Daniel Defoe
(1659-1731)
A gentleman of a very good estate married a lady of also a good fortune, and had one son by her, and one daughter, and no more, and after a few years his lady died. He soon married a second venter; and his second wife, though of an inferior quality and fortune to the former, took upon her to discourage and discountenance his children by his first lady, and made the family very uncomfortable, both to the children and to their father also.
The first thing of consequence which this conduct of the mother-in-law produced in the family, was that the son, who began to be a man, asked the father’s leave to go abroad to travel. The mother-in-law, though willing enough to be rid of the young man, yet because it would require something considerable to support his expenses abroad, violently opposed it, and brought his father also to refuse him after he had freely given him his consent.
This so affected the young gentleman, that after using all the dutiful applications to his father that he could possibly do, as well by himself as by some other relations, but to no purpose; and being a little encouraged by an uncle, who was brother to his mother, his father’s first lady, he resolved to go abroad without leave, and accordingly did so.
What part of the world he travelled into I do not remember; it seems his father had constantly intelligence from him for some time, and was prevailed with to make him a reasonable allowance for his subsistence, which the young gentleman always drew bills for, and they were honourably paid; but after some time, the mother-in-law prevailing at home, one of his bills of exchange was refused, and being protested, was sent back without acceptance; upon which he drew no more, nor did he write any more letters, or his father hear anything from him for upwards of four years, or thereabout.
Upon this long silence, the mother-in-law made her advantage several ways; she first intimated to his father that he must needs be dead; and consequently, his estate should be settled upon her eldest son (for she had several children). His father withstood the motion very firmly, but the wife harassed him with her importunities; and she argued upon two points against him, I mean the son.
First, if he was dead, then there was no room to object, her son being heir at law.
Secondly, if he was not dead, his behaviour to his father in not writing for so long a time was inexcusable, and he ought to resent it, and settle the estate as if he were dead; that nothing could be more disobliging, and his father ought to depend upon it that he was dead, and treat him as if he was so; for he that would use a father so, should be taken for one dead, as to his filial relation, and be treated accordingly.
His father, however, stood out a long time, and told her that he could not answer it to his conscience; that there might happen many things in the world, which might render his son unable to write; that he might be taken by the Turks, and carried into slavery; or he might be among the Persians or Arabians (which it seems was the case), and so could not get any letters conveyed; and that he could not be satisfied to disinherit him, till he knew whether he had reason for it or no, or whether his son had offended him or no.
These answers, however just, were far from stopping her importunities, which she carried on so far, that she gave him no rest, and it made an unquiet family; she carried it very ill to him, and in a word, made her children do so too; and the gentleman was so wearied out with it, that once or twice he came to a kind of consent to do it, but his heart failed him, and then he fell back again, and refused.
However, her having brought him so near it, was an encouragement to her to go on with her restless solicitations, till at last he came thus far to a provisional agreement, that if he did not hear from his son by such a time, or before it, he would consent to a re-settling the estate.
She was not well satisfied with the conditional agreement, but being able to obtain no other, she was obliged to accept of it as it was; though, as she often told him, she was far from being satisfied with it as to the time, for he had fixed it for four years, as above.
He grew angry at her telling him so, and answered, that she ought to be very well satisfied with it, for that it was time little enough, as his son’s circumstances might be.
Well, she teased him however so continually, that at last she brought him down to one year: but before she brought him to that, she told him one day in a heat, that she hoped his ghost would one time or other appear to him, and tell him that he was dead, and that he ought to do justice to his other children, for he should never come to claim the estate.
When he came, so much against his will, to consent to shorten the time to one year, he told her that he hoped his son’s ghost, though he was not dead, would come to her, and tell her he was alive, before the time expired. “For why,” says he, “may not injured souls walk while embodied, as well as afterwards?”
It happened one evening after this, that they had a most violent family quarrel upon this subject, when on a sudden a hand appeared at a casement, endeavouring to open it; but as all the iron casements used in former times opened outward, but hasped and fastened themselves in the inside, so the hand seemed to try to open the casement, but could not. The gentleman did not see it, but his wife did, and she presently started up, as if she was frighted, and, forgetting the quarrel they had upon their hands: “Lord bless me!” says she, “there are thieves in the garden.” Her husband ran immediately to the door of the room they sat in, and opening it, looked out.
“There’s nobody in the garden,” says he; so he clapped the door to again, and came back.
“I am sure,” says she, “I saw a man there.”
“It must be the devil then,” says he; “for I’m sure there’s nobody in the garden.”
I’ll swear,” says she, “I saw a man put his hand up to open the casement; but finding it fast, and I suppose,” adds she, “seeing us in the room, he walked off.”
