He received letters connected with certain investments which
made it desirable that he should return to England; his work among the
papers was practically done, and travelling was slow. He decided,
therefore, to make his farewells, put some finishing touches to his
notes, and be off. These finishing touches and farewells, as it turned out, took more time
than he had expected. The hospitable family insisted on his staying to
dine with them—they dined at three—and it was verging on half past six
before he was outside the iron gates of Råbäck. He dwelt on every step
of his walk by the lake, determined to saturate himself, now that he
trod it for the last time, in the sentiment of the place and hour. And
when he reached the summit of the churchyard knoll, he lingered for
many minutes, gazing at the limitless prospect of woods near and
distant, all dark beneath a sky of liquid green. When at last he turned
to go, the thought struck him that surely he must bid farewell to Count
Magnus as well as the rest of the De la Gardies. The church was but
twenty yards away, and he knew where the key of the mausoleum hung. It
was not long before he was standing over the great copper coffin, and,
as usual, talking to himself aloud. “You may have been a bit of a
rascal in your time, Magnus,” he was saying, “but for all that I should
like to see you, or, rather—”

“Just at that instant,” he says, “I felt a blow on my foot. Hastily
enough I drew it back, and something fell on the pavement with a clash. It was the third, the last of the three padlocks which had fastened the
sarcophagus. I stooped to pick it up, and—Heaven is my witness that I
am writing only the bare truth—before I had raised myself there was a
sound of metal hinges creaking, and I distinctly saw the lid shifting
upwards. I may have behaved like a coward, but I could not for my life
stay for one moment. I was outside that dreadful building in less time
than I can write—almost as quickly as I could have said—the words; and
what frightens me yet more, I could not turn the key in the lock. As I
sit here in my room noting these facts, I ask myself (it was not twenty
minutes ago) whether that noise of creaking metal continued, and I
cannot tell whether it did or not. I only know that there was something
more than I have written that alarmed me, but whether it was sound or
sight I am not able to remember. What is this that I have done?”

Poor Mr Wraxall! He set out on his journey to England on the next day,
as he had planned, and he reached England in safety; and yet, as I
gather from his changed hand and inconsequent jottings, a broken man. One of several small note-books that have come to me with his papers
gives, not a key to, but a kind of inkling of, his experiences. Much of
his journey was made by canal-boat, and I find not less than six
painful attempts to enumerate and describe his fellow-passengers. The
entries are of this kind:

24. Pastor of village in Skåne. Usual black coat and soft black hat. 25. Commercial traveller from Stockholm going to Trollhättan. Black
cloak, brown hat. 26. Man in long black cloak, broad-leafed hat, very old-fashioned. This entry is lined out, and a note added: “Perhaps identical with No. 13. Have not yet seen his face.” On referring to No. 13, I find that he
is a Roman priest in a cassock. The net result of the reckoning is always the same. Twenty-eight people
appear in the enumeration, one being always a man in a long black cloak
and broad hat, and another a “short figure in dark cloak and hood”. On
the other hand, it is always noted that only twenty-six passengers
appear at meals, and that the man in the cloak is perhaps absent, and
the short figure is certainly absent. On reaching England, it appears that Mr Wraxall landed at Harwich, and
that he resolved at once to put himself out of the reach of some person
or persons whom he never specifies, but whom he had evidently come to
regard as his pursuers. Accordingly he took a vehicle—it was a closed
fly—not trusting the railway and drove across country to the village of
Belchamp St Paul. It was about nine o’clock on a moonlight August night
when he neared the place. He was sitting forward, and looking out of
the window at the fields and thickets—there was little else to be
seen—racing past him. Suddenly he came to a cross-road. At the corner
two figures were standing motionless; both were in dark cloaks; the
taller one wore a hat, the shorter a hood. He had no time to see their
faces, nor did they make any motion that he could discern. Yet the
horse shied violently and broke into a gallop, and Mr Wraxall sank back
into his seat in something like desperation. He had seen them before. Arrived at Belchamp St Paul, he was fortunate enough to find a decent
furnished lodging, and for the next twenty-four hours he lived,
comparatively speaking, in peace. His last notes were written on this
day. They are too disjointed and ejaculatory to be given here in full,
but the substance of them is clear enough. He is expecting a visit from
his pursuers—how or when he knows not—and his constant cry is “What has
he done?” and “Is there no hope?” Doctors, he knows, would call him
mad, policemen would laugh at him. The parson is away. What can he do
but lock his door and cry to God? People still remembered last year at Belchamp St Paul how a strange
gentleman came one evening in August years back; and how the next
morning but one he was found dead, and there was an inquest; and the
jury that viewed the body fainted, seven of ’em did, and none of ’em
wouldn’t speak to what they see, and the verdict was visitation of God;
and how the people as kep’ the ’ouse moved out that same week, and went
away from that part. But they do not, I think, know that any glimmer of
light has ever been thrown, or could be thrown, on the mystery. It so
happened that last year the little house came into my hands as part of
a legacy. It had stood empty since 1863, and there seemed no prospect
of letting it; so I had it pulled down, and the papers of which I have
given you an abstract were found in a forgotten cupboard under the
window in the best bedroom. “OH, WHISTLE, AND I’LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD”


“I suppose you will be getting away pretty soon, now Full Term is over,
Professor,” said a person not in the story to the Professor of
Ontography, soon after they had sat down next to each other at a feast
in the hospitable hall of St James’s College. The Professor was young, neat, and precise in speech. “Yes,” he said; “my friends have been making me take up golf this term,
and I mean to go to the East Coast—in point of fact to Burnstow—(I dare
say you know it) for a week or ten days, to improve my game.