 | Sheppard Lee |  |
SHEPPARD LEE.
BOOK IV.—[CONTINUED.]
4. CHAPTER IV.
The Miser's children.
It will scarcely be supposed that, with the passion
of covetousness gnawing at my heart, I had
space or convenience for any other feeling. But
Abram Skinner had loved his children; and to this
passion I was introduced, as well as to the other.
At first I was surprised that I should bestow the
least regard upon them, seeing that they were no
children of mine. I endeavoured to shake off the
feeling of attachment, as an absurdity, but could
not; in spite of myself, I found my spirit yearning
towards them; and by-and-by, having lost my
identity entirely, I could scarcely, even when I
made the effort, recall the consciousness that I
was not their parent in reality.
Indeed, the transformation that had now occurred
to my spirit was more thorough than it had
been in either previous instance; I could scarce
convince myself I had not been born the being I
my reflections only as some idle dream, that the
fever of sickness had brought upon my mind; and
I forgot that I was, or had been, Sheppard Lee.
Yes, reader, I was now Abram Skinner in all
respects, and I loved his children, as he had done
before me. In entering his body, I became, as I
have mentioned repeatedly before, the subject of
every peculiarity of being that marked the original
possessor: without which, indeed, the great experiment
my destiny permitted me to make of the
comparative good and evil of different spheres of
existence, must have been made in vain. What my
prototype hated I was enforced to hate; what he
loved I found myself compelled in like manner to
love. While moving in the bodies of John H.
Higginson and I. D. Dawkins, I do not remember
that I experienced any affection for anybody; which
happened, doubtless, because these individuals confined
their affections to their own persons. Abram
Skinner, on the contrary, loved his children; which
I suppose was owing to their being the worst children
that ever tormented a parent. He loved them,
and so did I; he pondered with bitterness over the
ingratitude of their tempers, and the profligacy of
their lives, and I—despite all my attempts to the
contrary—did the same. I forgot, at last, that I
was not their parent, and my feelings showed me
that I was; and I found in the anguish that attacked
my spirit, when I thought of them, one of the
modes in which Heaven visits with retribution the
the votary of Mammon has propitiated his deity,
let him count the children he has sacrificed upon
his altar. Avarice, as well as wrath, sows the
storm only to reap the whirlwind.
I am growing serious upon this subject, but I
cannot help it. This portion of my history dwells
on my remembrance with gloom; it keeps me
moralizing over the career of my neighbours.
When I see or hear of a man who is bending all
his energies to the acquisition of a fortune, and is
already the master of his thousands, I ask, “What
has become of his sons?” or, “What will become
of them?”
With the affection for the children of Abram
Skinner that took possession of my mind, came
also a persuasion, exceedingly painful, that they
were a triad of graceless, ungrateful reprobates;
and, what was worse, there was something whispered
within me that much, if not all, the evil of their
lives and natures, was owing to the neglect in which
their parent, while engrossed with the high thought
of heaping up money, had allowed them to grow
up. The consequences of this neglect I felt as
if it had been my own act.
The first pang was inflicted by the girl Alicia,
and I felt it keenly—not, indeed, that I had any
particular parental affection for her, as doubtless I
should have had, had she not run away so opportunely.
On the contrary, a vague recollection of
my amour, and the inconstancy of her temper,
very peculiar hue; so that I regarded her with
sentiments due as much to the jilted lover as the
injured father. But what chiefly afflicted me was
the hint she had given in the postscript of her letter,
warning me of the fatal call to be made upon
me, within two months' space, to render up an account
of my guardianship, and surrender into
the hands of that detestable Sammy Wilkins, my
late cousin, the rich legacy of her aunt Sally,
which, being chiefly in real estate, I—or rather my
prototype before me—had, without anticipating
such a catastrophe, managed so prudently that it
was now worth more than double its original value.
The thought filled me with such rage and phrensy,
that, had she been twice my daughter, I should
have rewarded her with execrations.
My quondam uncle, Mr. Samuel Wilkins of Wilkinsbury
Hall, who, it seems, received the girl as
well as he afterward did his daughter's husband,
thought fit to pay me a visit, a week after my transformation,
to confer with me on the subject; and
receiving no satisfaction, for I was in a rage and
refused to see him, sent me divers notes, proposing
a reconciliation betwixt myself and his daughter-in-law;
and these being cast into the fire, I received,
in course of time, a letter from his lawyer,
or his son Sammy's, in which I was politely asked
what were my intentions in relation to settlement,
and so forth, and so forth.
I received letters from the damsel also, but they
waxing higher and higher as the time of settlement
drew nigh, I set myself to work to frame such a
guardian's account as would materially lessen the
amount of my losses.
But all was in vain; the married Alicia was at
last of age, and all I could do was to fling the
matter into the lawyers' hands, so as to keep the
money, the dear money, in my own as long as possible.
My reader may think this was not a very handsome
or reputable way of treating a daughter; but
he must recollect I was in Abram Skinner's body.
The matter was still in suit when I departed from
my borrowed flesh; but I have no doubt the execrable
Samuel Wilkins, Jr. got possession of the legacy,
as well as ten times as much to the back of it.
But this, great as was the anguish the evil inflicted,
was nothing to the pangs I suffered on account
of the two boys, Ralph and Abbot. On these I
showered—not openly, indeed, for I was crabbed
enough of temper, but in my secret heart—all the
affection such a parent could feel. But I showered
it in vain; the seeds of evil example and neglect
had taken root; the prospect of wealth had long
since turned brains untempered by education and
moral culture, and the parsimony of their parent
only drove them into profligacy of a more demoralizing
species; they were ruined in morals, in prospects,
and in reputation; and while yet upon the
threshold of manhood, they presented upon their
untimely graves.
The younger, Abbot, had evidently been a favourite
from his childhood up, his temper being
fierce and imperious, yet with an occasional dash
of amiableness, that showed what his disposition
might have been, if regulated by a careful and conscientious
parent. He possessed a fine figure, of
which he was vain; and being of a gay and convivial
turn, there was the stronger propensity to
dissipation, and greater fear of the consequences.
These were now lamentable enough; he was already
beyond redemption—a sot, and almost a madman.
The elder brother was a young man, to all appearance,
of a saturnine mood and staid habits; but
this was in appearance only. He was the associate
of the junior in all his scenes of frolic, and
an actor in others of which, perhaps, Abbot never
dreamed. A strong head and a spirit of craft enabled
him to conceal the effect of excesses which
sent his brother home reeling and raging with
drunkenness. I knew his habits well; and I knew
that, besides being in a fairer way to the grave—if
not to the gallows—he was a hypocrite of the
worst order; his gravity being put on to cover a
temper both fiery and malicious, and his apparent
correctness of habits being the mere cover to the
most scandalous irregularities. He was a creature
all of duplicity, and wo to the father who made
him such!
The scene in the dying chamber of their father
they never forgot, though, perhaps, I might have
done so. It drove the younger from all attempts
at pretended regard or concealment of his profligacy,
and was, I believe, the cause of his final
ruin. He absconded, out of mere shame, for a
week, and then returned to put a bold or indifferent
face upon the matter, and to show himself as regardless
of respect as restraint.
The other, after concealing himself in like manner
for a few days, came to me, apparently in great
contrition of spirit, and almost persuaded me that
his brutal conduct on that eventful evening arose
rather from grief than joy. He had been so much
affected by my death, he assured me, as scarce to
know what he did when swallowing a glass of
brandy his brother gave him; that, he declared with
half a dozen tears, had set him crazy, and he knew
not what he had done—only he recollected something
about going to the chamber, where, he believed,
he had behaved very badly; for which he
begged my forgiveness, and hoped I would not
think his conduct was owing to any want of affecttion.
