The Drunkard's Dream
Being a Fourth Extract from the Legacy of the Late F. Purcell, P. P. ofDrumcoolagh"All this he told with some confusion andDismay, the usual consequence of dreamsOf the unpleasant kind, with none at handTo expound their vain and visionary gleams.I've known some odd ones which seemed really plannedProphetically, as that which one deems'A strange coincidence,' to use a phraseBy which such things are settled now-a-days."BYRON.Dreams--What age, or what country of the world has not felt andacknowledged the mystery of their origin and end? I have thought not alittle upon the subject, seeing it is one which has been often forcedupon my attention, and sometimes strangely enough; and yet I have neverarrived at any thing which at all appeared a satisfactory conclusion. Itdoes appear that a mental phenomenon so extraordinary cannot be whollywithout its use. We know, indeed, that in the olden times it has beenmade the organ of communication between the Deity and his creatures; andwhen, as I have seen, a dream produces upon a mind, to all appearancehopelessly reprobate and depraved, an effect so powerful and so lastingas to break down the inveterate habits, and to reform the life of anabandoned sinner. We see in the result, in the reformation of morals,which appeared incorrigible in the reclamation of a human soul whichseemed to be irretrievably lost, something more than could be produced bya mere chimaera of the slumbering fancy, something more than could arisefrom the capricious images of a terrified imagination; but onceprevented, we behold in all these things, in the tremendous andmysterious results, the operation of the hand of God. And while Reasonrejects as absurd the superstition which will read a prophecy in everydream, she may, without violence to herself, recognize, even in thewildest and most incongruous of the wanderings of a slumbering intellect,the evidences and the fragments of a language which may be spoken, whichhas been spoken to terrify, to warn, and to command. We have reason tobelieve too, by the promptness of action, which in the age of theprophets, followed all intimations of this kind, and by the strength ofconviction and strange permanence of the effects resulting from certaindreams in latter times, which effects ourselves may have witnessed, thatwhen this medium of communication has been employed by the Deity, theevidences of his presence have been unequivocal. My thoughts weredirected to this subject, in a manner to leave a lasting impression uponmy mind, by the events which I shall now relate, the statement of which,however extraordinary, is nevertheless accurately correct.About the year l7-- having been appointed to the living of C----h, Irented 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 myservant, who bustled into my bedroom for the purpose of announcing a sickcall. As the Catholic Church holds her last rites to be totallyindispensable to the safety of the departing sinner, no conscientiousclergyman can afford a moment's unnecessary delay, and in little morethan five minutes I stood ready cloaked and booted for the road in thesmall 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 thedoor, and after some slight difficulty I ascertained that her father waseither dead, or just dying."And what may be your father's name, my poor child?" said I. She helddown her head, as if ashamed. I repeated the question, and the wretchedlittle creature burst into floods of tears, still more bitter than shehad shed before. At length, almost provoked by conduct which appeared tome so unreasonable, I began to lose patience, spite of the pity which Icould not help feeling towards her, and I said rather harshly, "If youwill not tell me the name of the person to whom you would lead me, yoursilence can arise from no good motive, and I might be justified inrefusing to go with you at all.""Oh! don't say that, don't say that," cried she. "Oh! sir, it was that Iwas afeard of when I would not tell you--I was afeard when you heard hisname you would not come with me; but it is no use hidin' it now--it's PatConnell, the carpenter, your honour."She looked in my face with the most earnest anxiety, as if her veryexistence depended upon what she should read there; but I relieved her atonce. The name, indeed, was most unpleasantly familiar to me; but,however fruitless my visits and advice might have been at another time,the present was too fearful an occasion to suffer my doubts of theirutility as my reluctance to re-attempting what appeared a hopeless taskto weigh even against the lightest chance, that a consciousness of hisimminent danger might produce in him a more docile and tractabledisposition. Accordingly I told the child to lead the way, and followedher in silence. She hurried rapidly through the long narrow street whichforms the great thoroughfare of the town. The darkness of the hour,rendered still deeper by the close approach of the old fashioned houses,which lowered in tall obscurity on either side of the way; the dampdreary chill which renders the advance of morning peculiarly cheerless,combined with the object of my walk, to visit the death-bed of apresumptuous sinner, to endeavour, almost against my own conviction, toinfuse a hope into the heart of a dying reprobate--a drunkard, but tooprobably perishing under the consequences of some mad fit ofintoxication; all these circumstances united served to enhance the gloomand solemnity