“Fanny,” said he, “I have it now for the first time in my power to explain to your satisfaction everything which has hitherto appeared suspicious or mysterious in my conduct. After breakfast come with me to my study, and I shall, I hope, make all things clear.”
This invitation afforded me more real pleasure than I had experienced for months. Something had certainly occurred to tranquillize my husband’s mind in no ordinary degree, and I thought it by no means impossible that he would, in the proposed interview, prove himself the most injured and innocent of men.
Full of this hope, I repaired to his study at the appointed hour. He was writing busily when I entered the room, and just raising his eyes, he requested me to be seated.
I took a chair as he desired, and remained silently awaiting his leisure, while he finished, folded, directed, and sealed his letter. Laying it then upon the table with the address downward, he said,
“My dearest Fanny, I know I must have appeared very strange to you and very unkind—often even cruel. Before the end of this week I will show you the necessity of my conduct—how impossible it was that I should have seemed otherwise. I am conscious that many acts of mine must have inevitably given rise to painful suspicions—suspicions which, indeed, upon one occasion, you very properly communicated to me. I have got two letters from a quarter which commands respect, containing information as to the course by which I may be enabled to prove the negative of all the crimes which even the most credulous suspicion could lay to my charge. I expected a third by this morning’s post, containing documents which will set the matter for ever at rest, but owing, no doubt, to some neglect, or, perhaps, to some difficulty in collecting the papers, some inevitable delay, it has not come to hand this morning, according to my expectation. I was finishing one to the very same quarter when you came in, and if a sound rousing be worth anything, I think I shall have a special messenger before two days have passed. I have been anxiously considering with myself, as to whether I had better imperfectly clear up your doubts by submitting to your inspection the two letters which I have already received, or wait till I can triumphantly vindicate myself by the production of the documents which I have already mentioned, and I have, I think, not unnaturally decided upon the latter course. However, there is a person in the next room whose testimony is not without its value excuse me for one moment.”
So saying, he arose and went to the door of a closet which opened from the study; this he unlocked, and half opening the door, he said, “It is only I,” and then slipped into the room and carefully closed and locked the door behind him.
I immediately heard his voice in animated conversation. My curiosity upon the subject of the letter was naturally great, so, smothering any little scruples which I might have felt, I resolved to look at the address of the letter which lay, as my husband had left it, with its face upon the table. I accordingly drew it over to me and turned up the direction.
For two or three moments I could scarce believe my eyes, but there could be no mistake—in large characters were traced the words, “To the Archangel Gabriel in Heaven.”
I had scarcely returned the letter to its original position, and in some degree recovered the shock which this unequivocal proof of insanity produced, when the closet door was unlocked, and Lord Glenfallen re-entered the study, carefully closing and locking the door again upon the outside.
“Whom have you there?” inquired I, making a strong effort to appear calm.
“Perhaps,” said he, musingly, “you might have some objection to seeing her, at least for a time.”
“Who is it?” repeated I.
“Why,” said he, “I see no use in hiding it—the blind Dutchwoman. I have been with her the whole morning. She is very anxious to get out of that closet; but you know she is odd, she is scarcely to be trusted.”
A heavy gust of wind shook the door at this moment with a sound as if something more substantial were pushing against it.
“Ha, ha, ha!—do you hear her?” said he, with an obstreperous burst of laughter.
The wind died away in a long howl, and Lord Glenfallen, suddenly checking his merriment, shrugged his shoulders, and muttered:
“Poor devil, she has been hardly used.”
“We had better not tease her at present with questions,” said I, in as unconcerned a tone as I could assume, although I felt every moment as if I should faint.
“Humph! may be so,” said he. “Well, come back in an hour or two, or when you please, and you will find us here.”
He again unlocked the door, and entered with the same precautions which he had adopted before, locking the door upon the inside; and as I hurried from the room, I heard his voice again exerted as if in eager parley.
I can hardly describe my emotions; my hopes had been raised to the highest, and now, in an instant, all was gone—the dreadful consummation was accomplished—the fearful retribution had fallen upon the guilty man—the mind was destroyed—the power to repent was gone.
The agony of the hours which followed what I would still call my awful interview with Lord Glenfallen, I cannot describe; my solitude was, however, broken in upon by Martha, who came to inform me of the arrival of a gentleman, who expected me in the parlour.
I accordingly descended, and, to my great joy, found my father seated by the fire.
This expedition upon his part was easily accounted for: my communications had touched the honour of the family. I speedily informed him of the dreadful malady which had fallen upon the wretched man.
My father suggested the necessity of placing some person to watch him, to prevent his injuring himself or others.
I rang the bell, and desired that one Edward Cooke, an attached servant of the family, should be sent to me.
I told him distinctly and briefly the nature of the service required of him, and, attended by him, my father and I proceeded at once to the study. The door of the inner room was still closed, and everything in the outer chamber remained in the same order in which I had left it.
We then advanced to the closet-door, at which we knocked, but without receiving any answer.
