THESTRANGE VISITATION
A WILD night, with a gale of wind, a wind that scratched and tore and howled at doors and windows like an angry cat spitting and spluttering—its miauling voice now rising, now sinking—at one moment savage, at another querulous, but always incessant of complaint, with a threatening under snarl of restless rage in its tone. A wild night!—full of storm and quarrel, with occasional dashes of cold rain sweeping down on the shrieking blast like gusts of angry tears—a noisy night in which the elements were at open war with themselves,making no secret of their hostile intentions—and yet it was the one night of all nights in the year when “peace and goodwill” were the suggested influences of the time. For it was Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve! What a wonderful anniversary it is, if we would but pause in our reckless and senseless rush onward to the grave, just to think quietly about it for a moment! Long, long ago—yet but a short while since—if we count by the world’s great epochs of civilisation wherein a little two thousand years are but a moment—a host of Angels descended from heaven and sang a joyous hymn of general amnesty to mankind on the first Christmas Eve that ever was—and according to the noble poesy of high-thinking, God-revering John Milton:
“No war or battle’s soundWas heard the world around,The idle spear and shield were high up hung;The unhookèd chariot stoodUnstain’d with hostile blood,The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng;And kings sat still with awful eyeAs if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.“And peaceful was the nightWherein the Prince of LightHis reign of peace upon the earth began;The winds, with wonder whist,Smoothly the waters kist,Whisp’ring new joys to the mild oceàn,Who now hath quite forgot to rave,While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmèd wave!”
“No war or battle’s soundWas heard the world around,The idle spear and shield were high up hung;The unhookèd chariot stoodUnstain’d with hostile blood,The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng;And kings sat still with awful eyeAs if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.“And peaceful was the nightWherein the Prince of LightHis reign of peace upon the earth began;The winds, with wonder whist,Smoothly the waters kist,Whisp’ring new joys to the mild oceàn,Who now hath quite forgot to rave,While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmèd wave!”
“No war or battle’s soundWas heard the world around,The idle spear and shield were high up hung;The unhookèd chariot stoodUnstain’d with hostile blood,The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng;And kings sat still with awful eyeAs if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
“No war or battle’s sound
Was heard the world around,
The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
The unhookèd chariot stood
Unstain’d with hostile blood,
The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng;
And kings sat still with awful eye
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
“And peaceful was the nightWherein the Prince of LightHis reign of peace upon the earth began;The winds, with wonder whist,Smoothly the waters kist,Whisp’ring new joys to the mild oceàn,Who now hath quite forgot to rave,While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmèd wave!”
“And peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of Light
His reign of peace upon the earth began;
The winds, with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kist,
Whisp’ring new joys to the mild oceàn,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmèd wave!”
One wonders if—in those far-off days of angel-singing—there was such a thing as a millionaire? Not a merely “rich” man;—not a “Wise Man of the East,” who, possessing knowledge and insight as well as wealth, hastened to bring his gold with frankincense and myrrh, and to lay these reverently in the humble manger which served as cradle to a Child, whose vast power was destined to conquer and subdue all the mightiest kings of the earth:—but an actual money-gorged, banknote-stuffed ruler of some octopus-like “Trade,” whose tentaclesclutched and held everything within its reach—some owner of huge factories where human creatures “sweated” their lives out to fill his pockets, and died in their hundreds,—perchance their thousands—in order that he, like some monstrous bloated leech, should swell to the point of bursting on the blood he sucked from their throbbing arteries! Was there such an one existing in the miracle days when the “Glory to God in the Highest!” rang from star to star, from point to point of the myriad constellations, like a great wave of melody breaking against illimitable and endless shores? Surely not!—else there would have been some break in the music!—some ugly jar in the divine chorus! For instance, if there had at that time been living a multi-millionaire at all resembling the one whose strange experiences are now about to be related, the angels would have fled in dismay and weeping from the spectacle of a soul so warped from good, so destitute of sympathy, so drainedand dry of every drop of the milk of human kindness, and so utterly at variance with the “peace and goodwill” of which they sang!
Yet no one will deny that a multi-millionaire is a great man. What multi-millionaire was ever considered otherwise? It was the glorious environment of multi-millionaire-ism that made Josiah McNason great—and Josiah McNason was a very great man indeed. Quite apart from his connection with you and me, dear reader, as the immediate subject of this story, he was great in business, great in success, great in wealth, great in power, and more than great in his own opinion. Small wonder that he thought much of himself, seeing that thousands of people thought so much of him. Thousands of people had him on their minds, and lay awake at nights, uneasily wondering what might be his next financial “deal.” For on his little finger he balanced mighty “combines.” At his nod “companies”collapsed like card-houses, or rose up again with the aerial brilliancy of “castles in Spain,”—the pulse of Trade beat fast or slow as suited his humour,—speculators on ’Change whispered his name in accents of mingled hope and terror,—aye, even kings were known not to be averse to receiving Josiah in private audience, though they might, and did, deny the privilege to such others of their subjects whose plea was one of merit more than cash. The fact stood out very patently to both royalty and commons alike, that Josiah McNason was a man to be reckoned with,—a man to be studied and considered,—a man whose moods must be tolerated, and whose irritations must be soothed,—a man to be coaxed and coddled,—a man to whom the highest personages in the land might safely—(and even advantageously)—send presents of grouse and salmon in their seasons,—a man whom it was considered politic not to offend. But why? Why all this trouble and anxietyfrom Majesty itself down to toiling bank-clerks, with respect to the fits and vagaries of one puny biped, neither handsome to look at, nor pleasant to speak with, but merely, taken as nature made him, an irascible, cut-and-dry pigmy of a man, not worth either a curse or a blessing, to judge by his outward appearance? Oh well! Merely because, by speaking him fair and flatteringly, it might be easier to borrow money of him! Everyone with even a small surplus quantity of this world’s goods, knows the taste of that diplomatic bread-and-honey which is always cautiously administered by one dear friend to some other whose pockets are to be tested. Josiah got such bread-and-honey all day long. Someone was always feeding or trying to feed him with it. His appetite however was fastidious, and he seldom swallowed the cloying bait. Even when he did gulp down a large wedge of it with a distrustful smile, it did not have the effect intended. Insteadof softening his financial digestion and rendering him pliable, it appeared to make him harder and tougher in mental fibre. The gleam in his cold expressionless eye bored through the soul of the would-be-borrower of cash like a gimlet, and divined his intention before the said borrower could so much as mumble out—“Could you—would you, Mr. McNason—make me a trifling advance?—offer good security—great convenience to me just now!”—trailing the sentence away into indistinguishable fragments as Josiah snapped his thin pale lips on the “No!” which, with sharp snarling sound, hopelessly closed the discussion.
It was Christmas Eve,—and though this fact has already been stated before, it cannot for the purposes of the present veracious chronicle of events be too strongly insisted upon. It was the Eve of the Angels,—and no devils were supposed to be anywhere about. For, as our Shakespeare tells us:—
“Ever ’gainst that season comesWherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,The bird of dawning singeth all night long,And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad;The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,So hallow’d and so gracious is the time!”
“Ever ’gainst that season comesWherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,The bird of dawning singeth all night long,And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad;The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,So hallow’d and so gracious is the time!”
“Ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long,
And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time!”
Perhaps the great McNason, if he had not been so occupied with himself and his own affairs, might have thought of these lines when, on leaving his head office in the city, he travelled with the swiftness of the wind through a storm of sleet and snow to his palatial private abode some twenty miles out of town, rushing along at full speed in a superb motor-car sumptuously furnished with a rain-proof covering, rugs, foot-warmers, and all the luxurious paraphernalia wherewith a multi-millionaire may shield his valuable joints from the cold. For he professed, did McNason, to have Shakespearean proclivities, and had been heard to declare publicly that he preferred the Bard of Avon to the Bible. That wasthe way he put things,—with all the agreeable free-and-easy indifference to religion and to other folks religious sentiments which so frequently embellishes the character of the multi-millionaire. As a matter of fact he knew nothing about either the Immortal Plays or Holy Writ. They were sealed books to his limited comprehension. The divine teachings of Scripture, and the broadly beneficent and tender philosophy of Shakespeare were alike beyond him. He understood Ledger Literature in its every branch,—every smallest point concerning L.S.D. was familiar to him,—and such “quotations” from books as he could make, were intimately connected with the Stock Market. But for all romance he had a fine contempt, and for poetry and poetic sentiment a saturnine derision. More than anything perhaps, he hated and scorned any idea of things “supernatural.” He attended church very regularly on Sundays,—oh yes!—that was a particular item of“conscience and respectability” with him. But as everything he heard there had to do with “supernatural” matters, it is safe to presume that he was a hypocrite in going to listen to what he did not believe. However, in this he was not exceptional,—there are many like him. “Respectability” may be permitted to play the humbug when it is a millionaire, and drives to its country seat in a motor-car costing two thousand guineas, especially on Christmas Eve, which—despite colossal fortune-makers—remains indissolubly associated in the human mind with Poverty and a Manger. And it was with all the glow and splendour of humbug shining lustrously about him that the world-renowned McNason stepped out of his sumptuous vehicle as it stopped at his own door, and entered his stately baronial hall, where four powdered and liveried flunkeys stood waiting deferentially to receive him. Taking scarcely any notice of these gorgeous personages, who were in his sight no morethan flower-pots, umbrella stands, or other portions of ordinary household furniture, he addressed himself to a fifth retainer, severely attired in black, who, by a set of cords and tassels on his left shoulder and the effective simplicity of his costume as compared with the liveries of the other menials, implied to all whom it might concern that he was the commanding officer or major-domo of the royal McNason household.
“Anybody called, Towler?”
“Yessir. Mr. Pitt.”
“Mr. Pitt? Dear me! I saw him only this morning at the office. What did he want?”
“I couldn’t say, sir. He is waiting to see you.”
“Waiting? Here—at this hour?”
“Yessir. In the library.”
With a frown of irritation, the great Josiah threw off his sable-lined overcoat, which was received obsequiously by one ofthe powdered lacqueys in attendance, while a second accepted his hat with an air of grateful and profound humility. Then he walked slowly, deliberately, not to say in heavy-footed style, along a broad corridor, dimly yet richly lit by electric light filtering through coloured glass, where classic marbles were artistically grouped here and there in snowy contrast with the dark fall of velvet draperies and pyramidal masses of flowers,—where Venus gazed from under her sleepless lids, with white eyeballs astare at the ugly little man who passed her without looking up,—where Mercury, poising on tip-toe with winged heels, appeared to meditate an immediate flight from the wizened, wrinkled, moneyed creature below him who was so far and away from any conception of the god-like—and where Psyche, bending over the butterfly in her small caressing hands, seemed almost to shudder lest the very breath of the celebrated millionaire should shrivel the delicate expanding wings of theImmortal Soul she so tenderly fostered. Preceded by the black-costumed Towler, who threw open various doors majestically as he advanced, Josiah entered the library, warm and cheerful with the red heat and glow of a sparkling log fire. A well-dressed gentlemanly-looking man who had been sitting near the table turning over a newspaper, rose as he approached and stood a moment without speaking, as though in some doubt or hesitation.
“Well, Pitt, what’s the matter? Anything gone wrong since this morning?”
“No, sir. Nothing.”
“Oh! Then what are you here for at such an hour and in such weather, eh?”
Mr. Pitt hummed and hawed. He was one of McNason’s most trusted overseers; and at the great factories which daily ground down human lives into the McNason millions, he had under his management a very large number of the men employed. The only fault that could be found with him froma strictly business point of view was, that he had some vestiges of a heart. These vestiges were troubling him a little just now.
“There was one thing I forgot to mention to you in my report to-day,” he began; “I can’t think how it slipped my memory.”
“Neither can I!” and Josiah smiled a hard smile—“Whatever it is, ifyouforgot it, it cannot be of much importance!”
Mr. Pitt did not seem to perceive the implied compliment to himself.
“Well, perhaps not,”—he answered slowly,—“still I should blame myself if I neglected it—I should certainly blame myself——”
Here he broke off and coughed nervously, while McNason, drawing a large elbow-chair to the fire, sat down and spread out his thin veiny hands to the blaze in irresponsive silence.
“It’s—it’s about Willie Dove, sir——” he said.
McNason looked up with peering eyes that narrowed at the corners like those of a snake.
“Willie Dove!” he echoed, slowly. “H’m—h’m—let me see! Who is Willie Dove?”
“Surely you remember him?” replied Pitt, quickly, with a touch of warmth in his tone—“Twenty-five years ago he was one of the smartest travellers in your employ——”
“Was he?” And McNason smiled blandly, but indifferently.
“Why, yes of course he was!” and Mr. Pitt’s voice grew still warmer with feeling as he spoke—“Surely, Mr. McNason, you can’t have altogether forgotten him? He made immense business for the firm,—immense! A wonderfully active and energetic man,—never lost time or opportunity and brought us no end of valuable custom——”
“Quite right of him!” interpolatedMcNason,—“He did his duty, no doubt, and was paid for doing it. Well?”
Mr. Pitt played absently with his watch-chain. He was conscious that a check had been summarily put on any eloquent dissertation he might have been disposed to make concerning the past abilities and qualifications of Willie Dove.
“I thought—I fancied you might perhaps be interested,” he murmured.
“Twenty-five years is a long time, Pitt,” said McNason, slowly,—“a very long time! It is a quarter of a century. One’s interest in any man is apt to exhaust itself naturally in such a period.”
Mr. Pitt looked up quickly, and then looked down. There was something in the hard, furrowed countenance of Josiah that suggested a mental dry heat or dry cold,—any force in fact, that may be known to absorb or disperse particles of generous sentiment. Yet Pitt was not a coward, and though he stood in wholesome awe of thecaptious moods and whims of the great millionaire upon whom his own existence and that of his family depended, he determined not to relinquish the errand on which he was bound without a struggle.
“Well, sir,” he resumed, in accents rendered firm by a kind of inward desperation, “whether you are interested or not, I think it my duty to tell you that Willie Dove,—the man who through his energy, fidelity and tact, helped to establish the firm, is now lying seriously ill. He is nearly sixty years old, and having a large family to provide for, had been unable to put by anything for his own rainy day——”
“He should not have had a large family,”—interpolated McNason, stretching out his lean ill-shaped legs more comfortably in front of the fire—“it’s quite his own fault!”
