The Odic Touch by Hume Nisbet
“The Odic Touch” made an early appearance in print in Nisbet’s anthology The Haunted Station and Other Stories (1895). It does not appear to have been reprinted during the 20th century, but, in 2022, Wildside Press included it in the mixed-author anthology Australian Nightmares: More Australian Tales of Terror and the Supernatural.
About Hume Nisbet
Hume Nisbet was an artist and novelist who was born in Stirling , Scotland, in 1849. When he was 16 years old, Nisbet traveled to Australia and remained there for around seven years pursuing creative and artistic pursuits.
Perhaps not surprisingly, many of Nisbet’s tales are set in Australia. Although his poetry and stories had a variety of themes, he produced an impressive number of ghost stories, many of which he included in his anthologies The Haunted Station (1894) and Stories Weird and Wonderful (1900).
The Odic Touch
by Hume Nisbet
(Online Text)
I had been working hard, too hard, to keep up with the fierce competition of modern times, striving to advance in my art, do something better than my last effort, and keep at bay the many enemies which a man unconsciously makes who is climbing up the hill of life, and I felt wearied with the struggle and almost inclined to sit down and let who liked reach the summit before me, when I received an invitation to spend Christmas with my old friend Dr. Grignor at his place in North Wales.
Dr. Grignor had, twenty years before, introduced himself to me in rather a peculiar fashion, and since then, although we had not met often, we had kept up a pretty constant communication in which, as far as the obligations of friendship are concerned, I was entirely his debtor; for as he began by serving, so he continued to help, advise and warn me whenever I required either of those services the most, without ever giving me an opportunity of repaying one of those favours, but this I did not mind, because ours was the kind of friendship which sometimes exists between the strong and the weak, and which is of too fraternal a character to count favours received as a burden, for it is only when we begin to consider equivalents that our affection has become a limited emotion.
It was in Auckland, New Zealand, that we first met. I had landed there some weeks before, almost penniless and without much of an aim in life, when one night as I was sitting on the wharf, looking broodingly upon the moonlit waves and wondering for what purpose Fate had driven me here, suddenly I felt a light touch on my knee, and on looking to that side saw a grave-looking man of about thirty-five, who had placed himself close to me, with his hand resting lightly and as if accidentally on my knee.
In my morose state of mind I might have resented this liberty from any one else, only as the delicate hand touched me I seemed to have found the clue I had been so long and vainly in search of. Auckland disappeared with its troubles and I was tracing a probable future out of the silver ripples that danced before me; I also seemed to see the folly of my past and present life, with the unreality of those friendships which had led me astray. It was as if my soul had woke up for the first time, and was looking out of windows which had hitherto been closely blinded.
A momentary panorama swept before me of the past, present, and future while that hand rested upon my knee, then it was withdrawn, while I came back to my normal condition with a purpose added to my experience, and began to study my stranger companion with a sudden Interest. He was a thin, sallow-faced man, with black eyes, and clean-shaven, and when he spoke, his voice sounded gentle and soft.
“Yes, you have been wasting your time here, for although Nature is bountiful to all men it is only the workers who can enjoy her gifts; you must leave tomorrow.”
“T don’t know you, sir,” I replied, thinking about the impossibility of me leaving New Zealand without a cent to pay my passage anywhere.
“My name is Grignor, Dr. Grignor, and your friend if you will permit me to be so, John Gray, or rather I am your friend already; go on board that vessel tonight, which is loaded and ready to sail for England; you are expected on board as a passenger.”
“But I have no money and only the clothes I sit in, Dr. Grignor.”
“You will find all that you require when yo get on board; mention your name, and the steward will show you your cabin and trunks.”
It was like a page out of the “Arabian Nights” to me, the homeless, penniless and almost starving outcast, to hear that my desires had been accomplished without an effort on my part, and in a dazed way I looked towards the ship which he pointed out, forgetting to utter a word of thanks or enquiry as to how he knew me and his reasons tor helping me in this extremity.
It was a fine clipper, moored alongside of the wharf and a little way from me, and after taking in her proportions I turned once more to my new friend, to discover the place vacant; he had left me silently while my gaze had been concentrated on the vessel, and although the wharf was a long one and at this hour almost deserted, I was astonished that he could have disappeared so quickly, and rose with an eerie feeling as if I had been conversing with a spirit.
