CHAPTER II.

THE WATCHER.
Mr. Barton was next morning sitting at a late breakfast, reflecting upon the incidents of the previous night, with more of inquisitiveness than awe, so speedily do gloomy impressions upon the fancy dis- appear under the cheerful influence of day, when a letter just delivered by the postman was placed upon the table before him.
There was nothing remarkable in the address of this missive, except that it was written in a hand which he did not know — perhaps it was disguised— for the tall narrow characters were sloped backward ; and with the self-inflicted suspense which we often see practised In such cases, he puzzled over the in- scription for a full minute before he broke the seal. When he did so, he read the following words, writ- ten in the same hand : —
" Mr. Barton, late captain oi the ' Dolphin,' is warned of DANGER. He will do wisely to avoid
C2
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Street — [here the locality of his last night's adventure was named] — if he walks there as usual he will meet with something unlucky— let him take warning, once for all, for he has reason to dread
" The Watcher."
Captain Barton read and re-read this strange effusion ; in every light and in every direction he turned it over and over ; he examined the paper on which it was written, and scrutinized the hand-writing once more. Defeated here, he turned to the seal ; it was nothing but a patch of wax, upon which the accidental impression of a thumb was imperfectly visible.
There was not the slightest mark, or clue of any kind, to lead him to even a guess as to its possible origin. The writer's object seemed a friendly one, and yet he subscribed himself as one whom he had " reason to dread." Altogether the letter, its author, and its real purpose were to him an inexplicable puzzle, and one, moreover, unpleasantly suggestive, in his mind, of other associations connected with his last night's adventure.
In obedience to some feeling — perhaps of pride — Mr. Barton did not communicate, even to his intended bride, the occurrences which I have just detailed. Trifling as they might appear, they had in reality most disagreeably affected his imagination, and he care-d not to disclose, even to the young lady in ques- tion, what she might possibly look upon as evidences of weakness. The letter might very well be but a hoax, and the mysterious footfall but a delusion or a trick. But although he affected to treat the whole
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affair as unworthy of a thought, it yet haunted him pertinaciously, tormenting him with perplexing doubts, and depressing him with undefined appre- hensions. Certain it is, that for a considerable time afterwards he carefully avoided the street indicated in the letter as the scene of danger.
It was not until about a week after the receipt of the letter which I have transcribed, that anything further occurred to remind Captain Barton of its contents, or to counteract the gradual disappearance from his mind of the disagreeable impressions then received.
He was returning one night, after the interval I have stated, from the theatre, which was then situated in Crow Street, and having there seen Miss Montague
and Lady L into their carriage, he loitered for
some time with two or three acquaintances.
With these, however, he parted close to the college, and pursued his way alone. It was now fully one o'clock, and the streets were quite deserted. During the whole of his walk with the companions from whom he had just parted, he had been at times painfully aware of the sound of steps, as it seemed, dogging them on their way.
Once or twice he had looked back, in the uneasy anticipation that he was again about to experience the same mysterious annoyances which had so dis- concerted him a week before, and earnestly hoping that he might see some form to account naturally for the sounds. But the street was deserted — no one was visible.
Proceeding now quite alone upon his homeward way, he grew really nervous and uncomfortable, as he
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became sensible, with increased distinctnesss, of the well-known and now absolutely dreaded sounds.
By the side of the dead wall which bounded the college park, the sounds followed, recommencing almost simultaneously with his own steps. The same unequal pace — sometimes slow, sometimes for a score yards or so, quickened almost to a run — was audible from behind him. Again and again he turned; quickly and stealthily he glanced over his shoulder — almost at every half-dozen steps ; but no one was visible.
The irritation of this intangible and unseen pur- suit became gradually all but intolerable ; and when at last he reached his home, his nerves were strung to such a pitch of excitement that he could not rest, and did not attempt even to lie down until after the daylight had broken.
He was awakened by a knock at his chamber-door, and his servant entering, handed him several letters which had just been received by the penny post. One among them instantly arrested his attention — a single glance at the direction aroused him thoroughly. He at once recognized its character, and read as follows : —
" You may as well think, Captain Barton, to escape from your own shadow as from me; do what you may, I will see you as often as I please, and you shall see me, for I do not want to hide myself, as you fancy. Do not let it trouble your rest, Captain Barton ; for, with a good conscience, what need you fear from the eye of
"The Watcher.
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It is scarcely necessary to dwell upon the feelings that accompanied a perusal of this strange communi- cation. Captain Barton was observed to be unusually absent and out of spirits for several days afterwards ! but no one divined the cause.
