---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 2
number: 6
published: 1899-04
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "A Mysterious Visitor," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 6 (April 1899): 409–417.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera26unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera26unse
start_page: 409
end_page: 417
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-04)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera26unse
  publication_year: 1899
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1899, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# A Mysterious Visitor

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A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR;

                     A TALE FOR THE TWILIGHT.

    As far as I am myself concerned with the following facts, I
am fully prepared to vouch for their authenticity; but the reliance'''
to be placed on the other parts of the recital must be at the option
of the reader, or his conviction of their apparent truth.              I   am
neither over credulous nor sceptic in matters of a superhuman
nature;    I would neither implicitly confide in unsupported assertions,

nor dissent from well attested truths; but at the same time I must
confess, that although rather inclined to be a non-believer in the
supernatural, I have sometimes listened to details of supernatural
occurrences so borne out by concurring testimony as almost to fix
my wavering faith.        It is now nearly thirty    years since   I   was a
partial witness to the following circumstance, at my father's house
in Edinburgh    ;   and though, during that period, time and foreign
climates may have thinned my locks and furrowed my brow a little,
they have never effaced one item of its details from         my memory,
nor warped the vivid impression which it left upon my recollection.
     It was in the winter of 18    —
                                   the occurrence took place. I
remember the time distinctly, by the circumstance of my father
being absent with his regiment, which had been ordered to Ireland
to reinforce the troops then     engaged     in   quelling the insurgents,
who had risen in rebellion in the summer of that year. There was
an old retainer of our house, who used at that time to be very
frequently about us; she had nursed my younger brother and myself,   and the family felt for her   all   the attachment due to an old

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410                       IMPROVEMENT ERA

and faithful inmate. I remember distinctly her appearance; her
neatly plaited cap and scarlet ribbon, her white fringed apron and
purple quilted petticoat, are all as fresh in my memory as yesterday, and though nearly sixty at the period I speak of, she retained
all   the activity and good humor of sixteen.    Her strength was but
little impaired,   and as she was but slightly affected by fatigue or
watching, she was in the habit of engaging herself as a nursetender in numerous respectable families,        who were    equally prepossessed in her favor.
       The winter was drawing near a close, and we were beginning
to be anxious for the return of my father, who was expected home
about this time; when old Nurse, as we always called her, came to
tell us of an engagement she had got to attend a young gentleman,

who was lying dangerously ill in one of the streets of the Old Town;
for at that time few of the fine palaces of the New Town had been
even thought of, and many a splendid street now covers what was
then green    fields   and waving meadows.      She mentioned that a
physician, who had always been very kind to her, had recommended
her to this duty; but as the patient was in a most critical state, the
manner of her attendance was to be very particular. She was to
go every evening at eight o'clock, to relieve another who remained
during the day, and to be extremely cautious not to speak to the
young man, unless it was urgently necessary, nor make any motion
which might in the slightest degree disturb the few intervals of
rest which he was enabled to enjoy: but she knew neither the name
nor the residence of the person she was to wait on.        There seemed
to be something past the common in all this, and      I   remember perfectly well my mother desiring her to call soon, and let her know
how she was coming on, and any further matter she might be able
to learn, but nearly six weeks had elapsed, and we had never once
seen or heard of her, when my mother at last resolved on sending
to learn whether she was sick, and to say she      was longing to see
her again.
    The servant on his return, informed us that poor Nurse had
been dangerously ill, and confined to her bed almost ever since she
had been from us; but she was now some little better, and had proposed coming to see us the following day.        She came accordingly;

<!-- page:411 -->

A MYSTERIOUS         VISITOR.                    411

but oh, so altered in so short a time, no one would have believed it!
She was almost double, and could not walk without support; her
flesh and cheeks were all shrunk away,
                                     and her dim lustreless eyes
almost lost in their sockets.We were all startled at seeing her:

it seemed that those six weeks had produced greater changes in

her than years of disease in others; but our surprise at the effect
was nothing, when compared to that which her recital of the
cause excited; when she informed us of it, and as we had never
known her to tell a falsehood, we could not avoid placing implicit
confidence in her words.
     She told us that in the evening, according to appointment, the
physician had conducted her to the residence of her charge, in one
of the narrow streets near the abbey.     It was one of those     extensive old houses, which seem built for eternity rather than time, and
in the constructing of which the founder had consulted convenience
and comfort more than show or situation.      A flight of high stone
steps brought them to the door, and a dark staircase of immense
width, fenced with balustres a foot broad, and supported by railings of massy dimensions,        led to thechamber of the patient.
This was a lofty wainscoated room, with a      window sunk a yard
deep in the wall, and looking out upon what was once a garden at
the rear, but now grown so wild that the weeds and rank grass
almost reached the level of the wall which enclosed it. At one
end stood an old-fashioned square bed, where the young gentleman
lay.  It was hung with faded Venetian tapestry, and seemed itself