It was not without a tremor of doubt that I crossed the gangway and made my way toward the cabin, at the companion of which I saw a figure smoking a cigar. It seemed ridiculous for me to be there, and I paused to think how I would announce myself, when the smoker, who turned out to be the steward, saved me the trouble by addressing me instead.
“Are you our passenger, Mr. Gray, sir?”
“Yes,” I replied, my doubts beginning to give way to amazement.
“The captain is expecting you tonight, as we start early in the morning; you will find him below.”
“And my luggage?” I stammered.
“It’s all in your berth,” answered the steward.
“Thanks.”
I found the captain enjoying a late supper with his mates and one or two friends who had come to wish him bon voyage; my seat had been kept empty for me and they welcomed me with respect for I was the only passenger he had on this homeward passage.
“Seeing my name on a card by the side of my plate, I did not trouble myself with any uncomfortable surmises, but murmuring a private prayer of thanks to God and my unknown benefactor, I fell to, with the appetite of a starving young man who had not encountered such a supper for many days.
Upon retiring that night the steward handed to me a sealed packet which had been left for me by my beneficent friend, Dr. Grignor, which, when I opened, I found to contain a purse with fifty sovereigns and a bunch of keys (the keys of the three travelling trunks which were ranged out for my inspection), and the receipt for my passage to London; so that I had no further need to bother my head about the position I was to hold on board ship, or the first months after I landed.
Perhaps it would have been better had this friend not acted kind Providence quite so completely, better for my independence I mean, yet I had done so little with my past freedom, that the change was a decidedly pleasant one to what my former uncertainty had been.
We had a fairly good voyage, take it all in all, with the tempests, doldrums, and calms, and at last I found myself with three well-stocked trunks in the great city where men come to carve their fortunes, which holds everything that a man can desire, which seems everything to him at the distance, and which swallows and wipes out so many hopes and visions.
With the fifty pounds which I possessed I fancied that nothing was impossible to me, and therefore I plunged recklessly into the battle; recklessly and with as much wisdom as a child might possess who has been left on a doorstep by his unfeeling or desperate mother.
I was once more alone, or fancied that I was, and with my own fate in my hands; the fifty pounds did not last long, although I was wonderfully penurious over the spending of it, yet it melted away while I tried to open door after door without success, until I came once again to the position that I had been in in New Zealand, with the River Thames: to sit and watch instead of Auckland Bay. I was a failure. |
One day, I was in the National Gallery, trying to comfort myself with the glories of Turner in lieu of breakfast and dinner, when I felt once more the odic touch on my arm, and, on looking round, I encountered the deep, earnest eyes of my friend, Dr. Grignor.
“You require me once more, John Gray, therefore I have come to you.”
“What is the use of it, Dr. Grignor ?” I replied. “I have tried and failed.”
“Not so, my friend, you have only begun, you have mastered a little of life, but. you do not know your own powers yet, but that knowledge will come in time.”
As he spoke, the blinds were once more lifted from the windows behind which sat my soul, so that I saw where I had gone wrong; I had been frantically pushing and crushing behind a crowd, all eager as I was to get into a narrow space, as we may see any day on Westminster or Blackfriars Bridges, the mass striving to get a half-penny omnibus, forty people seeking to get into the place which can only hold ten, and not one with the wisdom to stand aside and wait his chance or walk on. It was my selfishness and imitation which had made my efforts failures.
“Yes, the best way over the bridge is the way you make for yourself, without crushing over your neighbour; it looks the longest and most laborious, yet it is your own; take that, and you will reach the other side in plenty of time.”
That was nearly twenty years before the day of my invitation, but I tried to follow the track which was then pointed out by my friend, and wait patiently, while I worked steadily in the profession that I had chosen.
I never knew Dr. Grignor more intimately than on our first and second interviews; he came to me without warning at some serious crises of my life, and set me right after I had tried my own methods without success; until at last I grew to expect the quiet presence, and perhaps owned his supremacy by praying or unconsciously wishing for him at the desperate moment. I had experienced his wonderful gifts and beneficent mind so often, that at last I grew to depend entirely upon his help at the critical pause, and went forward with the boldness of a blind man under the guidance of one who sees ahead for him, without questioning why the guide is taking all this trouble for one so incapable.
Slowly, and through innumerable difficulties, I had made my way, hopelessly stumbling on, under the impression that I was doing nothing all these long and weary years, that the world knew me not, and only at occasional times, when my friend came to me and with his touch made me see, for a brief second, the real progress which I had made.