I had proof enough that the villain was telling
me falsehoods, and I knew that if either should, in
a moment of soberness and compunction, breathe
a single sigh over my death-bed, he was not the
one. In truth, they were both bad; both, perhaps,
irreclaimable; but while the conduct of Abbot
gave me most pain, that of Ralph filled me with
of speculation and gain could have made tolerable
an existence cursed by incessant griefs and forebodings.
It may be supposed that I frequently took the
young men to task for their excesses. I might as
well have scolded the winds for blowing, or the
waters for running. It is true that Ralph heard
me commonly with great patience, and sometimes
with apparent contrition; but at times a scowl came
over his dark features that frightened me into silence;
and once, giving way to his fierce temper,
he told me that if there was any thing amiss or disreputable
in his conduct, it was the consequence
of mine; that I, instead of granting him the means
for reasonable indulgence, and elevating him to the
station among honourable and worthy men to which
my wealth gave him a claim, and which he had a
right to expect of me, had kept him in a state of
need and vassalage intolerable to any one of his
age and spirit.
As for Abbot, this kind of recrimination was a
daily thing with him. I scarce ever saw him except
when inflamed with drink; and on such occasions
he was wont to demand money, which being
denied, he would give way to passion, and load me
with reproaches still more bitter of spirit and violent
of expression than those uttered by Ralph.
Nay, upon my charging him with being an abandoned
profligate and ruined man, he admitted the
fact, and swore that I was the author of his destruction;
the opportunities that gave other young men professions
and independence; that I had brought him
up in idleness and ignorance, and, by still refusing
him his rights, was consigning him to infamy and
an early grave.
Such controversies between us were common,
and perhaps expedited the fate that was in store for
him, as well as his brother. I thought in my folly
to punish, and at the same time check his excesses,
by denying him all supplies of money, and by refusing
to pay a single debt he contracted. A deep
gloom suddenly invested him; he ceased to return
home intoxicated, but stalked into and out of the
house like a spectre, without bestowing any notice
upon me. The change frighted me; and, in alarm
lest the difficulties under which he might be placed
were driving him to desperation, I followed him to
his chamber, with almost the resolution to relieve
his wants, let them be what they might.
The absence of intoxication for several days in
succession had induced me to hope he had broken
through the accursed bondage of drink, were it only
from rage and shame. But I was fatally mistaken.
As I entered the apartment I saw him place upon
the table a large case-bottle of brandy, which he
had just taken from a buffet. He looked over his
shoulder as I stepped in, and, without regarding
me, proceeded to pour a large draught into a tumbler.
His hand was tremulous, and, indeed, shook
so much, that the liquor was spilt in the operation.
seeing which he laughed, with what seemed to me
as much triumph as derision, and said, “You see!
This is the way we go it. Your health, father.
Come, help yourself; don't stand on ceremony.”
“I, Abbot!” said I, as he swallowed the vile potion;
“have you neither respect nor shame? I
never drank such poison in my life!”
“The more is the pity,” muttered the young
man, but rather as if speaking to himself than me;
“I should have had the sooner and freer swing of it.”
“You mean if it had killed me, as it is killing
you,” said I, pierced by the heartlessness of his
expression. “Oh, Abbot! a judgment will come
upon you yet!”
He stared me in the face, but without making a
reply. Then pushing a chair towards me, he sat
down himself, and deliberately filled his glass a
second time.
“Abbot! for Heaven's sake,” said I, wringing
my very hands in despair, “what will tempt you to
quit this horrid practice?”
“Nothing,” said he; “you have asked the question
a month too late. Look,” he continued, pointing
my attention again to his hand, shaking, as it
held the bottle, as if under the palsy of age; “do
you know what that means?”
“What does it mean?” said I, so confounded
by the sight and his stolid merriment (for he laughed
again while exposing the fruit of his degrading
habit) that I scarce knew what I said.
“It means,” said he, “that death is coming, to
make equitable division betwixt Ralph and Alicia—
unless the devil, after all, should carry them off before
me; in which case you can build an hospital
with your money.”
He swallowed the draught, and then, leaning on
the table, buried his face between his hands.
The sarcasm was not lost upon me, and the idea
that he was about to become the victim of a passion
from which he might be wrested by a sacrifice on
my part, greatly excited my feelings.
“I will do any thing,” said I; “what shall I do
to save you? Oh, Abbot! can you not refrain from
this dreadful indulgence? What shall I do?”
He leaped upon his feet, and eyed me with a
look full of wildness.
“Pay my debts,” he cried; “pay my debts, and
make me independent; and I—I'll try.”
“And what,” said I, trembling with fear, “what
sum will pay your debts?”
“Twenty thousand—perhaps,” said he.
“Twenty thousand! what! twenty thousand
dollars!” cried I, lost in confusion.
“You won't, then?” said the reprobate.
“Not a cent!” cried I, in a fury. “How came
you to owe such a sum? Do you think I will believe
you? How could you incur such a debt?
What have you been doing?”
“Gambling, drinking, and so forth, and so forth,
twenty times over.”
He snatched up the bottle, and, locking it in the
seizing upon his hat, and stepping to where I stood,
transfixed with grief and indignation, he said,—
“You won't take the bargain, then?”
“Not a dollar, not a dime, not a cent!” said I.
“Not even to save my life, father?”
“Not a dollar, not a dime, not a cent!” I reiterated,
incapable of saying another word.
“Farewell then,” said he, “and good luck to
you! It is a declaration of war, and now I'll keep
no terms with you.”
Then giving me a look that froze my blood, it
was so furiously hostile and vindictive, he struck
his hands together, rushed from the house, and I
saw him no more for nearly a fortnight. I saw him
no more, as I said; but coming home the following
evening from the club, I found my strong-box broken
open and rifled of the money that I left in it.
The sum was indeed but small, but the robbery
had been perpetrated by my own son; and the
reader, if he be a father, will judge what effect this
discovery produced upon my mind. In good truth,
I felt now that I was the most wretched of human
beings, and was reduced nearly to distraction.
But this blow was but a buffet with the hand, compared
with the thunder-bolt that fate was preparing
to launch against my bosom. I cursed my miserable
lot; yet it wanted one more stroke of misfortune
to sever the chain with which avarice still
bound me to my condition.
5. CHAPTER V.
The fate of the firstborn.
On the eleventh day after the flight of Abbot,
whom all my inquiries failed to discover, as I was
walking towards the exchange, torn by my domestic
woes, and by a threatened convulsion in stocks,
which concerned me very nearly, I met one of my
companions of the club, who, noting my disturbed
countenance, drew me aside, and told me he was
sorry I had got my foot into the fire; but the club
had last night taken the matter into consideration,
and agreed to stand by me, if it were possible.
All this was heathen Greek to me; and I told my
friend I was in no trouble I knew of, and wanted
no countenance from anybody.
“I am very glad to hear it,” said he; “but what
are you doing with so much paper in the market?
That's no good sign, you'll allow!”
I started aghast, and he proceeded to inform me
that he had himself seen two of my notes for considerable
amounts, and had heard of others; and,
finally, that he had just, parted with the president
(an intimate friend of his) of a bank not a furlong
off, who had asked divers questions as to the state
of my affairs, and admitted there was paper of mine
at that moment in the bank.
I was seized with consternation, assured him all
such notes must be forgeries; and running with
him to the bank, demanded to see any paper they
had with my name to it. They produced two different
notes for large amounts, which I instantly
declared to be counterfeit; and then ran in search
of others.
