padded room. One of the attendants, Hardy, had a finger broken.
However, I set it all right, and he is going on well.
"The two carriers were at first loud in their threats of actions
for damages, and promised to rain all the penalties of the law on
us. Their threats were, however, mingled with some sort of indirect
apology for the defeat of the two of them by a feeble madman. They
said that if it had not been for the way their strength had been
spent in carrying and raising the heavy boxes to the cart they
would have made short work of him. They gave as another reason for
their defeat the extraordinary state of drouth to which they had
been reduced by the dusty nature of their occupation and the
reprehensible distance from the scene of their labors of any place
of public entertainment. I quite understood their drift, and after
a stiff glass of strong grog, or rather more of the same, and with
each a sovereign in hand, they made light of the attack, and swore
that they would encounter a worse madman any day for the pleasure
of meeting so `bloomin' good a bloke' as your correspondent. I took
their names and addresses, in case they might be needed. They are
as follows: Jack Smollet, of Dudding's Rents, King George's Road,
Great Walworth, and Thomas Snelling, Peter Farley's Row, Guide
Court, Bethnal Green. They are both in the employment of Harris
& Sons, Moving and Shipment Company, Orange Master's Yard,
Soho.
"I shall report to you any matter of interest occurring here,
and shall wire you at once if there is anything of importance.
"Believe me, dear Sir,
"Yours faithfully,
"Patrick Hennessey."
LETTER, MINA HARKER TO LUCY WESTENRA (Unopened by her)
18 September
"My dearest Lucy,
"Such a sad blow has befallen us. Mr. Hawkins has died very
suddenly. Some may not think it so sad for us, but we had both come
to so love him that it really seems as though we had lost a father.
I never knew either father or mother, so that the dear old man's
death is a real blow to me. Jonathan is greatly distressed. It isdeath is a real blow to me. Jonathan is greatly distressed. It is
not only that he feels sorrow, deep sorrow, for the dear,good man
who has befriended him all his life, and now at the end has treated
him like his own son and left him a fortune which to people of our
modest bringing up is wealth beyond the dream of avarice, but
Jonathan feels it on another account. He says the amount of
responsibility which it puts upon him makes him nervous. He begins
to doubt himself. I try to cheer him up, and my belief in him helps
him to have a belief in himself. But it is here that the grave
shock that he experienced tells upon him the most. Oh, it is too
hard that a sweet, simple, noble, strong nature such as his, a
nature which enabled him by our dear, good friend's aid to rise
from clerk to master in a few years, should be so injured that the
very essence of its strength is gone. Forgive me, dear, if I worry
you with my troubles in the midst of your own happiness, but Lucy
dear, I must tell someone, for the strain of keeping up a brave and
cheerful appearance to Jonathan tries me, and I have no one here
that I can confide in. I dread coming up to London, as we must do
that day after tomorrow, for poor Mr. Hawkins left in his will that
he was to be buried in the grave with his father. As there are no
relations at all, Jonathan will have to be chief mourner. I shall
try to run over to see you, dearest, if only for a few minutes.
Forgive me for troubling you. With all blessings,
"Your loving
Mina Harker" DR. SEWARD' DIARY
20 September.—Only resolution and habit can let me make an entry
tonight. I am too miserable, too low spirited, too sick of the
world and all in it, including life itself, that I would not care
if I heard this moment the flapping of the wings of the angel of
death. And he has been flapping those grim wings to some purpose of
late, Lucy's mother and Arthur's father, and now … Let me get
on with my work.
I duly relieved Van Helsing in his watch over Lucy. We wantedon with my work.
I duly relieved Van Helsing in his watch over Lucy. We wanted
Arthur to go to rest also, but he refused at first. It was only
when I told him that we should want him to help us during the day,
and that we must not all break down for want of rest, lest Lucy
should suffer, that he agreed to go.
Van Helsing was very kind to him. "Come, my child," he said.
"Come with me. You are sick and weak, and have had much sorrow and
much mental pain, as well as that tax on your strength that we know
of. You must not be alone, for to be alone is to be full of fears
and alarms. Come to the drawing room, where there is a big fire,
and there are two sofas. You shall lie on one, and I on the other,
and our sympathy will be comfort to each other, even though we do
not speak, and even if we sleep."
Arthur went off with him, casting back a longing look on Lucy's
face, which lay in her pillow, almost whiter than the lawn. She lay
quite still, and I looked around the room to see that all was as it
should be. I could see that the Professor had carried out in this
room, as in the other, his purpose of using the garlic. The whole
of the window sashes reeked with it, and round Lucy's neck, over
the silk handkerchief which Van Helsing made her keep on, was a
rough chaplet of the same odorous flowers.
Lucy was breathing somewhat stertorously, and her face was at
its worst, for the open mouth showed the pale gums. Her teeth, in
the dim, uncertain light, seemed longer and sharper than they had
been in the morning. In particular, by some trick of the light, the
canine teeth looked longer and sharper than the rest.
I sat down beside her, and presently she moved uneasily. At the
same moment there came a sort of dull flapping or buffeting at the
window. I went over to it softly, and peeped out by the corner of
the blind. There was a full moonlight, and I could see that the
noise was made by a great bat, which wheeled around, doubtless
attracted by the light, although so dim, and every now and again