The Castle of Otranto
“Oh! worse! worse! my Lord,” cried Diego: “I had rather have seen ten
whole ghosts.”
“Grant me patience!” said Manfred; “these blockheads distract me. Out of
my sight, Diego! and thou, Jaquez, tell me in one word, art thou sober?
art thou raving? thou wast wont to have some sense: has the other sot
frightened himself and thee too? Speak; what is it he fancies he has
seen?”
“Why, my Lord,” replied Jaquez, trembling, “I was going to tell your
Highness, that since the calamitous misfortune of my young Lord, God rest
his precious soul! not one of us your Highness’s faithful servants—indeed
we are, my Lord, though poor men—I say, not one of us has dared to set a
foot about the castle, but two together: so Diego and I, thinking that my
young Lady might be in the great gallery, went up there to look for her,
and tell her your Highness wanted something to impart to her.”
“O blundering fools!” cried Manfred; “and in the meantime, she has made
her escape, because you were afraid of goblins!—Why, thou knave! she left
me in the gallery; I came from thence myself.”
“For all that, she may be there still for aught I know,” said Jaquez;
“but the devil shall have me before I seek her there again—poor Diego! I
do not believe he will ever recover it.”
“Recover what?” said Manfred; “am I never to learn what it is has
terrified these rascals?—but I lose my time; follow me, slave; I will see
if she is in the gallery.”
“For Heaven’s sake, my dear, good Lord,” cried Jaquez, “do not go to the
gallery. Satan himself I believe is in the chamber next to the gallery.”
Manfred, who hitherto had treated the terror of his servants as an idle
panic, was struck at this new circumstance. He recollected the
apparition of the portrait, and the sudden closing of the door at the end
of the gallery. His voice faltered, and he asked with disorder—
“What is in the great chamber?”
“My Lord,” said Jaquez, “when Diego and I came into the gallery, he went
first, for he said he had more courage than I. So when we came into the
gallery we found nobody. We looked under every bench and stool; and
still we found nobody.”
“Were all the pictures in their places?” said Manfred.
“Yes, my Lord,” answered Jaquez; “but we did not think of looking behind
them.”
“Well, well!” said Manfred; “proceed.”
“When we came to the door of the great chamber,” continued Jaquez, “we
found it shut.”
“And could not you open it?” said Manfred.
“Oh! yes, my Lord; would to Heaven we had not!” replied he—“nay, it was
not I neither; it was Diego: he was grown foolhardy, and would go on,
though I advised him not—if ever I open a door that is shut again—”
“Trifle not,” said Manfred, shuddering, “but tell me what you saw in the
great chamber on opening the door.”
“I, my Lord!” said Jaquez; “I was behind Diego; but I heard the noise.”
“Jaquez,” said Manfred, in a solemn tone of voice; “tell me, I adjure
thee by the souls of my ancestors, what was it thou sawest? what was it
thou heardest?”
“It was Diego saw it, my Lord, it was not I,” replied Jaquez; “I only
heard the noise. Diego had no sooner opened the door, than he cried out,
and ran back. I ran back too, and said, ‘Is it the ghost?’ ‘The ghost!
no, no,’ said Diego, and his hair stood on end—‘it is a giant, I believe;
he is all clad in armour, for I saw his foot and part of his leg, and
they are as large as the helmet below in the court.’ As he said these
words, my Lord, we heard a violent motion and the rattling of armour, as
if the giant was rising, for Diego has told me since that he believes the
giant was lying down, for the foot and leg were stretched at length on
the floor. Before we could get to the end of the gallery, we heard the
door of the great chamber clap behind us, but we did not dare turn back
to see if the giant was following us—yet, now I think on it, we must have
heard him if he had pursued us—but for Heaven’s sake, good my Lord, send
for the chaplain, and have the castle exorcised, for, for certain, it is
enchanted.”
“Ay, pray do, my Lord,” cried all the servants at once, “or we must leave
your Highness’s service.”
“Peace, dotards!” said Manfred, “and follow me; I will know what all this
means.”
“We! my Lord!” cried they with one voice; “we would not go up to the
gallery for your Highness’s revenue.” The young peasant, who had stood
silent, now spoke.
“Will your Highness,” said he, “permit me to try this adventure? My life
is of consequence to nobody; I fear no bad angel, and have offended no
good one.”
“Your behaviour is above your seeming,” said Manfred, viewing him with
surprise and admiration—“hereafter I will reward your bravery—but now,”
continued he with a sigh, “I am so circumstanced, that I dare trust no
eyes but my own. However, I give you leave to accompany me.”
Manfred, when he first followed Isabella from the gallery, had gone
directly to the apartment of his wife, concluding the Princess had
retired thither. Hippolita, who knew his step, rose with anxious
fondness to meet her Lord, whom she had not seen since the death of their
son. She would have flown in a transport mixed of joy and grief to his
bosom, but he pushed her rudely off, and said—
“Where is Isabella?”
“Isabella! my Lord!” said the astonished Hippolita.
“Yes, Isabella,” cried Manfred imperiously; “I want Isabella.”
“My Lord,” replied Matilda, who perceived how much his behaviour had
shocked her mother, “she has not been with us since your Highness
summoned her to your apartment.”
“Tell me where she is,” said the Prince; “I do not want to know where she
has been.”