of my feelings, as I silently followed my little guide, whowith quick steps traversed the uneven pavement of the main street. Aftera walk of about five minutes she turned off into a narrow lane, of thatobscure and comfortless class which are to be found in almost all smallold fashioned towns, chill without ventilation, reeking with all mannerof offensive effluviae, dingy, smoky, sickly and pent-up buildings,frequently not only in a wretched but in a dangerous condition."Your father has changed his abode since I last visited him, and, I amafraid, much for the worse," said I."Indeed he has, sir, but we must not complain," replied she; "we have tothank God that we have lodging and food, though it's poor enough, it is,your honour."Poor child! thought I, how many an older head might learn wisdom fromthee--how many a luxurious philosopher, who is skilled to preach but notto suffer, might not thy patient words put to the blush! The manner andlanguage of this child were alike above her years and station; and,indeed, in all cases in which the cares and sorrows of life haveanticipated their usual date, and have fallen, as they sometimes do, withmelancholy prematurity to the lot of childhood, I have observed theresult to have proved uniformly the same. A young mind, to which joy andindulgence have been strangers, and to which suffering and self-denialhave been familiarised from the first, acquires a solidity and anelevation which no other discipline could have bestowed, and which, inthe present case, communicated a striking but mournful peculiarity to themanners, even to the voice of the child. We paused before a narrow, crazydoor, which she opened by means of a latch, and we forthwith began toascend the steep and broken stairs, which led upwards to the sick man'sroom. As we mounted flight after flight towards the garret floor, I heardmore and more distinctly the hurried talking of many voices. I could alsodistinguish the low sobbing of a female. On arriving upon the uppermostlobby, these sounds became fully audible."This way, your honor," said my little conductress, at the same timepushing open a door of patched and half rotten plank, she admitted meinto the squalid chamber of death and misery. But one candle, held in thefingers of a scared and haggard-looking child, was burning in the room,and that so dim that all was twilight or darkness except within itsimmediate influence. The general obscurity, however, served to throw intoprominent and startling relief the death-bed and its occupant. The lightwas nearly approximated to, and fell with horrible clearness upon, theblue and swollen features of the drunkard. I did not think it possiblethat a human countenance could look so terrific. The lips were black anddrawn apart--the teeth were firmly set--the eyes a little unclosed, andnothing but the whites appearing--every feature was fixed and livid, andthe whole face wore a ghastly and rigid expression of despairing terrorsuch as I never saw equalled; his hands were crossed upon his breast, andfirmly clenched, while, as if to add to the corpse-like effect of thewhole, some white cloths, dipped in water, were wound about the foreheadand temples. As soon as I could remove my eyes from this horriblespectacle, I observed my friend Dr. D----, one of the most humane of ahumane profession, standing by the bedside. He had been attempting, butunsuccessfully, to bleed the patient, and had now applied his finger tothe pulse."Is there any hope?" I inquired in a whisper.A shake of the head was the reply. There was a pause while he continuedto hold the wrist; but he waited in vain for the throb of life, it wasnot there, and when he let go the hand it fell stiffly back into itsformer position upon the other."The man is dead," said the physician, as he turned from the bed wherethe terrible figure lay.Dead! thought I, scarcely venturing to look upon the tremendous andrevolting spectacle--dead! without an hour for repentance, even amoment for reflection--dead! without the rites which even the bestshould have. Is there a hope for him? The glaring eyeball, the grinningmouth, the distorted brow--that unutterable look in which a painterwould have sought to embody the fixed despair of the nethermosthell--these were my answer.The poor wife sat at a little distance, crying as if her heart wouldbreak--the younger children clustered round the bed, looking, withwondering curiosity, upon the form of death, never seen before. When thefirst tumult of uncontrollable sorrow had passed away, availing myself ofthe solemnity and impressiveness of the scene, I desired theheart-stricken family to accompany me in prayer, and all knelt down,while I solemnly and fervently repeated some of those prayers whichappeared most applicable to the occasion. I employed myself thus in amanner which, I trusted, was not unprofitable, at least to the living,for about ten minutes, and having accomplished my task, I was the firstto arise. I looked upon the poor, sobbing, helpless creatures who kneltso humbly around me, and my heart bled for them. With a naturaltransition, I turned my eyes from them to the bed in which the body lay,and, great God! what was the revulsion, the horror which I experienced onseeing the corpse-like, terrific thing seated half upright before me--thewhite cloths, which had been wound about the head, had now partly slippedfrom their position, and were hanging in grotesque festoons about theface and