The night was now very dark. Above, the major and the boy talked of sweet, heavenly things. Down below, the youth lay snoring, where, had his father been at home, he would not have dared show himself. The mother was in her own room, and Hester in the drawing room—where, in the oppression of the times, she never now played her piano. The house was quiet except for the noise of the wind and the rain, and those Cornelius did not hear.

Suddenly he started awake and sat up in terror. A hand was on his shoulder, gripping him like a metal instrument, not a thing of flesh and blood. The face of his father was staring at him through the lingering vapours of his stuporous sleep.

Mr. Raymount had started out in the morning with a certain foolish pleasure in the prospect of getting wet through and through and being generally ill-used by the atrocious weather, as he called it. Thinking to shorten the way, he took a certain shortcut he knew, but found the road very bad. The mud drew off one of his horse’s shoes, but he did not discover it for a long way—not until he came to a piece of newly mended road where the poor animal fell suddenly lame. He dismounted and made for an inn a mile or two farther on, where he stayed and had some refreshment while his horse was being attended to by a local smithy. By the time he was again mounted, the weather was worse than ever and it was so late that he could not have hoped to reach the town in time to do his business. He, therefore, gave up his intended journey, and turning aside to see a friend in the neighbourhood, resolved to go home again that same night.

His feelings when he saw his son asleep in his chair, were not like those of the father in that one story of all the world. He had been giving place to the devil for so long, that the devil was now able to do with him as he would—for a season at least. Nor would the possessed ever have been able to recognize the presence of the devil, had he not a minute or two of his full will with them? Or is it that the miserable possessed goes farther than the devil means him to go? I doubt if he cares that we should murder—I fancy he is satisfied if only we hate well. Murder tends a little to repentance, and he does not want that. Anyhow, we cherish the devil like a spoiled child, till he gets too bad and we find him unendurable. Departing then, he takes a piece of the house with him, and the tenant is not so likely to mistake him when he comes again.

He was annoyed, even angry, to see this unpleasant son of his asleep in his chair!

“The sneak!” he said! “he dares not show his face when I’m at home, but the minute he thinks me safe, gets into my room and lies in my chair! Drunk, too, by Jove!” he added, as a fume from the sleeper’s breath reached the nostrils beginning to dilate with wrath. “What can that wife of mine be about, letting the rascal go on like this! She is faultless except in giving me such a son—and then helping him to fool me!”