from the vibrating columns with tones as rich and melodious as those which sweep from an Æolian harp. Never, methought, had I seen a spot so alluring. And yet, when I surveyed each charm of the grotto, I knew not whether I should be contented in any one part of it. Nothing, indeed, could be more inviting to tranquil enjoyment than the place where I then stood; but the clustering columns, with their interlacing screen work of woven spar, allured my eye into a hundred romantic aisles which I longed to explore; while the pendant wild flowers which luxuriated in the sunlight around the opening above, prompted me to scale the dangerous height, and try what pinnacle of the mountain I might gain by emerging from the cavern through the lofty aperture.

  These reflections were abruptly terminated by an impatient gesture from my guide, and for the first time I caught a glimpse of her countenance as she glided by a deep pool in which it was reflected.

  That glance had a singular, almost a preternatural effect upon me—the features were different, very different, from those I had expected to behold. They were not those of the new acquaintance whom I thought I was following, but the expression they wore was one so familiar to me in bygone years, that I started as if I had seen an apparition.

  It was the look of one who had been long since dead—of one around whose name, when life was new, the whole tissue of my hopes and fears was woven—for whom all my aspirations after worldly honors had been breathed—in whom all my dreams of heaven had been wound up. She had mingled in purer hours with all the fond and home-loving fancies of boyhood—she had been the queen of each romantic vision of my youth; and, amid the worldly cares and selfish struggles of maturer life, the thought of her had lived separate and apart in my bosom, with no companion in its hallowed chamber save the religion I had learned at my mother’s knee—save that hope of better things, which, once implanted by a mother’s love, survives amid the storms and conflicts of the world—a beacon to warn us more often, alas! how far we have wandered from her teachings, than to guide us to the haven whither they were meant to lead. I had loved her, and I had lost her. How, it matters not. Perchance disease had reft her from me by some sudden blow, at the moment when possession made her dearest. Perchance I saw her fade in the arms of another, while I was banned and barred from ministering to a spirit that stole away to the grave with all I prized on earth. It boots not how I lost her. But he who has centered every thought and feeling in one object—whose morning hopes have for years gone forth to the same goal—whose evening reflections have for years come back to the same bourne—whose waking visions, and whose midnight dreams, have for years been haunted by the same image—whose schemes of toil and advancement have all tend
ed to the same end—He knows what it is to have the pivot upon which every wheel of his heart hath turned, wrenched from its centre—to have the sun round which revolved every joy that lighted his bosom, plucked from its system.

  Well, it was her face—as I live it was the soul-breathing features of Linda that now beamed before me—fresh as when in dawning womanhood they first caught my youthful fancy—resistless as when in their noontide blaze of beauty I poured out my whole adoring soul before them. There was that same appealing look of the large lustrous eyes—the same sunny and soul-melting smile, which, playing over a countenance thoughtful even to sadness, touched it with a beauty so radiant that the charm seemed borrowed from heaven itself. I could not but think it strange that such an image should be presented to my view in such a place; and yet, if I now rightly recollect my emotions, surprise was the least active among them. I cared not why or whence the apparition came—I thought not whether it were reality or a mocking resemblance—the phantasy of my own brain, or the shadowy creation of some supernatural power around me. I knew only that it was there—I knew only that the eyes in whose perilous light my soul had bathed herself to madness, beamed anew before me—that the lips whose lightest smile had often rapt me in elysium—that the brow whose holy light—But why should I thus attempt to paint what pencil never yet hath reached—why essay a portrait whose colors I have no where found, save in the heart where they are laid so deeply that death alone can dim them. Enough that the only human being to which my soul ever bowed in inferiority—enough that the idol to which it had knelt in adoration, now stood palpably before it. An hour agone, and I would have crossed the threshold of the grave itself to stand one moment in that presence—to gaze, if but for an instant, upon those features. What recked I now, then, how or whence they were conjured up? Had the Fiend himself stood night, I should have pressed nearer, and gazed, and followed as I did. The figure beckoned, and I went on.

