Tales from Blackwood Volume Ii Part 23

During the interval I sat opposite the clock, marking the hours pa.s.s rapidly by. Every tick was as a death-knell to my ear--every movement of the hands, as the motion of a scimitar levelled to cut me in pieces. I heard all, and I saw all in horrid silence. Two o'clock at length struck. "Now," said I, "there is but one hour for me on earth--then the dreadful struggle begins--then I must live again in the tomb only to perish miserably." Half an hour pa.s.sed, then forty minutes, then fifty, then fifty-five. I saw with utter despair the minute-hand go by the latter, and approach the meridian number of the dial. As it swept on, a stupor fell over my spirit, a mist swam before my eyes, and I almost lost the power of consciousness. At last I heard _one_ strike aloud--my flesh creeped with dread; then _two_--I gave an universal shudder; then _three_, and I gasped convulsively, and saw and heard nothing further.

CHAPTER V.

At this moment I was sensible of an insufferable coldness. My heart fluttered, then it beat strong, and the blood, pa.s.sing as it were over my chilled frame, gave it warmth and animation. I also began by slow degrees to breathe. But though my bodily feelings were thus torpid, my mental ones were very different. They were on the rack; for I knew that I was now buried alive, and that the dreadful struggle was about to commence. Instead of rejoicing as I recovered the genial glow of life, I felt appalled with blank despair. I was terrified to move, because I knew I would feel the horrid walls of my narrow prison-house. I was terrified to breathe, because the pent air within it would be exhausted, and the suffocation of struggling humanity would seize upon me. I was even terrified to open my eyes, and gaze upon the eternal darkness by which I was surrounded. Could I resist?--the idea was madness. What would my strength avail against the closed coffin, and the pressure above, below, and on every side? "No, I must abide the struggle, which a few seconds more will bring on: I must perish deplorably in it. Then the Epicurean worm will feast upon my remains, and I shall no longer hear any sound, or see any sight, till the last trumpet shall awaken me from slumber, and gather me together from the jaws of the tomb."

Meanwhile I felt the necessity of breathing, and I did breathe fully; and the air was neither so close nor scanty as might have been supposed.

"This, however," thought I, "is but the first of my respirations: a few more, and the vital air will be exhausted; then will the agony of death truly commence." I nevertheless breathed again, and again, and again; but nothing like stifling seized upon me--nothing of the kind, even when I had made fifty good respirations. On the contrary, I respired with the most perfect freedom. This struck me as very singular; and being naturally of an inquisitive disposition, I felt an irresistible wish, even in my dreadful situation, to investigate if possible the cause of it. "The coffin must be unconscionably large." This was my first idea; and to ascertain it, I slightly raised my hands, shuddering at the same time at the thought of their coming in contact with the lid above me.

However, they encountered no lid. Up, up, up, I elevated them, and met with nothing. I then groped to the sides, but the coffin laterally seemed equally capacious; no sides were to be found. "This is certainly a most extraordinary sh.e.l.l to bury a man of my size in. I shall try if possible to ascertain its limits before I die--suppose I endeavour to stand upright." The thought no sooner came across my mind than I carried it into execution. I got up, raising myself by slow degrees, in case of knocking my head against the lid. Nothing, however, impeded my extension, and I stood straight. I even raised my hands on high, to feel if it were possible to reach the top: no such thing; the coffin was apparently without bounds. Altogether, I felt more comfortable than a buried man could expect to be. One thing struck me, and it was this--I had no grave-clothes upon me. "But," thought I, "this is easily accounted for: my cousin comes to my property, and the scoundrel has adopted the most economical means of getting rid of me." I had not as yet opened my eyes, being daunted at the idea of encountering the dreary darkness of the grave. But my courage being somewhat augmented by the foregoing events, I endeavoured to open them. This was impossible; and on examination, I found that they were bandaged, my head being encircled with a fillet. On endeavouring to loosen it, I lost my balance, and tumbled down with a hideous noise. I did not merely fall upon the bottom of the coffin, as might be expected; on the contrary, I seemed to roll off it, and fell lower, as it were, into some vault underneath. In endeavouring to arrest this strange descent, I caught hold of the coffin, and pulled it on the top of me. Nor was this all; for, before I could account for such a train of extraordinary accidents below ground, and while yet stupified and bewildered, I heard a door open, and in an instant after, human voices. "What, in heaven's name, can be the meaning of this?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed I involuntarily. "Is it a dream?--am I asleep, or am I awake? Am I dead or alive?" While meditating thus, and struggling to extricate myself from the coffin, I heard some one say distinctly, "Good G.o.d, he is come alive!" My brain was distracted by a whirlwind of vain conjectures; but before it could arrange one idea, I felt myself seized upon by both arms, and raised up with irresistible force. At the same instant the fillet was drawn from my eyes. I opened them with amazement: instead of the gloom of death, the glorious light of heaven burst upon them! I was confounded; and, to add to my surprise, I saw supporting me two men, with whose faces I was familiar. I gazed at the one, then at the other, with looks of fixed astonishment. "What is this?" said I; "where am I?"

