Atlas Nightshade

Day 16

How well the man reasoned; lunatics always do within their own scope. I

wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one. He has

closed the account most accurately, and to-day begun a new record. How

many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives?

To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope,

and that truly I began a new record. So it will be until the Great

Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to

profit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be

angry with my friend whose happiness is yours; but I must only wait on

hopeless and work. Work! work!

If I only could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there--a

good, unselfish cause to make me work--that would be indeed happiness.

_Mina Murray's Journal._

_26 July._--I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself here; it

is like whispering to one's self and listening at the same time. And

there is also something about the shorthand symbols that makes it

different from writing. I am unhappy about Lucy and about Jonathan. I

had not heard from Jonathan for some time, and was very concerned; but

yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a letter from

him. I had written asking him if he had heard, and he said the enclosed

had just been received. It is only a line dated from Castle Dracula,

and says that he is just starting for home. That is not like Jonathan;

I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy. Then, too, Lucy,

although she is so well, has lately taken to her old habit of walking in

her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we have decided

that I am to lock the door of our room every night. Mrs. Westenra has

got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out on roofs of houses and

along the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly wakened and fall over

with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place. Poor dear, she is

naturally anxious about Lucy, and she tells me that her husband, Lucy's

father, had the same habit; that he would get up in the night and dress

himself and go out, if he were not stopped. Lucy is to be married in the

autumn, and she is already planning out her dresses and how her house is

to be arranged. I sympathise with her, for I do the same, only Jonathan

and I will start in life in a very simple way, and shall have to try to

make both ends meet. Mr. Holmwood--he is the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only

son of Lord Godalming--is coming up here very shortly--as soon as he can

leave town, for his father is not very well, and I think dear Lucy is

counting the moments till he comes. She wants to take him up to the seat

on the churchyard cliff and show him the beauty of Whitby. I daresay it

is the waiting which disturbs her; she will be all right when he

arrives.

* * * * *

_27 July._--No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy about him,

though why I should I do not know; but I do wish that he would write, if

it were only a single line. Lucy walks more than ever, and each night I

am awakened by her moving about the room. Fortunately, the weather is so

hot that she cannot get cold; but still the anxiety and the perpetually

being wakened is beginning to tell on me, and I am getting nervous and

wakeful myself. Thank God, Lucy's health keeps up. Mr. Holmwood has been

suddenly called to Ring to see his father, who has been taken seriously

ill. Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing him, but it does not touch

her looks; she is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks are a lovely

rose-pink. She has lost that anæmic look which she had. I pray it will

all last.

* * * * *

_3 August._--Another week gone, and no news from Jonathan, not even to

Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard. Oh, I do hope he is not ill. He

surely would have written. I look at that last letter of his, but

somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not read like him, and yet it is

his writing. There is no mistake of that. Lucy has not walked much in

her sleep the last week, but there is an odd concentration about her

which I do not understand; even in her sleep she seems to be watching

me. She tries the door, and finding it locked, goes about the room

searching for the key.

_6 August._--Another three days, and no news. This suspense is getting

dreadful. If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I should

feel easier; but no one has heard a word of Jonathan since that last

letter. I must only pray to God for patience. Lucy is more excitable

than ever, but is otherwise well. Last night was very threatening, and

the fishermen say that we are in for a storm. I must try to watch it and

learn the weather signs. To-day is a grey day, and the sun as I write is

hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is grey--except

the green grass, which seems like emerald amongst it; grey earthy rock;

grey clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the

grey sea, into which the sand-points stretch like grey fingers. The sea

is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar,

muffled in the sea-mists drifting inland. The horizon is lost in a grey

mist. All is vastness; the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and

there is a "brool" over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom.

Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in

the mist, and seem "men like trees walking." The fishing-boats are

racing for home, and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep into

the harbour, bending to the scuppers. Here comes old Mr. Swales. He is

making straight for me, and I can see, by the way he lifts his hat, that

he wants to talk....

