for nothin'. Sence then,
it's been jist the same as before,--not reg'lar every night, but sort o'
comes on by spells, an' then stops three or four days, an' then comes
on ag'in. Fact is, what's the use o' livin' in this way? We can't be
neighborly; we're afeard to have anybody come to see us; we've got no
peace, no comfort o' bein' together, an' no heart to work an' git ahead,
like other folks. It's jist killin' me, body an' soul."

Here the poor wretch fairly broke down, bursting suddenly into an
uncontrollable fit of weeping. I waited quietly until the violence of
his passion had subsided. A misery so strange, so completely out of the
range of human experience, so hopeless apparently, was not to be reached
by the ordinary utterances of consolation. I had seen enough to enable
me fully to understand the fearful nature of the retribution which had
been visited upon him for what was, at worst, a weakness to be pitied,
rather than a sin to be chastised. "Never was a man worse punished," he
had truly said. But I was as far as ever from comprehending the secret
of those nightly visitations. The statement of Rachel Emmons, that they
were now produced without her will, overturned--supposing it to be
true--the conjecture which I might otherwise have adopted. However, it
was now plain that the unhappy victim sobbing at my side could throw no
further light on the mystery. He had told me all he knew.

"My friend," said I, when he had become calmer, "I do not wonder at your
desperation. Such continual torment as you must have endured is enough
to drive a man to madness. It seems to me to spring from the malice of
some infernal power, rather than the righteous justice of God. Have you
never tried to resist it? Have you never called aloud, in your heart,
for Divine help, and gathered up your strength to meet and defy it, as
you would to meet a man who threatened your life?"

"Not in the right way, I'm afeard," said he. "Fact is, I always tuck it
as a judgment hangin' over me, an' never thought o' nothin' else than
jist to grin and bear it."

"Enough of that," I urged,--for a hope of relief had suggested itself to
me,--"you have suffered enough, and more than enough. Now stand up to
meet it like a man. When the noises come again, think of what you have
endured, and let it make you indignant and determined. Decide in your
heart that you _will_ be free from it, and perhaps you may be so. If
not, build another shanty and sleep away f