“It is impossible he could be gone,” says he; “did not I run to the door immediately? and you know the garden walls on both sides hinder him going.”
“Pry’thee,” says she angrily, “I an’t drunk nor in a dream, I know a man when I see him, and ’tis not dark, the sun is not quite down.”
“You’re only frighted with shadows,” says he (very full of ill-nature): “folks generally are so that are haunted with an evil conscience: it may be ’twas the devil.”
“No, no, I’m not soon frighted,” says she; “if ’twas the devil, ’twas the ghost of your son: it may be come to tell you he was gone to the devil, and you might give your estate to your eldest bastard, since you won’t settle it on the lawful heir.”
“If it was my son,” says he, “he’s come to tell us he’s alive, I warrant you, and to ask how you can be so much a devil to desire me to disinherit him;” and with these words: “Alexander,” says he aloud, repeating it twice, starting up out of his chair, “if you are alive, show yourself, and don’t let me be insulted thus every day with your being dead.”
At those very words, the casement which the hand had been seen at by the mother, opened of itself, and his son Alexander looked in with a full face, and staring directly upon the mother with an angry countenance, cried “Here,” and then vanished in a moment.
The woman that was so stout before, shrieked out in a most dismal manner, so as alarmed the whole house; her maid ran into the parlour, to see what was the matter, but her mistress was fainted away in her chair.
She was not fallen upon the ground, because it being a great easy chair, she sunk a little back against the side of the chair, and help coming immediately in, they kept her up; but it was not till a great while after, that she recovered enough to be sensible of anything.
Her husband ran immediately to the parlour door, and opening it, went into the garden, but there was nothing; and after that he ran to another door that opened from the house into the garden, and then to two other doors which opened out of his garden, one into the stable-yard, and another into the field beyond the garden, but found them all fast shut and barred; but on one side was his gardener, and a boy, drawing the rolling-stone: he asked them if anybody else had been in the garden, but they were both constantly affirmed nobody had been there; and they were both rolling a gravel-walk near the house.
Upon this he comes back into the room, sits him down again, and said not one word for a good while; the women and servants being busy all the while, and in a hurry, endeavouring to recover his wife.
After some time she recovered so far as to speak, and the first words she said, were: “L—d bless me! what was it?”
“Nay,” says her husband, “it was Alexander, to be sure.” With that she fell into a fit, and screamed and shrieked out again most terribly.
Her husband not thinking that would have affected her, did what he could to persuade her out of it again; but that would not do, and they were obliged to carry her to bed, and get some help to her; but she continued very ill for several days after.
However, this put an end for some considerable time to her solicitations about his disinheriting her son-in-law.
But time, that hardens the mind in cases of a worse nature, wore this off also by degrees, and she began to revive the old cause again, though not at first so eagerly as before.
Nay, he used her a little hardly upon it too, and if ever they had any words about it he would bid her hold her tongue, or that if she talked any more upon that subject, he would call Alexander again to open the casement.
This aggravated things much; and though it terrified her a great while, yet at length she was so exasperated, that she told him she believed he dealt with the devil, and that he had sold himself to the devil only to be able to fright his wife.
He jested with her, and told her any man would be beholden to the devil to hush a noisy woman, and that he was very glad he had found the way to do it, whatever it cost him.
She was so exasperated at this, that she threatened him if he played any more of his hellish arts with her she would have him indicted for a wizard, and having a familiar; and she could prove it, she said, plain enough, for that he had raised the devil on purpose to fright his wife.
The fray parted that night with ill words and ill nature enough, but he little thought she intended as she said, and the next day he had forgot it all, and was as good-humoured as if nothing had happened.
But he found his wife chagrined and disturbed very much, full of resentment, and threatening him with what she resolved to do.
However, he little thought she intended him the mischief she had in her head, offering to talk friendly to her; but she rejected it with scorn, and told him she would be as good as her word, for she would not live with a man that should bring the devil into the room as often as he thought fit, to murder his wife.
He strove to pacify her by fair words, but she told him she was in earnest with him: and, in a word, she was in earnest; for she goes away to a justice, and making an affidavit that her husband had a familiar spirit, and that she went in danger of her life, she obtained a warrant for him to be apprehended.
In short, she brought home the warrant, showed it him, and told him she had not given it into the hands of an officer, because he should have the liberty to go voluntarily before the justice of the peace, and if he thought fit to let her know when he would be ready, she would be so too, and would get some of her own friends to go along with her.
He was surprised at this, for he little thought she had been in earnest with him, and endeavoured to pacify her by all the ways possible; but she found she had frighted him heartily, and so indeed she had, for though the thing had nothing in it of guilt, yet he found it might expose him very much, and being loath to have such a thing brought upon the stage against him, he used all the entreaties with her that he was able, and begged her not to do it.