We next tried to open the door, but in vain—it was locked upon the inside. We knocked more loudly, but in vain.
Seriously alarmed, I desired the servant to force the door, which was, after several violent efforts, accomplished, and we entered the closet.
Lord Glenfallen was lying on his face upon a sofa.
“Hush!” said I, “he is asleep.” We paused for a moment.
“He is too still for that,” said my father.
We all of us felt a strong reluctance to approach the figure.
“Edward,” said I, “try whether your master sleeps.”
The servant approached the sofa where Lord Glenfallen lay. He leant his ear towards the head of the recumbent figure, to ascertain whether the sound of breathing was audible. He turned towards us, and said:
“My lady, you had better not wait here; I am sure he is dead!”
“Let me see the face,” said I, terribly agitated; “you may be mistaken.”
The man then, in obedience to my command, turned the body round, and, gracious God! what a sight met my view. He was, indeed, perfectly dead.
The whole breast of the shirt, with its lace frill, was drenched with gore, as was the couch underneath the spot where he lay.
The head hung back, as it seemed, almost severed from the body by a frightful gash, which yawned across the throat. The instrument which had inflicted it was found under his body.
All, then, was over; I was never to learn the history in whose termination I had been so deeply and so tragically involved.
The severe discipline which my mind had undergone was not bestowed in vain. I directed my thoughts and my hopes to that place where there is no more sin, nor danger, nor sorrow.
Thus ends a brief tale whose prominent incidents many will recognise as having marked the history of a distinguished family; and though it refers to a somewhat distant date, we shall be found not to have taken, upon that account, any liberties with the facts, but in our statement of all the incidents to have rigorously and faithfully adhered to the truth.
[1] I have carefully altered the names as they appear in the original MSS., for the reader will see that some of the circumstances recorded are not of a kind to reflect honour upon those involved in them; and as many are still living, in every way honoured and honourable, who stand in close relation to the principal actors in this drama, the reader will see the necessity of the course which we have adopted.
[2] The residuary legatee of the late Frances Purcell, who has the honour of selecting such of his lamented old friend’s manuscripts as may appear fit for publication, in order that the lore which they contain may reach the world before scepticism and utility have robbed our species of the precious gift of credulity, and scornfully kicked before them, or trampled into annihilation those harmless fragments of picturesque superstition which it is our object to preserve, has been subjected to the charge of dealing too largely in the marvellous; and it has been half insinuated that such is his love for diablerie, that he is content to wander a mile out of his way, in order to meet a fiend or a goblin, and thus to sacrifice all regard for truth and accuracy to the idle hope of affrighting the imagination, and thus pandering to the bad taste of his reader. He begs leave, then, to take this opportunity of asserting his perfect innocence of all the crimes laid to his charge, and to assure his reader that he never pandered to his bad taste, nor went one inch out of his way to introduce witch, fairy, devil, ghost, or any other of the grim fraternity of the redoubted Raw-head-and-bloody-bones. His province, touching these tales, has been attended with no difficulty and little responsibility; indeed, he is accountable for nothing more than an alteration in the names of persons mentioned therein, when such a step seemed necessary, and for an occasional note, whenever he conceived it possible, innocently, to edge in a word. These tales have been written down, as the heading of each announces, by the Rev. Francis Purcell, P.P., of Drumcoolagh; and in all the instances, which are many, in which the present writer has had an opportunity of comparing the manuscript of his departed friend with the actual traditions which are current amongst the families whose fortunes they pretend to illustrate, he has uniformly found that whatever of supernatural occurred in the story, so far from having been exaggerated by him, had been rather softened down, and, wherever it could be attempted, accounted for.
JACK LONG; OR, THE SHOT IN THE EYE, by Charles Wilkins Webber
The millions of copies of this story which have been circulated in this country through the daily and weekly press have all been from a mutilated edition which was impudently pirated in an English periodical, under a new name. American editors, in copying, replaced a portion of the original title, to be sure, but took the text as they found it. I would, therefore, present it in book form for the first time, once and for all pronouncing the following to be the only version authorized by me, of a narrative the facts of which are too nearly historical to justify their having been wantonly handled.
It must be confessed that the man of high civilization will find some difficulty in understanding how such a deed as I am about to relate—requiring months to consummate—could have been carried through in the open face of law and of the local authorities—but he who has any knowledge of this Texan frontier, will tell him that the rifle and the bowie knife were, at the period of this narrative, all the law and local authority recognized. Witness the answer President Houston gave when application was first made to him for his interposition with the civil force to quell the bloody “Regulator Wars,” which afterwards sprang up in this very same county—“Fight it out among yourselves, and be d—d to you !” A speech entirely characteristic of the man and the country, as it then was!
It was the period of the first organization of the Regulators to which our story refers. Shelby, in the latter part of —39, was a frontier county, and bordering upon the region known as the Red Lands, was the receptacle of all the vilest men who had been driven across our borders, for crimes of every degree! Horse thieves, and villains of every kind, congregated in such numbers, that the open and bare-faced effort had been made to convert it into a sort of “Alsatia” of the West—a place of refuge for all outlaws, who understood universally that it was only necessary to the most perfect immunity in crime, that they should succeed in effecting an escape to this neighborhood, where they would be publicly protected and pursuit defied.