“My good Lord,” says Hippolita, “your daughter tells you the truth:
Isabella left us by your command, and has not returned since;—but, my
good Lord, compose yourself: retire to your rest: this dismal day has
disordered you. Isabella shall wait your orders in the morning.”
“What, then, you know where she is!” cried Manfred. “Tell me directly,
for I will not lose an instant—and you, woman,” speaking to his wife,
“order your chaplain to attend me forthwith.”
“Isabella,” said Hippolita calmly, “is retired, I suppose, to her
chamber: she is not accustomed to watch at this late hour. Gracious my
Lord,” continued she, “let me know what has disturbed you. Has Isabella
offended you?”
“Trouble me not with questions,” said Manfred, “but tell me where she
is.”
“Matilda shall call her,” said the Princess. “Sit down, my Lord, and
resume your wonted fortitude.”
“What, art thou jealous of Isabella?” replied he, “that you wish to be
present at our interview!”
“Good heavens! my Lord,” said Hippolita, “what is it your Highness
means?”
“Thou wilt know ere many minutes are passed,” said the cruel Prince.
“Send your chaplain to me, and wait my pleasure here.”
At these words he flung out of the room in search of Isabella, leaving
the amazed ladies thunderstruck with his words and frantic deportment,
and lost in vain conjectures on what he was meditating.
Manfred was now returning from the vault, attended by the peasant and a
few of his servants whom he had obliged to accompany him. He ascended
the staircase without stopping till he arrived at the gallery, at the
door of which he met Hippolita and her chaplain. When Diego had been
dismissed by Manfred, he had gone directly to the Princess’s apartment
with the alarm of what he had seen. That excellent Lady, who no more
than Manfred doubted of the reality of the vision, yet affected to treat
it as a delirium of the servant. Willing, however, to save her Lord from
any additional shock, and prepared by a series of griefs not to tremble
at any accession to it, she determined to make herself the first
sacrifice, if fate had marked the present hour for their destruction.
Dismissing the reluctant Matilda to her rest, who in vain sued for leave
to accompany her mother, and attended only by her chaplain, Hippolita had
visited the gallery and great chamber; and now with more serenity of soul
than she had felt for many hours, she met her Lord, and assured him that
the vision of the gigantic leg and foot was all a fable; and no doubt an
impression made by fear, and the dark and dismal hour of the night, on
the minds of his servants. She and the chaplain had examined the
chamber, and found everything in the usual order.
Manfred, though persuaded, like his wife, that the vision had been no
work of fancy, recovered a little from the tempest of mind into which so
many strange events had thrown him. Ashamed, too, of his inhuman
treatment of a Princess who returned every injury with new marks of
tenderness and duty, he felt returning love forcing itself into his eyes;
but not less ashamed of feeling remorse towards one against whom he was
inwardly meditating a yet more bitter outrage, he curbed the yearnings of
his heart, and did not dare to lean even towards pity. The next
transition of his soul was to exquisite villainy.
Presuming on the unshaken submission of Hippolita, he flattered himself
that she would not only acquiesce with patience to a divorce, but would
obey, if it was his pleasure, in endeavouring to persuade Isabella to
give him her hand—but ere he could indulge his horrid hope, he reflected
that Isabella was not to be found. Coming to himself, he gave orders
that every avenue to the castle should be strictly guarded, and charged
his domestics on pain of their lives to suffer nobody to pass out. The
young peasant, to whom he spoke favourably, he ordered to remain in a
small chamber on the stairs, in which there was a pallet-bed, and the key
of which he took away himself, telling the youth he would talk with him
in the morning. Then dismissing his attendants, and bestowing a sullen
kind of half-nod on Hippolita, he retired to his own chamber.
CHAPTER II.
Matilda, who by Hippolita’s order had retired to her apartment, was
ill-disposed to take any rest. The shocking fate of her brother had
deeply affected her. She was surprised at not seeing Isabella; but the
strange words which had fallen from her father, and his obscure menace to
the Princess his wife, accompanied by the most furious behaviour, had
filled her gentle mind with terror and alarm. She waited anxiously for
the return of Bianca, a young damsel that attended her, whom she had sent
to learn what was become of Isabella. Bianca soon appeared, and informed
her mistress of what she had gathered from the servants, that Isabella
was nowhere to be found. She related the adventure of the young peasant
who had been discovered in the vault, though with many simple additions
from the incoherent accounts of the domestics; and she dwelt principally
on the gigantic leg and foot which had been seen in the gallery-chamber.
This last circumstance had terrified Bianca so much, that she was
rejoiced when Matilda told her that she would not go to rest, but would
watch till the Princess should rise.
The young Princess wearied herself in conjectures on the flight of
Isabella, and on the threats of Manfred to her mother. “But what
business could he have so urgent with the chaplain?” said Matilda, “Does
he intend to have my brother’s body interred privately in the chapel?”
“Oh, Madam!” said Bianca, “now I guess. As you are become his heiress,
he is impatient to have you married: he has always been raving for more
sons; I warrant he is now impatient for grandsons. As sure as I live,
Madam, I shall see you a bride at last.—Good madam, you won’t cast off
your faithful Bianca: you won’t put Donna Rosara over me now you are a
great Princess.”
“My poor Bianca,” said Matilda, “how fast your thoughts amble! I a great
princess! What hast thou seen in Manfred’s behaviour since my brother’s
death that bespeaks any increase of tenderness to me? No, Bianca; his