Go, and at once, to the house of John, and inquire
after his health." I was preparing to execute her commission, and was just upon setting out
alone to John's house, which was not far from our own, when one of the
neighbours, a woman--one of the most notorious gossips of the place,
whose sole delight was to be the first to deliver bad news--met me at
the door as I was just going out. "Oh, Molly my dear, have you heard the sad news? Lack-a-day! who'd have
thought it? Oh, lauk-a-daisy-me! poor Claribel! how she will take on
about it to be sure!" "Speak out, woman!" cried Claribel, from the parlour, for she had heard
every word through the open door. "Speak out. What has happened?" "Oh Lord! my dear, that poor young man John Archer, as you appears to
have been so fond of well, my dear, he's gone--yes, _dead_, struck down
by a sudden fever, they say--in the very spring-time of his youth; it's
hardly a quarter of an hour since, so I thought I'd come at once to tell
you." This communication, partly interrupted by sobs and partly by want of
breath, for the bearer of the sad news had set off as fast as her legs
could carry her, in order to be the first to communicate it, had a
terrible effect on the nervous system of my poor friend Claribel. Forgetting her usual self-composure in her extreme anguish, she gave
utterance to a shriek so piercing and doleful, that it seemed to shake
the very house to its foundations, and sank back into the nearest chair
in a swoon. The scream brought my father to the door to inquire what was
the matter, while the good neighbour--for in spite of her mania for
delivering bad news, she was still a woman at heart--bustled about to
procure restoratives and to sprinkle water on my poor friend's face
until she recovered. The news we had heard was only too true, for, sad to relate, poor John
Archer, who up to that very morning had been the picture of robust
health, suddenly fell the victim of a violent fever that carried him off
within a few hours. The doctors were at a loss to account for the
disease, as there was no fever at that time in the neighbourhood. It was
an isolated case. During his delirium he was heard to give vent to
certain incoherent ravings, frequently calling out, "The waxen image! the waxen image!" He was heard to couple the names of De Chevron and
Madge Mandrake together, but the bystanders, his parents, understood
nothing of his meaning. There remains little more to relate. It appears that my father when left
alone in the house had been prying into every nook and corner of it for
his snuff-box, which he had lost, until he stumbled upon the little
waxen image in the glazed cupboard, of the history of which he knew
nothing, but which he instantly recognised as intended for a likeness of
John Archer, imagining that either myself or Claribel had been amusing
ourselves with endeavouring to represent the lineaments of our common
friend in wax, and thinking it very good and clever, he thought it would
make a pretty chimney ornament, and accordingly placed it on the
mantelpiece when the fire was yet low. Afterwards, he had heaped on
fuel, being very cold that day, and shortly afterwards had been called
away by a neighbour on business. In the meantime the fire had blazed up
and so heated the room that before he returned to the parlour there was
nothing left of the effigy of John Archer but a shapeless heap of wax. On recovering from the swoon my poor friend reproached herself in the
severest terms with not having foreseen such a contingency, adding that
she alone had been the cause of John's death, as she ought to have
locked the cupboard and taken away the key. I strove to reason with her
and comfort her, but she was deaf to all consolation. The sad event of
John's death had cast a gloom over us all. As for Claribel, poor soul,
it was a shock from which she never recovered. She drooped and pined
away from that hour, and outlived young Archer but one month. Peace be
to their ashes! *       *       *       *       *

On concluding her affecting narrative, our worthy hostess thrust a
corner of her apron into her eye in order to staunch a rising tear
called into existence by tender recollections of her poor deceased
friend and her unfortunate lover, but she was soon cut short in the
indulgence of her grief by the boisterous applause that simultaneously
ensued from all the members of the club. This was the cheering and
clapping of hands before alluded to that had attracted the attention of
our artist while painting from the fair Helen in the opposite room, and
which, as our reader will recollect, was the signal for the young
portrait painter to commence his Italian story of "The Three Pauls." "And so that rascal De Chevron cheated the gallows after all," broke in
Mr. Oldstone, during the pause that succeeded the tumultuous cheering
that greeted the relation of Dame Hearty. "But what became of Madge Mandrake? You have not told us that. She
didn't escape scot-free, surely?" "Well, you see, sir, the law had no actual hold on her," replied the
hostess; "but I have every reason to believe that she died hard. She was
discovered dead one day on the floor of her hovel, in her day clothes,
her eyes fixed and starting from her head, her features distorted, and
her fingers extended like claws, as if grasping the floor. Some thought
she had died in a fit, but, whatever the cause of her death, it is
certain she must have suffered great agony, and I cannot look upon the
mode of her death otherwise than as a judgment for her many sins. She
had never been known to enter a church within the memory of man, and
though she had led a notoriously bad life, it seems that the parish
could not deny her a Christian burial, and she was interred in the old
churchyard yonder with all due ceremony, but report said at the time
that she had frequently been seen since by those who happened to be
passing through the churchyard late at night or thereabouts, and that
should a thunderstorm burst over the head of the benighted traveller, as
he wended his weary steps past this abode of the dead, a shadowy form
with a steeple-crowned hat and astride on a broomstick might be seen
riding through the murky air, and behind her a black tom cat with a pair
of flame-coloured eyes. Yells and groans, mingled with demoniacal
laughter, were said to have been heard, as if proceeding from beneath
the ground by those who happened to pass through the churchyard close to
her grave after nightfall. Owls, bats, carrion crows, and other obscene
birds would be found perched on the head of her grave, and, scared at
the footsteps of a stranger, would fly screeching away. "At least, this is what the country folk would say; but never having
seen nor heard any of these things myself, gentlemen, I cannot vouch for
their authenticity, yet there are few folks in the village to this day
but would not put themselves much out of the way in order to avoid
passing through that same churchyard on a stormy night."