I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man. When he sat

down beside me, he said in a very gentle way:--

"I want to say something to you, miss." I could see he was not at ease,

so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and asked him to speak

fully; so he said, leaving his hand in mine:--

"I'm afraid, my deary, that I must have shocked you by all the wicked

things I've been sayin' about the dead, and such like, for weeks past;

but I didn't mean them, and I want ye to remember that when I'm gone. We

aud folks that be daffled, and with one foot abaft the krok-hooal, don't

altogether like to think of it, and we don't want to feel scart of it;

an' that's why I've took to makin' light of it, so that I'd cheer up my

own heart a bit. But, Lord love ye, miss, I ain't afraid of dyin', not a

bit; only I don't want to die if I can help it. My time must be nigh at

hand now, for I be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any man to

expect; and I'm so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin' his

scythe. Ye see, I can't get out o' the habit of caffin' about it all at

once; the chafts will wag as they be used to. Some day soon the Angel of

Death will sound his trumpet for me. But don't ye dooal an' greet, my

deary!"--for he saw that I was crying--"if he should come this very

night I'd not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after all, only a

waitin' for somethin' else than what we're doin'; and death be all that

we can rightly depend on. But I'm content, for it's comin' to me, my

deary, and comin' quick. It may be comin' while we be lookin' and

wonderin'. Maybe it's in that wind out over the sea that's bringin' with

it loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts. Look! look!" he

cried suddenly. "There's something in that wind and in the hoast beyont

that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. It's in the

air; I feel it comin'. Lord, make me answer cheerful when my call

comes!" He held up his arms devoutly, and raised his hat. His mouth

moved as though he were praying. After a few minutes' silence, he got

up, shook hands with me, and blessed me, and said good-bye, and hobbled

off. It all touched me, and upset me very much.

I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spy-glass under his

arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time

kept looking at a strange ship.

"I can't make her out," he said; "she's a Russian, by the look of her;

but she's knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn't know her mind

a bit; she seems to see the storm coming, but can't decide whether to

run up north in the open, or to put in here. Look there again! She is

steered mighty strangely, for she doesn't mind the hand on the wheel;

changes about with every puff of wind. We'll hear more of her before

this time to-morrow."

CHAPTER VII

CUTTING FROM "THE DAILYGRAPH," 8 AUGUST

(_Pasted in Mina Murray's Journal._)

From a Correspondent.

_Whitby_.

One of the greatest and suddenest storms on record has just been

experienced here, with results both strange and unique. The weather had

been somewhat sultry, but not to any degree uncommon in the month of

August. Saturday evening was as fine as was ever known, and the great

body of holiday-makers laid out yesterday for visits to Mulgrave Woods,

Robin Hood's Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes, and the various trips in

the neighbourhood of Whitby. The steamers _Emma_ and _Scarborough_ made

trips up and down the coast, and there was an unusual amount of

"tripping" both to and from Whitby. The day was unusually fine till the

afternoon, when some of the gossips who frequent the East Cliff

churchyard, and from that commanding eminence watch the wide sweep of

sea visible to the north and east, called attention to a sudden show of

"mares'-tails" high in the sky to the north-west. The wind was then

blowing from the south-west in the mild degree which in barometrical

language is ranked "No. 2: light breeze." The coastguard on duty at once

made report, and one old fisherman, who for more than half a century has

kept watch on weather signs from the East Cliff, foretold in an emphatic

manner the coming of a sudden storm. The approach of sunset was so very

beautiful, so grand in its masses of splendidly-coloured clouds, that

there was quite an assemblage on the walk along the cliff in the old

churchyard to enjoy the beauty. Before the sun dipped below the black

mass of Kettleness, standing boldly athwart the western sky, its

downward way was marked by myriad clouds of every sunset-colour--flame,

purple, pink, green, violet, and all the tints of gold; with here and

there masses not large, but of seemingly absolute blackness, in all

sorts of shapes, as well outlined as colossal silhouettes. The

experience was not lost on the painters, and doubtless some of the

sketches of the "Prelude to the Great Storm" will grace the R. A. and R.

I. walls in May next. More than one captain made up his mind then and

there that his "cobble" or his "mule," as they term the different

classes of boats, would remain in the harbour till the storm had passed.

The wind fell away entirely during the evening, and at midnight there

was a dead calm, a sultry heat, and that prevailing intensity which, on

the approach of thunder, affects persons of a sensitive nature. There

were but few lights in sight at sea, for even the coasting steamers,

which usually "hug" the shore so closely, kept well to seaward, and but

few fishing-boats were in sight. The only sail noticeable was a foreign

schooner with all sails set, which was seemingly going westwards. The

foolhardiness or ignorance of her officers was a prolific theme for

comment whilst she remained in sight, and efforts were made to signal

her to reduce sail in face of her danger. Before the night shut down she

was seen with sails idly flapping as she gently rolled on the undulating

swell of the sea,