Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (309 page)

And
Abel
Keeling's
cry
of
triumph,
that
mounted
to
a
victorious "Huzza!"
was
lost
in
the
downward
plunge
of
the
Mary
of
the
Tower, that
left
the
strait
empty
save
for
the
sun's
fiery
blaze
and
the
last smoke-like
evaporation
of
the
mists.

From
Fearful Pleasures,
by A. £. Coppard, reprinted by permission of
Arkham House, Publishers.

Tke
Homeless One

By A. E. COPPARD

N
ear
the northeast corner of the county of
H
untingdon
lies
a
small
town
which
once
nourished
an
asylum
for
the
care,
retention, or
reclamation
of
the
possessed,
in
other
words
a
madhouse,
and within
its
walls
dwelt
an
old
man
who
had
no
name.
So
long
had he
been
immured
there
that
no
one
remembered
his
coming;
so aged
was
he
that
no
kindred
were
left
to
care
for
him;
so
quiet
and well-behaved
that
he
might
have
been
proclaimed
as
a
model
of madhouse
welfare.
No
record
existed
of
when,
how
or
why
he
was so
incarcerated,
he
himself
did
not
know,
he
was
there,
he
had
always been
there.
Where
he
came
from,
how
brought,
to
whom
he
belonged, were
alike
unknown.
A
slight
tang
of
foreignness
hung
about
him, hard
to
define,
and
it
was
his
lunatic
whim
to
claim
that
he
was
now a
ghost,
having
once
upon
a
time
hung
himself
because
of
some wickedness
he
had
done
in
the
far-back
years.
Poor
old
ninny!
That he
had
now
no
name
was
his
special
grievance;
it
had
been
stolen from
him—so
he
averred—in
the
far-back
ages
long
ago,
but
if
pressed about
the
circumstances
of
this
misappropriation
he
at
times
grew anguished
and
demented,
at
other
times
he
would
be
cunning
and defensive.

Among
the
inmates
was
one
with
whom
he
became
as
intimate as
their
poor
minds
allowed,
a
cobbler
with
one
eye,
who
in
happier days
had
been
a
wayside
preacher.
Old
too,
though
not
so
old
as
the

unknown,
he
was
even
madder,
and
having
appointed
himself
to the
post
of
Clerk
to
the
Great
Assize
he
trounced
his
comrade
with harsh
comminations.

"What
is
your
name,
please,
what
is
your
name?
Speak
up,
what is
your
name?"

The
man
without
a
name
would
reply,
"Infamy,"
this
having
been commended
to
him
by
the
one-eyed
one
who
insisted
on
a
designation
of
some
sort.

"It
must
go
in,
it
must
go
in
the
pleadings,
you
understand.
Come now,
state
your
crime,
state
your
crime,
let
us
hear
it
all."

The
other
would
answer,
"Wickedness."

"Ah,
take
care,
my
lord
defendant,
I
am
warning
you!"

"Wickedness,
Sir."

"Was
you
guilty
or
not
guilty?
Speak
up
and
shame
the
devil." Then
the
poor
wretch
would
sigh,
"Only
the
ghost
of
it,
Sir,
only the
ghost."