But it
went the same way with him. They're a hunruly lot, them foreign nations,
I do suppose, and he was off one fine morning just the same as the girl.
Why he went and what he done was our question for as much as a year
after; for he never took his 'urdy-gurdy, and there it lays on the
shelf.'
The remainder of the evening was spent by Stephen in miscellaneous
cross-examination of Mrs Bunch and in efforts to extract a tune from the
hurdy-gurdy.
That night he had a curious dream. At the end of the passage at the top
of the house, in which his bedroom was situated, there was an old disused
bathroom. It was kept locked, but the upper half of the door was glazed,
and, since the muslin curtains which used to hang there had long been
gone, you could look in and see the lead-lined bath affixed to the wall
on the right hand, with its head towards the window.
On the night of which I am speaking, Stephen Elliott found himself, as he
thought, looking through the glazed door. The moon was shining through
the window, and he was gazing at a figure which lay in the bath.
His description of what he saw reminds me of what I once beheld myself in
the famous vaults of St Michan's Church in Dublin, which possesses the
horrid property of preserving corpses from decay for centuries.
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