Catochus.

T was a breathless night in June. My windows were all open, and yet the flame of my candle scarcely flickered. I had become deeply interested in the pages of a new book, and was heedless of the lapse of time, or the circumstances around me, until suddenly a moth fluttered into the flame, and the crackling of its filmy wings attracted my attention. Upon glancing at my watch which lay beside me on the table, I found to my surprise that it was already after midnight. I determined thereupon to read no more, and shutting my book, walked across the room to draw the curtain, intending immediately to go to bed, but the moonlight shone so pleasantly in at the window, that I was forced to sit down and lean upon the sill, and gaze out upon the scene. There were a few thin whitish clouds hanging around the horizon, like the distant wings of an enormous spirit, but otherwise, the sky was perfectly cloudless. Above, the moon was shining peacefully, and below, the world of green lay dreaming in its misty shroud, half obscured, save where the curving river glancing in the moonlight, shone like a burnished belt of steel. There is a strange fascination in sitting in the moonlight,—and for almost an hour I sat leaning out into the air. All was quiet save the monotonous musical gurgle of frogs in the pond, and at intervals the rustling of green leaves as a tremulous breath of wind swelled gently and then died away, or the prolonged bark of some far-off dog. I had fallen into a vague reverie, when I heard the bell strike the hour of one. I arose and went to bed. But no sooner had I left the window than I felt a sharp pain shoot through my head, which after recurring at intervals through the next half hour, finally settled into a raging headache. My brain throbbed violently and seemed loose in my head, so that every motion added to the pain. It was as if an iron hand compressed my temples within its griping fingers. I lay thus tossing restless and sleepless for several hours, and finally fell asleep.

I dreamed that I was lying beside a waterfall, half asleep. The water rushed hissing down beside me as if an ocean were loosened, and hurried, boiling fiercely, down a rocky declivity. The air was drizzled with spray, which fell over me like hot sparks, and the trees above me, seen through it, seemed at times human skeletons, which bent their long bony arms down to my face, and then slowly rising, uplifted themselves into the air and became natural trees again. A thousand circles intertangling and interlacing, dilated and contracted incessantly, then slowly the motion decreased, and they kept creeping around more and more gently, until they swam into a broad sea of smooth glassy water, and fading out of my sight, left the air above me calm and clear. Soon a small eye seemed placidly looking at me that grew larger and larger, until it filled the wide ring of the horizon;

then it changed into a face which looked close into my eyes; gradually the features became distorted into a hideous mask, and grinned, and then a thousand similar faces crowded one upon another, until the air seemed full of them: they were huddled together and tossed about without body like the waves of the ocean. Now I suddenly seemed to be crawling on my hands and knees over slimy and slippery rocks, which were covered with damp green seaweed. As I groped along, the seaweed began to change into snakes, until the rocks seemed alive with the nauseous crawling reptiles that rubbed their slimy sides against my limbs and cheeks, and cast over me a dreadful chill of horror;-all my flesh seemed to creep, and the very scalp to move on my skull. In the midst of my horror and torment, I heard the wild ringing of a bell. I suddenly and convulsively opened my eyes and heard the breakfast bell ringing. For a moment I experienced the most grateful relief from the torment of this nightmare, which has more than once thus affected me-and no one can tell the glad gush of feeling which came over me, when I found all this horrible scene was but a dream. I lay thus for a moment, thinking of the change, and then resolved to spring from the bed and dress myself immediately: but what was my surprise and horror, when I found I could not more. My body and limbs seemed as rigid as marble and of an intolerable weight. I could neither tur my head, nor stir and nor foot. My eyeballs were fixed on spot upon the white wall above my head, and I could neither turn them or draw down the lid. I vain I strove to move,--I was perfectly stiff and torpid, and without the power of motion. There seemed to be some appalling disconnection between the will and the muscular system-between the mind and the body, as if my living soul was chained Mezentius like to a dead body. There was no pain,-only a fearful sensation, as if the whole air had congealed into a firm transparent amber, which held me strictly imprisoned.

Suddenly, like the swift track of a falling star, the thought shot across my mind that I was dead. Yes, that could be the only solution of this dreadful enigma-I was sure that I was dead, but O God! was this death? Had we been always mistaken, and did the soul re..ain thus to haunt the body, without the ability to cast it off?-Was death only a suspension of power over this fibrous mass, and these finely organized senses, and nicely adjusted muscles? Only the breaking of one link in the subtle chain, that connected all the faculties and powers with their instruments? Perhaps the soul was never freed until the body had rotted off, little by little, into a mass of corruption, and exhaled or fallen to dry dust; and I was destined to inhabit this living house, and feel it slough away from me and perish, ere I could emerge into the light and beauty of a renewed life. This I had rever dreamed of, and all the joy and luxury of existence, all the senses of light and sunshine and fresh air, all the thousand-fold delights with which God has strewn this pictured world, were not worth such a price. Upon these lips the worm should feed, and I could not drive him away: these eyes, through which the soul had looked upon a mild, glorious world, as through clear glasses, would change until they were lothsome and corrupted. Oh God! the agony of such a thought. Nothing I had ever imagined equalled it in terror! And when I recalled the dead faces of those whom I had loved and buried, and remembered the benign and placid smile which shone upon them, like the last foot-prints of the freed and rejoicing

spirit as it fled heavenward, and which seemed to betoken the recognition by the soul of a diviner sense, as it was leaving its clay tenement-and thought that perchance, even at the very moment while I was bending over them to take a last farewell look, with this feeling in my heart, they were enduring the same fierce burning torments-the same feelings of horror and despair that now gnawed me like a burning worm: it seemed to me as if all the joys I had ever known on earth would not counterbalance so dreadful a doubt.