“Perhaps,” proceeded Pitt, with considerable emphasis, “if he had been less honest and high-principled in his business connection with us, he might have been morewell-to-do in his own affairs. But, as matters stand, his position is a sad one. He is afflicted with a painful disease, which, however, can be absolutely cured by an immediate surgical operation. The doctors assure him that he will be well and strong enough to live out his full measure of years comfortably and usefully if he will only submit to their treatment——”
“Well, if he wants to live, why doesn’t he?” inquired McNason, lazily.
“Simply because he can’t afford it,” replied Pitt, bluntly.
The great millionaire took up a poker, and looking critically at the fire, broke a large gaseous lump of coal into a bright blaze.
“Oh! Well, that settles it,” he said. “Then I suppose he must, as the common folk say, ‘go home’!”
A sparkle of indignation lightened Mr. Pitt’s quiet grey eyes. But he restrained his feelings.
“The operation fee would be a hundredguineas,” he went on in a calm business-like tone—“Good nursing and a change of air would perhaps run into a hundred more. Say two hundred pounds. That sum would save his life.”
“I daresay!” And McNason’s thin lips widened into a grin—“But if he hasn’t got the two hundred, he must accept the inevitable. After all, when a man is nearly sixty, a few years more or less in the world doesn’t matter!”
Mr. Pitt looked at his employer steadily.
“Have you any cause of complaint or offence against Dove, sir?”
McNason met his inquiring eyes with his own special gimlet glance, sharp as the point of a screw.
“None! Not the least in the world! Why should I? I scarcely remember the man!”
“Well, if you have nothing against him, would you not perhaps be inclined to help him? The claims of your business are, Iknow, enormous, and it is of course easy to forget the names and identities of the various persons who have all done their little best to build up the firm,—but Dove’s is really an exceptional case. He was always liked and respected at the works,—many of the men there know him well and speak most highly of him, and I can add my own testimony to that of the others. It seems a pity to let so faithful a servant of the firm die for want of a little first aid——”
“Did he send you to beg of me?” asked McNason with a kind of vicious abruptness.
Mr. Pitt’s pale face flushed a little.
“Certainly not, Mr. McNason! Willie Dove would never beg of any man. He merely told me his case and said: ‘Perhaps Mr. McNason would lend me the money. I would work it all back.’ And to speak the truth, I really thought—yes, sir, I really thought you would be glad to lend it!—even togiveit! Two hundred pounds is no more to you than two hundred pencewould be to me. But supposing you make it a loan, and have any doubts as to Dove’s ability or willingness to pay it back, I myself will be security for him. I would advance him the money if I had it to spare,—but unfortunately I am rather pressed for cash just now—I also have a large family——”
McNason smiled a smile resembling the death-grin of the fabulous dragon of St. George.
“A mistake, Pitt!—quite a mistake! Large families merely make the world more difficult to live in and money scarcer to get! Money needs to be kept in close quarters—close, very close quarters! It has a habit of running away unless it is imprisoned, Pitt! It runs away much faster than it runs in! Governments know that!—and kings! And when governments and kings find it slipping through their fingers, they come to Me!—to me, Josiah McNason!—and I tell you what it is, Pitt,I’ve enough to do with lending money to Big Persons and taking securities on Big Things without bothering myself concerning Little Commercials! See? I lend to Royalties, Titles and Magnificences of all classes and all nations,—and I’ve done so much lately in this line that I’m short of money myself just now, Pitt!—ha, ha!—I’m short of money!”
Mr. Pitt stared, and was for a moment speechless. He had often thought (taking shame to himself for indulging in such a reflection) that Mr. McNason was certainly a very ugly man, but he had never seen him look uglier than at the present moment. Such a mouthing, wrinkled mask of a face as the firelight now flashed upon was surely not often seen among living humanity. Even the grey-white goatee beard that adorned Josiah’s sharp chin, wagged up and down with its possessor’s silent mirth in a fashion which made its expression abnormally atrocious.
“I’m short of money!” repeated the millionaire, rubbing his hands pleasantly together—“I don’t mind lending this Willie Dove five pounds, as you say he served the firm well a quarter of a century ago,—but two hundred! Now, Mr. Pitt, you’re a sensible man,—a man of business,—and you know that to ask such a sum on loan for a decayed and diseased commercial traveller is absurd! He would never be able to ‘work it back’ as he says. And as for your being his security, I have too much respect for you to allow you to put yourself into such an awkward position. You’d regret it,—you really would, Pitt! Besides, why not let Dove go to one of the Hospitals and take his chance among the young students and general cutters-up of bodies, eh? They’d charge him very little—perhaps nothing—especially if they found his disease complex enough for good ‘practice’!”
Mr. Pitt gave an unconscious gesture of physical repulsion.
“Mrs. Dove has a nervous horror of her husband’s being separated from her,”—he said, slowly—“She says that if he is taken away to a hospital she feels sure he will never come back. Then again, she has great faith in the doctor who has been attending Dove for the past six months—and he strongly recommends a private operation.”
“Of course! He wants to put the money into his own pocket,”—said McNason, calmly—“Well! I can’t be of any assistance in this business—so if that’s all you came about, you may consider that you have done your duty, and that the interview is finished. Good-night, Mr. Pitt!”
But Pitt still hesitated.
“It is Christmas Eve, sir,——” he began, falteringly.
“It is. I have been reminded of that fact several times to-day. What of it?”
“Nothing, sir, except—except—that it is a time of year when everyone tries to dosome little kindness to his neighbour, and when we all endeavour to help the poor and sick according to our means,—and—and when some of us who are getting old may look back on our past lives and remember the ones we have loved who are no longer here,—when even you, sir,—you might perhaps think of your only son who is gone,—the son of the firm, as we used to call him,—Willie Dove carried the child many times on his shoulder round the works to see the engines in full swing,—and he was very fond of Willie—and—er—and—as I say, sir, you might, perhaps, for the dead boy’s sake, do a good turn——”
He paused. The millionaire had half risen from his chair, and was gripping its cushioned elbows hard with both hands.
“How dare you!” he muttered in choked accents—“How dare you use the memory of my dead son to urge a beggar’s plea! Why do you presume to probe an old grief—a cureless sorrow—in an attemptto get money out of me! Because it is Christmas Eve? Curse Christmas Eve!”
His voice sank to a hiss of rage, and Mr. Pitt, nervously shrinking within himself, sought for his hat and made towards the door. A terrific gust of rain just then swept against the windows like a shower of small stones, accompanied by the shrieking yowl of the wind.
“Christmas Eve!” repeated McNason, fixing his eyes with cold derision on his abashed overseer—“Peace and goodwill! That sounds like it, doesn’t it?” And he shook one hand with a mocking gesture towards the rattling casements. “Hear the storm? Any angels singing in it, do you think? Any God about? Bah! Christmas is a vulgar superstition born of barbarous idolatry! It serves nowadays as a mere excuse for the lower classes to gorge themselves with food, get drunk, and generally make beasts of themselves! There is no more ‘Peace and goodwill’ in it thanthere is in a public-house beer fight! And as for doing kindnesses to each other, I’ll be bound there’s not a man at my works who isn’t trying to get a bigger round of beef or a fatter goose for himself than his neighbour can afford. That’s charity! It begins at home!Youknow that, Mr. Pitt! Ha-ha! You know that—you have a large family! Christmas is a humbug, like most ‘religious’ festivals”—here he stretched his thin mouth into that unbecoming slit which suggested smiling, but was nothing like a smile—“I never keep it—and I do my best to forget it! Good-night!”
