University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.
TOWARDS THE END OF WHICH THE HERB-DOCTOR PROVES HIMSELF A
FORGIVER OF INJURIES.

In a kind of ante-cabin, a number of respectable looking
people, male and female, way-passengers, recently
come on board, are listlessly sitting in a mutually shy
sort of silence.

Holding up a small, square bottle, ovally labeled
with the engraving of a countenance full of soft pity as
that of the Romish-painted Madonna, the herb-doctor
passes slowly among them, benignly urbane, turning
this way and that, saying:—

“Ladies and gentlemen, I hold in my hand here the
Samaritan Pain Dissuader, thrice-blessed discovery of
that disinterested friend of humanity whose portrait
you see. Pure vegetable extract. Warranted to remove
the acutest pain within less than ten minutes.
Five hundred dollars to be forfeited on failure. Especially
efficacious in heart disease and tic-douloureux.
Observe the expression of this pledged friend of humanity.—Price
only fifty cents.”

In vain. After the first idle stare, his auditors—in
pretty good health, it seemed—instead of encouraging

his politeness, appeared, if anything, impatient of it;
and, perhaps, only diffidence, or some small regard for
his feelings, prevented them from telling him so. But,
insensible to their coldness, or charitably overlooking it,
he more wooingly than ever resumed: “May I venture
upon a small supposition? Have I your kind
leave, ladies and gentlemen?”

To which modest appeal, no one had the kindness to
answer a syllable.

“Well,” said he, resignedly, “silence is at least not
denial, and may be consent. My supposition is this:
possibly some lady, here present, has a dear friend at
home, a bed-ridden sufferer from spinal complaint. If
so, what gift more appropriate to that sufferer than this
tasteful little bottle of Pain Dissuader?”

Again he glanced about him, but met much the same
reception as before. Those faces, alien alike to sympathy
or surprise, seemed patiently to say, “We are travelers;
and, as such, must expect to meet, and quietly
put up with, many antic fools, and more antic quacks.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” (deferentially fixing his eyes
upon their now self-complacent faces) ladies and gentlemen,
might I, by your kind leave, venture upon one
other small supposition? It is this: that there is scarce
a sufferer, this noonday, writhing on his bed, but in his
hour he sat satisfactorily healthy and happy; that the
Samaritan Pain Dissuader is the one only balm for
that to which each living creature—who knows?—may
be a draughted victim, present or prospective. In
short:—Oh, Happiness on my right hand, and oh, Security

on my left, can ye wisely adore a Providence,
and not think it wisdom to provide?—Provide!” (Uplifting
the bottle.)

What immediate effect, if any, this appeal might have
had, is uncertain. For just then the boat touched at a
houseless landing, scooped, as by a land-slide, out of
sombre forests; back through which led a road, the
sole one, which, from its narrowness, and its being
walled up with story on story of dusk, matted foliage,
presented the vista of some cavernous old gorge in a
city, like haunted Cock Lane in London. Issuing from
that road, and crossing that landing, there stooped his
shaggy form in the door-way, and entered the ante-cabin,
with a step so burdensome that shot seemed in his
pockets, a kind of invalid Titan in homespun; his beard
blackly pendant, like the Carolina-moss, and dank with
cypress dew; his countenance tawny and shadowy as
an iron-ore country in a clouded day. In one hand he
carried a heavy walking-stick of swamp-oak; with the
other, led a puny girl, walking in moccasins, not improbably
his child, but evidently of alien maternity,
perhaps Creole, or even Camanche. Her eye would
have been large for a woman, and was inky as the pools
of falls among mountain-pines. An Indian blanket,
orange-hued, and fringed with lead tassel-work, appeared
that morning to have shielded the child from
heavy showers. Her limbs were tremulous; she seemed
a little Cassandra, in nervousness.

No sooner was the pair spied by the herb-doctor, than
with a cheerful air, both arms extended like a host's, he

advanced, and taking the child's reluctant hand, said,
trippingly: “On your travels, ah, my little May Queen?
Glad to see you. What pretty moccasins. Nice to
dance in.” Then with a half caper sang—
Come, chirrup, chirrup, my little robin!”

Which playful welcome drew no responsive playfulness
from the child, nor appeared to gladden or conciliate
the father; but rather, if anything, to dash the dead
weight of his heavy-hearted expression with a smile
hypochondriacally scornful.

Sobering down now, the herb-doctor addressed the
stranger in a manly, business-like way — a transition
which, though it might seem a little abrupt, did not
appear constrained, and, indeed, served to show that his
recent levity was less the habit of a frivolous nature,
than the frolic condescension of a kindly heart.

“Excuse me,” said he, “but, if I err not, I was speaking
to you the other day;—on a Kentucky boat, wasn't
it?”

“Never to me,” was the reply; the voice deep and
lonesome enough to have come from the bottom of an
abandoned coal-shaft.

“Ah!—But am I again mistaken, (his eye falling on
the swamp-oak stick,) or don't you go a little lame,
sir?”

“Never was lame in my life.”

“Indeed? I fancied I had perceived not a limp, but

a hitch, a slight hitch;—some experience in these
things—divined some hidden cause of the hitch—buried
bullet, may be—some dragoons in the Mexican war discharged
with such, you know.—Hard fate!” he sighed,
“little pity for it, for who sees it?—have you dropped
anything?”

