Tales of the Wonder Club Volume II Part 1

Tales of the Wonder Club.

Volume II.

by Alexander Huth.

CHAPTER I.

BURIED ALIVE.--THE LANDLORD'S STORY.

"Bravo, Oldstone! A very capital story!" cried several members at once.

"It is a pity our host isn't here to have heard it."

"I heard a good part of it, though, gentlemen," said a voice from a dark corner of the room (for the lights had been extinguished, though it was still murky without).

"What, are you there, Jack?" cried Mr. Crucible. "We none of us saw you."

"Well, sir," said the landlord, "finding that I was not wanted outside as I thought, I ventured to enter the room quietly, so as not to disturb the story."

"Well done, Jack," said Hardcase, "and so you heard all, eh? Well, what do you think of it?"

"Pretty nearly all, I guess, sir," replied the landlord, "and a curious one it is, too, and no mistake. But talk of being buried alive, I could tell you a queer adventure that happened to myself, if you gentlemen would care to hear it."

"Only be too glad, Jack," said Oldstone. "Out with it; there is nothing like a good story to beguile the time in weather like this."

Our host, thus encouraged, drew his chair close to the fire, and his example was immediately followed by his guests. Then, refilling his yard of clay and lighting it in the fire, he gave one or two preliminary whiffs, and commenced his story thus:--

Well, gentlemen, when I was a youngster, that is to say, a lad of nineteen, I fell deeply in love with my Molly, who, though I say it, was the finest la.s.s in the village and for miles round it. For all the world like my Helen, at her age, bless her dear heart! She was the daughter of a rich miller--his only child. Well, it had been a long attachment, for Molly and I were play-mates when we was little, but when I grew to be about nineteen, and my father began to see that I was head over ears in love with Molly, he forbade me to see any more of her, because he and old Sykes--leastways, Molly's father, the miller--wasn't friends, d'ye see.

Nevertheless, Molly and I used to get a peep at each other on the sly like, and often took long walks together when no one was near.

Well, old Sykes also objected to me keeping company with his daughter, and sometimes suspecting what was up, used to lie in wait for us, and catch us in the lane as we was coming home from our walk. Then he'd give us both a "blowing up," for old Sykes wasn't partickler nice in his language, and Molly was locked up in her room while he went to complain of me to my father. This sort of thing occurred more than once, and Sykes, not knowing how to put a stop to it in any other way, sent his daughter on a visit to an aunt of hers some distance off.

I didn't know nothing of this for some time, and still went hovering round the house, expecting to see Molly at the window. Now, there happened to be at that time an epidemic running through the village, as proved fatal to many, carrying off both the young and the old, and when my father saw how pulled down I was in health and spirits, which was all along of my not having seen Molly for many a week, he took it into his head that I had caught the epidemic, and sent for a doctor. The doctor came, felt my pulse, and looked at my tongue, and p.r.o.nounced me very bad, but said that he did not see the usual signs of the epidemic.

He ordered me, however, to be put to bed, and prescribed me some physic.

Instead of doing me any good, it only made me worse, for the doctor was ignorant of the true cause of my low spirits. I was forced to keep in bed, and could do nothing night or day but think of Molly. My father, seeing me rapidly grow worse, but still ignorant of the cause--though he knew that I had been very much cut up about Molly--began to take on so--I being his only son--that the doctor was afraid that he would have to take to his bed. Once, shortly after Molly's disappearance, he told me that she had caught the epidemic and had died.

He hoped by this tale to bring me to my senses, and that I should soon forget her, and begin courting some other girl, but it had a very different effect upon me, and I rapidly sunk from worse to worse. When the doctor called again, he found me in a dangerous state, and he came to the conclusion that it must be the epidemic after all. Whether I really had caught the epidemic in addition to my love-sickness I can't tell. All I know is that I felt so bad that I didn't expect to live, and even the doctor said it was all over with me.

My death was expected daily, and when one morning the doctor came and found me stiff and cold, he gave out to my parents that I was dead. I was no more dead than I am at the present moment. It is true that I could not budge an inch, and I have no doubt that I looked thoroughly dead, but my mind was as clear and as sharp as possible.

"Poor young man," I heard the doctor say. "So hale and strong, too.

Who'd have thought it?"

"Oh, my poor son! my poor son!" wept my father. "You whom I thought to rear to be the prop of my old age, now you are torn from me for ever."

"Calm yourself, sir," said the doctor, "else you will make yourself ill."