as large as a moderate- sized room.   At the other end, and opposite
to the foot of the bed, was a fire-place, supported by ponderous
stone buttresses, but with no grate, and a few smoldering turf
were merely piled on the spacious hearth. There was no door,
except that by which she had entered, and no other furniture than
a few low chairs, and a table covered with medicines and draughts
beside the window.    The oak which covered the walls and formed
the panels of the ceiling, was as black as time could make it, and
the whole apartment, which was kept dark at the suggestion of the
physician, was so gloomy that the glimmering of the single candle
in the shade of the fire-place    could not penetrate   it,   and cast a
faint gleam around, not sad, but absolutely sickening.

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412                     IMPROVEMENT ERA.

     Whilst the doctor was speaking in a low tone to the invalid,
Nurse tried to find out some farther particulars from the other
attendant, who was tying on her bonnet, and preparing to muffle
herself in her plaid before going away; for, as I said before, it was
winter and bitterly cold. She could gain no information from her,
however, although she had been in the situation for a considerable
time.  She could not tell the name of the gentleman; she only
knew that he was an Oxford student; but no one save herself and
the doctor, had ever crossed the threshold to inquire after him,
nor had she ever seen any one in the rest of the house, which she
believed to be uninhabited.     The doctor and she soon went away,
after leaving a few unimportant directions.
      Nurse closed the door behind them, and shivering with the cold,
frosty gust of air from the spacious lobby, hastened to her duty,
wrapped her cloak about her, drew her seat close to the hearth,
replenished the fire, and commenced reading a volume of Mr. Alexander Penden's Prophecies, which she had brought in her pocket.
There was no sound to disturb her, except now and then a blast of
wind which shook the withered trees in the garden below, or the
"death-watch," which ticked incessantly in the wainscoat of the
room.  In this manner an hour or two elapsed, when, concluding,
from the motionless posture of the patient, that he must be asleep,
she rose, and taking the light in her hand, moved on tiptoe across
the polished oaken floor, to take a survey of his features and appearance.    She gently opened the curtains, and bringing the light to
bear upon him, started to find that he was still awake; she attempted
to apologize for her curiosity by an awkward tender of her services
but apology and offer were equally useless; he moved neither limb
nor muscle; he made not the faintest reply; he lay motionless on
his back, his bright blue eyes glaring fixedly        upon her, his underlip fallen,   and his mouth apart, his cheek a perfect hollow, and his
long, white teeth projecting fearfully from his shrunken lips, whilst
his bony hand, covered with wiry sinews, was stretched           upon the
bed-clothes, and looked     more   like   the claws of a bird than the
fingers of a human being.      She felt rather uneasy whilst looking
at him; but when a slight motion of the eyelids, which the light
was too strong for, assured her he was        still   living, which she was

<!-- page:413 -->

A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR.                       413

half inclined to doubt, she returned to her seat and her book by
the fire.
    As she was directed not to disturb him, and as his medicine
was only to be administered in the morning, she had but little to
do, and the succeeding two hours passed heavily       away; she continued, however, to lighten them by the assistance of Mr. Penden,
and by now and then crooning and gazing over the silent flickering
progress of her turf fire, till about midnight, as near as she could
guess, the gentleman began to breathe heavily and appeared very
uneasy;     as,   however, he spoke nothing, she thought perhaps he
was     asleep, and was rising to   go toward him, when she was surprised to see a lady seated on a chair near the head of the bed
beside him.   Though something startled at this, she was by no
means alarmed, and, making a courtesy, was moving on as she had
intended, when the lady raised her arm, and turning the palm of
her hand, which was covered with a white glove towards her,
motioned -her silently to keep her seatt. She accordingly sat down
as before, but she now began to wonder within herself how and
when this lady came in: it was true she had not been looking towards the door, and it might have been opened without her perceiving it; but then it was so cold a night, and so late an hour, it
was this which made it so remarkable.
        She turned quietly round, and took a second view of her visitor.    She wore a black veil over her bonnet, and, as her face was
turned towards the bed of the invalid, she could not in that gloomy
chamber perceive her features, but she saw that the shape and turn
of her head and neck were graceful and elegant in the extreme;
the rest of her person she could not so well discern, as it was
enveloped in a green silk gown, and the fashion at that period was
not so favorable to a display of figure as now.     It occurred to her