shoulders, while the distorted eyes leered from amid them--"A sight to dream of, not to tell."I stood actually rivetted to the spot. The figure nodded its head andlifted its arm, I thought with a menacing gesture. A thousand confusedand horrible thoughts at once rushed upon my mind. I had often read thatthe body of a presumptuous sinner, who, during life, had been the willingcreature of every satanic impulse, after the human tenant had desertedit, had been known to become the horrible sport of demoniac possession. Iwas roused from the stupefaction of terror in which I stood, by thepiercing scream of the mother, who now, for the first time, perceived thechange which had taken place. She rushed towards the bed, but, stunned bythe shock and overcome by the conflict of violent emotions, before shereached it, she fell prostrate upon the floor. I am perfectly convincedthat had I not been startled from the torpidity of horror in which I wasbound, by some powerful and arousing stimulant, I should have gazed uponthis unearthly apparition until I had fairly lost my senses. As it was,however, the spell was broken, superstition gave way to reason: the manwhom all believed to have been actually dead, was living! Dr. D---- wasinstantly standing by the bedside, and, upon examination, he found that asudden and copious flow of blood had taken place from the wound which thelancet had left, and this, no doubt, had effected his sudden and almostpreternatural restoration to an existence from which all thought he hadbeen for ever removed. The man was still speechless, but he seemed tounderstand the physician when he forbid his repeating the painful andfruitless attempts which he made to articulate, and he at once resignedhimself quietly into his hands.I left the patient with leeches upon his temples, and bleedingfreely--apparently with little of the drowsiness which accompaniesapoplexy; indeed, Dr. D---- told me that he had never before witnessed aseizure which seemed to combine the symptoms of so many kinds, and yetwhich belonged to none of the recognized classes; it certainly was notapoplexy, catalepsy, nor delirium tremens, and yet it seemed, in somedegree, to partake of the properties of all--it was strange, but strangerthings are coming.During two or three days Dr. D---- would not allow his patient toconverse in a manner which could excite or exhaust him, with any one; hesuffered him merely, as briefly as possible, to express his immediatewants, and it was not until the fourth day after my early visit, theparticulars of which I have just detailed, that it was thought expedientthat I should see him, and then only because it appeared that his extremeimportunity and impatience were likely to retard his recovery more thanthe mere exhaustion attendant upon a short conversation could possiblydo; perhaps, too, my friend entertained some hope that if by holyconfession his patient's bosom were eased of the perilous stuff, which nodoubt, oppressed it, his recovery would be more assured and rapid. Itwas, then, as I have said, upon the fourth day after my firstprofessional call, that I found myself once more in the dreary chamber ofwant and sickness. The man was in bed, and appeared low and restless. Onmy entering the room he raised himself in the bed, and muttered twice orthrice--"Thank God! thank God." I signed to those of his family who stoodby, to leave the room, and took a chair beside the bed. So soon as wewere alone, he said, rather doggedly--"There's no use now in telling meof the sinfulness of bad ways--I know it all--I know where they leadto--I seen everything about it with my own eyesight, as plain as I seeyou." He rolled himself in the bed, as if to hide his face in theclothes, and then suddenly raising himself, he exclaimed with startlingvehemence--"Look, sir, there is no use in mincing the matter; I'm blastedwith the fires of hell; I have been in hell; what do you think ofthat?--in hell--I'm lost for ever--I have not a chance--I am damnedalready--damned--damned--." The end of this sentence he actuallyshouted; his vehemence was perfectly terrific; he threw himself back, andlaughed, and sobbed hysterically. I poured some water into a tea-cup, andgave it to him. After he had swallowed it, I told him if he had anythingto communicate, to do so as briefly as he could, and in a manner aslittle agitating to himself as possible; threatening at the same time,though I had no intention of doing so, to leave him at once, in case heagain gave way to such passionate excitement. "It's only foolishness," hecontinued, "for me to try to thank you for coming to such a villain asmyself at all; it's no use for me to wish good to you, or to bless you;for such as me has no blessings to give." I told him that I had but donemy duty, and urged him to proceed to the matter which weighed upon hismind; he then spoke nearly as follows:--"I came in drunk on Friday nightlast, and got to my bed here, I don't remember how; sometime in thenight, it seemed to me, I wakened, and feeling unasy in myself, I got upout of the bed. I wanted the fresh air, but I would not make a noise toopen the window, for fear I'd waken the crathurs. It was very dark, andthroublesome to find the door; but at last I did get it, and I groped myway out, and went down as asy as I could. I felt quite sober, and Icounted the steps one after another, as I was going down, that I mightnot stumble at the bottom. When I came to the first