"How can I calm myself?" cried my father, in agony. "Was he not my _only_ son? and I--I--fool, wretch, that I was--_I_ killed him!"

"_You_ killed him!" cried the doctor. "How? Surely you rave, sir."

"Yes," persisted my father; "the poor boy was in love with a maid whose father is my enemy. I objected to his marrying her, as did also the girl's father, who wishing to save his daughter from my son sent her away to live at the house of an aunt in the village of H---- in ----shire. As my son knew nothing of this, I told him, thinking to make him forget her, that the maid was dead, but the poor boy took on so dreadful about it, that it has been his death, and I--yes I am his murderer!" and I thought his sobs would choke him.

"It was very wrong and foolish of you," said the doctor, "to tell him so, when you saw him so weak and ailing, yet you did it with a good intent, and I do not see that you can justly accuse yourself of being his murderer."

"Yes, yes," sobbed my father, bitterly, "I have killed him--my son, my _only_ son!"

Now I had discovered a secret. Molly was not dead, but living at her aunt's. I knew her address; if I could but be restored to life, I might see her once again. I longed to be able to call out: "Father, I am not dead--comfort yourself," but my tongue refused utterance. I tried to move my limbs, and did all that was in my power to show signs of life, but I still lay powerless--paralysed, for I was in a trance. Oh! the agony I suffered! How long would it last? Should I be really nailed up in a coffin and buried alive? Oh, horror!

Some of my friends the neighbours were called in to see me and mourned over my corpse.

"Poor Jack!" one of them said; "if lads of his kidney are not proof against the epidemic, who may hope to escape?"

The next day an undertaker was sent for to measure me for my coffin.

"Where will all this end?" thought I. "Shall I awake before the coffin is made?"

This was my only hope; but if not, all was lost. Once nailed down, nailed down for ever. The thought was agony.

Here I was, struck down in the flower of my youth, to all appearances dead, yet with my mind keenly alive to all that was going on around me.

Oh, that I could become insensible! I knew not how long this dreadful trance would last; all I knew was that if it lasted more than a day or two longer it would be all up with me. I was laid out in state, and all that day and the next friends poured in to gaze upon my corpse.

As the time grew nearer for my funeral the more despairing I got. At length the coffin arrived. I shuddered. Had my last moment actually come? What could I do? Nothing.

"Oh, Heaven!" I cried within myself, "for what fell crime am I doomed to bear this agony of soul?"

Two undertakers now lifted me from my bed, one of them seizing me by the shoulders, the other by the feet, and I felt myself placed within a leaden coffin supported upon trestles. I did my utmost now to make one last desperate effort to rouse myself out of my trance, but in vain.

"Oh, if they should nail me up!" I thought.

Then I was left alone all day, and remember a great bustle and whispering going on in the house. All were talking of my funeral. At length the fatal hour arrived! The undertakers entered my room again.

Good Heavens! they were actually going to solder me down. The next instant the leaden lid was down upon me, and I was soon tightly secured.

Then commenced the knocking in of the nails of the outer coffin. How painfully distinct was the sound of the hammer! I remember counting each nail as it was driven in. At length the task was completed, and I only awaited the hea.r.s.e to carry me to my last home.

Then there was more bustle, the meeting of friends, etc., when after waiting a little longer, I heard the footsteps of the bearers. I felt myself lifted upon the shoulders of the men and carried downstairs. A crowd had evidently collected round the door, for I heard the m.u.f.fled sound of voices gossipping, but could not distinguish what they said.

Only the tolling of the church bell jarred upon my ears. Then the procession began. How slowly it moved along!

"Oh! if I could even now awake!" thought I, "it might not be too late.

If I could make sufficient movement with my limbs to overturn the coffin, or even had strength to call out, I should even now be saved."

But all in vain--rigid, motionless as ever, in spite of my earnest prayers to be restored to life. I felt myself borne leisurely on--whither? Oh, horror! to the cold and narrow grave--to the abode of the dead. My last hope died within me when I felt the procession stop, and I knew that it was already arrived at the cemetery. I remember hearing faintly the tones of the parson's voice as he read the ceremony for the burial of the dead. The coffin was now lowered into the grave, and I heard with awful distinctness the words "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," followed by the rattling of the three handfuls of earth upon my coffin lid. My last hope was now gone. In another moment I should be covered up with mould and left alone to die miserably.

"Oh!" groaned I, in spirit, "it is all over with me!" as I heard the mould tumbling heavily upon me.

I knew that the grave was now covered up, for the voices of my friends were quite inaudible, and all was silent.