that it must be some intimate friend who had called in; but then
the woman had told her that no visitors had ever come before;
altogether, she could not well understand the matter, but she
thought she would observe whether she went        off as   gently as she
had entered; and for that purpose she altered the position of her
chair so as to command a view of the door, and fixed herself with
her book on her knees, but her eye intently set upon the lady in the

<!-- page:414 -->

414                    IMPROVEMENT ERA.

green gown.     In this position she remained for a considerable time,
but no alteration took place in the room; the stranger sat evidently
gazing on the face of the sick gentleman, whilst he heaved and
sighed and breathed in agony as if a night-mare was on him. Nurse
a second time moved towards him in order to hold him up in bed,
or give him some temporary relief; and a second time the mysterious visitant motioned her to remain quiet;   and unwillingly, but by
a kind of fascination, she complied, and again commenced her
watch. But her position was a painful one, and she sat so long
and so quietly that at last her eyes closed for a moment, and when
she opened them the lady was gone, and the young man was once
more composed, and, after taking something to relieve his breathing he fell into a gentle sleep, from which he had not awakened
when her colleague arrived in the morning to take her place, and
Nurse returned to her own house about day- break.
     The following night she was again at her duty; she came
rather beyond her time, and found her companion already muffled
and waiting impatiently to set out. She lighted her to the stairs,
and heard her close the hall door behind her; when, on returning
to the room, the wind, as she shut the door, blew out her candle.
She relighted it, however, from the dying embers, roused up the
fire, and resumed as before, her seat and her volume of propecies.

      The night was stormy, the dry crisp sleet hissed on the window,
and the wind sighed   in heavy gusts down the spacious chimney;
whilst the rattling of the shutters,   and the occasional clash of a
door in some distant part of the house, came with a dim and hollow
echo along the dreary, silent passages.    She did not feel so comfortable as the night before; the whistling of the wind through
the trees made her flesh creep involuntarily; and sometimes the
thundering clap of a distant door made her start and drop her book,
with a sudden prayer for the protection of heaven.     She was thinking within herself of giving up the engagement, and was half resolved to do so on the morrow; when all at once her ear was struck
with the heavy throes and agonized breathing of her charge, and,
on raising her head, she saw the same lady in the green gown seated
in the same position as   on the night before.     Well, thought she,
this is unusually strange; but it immediately struck her that it must

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A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR.                         415

be some inmate of the house, for what human being could venture
out in such a dreary night, and at such an hour?        —but then her
dress:   was neither such as one could wear in the streets on a
         it

wintry night, nor yet such as they would be likely to have on in
the house at that hour;   it   was, in fact, the fashionable   summer
costume of that time.     She rose and made her a courtesy and spoke
to her politely, but got no reply save the waving of her hand, by
which she had been silenced before. At length the agitation of
the invalid was so increased, that she could not reconcile it to her
duty to sit still whilst a stranger was attending him.     She accordingly drew nearer to the bed, in spite of the repeated beckonings
of the lady, who, as she advanced, drew her veil closer across her
face, and retired to the table at the window.        Nurse approached
the bed, but was terrified on beholding the countenance of her
patient: the big drops of cold sweat        were rolling down his pale
brow; his livid lips were quivering with agony; and, as he motioned
her aside, his glaring eyes followed the retreating figure in the
green gown.    She soon saw that it was in vain to attempt assisting
him; he impatiently repulsed every proffer of attention, and she
again resumed her seat, while the silent visitor returned to her
place by his bedside.     Rather piqued at being thus baffled in her
intention of kindness, but      still   putting from her the idea of a
supernatural being, the old woman again determined to watch with
attention the retreat of the lady, and observe whether she resided
in the house, or took her departure by the main door.      She almost
refrained from  winking  in order to secure a scrutiny of her motions;
but it was all in vain; she could not remember to have taken off
her glance for a moment, but still the visitant was gone. It seemed
as if she had only changed her thoughts for an instant, and not her
eyes, but that change was enough; when she again reverted to the
object of her anxiety, the mysterious lady had departed.        As on
the foregoing night, her patient now became composed, and enjoyed an uninterrupted slumber till the light of morning, now
reflected from heaps of dazzling snow, brought with it the female
who was to relieve guard   at the bed of misery.    The following
morning Nurse went to the house of the physician who had
engaged her, with the determination of giving up the task in which