“Good-night, sir,”—and Mr. Pitt, hat in hand, stood for a moment facing his employer—“I am sorry if I have troubled you—or—or offended you! I did not mean to do so. I hope you will excuse my boldness! I made a mistake—I thought you might be pleased to do something for an old servant of the firm;—I—I—er—Good-night!”
The door opened and closed softly. He was gone.
McNason looked after him with a frown.
“Like his impudence!” he muttered—“Like his damned impudence! Following me up here all the way from the city and begging me to lend two hundred pounds to a man I hardly ever saw—except—except once or twice when my boy was alive. Among the hundreds and hundreds of travellers for the firm, how the devil should I be expected to remember Willie Dove!”
He settled himself once more in his elbow-chair, and poked the fire vigorously till the bright blaze spread a brilliant glow well over the room, flashing ruddily on the rows of well-bound books, on the marble busts of poets and historians, on the massive desk strewn with letters and papers and lit with electric reading-lamps at either end, and on all the luxurious appurtenances for the study of either Ledgers or Literature which, in these days of superfluous comfort andconvenience, assist in furnishing the library of a millionaire. He had dined in town, and there was nothing for him to do except to read,—write,—or sit and meditate. He was alone,—but that was his customary condition when in his own house, unless on those occasions when he chose to invite a select party of persons, often including Royalty itself, to stay with him as guests, and graze on him, as it were, like sheep on a particularly fat pasture. But he never asked people to visit him at all unless for the ulterior purpose of making use of them in business; and just now he had no important object in view that could be served by dining or wining anybody. It was an awkward time of year,—Christmas-time, in fact. It is always an awkward time for anyone who is incurably selfish. Those who have homes and love them, go to such homes and stay there with their families,—those who are callous concerning home-ties and home-affections, have been known to start for theRiviera (especially that section of it known as Monte Carlo) with “tourist” tickets or otherwise;—in short, everybody has a way of doing as they like, or, if not quite as they like, as near to what they like as they can, at that so-called “festive” season. One naturally thinks that a multi-millionaire would surely have all the amusements and gaieties of the world at his command,—but it seemed that Josiah McNason could find nothing wherewith to amuse himself, all business being at a standstill for a few days,—while as for gaiety!—dear me, the very word could barely have been uttered by the boldest person after one glance at his face! He sat, or rather huddled himself in the depths of his chair with a kind of dull satisfaction in his mind to think that in a couple of hours or so he would be going to bed. There was a damp and chilly feeling in the air; the cry of the incessant wind was teasing and shrewish—and he drew himself nearer to the fire, finding comfort in its warmthand dancing flame. He began to con over certain imposing figures representing the huge sums realized by his firm during the past half-year,—and, with furrowed brows,—so harshly wrinkled that his grey eyebrows met across a small chasm of yellow sunken flesh,—he calculated that his own personal fortune had accumulated to the colossal height of nearly twelve millions sterling. He moistened his lips with his tongue, drawing that member between his teeth with a sharp smacking sound as of satisfactory nut cracking.
“I think,”—he said, half aloud,—“I think the time is ripe for a Peerage! I can spare—now, let me see!—yes!—I can spare the money! Twenty thousand pounds to a hospital will almost do it! And perhaps another twenty thousand in some more private quarter, and,—a little diplomacy!” He sniggered softly and rubbed his hands. “Lord McNason will sound well,—very well! If my son had lived——”
Here the heavy frown again made an abyss of his brow. He stared into the fire with a kind of melancholy sullenness, and began to think. His thinking was half involuntary, for he was not a man who cared to dwell on memories of the past or possibilities of the present. Yet, despite himself, he found his mind wandering through various byways of reminiscence back to the time when he was young, with all the world before him,—when, through the crafty instruction of an over-moneyed American capitalist he had learned by heart that celebrated paraphrase of a well-known divine text—“‘Do’ others as you would not be ‘done.’” He saw himself practically adopting this rule of life and conduct with brilliant results. He traced the beginning of the great inflow of gold which now encrusted him and rolled him up as it were in a yellow metallic shroud, a singular and separate creature, apart from other men. He recalled against his own will an incident in his career which he would fainhave forgotten, when at about thirty-seven years of age he had won the first affections of a sweet and beautiful girl of seventeen whom afterwards he had heartlessly jilted, for no fault of her own, but merely because her father had through sad mischance suddenly lost his fortune. Then,—his mind persisting in its abnormal humour of harking back like a hunted hare to old covers,—he reviewed the circumstances of his loveless marriage with the daughter of a millionaire who was at that time half as rich again as himself,—and even now, though she was dead, it was not without a sense of angry pique and nervous irritation that he remembered her utter callousness and indifference to his personality,—her light regard for his wealth, which she scattered recklessly on every sort of foolish extravagance and dissipation,—and her want of natural care and affection for the one child which she gave him,—a promising boy on whom he lavished what infinitesimal vestiges of love stillremained in his rapidly fossilizing moral composition. He thought of all the anxiety and cost which the education of this, his sole heir, had entailed upon him,—anxiety which was futile, and cost which was wasted. For Death cannot be bribed off by bullion. Typhoid fever in its most virulent form had snatched away the boy when he was barely eleven years old, and though the piles of gold still continued to accumulate and ever accumulate with the workings of the great McNason firm, there was no one to inherit the monster millions that came to birth with every fresh turn of the business wheel. And with his disappointment, Josiah had adopted an opposition front towards Deity. The “ways of Providence” were to him subject for the bitterest acrimony; and though, as has been said, he went to Church regularly on Sundays, and was, indeed, exceptionally careful to make a public show of himself as a man vitally interested in all Church matters, his action in this regardmay be truly represented as having been taken on the foundations of unbelief and godless mockery. It tickled his particular vein of humour to think that all the people in the parish where he had his country seat thought him a really religious man. It had been so easy to get this reputation! A few subscriptions to the rector’s pet charities; occasional assistance in taking round the collection-plate on Sundays; and a solemn demeanour during the sermon, had done it. But beneath that solemn demeanour what acrid depths of diabolical atheism lurked, only the diabolical agencies knew! He had worked his way through the world by a judicious use of the world’s follies, obstinacies and credulities,—he had over-reached his neighbours by making capital out of their confidences,—and now, as much as concerned the world’s chief god, Cash, he was at the top of the tree. True, he was getting on for seventy, but in these days when “the microbe of old age” is on the point ofbeing discovered and exterminated, that was nothing. And the toiling engine of his brain having shunted its way thus far into the Long-Ago on a side line of its own, now came rushing swiftly back again into the present brilliant terminus of Wealth and Power which he had so successfully attained. And again the idea of a Peerage commended itself to him.
“It could easily be managed—quite easily!” he mused; “And then—perhaps—I might marry again—and marry well! Some young woman of aristocratic birth and high connections, who wants money. There are scores of them to be had for the asking!”
