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was originally house…breaking; in the pursuit of which art he had
had his right ear chopped off one night; as he was burglariously
getting in at a window; by a brave and lovely servant…maid (whom the
aquiline…nosed woman; though not at all answering the description;
always mysteriously implied to be herself)。 After several years;
this brave and lovely servant…maid was married to the landlord of a
country Inn; which landlord had this remarkable characteristic; that
he always wore a silk nightcap; and never would on any consideration
take it off。 At last; one night; when he was fast asleep; the brave
and lovely woman lifted up his silk nightcap on the right side; and
found that he had no ear there; upon which she sagaciously perceived
that he was the clipped housebreaker; who had married her with the
intention of putting her to death。 She immediately heated the poker
and terminated his career; for which she was taken to King George
upon his throne; and received the compliments of royalty on her
great discretion and valour。 This same narrator; who had a Ghoulish
pleasure; I have long been persuaded; in terrifying me to the utmost
confines of my reason; had another authentic anecdote within her own
experience; founded; I now believe; upon Raymond and Agnes; or the
Bleeding Nun。 She said it happened to her brother…in…law; who was
immensely rich;which my father was not; and immensely tall;which
my father was not。 It was always a point with this Ghoul to present
my clearest relations and friends to my youthful mind under
circumstances of disparaging contrast。 The brother…in…law was
riding once through a forest on a magnificent horse (we had no
magnificent horse at our house); attended by a favourite and
valuable Newfoundland dog (we had no dog); when he found himself
benighted; and came to an Inn。 A dark woman opened the door; and he
asked her if he could have a bed there。 She answered yes; and put
his horse in the stable; and took him into a room where there were
two dark men。 While he was at supper; a parrot in the room began to
talk; saying; 〃Blood; blood! Wipe up the blood!〃 Upon which one of
the dark men wrung the parrot's neck; and said he was fond of
roasted parrots; and he meant to have this one for breakfast in the
morning。 After eating and drinking heartily; the immensely rich;
tall brother…in…law went up to bed; but he was rather vexed; because
they had shut his dog in the stable; saying that they never allowed
dogs in the house。 He sat very quiet for more than an hour;
thinking and thinking; when; just as his candle was burning out; he
heard a scratch at the door。 He opened the door; and there was the
Newfoundland dog! The dog came softly in; smelt about him; went
straight to some straw in the corner which the dark men had said
covered apples; tore the straw away; and disclosed two sheets
steeped in blood。 Just at that moment the candle went out; and the
brother…in…law; looking through a chink in the door; saw the two
dark men stealing up…stairs; one armed with a dagger that long
(about five feet); the other carrying a chopper; a sack; and a
spade。 Having no remembrance of the close of this adventure; I
suppose my faculties to have been always so frozen with terror at
this stage of it; that the power of listening stagnated within me
for some quarter of an hour。
These barbarous stories carried me; sitting there on the Holly…Tree
hearth; to the Roadside Inn; renowned in my time in a sixpenny book
with a folding plate; representing in a central compartment of oval
form the portrait of Jonathan Bradford; and in four corner
compartments four incidents of the tragedy with which the name is
associated;coloured with a hand at once so free and economical;
that the bloom of Jonathan's complexion passed without any pause
into the breeches of the ostler; and; smearing itself off into the
next division; became rum in a bottle。 Then I remembered how the
landlord was found at the murdered traveller's bedside; with his own
knife at his feet; and blood upon his hand; how he was hanged for
the murder; notwithstanding his protestation that he had indeed come
there to kill the traveller for his saddle…bags; but had been
stricken motionless on finding him already slain; and how the
ostler; years afterwards; owned the deed。 By this time I had made
myself quite uncomfortable。 I stirred the fire; and stood with my
back to it as long as I could bear the heat; looking up at the
darkness beyond the screen; and at the wormy curtains creeping in
and creeping out; like the worms in the ballad of Alonzo the Brave
and the Fair Imogene。
There was an Inn in the cathedral town where I went to school; which
had pleasanter recollections about it than any of these。 I took it
next。 It was the Inn where friends used to put up; and where we
used to go to see parents; and to have salmon and fowls; and be
tipped。 It had an ecclesiastical sign;the Mitre;and a bar that
seemed to be the next best thing to a bishopric; it was so snug。 I
loved the landlord's youngest daughter to distraction;but let that
pass。 It was in this Inn that I was cried over by my rosy little
sister; because I had acquired a black eye in a fight。 And though
she had been; that Holly…Tree night; for many a long year where all
tears are dried; the Mitre softened me yet。
〃To be continued to…morrow;〃 said I; when I took my candle to go to
bed。 But my bed took it upon itself to continue the train of
thought that night。 It carried me away; like the enchanted carpet;
to a distant place (though still in England); and there; alighting
from a stage…coach at another Inn in the snow; as I had actually
done some years before; I repeated in my sleep a curious experience
I had really had there。 More than a year before I made the journey
in the course of which I put up at that Inn; I had lost a very near
and dear friend by death。 Every night since; at home or away from
home; I had dreamed of that friend; sometimes as still living;
sometimes as returning from the world of shadows to comfort me;
always as being beautiful; placid; and happy; never in association
with any approach to fear or distress。 It was at a lonely Inn in a
wide moorland place; that I halted to pass the night。 When I had
looked from my bedroom window over the waste of snow on which the
moon was shining; I sat down by my fire to write a letter。 I had
always; until that hour; kept it within my own breast that I dreamed
every night of the dear lost one。 But in the letter that I wrote I
recorded the circumstance; and added that I felt much interested in
proving whether the subject of my dream would still be faithful to
me; travel…tired; and in that remote place。 No。 I lost the beloved
figure of my vision in parting with the secret。 My sleep has never
looked upon it since; in sixteen years; but once。 I was in Italy;
and awoke (or seemed to awake); the well…remembered voice distinctly
in my ears; conversing with it。 I entreated it; as it rose above my
bed and soared up to the vaulted roof of the old room; to answer me
a question I had asked touching the Future Life。 My hands were
still outstretched towards it as it vanished; when I heard a bell
ringing by the garden wall; and a voice in the deep stillness of the
night calling on all good Christians to pray for the souls of the
dead; it being All Souls' Eve。
To return to the Holly…Tree。 When I awoke next day; it was freezing
hard; and the lowering sky threatened more snow。 My breakfast
cleared away; I drew my chair into its former place; and; with the
fire getting so much the better of the landscape that I sat in
twilight; resumed my Inn remembrances。
That was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up once; in the
days of the hard Wiltshire ale; and before all beer was bitterness。
It was on the skirts of Salisbury Plain; and the midnight wind that
rattled my lattice window came moaning at me from Stonehenge。 There
was a hanger…on at that establishment (a supernaturally preserved
Druid I believe him to have been; and to be still); with long white
hair; and a flinty blue eye always looking afar off; who claimed to
have been a shepherd; and who seemed to be ever watching for the
reappearance; on the verge of the horizon; of some ghostly flock of
sheep that had been mutton for many ages。 He was a man with a weird
belief in him that no one could count the stones of Stonehenge
twice; and make the same number of them; likewise; that any one who
counted them three times nine times; and then stood in the centre
and said; 〃I dare!〃 would behold a tremendous apparition; and be
stricken dead。 He pretended to have seen a bustard (I suspect him
to have been familiar with the dodo); in manner following: He was
out upon the plain at the close of a late autumn day; when he dimly
discerned; going on before him at a curious fitfully bounding pace;
what he at firs