"You must remain quiet," said the eldest, with a smile. "We must have you put to bed, and afterwards dressed."

"What is this?" continued I: "am I not dead--was I not buried?"

"Hush, my dear friend--let me throw this great-coat over you."

"But I must speak," said I, my senses still wandering. "Where am I?--who are you?"

"Do you not know me?"

"Yes," replied I, gazing at him intently--"my friend Doctor Wunderdudt.

Good G.o.d! how do you happen to be here? Did I not come alive in the grave?"

"You may thank us that you did not," said he. "Look around, and say if you know where you are."

I looked, as he directed, and found myself in a large room fitted up with benches, and having half-a-dozen skeletons dangling from the roof.

While doing this, he and his friend smiled at each other, and seemed anxiously awaiting my reply, and enjoying my wonder. At last I satisfied myself that I was in the anatomical theatre of the University.

"But," said I, "there is something in all this I cannot comprehend.

What--where is the coffin?"

"What coffin, my dear fellow?" said Wunderdudt.

"The coffin that I was in."

"The coffin," said he, smiling; "I suppose it remains where it was put the day before yesterday."

I rubbed my eyes with vexation, not knowing what to make of these perplexing circ.u.mstances. "I mean," said I, "the coffin--that is, the coffin I drew over upon me when I fell."

"I do not know of any coffin," answered he, laughing heartily; "but I know very well that you have pulled upon yourself my good mahogany table; there it lies." And on looking, I observed the large table, which stood in the middle of the hall, overturned upon the floor. Doctor Wunderdudt (he was professor of anatomy to the college) now made me retire, and had me put in bed till clothing could be procured. But I would not allow him to depart till he had unravelled the strange web of perplexity in which I still found myself involved. Nothing would satisfy me but a philosophical solution of the problem, "Why was I not buried alive, as I had reason to expect?" The doctor expounded this intricate point in the following manner:--

"The day before yesterday," said he, "I informed the resurrectionists in the service of the University, that I was in want of a subject, desiring them at the same time to set to work with all speed. That very night they returned, a.s.suring me that they had fished up one which would answer to a hair, being both young and vigorous. In order to inform myself of the quality of what they brought me, I examined the body, when, to my indignation and grief, I found that they had disinterred my excellent friend, Mr Frederick Stadt, who had been buried the same day."

"What!" said I, starting up from the bed, "did they disinter me?--the scoundrels!"

"You may well call them scoundrels," said the professor, "for preventing a gentleman from enjoying the pleasure of being buried alive. The deed was certainly most felonious; and if you are at all anxious, I shall have them reported to the Syndic, and tried for their impertinent interference. But to proceed. No sooner did I observe that they had fallen upon you than I said, 'My good men, this will never do. You have brought me here my worthy friend Mr Stadt. I cannot feel in my heart to anatomise him, so just carry him quietly back to his old quarters, and I shall pay you his price, and something over and above.'"

"What!" said I, again interrupting the doctor, "is it possible you could be so inhuman as to make the scoundrels bury me again?"

"Now, Stadt," rejoined he, with a smile, "you are a strange fellow. You were angry at the _men_ for raising you, and now you are angry at _me_ for endeavouring to repair their error by reinterring you."

