The New Hampshire Gazette And Republican Union

THE MIDNIGHT WATCH.

It was during that part of my life while I was walking the hospitals, that an incident occurred to me of such surpassing and breathless interest that it will be as vivid on the last day of my existence as it was an hour after its passing.

There was, in the class to which I belonged, a young man, a native of Devonshire, whose parents had with great difficulty scraped together a sufficient sum to enable him to follow the course of study necessary to fit him for passing his examination.

When he first came to the hospital, he appeared in a most extraordinary costume ever beheld in the streets of London, and he would most certainly have led a wretched life amongst us, if it had not been that his gigantic size and muscular proportions extorted from us a considerable degree of wholesome respect, quite edifying to behold. His coat and other gear might have been the work of a Cherokee tailor, aided by the superintending taste of some old back woodsman, who remembered rather indistinctly the cut and proportions of habiliments he had not looked upon for upwards of half a century; it would have been ridiculous if it had not encased one of the finest models of a manly frame that ever trod the earth. With close curling black hair, fine open features and the port and lithe motion of a lion, he was a figure to look upon in any disguise with warm admiration. He placed himself in the hands of a tailor, and the metamorphosis that took place was wonderful-in a month he was the best dressed man in the class to which he belonged.

But he never forgot the straitened circumstances of his parents nor the sacrifices they must have made to give him the education he had received and though I have said he was the best dressed man, I do not mean reader. to infer that consequently, he was the most extravagant.

We were reading hard for our examination when Grevling suddenly lost his reason. He had not been otherwise ill, and had apparently, in the midst of high health, gone mad at a moment's warning The physicians scarcely knew how to treat him. The confinement to which he was at first subjected, however, was thought inexpedient. and he seemed to justify their lenity by the gentlest behavior when at liberty. He seemed oppressed by a heart breaking melancholy.

We all of us were aware of the slender pecuniary resources upon which he had to depend; and fearful of offending his sense of delicacy by offering to pay for a person to sit up and watch over him amongst the members of the class, and which would have been but lightly felt, we resolved to take our turns in guarding and watching with him, and it was upon my first night of duty that the incident occurred to which I have referred above.

It had been snowing the whole of the day, but the sun had set with a red rift in the clouds, and the face of the sky was swept in an hour to the clearness of the blue in a maiden's eye. The heaven was one mass of gloriously brilliant stars, and the moon looked like a gorgeous lamp in a setting of the deepest azure.

I took my books, and with hot punch, a cold chicken, and a fire, I looked forward to it as merely a studious night, and as the wintry wind of January rattled in at the old windows, I thrust my feet into slippers. drew my dressing gown about me and congratulated myself upon the excessive comfortableness of my position. Grevling slept soundly, and I, becoming wearied of my studies, looked around the apartment for some book to vary my reading. The Book of Martyrs,' was the volume I pitched upon, and I was soon lost in its soul thrilling narratives. I read on and on.

The college clock struck, it seemed to me, the quarters rather than the hours. Time flew-it was three. Horrible I most horrible! I started from the exclamation, and felt as if my scalp was lifted. from my head. It was a description in the harrowing faithfulness of the olden time, painting almost the articulate groans of the impaled Christian.

I clasped the old iron bound Book and rushed to the window as if my heart was stifling for fresh air. Again at the fire--and I sat gazing at it totally unable to shake off' the fearful incubus that oppressed me. The martyr was there on the very hearth, with the stakes scornfully gushed on his body; and as the large coals cracked asunder, and revealed the brightness within, I seemed to follow the nerve-rending instrument, and suffered him pang for pang, as if the burning redness were the pools of his fevered blood.

Aha!' It struck upon my ear like the cry of some exulting fiend. Aha!' I sunk into the chair as the awful cry was repeated, and looked fearfully over my shoulder. There was rustling in the bed. and then I found the wild eyes of my patient fixed steadfastly upon me. He observed my glance, and springing over the bed turned the key. and dashed it furiously through the window.

Why have you left your bed ?' I asked in tone of forced mildness.

To kill you!' In another moment the light stand was swept from between us. and he struck me down with a blow that would have felled a giant.

His knee was instantly upon my breast, and his fingers grasped my throat. In the agonies of suffocation, I struck out my arm and almost tried it in the fire upon the hearth. With an expiring thought I grasped a handful of the red hot coals, and pressed them against his side and for a moment he recoiled.

I darted to the window. and to my unutterable joy, I saw the figure of a watchman at but a little distance. I shouted to him and Grevling leaped to his feet.

There is time yet,' said the madman ; but as he came towards me, I seized a very heavy stone pitcher standing on the window seat, and hurling it at him with a fortunate force and aim, he fell stunned and bleeding on the floor. The door was burst open at the next moment and calling for assistance we bound the madman hand and foot, dressed the wound in his head and side, and committed him to fresh watchers,

We have often spent many pleasant hours together since, but I never see Grevling with a smile off his face, without a disposition to look round for the door.