Whatever he might think as to the phantom steps which followed him, there could be no possible illusion about the letters he had received ; and, to say the least, their immediate sequence upon the myste- rious sounds which had haunted him, was an odd coincidence.
The whole circumstance was, in his own mind, vaguely and instinctively connected with certain passages in his past life, which, of all others, he hated to remember.
It happened, however, that in addition to his own approaching nuptials, Captain Barton had just then — fortunately, perhaps, for himself — some business of an engrossing kind connected with the adjustment of a large and long-litigated claim upon certain properties.
The hurry and excitement of business had its natural effect in gradually dispelling the gloom which had for a time occasionally oppressed him, and in a little while his spirits had entirely recovered their accustomed tone.
During all this time, however, he was, now and then, dismayed by indistinct and half-heard repeti- tions of the same annoyance, and that in lonely places, in the day-time as well as after nightfall. These renewals of the strange impressions from which he had suffered so much, were, however, desultory and faint, insomuch that often he really
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could not, to his own satisfaction, distinguish between them and the mere suggestions of an excited imagination.
One evening he walked down to the House of Commons with a Member, an acquaintance of his and mine. This was one of the few occasions upon which I have been in company with Captain Barton. As we walked down together, I observed that he became absent and silent, and to a degree that seemed to argue the pressure of some urgent and absorbing anxiety.
I afterwards learned that during the whole of our walk, he had heard the well-known footsteps tracking him as we proceeded.
This, however, was the last time he suffered from this phase of the persecution, of which he was already the anxious victim. A new and a very different one was about to be presented.
CHAPTER HI.
AN ADVERTISEMENT.
Of the new series of impressions which were after- wards gradually to work out his destiny, I that evening witnessed the first ; and but for its relation to the train of events which followed, the incident would scarcely have been now remembered by me.
As we were walking in at the passage from Col- lege Green, a man, of whom I remember only that he was short in stature, looked like a foreigner, and wore a kind of fur travelling-cap, walked very rapidly, and as if under fierce excitement, directly towards us, muttering to himself, fast and vehemently the while.
This odd-looking person walked straight toward Barton, who was foremost of the three, and halted, regarding him for a moment or two with a look of maniacal menace and fury; and then turning about as abruptly, he walked before us at the same agitated pace, and disappeared at a side passage. I do dis- tinctly remember being a good deal shocked at the countenance and bearing of this man, which indeed irresistibly impressed me with an undefined sense of
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danger, such as I have never felt before or since from the presence of anything human ; but these sensa- tions were, on my part, far from amounting to any- thing so disconcerting as to flurry or excite me — I had seen only a singularly evil countenance, agitated, as it seemed, with the excitement of madness.
I was absolutely astonished, however, at the effect of this apparition upon Captain Barton. I knew him to be a man of proud courage and coolness in real danger — a circumstance which made his conduct upon this occasion the more conspicuously odd. He recoiled a step or two as the stranger advanced, and clutched my arm in silence, with what seemed to be a spasm of agony or terror ! and then, as the figure disap- peared, shoving me roughly back, he followed it for a few paces, stopped in great disorder, and sat down upon a form. I never beheld a countenance more ghastly and haggard.
" For God's sake, Barton, what is the matter ? M said , our companion, really alarmed at his ap- pearance. " You're not hurt, are you ? — or unwell ? What is it ? "
"What did he say? — I did not hear it — what was it ? " asked Barton, wholly disregarding the question.
" Nonsense," said , greatly surprised ; " who
cares what the fellow said. You are unwell, Barton — decidedly unwell ; let me call a coach."
" Unwell ! No — not unwell," he said, evidently making an effort to recover his self-possession ; " but, to say the truth, I am fatigued — a little over-worked — and perhaps over anxious. You know I have been in Chancery, and the winding-up of a suit is always a
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nervcus affair. I have felt uncomfortable all this evening ; but I am better now. Come, come — shall we go on ? "
" No, no. Take my advice, Barton, and go home ; you really do need rest ; you are looking quite ill. I really do insist on your allowing me to see you home," replied his friend.
I seconded 's advice, the more readily as it
was obvious that Barton was not himself disinclined to be persuaded. He left us, declining our offered
escort. I was not sufficiently intimate with to
discuss the scene we had both just witnessed. I was, however, convinced from his manner in the few common-place comments and regrets we exchanged, that he was just as little satisfied as I with the ex- tempore plea of illness with which he had accounted for the strange exhibition, and that we were both agreed in suspecting some lurking mystery in the matter.
