Page:The Edinburgh Literary Journal (Volume 5, 1831).djvu/352

 might have elapsed, when he awoke with a sudden fright—nothing uncommon when the blood is fevered. He heard the clock strike twelve—an event which was immediately announced by the watchman to the whole town. Frank listened for a while, then turned himself warmly in bed, and was about to address himself again to sleep, when he heard, in the distance as it were, the creaking of a door, and immediately thereafter a heavy sound, as if it had been violently banged to. “O mercy, mercy!” thought he, “here comes the ghost. Pooh! it is only the wind.” But the sound came nearer and nearer, like the heavy tread of a man. There was a jingling accompaniment, as from a convict’s chain or a porter’s bunch of keys. It was no passing gust of wind; the blood rushed to his heart till it thumped like a smith’s hammer.

The affair was now past a joke. Had terror allowed the poor terrified devil to recollect his treaty with the innkeeper, he would have rushed to the window and bawled lustily for assistance. As he was, however, too irresolute for such a decided measure, he betook himself to the mattrass—the last refuge of the terrified—on the same principle that the ostrich thrusts its head into some thicket when it can no longer fly before the huntsman. But without, one door after another was opened and shut with a dreadful clatter. At last it came to the sleeping apartment. There was rattling and shaking at the door, many keys were tried; at last the right one was found, but still the bolt held; so a sturdy kick, which resounded in Frank’s ears like a clap of thunder, was applied—away crashed the bolt, and the door flew wide to the wall. A tall thin man, with a black beard, in an antique costume, and with a gloomy expression of countenance, entered. His eyebrows were contracted into an expression of sullen solemnity. He wore a scarlet mantle depending over his left shoulder, and a high peaked hat on his head. He crossed the chamber three times with slow heavy tread, looked at the candles, and snuffed them. He then threw off his mantle, took from his side a barber’s pouch, took out the shaving apparatus, and drew his glittering razor busily along the strap he carried at his girdle.

Frank lay all this while sweating under the mattrass, recommending himself to the Virgin’s protection, and speculating regarding the comparative probability of this manœuvre having reference to his beard or his throat. To his unspeakable consolation, the spectre, having poured water out of a silver flask into a silver basin, whisked up a lather with his skinny hand, placed a chair, and solemnly beckoned the trembling spy upon his actions to come from his hiding-place.

It was as impossible to remonstrate against this hint, as for an exiled vizier to resist the angel of death, which the sultan sends after him in the shape of a bowstring. In such extreme cases, the most rational line of conduct is of course to yield to necessity, smile at the disagreeable joke, and acquiesce in the operation of strangling. Frank honoured the draft upon his obedience, threw away the mattrass, sprung from the bed, and took his place upon the chair. Wonderful as this sudden transition from terror to resolution may appear, the editor of the Psychological Journal will no doubt be able to explain it in the turning of a straw.

The spectral barber tied a cloth round the neck of his trembling customer, seized comb and scissars, and clipped away at his hair and beard. He then soaped in the most scientific manner, first his chin, then his eyebrows, and finally the whole head, after which he shaved him from the crown to the throat, as bare as a skull. Having finished the job, he washed the head, dried it carefully, made his bow, tied up his apparatus, wrapped himself up in his cloak, and prepared to depart. Frank was not a little annoyed at the loss of his flowing locks, nevertheless he breathed more freely, for he felt as if the incubus had done all he was permitted to do.

It was so, indeed. Redmantle retired, dumb as he had approached—a most perfect contrast to his professional brethren of our day. He had not, however, advanced three steps towards the door, when he stopped, looked round with a woful gesture at him he had shaved so well, and stroaked his long black beard. He repeated the pantomime when he had reached the door. It now struck Frank that the poor ghost wished a favour at his hands, and a rapid association of ideas suggested that it might wish to be paid in kind.

As the ghost, notwithstanding his woe-begone expression of countenance, appeared more inclined for a jest than any thing serious, all fear had now left its victim. He resolved to obey the suggestion of his fancy, and beckoned to the spectre to assume the seat from which he had just arisen. It obeyed instantly, threw off its red mantle, placed the shaving apparatus on the table, and seated itself in the attitude of a man who wishes to get quit of his beard. Frank followed exactly the routine which had been observed in his case, clipped the beard and hair, lathered the whole head, his ghostship sitting the whole time as steady as a barber’s block. The awkward wight was but a bad hand at the razor, (he never before had touched one,) so he shaved the beard against the hair, whereby the ghost made as strange grimaces as the ape of Erasmus, when he emulated his master in the self-infliction of the same delicate operation. The inexperienced blunderer began to feel strange, and thought of the proverb, “let the shoemaker stick to his last.” He put, however, a good countenance on the matter, and shaved the spectre as bald as himself.

Up to this moment, the business had been conducted on the footing of a pantomime. “Stranger,” said the unearthly being, with a graceful and cordial bow, “accept my best thanks for the service you have done me. Through your means am I at last freed from the long imprisonment within this withered and marrowless frame, to which my soul has been doomed on account of my misdeeds.

“Know that these walls were once inhabited by a reckless lord, who gratified his whims alike at the expense of clergy and laity. Count Hartmann was his name; he was no man’s friend, acknowledged no law, no master, and was unrestrained in his humours even by the sacred laws of hospitality. He allowed no stranger, who sought the shelter of his roof, no beggar who came for charity, to depart, without playing them some ill-natured trick. I was his barber, and the creature of his moods. It was my custom to inveigle every pious pilgrim who passed into the castle, and when he expected princely treatment, to shave him bald, and turn him with mockery from the door. Then Count Hartmann would look from his window, and see with delight how the viper’s brood of village boys mocked the abused saints, calling them bald-head. Then the old practical joker laughed till his huge belly shook again, and his eyes swam in tears.

“One day there came a holy man from far away countries: he carried a heavy cross on his shoulder, and had, out of devotion, pierced his feet and hands with nails; his hair was trimmed so as to resemble the crown of thorns. He begged, in passing, for some water to his feet, and a bit of bread. I led him in, and, profane wretch that I was! shaved away his sacred circlet of hair. Then the pious pilgrim spoke a heavy curse over me. ‘Know, evil doer, that after death, heaven and hell, and purgatory itself, shall alike be shut against thy soul. It shall haunt these walls, teasing every one as in life was thy pleasure, until some wanderer, more bold than his fellows, shall dare, undesired, to retaliate.’

“I fell sick immediately, the marrow dried in my bones, and I withered away to the shadow you see. In vain did I wait for relief; for know, when the bond between life and the soul has been snapped, it longs, with a lover’s longing, for the place of rest; and this intense passion turns its years to eternities. To my own torture