The hubbub created by this declaration was
great, but the tumult in my mind was greater. A
horrid suspicion as to the author of the forgeries
entered my soul, and I became so deadly sick as to
be unable to prosecute the inquisition further. My
friend deposited me in a coach, and I was carried
to my home, but in a condition more dead than
alive. My suspicions were in a few hours dreadfully
confirmed by my friend, who returned with
the intelligence which he had acquired. The forger
was discovered and arrested—it was the elder
brother, Ralph Skinner.
Words cannot paint the agony with which I flew
to the magistrate's office, and beheld the unfortunate
youth in the hands of justice; but what was
my horror to discover the extent and multiplicity
of his frauds. The number of forgeries he had
committed in his parent's name was indeed enormous;
and it seems he had committed them with
the intention of flying; for many of his guilty gains
were found secreted on his person. But even after
so much had been recovered, the residue to be
refunded was appalling. The thought of making
restitution drove me almost to a phrensy, while the
of a felon, was equally distracting. My misery
was read on my face; and some one present, perhaps
with a motive of humanity, cried out,
“Why persecute the young man? Here is his
father, who acknowledges the notes to be genuine.”
“Ah,” said the magistrate, “does he so? Why,
then we have had much foolish trouble for nothing.”
I looked at the amount of the forgeries, a list of
which some one put into my hands.
“It is false,” I cried; “I will not pay a cent!”
I cast my eyes upon Ralph. He reached over
a table behind which he stood, and waved his hand
to and fro, as if, had he been nigh enough, he would
have buffeted me on the face. His look was that
of a demon, and he spat the foam from his lips, as if
to testify the extremity of hatred.
“Let him go,” I cried; “I will pay it all!”
“You can undoubtedly do so, if you will,” said
the magistrate, who had marked the malice that
beamed from the visage of the young man; “but do
not dream that that will discharge the prisoner from
arrest, or from the necessity of answering the felony
of which he now stands accused, before a court
and jury. The extent of the forgeries, and the
temper displayed by the accused, are such, that he
must and shall abide the fruits of his delinquency.
He stands committed—officer, remove him.”
I heard no more; my brain spun round and
round, and I was again carried insensible to my
miserable dwelling.
6. CHAPTER VI.
The catastrophe of a tragedy often performed on the great stage of
life.
It may be supposed that the misery now weighing
me to the earth was as much as could be imposed
upon me; but I was destined to find, and
that before the night was over, that misery is only
comparative, and that there is no affliction so positively
great that greater may not be experienced.
In the dead of the night, when my woes had at
last been drowned in slumber, I was roused by
feeling a hand pressing upon my bosom; and,
starting up, I saw, for there was a taper burning
on a table hard by, a man standing over me, holding
a pillow in his hand, which, the moment I
caught sight of him, he thrust into my face, and
there endeavoured to hold it, as if to suffocate me.
The horror of death endowed me with a strength
not my own, and the ruffian held the pillow with
a feeble and trembling arm. I dashed it aside,
leaped up in the bed, and beheld in the countenance
of the murderer the features of the long missing
and abandoned son, Abbot Skinner.
His face was white and chalky, with livid
stains around the eyes and mouth, the former of
which were staring out of their orbits in a manner
ghastly to behold, while his lips were drawn asunder
mummy. He looked as if horror-struck at the
act he was attempting; and yet there was something
devilish and determined in his air, that increased
my terror to ecstasy. I sprang from the
bed, threw myself on the floor, and, grasping his
knees, besought him to spare my life. There
seemed indeed occasion for all my supplications:
his bloated and altered visage, the neglected appearance
of his garments and person, and a thousand
other signs, showed that the whole period of
his absence had been passed in excessive toping,
and the murderous and unnatural act which he
meditated manifested to what a pitch of phrensy
he had brought himself by the indulgence.
As I grasped his knees, he put his hand into his
bosom, and drew out a poniard, a weapon I had
never before known him to carry; at the sight of
which I considered myself a dead man. But the
love of life still prevailing, I leaped up, and ran to
a corner of the room, where I mingled adjurations
and entreaties with loud screams for assistance.
He stood as if rooted to the spot for a moment;
then dropping his horrid weapon, he advanced a
few paces, clasped his hands together, fell upon
his knees, and burst into tears, and all the while
without having uttered a single word. But now,
my cries still continuing, he exclaimed, but with a
most wild and disturbed look—“Father, I won't
hurt you, and pray don't hurt me!”
By this time the housekeeper Barbara, having
and her presence relieving me of the immediate
fear of death, I gave vent to the horror that
his unnatural attempt on my life justly excited, and
thus made the woman acquainted with his baseness.
The poor old creature, who had always loved
him, was greatly affected, especially when, in reply
to my reproaches, he began to talk incoherently,
admitting the fact, one instant attempting to justify
it by preferring some strange and incoherent complaint,
and the next assuring me, in the most piteous
manner, that he would do me no harm. To
Barbara's upbraidings he replied with a like inconsistency;
and when she reproached him for meditating
violence at such a moment, while I was
mourning the baseness of his brother, he paid little
attention to what she said, seeming not only ignorant
of Ralph's delinquency, but apparently indifferent
to it.
For this reason I began to fear his brain was
touched; of which, indeed, I had soon the most
fatal proof; for Barbara, having led him to his
chamber, came back, assuring me that he was
going mad, that his mind was already in a ferment,
and, in a word, that that horrible distraction which
sooner or later overtakes the confirmed drinker, was
lighting the torch in his brain that could only go
out with life itself. A physician was sent for: our
fears were but too just, and before dawn the miserable
youth was raving distracted.
The day that followed was one of distraction,
not only to the wretched Abbot, but to myself;
and I remember it as a confused dream. The
only thing that dwells on my recollection, apart
from the outcries in Abbot's chamber and the
tumult in my own heart, is, that some one who
owed me a sum of money, due that day, came and
paid it into my hands with great punctiliousness,
and that I received and wrote the acquittance for it
with as much accuracy as if nothing were the matter,
though my thoughts were far from the subject
before me.
At eleven o'clock at night a messenger came
to me from the prison, and his news was indeed
frightful. The wretched Ralph had just been discovered
with his throat cut from ear to ear, having
made way with himself in despair.
A few moments after I was summoned to the
death-bed of his brother.
I shall never forget the horror of that young
man's dissolution. He lay, at times, the picture
of terror, gazing upon the walls, along which, in
his imagination, crept myriads of loathsome reptiles,
with now some frightful monster, and now a
fire-lipped demon, stealing out of the shadows and
preparing to dart upon him as their prey. Now he
would whine and weep, as if asking forgiveness
for some act of wrong done to the being man is
most constant to wrong—the loving, the feeble, the
confiding; and anon, seized by a tempest of passion,
the cause of which could only be imagined,
back in convulsions. Once he sat up in bed, and,
looking like a corpse, began to sing a bacchanalian
song; on another occasion, after lying for many
minutes in apparent stupefaction, he leaped out of
bed before he could be prevented, and, uttering a
yell that was heard in the street, endeavoured to
throw himself from the window.
But the last raving act of all was the most horrid.
He rose upon his knees with a strength that could
not be resisted, caught up his pillow, thrust it down
upon the bed with both hands, and there held it,
with a grim countenance and a chuckling laugh.
None understood the act but myself: no other
could read the devilish thoughts then at work in
his bosom. It was the scene enacted in the chamber
of his parent—he was repeating the deed of
murder—he was exulting, in imagination, over a
successful parricide.
In this thought he expired; for while still pressing
upon the pillow with a giant's strength, he
suddenly fell on his face, and when turned over
was a corpse. He gave but a single gasp, and was
no more.