But the more he humbled himself the more she triumphed over him; and carrying things to an unsufferable height of insolence, she told him at last, she would make him do justice, as she called it; that she was sure she could have him punished if he continued obstinate, and she would not be exposed to witchcraft and sorcery; for she did not know to what length he might carry it.
To bring the story to a conclusion; she got the better of him to such a degree, that he offered to refer the thing to indifferent persons, friends on both sides; and they met several times, but could bring it to no conclusion. His friends said there was nothing in it, and they would not have him comply with anything upon the pretence of it; that he called for his son, and somebody opened the casement and cried, “Here”; that there was not the least evidence of witchcraft in that, and insisted that she could make nothing of it.
Her friends carried it high, instructed by her: she offered to swear that he had threatened her before with his son’s ghost; that now he visibly raised a spectre; for that calling upon his son, who was dead to be sure, the ghost immediately appeared; that he could not have called up the devil thus to personate his son, if he had not dealt with the devil himself, and had a familiar spirit, and that this was of dangerous consequence to her.
Upon the whole, the man wanted courage to stand it, and was afraid of being exposed; so that he was grievously perplexed, and knew not what to do.
When she found him humbled as much as she could desire, she told him, if he would do her justice, as she called it (that is to say, settle his estate upon her son), she would put it up, on condition that he should promise to fright her no more with raising the devil.
That part of the proposal exasperated him again, and he upbraided her with the slander of it, and told her he defied her, and she might do her worst.
Thus it broke off all treaty, and she began to threaten him again; however, at length she brought him to comply, and he gives a writing under his land to her, some of her friends being by, promising that he would comply if his son did not arrive, or send an account of himself, within four months.
She was satisfied with this, and they were all made friends again, and accordingly he gave the writing; but when he delivered it to her in presence of her two arbitrators, he took the liberty to say to her, with a grave and solemn kind of speech:
“Look you,” says he, “you have worried me into this agreement by your fiery temper, and I have signed it against justice, conscience, and reason; but depend upon it, I shall never perform it.”
One of the arbitrators said, “Why, sir, this is doing nothing; for if you resolve not to perform it, what signifies the writing? why do you promise what you do not intend shall be done? This will but kindle a new flame to begin with, when the time fixed expires.”
“Why,” says he, “I am satisfied in my mind that my son is alive.”
“Come, come,” says his wife, speaking to the gentleman that had argued with her husband, “let him sign the agreement, and let me alone to make him perform the conditions.”
“Well,” says her husband, “you shall have the writing, and you shall be let alone; but I am satisfied you will never ask me to perform it; and yet I am no wizard,” adds he, “as you have wickedly suggested.”
She replied, that she would prove that he dealt with the devil, for that he raised an evil spirit by only calling his son by his name; and so began to tell the story of the hand and the casement.
“Come,” says the man to the gentleman that was her friend, “give me the pen; I never dealt with but one devil in my life, and there it sits,” turning to his wife; “and now I have made an agreement with her that none but the devil would desire any man to sign, and I will sign it; I say, give me the pen, but she nor all the devils in hell will ever be able to get it executed; remember I say so.”
She began to open at him, and so a new flame would have been kindled, but the gentlemen moderated between them, and her husband setting his hand to the writing put an end to the fray at that time.
At the end of four months she challenged the performance, and a day was appointed, and her two friends that had been the arbitrators were invited to dinner upon this occasion, believing that her husband would have executed the deeds; and accordingly the writings were brought all forth, engrossed, and read over; and some old writings, which at her marriage were signed by her trustees, in order to her quitting some part of the estate to her son, were also brought to be cancelled: the husband being brought over, by fair means or foul, I know not whether, to be in a humour, for peace’ sake, to execute the deeds, and disinherit his son; alleging that, indeed, if he was dead it was no wrong to him, and if he was alive, he was very unkind and undutiful to his father, in not letting him hear from him in all that time.
Besides, it was urged that if he should at any time afterwards appear to be alive, his father (who had very much increased, it seems, in his wealth) was able to give him another fortune, and to make him a just satisfaction for the loss he should sustain by the paternal estate.
Upon these considerations, I say, they had brought over the poor low-spirited husband to be almost willing to comply; or, at least, willing or unwilling, it was to be done, and, as above, they met accordingly.
When they had discoursed upon all the particulars, and, as above, the new deeds were read over, she or her husband took the old writings up to cancel them; I think the story says it was the wife, not her husband, that was just going to tear off the seal, when on a sudden they heard a rushing noise in the parlour where they sat, as if somebody had come in at the door of the room which opened from the hall, and went through the room towards the garden door, which was shut.
