SCHALKEN THE PAINTER.—A GHOST STORY.

We take the following from a volume of of ghost stories, with illustrations by Phiz, which has lately been published in London. One Minheer Vanderhausen, through the means of a certain persuasive eloquence, backed by money, becomes the husband of Rose, the niece of Gerard Douw, and with whom Schalken, the celebrated painter's pupil, was in love. Vanderhausen and his wife set out ostensibly for Rotterdam, but receiving no communication from either for a long time, Gerard resolves upon a journey to the city. No such individual as Vanderhausen is known there, and the fate of the poor wife is told as follows:—

"One evening, the painter and his pupil were sitting by the fire, having accomplished a comfortable meal, and had yielded to the silent and delicious melancholy of digestion, when their ruminations were disturbed by a loud sound at the street door, as if occasioned by some person rushing and scrambling vehemently against it. A domestic had run without delay to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, and they heard him twice or thrice interrogate the applicant for admission, but without eliciting any other answer but a sustained reiteration of the sounds. They heard him then open the hall-door, and immediately there followed a light and rapid tread upon the staircase. Schalken advanced towards the door. It opened before he reached it, and Rose rushed into the room. She looked wild, fierce, and haggard with terror and exhaustion; but her dress surprised them as much even as her unexpected appearance. It consisted of a kind of white woollen wrapper, made close about the neck, and descending to the very ground. It was much deranged and travel soiled. The poor creature had hardly entered the chamber when she fell senseless on the floor. With some difficulty they succeeded in reviving her; and on recovering her senses she instantly exclaimed, in a tone of terror rather than mere impatience, 'Wine! wine!—quickly, or I'm lost!"

"Astonished, and almost scared, at the strange agitation in which the call was made, they at once administered to her wishes, and she drank some wine with a haste and eagerness which surprised them. She had hardly swallowed it, when she exclaimed, with the same urgency, 'Food, for God's sake; food at once, or I perish!'

"A large fragment of a roast joint was upon the table, and Schalken immediately began to cut some; but he was anticipated; for no sooner did she see it than she caught it, a more than mortal image of famine, and with her hands, and even with her teeth, she tore off the flesh, and swallowed it. When the paroxysm of hunger had been a little appeased, she was on a sudden overcome with shame; or it may have been that other more agitating thoughts overpowered and scared her, for she began to weep bitterly, and to wring her hands.

"'Oh! send for a minister of God!' said she; 'I am not safe till he comes; send for him speedily.'

"Gerard Douw dispatched a messenger instantly, and prevailed on his niece to allow him to surrender his bedchamber to her use. He also persuaded her to retire there at once to rest: her consent was extorted upon the condition that they would not leave her for a moment.

"'Oh, that the holy man were here!' she said; 'he can deliver me: the dead and the living can never be one; God has forbidden it.'

"With these mysterious words she surrendered herself to their guidance, and they proceeded to the chamber which Gerard Douw had assigned to her use.

"'Do not, do not leave me for a moment!' she said; 'I am lost for ever if you do.'

"Gerard Douw's chamber was approached through a spacious apartment, which they were now about to enter. He and Schalken each carried a candle, so that a sufficiency of light was cast upon all surrounding objects. They were now entering the large chamber, which, as I have said, communicated with Douw's apartment, when Rose suddenly stopped, and, in a whisper which thrilled them both with horror, she said, 'O God! he is here! he is here! See, see! there he goes!'

"She pointed towards the door of the inner room, and Schalken thought he saw a shadowy and ill-defined form gliding into that apartment. He drew his sword, and raising the candle so as to throw its light with increased distinctness upon the objects in the room, he entered the chamber into which the shadow had glided. No figure was there—nothing but the furniture which belonged to the room; and yet he could not be deceived as to the fact that something had moved before them into the chamber. A sickening dread came upon him, and the cold perspiration broke out in heavy drops upon his forehead; nor was he more composed when he heard the increased urgency and agony of entreaty with which Rose implored them not to leave her for a moment.

"'I saw him,' said she, 'he's here. I cannot be deceived; I know him; he's by me; he is with me; he's in the room. Then, for God's sake, as you would save me, do not stir from beside me.'

"They at length prevailed upon her to lie down upon the bed, where she continued to urge them to stay by her. She frequently uttered incoherent sentences, repeating again and again, 'The dead and the living cannot be one; God has forbidden it:' and then again, 'Rest to the wakeful—sleep to the sleep-walkers.' These and such mysterious and broken sentences she continued to utter until the clergyman arrived. Gerard Douw began to fear, naturally enough, that terror or ill-treatment had unsettled the poor girl's intellect; and he half suspected, from the suddenness of her appearance, the unseasonableness of the hour, and, above all, from the wildness and terror of her manner, that she had made her escape from some place of confinement for lunatics, and was in imminent fear of pursuit. He resolved to summon medical advice as soon as the mind of his niece had been in some measure set at rest by the offices of the clergyman whose attendance she had so earnestly desired; and until this object had been attained, he did not venture to put any questions to her which might possibly, by reviving painful or horrible recollections, increase her agitation. The clergyman soon arrived; a man of ascetic countenance and venerable age—one whom Gerard Douw respected much, forasmuch as he was a veteran polemic, though one perhaps more dreaded as a combatant, than beloved as a Christian—of pure morality, subtile brain, and frozen heart. He entered the chamber which communicated with that in which Rose reclined; and immediately on his arrival she requested him to pray for her, as for one who lay in the hands of Satan, and who could hope for deliverance only from heaven.

"That you may distinctly understand all the circumstances of the event which I am going to describe, it is necessary to state the relative position of the parties who were engaged in it. The old clergyman and Schalken were in the anteroom of which I have already spoken; Rose lay in the inner chamber, the door of which was open; and by the side of the bed, at her urgent desire, stood her guardian; a candle burned in the bedchamber, and three were lighted in the outer apartment. The old man now cleared his voice, as if about to commence; but before he had time to begin, a sudden gust of air blew out the candle which served to illuminate the room in which the poor girl lay, and she with hurried alarm exclaimed, 'Godfrey, bring in another candle; the darkness is unsafe.'

"Gerard Douw, forgetting for the moment her repeated injunctions, in the immediate impulse, stepped from the bedchamber into the other, in order to supply what she desired.

"'O God! do not go dear uncle,' shrieked the unhappy girl; and at the same time she sprang from the bed and darted after him, in order by her grasp to detain him. But the warning came too late; for scarcely had he passed the threshold, and hardly had his niece had time to utter the startling exclamation, when the door which divided the two rooms closed violently after him, as if swung to by a strong blast of wind. Schalken and he both rushed to the door, but their united and desperate efforts could not avail so much as to shake it. Shriek after shriek burst from the inner chamber, with all the piercing loudness of despairing terror. Schalken and Douw strained every nerve to force open the door; but all in vain. There was no sound of struggling from within, but the screams seemed to increase in loudness, and at the same time they heard the bolts of the latticed window withdrawn, and the window itself grated upon the sill as if thrown open. One last shriek, so long, and piercing, and agonized, as to be scarcely human, swelled from the room, and suddenly there followed a death-like silence. A light step was heard crossing the floor, as if from the bed to the window, and almost at the same instant the door gave way, and yielding to the pressure of the external applicants, they were nearly precipitated into the room. It was empty. The window was open, and Schalken sprang to a chair, and gazed out upon the street and canal below. There was no one there; but he saw, or thought he saw, the waters of the broad canal beneath settling ring after ring, in heavy circles, as if a moment before disturbed by the submersion of some ponderous body."