The horror of the spectacle drove me from the
chamber, and I ran to my own to fall down and
die; when the blessed thought entered my mind,
that the wo on my spirit, the anguish, the distraction,
were but a dream—that my very existence,
as the miser and broken-hearted father, was a phantasm
rather than a reality, since it was a borrowed
it, as I had done other modes of being, for a better.
I was Sheppard Lee, not Abram Skinner; and this
was but a voluntary episode in my existence, which
I was at liberty to terminate.
The thought was rapture. I resolved to sally
out and fasten upon the first body I could find,
being certain I could be in none so miserable as I
had been in that I now inhabited. Nay, the idea
was so agreeable, the execution of it seemed to
promise such certain release from a load of wretchedness,
that I resolved to attempt it without even
waiting for morning.
I seized upon my hat and cloak, and, for fear I
might stumble into some poor man's body, as I had
done in the case of Dawkins's, I opened my strong-box,
and clapped into my pockets all the money it
contained, designing to take precautionary measures
to transfer it along with my spirit to the new
tenement. I seized upon the loaned money that
had been repaid that day, together with a small sum
that had been in the box before; and, had there been
a million in the coffer, I should have nabbed it all,
without much question of the right I actually possessed
in it. The whole sum was small, not exceeding
four hundred dollars, all being in bank-bills.
I should have been glad of more, but was too eager
to exchange my vile casing, with its miseries,
for a better, to think of waiting till bank-hours next
day.
Taking possession, therefore, of this sum, and
a few days before, I hastened to put my plan into
execution. I slipped down stairs, let myself out of
the door as softly as if I had been an intruder, and
set out, in a night of February, to search for a new
body.
7. CHAPTER VII.
In which it is shown that a man may be more useful after death than
while living.
The reflection that I possessed the power (already
thrice successfully exercised) to transfer my
spirit, whenever I willed it, from one man's body
to another, and so get rid of any afflictions that
might beset me, was highly agreeable, and, under
the present circumstances, consolatory. But there
was one drawback to my satisfaction; and that was
a discovery which I now made, that men's bodies
were not to be had every day, at a moment's warning.
This was the more provoking, as I knew there
was no lack of them in the world, between eighty
and ninety thousand men, women, and children
having given up the ghost in the natural way that
very day, whose corses would be on the morrow
consigned to miserable holes in the earth, where
they could and would be of no service to any person
or persons whatever, the young doctors only
excepted.
And here I cannot help observing, that it is an
extremely absurd practice thus to dispose of—to
squander and throw away, as I may call it—the
hosts of human bodies that are annually falling
dead upon our hands; whereas, with the least management
in the world, they might be converted into
objects of great usefulness and value.
According to the computation of philosophers,
the population of the world may be reckoned in
round numbers at just one thousand millions; of
which number the annual mortality, at the low rate
of three in a hundred, is thirty millions—and that
without counting the extra million or two knocked
on the head in the wars. Let us see what benefit
might be derived from a judicious disposition of this
mountain of mortality—I say mountain, for it is
plain such a number of bodies heaped together
would make a Chimborazo. The great mass of
mankind might be made to subserve the purpose
for which nature designed them, namely—to enrich
the soil from which they draw their sustenance.
According to the economical Chinese method, each
of these bodies could be converted into five tons of
excellent manure; and the whole number would
therefore produce just one hundred and fifty millions
of tons; of which one hundred and fifty thousand,
being their due proportion, would fall to the
share of the United States of America, enabling
our farmers, in the course of ten or twelve years, to
double the value of their lands. This, therefore,
would be a highly profitable way of disposing of
bodies would prove especially advantageous among
American cultivators in divers districts, as a remedy
against bad agriculture, and as the only means of
handing down their fields in good order to their descendants.
Such a disposition of bodies should be
made upon every field of victory, so that dead heroes
might be made to repair some of the mischiefs
inflicted by live ones. The English farmers, it is
well known, made good use of the bones left on
the field of Waterloo; and though they would have
done much better had they carried off the flesh
with them, they did enough to show that war may
be reckoned a good as well as an evil, and a great
battle looked upon as a public blessing. A similar
disposition (to continue the subject) of their mortal
flesh might be, with great propriety, required, in
this land, of all politicians and office-holders, from
the vice-president down to the county collector;
who, being all patriots, would doubtless consent to
a measure that would make them of some use to
their country. As for the president, we would have
him reserved for a nobler purpose; we would have
him boiled down to soap, according to the plan recommended
by the French chymists, to be used by
his successor in scouring the constitution and the
minds of the people.
In this manner, I repeat, the great bulk of human
bodies could be profitably appropriated; but other
methods should be taken with particular classes of
men, who might claim a more distinguished and canonical
tender would esteem it a cruelty to be disposed of
in the same way with the multitude. I would advise,
therefore, that their bodies should be converted
into adipocire, or spermaceti, to be made into
candles, to be burnt at the tops of the lamp-posts;
whereby those who never shone in life might scintillate
as the lights of the public for a week or two
after. Their bones might be made into rings and
whistles, for infant democrats to cut their teeth on.
The French and Italian philosophers, as I have
learned from the newspapers, have made sundry
strange, and, as I think, useful discoveries, in relation
to the practicability of converting the human
body into different mineral substances. One man
changes his neighbour's bones into fine glass; a
second turns the blood into iron; while a third,
more successful still, transforms the whole body
into stone. If these things be true, and I have no
reason to doubt them, seeing that I found them, as
I said before, in the newspapers, they offer us new
modes of appropriation, applicable to the bodies of
other interesting classes. Lovers might thus be
converted into jewels, which, although false, could
be worn with less fear of losing them than happens
with living inamoratos; or, in case of extreme grief
on the part of the survivers, into looking-glasses,
where the mourners would find a solace in the contemplation
of their own features. The second process,
namely, the conversion of blood into iron,
would be peculiarly applicable in the case of soldiers
and, indeed, nothing could be more natural than
that those whose blood we buy with gold, should
pay us back our change in iron. The last discovery
could be turned to equal profit, and would do
away with the necessity of employing statuaries in
all cases where their services are now required.
But I would confine the process of petrifaction to
those in whom Nature had indicated its propriety by
beginning the process herself. None could with
greater justice claim to have their bodies turned
into stone, than those whose hearts were of the
same material; and I should propose, accordingly,
that such a transformation of bodies should be made
only in the case of tyrants, heroes, duns, and critics.
But this subject, though often reflected on, I
have had no leisure to digest properly. For which
reason, begging the reader's pardon for the digression,
I shall now leave it, and resume my story.
8. CHAPTER VIII.
Sheppard Lee's search for a body.—An uncommon incident.
I was provoked, I say, to think there were so
many millions of dead bodies thrown away every
year, for which I, in the greatest of my difficulties,
should be none the better. Such was the extremity
to which I was reduced, that I should have
been content to change conditions with a beggar.
It was a night in February. The day had been
uncommonly fine, with a soft southern air puffing
through the streets; the frost was oozing from the
pavement, and the flags—I beg their pardon, the
bricks—were floating in the yellow mud, so that
one walked as if upon a foundation of puddings.
Such had been the state of things in the day; such
also as late as at nine o'clock P. M.
But it was now eleven; the wind had chopped
round to the northwest and northeast, and perhaps
some half a dozen other points beside, for it seemed
to blow in all directions, and the thermometer
was galloping downward towards zero. A savage
snow-storm had just set in, and with such sharp
and piercing gusts of wind, and such fierce rattling
of hail, that, had not my mind been in a ferment, I
should have hesitated to expose myself to its fury.