"But you forget that I was to come alive?"

"How the deuce was I to know that, my dear boy?"

"Very true. Go on, doctor, and excuse me for interrupting you so often."

"Well," continued he, "the men carried you last night to deposit you in your long home, when, as fate would have it, they were prevented by a ridiculous fellow of a tailor, who, for a trifling wager, had engaged to sit up alone, during the whole night, in the churchyard, exactly at the spot where your grave lay. So they brought you back to the college, resolving to inter you to-night, if the tailor, or the devil himself, should stand in their way. Your timely resuscitation will save them this trouble. At the same time, if you are still offended at them, they will be very happy to take you back, and you may yet enjoy the felicity of being buried alive."

Such was a simple statement of the fact, delivered in the professor's good-humoured and satirical style; and from it the reader may guess what a narrow escape I had from the most dreadful of deaths, and how much I am indebted, in the first instance, to the stupid blundering of the resurrectionists, and, in the second, to the tailor. I returned to my own house as soon as possible, to the no small mortification of my cousin, who was proceeding to invest himself with all that belonged to me. I made him refund without ceremony, and altered my will, which had been made in his favour; not forgetting, in so doing, his refusal to let my body remain two days longer unburied. A day or two afterwards I saw a funeral pa.s.s by, which, on inquiry, I learned to be Wolstang's. He died suddenly, as I was informed, and some persons remarked it as a curious event that his death happened at precisely the same moment as my return to life. This was merely mentioned as a pa.s.sing observation, but no inference was deduced from it. The old domestic in Wolstang's house gave a wonderful account of his death, mentioning the hour at which he said he was to die, and how it was verified by the event. She said nothing, however, about the hundred gilders. Many considered her story as a piece of mere trumpery. She had nevertheless a number of believers.

With respect to myself, I excited a great talk, receiving invitations to dine with almost all the respectable families in Gottingen. I had the honour of being waited on by Doctor Dedimus Dunderhead, who, after shaking me by the hand in the kindest manner, made me give a long account of my feelings at the instant of coming alive. Of course, I concealed everything connected with the Metempsychosis, and kept out many circ.u.mstances which at the time I did not wish to be known. He was nevertheless highly delighted, and gave it as his opinion (which, being oracular, was instantly acted upon), that a description of the whole should be inserted in the Annals of the University. I had the farther honour of being invited to dinner at his house--an honour which I duly appreciated, knowing that it is almost never conferred except on the syndics, burgomasters, and deacons of the town, and a few of the professors.

These events, which are here related at full, I can only attest by my own word, except indeed the affair of the coming alive, which everybody in Gottingen knows of. If any doubt the more unlikely parts of the detail, I cannot help it. I have not written this with the view of empty fame, and still less of profit. Philosophy has taught me to despise the former, and my income renders the latter an object of no importance. I merely do it to put my fellow-citizens on their guard against the machinations of the old fellow with the snuff-coloured surtout, the scarlet waistcoat, and the wooden leg. Above all, they should carefully abstain from signing any paper he may present to them, however plausible his offers may be. By mere thoughtlessness in this respect, I brought myself into a mult.i.tude of dangers and difficulties, from which every one in the same predicament may not escape so easily as I have done. I shall conclude with acknowledging that a strong change has been wrought in my opinions; and that from ridiculing the doctrines of the sage of Samos, I am now one of their firmest supporters. In a word, I am what I have designated myself,

"A MODERN PYTHAGOREAN."

COLLEGE THEATRICALS

[_MAGA._ DECEMBER 1843.]

It wanted but two or three weeks to the Christmas vacation (alas! how many years ago!) and we, the worshipful society of undergraduates of ---- College, Oxford, were beginning to get tired of the eternal round of supper-parties which usually marked the close of our winter's campaign, and ready to hail with delight any proposition that had the charm of novelty. A three weeks' frost had effectually stopped the hunting; all the best tandem-leaders were completely screwed; the freshmen had been "larked" till they were grown as cunning as magpies; and the Dean had set up a divinity lecture at two o'clock, and published a stringent proclamation against rows in the Quad. It was, in short, during a particularly uninteresting state of things, with the snow falling lazily upon the grey roofs and silent quadrangle, that some half-dozen of us had congregated in Bob Thornhill's rooms, to get over the time between lunch and dinner with as little trouble to our mental and corporeal faculties as possible. Those among us who had been for the last three months promising to themselves to begin to read "next week,"

had now put off that too easy creditor, conscience, till "next term."

