He listened to the message, and though the cold
perspiration rose in drops upon his forehead faster than he could wipe
it away, his manner had lost the dreadful agitation which had marked it
before. He rose feebly, and casting a last look of agony behind him,
passed from the room to the lobby, where he signed to his attendant not
to follow him. The man moved as far as the head of the staircase, from
whence he had a tolerably distinct view of the hall, which was
imperfectly lighted by the candle he had left there. He saw his master reel, rather than walk, down the stairs, clinging all
the way to the banisters. He walked on, as if about to sink every moment
from weakness. The figure advanced as if to meet him, and in passing
struck down the light. The servant could see no more; but there was
a sound of struggling, renewed at intervals with silent but fearful
energy. It was evident, however, that the parties were approaching the
door, for he heard the solid oak sound twice or thrice, as the feet of
the combatants, in shuffling hither and thither over the floor, struck
upon it. After a slight pause, he heard the door thrown open with such
violence that the leaf seemed to strike the side-wall of the hall, for
it was so dark without that this could only be surmised by the sound. The struggle was renewed with an agony and intenseness of energy that
betrayed itself in deep-drawn gasps. One desperate effort, which
terminated in the breaking of some part of the door, producing a sound
as if the door-post was wrenched from its position, was followed by
another wrestle, evidently upon the narrow ledge which ran outside the
door, overtopping the precipice. This proved to be the final struggle;
it was followed by a crashing sound as if some heavy body had fallen
over, and was rushing down the precipice through the light boughs that
crossed near the top. All then became still as the grave, except when
the moan of the night-wind sighed up the wooded glen. The old servant had not nerve to return through the hall, and to him the
darkness seemed all but endless; but morning at length came, and with
it the disclosure of the events of the night. Near the door, upon the
ground, lay Sir Robert's sword-belt, which had given way in the scuffle. A huge splinter from the massive door-post had been wrenched off by
an almost superhuman effort--one which nothing but the gripe of a
despairing man could have severed--and on the rocks outside were left
the marks of the slipping and sliding of feet. [Illustration: AT THE FOOT OF THE PRECIPICE.] At the foot of the precipice, not immediately under the castle, but
dragged some way up the glen, were found the remains of Sir Robert,
with hardly a vestige of a limb or feature left distinguishable. The
right hand, however, was uninjured, and in its fingers were clutched,
with the fixedness of death, a long lock of coarse sooty hair--the only
direct circumstantial evidence of the presence of a second person. [Illustration]

The Dream. Dreams! What age, or what country of the world, has not felt and
acknowledged the mystery of their origin and end? I have thought not a
little upon the subject, seeing it is one which has been often forced
upon my attention, and sometimes strangely enough; and yet I have never
arrived at anything which at all appeared a satisfactory conclusion. It
does appear that a mental phenomenon so extraordinary cannot be wholly
without its use. We know, indeed, that in the olden times it has been
made the organ of communication between the Deity and His creatures;
and when a dream produces upon a mind, to all appearance hopelessly
reprobate and depraved, an effect so powerful and so lasting as to break
down the inveterate habits, and to reform the life of an abandoned
sinner, we see in the result, in the reformation of morals which
appeared incorrigible, in the reclamation of a human soul which seemed
to be irretrievably lost, something more than could be produced by a
mere chimera of the slumbering fancy, something more than could arise
from the capricious images of a terrified imagination. And while Reason
rejects as absurd the superstition which will read a prophecy in every
dream, she may, without violence to herself, recognize, even in the
wildest and most incongruous of the wanderings of a slumbering
intellect, the evidences and the fragments of a language which may be
spoken, which _has_ been spoken, to terrify, to warn and to command. We
have reason to believe too, by the promptness of action which in the
age of the prophets followed all intimations of this kind, and by the
strength of conviction and strange permanence of the effects resulting
from certain dreams in latter times--which effects we ourselves may have
witnessed--that when this medium of communication has been employed
by the Deity, the evidences of His presence have been unequivocal. My
thoughts were directed to this subject in a manner to leave a lasting
impression upon my mind, by the events which I shall now relate, the
statement of which, however extraordinary, is nevertheless accurate. About the year 17--, having been appointed to the living of C----h, I
rented a small house in the town which bears the same name: one morning
in the month of November, I was awakened before my usual time by my
servant, who bustled into my bedroom for the purpose of announcing a
sick call. As the Catholic Church holds her last rites to be totally
indispensable to the safety of the departing sinner, no conscientious
clergyman can afford a moment's unnecessary delay, and in little more
than five minutes I stood ready, cloaked and booted for the road, in the
small front parlour in which the messenger, who was to act as my guide,
awaited my coming. I found a poor little girl crying piteously near the
door, and after some slight difficulty I ascertained that her father was
either dead or just dying. "And what may be your father's name, my poor child?" said I. She held
down her head as if ashamed. I repeated the question, and the wretched
little creature burst into floods of tears still more bitter than she
had shed before. At length, almost angered by conduct which appeared to
me so unreasonable, I began to lose patience, and I said rather
harshly,--

"If you will not tell me the name of the person to whom you would lead
me, your silence can arise from no good motive, and I might be justified
in refusing to go with you at all." "Oh, don't say that--don't say that!" cried she. "Oh, sir, it was that
I was afeard of when I would not tell you--I was afeard, when you heard
his name, you would not come with me; but it is no use hidin' it
now--it's Pat Connell, the carpenter, your honour." She looked in my face with the most earnest anxiety, as if her very
existence depended upon what she should read there. I relieved the child
at once.