ectacle. Westray remembered
that the hallucination of pursuant enemies is one of the most common
symptoms of incipient madness, and put his hand gently on the organist's
arm.

"Don't excite yourself," he said; "this is all nonsense. Don't get
excited so late at night."

Mr Sharnall brushed the hand aside.

"I only used to have that feeling when I was out of doors, but now I
have it often indoors--even in this very room. Before I never knew what
it was following me--I only knew it was something. But now I know what
it is: it is a man--a man with a hammer. Don't laugh. You don't _want_
to laugh; you only laugh because you think it will quiet me, but it
won't. I think it is a man with a hammer. I have never seen his face
yet, but I shall some day. Only I know it is an evil face--not hideous,
like pictures of devils or anything of that kind, but worse--a dreadful,
disguised face, looking all right, but wearing a mask. He walks
constantly behind me, and I feel every moment that the hammer may brain
me."

"Come, come!" Westray said in what is commonly supposed to be a
soothing tone, "let us change this subject, or go to bed. I wonder how
you will find the new position of your piano answer."

The organist smiled.

"Do you know why I really put it like that?" he said. "It is because I
am such a coward. I like to have my back against the wall, and then I
know there can be no one behind me. There are many nights, when it gets
late, that it is only with a great effort I can sit here. I grow so
nervous that I should go to bed at once, only I say to myself, `Nick'--
that's what they used to call me at home, you know, when I was a
boy--`Nick, you're not going to be beat; you're not going to be scared
out of your own room by ghosts, surely.' And then I sit tight, and play
on, but very often don't think much of what I'm playing. It is a sad
state for a man to get into, is it not?" And Westray could not traverse
the statement.

"Even in the church," Mr Sharnall went on, "I don't care to practise
much in the evening by myself. It used to be all right when Cutlow was
there to blow for me. He is a daft fellow, but still was some sort of
company; but now the water-engine is put in, I feel lonely there, and
don't care to go as often as I used. Something made me tell Lord
Blandamer how his water-engine contrived to make me frightened, and he
said he should have to come up to the loft himself sometimes to keep me