They were all surprised at it, for it was very distinct, but they saw nothing. The woman turned pale, and was in a terrible fright; however, as nothing was seen, she recovered a little, but began to ruffle her husband again.
“What,” says she, “have you laid your plot to bring up more devils again?”
The man sat composed, though he was under no little surprise too.
One of her gentlemen said to him, “What is the meaning of all this?”
“I protest, sir,” says he, “I know no more of it than you do.”
“What can it be then?” said the other gentleman.
I cannot conceive,” says he, “for I am utterly unacquainted with such things.’
“Have you heard nothing from your son?” says the gentleman.
“Not one word,” says the father; “no, not the least word these five years.”
“Have you wrote nothing to him,” says the gentleman, “about this transaction?”
“Not a word,” says he; “for I know not where to direct a letter to him.”
“Sir,” says the gentleman, “I have heard much of apparitions, but I never saw any in my life, nor did I ever believe there was anything of reality in them; and, indeed, I saw nothing now; but the passing of somebody, or spirit, or something, across the room just now, is plain; I heard it distinctly. I believe there is some unseen thing in the room, as much as if I saw it.”
“Nay,” says the other arbitrator, “I felt the wind of it as it passed by me. Pray,” adds he, turning to the husband, “do you see nothing yourself?”
“No, upon my word,” says he, “not the least appearance in the world.”
“I have been told,” says the first arbitrator, “and have read, than an apparition may be seen by some people and be invisible to others, though all in the room together.”
However, the husband solemnly protested to them all that he saw nothing.
“Pray, sir,”says the first arbitrator, “have you seen anything at any other time, or heard any voices or noises, or had any dreams about this matter?”
“Indeed,” says he, “I have several times dreamed my son is alive, and that I had spoken with him; and once that I asked him why he was so undutiful, and slighted me so, as not to let me hear of him in so many years, seeing he knew it was in my power to disinherit him.”
“Well, sir, and what answer did he give?”
“I never dreamed so far on as to have him answer; it always waked me.”
“And what do you think of it yourself,” says the arbitrator; “do you think he’s dead?”
“No, indeed,” says the father, “I do believe in my conscience he’s alive, as much as I believe I am alive myself; and I am going to do as wicked a thing of its kind as ever any man did.”
“Truly,” says the second arbitrator, “it begins to shock me, I don’t know what to say to it; I don’t care to meddle any more with it, I don’t like driving men to act against their consciences.”
With this the wife, who, as I said, having a little recovered her spirits, and especially encouraged because she saw nothing, started up: “What’s all this discourse to the purpose,” says she; “is it not all agreed already? what do we come here for?”
“Nay,” says the first arbitrator, “I think we meet now not to inquire into why it is done, but to execute things according to agreement, and what are we frighted at?”
“I’m not frighted,” says the wife,“not I; come,” says she to her husband, haughtily, “sign the deed; I’ll cancel the old writings if forty devils were in the room;” and with that she takes up one of the deeds, and went to tear off the seal.
That moment the same casement flew open again, though it was fast in the inside, just as it was before; and the shadow of a body was seen, as standing in the garden without, and the head reaching up to the casement, the face looking into the room, and staring directly at the woman with a stern and an angry countenance: “Hold,” said the spectre, as if speaking to the woman, and immediately clapped the casement to again, and vanished.
It is impossible to describe here the consternation this second apparition put the whole company into; the wife, who was so bold just before, that she would do it though forty devils were in the room, screamed out like a woman in fits, and let the writing fall out of her hands: the two arbitrators were exceedingly terrified, but not so much as the rest; but one of them took up the award which they had signed, in which they awarded the husband to execute the deed to dispose of the estate from the son.
“I dare say,” said he, “be the spirit a good spirit or a bad, it will not be against cancelling this; so he tore his name out of the award, and so did the other, by his example, and both of them got up from their seats, and said they would have no more to do in it.
But that which was most unexpected of all was that the man himself was so frighted, that he fainted away; notwithstanding it was, as it might be said, in his favour.
This put an end to the whole affair at that time; and, as I understand by the sequel, it did so for ever.
The story has many particulars more in it, too long to trouble you with: but two particulars, which are to the purpose, I must not omit, viz.:
1. That in about four or five months more after this second apparition, the man’s son arrived from the East Indies, whither he had gone four years before in a Portuguese ship from Lisbon.
2. That upon being particularly inquired of about these things, and especially whether he had any knowledge of them, or any apparition to him, or voices, or other intimation as to what was doing in England, relating to him; he affirmed constantly that he had not, except that once he dreamed his father had written him an angry letter, threatening him that if he did not come home he would disinherit him, and leave him not one shilling. But he added, that he never did receive any such letter from his father in his life, or from any one else.