One alone had settled his engagements of that nature, or, in the language of his "_Testamur_"--the prettiest bit of Latin, he declared, that he ever saw--"_satisfecit examinatoribus_." Unquestionably, in his case, the examiners must have had the rare virtue of being very easily satisfied. In fact, Mr Savile's discharge of his educational engagements was rather a sort of "whitewashing" than a payment in full. His pa.s.sing was what is technically called a "shave," a metaphor alluding to that intellectual density which finds it difficult to squeeze through the narrow portal which admits to the privileges of a Bachelor of Arts. As Mr S. himself, being a sporting man, described it, it was "a very close run indeed;" not that he considered that circ.u.mstance to derogate in any way from his victory; he was rather inclined to consider, that, having shown the field of examiners capital sport, and fairly got away from them in the end without the loss of his brush, his examination had been one of the very best runs of the season. In virtue whereof he was now mounted on the arm of an easy-chair, with a long chibouque, which became the gravity of an incipient bachelor better than a cigar, and took upon himself to give Thornhill (who was really a clever fellow, and professing to be reading for a first) some advice as to his conducting himself when his examination should arrive.

"I'll tell you what, Thornhill, old boy, I'll give you a wrinkle; it doesn't always answer to let out all you know at an examination. That sly old varmint, West of Magdalen, asked me who Hannibal was. 'Aha!'

said I to myself, 'that's your line of country, is it? You want to walk me straight into those botheration Punic Wars; it's no go, though; I shan't break cover in that direction.' So I was mute. 'Can't you tell me something about Hannibal?' says old West again. 'I can,' thinks I, 'but I won't.' He was regularly flabergasted; I spoilt his beat entirely, don't you see? So he looked as black as thunder, and tried it on in a fresh place. If I had been fool enough to let him dodge me in those Punic Wars, I should have been run into in no time. Depend upon it, there's nothing like a judicious ignorance occasionally."

"Why," said Thornhill, "'when ignorance is bliss' (that is, when it gets through the schools), "tis folly to be wise.'"

"Ah! that's Shakespeare says that, isn't it? I wish one could take up Shakespeare for a cla.s.s! I'm devilish fond of Shakespeare. We used to act Shakespeare at a private school I was at."

"By Jove!" said somebody from behind a cloud of smoke--whose the brilliant idea was, was afterwards matter of dispute--"why couldn't we get up a play?"

"Ah! why not? why not? Capital!"

"It's such a horrid bore learning one's part," lisped the elegant Horace Leicester, half awake on the sofa.

"Oh, stuff!" said Savile, "it's the very thing to keep us alive! We could make a capital theatre out of the hall; don't you think the little vice-princ.i.p.al would give us leave?"

"You had better ask for the chapel at once. Why, don't you know, my dear fellow, the college hall, in the opinion of the dean and the vice, is held rather more sacred of the two? Newcome, poor devil, attempted to cut a joke at the high table one of the times he dined there after he was elected, and he told me that they all stared at him as if he had insulted them; and the vice (in confidence) explained to him that such 'levity' was treason against the '_reverentia loci!_'"

"Ay, I remember when that old villain Solomon, the porter, fined me ten shillings for walking in there with spurs one day when I was late for dinner; he said the dean always took off his cap when he went in there by himself, and threatened to turn off old Higgs, when he had been scout forty years, because he heard him whistling one day while he was sweeping it out! Well," continued Savile, "you shall have my rooms; I shan't trouble them much now. I am going to pack all my books down to old Wise's[A] next week, to turn them into ready _tin_; so you may turn the study into a carpenter's shop, if you like. Oh, it can be managed famously!"

[Footnote A: A well-known Oxford auctioneer of that day.]