landing-place, God beabout us always! the floor of it sunk under me, and I went down, down,down, till the senses almost left me. I do not know how long I wasfalling, but it seemed to me a great while. When I came rightly to myselfat last, I was sitting at a great table, near the top of it; and I couldnot see the end of it, if it had any, it was so far off; and there wasmen beyond reckoning, sitting down, all along by it, at each side, as faras I could see at all. I did not know at first was it in the open air;but there was a close smothering feel in it, that was not natural, andthere was a kind of light that my eyesight never saw before, red andunsteady, and I did not see for a long time where it was coming from,until I looked straight up, and then I seen that it came from great ballsof blood-coloured fire, that were rolling high over head with a sort ofrushing, trembling sound, and I perceived that they shone on the ribs ofa great roof of rock that was arched overhead instead of the sky. When Iseen this, scarce knowing what I did, I got up, and I said, 'I have noright to be here; I must go,' and the man that was sitting at my lefthand, only smiled, and said, 'sit down again, you can never leave thisplace,' and his voice was weaker than any child's voice I ever heerd, andwhen he was done speaking he smiled again. Then I spoke out very loud andbold, and I said--'in the name of God, let me out of this bad place.' Andthere was a great man, that I did not see before, sitting at the end ofthe table that I was near, and he was taller than twelve men, and hisface was very proud and terrible to look at, and he stood up andstretched out his hand before him, and when he stood up, all that wasthere, great and small, bowed down with a sighing sound, and a dread cameon my heart, and he looked at me, and I could not speak. I felt I was hisown, to do what he liked with, for I knew at once who he was, and hesaid, 'if you promise to return, you may depart for a season'; and thevoice he spoke with was terrible and mournful, and the echoes of it wentrolling and swelling down the endless cave, and mixing with the tremblingof the fire overhead; so that, when he sate down, there was a sound afterhim, all through the place like the roaring of a furnace, and I said,with all the strength I had, 'I promise to come back; in God's name letme go,' and with that I lost the sight and the hearing of all that wasthere, and when my senses came to me again, I was sitting in the bed withthe blood all over me, and you and the rest praying around the room."Here he paused and wiped away the chill drops of horror which hung uponhis forehead.I remained silent for some moments. The vision which he had justdescribed struck my imagination not a little, for this was long beforeVathek and the "Hall of Iblis" had delighted the world; and thedescription which he gave had, as I received it, all the attractions ofnovelty beside the impressiveness which always belongs to the narrationof an eye-witness, whether in the body or in the spirit, of the sceneswhich he describes. There was something, too, in the stern horror withwhich the man related these things, and in the incongruity of hisdescription, with the vulgarly received notions of the great place ofpunishment, and of its presiding spirit, which struck my mind with awe,almost with fear. At length he said, with an expression of horrible,imploring earnestness, which I shall never forget--"Well, sir, is thereany hope; is there any chance at all? or, is my soul pledged and promisedaway for ever? is it gone out of my power? must I go back to the place?"In answering him I had no easy task to perform; for however clear mightbe my internal conviction of the groundlessness of his fears, and howeverstrong my scepticism respecting the reality of what he had described, Inevertheless felt that his impression to the contrary, and his humilityand terror resulting from it, might be made available as no mean enginesin the work of his conversion from profligacy, and of his restoration todecent habits, and to religious feeling. I therefore told him that he wasto regard his dream rather in the light of a warning than in that of aprophecy; that our salvation depended not upon the word or deed of amoment, but upon the habits of a life; that, in fine, if he at oncediscarded his idle companions and evil habits, and firmly adhered to asober, industrious, and religious course of life, the powers of darknessmight claim his soul in vain, for that there were higher and firmerpledges than human tongue could utter, which promised salvation to himwho should repent and lead a new life.I left him much comforted, and with a promise to return upon the nextday. I did so, and found him much more cheerful, and without any remainsof the dogged sullenness which I suppose had arisen from his despair.His promises of amendment were given in that tone of deliberateearnestness, which belongs to deep and solemn determination; and it waswith no small delight that I observed, after repeated visits, that hisgood resolutions, so far from failing, did but gather strength by time;and when I saw that man shake off the idle and debauched companions,whose society had for years formed alike his amusement and his ruin, andrevive his long discarded habits of industry and sobriety, I said withinmyself, there is something more in all this than the operation of anidle dream. One day, sometime after his perfect restoration