Nightmare Abbey Read online

  CHAPTER II

  Shortly after the disastrous termination of Scythrop's passion forMiss Emily Girouette, Mr Glowry found himself, much against his will,involved in a lawsuit, which compelled him to dance attendance on theHigh Court of Chancery. Scythrop was left alone at Nightmare Abbey. Hewas a burnt child, and dreaded the fire of female eyes. He wanderedabout the ample pile, or along the garden-terrace, with 'hiscogitative faculties immersed in cogibundity of cogitation.' Theterrace terminated at the south-western tower, which, as we have said,was ruinous and full of owls. Here would Scythrop take his eveningseat, on a fallen fragment of mossy stone, with his back restingagainst the ruined wall,--a thick canopy of ivy, with an owl in it,over his head,--and the Sorrows of Werter in his hand. He had sometaste for romance reading before he went to the university, where, wemust confess, in justice to his college, he was cured of the love ofreading in all its shapes; and the cure would have been radical, ifdisappointment in love, and total solitude, had not conspired to bringon a relapse. He began to devour romances and German tragedies, and,by the recommendation of Mr Flosky, to pore over ponderous tomes oftranscendental philosophy, which reconciled him to the labour ofstudying them by their mystical jargon and necromantic imagery. Inthe congenial solitude of Nightmare Abbey, the distempered ideas ofmetaphysical romance and romantic metaphysics had ample time and spaceto germinate into a fertile crop of chimeras, which rapidly shot upinto vigorous and abundant vegetation.

  He now became troubled with the _passion for reforming the world_.[2]He built many castles in the air, and peopled them with secrettribunals, and bands of illuminati, who were always the imaginaryinstruments of his projected regeneration of the human species. As heintended to institute a perfect republic, he invested himself withabsolute sovereignty over these mystical dispensers of liberty. Heslept with Horrid Mysteries under his pillow, and dreamed of venerableeleutherarchs and ghastly confederates holding midnight conventions insubterranean caves. He passed whole mornings in his study, immersedin gloomy reverie, stalking about the room in his nightcap, whichhe pulled over his eyes like a cowl, and folding his striped calicodressing-gown about him like the mantle of a conspirator.

  'Action,' thus he soliloquised, 'is the result of opinion, and tonew-model opinion would be to new-model society. Knowledge is power;it is in the hands of a few, who employ it to mislead the many, fortheir own selfish purposes of aggrandisement and appropriation. Whatif it were in the hands of a few who should employ it to lead themany? What if it were universal, and the multitude were enlightened?No. The many must be always in leading-strings; but let them have wiseand honest conductors. A few to think, and many to act; that is theonly basis of perfect society. So thought the ancient philosophers:they had their esoterical and exoterical doctrines. So thinks thesublime Kant, who delivers his oracles in language which none butthe initiated can comprehend. Such were the views of those secretassociations of illuminati, which were the terror of superstition andtyranny, and which, carefully selecting wisdom and genius from thegreat wilderness of society, as the bee selects honey from the flowersof the thorn and the nettle, bound all human excellence in a chain,which, if it had not been prematurely broken, would have commandedopinion, and regenerated the world.'

  Scythrop proceeded to meditate on the practicability of reviving aconfederation of regenerators. To get a clear view of his own ideas,and to feel the pulse of the wisdom and genius of the age, he wroteand published a treatise, in which his meanings were carefully wraptup in the monk's hood of transcendental technology, but filled withhints of matter deep and dangerous, which he thought would setthe whole nation in a ferment; and he awaited the result in awfulexpectation, as a miner who has fired a train awaits the explosion ofa rock. However, he listened and heard nothing; for the explosion, ifany ensued, was not sufficiently loud to shake a single leaf of theivy on the towers of Nightmare Abbey; and some months afterwards hereceived a letter from his bookseller, informing him that only sevencopies had been sold, and concluding with a polite request for thebalance.

  Scythrop did not despair. 'Seven copies,' he thought, 'have been sold.Seven is a mystical number, and the omen is good. Let me find theseven purchasers of my seven copies, and they shall be the sevengolden candle-sticks with which I will illuminate the world.'

  Scythrop had a certain portion of mechanical genius, which hisromantic projects tended to develope. He constructed models of cellsand recesses, sliding panels and secret passages, that would havebaffled the skill of the Parisian police. He took the opportunity ofhis father's absence to smuggle a dumb carpenter into the Abbey, andbetween them they gave reality to one of these models in Scythrop'stower. Scythrop foresaw that a great leader of human regenerationwould be involved in fearful dilemmas, and determined, for the benefitof mankind in general, to adopt all possible precautions for thepreservation of himself.

  The servants, even the women, had been tutored into silence. Profoundstillness reigned throughout and around the Abbey, except when theoccasional shutting of a door would peal in long reverberationsthrough the galleries, or the heavy tread of the pensive butler wouldwake the hollow echoes of the hall. Scythrop stalked about like thegrand inquisitor, and the servants flitted past him like familiars. Inhis evening meditations on the terrace, under the ivy of the ruinedtower, the only sounds that came to his ear were the rustling of thewind in the ivy, the plaintive voices of the feathered choristers, theowls, the occasional striking of the Abbey clock, and the monotonousdash of the sea on its low and level shore. In the mean time, he drankMadeira, and laid deep schemes for a thorough repair of the crazyfabric of human nature.

  * * * * *