I heard my name called from below-I made another effort, but my tongue was torpid and dull as lead. Still I could not resign myself to the thought that I was dead. Iinwardly declared that I would move-I strove with almost superhuman exertions, but in vain;-I could not take my eyes from that spot on the wall, which had become accursed because I must see it. Sideways through my eyes I felt the pleasant sunshine growing into the room; and over my head the busy flies hummed and buzzed incessantly, and crept now and then across my face.

How long and tedious seemed the moments; they were years to my excited mind and no one came. An age of torment seemed to have passed when I heard a light tap on my door-I could not answer it. Again I heard a louder knock; I knew it was my sister, she spoke and called me by name. The door opened and she came forward cautiously and again spoke, as she approached the bed. She looked a moment at me and then touched me-I did not speak, but lay motionless with my eyes strained at that infernal spot. She paused a moment, and then uttering a piercing scream, ran to the door and called for my mother. Instantly the horror of the cry brought the family to my bedside. They lifted my hand, and it fell again upon the coverd. They felt of my heart-there was uot a flutter of a pulse, for all that it seemed to me as if hell itself could not be worse than the torment that I was enduring. I heard quick, convulsive sobs, and felt a soft hand smooth my hair from my forehead. Some one said, "He must have died in a fit; and yet how calm his face is." "Yes," was the answer, "he probably suffered no pain and died almost immediately-perhaps in his sleep." Then the voices grew more distant and murmuring, and some one left the room. Soon the door opened and the face of the family physician intercepted the damned spot for a moment. Now, thought I, he will know that I am not dead, and will relieve me from this situation. He felt of my head and pulse for a moment, and then I heard him say, in answer to the anxious inquiries,-"Yes, madam, I am sorry to say he is entirely gone. My art can avail him nothing." The voices then became lower, and I listened in vain.

It was a long, dark pause-then the shutters were closed, and persons trod lightly across the floor, and spoke to each other in an under tone, as if the place were sacred. That silent awe which pervades the chamber of death, and hushes the voices as if the senseless clay could hear, had passed over their spirits like a breath-stain upon glass. I heard the low confused murmur of voices drone through the dark chamber. Now and then the door opened, and some one bent over me and gazed at me, while face. Then the room was emptied of all perscalding tears fell upon my sons, and I was left alone in the darkness and stilluess. I listened for voices, for any thing was better than this dreary silence-but in vain : a spell was on the house: its sounds of laughter, its rapid footsteps, its bus

tle and noise were gone: every step was careful and slow, and every voice a whisper, So went on hour after hour and I still lay helpless, and longing for the moment when I should be able to move and loosen myself from the close, deathly grasp which almost pressed the life out of my body. As I lay thus, I suddenly heard a bird's gush of song from the tree beneath my window; how joyously it warbled unconcious of the agony so near it and how my heart sickened within me as I heard it.

Soon persons came and wrapped me up in white linen, and swathed my limbs and made the horrible funeral arrangements. Some one said, "How ghastly his eyes look," and then gently pressed down the lids over the balls of my eyes. Never till that moment did I dream that that accursed spot, on which my gaze had been rivetted for so many hours, could become dear to me. The thought that we are viewing any object, however mean, for the last time, always raises it in importance, and gives it a factitious charm; and now this spot to me was the straw to a drowning man, the silver line of sunlight in a prisoner's dungeon,-the last link with this visible earth. I strove in vain to keep open the lids-slowly they yielded to the pressure of the fingers, and gradually the range of vision became more and more confined, until all was shut utterly out. Never before had the fear of being buried alive suggested itself, but now it came over me like a gulphing wave. I thought that I should be laid down alive in the charnel house among decaying corpses, and stifled from the clear breath of heaven famish, if indeed I were not dead then. All the frightful stories of such occurrences that I had ever read came to my mind, and the hope of ultimate recovery grew feebler and feebler.

The night came, and how dreary and unending it seemed. one after another I heard the hours struck by the clock, until at last, from pure exhaustion, I lost my sensation. It must have been late morning when I returned to conciousness. I felt hands upon me-they were lifting me into my coffin! I heard them screw in screw after screw until the lid was fastened, and only the narrow space over the face remained open. I felt the sides of the coffin jar and rub against my arms, and I despaired that I should ever recover my power of motion.

The coffin was lifted and placed upon a table. Some one asked when I was to be buried?"This afternoon," was the answer,-"he has been now dead two days." I had then been unconcious for the length of a whole day. Now the time instead of dragging a weary length, seemed to fly with lightning like rapidity. The past seemed endless long-the future was foreshortened to a breath, a moment. The clock ticked faster and faster, and time seemed to pour itself away in rapid moments, as a rising thunder cloud empties its fierce heavy drops more and more rapidly.

It was afternoon-the company gathered-the shutter creaked beside me, and the window was opened. I felt the warm breath of the spring air steal over my face like a delicious odor. I heard the birds singing among the branches, and the gentle rustling of the swaying trees, as the wind stirred among the leaves. I thought of all the gladsome earth-of the blue sky-of the rippling brooks, half sunlight, half shadow-of the pearly evening clouds, whose hues shift like the colors on the dove's neck-of the stars, of the moon, of the swelling and heaving ocean, and clung to the memory of them with a mute despair, loving them the more the nearer I came to losing them.