Just then the clock on the mantelpiece struck a sharp ting!-ting!-ting! Josiah glanced at its enamelled dial and saw that it had chimed the quarter-past eleven. The fire was burning beautifully bright and clear,—and the warmth thrown out by the glowing coals was grateful to his shrunkenlegs, loosely cased in their too ample trousers. He decided that he would wait a little while longer before retiring to rest. Stretching out one hand he touched the button of an electric bell within his reach. Almost instantaneously his major-domo, the majestic Towler, appeared.
“Towler!”
“Yessir!”
“I shall want nothing more to-night. You can go to bed.”
“Very good, sir!”
“Wake me at seven to-morrow morning.”
“Yessir! To-morrow’s Christmas Day, sir.”
“Well, what’s that to me?”
“Beg pardon, sir! Thought you might like to sleep a little later, sir.”
Josiah gazed at him grimly.
“Sleep a little later! What do you take me for, eh? D’ye think I’m such a fool and sluggard as to want to stay in bed longer on Christmas Day than on any other day?You ought to know me better than that! I have plenty of work to do just the same, Christmas Day or no Christmas Day, and I mean to do it!”
“Certainly, sir. Yessir. Seven o’clock, sir!”
“Seven o’clock, sharp!” And McNason’s thin lips closed upon the word “sharp” like the lid of a spring matchbox.
Thereupon Towler backed deferentially towards the door.
“Good-night, sir. Merry Christmas, sir!”
And with this salutation,—which, offered to a person so distinctly removed from merriment as was his master, seemed almost a satire,—he disappeared.
McNason, uttering a sound between a grunt and a curse, poked the fire again viciously, and flung on two logs from a wood-basket beside him,—chumpy resinous logs which began to splutter and crackle directly the heat touched them, and soonstarted flaring flames up the chimney with quite a lurid torchlight glow. The storm outside had increased in fury,—and hailstones were now mingled with the rain which dashed threateningly against the windows with every wild circling rush of the wind.
“Glad I’m not going to a Christmas Eve party!” thought Josiah, as he listened to the hurrying roar of the gale—“A great many young fools will probably catch their deaths of cold to-night,—a wise dispensation of Nature for getting rid of surplus population!”
He stretched each end of his mouth as far as it would go, and showed his crooked yellow teeth to the fire, this effort being his way of laughing. The clock struck half-past eleven,—and scarcely had its final chime died away on the air when another and unexpected sound startled him. Ring-ting-ting-ting!—ting-ring-ting-ting-ting!—Ring-ting-TING-TING!
“Someone at the telephone!” he said, getting out of his comfortable chair, and hurrying to that doubtfully useful modern instrument, which, if once fixed in a private house puts the owner of it at the disposal of all his friends and business acquaintances who may be inclined to “call him up” on the most trivial excuses for wasting his time—“Who wants me at this hour, I wonder!”
He soon had his ear to the receiver, and a small, shrill and quite unfamiliar voice came sharply across the wire.
“Hello!”
“Hello!” he rejoined.
“Hell-oh! McNason! Are you there?”
“Yes. I’m here. Who are you?”
“That’s telling!” And the shrill piping accents broke into fragments of falsetto laughter that ran vibratingly into McNason’s ear and gave him cold shivers down his back—“Are you at home?”
“Of course I am! Going to bed.”
“Oh! Don’t go to bed! Hell-oh! McNason, don’t go to bed! I want you!”
“Want me? What for?”
Again the broken laughter quavered along the wire in uncanny snatches.
“On business! Very important! Government loan! No delay! Great chance for you! Peerage! Christmas Eve! Don’t go to bed!”
Josiah’s temper rose. He put his mouth to the transmitter and spoke softly, deliberately and with concentrated viciousness.
“You’re a humbug! You’re some fool playing with the telephone because it’s Christmas Eve, and you don’t know what else to do with yourself! Probably you’re drunk! I don’t know you, and I don’t want to know you. Get off my private wire!”
“Oh!” And then came a curious exclamation that sounded like “Hoo-roo!” “Don’t say you don’t want to know me! You’ve got to know me! I’m coming to you now! Be with you directly!”
Josiah began to feel desperate.
“Hello!” he called.
“Hell-oh!” was the prompt response.
“What’s your name?”
“Tell you when I see you! Hand you my card!”
“Hello! Can you hear what I say?”
“As plain as a penny whistle!”
“Well then, whoever you are, please understand that it’s no use your coming all the way here to see me to-night. It’s too late! This place is twenty miles from town and there are no trains. The house is shut up, and I’m going to bed. Your business must wait till to-morrow!”
“To-morrow is Christmas Day!” replied the shrill voice; “To-morrow will be here in half-an-hour! But I shall be with you before then! My business won’t wait! It can’t! Don’t worry about getting supper for me,—I never take any! Ta!”
Utterly mystified, McNason fell backfrom the telephone affected by that strange and disagreeable sensation commonly called “nerves.” He was not, constitutionally, a nervous man,—his mental and moral fibres were exceptionally tough and sinewy, and though he was distinctly snarley and irritable on the rare occasions when he could not altogether get his own way, his temperament was neither “highly strung” nor over-sensitive. Nevertheless, he was just now conscious of a vague uneasiness,—the sort of physical discomfort which usually precedes a severe chill.
“I’ve caught cold in the motor,—that’s what it is,”—he said, with a slight shudder, “Such a beastly night as this is enough to freeze a man’s blood! And I’m not so young as I was”—here the ugly frown deepened on his brow—“not so young—no!—but young enough—young enough! I’ll get into the blankets as quickly as possible.” He glanced furtively at the telephone. “Some impudent idiot has beentampering with my wire, that’s pretty certain! I’ll find out who it is to-morrow! And I’ll make him pay for his fooling!”
He turned his eyes towards the fire. It was brighter than ever. Slowly returning to the deep easy chair placed so cosily opposite the sparkling flames, he sat down again.
“I’ll get myself thoroughly warmed through before going to bed,”—he decided, spreading out his hands to the red glow—“I’m actually shivering! There must be snow in the air as well as rain!”
His teeth chattered, and though the blaze from the fire was already so strong and vivid, he used the poker again to break asunder a half-consumed lump of coal, which on being split emitted a leaping tongue of gaseous blue flame.
“That’s better!” he remarked approvingly, half aloud, “That looks cheerful!”
“So it does!” said a shrill voice at his ear,—the same voice precisely that had justcalled to him along his “private wire”—“Quite cheerful! And Christmassy! As cheerful and Christmassy as yourself, McNason!”