At last my hour had come, and the world that did not know anything about these many years of gnawing disappointments and delays, said that John Gray had risen with startling rapidity. My work was recognised at last, while it needed no lifting of the blinds to see the future now. I was a lucky fellow, people remarked, and friends gathered round me in shoals with smiling lips and congratulating words, yet with eyes which looked watchfully and strangely upon me, and at this point my friend came to me once more.
“You have reached the most dangerous period of your life, John Gray; the time when you must take your choice either to sit down contented with your prison walls and shaded windows, or else sit on the ruins and see all round you. Which will you have, contented illusion or relentless vision?”
“Which is the best for me, my friend?”
“Reality is always the best, although it does not give content.”
“Then let me have reality,” I answered promptly.
Dr. Grignor was a man of vast learning and occult power, and I could not but regard myself as entirely his creation; he had watched over me for long years, enveloping me with his influence; without attempting to bias me in any way, he left me free to follow my own bent and only pointed out afresh direction after the path which I had pursued had become hopelessly blocked up.
Time appeared to be no object to him, as far as I was concerned, and he was always ready to congratulate me upon my failures; indeed he seemed to be better pleased with these results than with the evanescent successes which served to flatter my vanity and cloud my vision.
I had no knowledge of the amount of his fortune, or from whence he obtained his money; it was only when the lack of money meant annihilation to my hopes, that he came to my rescue, and he never gave me more than just enough to cross the gap which yawned before me, for all the rest I was left to my own exertions; also until this Christmas which I speak about, he had not told me where or how he lived.
He left me after this conversation, pleased, I think, at my resolve to grasp knowledge rather than slavish contentment, and I went on with my work, satisfied that when I was ready be would fulfil his promise.
Men said I was lucky, and I felt myself to be so, not because I was beginning to be recognised, but because I had one so powerful at my back; true my talents were my own, but it was the proud consciousness of this secret power and supporter that imparted to me the patience which was so needful to ultimate success.
It might have been the fruit of long experience or some strange force which passed from my friend to me, but as I moved about nothing escaped my observation, and my instinct was almost infallible when I trusted to it alone. At this stage I could read the envy of those watchful eyes, and the hatred of those smiling lips which greeted me at every turn; I had only to touch the arms of the ones who were protesting, and they at once began to tell me their real intentions towards me, my rivals and enemies revealed their plots against me, and told me what misfortunes had overtaken them since they began to work me evil. I was now walking through a world where men and women were ranged about me with crystal bodies, through which I read their motives at a glance.
I had this power as long as I remained inactive and uninterested towards them, but with my passionate inclinations I had also the power of making this crystal opaque, so that I could not penetrate past the surface of those I flung my friendship over, and as I could not live without affection I found myself continually trying to crush my instinct and glean comfort from the affections, also continually being betrayed and frustrated and misunderstood. I would not look at the man whom I had made up my mind to like, until I had drawn over him the cloak of my affection, and therefore when he betrayed me I was enraged, whereas I need not have been; but it felt so lonely to be always reading minds and recoiling from them, that I preferred the after agony for the hour or two of comfort.
It was at the hour of my deepest dejection that this invitation came from my one friend, Dr. Grignor. I had been clinging long to one of these opaqued crystals, a man who had a winning manner and a truthful mask, but who every hour unconsciously bared his falseness for my inspection; all round me I saw his accomplices and tools, as transparent as I could have wished, and while counteracting their conspiracies, which originated from him, I persisted in my affection and trust for him, making all sorts of excuses and going out of my way to change the semblance of affection into reality.
In vain I tried, out of pity, when I had no longer trust, to warm up the ice of that opaque crystal, and when, at last, I had to abandon him to the curse of his malice, for I had drawn from him, by my contact, all his powers of hurting me, I felt overcome with the struggle and isolation. He was doomed, I knew, as others had been before him, who had pitted themselves against me with this supernatural influence which had been about me since that night in Auckland. I had only to abandon him to his fate, and disaster would overtake him, which neither of us could stop after the fiat had gone forth.
A profound sorrow for the fate of this doomed man crushed upon me, as I took my place in the train bound for Wales, something akin to the grief which burdened the days of the Wandering Jew, when he left his unwilling curse behind him, a gloom of desolation in my heart, which was in harmony with the wintry day outside.