The extent to which this thing was carried may be conjectured, when it is known that bands of men, disguised as Indians, would sally forth into the neighboring districts, with the view of visiting some obnoxious person with their vengeance—either in the shape of robbery or murder. Returning with great speed, and driving the valuable stock before them, till they were among their friends again, they would re-brand the horses and mules, resume their usual appearance, and laugh at retaliation. Even single men would, in the face of day, commit the most daring crimes, trusting to an escape to Shelby for protection. They seemed determined, at any risk, to hold the county good against the encroachments of all honest citizens; and this came to be so notorious, that no man could move among them with any citizen-like and proper motives, but at the expense of his personal safety or his conscience—for the crime of refusing to take part with them, was in itself sufficient to subject all newcomers to a series of persecutions, which soon brought them into terms, or resulted in their extermination.
We do not wish to be understood that the whole population of the county were avowedly horse thieves and cut-throats! There was one different class of wealthy planters, and another of the old stamp of restless migrating hunters, who first led the tide of population over the Alleghanies. These two classes made some pretensions to outward decorum, and in various ways acted as restraints upon that of the worse disposed; while they, with that utter intolerance of restraint, which so unbounded license necessarily engenders, determined to submit to no presence which should in any way rebuke or embarrass their deeds. Most of these bad men were a kind of small landholders, who only cultivated patches of ground, dotting the spaces between the larger plantations; but they kept very fine horses, and depended more on their speed for acquiring plunder, than any capacity of their own for labor.
They were finally wrought up to the last pitch of restlessness by this closing around of unmanageable persons, and organized themselves into a band of Regulators, as they termed themselves. They proclaimed that the county limits needed purification, and that they felt themselves specially called to the work. Accordingly, under the lead of a man, who was himself a brutal monster, named Hinch, they commenced operations. In this public-spirited and praiseworthy operation, they soon managed to reduce the county to the subjection of fear, if not to an affectionate recognition of the prerogatives they arrogated to themselves.
The richer Planters they compelled to pay a heavy blackmail rent, in fee simple of a right to enjoy their own property and lives, with the further understanding that they were to be protected in these immunities from all danger from without of a similar kind. The Planters, in return, were to wink upon any deeds, whose coloring might otherwise chance to be offensive to eyes polite.
The other class of simple-hearted sturdy men were goaded and tortured by the most aggravated annoyances, until, driven in despair to some act of retaliation, they furnished their tyrants with the shadow of an excuse, which even they felt to be needed, and were then either lynched with lashes and warned to leave the county in so many days, or shot if they persisted in remaining! So relentless and vindictive did these wretches show themselves in hunting down every one who dared to oppose himself to them in any way, that very soon their ascendency in the county was almost without any dispute. Indeed, there were
very few left who from any cause could presume to do so. Among these few, and one of this last class of wandering hunters, was Jack Long.
Jack had come of a “wild turkey breed,” as I have mentioned the phrase to be in the West for a family remarkable for its wandering propensities. He had already pushed ahead of two States and a Territory, and following the game still farther towards the south, had been pleased with the promise of an abundance of it in Shelby county, and stopped there, just as he would have stopped at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, had it been necessary to have gone so far; without troubling himself or caring to know who his neighbors were.
He had never thought it at all essential to ask leave of any government as to how or where he should make himself a home, or even to inquire what particular nation put in its claim to any region that suited his purposes. His heritage had been the young earth, with its skies, its waters, and its winds, its huge primeval forests, and plains throwing out their broad breasts to the sun:—with all the sights and sounds and living things that moved and were articulate beneath God’s eye—and what cared he for the authority of men!
The first, indeed, that was known or heard of Jack, was when he had already built him a snug log-cabin, on the outskirts of the county, near the bank of a small stream—stowed away his fair-faced young wife and two children cozily into it, and was busily engaged in slaying the deer and bear right and left.
He kept himself so much to himself that for a long time little was thought or said of him. His passion for hunting seemed so absorbing, he did nothing else but follow up the game from morning till night, and it was so abundant that he had full opportunity for indulgence to his entire content. Beyond this he seemed to have no pleasure but in that solitary hut which, however rude, held associations dear enough to fill that big heart and quicken all the sluggish veins of that ungainly body. Sometimes one of the Rangers would come across him alone with his long rifle, amidst the limber island of the plain, or in the deep woods; and he always appeared to have been so successful, that the rumor gradually got abroad that he was a splendid shot. This attracted attention somewhat more to his apparently unsocial and solitary habits. They had the curiosity to watch him, and when they saw how devoted he was to his wife, the gibe became general that he was a “hen-pecked husband, under petticoat government” and other like gratifying expressions.
The Gothic Terror MEGAPACK ™: 17 Classic Tales Page 6