Why, there is no telling, but the stranger was bowed
over, and might have seemed bowing for the purpose of
picking up something, were it not that, as arrested
in the imperfect posture, he for the moment so remained;
slanting his tall stature like a mainmast yielding
to the gale, or Adam to the thunder.

The little child pulled him. With a kind of a surge
he righted himself, for an instant looked toward the
herb-doctor; but, either from emotion or aversion, or
both together, withdrew his eyes, saying nothing. Presently,
still stooping, he seated himself, drawing his child
between his knees, his massy hands tremulous, and still
averting his face, while up into the compassionate one
of the herb-doctor the child turned a fixed, melancholy
glance of repugnance.

The herb-doctor stood observant a moment, then
said:

“Surely you have pain, strong pain, somewhere; in
strong frames pain is strongest. Try, now, my specific,”
(holding it up). “Do but look at the expression
of this friend of humanity. Trust me, certain cure for
any pain in the world. Won't you look?”

“No,” choked the other.

“Very good. Merry time to you, little May Queen.”

And so, as if he would intrude his cure upon no one,
moved pleasantly off, again crying his wares, nor now
at last without result. A new-comer, not from the
shore, but another part of the boat, a sickly young
man, after some questions, purchased a bottle. Upon
this, others of the company began a little to wake up
as it were; the scales of indifference or prejudice fell
from their eyes; now, at last, they seemed to have an
inkling that here was something not undesirable which
might be had for the buying.

But while, ten times more briskly bland than ever,
the herb-doctor was driving his benevolent trade, accompanying
each sale with added praises of the thing
traded, all at once the dusk giant, seated at some distance,
unexpectedly raised his voice with—

“What was that you last said?”

The question was put distinctly, yet resonantly, as
when a great clock-bell—stunning admonisher—strikes
one; and the stroke, though single, comes bedded in
the belfry clamor.

All proceedings were suspended. Hands held forth
for the specific were withdrawn, while every eye turned
towards the direction whence the question came. But,
no way abashed, the herb-doctor, elevating his voice
with even more than wonted self-possession, replied—

“I was saying what, since you wish it, I cheerfully
repeat, that the Samaritan Pain Dissuader, which I here
hold in my hand, will either cure or ease any pain
you please, within ten minutes after its application.”

“Does it produce insensibility?”

“By no means. Not the least of its merits is, that
it is not an opiate. It kills pain without killing
feeling.”

“You lie! Some pains cannot be eased but by producing
insensibility, and cannot be cured but by producing
death.”

Beyond this the dusk giant said nothing; neither, for
impairing the other's market, did there appear much
need to. After eying the rude speaker a moment with
an expression of mingled admiration and consternation,
the company silently exchanged glances of mutual sympathy
under unwelcome conviction. Those who had
purchased looked sheepish or ashamed; and a cynical-looking
little man, with a thin flaggy beard, and a
countenance ever wearing the rudiments of a grin,
seated alone in a corner commanding a good view of
the scene, held a rusty hat before his face.

But, again, the herb-doctor, without noticing the retort,
overbearing though it was, began his panegyrics
anew, and in a tone more assured than before, going so
far now as to say that his specific was sometimes almost
as effective in cases of mental suffering as in cases
of physical; or rather, to be more precise, in cases
when, through sympathy, the two sorts of pain coöperated
into a climax of both—in such cases, he said, the
specific had done very well. He cited an example:
Only three bottles, faithfully taken, cured a Louisiana
widow (for three weeks sleepless in a darkened chamber)
of neuralgic sorrow for the loss of husband and
child, swept off in one night by the last epidemic. For

the truth of this, a printed voucher was produced, duly
signed.

While he was reading it aloud, a sudden side-blow
all but felled him.

It was the giant, who, with a countenance lividly
epileptic with hypochondriac mania, exclaimed—

“Profane fiddler on heart-strings! Snake!”

More he would have added, but, convulsed, could
not; so, without another word, taking up the child,
who had followed him, went with a rocking pace out of
the cabin.

“Regardless of decency, and lost to humanity!”
exclaimed the herb-doctor, with much ado recovering
himself. Then, after a pause, during which he examined
his bruise, not omitting to apply externally a little
of his specific, and with some success, as it would
seem, plained to himself:

“No, no, I won't seek redress; innocence is my redress.
But,” turning upon them all, “if that man's
wrathful blow provokes me to no wrath, should his evil
distrust arouse you to distrust? I do devoutly hope,”
proudly raising voice and arm, “for the honor of
humanity—hope that, despite this coward assault, the
Samaritan Pain Dissuader stands unshaken in the confidence
of all who hear me!”

But, injured as he was, and patient under it, too,
somehow his case excited as little compassion as his
oratory now did enthusiasm. Still, pathetic to the last,
he continued his appeals, notwithstanding the frigid
regard of the company, till, suddenly interrupting himself,

as if in reply to a quick summons from without, he
said hurriedly, “I come, I come,” and so, with every
token of precipitate dispatch, out of the cabin the
herb-doctor went.