As the door yielded to his pressure, the ill-omened bird
of which the servant had been in search, uttering its spectral warning,
started suddenly from the far side of the bed, and flying through the
doorway close over their heads, and extinguishing, in its passage, the
candle which Montague carried, crashed through the skylight that
overlooked the lobby, and sailed away into the darkness of the outer
space. "There it is, God bless us!" whispered the man, after a breathless
pause. "Curse that bird!" muttered the general, startled by the suddenness of
the apparition, and unable to conceal his discomposure. "The candle was moved," said the man, after another breathless pause;
"see, they put it by the bed!" "Draw the curtains, fellow, and don't stand gaping there," whispered
Montague, sternly. The man hesitated. "Hold this, then," said Montague, impatiently, thrusting the candlestick
into the servant's hand; and himself advancing to the bedside, he drew
the curtains apart. The light of the candle, which was still burning at
the bedside, fell upon a figure huddled together, and half upright, at
the head of the bed. It seemed as though it had shrunk back as far as
the solid panelling would allow, and the hands were still clutched in
the bed-clothes. [Illustration: EXTINGUISHING IN ITS PASSAGE THE CANDLE WHICH MONTAGUE
CARRIED.] "Barton, Barton, Barton!" cried the general, with a strange mixture of
awe and vehemence. He took the candle, and held it so that it shone full upon his face. The features were fixed, stern and white; the jaw was fallen, and the
sightless eyes, still open, gazed vacantly forward toward the front of
the bed. "God Almighty, he's dead!" muttered the general, as he looked upon this
fearful spectacle. They both continued to gaze upon it in silence for a
minute or more. "And cold, too," said Montague, withdrawing his hand
from that of the dead man. "And see, see; may I never have life, sir," added the man, after another
pause, with a shudder, "but there was something else on the bed with
him! Look there--look there; see that, sir!" As the man thus spoke, he pointed to a deep indenture, as if caused by a
heavy pressure, near the foot of the bed. Montague was silent. "Come, sir, come away, for God's sake!" whispered the man, drawing close
up to him, and holding fast by his arm, while he glanced fearfully
round; "what good can be done here now?--come away, for God's sake!" At this moment they heard the steps of more than one approaching, and
Montague, hastily desiring the servant to arrest their progress,
endeavoured to loose the rigid grip with which the fingers of the dead
man were clutched in the bed-clothes, and drew, as well as he was able,
the awful figure into a reclining posture. Then closing the curtains
carefully upon it, he hastened himself to meet those who were
approaching. *       *       *       *       *

It is needless to follow the personages so slightly connected with this
narrative into the events of their after lives; it is enough for us to
remark that no clue to the solution of these mysterious occurrences was
ever afterwards discovered; and so long an interval having now passed,
it is scarcely to be expected that time can throw any new light upon
their inexplicable obscurity. Until the secrets of the earth shall be no
longer hidden these transactions must remain shrouded in mystery. The only occurrence in Captain Barton's former life to which reference
was ever made, as having any possible connection with the sufferings
with which his existence closed, and which he himself seemed to regard
as working out a retribution for some grievous sin of his past life, was
a circumstance which not for several years after his death was brought
to light. The nature of this disclosure was painful to his relatives and
discreditable to his memory. It appeared, then, that some eight years before Captain Barton's final
return to Dublin, he had formed, in the town of Plymouth, a guilty
attachment, the object of which was the daughter of one of the ship's
crew under his command. The father had visited the frailty of his
unhappy child with extreme harshness, and even brutality, and it was
said that she had died heart-broken. Presuming upon Barton's implication
in her guilt, this man had conducted himself towards him with marked
insolence, and Barton resented this--and what he resented with still
more exasperated bitterness, his treatment of the unfortunate girl--by
a systematic exercise of those terrible and arbitrary severities with
which the regulations of the navy arm those who are responsible for its
discipline. The man had at length made his escape, while the vessel was
in port at Lisbon, but died, as it was said, in an hospital in that
town, of the wounds inflicted in one of his recent and sanguinary
punishments. Whether these circumstances in reality bear or not upon the occurrences
of Barton's after-life, it is of course impossible to say. It seems,
however, more than probable that they were, at least in his own mind,
closely associated with them. But however the truth may be as to the
origin and motives of this mysterious persecution, there can be no
doubt that, with respect to the agencies by which it was accomplished,
absolute and impenetrable mystery is like to prevail until the day of
doom. [Illustration]

Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess. The following paper is written in a female hand, and was no doubt
communicated to my much regretted friend by the lady whose early history
it serves to illustrate, the Countess D----. She is no more--she long
since died, a childless and a widowed wife, and, as her letter sadly
predicts, none survive to whom the publication of this narrative can
prove "injurious, or even painful." Strange! two powerful and wealthy
families, that in which she was born, and that into which she had
married, are utterly extinct. To those who know anything of the history of Irish families, as they
were less than a century ago, the facts which immediately follow will
at once suggest the names of the principal actors; and to others
their publication would be useless--to us, possibly, if not probably
injurious. I have therefore altered such of the names as might, if
stated, get us into difficulty; others, belonging to minor characters in
the strange story, I have left untouched. *       *       *       *       *

MY DEAR FRIEND,--You have asked me to furnish you with a detail of
the strange events which marked my early history, and I have, without
hesitation, applied myself to the task, knowing that, while I live, a
kind consideration for my feelings will prevent you giving publicity to
the statement; and conscious that, when I am no more, there will not
survive one to whom the narrative can prove injurious, or even painful. My mother died when I was quite an infant, and of her I have no
recollection, even the faintest.