But I reflected that I was flying from wo and
terror; and the hope of diving into some body that
might introduce me to a life of sunshine, rendered
me insensible to the rigours of the tempest.
Having stumbled about in the snow for a while,
I began to inquire of myself whither I was going;
and the answer, or rather the want of an answer,
somewhat confounded me. Where was I to look for
a dead body, at such a time of night? It occurred
to me I had better refer to a newspaper, and see
what persons had lately died in town and were
yet unburied. I stepped accordingly into a barber's
shop, that happened to be open, and snatched
up an evening paper. The first paragraph I laid
of my son, Ralph Skinner. It was headed Unheard-of
Depravity, and it blazoned, in italics and
capitals, the crime, the unnatural crime of committing
frauds in the name of a father.
The shock with which I beheld the fatal publication
renewed my horror, and sharpened my desire
to end it. I threw down the paper, without
consulting the column of obituaries, and ran towards
the Hospital, where, it appeared to me, I
should certainly find one or more bodies which
the doctors had no longer occasion for. But my
visit was at a highly unseasonable hour, and the
porter, being knocked out of a comfortable nap, got
up in an ill humour. “Whose cow's dead now?”
I heard him grumble from his lodge—“I wonder
people can't break their necks by daylight!”
But my neck was not broken; and he listened to
my eager inquiry—“whether there were no dead
bodies in the house?”—with rage and indignation.
“I tell you what, mister,” said he, “we takes
no mad people in here, except they comes the
regular way,”
And with that he shut the door in my face, leaving
me to wonder at his want of civility.
But the air was growing more frigid every moment,
and the hour was waxing later and later. I
ran to the Alms-house, not doubting, as that was a
more democratic establishment, that I should be
there received with greater respect. But good-breeding
is not a whit more native to a leather shirt
from the same flint as the other; his civility had
been learned in the same school, and his English
studied from the same grammar.
“I tell you what, uncle Barebones,” said he,
without waiting to be questioned, “we takes no
paupers here, except they comes with an order.”
And so saying, he slapped to the door with an energy
that dislodged from the roof of his den a full
hundred weight or more of snow, which fell in my
face, and had wellnigh smothered me.
The case began to look desperate; but the difficulty
of finding what I wanted only rendered my
wits more active. I resolved to run to one of the
medical schools, make my way into its anatomical
repositories, and help myself to the best body I
could find; for, indeed, I was in such a rage of
desire to be released from my present tenement,
that I did not design to stand upon trifles.
I set out accordingly, with this object in view;
but fate willed I should seek my fortune in another
quarter.
The storm had by this time begun to rage with
uncommon violence; the winds were blowing like
so many buglers and trumpeters on a militia-day,
and the snow that had already fallen was whisked
up every moment from the ground, and driven back
again into the air, to mingle in contention with that
which was falling. The atmosphere was thickened,
or rather wholly displaced, by the whirling
particles, so that, in a short time, the wayfarer
chaos around him. It was, in truth, a savage, inclement
night. The watchman betook him to his
box, to snooze away the hours in comfort; the
lamps went out, being of a spirit still more economical
than their founders, and thinking, with great
justice, that the streets which could do with them,
could do equally well without them; the dogs
were no longer heard yelping at the corners; and
the pigs—the only spectres of Philadelphia—that
run squeaking and gibbering up and down the
streets in the night, to vanish at early cock-crowing,
provided the hog-catchers are in commission,
were one by one retreating to their secret strongholds,
leaving the street to solitude, the snow-storm,
and me.
I plodded on as well as I could, and with such
effect, that, after a quarter hour's trudging, I knew
not well whither, I stopped at last, I knew as little
where. Instead of being in the heart of the city,
as I supposed, I found myself somewhere in the
suburbs, wedged fast in a snow-drift. One single
lamp, and one single wick of that single lamp, had
escaped the puffs of the tempest; it shone from
aloft, through the rack of snow, like a fire-fly in a
fog, dividing its faint beam betwixt my frozen visage
and a low open shed hard by, the only objects,
beside itself, that were visible.
I perceived that I was lost; and being more than
half dead with cold, I dragged myself into the shed,
the ill fate that attended my efforts.
As I stepped into the wretched hole, I stumbled
over a man lying coiled up on the ground, and so
exposed to the air that his legs were already heaped
over with snow. There was just light enough
to discern a black jug lying broken at his side, from
which arose the odour of corn-juice, but by no means
of the true Monongahela savour.
I was struck by the fellow's appearance; he had
evidently been lying there all the evening; the
stumble I had made over him did not disturb him
in the least, and my hand chancing to touch his face,
I found it could as marble. I perceived he was dead;
a discovery that filled me with uncommon joy; for
my eagerness to change my condition was such, that
I only saw in him a body to be taken possession of,
without reading in the broken jug, and the miserable
corner in which its victim had breathed his last,
the newer wretchedness and degradation upon
which I was rushing. Such is the short-sightedness
of discontent; such the folly of the man who
deems himself the unluckiest of his species.
With a trembling hand I thrust into the pockets
of the corse the money and the silver spoons I had
brought with me, being so far prudent that I was
resolved not to trust the transfer of such valuables
to my new body to accident. This being accomplished,
I uttered the wish that had thrice served my
turn before.
I wished, however, in vain; I muttered the
than if I had pronounced it to the lamp-post. The
body lay unmoved, and I remained unchanged.
I became horribly disconcerted; a fear seized
me that my good angel, if I had ever had one, had
deserted me; or that the devil, if it was from him
I derived my power of passing from body to body,
had suddenly left me in the lurch;—in a word, that
I had consumed all my privileges of transformation,
and was chained to the body of Abram Skinner
for life.
I beat my breast in despair, and then, changing
from that to wrath, I began to belabour the ribs of
the dead man with all the strength of my foot, as
if he were answerable for my disappointment.
Perhaps, indeed, the reader will think that he was;
for at the third kick the corpse became animated,
and to my astonishment rose upon its feet, saying,
in accents tolerably articulate, though somewhat
thick and tumultuous, “I say, Charlie, odd rabbit
it, none on your jokes now, and none on your takin
of folks up; 'cause how, folks is not half so drunk
as you suppose. And so good night, and let's have
no more words about it, and I'll consider you werry
much of a gentleman.”
With these words the corpse picked up that fragment
of the jug that had the handle to it, leaving
the others, as well as his hat, behind him; and
staggering out of the shed, he began to walk away.
I was petrified; he was stalking off with my money,
and a dozen of Mrs. Smith's silver spoons!
“You villain!” said I, running after him, “give
me back my property.”
“I'm a free man,” said the sot; “I'm no man's
property. And so, Charlie, don't go for to disturb
me, for I knows my way home as well as anybody.”
“But the four hundred dollars and the silver
spoons,” said I, seizing him by the shoulders, and
endeavouring to empty the pockets I had but a
moment before filled. “If you resist, you rogue,
I'll put you in jail.”
“I won't go to jail for no Charlie in the liberty,”
said the man of the jug, who to the last moment
seemed to have no other idea than that he had fallen
into the hands of a guardian of the night, and was
in danger of being introduced to warmer quarters
than those he was leaving. He spoke with the
indignation of a freeborn republican, who felt his
rights invaded, and was resolute to defend them;
and, lifting up the fragment of his jug, he suddenly
bestowed it upon my head with such good-will that
I was felled to the earth. He took advantage of
my downfall to decamp, carrying with him the
treasure with which I had so bountifully freighted
him. I pursued him as well as I could, calling
upon the watch for assistance, and shouting murder
and robbery at the top of my voice. But all was
in vain; the watch were asleep, or I had wandered
beyond their jurisdiction; and after a ten minutes'
chase I found myself more bewildered than before,
and the robber vanished with his plunder.