to health, Iwas surprised on ascending the stairs, for the purpose of visiting thisman, to find him busily employed in nailing down some planks upon thelanding place, through which, at the commencement of his mysteriousvision, it seemed to him that he had sunk. I perceived at once that hewas strengthening the floor with a view to securing himself against sucha catastrophe, and could scarcely forbear a smile as I bid "God blesshis work."He perceived my thoughts, I suppose, for he immediately said,"I can never pass over that floor without trembling. I'd leave thishouse if I could, but I can't find another lodging in the town so cheap,and I'll not take a better till I've paid off all my debts, please God;but I could not be asy in my mind till I made it as safe as I could.You'll hardly believe me, your honor, that while I'm working, maybe amile away, my heart is in a flutter the whole way back, with the barethoughts of the two little steps I have to walk upon this bit of afloor. So it's no wonder, sir, I'd thry to make it sound and firm withany idle timber I have."I applauded his resolution to pay off his debts, and the steadiness withwhich he pursued his plans of conscientious economy, and passed on.Many months elapsed, and still there appeared no alteration in hisresolutions of amendment. He was a good workman, and with his betterhabits he recovered his former extensive and profitable employment. Everything seemed to promise comfort and respectability. I have little more toadd, and that shall be told quickly. I had one evening met Pat Connell,as he returned from his work, and as usual, after a mutual, and on hisside respectful salutation, I spoke a few words of encouragement andapproval. I left him industrious, active, healthy--when next I saw him,not three days after, he was a corpse. The circumstances which marked theevent of his death were somewhat strange--I might say fearful. Theunfortunate man had accidentally met an early friend, just returned,after a long absence, and in a moment of excitement, forgettingeverything in the warmth of his joy, he yielded to his urgent invitationto accompany him into a public house, which lay close by the spot wherethe encounter had taken place. Connell, however, previously to enteringthe room, had announced his determination to take nothing more than thestrictest temperance would warrant. But oh! who can describe theinveterate tenacity with which a drunkard's habits cling to him throughlife. He may repent--he may reform--he may look with actual abhorrenceupon his past profligacy; but amid all this reformation and compunction,who can tell the moment in which the base and ruinous propensity may notrecur, triumphing over resolution, remorse, shame, everything, andprostrating its victim once more in all that is destructive and revoltingin that fatal vice.The wretched man left the place in a state of utter intoxication. He wasbrought home nearly insensible, and placed in his bed, where he lay inthe deep calm lethargy of drunkenness. The younger part of the familyretired to rest much after their usual hour; but the poor wife remainedup sitting by the fire, too much grieved and shocked at the recurrence ofwhat she had so little expected, to settle to rest; fatigue, however, atlength overcame her, and she sunk gradually into an uneasy slumber. Shecould not tell how long she had remained in this state, when sheawakened, and immediately on opening her eyes, she perceived by the faintred light of the smouldering turf embers, two persons, one of whom sherecognized as her husband noiselessly gliding out of the room."Pat, darling, where are you going?" said she. There was no answer--thedoor closed after them; but in a moment she was startled and terrified bya loud and heavy crash, as if some ponderous body had been hurled downthe stair. Much alarmed, she started up, and going to the head of thestaircase, she called repeatedly upon her husband, but in vain. Shereturned to the room, and with the assistance of her daughter, whom I hadoccasion to mention before, she succeeded in finding and lighting acandle, with which she hurried again to the head of the staircase. At thebottom lay what seemed to be a bundle of clothes, heaped together,motionless, lifeless--it was her husband. In going down the stairs, forwhat purpose can never now be known, he had fallen helplessly andviolently to the bottom, and coming head foremost, the spine at the neckhad been dislocated by the shock, and instant death must have ensued. Thebody lay upon that landing-place to which his dream had referred. It isscarcely worth endeavouring to clear up a single point in a narrativewhere all is mystery; yet I could not help suspecting that the secondfigure which had been seen in the room by Connell's wife on the night ofhis death, might have been no other than his own shadow. I suggested thissolution of the difficulty; but she told me that the unknown person hadbeen considerably in advance of the other, and on reaching the door, hadturned back as if to communicate something to his companion--it was thena mystery. Was the dream verified?--whither had the disembodied spiritsped?--who can say? We know not. But I left the house of death that dayin a state of horror which I could not describe. It seemed to me that Iwas scarce awake. I heard and saw everything as if under the spell of anightmare. The coincidence was terrible.
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