With a violent start Josiah looked sharply round—and looking, uttered an involuntary cry of terror. On the cushioned arm of his elbow-chair sat, or rather squatted, an Object—a Creature—a kind of nondescript semi-human thing such as drunkards might possibly see in delirious dreams. It was small as regarded its Head, but large as regarded its Paunch. It had tiny legs, thin as a chicken’s wish-bone. It had long spidery arms with which it reached down and embraced its turned-up toes. At a first glance it appeared to have a smooth doll-like countenance, but with the least movement such a variety of odd expressions came into play as to make each feature seem a different face. Its eyes were large, and abnormally brilliant. Its hair, jet black and very oily, was rolled back fromits narrow brows in the “all-round frame” style of the present-day coiffeur’s art, while on the top of this inverted nest, or soup plate, it wore a conical red cap adorned at the extreme point with a glittering fiery tassel. Its attire—or rather that part of its body which seemed to be clothed—was red; its attenuated arms and legs were naked, yellow, and extremely hairy. It was more like an unpleasantly huge spider with a human head than anything else, and though small enough to curl itself up on the arm of an easy chair, it was yet large enough to create fear and repulsion in the mind of even so important and powerful a personage as a multi-millionaire. Josiah McNason was distinctly afraid of it. And that he was so, is no discredit to him. He had never seen anything like it before. And he had no particular wish to see anything like it again. Yet he could not take his eyes off it. Its eyes were fixed on him with equal pertinacity. With a mightyeffort at rallying his wits he stealthily sought for the poker,—if he could get hold of that useful instrument with his right hand, he thought, and give that queer Shape squatting so close at his left a heavyWHACK!—why then it would surely break to pieces,—crumble—smash—disappear—!
“Cheerful and Christmassy like yourself, McNason!” repeated the Creature, at this juncture—“Don’t try hitting me with the poker, that’s a good fellow! You’ll hurt yourself if you do!—you really will! A blow on this”—and it touched its protuberant Paunch significantly—“would send you,—notME!—into the middle of Next-World’s week! And you’re not ready for Next-World’s Week yet, McNason! There are a few little business matters concerning it which you don’t quite understand! Live and learn, you know! And howareyou? You’re looking a bit lantern-jawed,—not very well preserved! I’ve seen finer men than you at your age!”
A cold perspiration broke out all over Josiah’s body as he found himself mysteriously compelled to meet the dreadfully glittering round eyes of the uncanny Object that discoursed with him thus familiarly. Faintly he managed to stammer forth—
“Who the —— are you?”
“You were going to say ‘Who the Devil are you’—and why didn’t you?”—retorted the Creature, rapidly untwisting one hairy arm from the embrace of one hairy leg and diving into its red body-covering, from which it produced a small card on which certain letters danced and flickered like tiny dots of flame—“Who the Devil am I? Here, the Devil, is my card! Promised you, the Devil, I would hand it to you, and so, the Devil, I do! Name’s quite easy, you’ll find!”
With shaking fingers McNason gingerly accepted the card held out to him by the unpleasant looking claw which served his visitor for a hand, and with great difficulty,owing to the constant jumping up and down of the inscribed characters, read:
Professor Goblin,Hell’s United Empire Club.
McNason’s fingers shook more violently than ever, and he hastily dropped the card, which as it fell, curled up like a firework bag in a Christmas cracker, emitted a clear blue spark of light, and vanished into space.
“The title of ‘Professor’ isn’t really mine,”—explained the Creature, blinking at him with its owl-like orbs—“I took it.”
Sinking back in his chair, Josiah covered his eyes with one hand and groaned. He must be very ill, he thought!—he must be sickening for some fatal malady! His brain was going!—and this terrible visitation—this hallucination of his senses, was the sign and effect of a mental disorder which had come on suddenly and was rapidly growing worse! How long—how long would it last!
“Lots of fellows do it,”—observed the Goblin, after a brief pause.
Some compelling influence forced the panic-stricken millionaire to speak—to reply—in fact to keep up conversation, whether he liked it or not.
“Lots of fellows do what?” he murmured feebly, still holding one hand over his eyes.
“Call themselves Professors when they’re not,”—said the Goblin.
Here ensued a moment’s intense stillness. Even the noise of the storm outside had, for that short interval ceased,—the fire burned silently,—and not a breath stirred the air. Only the glowing tassel on “Professor” Goblin’s cap waved to and fro as though moved by an unfelt wind.
“When I rang you up on the telephone just now,”—resumed the Goblin—
But at this McNason jumped in his chair and uncovered his eyes.
“Yourang me up?—you—you—!” he stammered.
“Yes—I! Who did you think it was, eh? Your ‘private wire’? Oh, Beelzebub! Nothing’s ‘private’ to me! I should ring up the Prime Minister out of his bed if I happened to want him!”
McNason felt the muscles of his back stiffening in horror.
“You would?—you would——?”
“Certainly! I often use telephones! Capital things! They have to do with the currents of the air, you know!—and other folks work on currents of the air besides Humans! Humans aren’t the only people in the universe! Don’t look so scared, McNason!—I won’t hurt you! As I remarked before, when I rang you up just now, I wondered what title I should take to ingratiate myself with you. You like titles, I know!—you’ve been thinking of a Peerage for yourself—quite right too! Get all you can, McNason!—get all you can that money will buy! But as I never deal in Honours now, I couldn’t pass myself off as aDuke or an Earl. The man that sells these things is more in your line than mine. And I gave up brewing beer and running ‘party’ newspapers long ago, so I could hardly be a Lord. Besides Lords are getting so common—frightfully common, McNason! In fact Lords are becoming Commons! Oh, Beelzebub! Excuse the joke! And as for being a ‘Sir’—oh, hoo-roo, hoo-roo!” And the Goblin, untwisting itself, beat its large paunch slowly in the fashion of a drum, evoking a dreary hollow sound which almost made McNason cry—“Only a provincial Mayor would accept it nowadays! I half thought I’d say I was a Colonel or a General,—but then you’d have taken me for an American,—and I wouldn’t be an American Bounder for twenty Next-Worlds! Then I decided I would be ‘Professor.’ ‘Professor’ struck me as being quite the proper thing;—nice-sounding, wise and imposing!—and anyone can call himself a Professor—even a palmist who robs poor silly dupesof money for telling their fortunes which neither he nor anybody knows! Hoo-roo! Hoo-roo! What humbugs there are in the world, McNason!Youknow that! You’re one!”
“I’m not!” said Josiah, indignantly, aroused to sudden defiance. “How dare you say I am!”
“How dare I!—How dare I!” crooned the Goblin, clasping its legs again and rocking itself to and fro—“Oh, Beelzebub! How high and mighty we are! I dare do anything, McNason! Anything! I’ll skin your soul!”
Josiah gave a smothered cry of terror. Such eyes as were now bent upon him were like nothing in the world except railway signal lamps with the light in them very much intensified and enlarged.
“I’ll skin your soul!” repeated the Goblin, severely—“And you won’t like the process. Do you know what the process is called, McNason? No? Then I’ll tellyou! It’s a blistering, flaying, scorching, boiling, steaming, tearing, crunching, blasting, stripping—(don’t groan like that, McNason!)—stabbing, cutting, piercing process called Truth! It will rip off all the lies in which you are so comfortably wadded, as lightning rips off the bark from a tree! And it will show you to be exactly what I say—a Humbug! A pious Fraud, McNason! A rich man who does no good with his money! A hard man who grinds down poor lives into ill-gotten gold! A cruel, avaricious, grasping, selfish man! And yet you go to Church every Sunday and pretend that you’re a Christian! Oh, hoo-roo! Uncharitable, mean, narrow-minded and hypocritical, you are anything but a good man, McNason!—and I’ve come to tell you so!”
Gathering up his courage under this volley of abuse McNason turned round in his chair and deliberately faced his accuser.