I called next day at Barton's lodgings, to inquire for him, and learned from the servant that he had not left his room since his return the night before ; but that he was not seriously indisposed, and hoped to be out in a few days. That evening he sent for
Dr. R , then in large and fashionable practice in
Dublin, and their interview was, it is said, an odd one.
He entered into a detail of his own symptoms in an abstracted and desultory way, which seemed to argue a strange want of interest in his own cure, and, at all events, made it manifest that there was some topic engaging his mind of more engrossing import- ance than his present ailment. He complained of occasional palpitations and headache.
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Doctor R asked him, among other questions,
whether there was any irritating circumstance or anxiety then occupying his thoughts. This he denied quickly and almost peevishly ; and the physician thereupon declared his opinion that there was noth- ing amiss except some slight derangement of the digestion, for which he accordingly wrote a prescrip- tion, and was about to withdraw, when Mr. Barton, with the air of a man who recollects a topic which had nearly escaped him, recalled him.
" I beg your pardon, Doctor, but I really almost forgot ; will you permit me to ask you two or three medical questions — rather odd ones, perhaps, but a wager depends upon their solution, you will, I hope, excuse my unreasonableness ? "
The physician readily undertook to satisfy the inquirer.
Barton seemed to have some difficulty about opening the proposed interrogatories, for he was silent for a minute, then walked to his book-case, and returned as he had gone ; at last he sat down, and said —
" You'll think them very childish questions, but I can't recover my wager without a decision ; so I must put them. I want to know first about lock-jaw. If a man actually has had that complaint, and appears to have died of it — so much so, that a physician of average skill pronounces him actually dead — may he, after all, recover ? "
The physician smiled, and shook his head.
" But — but a blunder may be made," resumed Barton. " Suppose an ignorant pretender to medical skill ; may he be so deceived by any stage of the
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complaint, as to mistake what is only a part of the progress of the disease, for death itself?"
" No one who had ever seen death," answered he, " could mistake it in a case of lock-jaw."
Barton mused for a few minutes. " I am going to ask you a question, perhaps, still more childish ; but first, tell me, are the regulations of foreign hospitals, such as that of, let us say, Naples, very lax and bungling. May not all kinds of blunders and slips occur in their entries of names, and so forth ? "
Doctor R professed his incompetence to
answer that query.
" Well, then, Doctor, here is the last of my ques- tions. You will, probably, laugh at it ; but it must out nevertheless. Is there any disease, in all the range of human maladies, which would have the effect of perceptibly contracting the sfature, and the whole frame — causing the man to shrink in all his proportions, and yet to preserve his exact resemblance to himself in every particular — with the ore exception, his height and bulk; any disease, mark — no matter how rare — how little believed in, generally — which could possibly result in producing such an effrct ? "
The physician replied with a smile, and a. very decided negative.
" Tell me, then," said Barton, abruptly, " if a man be in reasonable fear of assault from a lunatic who is at large, can he not procure a warrant for his arrest and detention ? "
" Really, that is more a lawyer's question than one in my way," replied Doctor R ; " but I be- lieve, on applying to a magistrate, such a course would be directed."
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The physician then took his leave ; but, just as he reached the hall-door, remembered that he had left his cane upstairs, and returned. His reappearance was awkward, for a piece of paper, which he recog- nized as his own prescription, was slowly burning upon the fire, and Barton sitting close by with an expression of settled gloom and dismay.
Doctor R had too much tact to observe what
presented itself; but he had seen quite enough to assure him that the mind, and not the body, of Cap- tain Barton was in reality the seat of suffering.
A few days afterwards, the following advertise- ment appeared in the Dublin newspapers : —
" If Sylvester Yelland, formerly a foremast man on board His Majesty's frigate 'Dolphin,' or his nearest of kin, will apply to Mr. Hubert Smith, at- torney, at his office, Dame Street, he or they may hear of something greatly to his or their advantage. Ad- mission may be had at any hour up to twelve o'clock at night, should parties desire to avoid observation ; and the strictest secresy, as to all communications intended to be confidential, shall be honourably observed."
The - Dolphin," as I have mentioned, was the vessel which Captain Barton had commanded ; and his circumstance, connected with the extraordinary exertions made by the circulation of hand-bills, etc., as well as by repeated advertisements, to secure for this strange notice the utmost possible publicity,
suggested to Dr. R the idea that Captain Barton's
extreme uneasiness was somehow connected with the individual to whom the advertisement was addressed, and he himself the author of it
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This, however, it is needless to add, was no more than a conjecture. No information, whatsoever, as to the real purpose of the advertisement was divulged by the agent, nor yet any hint as to who his employer might be.