<!-- page:416 -->

416                      IMPROVEMENT ERA.

she was employed.       She felt uneasy at the thought of retaining it,
as she had never been similarly situated before; she always had
some companion to speak to, or was at least employed in an inhabited house; but besides she was not by any means comfortable
in the visits of the nightly stranger.    She was disappointed, however, by not finding him at home, and was directed to return at a
certain hour; but as she lay down to rest in the meantime, she did
not awake   till   that hour was long past.    Nothing then remained
but to return for the night, and give warning of her intention on
the morrow; and with a heavy, discontented heart she repaired to
the gloomy apartment.       The physician was already there when she
arrived, and received her notice with regret; but was rather surprised when she informed him of the attentions of the strange lady,
and the manner in which she had been prevented from performing
her duty; he, however, treated it as a common-place occurrence,
and suggested that it was some affectionate relative or friend of
the patient, of whose connections he knew nothing.          At last he
took his leave, and Nurse arranged her chair and seated herself to
watch, not merely the departure but the arrival of her fair friend.
As she had not, however, appeared on the former occasions till the
night was far advanced, she did not expect her sooner, and endeavored to occupy her attention till that time by some other
means.   But it was all in vain, she could only think of the one
mysterious circumstance, fix her dim gaze on the blackened treliswork of the ceiling, and start at every trifling sound, which was
now doubly audible, as all without was hushed by the noiseless
snow in which the streets were imbedded.  Again, however, her
vigilancewas eluded, and as, wearied with thought, she raised
her   head with a long-drawn sigh and a yawn of fatigue, she
encountered, the     green garments of her unsolicited companion.
Angry with herself, and at the same time unwilling to accuse herself of remissness, she determined once again that she should not
escape unnoticed.  There hung a feeling of awe around her whenever she approached this singular being, and when, as before, the
lady retired to another quarter of the room as she approached the
bed, she had not courage to follow her.
                                      Again the same distressing
scene of sufliering in her unfortunate charge ensued; he gasped

<!-- page:417 -->

A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR.                          417

and heaved till the noise of his agony made her heart sicken within
her; when she drew near his bed his corpse-like features were convulsed with a feeling which seemed to twist their relaxed nerves
into the most fearful expression, while his ghastly eyes were straining from their sunken sockets. She spoke, but he answered not;
she touched him, but he was cold with terror, and unconscious of
any object save the one mysterious being whom his glance followed
with steady, fixed intensity.   I have often heard my mother say

that Nurse was naturally a woman of very strong feelings, but
here she was totally beside herself with anxiety.       She thought
that the young gentleman was just expiring, and was preparing to
leave the room in search of further assistance, when she saw the
lady again move toward the bed of the dying man; she bent above
him for a moment, whilst his writhings were indescribable; she
then moved stately towards the door.         Now was the moment!
Nurse advanced at the same time, laid her one hand on the latch,
whilst with the other she     attempted to raise the      veil   of   the
stranger, and in the next instant fell lifeless on the floor.    As she
glanced on the face of the lady, she saw that a lifeless head filled
the bonnet; its vacant sockets and ghastly teeth were all that could
he seen beneath the folds of the veil. Daylight was breaking the
following morning when the other attendant arrived, and found
the poor old woman cold and benumbed, stretched upon the floor
beside the passage; and when she looked upon the bed of the
invalid he lay stiffened and lifeless, as if many hours had elapsed
since his spirit had shaken off its mortal coil.      One hand was
thrown  across  his  eyes, as if to shade  them from some  object on
which he feared to look; and the other grasped the coverlet with
convulsive firmness.
     The remains of the mysterious student were interred in the
old Calton burying ground, and I remember, before the        new road
was made through it, to have often seen his grave; but I never
could learn his name, what connection the spirit had with his story,
or how he came to be in that melancholy, deserted situation in
Edinburgh. I have mentioned at the commencement of this narration that I will vouch for its truth as far as regards myself, and
that is merely that I heard the poor old woman herself     tell all the

extraordinary circumstances as I have recited them, and a very