Through a landscape, beautiful in summer time, but now veiled by the swirling snowstorm, we swept as fast as steam could drive us, with the carriage shaking and swaying as the wild blasts, flake-laden, dashed against the windows, and covered them up with that white density.
Two men and one woman occupied the same carriage, and as I looked at the shivering objects through that obscurity, their actual features disappeared and I could see their spirits sitting nude before me, while they told me all their intentions and past actions.
The woman was going home to comfort the hearts of her aged parents, and dazzle their eyes with her rich costumes and ladylike appearance, gained at such a fearful sacrifice; she had left her native village a servant girl and was going back decked like a duchess, with a pack of lies which would send them to their graves happy and proud that they had such a daughter. As I looked at this poor, wrecked soul, preparing itself for the ordeal of deceit, it appeared to grow luminous with the brightness of its motives, and to warm with its unselfish affection that chill atmosphere.
One of the men was young, and had appeared good-looking at the first glance at his features, but as they disappeared I saw the spirit sitting within him, old and shrivelled; he also was bent on a mission of deceit to his home circle, but there was no brightness about him.
The other was a sailor coming home from a long voyage, his spirit was that of a child without a care. I bent my head before the woman, and turned from the young old man, to play with the soul of the sailor.
At the station my friend met me with a dog-cart,[1] and together we drove through a wild country with the tempest of snow-flakes dancing round like white elves. His house was a lonely one, perched half-way up the sides of a mountain, with the windows all to the front, while the back portion had been excavated into the hill, it was a long house of one storey and stood alone in the midst of a forest of pine and birch trees, just the kind of site which I would suppose a man like Dr. Grignor would fix upon as a retreat.
We were received by an Indian when we arrived, and after my friend had seen to the horse’s comfort, we sat down to supper, still waited upon by the same dark-hued servant, who appeared to be the only other inhabitant of this singular [2] household.
I knew that my friend had brought me for a special purpose to this place and therefore I waited anxiously to learn what he would say and do, thinking little about my surroundings or of what we were partaking. As soon as I had finished eating, he said as he rose.
“Now come with me, my friend, to my study.”
I followed him passively to a room at the back of the house which was rounded like a cave, with no windows; over the doorway by which we entered fell a thick carpet of oriental stuff, while in the centre stood a brazier containing live charcoal.
Sit there, my friend,” said Dr. Grignor, pointing to a stone chair near the brazier.
I sat down as he desired me, while he stood in front of me, as the Indian who had followed us threw something into the brazier which flamed up with a rosy light and filled the room or cave with a strange perfume.
“I have given you the gift of seeing things as they are, my friend, also the power to influence the lives of those who come in contact with you, for good or evil; hitherto it has been good to those who have befriended you, and evil to those who have wronged you; this is the natural plane of humanity, but you have now come to a point where you can control these destinies as you may desire at a sacrifice to yourself. Look at both sides of the picture, and decide for yourself which gift you shall take, the gift of power or the gift of sacrifice.”
As the Doctor spoke, the Indian threw some fresh powder on the fire, and as I watched the flames rising and the perfumed smoke curling round like a silver frame, I saw a picture of my false friend destitute and in rags, with his starving children around him, while I sat crowned with success and surrounded with wealth.
“That is power and revenge,” whispered my friend, while a thrill of triumph shot through me at the pleasant prospect, tempered with a feeling of commiseration for my overthrown enemy.
The Indian flung another powder into the flames and another picture rose up inside the silver-smoke-frame, my false friend surrounded by luxury and myself in rags watching his exalted state from the outside.
“That is sacrifice and abnegation,” whispered my guide as the picture vanished, “Take your choice, John Gray.”
Was it his presence which saved me, with the touch of his hand as it clasped mine after a moment of hesitation on my part, while my passions surged up, and ambition, with anger, gripped at my heart like the talons of a vulture, or had my twenty years of struggle prepared me for this test moment? As I made my choice the features of Dr. Grignor grew luminous with a divine light ere he disappeared in that silver mist.
Hume Nisbet (1849 — 1923)
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1. A dog-cart (or dogcart) was a small horse-powered cart with an enclosure for transporting hunting dogs—hence the name “dog-cart”. ↩
2. The word singular can be used in several ways. In the context of the story, it indicates something that is unusual, odd, or peculiar. ↩
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