9. CHAPTER IX.
In which the Author makes the acquaintance of a philanthropist.
I should have cursed my simplicity in mistaking
a drunkard for a dead man; but I had other evils
to distress me besides chagrin. I was lost in a
snow-storm, fainting with fatigue, shivering with
cold, and afar from assistance, there not being a
single house in sight. It was in vain that I sought
to recover my way; I plunged from one snow-bank
into another; and I believe I should have actually
perished, had not succour arrived at a moment when
I had given over all hopes of receiving it.
I had just sunk down into a huge drift on the
roadside, where I lay groaning, unable to extricate
myself, when a man driving by in a chair, hearing
my lamentations, drew up, and demanded, in a most
benevolent voice, what was the matter.
“Who art thou, friend?” said he, “and what are
thy distresses? If thou art in affliction, peradventure
there is one nigh at hand who will succour
thee.”
“I am,” said I, “the most miserable wretch on
the earth.”
“Heaven be praised!” said the stranger, with
great devoutness of accent; “for in that case I will
give thee help, and the night shall not pass away
in vain. Yea, verily, I will do my best to assist
to the eye and a refreshment to the spirit, to do
good deeds among those who are truly wretched.”
“And besides,” said I, “I am sticking fast in
the snow, and am perishing with cold.”
“Be of good heart, and hold still for a moment,
and I will come to thy assistance.”
And with that honest Broadbrim (for such I
knew by his speech he must be) descended from
the chair, and helped me out of the drift; all which
he accomplished with zeal and alacrity, showing
not more humanity, as I thought, than satisfaction
at finding such a legitimate object for its display.
He brushed the snow from my clothes, and perceiving
I was shivering with cold, for I had lost my
cloak some minutes before, he transferred one of
his own outer garments, of which, I believe, he had
two or three, to my shoulders, plying me all the
time with questions as to how I came into such a
difficulty, and what other griefs I might have to afflict
me, and assuring me I should have his assistance.
“Hast thou no house to cover thy nakedness?”
he cried; “verily, I will find thee a place wherein
thou shalt shelter thyself from snow and from cold.
Art thou suffering from lack of food? Verily, there
is a crust of bread and the leg of a chicken yet left
in my basket of cold bits, and thou shalt have them,
with something further hereafter. Hast thou no
family or friends? Verily, there are many humane
persons of my acquaintance who will, like
sisters. Art thou oppressed with years as well as
poverty? Verily, then thou hast a stronger claim
to pity, and it shall be accorded thee.”
He heaped question upon question, and assurance
upon assurance, with such haste and fervour,
that it was some minutes before I could speak. I
took advantage of his first pause to detail the latest,
and, at that moment, the most oppressive of my
griefs.
“I have been robbed,” I cried, “of four hundred
dollars, and a dozen silver spoons, by a rascal I
found lying drunk under a shed. But I'll have the
villain, if it costs me the half of his plunder, and—”
“Be not awroth with the poor man,” said my
deliverer. “It was a wickedness in him to rob
thee; but thou shouldst reflect how wickedness
comes of misery, and how misery of the inclemency
of the season. Be merciful to the wicked
man, as well as to the miserable; for thereby thou
showest mercy to him who is doubly miserable.
But how didst thou come by four hundred dollars
and a dozen silver spoons? Thou canst not be
so poor as to prove an object of charity?”
“No,” said I, “I am no beggar. But I won't be
robbed for nothing.”
“Verily, I say unto thee again, be not awroth
with the poor man. Thou shouldst reflect, if thou
wert robbed, how far thou wast thyself the cause
of the evil; for, having four hundred dollars about
thee, thou mightst have relieved the poor creature's
both a loss and a crime—the one on thy part, the
other on his. Talk not, therefore, of persecuting
the poor man; hunt him up, if thou canst, administer
secretly to his wants, and give him virtuous
counsel; and then, peradventure, he will sin no
more.”
I was struck by the tone and maxims of my
deliverer; they expressed an ardour of benevolence,
an enthusiasm of philanthropy, such as I
had never dreamed of before. I could not see his
face, the night being so thick and tempestuous;
but there was a complacency, a bustling self-satisfaction
in his voice, that convinced me he was not
only a good, but a happy man. I regarded him
with as much envy as respect; and a comparison,
which I could not avoid mentally making, betwixt
his condition and my own, drew from me a loud
groan.
“Art thou hurt?” said the good Samaritan. “I
will help thee into my wheeled convenience here,
and take thee to thy home.”
“No,” said I, “I will never go near that wretched
house again.”
“What is it that makes it wretched?” said the
Quaker.
“You will know, if you are of Philadelphia,” I
replied, “when I tell you my name. I am the
miserable Abram Skinner.”
“What! Abram Skinner, the money-lender?”
said my friend, with a severe voice. “Friend
and verily I have heard of those of many others,
who laid them all at thy doors, as the author and
cause thereof. Thou art indeed the most wretched
of men; but if thou thinkest so thyself, then is
there a hope thou mayst be yet restored to happiness.
Thou hast made money, but what good hast
thou done with it? thou hast accumulated thy hundreds,
and thy thousands, and thy tens of thousands—
but how many of thy fellow-creatures hast
thou given cause to rejoice in thy prosperity?
Truly, I have heard much said of thy wealth, and
thy avarice, friend Abram; but, verily, not a word
of thy kind-heartedness and charity: and know,
that goodness and charity are the only securities
against the ills, both sore and manifold, that spring
from groaning coffers. I say to thee, friend Abram,
hast thou ever given a dollar in alms to the poor,
or acquitted a single penny of obligation to the
hard-run of thy customers?”
My conscience smote me—not, however, that I
felt any great remorse for not having thrown away
my money in the way the Quaker meant: but his
words brought a new idea into my mind. It was
misery on the one hand, and the hope of arriving
at happiness on the other, which had spurred
me from transformation to transformation. Each
change had, however, been productive of greater
discontent than the other; and the woes with which
I was oppressed in my three borrowed bodies, had
been even greater than those that afflicted me
that I had not exercised a just discretion in the
selection of bodies, since I had taken those of men
whose modes of existence did not dispose to happiness.
What mode of existence then was most
likely to secure the content I sought? Such, I
inferred from the Quaker's discourse, as would call
into operation the love of goodness and of man—
such as would cause to be cultivated the kindly
virtues unknown to the selfish—such as would
lead to the practice of charity and general philanthropy.
I was grieved, therefore, that I had entered
so many bodies for nothing; my conscience
accused me of a blunder; and I longed to enter
upon an existence of virtue; not that I had any
great regard for virtue itself, but because I valued
my own happiness. Had my deliverer chanced to
break his neck while discoursing to me, I should
have reanimated his corse, to try my hand at benevolence.
As for being good and charitable in
the body I then occupied, I felt that it was impossible:
the impulse pointed to another existence.
The Quaker's indignation soon abated; he looked
upon my silence as the effect of remorse, and
the idea of converting me into an alms-giver and a
friend of the poor, like himself, took possession of
his imagination, and warmed his spirit. By such
a conversion his philanthropic desires would be
doubly gratified; it would make me happy, and, as
I was a rich man, some hundreds of others also.
He helped me into the chair, and driving slowly
the misery so prevalent in the suburbs,
and dilating with uncommon enthusiasm upon the
delight with which every act of benevolence would
be recorded in my own bosom.