  The vaulted gateway was at first smooth and easily followed, but after passing through several of the cavernous chambers into which it ever and anon expanded, the route became more and more difficult; loose masses of rock encumbering the floor, or drooping in pendant crags from the roof, rendered the defiles between them both toilsome and hazardous. The light which fell through the opening behind us soon disappeared entirely, and it gave me a singular sinking of the spirits as we passed into deeper and deeper gloom, to hear the musical sounds which I have already noted in the grotto from which we first passed, dying away in the distance, and leaving the place at last to total silence. Long, indeed, after they had ceased to reach my ear with any distinctness, they would seem at times to swell along the winding vault, and break anew upon me at some turn in our devious route. So strangely, too, do the innumerable subtle echoes metamorphose each sound in such a place, that continually did I find myself mistaking the muttered reverberations for the sounds of a human voice. At one moment it seemed to be calling me back to the sparry grotto and bright sunshine behind me, while the very next it appeared with sudden and harsh intonation to warn me against proceeding further—anon then it would die away with a mournful cadence, a melancholy wailing, like the requiem of one who was beyond the reach of all earthly counsel or assistance. Again and again did I pause in my career to listen to this wild chanting, while my feelings would, for the moment, take their hue and complexion from the sources which thus bewildered my senses. I thought of my early dreams of fame and honor—of the singing hopes that lured me on my path, when one fatal image stepped between my soul and all its high endeavor—I thought of that bouyancy of spirit, once so irrepressible in its elasticity, that it seemed proof alike against time and sorrow, now sapped, wasted, and destroyed, by the frenzied pursuit of one object—I thought of the home which had so much to embellish and endear it, and which yet, with all its heart-cheering joys, had been neglected and left, like the sunlit grotto, to follow a shifting phantom through a heartless world—I thought of the reproachful voices around me, and the ceaseless upbraider in my own bosom, which told of time and talents wasted—of opportunities thrown away—of mental energies squandered—of heart, brain, and soul, consumed in a devotion deeper and more absorbing than Heaven itself exacts from its votaries—I thought—and I looked at the object for which I had lavished them all—I thought that my life must have been some hideous dream—some damned vision in which my fated soul was bound by imaginary ties to a being doomed to be its bane upon earth, and shut out at last from heaven. And I laughed in scornful glee as I twisted my bodily frame in the hope that at length I might wake from the long-enduring sleep. I caught a smile from the lips—I saw a beckon from the hand of the phantom, and I wished again to dream and to follow forever—I plunged into the abyss of darkness to which it pointed, and reckless of everything I might leave behind, followed where so ever it might marshall me.

  A damp and chilling atmosphere now pervaded the place, and the clammy moisture stood thick upon my brow as I groped my way through a labyrinth of winding galleries which intersected each other so often, both obliquely and transversely, that the whole mountain seemed honey-combed. At one moment the steep and broken pathway led up acclivities almost impossible to scale; at another, the black edge of a precipice indicated our hazardous route along the brink of some unfathomed gulf; while again a savage torrent, roaring through the sinuous vault, left scarcely room enough for a foothold between the base of the wall and its furious tide. And still my guide kept on, and still I followed. Returning, indeed, had the thought occurred to me, were now impossible; for the pale light which seemed to hang around her person, emanating, as it were, from her white raiment, was all that engulfed me through these shadowy realms. But not for a moment now did I think of retracing my steps, or pausing in that wild pursuit—onward and still onward it led, while my spirit, once set upon its purpose, seemed to gather sterner determination from every difficulty it encountered, and kindle once more the chief attribute of my nature.

  At length the chase seemed ended, as we approached one of those abrupt and startling turns common in these caverns, where the passage, suddenly veering to the right or left, leads you, as if by design, to the sheer edge of some gulph that is impassible. My strange companion seemed pausing for a moment upon the brink of the abyss. It was a moment to me of delirious joy, mingled with more than mortal agony; the object of my wild pursuit seemed at length within my grasp—a single bound, and my outstretched arms would have encircled her person—a single bound, nay, the least movement toward her, might only have precipitated the destruction upon whose brink she hovered. Her form seemed to flutter upon the very edge of that horrid precipice, as, gazing like one fascinated, over it, she stretched her hand backward toward me. It was like inviting me to perdition—and yet, forgive me, Heaven—to perish with her was my proudest hope, as I sprang to grasp it. But oh! God, what held I in that withering grasp? The ice of death seemed curdling in my veins as I touched those clammy and pulseless fingers—a strange and unhallowed light shot upward from the black abyss, and the features from which I could not take my eyes away were changed to those of a demon in that hideous glare. And now the hand that I had so longed to clasp, closed with remorseless pressure round my own, and drew me toward the yawning gulf—it tightened in its grasp, and I hovered still nearer to my horrid doom—it clenched yet more closely, and the frenzied shriek I gave ——awoke me.

  A soft palm was gently pressed against my own—a pair of laughing blue eyes were bent archly upon me, and the fair locks which floated over her blooming cheeks revealed the joyous and romping damsel who had promised to act as my guide through the cavern. She had been prevented by some household cares from keeping her appointment until the approach of evening made it too late, and had taken it for granted that I had then returned to my lodgings at the inn. My absence from the breakfast table in the morning, however, had awakened some concern in the family, and induced her to seek me where we then met. The pressure of her hand in trying to awaken me, will partially account for the latter part o
f my hideous dream. The general tenor of it is easily traceable to the impression made upon my mind by the prevalent superstition connected with the cavern; but no metaphysical ingenuity of which I am master, can explain how one whose life has, with the exception of one dark shadow, been passed under such uniform sunny influences as mine, could, even in a dream, have conjured up such a train of wild and bitter fancies; much less how the fearful tissue could have been interwoven with the recollection of one whose gentle spirit, when on earth, could never have wounded the bosom that loved her, and whose memory, through the long, long years, that have elapsed since we parted, has ever been associated in my mind with all that was true and tender, generous, noble, and confiding.

  If half be true, however, that is told concerning them, still more extravagant sallies of the imagination overtake persons of quite as easy and careless a disposition as myself, when venturing to pass a Night upon the Enchanted Mountains.