“You’re a Bad Dream!” he said slowly—“You’re the result of Cold and Indigestion! You’re—you’re Nothing! But if you were Anything, I should tell you you are an impudent scoundrel and liar! I should tell you to get out of this room before you are kicked out! But you are only an Illusion!—a horrible, horrible Fancy!—and—and you’ll Go!—presently!—in a little while—when I am better—when my brain recovers itself——”
Here he broke off, appalled at the indescribably hideous grimace with which his unpleasant companion favoured him.
“Your brain!” echoed the Goblin. “Yourbrain indeed! Pooh! When you are better! Hoo-roo! You never will be better—never—not unlessIdoctor you! I must sk—k——”
“No, no!” cried Josiah, seized by a paroxysm of fear—“Don’t skin me! Anything but that! Don’t,”—and his teeth clattered together—“don’t ski—i—in me!”
“Professor” Goblin relaxed its writhing features and smoothed them into a kind of wise impassibility such as is seen on the physiognomy of a Chinese idol.
“Now answer me, McNason,” it said, impressively—“Do you mean to say that you consider yourself a good man?”
Josiah looked at his inquisitor with one eye askew.
“As good as any man,”—he muttered—“And better than most!”
“Oh, hoo-roo!” and the dismal cry was like a hundred owls hooting in chorus—“Hoo-roo!—hoo-roo! How these conceited mortals deceive themselves!” Here it patted its paunch echoingly. “As good as any man, are you, McNason?—and better than most! Now what have you done in order to get such a very excellent opinion of yourself, eh?”
McNason hesitated. Then the recollection of his vast wealth, and of his wide-reaching business influence flashed acrosshis mind and filled him with a sudden spirit of self-assertiveness.
“I’ve done a good deal in my time,”—he said, boldly—“For one thing, I’ve made my own way in the world!”
“Ah! And without assistance?” queried the Goblin—“Without trampling any poor person down? Without ‘sweating’ labour? Without cheating anybody less ‘sharp’ than yourself?”
McNason was silent.
“Youhaven’tmade your own way in the world!”—went on the Goblin relentlessly—“The men who have worked for you have made it! And you’ve screwed their lives down, McNason!—screwed them down hard and fast to pittance wages in order to wrest every penny you could for yourself out of their labour! And you’ve made a pile of money! Too big a pile by far, McNason! No man in the world makes such a pile without having wronged his fellow-men in some way or other! He hastried to tip the balance of justice falsely—but there’s one thing about that balance, McNason—it always rights itself! When a man is too rich—when a man has gotten his money through close-fistedness, harshness and avarice, thenWEcome in! We of Hell’s United Empire Club! We give a bloated millionaire fits, I can tell you! When he has got enough gold to gorge himself with expensive food and wine every day in the week if he likes, we take away his digestion! That’s capital fun! We take away his digestion, and the doctors come and limit him to milk and soda! Oh, hoo-roo!” And the Goblin doubled itself up in a writhing tangle of delight,—“And when he marries for Moneyonlyand gets an heir to Moneyonly, we take away the heir! And then by and bye he finds he can neither eat nor sleep, and that his Money isn’t such a valuable commodity as he thought it was, not even though itcanbuy a Peerage! And when he is harshand unkind and uncharitable, we sk—k—in his soul!”
“I’mnotuncharitable!” cried Josiah, goaded almost to frenzy by the darting menace of the terrible eyes that glared fixedly into his own—“Not even YOU can say that! I’ve given hundreds and hundreds of pounds away in charity——”
“On subscription lists—yes! I know you have!” and “Professor” Goblin nodded sagaciously—“I’ve seen your name writ large along with the names of a lot of other bounders who want the world to see how much they’ve given to a hospital! But that’s not charity!”
“Not charity!” echoed Josiah. “Then what is charity?”
“Shall I tell you?” said the Goblin. “You’ve heard, but you’ve forgotten!” And it repeated in a low, almost gentle voice—“‘Charity suffereth long and is kind, charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth notbehave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.’ That’s as unlikeyourcharity, McNason, as Heaven is unlike Hell!”
“Any devil can quote Scripture!” said McNason, contemptuously—“I hear all that in Church!”
“You hear, but you don’t listen,”—said the Goblin—“You go to Church every Sunday?”
“I do! My clergyman relies very much on my assistance.”
“Does he now?” and the Goblin put its head questioningly on one side—“Financial assistance, of course?”
McNason gave a short laugh.
“That’s the only kind of assistance he ever asks for!”
“Good man!” said the Goblin, thoughtfully—“And you help him?”
“Very considerably.” Here McNason drew himself up stiffly with an air of importance—“I’m a Churchwarden.”
At this “Professor” Goblin uttered a frightful yell.
“Hoo-roo, hoo-roo,HOO-ROO!” it cried, “The dear old days! The sweet familiar word!” And springing suddenly into the air, it turned a rapid somersault and came gravely squatting down again—“Oh, Beelzebub, McNason! I was once a Churchwarden!”
Josiah trembled in every limb, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth in sheer panic. The alarming abruptness of his unwelcome visitor’s movements almost paralysed him with terror. Somehow he had thought the Creature might be a kind of fixture to the arm of his chair,—an hallucination of his eye and brain which was likely perhaps to stay in one position,—but its eldritch screech and somersault upset his logic altogether and turned him sick and dizzy.
“I was once a Churchwarden!” said the Goblin, beginning to emit a spluttering laugh from a grimacing mouth—“Oh, hoo-roo! And I lookedsorespectable! Tell me, McNason!—do you wear a top-hat on Sundays?”
The shuddering millionaire bent his head feebly in assent.
“So did I! So did I!” And the Goblin clasped its toes and hugged itself in a kind of ecstasy—“And a black frock-coat! So nicely brushed! So well-fitting! I had a figure in those days, McNason! And I walked into Church with brightly polished boots, creaking just a little to show they weren’t paid for—because it isn’t ‘gentlemanly’ to pay for what you wear right down on the nail, you know!—and I bent my back before all the people and breathed good little prayers into the crown of my top-hat, just where I could see the name of the hatter printed in gold on the silk lining! I did! Oh, they werehappy days! Happy humbug days! Gone, gone, gone! I shall never be a Churchwarden any more!”
Here, unravelling its contorted body, it put its clawlike hands up to its face and began to weep.
“Oh, hoo-roo!” it blubbered—“When I was a Churchwarden people were all so respectful to me! I had a country seat—such as you have, McNason!—and a whole parish bowed down to me! Think of that! Farmers doffed their caps, and farmers’ wives curtsied to me! The clergyman spoke of me as his ‘high-minded and generous neighbour!’ Oh, hoo-roo! I was so proud of myself!—as proud as a Scotch landlord!—and nothing’s prouder than that! Hoo-roo! Hoo-roo! Those happy humbug days! I gave myself such airs!—such touch-me-not airs, McNason! I might have been an up-to-date Highland chief in a kilt, my airs were so superior! You know what an up-to-date Highlandchief is, McNason?—a man who lets his ‘dear native home,’ and his ‘beloved’ moors and forests for all he can get, and lives a gay life in London on the profits! A proud and pompous creature, McNason!—and I was just such a one! I was really! Talk of patriotism and love of country! I had it all!—I was as parochial as a town clerk! I had such a grand manner!—so stand-offish! And now—and now——” Here it beat a dreary tattoo on its expressive Paunch—“Oh, hoo-roo!—I shall never be a Churchwarden any more!”