It seems that he was returning from a mission
of charity in one of the remotest districts, where
he had relieved the necessities of divers unhappy
wretches; and, he gave me to understand, it was
his purpose to make one more charitable visitation
before returning home, notwithstanding the
lateness of the hour and the fury of the tempest.
And this visit he felt the more urged to make, since
it would afford a practical illustration of his remarks,
and show how doubly charity was blessed,
both to the giver and receiver.
“Thou shalt see,” said he, “even with thine
own eyes, what power he that hath money hath
over the afflictions of his race—what power to dry
the tear of the mourning, and to check the wicked
deeds of the vicious. He that I will now relieve is
what thou didst foolishly call thyself—to wit, the
most miserable of men; for he is both a beggar
and a convicted felon, having but a few days since
been discharged from the penitentiary, where he
had served out his three years, for, I believe, the
third time in his life.”
“Surely,” said I, “he is then a reprobate entirely
unworthy pity.”
“On the contrary,” said the philanthropist, “he
is for that reason the more to be pitied, since all
him the relief without which he must again become
a criminal: the very boys say to him, `Get
up, thou old jail-bird;' and men and women hoot
at him in the streets. Poverty made him a criminal,
and scorn has hardened his heart; yet is he a
man with a soul; and verily thou shalt see how
that soul can be melted by the breath of compassion.
In this little hovel we shall find him,” said
the Quaker, drawing up before a miserable frame
building, which was of a most lonely aspect, and in
a terrible state of dilapidation, the windows being
without shutters and glasses, and even the door
itself half torn from its hinges.
“It is a little tenement that belongeth to me,”
said my friend; “and here I told him he might
shelter him, until I could come in person and relieve
him. A negro-man whom I permitted to live
here for a while did very ungratefully, that is to say,
very thoughtlessly—destroy the window-shutters,
and other loose work, for fire-wood, I having forgotten
to supply him with that needful article,
and he, poor man, being too bashful to acquaint
me with his wants. Verily I do design to render it
more comfortable; but in these hard times one
cannot find more money than sufficeth to fill the
mouths of the hungry. Descend, friend Abram,
and let us enter. I see the poor man hath a fire
shining through the door; this will warm thy frozen
limbs, while the sound of his grateful acknowledgments
will do the same good office for thy
spirit.”
10. CHAPTER X.
Containing an affecting adventure with a victim of the law.
My benevolent friend, leaving his horse standing
at the door, led the way into the hovel, the interior
of which was still more ruinous than the outside.
It consisted of but a single room below, with a garret
above. A meager fire, which furnished the
only light, was burning on the hearth, to supply
which the planks had been torn from the floor,
leaving the earth below almost bare. There was
not a single article of furniture visible, save an old
deal table without leaves, a broken chair, and a tattered
scrap of carpet lying near the fire, which
seemed to have served as both bed and blanket to
the wretched tenant.
“How is this?” said the Friend, in surprise.
“Verily I did direct my man Abel to carry divers
small comforts hither, which have vanished, as well
as the poor man, John Smith.”
John Smith, it seems, was the name of the beneficiary,
and that convinced me he was a rogue. I
ventured to hint to our common friend, that John
Smith, having disposed of those “small comforts”
he spoke of to the best advantage, was now engaged
seeking others in some of our neighbours'
houses; and that the wisest thing we could do in
such a case would be to take our departure.
“Verily,” said my deliverer, with suavity, “it is
not possible John can do the wicked things thou
thinkest of; for, first, it is but three days since he
left the penitentiary, and secondly, I sent him by
my helper and friend, Abel Snipe, sufficient eatables
to supply him a week; so that he could have
no inducement to do a wicked thing. Still it doth
surprise me that he is absent; nevertheless, we will
tarry a little while, lest peradventure he should return,
and be in trouble, with none to relieve him.
It wants yet ten minutes to midnight,” continued
the benevolent man, drawing out a handsome gold
watch, “and five of these at least we can devote
to the poor creature.”
I was about to remonstrate a second time, when
a step was heard approaching at a distance in the
street.
“Peradventure it is John himself,” said my
friend; “and peradventure it will be better thou
shouldst step aside into yonder dark corner for an
instant, that thou mayst witness, without restraining
by thy presence, the feelings of virtue that remain
in the spirit, even when tainted and hardened
by depravity.”
I crept away, as I was directed, to a corner,
where I might easily remain unobserved, the room
being illumined only by the fire, and that consisting
of little besides embers and ashes. From this
place I saw Mr. John Smith as he entered, which
he declined doing until after he had peeped suspiciously
into the apartment, and been summoned by
the voice of his benefactor.
He was as ill-looking a dog as I had ever laid
eyes on, and his appearance was in strange contrast
with that of his benevolent patron. The latter was
a tall and rawboned man of fifty, with an uncommonly
prepossessing visage; rather lantern-jawed,
perhaps, but handsome and good-natured. The
other was a slouch of a fellow, short of stature, but
full of fat and brawn, with bow legs, gibbon arms,
and a hang-dog visage. He sidled up to the fire
hesitatingly, and, indeed, with an air of shame and
humility; while the philanthropist, laying his watch
upon the table, extended his hand towards him.
“Be of good heart, friend John,” he said; “I
come, not to reproach thee for thy misdeeds, but to
counsel thee how thou shalt amend them, and restore
thyself again to the society of the virtuous.”
“'Es, sir,” grumbled John Smith, dodging his
head in humble acknowledgment, rubbing his hands
for warmth over the fire, and casting a sidelong
look at his benefactor. “Werry good of you, sir;
shall ever be beholden. Werry hard times for one
what's been in the penitentiary—takes away all
one's repurtation; and, Lord bless us, sir, a man's
but a ruined man when a man hasn't no repurtation.”
And with that worthy John drew his sleeve over
his nose, which convinced me he was not so much
of a rascal as I thought him.
“John, thou hast been but as a sinner and a foolish
man.”
“'Es, sir,” said John, with another rub of his
sleeve at his nose; “but hard times makes hard
be wirtuous; but, Lord bless us, Mr. Longstraw
(beg pardon—can't think of making so free to say
friend to such a great gentleman), one can't be
wirtuous with nothing to live on.”
“Verily, thou speakest, in a measure, the truth,”
said my friend; “and I intend thou shalt now be
put in some way of earning an honest livelihood.”
“'Es, sir,” said John; “and sure I shall be werry
much beholden.”
But it is not my intention to record the conversation
of the worthy pair. I am writing a history
of myself, and not of other people; and I therefore
think it proper to pursue no discourses in which
I did not myself bear a part. It is sufficient to
say, that my deliverer said a thousand excellent
things in the way of counsel, which the other received
very well, and many indicative of a disposition
to be charitable, which Mr. John Smith received
still better; and in the end, to relieve the
pressing wants of the sufferer, which Mr. John
Smith feelingly represented, drew forth a pocketbook,
and took therefrom a silver dollar; at the
sight of which, I thought, Mr. John Smith looked
a little disappointed. Nay, it struck me that the
appearance of the pocketbook, ancient and ill-looking
as it was, had captivated his imagination in
a greater degree than the coin. I had before observed
him steal several affectionate looks towards
the gold watch lying on the table, which now, however,
the sight of the well-thumbed wallet seemed
he received the silver dollar with many
thanks, and with still more the assurance that the
philanthropist would procure him employment on
the morrow; and Mr. Longstraw's eyes, as he turned
to beckon me from the corner, began to twinkle
with the delight of self-approbation.
I was myself beginning to feel a sentiment of
pleasure, and to picture to my mind the unfortunate
felon, converted, by a few words of counsel, and
still fewer dollars of charity, into an honest and
worthy member of society, when—oh horror of
horrors!—the repenting convict suddenly snatched
up a brand from the fire, and discharged it, with
a violence that would have felled an ox, full upon
the head of his patron.
