Page:Sylvester Sound the Somnambulist (1844).djvu/68

 "With you!' returned Click, in an awful growl.

'No, no, no, no, I shan't go! not a bit of it! What does it want? I shan't go!"

"You ," growled Click, who instantly locked his arms in those of Obadiah, and carried him, dos-a-dos, towards the tomb.

But on the way, oh! how sharp were the strictly private feelings of this great man! He felt his heart sink deeper and deeper still at every step, and as the cold sweat bedewed his highly-intellectual brow, he was half dead with "fructifying" fright. He did not even try to evade the iron grasp of Click, for Nature had taught him, in his early youth, the inutility of attempting that which he knew to be impossible: he rode on, a martyr to this eternal principle, and riding as he did—with his back towards the horrible object he was approaching—he gave himself up for lost.

"Behold!" exclaimed Click, on reaching the spot. "Behold!" and having uttered this awful exclamation, he turned sharply round, and presented the face of his terror-stricken load to the tomb.

Obadiah—who felt very faint—looked at the urn with an expression of despair, but, his eyes being veiled with a film of horror, he couldn't at first see what it was. Gradually, however, that film disappeared, and as it vanished, the changes which his countenance underwent, were of the most extraordinary character perhaps ever beheld; but, even when he had become completely conscious of what it was—when he had touched the urn, and found that it was stone, and therefore knew that it was no ghost—although he felt a little better, his features expressed infelicity still.

"Mr. Click, sir," said he, between a sigh and a moan, "I'll never forgive you; I'll never forgive you."

Click, as he released him, laughed loudly, and continued to laugh; and as Legge had, in the interim, explained all to his friends, they approached the spot, and laughed loudly too. They were highly amused: they enjoyed it much: they were all, indeed, in most excellent spirits: but Obadiah was indignantly dumb. He viewed the contortions of Mr. Click and his disciples with disgust. As they pealed forth their merriment, and held their sides, and irreverently trampled upon the graves around to subdue the pain which the laughter created, he scowled at them all with refined disdain, and, contemning their practices, left them.

"This is your ghost, then, is it?" cried Click, when the laughter had somewhat subsided. "This is your fiery-eyed phantom after all, then?"

"No," replied Legge, "we have been deceived by this, it is true; but this is not that which we saw last night. That was a spirit—a real spirit, if ever a spirit appeared upon earth."

"I don't believe it," retorted the incredulous Click; "nothing can make me believe it."

"But I saw it, I tell you! I saw it walk—I'm not exactly blind! I saw it pass my house, and go straight to the cottage."

"Let's go to the cottage now, then," interposed Pokey. "As it isn't here, I dare say we shall see it there. Let's go to the cottage."

"Aye—let's go!" exclaimed several of his friends, "let's all go together."