A clammy perspiration bedewed Josiah’s brow. That hollow drumming sound was dreadful!—if the horrible Creature would only stop it!——
“Don’t do that!”—he muttered, feebly, “I—I can’t bear it!”
“Can’t bear what?” demanded the Goblin, quite briskly.
“That sound you make on—on——”
“On my Tum-Tum? Oh, Beelzebub!You oughtn’t to mind that! Tum-Tums are what all you men live for nowadays! One of your dramatists has made a play out of a Tum-Tum. Poor old Shakespeare! He was never as clever as that! I always lived for my Tum-Tum—and of course it’s now the largest part of me. I have to tell it everything,—and when I beat it, it knows what I mean!”
Josiah huddled himself back into the depths of his easy chair and closed his eyes,—if he could only swoon away, he thought!—if he could but lose his sight and hearing in a merciful unconsciousness!—
A low snarling murmur, breathing through the casements, under the door, and down the chimney, now gave warning of the fresh and fiercer rising of the wind, and presently down it swooped with a terrific battery of hail, and such a scream and uproar of rage as is seldom heard save in tropical forests, when huge trees fall crashing under the blow of a storm, and torrentshurl themselves headlong from the summits of the mountains sweeping tons of granite with them like straws into the valley below. At that instant the clock began striking Midnight. One!—Two!—Three!—Four!—Five!—and to McNason’s horror the Goblin suddenly sprang upright. If it had looked uncanny before, it looked a thousand times more uncanny now. Poised on the arm of the chair its lean toes and legs began to stretch,—its body to lengthen,—taller and taller it grew, its Paunch showing as prominently and roundly as a full moon on a winter’s night,—its head with its oily hair, conical cap and tassel seemed to be rising steadily into the ceiling, and Josiah, clenching his hands convulsively, watched the process in fearful fascination,—was this the way the awful hallucination would vanish? Was it going?—would the horrible Nightmare elongate itself gradually into fine lines, and, mingling with the atmosphere, disappear altogether?
Six!—Seven!—Eight! The gale rampaged violently outside and shrieked like a drunken fury, battering at the casements as though meaning to break them in. Nine!—Ten!—Eleven!—and lo!—the Goblin all at once pounced down from the height to which it had ascended, and laid its detestable claw on the shuddering McNason’s shirt-front! Twelve! With a wild whistling yell, the storm burst open the long latticed windows at last, throwing them back with a savageBANG!—blowing aside the splendid damask curtains as though they were rags, and admitting a gust of bitter cold sleet and snow, while clear on the rushing blast came the sound of bells! Ding—dong!—ding!—dong! Do re mi—FA!—Sol la—si—DO! The rhythmic beat and liquid warble of rich tones melted into the wind and rain like a kind familiar voice arguing with angry children,—but Josiah McNason, half dead with fear at the sight of the hairy claw on his shirt-front and the knowledge that the redmoon-like Paunch of the Goblin was almost touching his own shrunken one, heard nothing save the howling of the furious gale, and wondered how long this inexplicable torture of his body and brain would last!
“Christmas Day!” cried the Goblin,—“It’s Christmas Day, McNason! Hark to the bells! How they swing! How they ring! Come to church, McNason! It’s time! Come along!” And the round eyes glowed like balls of flame—“Come to Church! Come and sing ‘While Shepherds!’ You’re a Churchwarden, you know! Come along—come!”
“Not now—not now!” gasped the terrified Josiah, seeing that the Goblin was spreading out its long lean arms as though to envelop him in its embrace—“It’s not time!—it’s the middle of the night!——”
“No, no!—it’s Christmas Day!” reiterated the Goblin; “Come to Church, McNason! Come and hear my friend the Reverend Mr. Firebrand hold forth on thevanity of riches! Come in the spirit of One Timothy Two! That’s a text! ‘Grace, mercy, peace!’ Come along, McNason! All are welcome whereweare going! Hark! How the bells ring! One Timothy Two! One Timothy Two! Come and ‘sit under’ good Mr. Firebrand! Come!—come!”
And with a terrible downward clutch, the Goblin caught hold of McNason by the coat-collar.
“Mercy——mercy!” cried the wretched man—“Help!—Help!”
“Help!—help!” shouted the Goblin, derisively—“One Timothy Two! Come along, McNason! Come along!”
Catching up Josiah as easily as though he were a wooden mannikin, the Goblin unfurled a pair of bat-like wings and rose aloft in air.
“Here we go!” it yelled—“Up we go, and down we go! Off to Church!Meand the Churchwarden! Oh, hoo-roo, hoo-roo!Christmas Day and Christmas Bells, and a jolly Christmas altogether! One Timothy Two! Off we go!”
And with the rush and roar of the wind, the Goblin carrying the world-renowned millionaire as a bird of prey might carry a rabbit or a weasel, soared out on a wave of mingled sleet and snow into the stormy night!
What happened to him in that wild supernatural scurry through the air Josiah McNason never knew. He lived and was conscious,—conscious of being borne along at a furious rate not knowing whither,—conscious of the freezing cold,—the rain, the wind, that tossed him and his unearthly companion about like dead leaves on its angry breath with a “Hoo-roo!” louder than the cry peculiar to the Goblin itself,—conscious above all of the bells! O theBells! How they trilled and trolled out their Christmas melody!—how they seemed to tumble one over the other in their haste to proclaim “Peace and Goodwill!”—how their metal throats palpitated and throbbed with the angelic message!—angelic still,—angelic always!—even though some mortals nowadays are so miserably-minded as to doubt its truth and sweetness! The Bells rang everywhere!—loudly to the scudding clouds,—softly to the darkened earth,—whisperingly among the chill showers of sleet and snow, and with an echoing clang like musical thunder above and around the shadowy drifting form of the Goblin as it flew along, gripping the quivering Josiah as a cat might grip a mouse, or an eagle a new-born lamb. All at once the rattle and rush of the warring elements rolled off in a pause of quietude, letting the Bells have it all their own way,—and—suddenly descending with lightning-like rapidity by sheer force of the Goblin’s imperative downwardpressure, Josiah found himself standing on his feet in the middle of a vast building which looked like a Church, though there was no sacred emblem of religion to be seen anywhere in it save the Pulpit. The Pulpit stood out with singular obtrusiveness, for it was green,—a livid, wicked green like the glare of a serpent’s eye. Panels of white appeared to be inserted round it, but these could not be plainly discerned, at once. The green hue was its chief note of attraction, and McNason’s eyes fastened themselves upon this with a pertinacity surely inspired by some other influence than his own. Breathless, shivering and exhausted as he was, there was something about that Green Pulpit which, wholly against his will, compelled his attention,—and as he looked, he heard a sudden confused murmur of voices which, beginning softly at first, grew louder and louder till it rose into a perfect pandemonium of howling! The unhappy millionaire trembled. What new and namelesshorror was there yet in store for him? Involuntarily he turned to look for the Goblin,—eventhatuncanny Presence seemed kinder and more friendly than such a dreadful uproar of unknown tongues! And he was actually glad to see it still standing beside him, its round eyes sparkling with a strange light of mingled mirth and malice.