The sparks flew from the brand over the whole
room, and my friend dropped upon the floor on his
face, followed by the striker, who, seizing upon his
cravat, twisted it tightly round the unfortunate man's
throat, thus completing by strangulation the murder
more than half accomplished by the below.
The whole affair was the work of an instant;
and had I possessed the will or courage to interfere,
I could not have done so in time to arrest the
mischief. But, in truth, I had not the power to
stir; horror and astonishment chained me to the
corner, where I stood as if transformed to stone,
unable even to vent my feelings in a cry. I was
seized with a terrible apprehension on my own account;
for I could not doubt that the wretch who
would have as little hesitation to despatch me, who
had witnessed the deed. I feared every moment
lest the villain should direct his eye to the corner
in which I stood, separated from him only a few
yards; but he was too busy with his horrid work to
regard me; and, terrified as I was, I looked on in
safety while my deliverer was murdered before my
eyes.
How long Mr. John Smith was at his dreadful
work I cannot say; but I saw him, after a while,
relax his grasp from his victim's throat, and fall to
rummaging his pockets. Then, leaping up, he
seized upon the watch, and clapped it into his bosom,
saying, with a most devilish chuckle and grin,
“Damn them 'ere old fellers what gives a man
a dollar, and preaches about wirtue! I reckon,
old Slabsides, there's none on your people will
hang me for the smash. Much beholden to you
for leaving the horse and chair; it makes all safer.”
With these words the wretch slipped out of the
hovel, and a moment after I heard the smothered
roll of the vehicle as it swept from the door.
11. CHAPTER XI.
In which the plot thickens, and the tragedy grows deeper.
I supposed that Mr. John Smith had taken himself
away with as much speed as was consistent
with the strength of his horse and the safety of his
bones, and I recovered from the fears I had entertained
on my own account. I crept up to the philanthropist
to give him assistance, if such could be
now rendered. But it was too late; he was already
dead: Mr. John Smith had not taken his degrees
without proper study in his profession; and
I must say that his practice on the present occasion
did not go far to confirm me in the love of benevolence.
Nevertheless, the appearance of the defunct
threw my mind into a ferment. I had been hunting
a body, and now I had one before me; I had
come to believe that, if I wished for happiness, I
must get possession of one whose occupant had
previously been happy; and I had seen enough of
the deceased to know that he had been an uncommonly
comfortable and contented personage.
The end of all this was a resolution, which I instantly
made, to take advantage of the poor man's
misfortune, and convert his body to my own purposes.
I had seen him for the first time that night;
mentioned before; and I consequently knew nothing
of him beyond what I had just learned. Where
he lived, who were his connexions, what his property,
&c. &c., were all questions to which I was
to find answers thereafter. It appeared to me that
a philanthropist of his spirit and age (the latter of
which I judged to be about fifty) could not but be
very well known, and that all I should have to do,
after reanimating his body, would be to seek the
assistance of the first person I should find, and so
be conducted at once to the gentleman's house;
after which all would go well enough.
But, in truth, I took but little time for reflection;
or perhaps I should not have been in such a hurry
to attempt a transformation. A little prudence
might have led me to inquire into the consequences
of the change, inferred from the condition of
the body. Suppose his scull should prove to be
broken; who was to stand the woes of trepanning?
I do say, it would have been wiser had I thought
of that—but unluckily I did not: I was in too
great a hurry to think of any thing save the transformation
itself; and the result was, that I had a
lesson on the demerits of leaping before looking,
which I think will be of service to me for the remainder
of my life, as it might be to the reader,
could the reader be brought to believe that that experience
is good for any thing, which costs nothing.
My resolution was quickened by a step which I
heard approaching along the street. “It is a watchman,”
body and run out for assistance.”
I turned to the defunct.
“Friend Longstraw,” said I, “or whatever your
name is, if you are really dead, I wish to occupy
your body.”
That moment I lost all consciousness. The
reader may infer the transfer of spirit was accomplished.
And so it was. I came to my senses a few moments
after, just in time to find myself tumbling
into a hole in the earth beneath the floor of the
hovel, with Mr. John Smith hard by, dragging to
the same depository the mortal frame I had just
deserted. I perceived at once the horrible dilemma
in which I was placed; I was on the point of
being buried, and, what was worse, of being buried
alive!
“I conjure and beseech thee, friend John Smith,”
I cried—but cried no more. The villain had just
reached the pit, dragging the body of the late Abram
Skinner. He was startled at my voice; but it only
quickened him in his labours. He snatched up the
corse and cast it down upon me as one would a
millstone; and the weight, though that was not
very considerable, and the shock together, jarred the
life more than half out of me.
“What! old Slabsides,” said he, “ar'n't you
past grumbling?”
With that, the bloody-minded miscreant seized
me with all his strength.
I had entered the philanthropist's body only to be
murdered. I uttered a direful scream; but that was
only a waste of the breath which Mr. John Smith
was determined to waste for me. He redoubled
his blows with a vigour that showed he was in
earnest; nor did he cease until his work was completed.
In a word, he murdered me, and so effectually,
that it is a wonder I am alive to tell it.
He assassinated me, and even began to bury me,
by tumbling earth down from the floor; when, as
my good fate would have it, the scene was brought
to a climax by the sudden entrance of a watchman,
who, running up to the villain, served him the same
turn he had served me, by laying a leaded mace
over his head, and so knocking him out of his
senses.
It seems (for I scorn to keep the reader in suspense,
by indulging in mystery) that this faithful
fellow, having made a shorter nap than was warranted
by the state of the night, had taken a stroll
into the air, to look about him; that he had passed
the hovel, and, seeing the chair standing at the door,
had looked through a crack, and perceived Mr.
Longstraw, with whose person and benevolent character
he was acquainted, and myself—that is, my
late self—warming ourselves by the convict's fire;
and that, after pursuing his beat for a while, he was
about to return by another way, when, to his surprise,
he lighted upon the vehicle at more than a
being tied to a post, it was evident he had not
strayed thither. This awaking a suspicion that
all was not right, he determined to pay a second
visit to the hovel; and was on the way thither
when I set up the scream mentioned before. Then
quickening his pace, he arrived in time to witness
the awful spectacle of Mr. John Smith thrusting
the two bodies into the pit; which operation the
courageous watchman brought to a close by knocking
the operator on the head, as I have related.
What had brought Mr. John Smith back again,
and why he should have troubled himself to conceal
the victim of his murderous cupidity, must be
conjectured, as well as the amazement with which,
doubtless, he found he had two bodies to bury instead
of one. He perhaps reflected, that the visit
of his patron was known to other persons; who,
upon finding his body, would readily conjecture
who was the murderer; and therefore judged it
proper to conceal the evidence of assassination, and
leave the fate of his benefactor in entire mystery.
As it happened, his return had wellnigh proved
fatal to me, and it was any thing but happy for
himself. It caused him to take up his lodgings for
a fourth time in the penitentiary; and there he is
sawing stone, I believe, to this day, unless pardoned
out by the Governor of Pennsylvania, according to
the practice among governors in general. The
visitation was, however, thus far advantageous to
me, that it caused me to be conducted to the
and care; whereas, had it not happened, I
might have remained lying on the floor of my miserable
tenement until frozen to death; for the
night was uncommonly bitter.
As for my late body, it found its way to Abram
Skinner's mansion; whence, having been handsomely
coffined, it was carried to the grave, which,
but for me, it would have filled three months
before.
| Sheppard Lee | |