University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER FOURTH.
PAUL THE DREAMER.

There is a grey old rock, rising above the brown dust of the road, its
granite breast turned to the west, while all around it bloom the summer
leaves, and above it, the slanted pine flings its thick shadows.

It stands alone, huge, massive and colossal, like the altar of some forgotten
religion, rising in sullen grandeur from the roadside earth, with
many a tender flower peeping from its crevices, while its summit
spreads beneath the sky, level as a floor.

You may stand upon this rock in the summer morning, and feel your
heart praise God, as, encircled by the freshness of the woods, lulled by
the music of the waters, you turn your gaze to the sky, whose tranquil
azure—just touched by the rising sun—contrasts so beautifully with the
bright green of the leaves, the soft darkness of the waves.

To the west—suddenly turning from its northern course—the Wissahikon
flashes on, shadowed by broken rocks, with great walls of verdure
towering on either side, into the clear morning sky.

On the south, at the distance of but one hundred yards, an ancient mill
looks forth with its black walls, from the leaves that hang around its roof,
and near the mill, a waterfall glimpses into light, for an instant, ere it
plunges into the shadows. Beside this mill three roads meet; one
comes from the south, peeping abruptly from the world of foliage; one
leads to the north, along the base of the great rock; the other to the
west, skirting the Wissahikon, on her way to the Schuylkill.

But at the spot where the roads meet, a sight of fresh rustic beauty
meets your eye. It is an oaken trough, filled with clear cold water,
fresh from the caverns of Wissahikon, with the shadow of overhanging
branches between it and the light of day.

The mill-stream, which dashes into the shadows, to the south of the

great rock, passes underneath the bridge, erected between the rock and
the oaken trough, sparkling with clear cold water.

Such are the general features of the scene. Yet there are no words
in language to paint its full beauty. Who shall tell how the leaves, rising
in trembling pyramids of foliage, almost shut out the sky above us?
How the stream, now spreading in a pool as clear a mirror, set in a
frame of granite, now breaking in foaming waves against the rugged
rocks, passes into the shadows of the trees, and is seen, far beyond,
flashing into light again, like a soul risen again from the shadows of the
grave?

Or, what pencil shall paint the slow-moving clouds that sail over the
deep blue, and hover above the Wissahikon, as if gazing upon their white
bosom, reflected in the clear waters, far below?

It is beautiful to stand upon the rock, in the summer-time, and feel
that God is there, in the white blossoms that float along in the air, as
well as in the glimpse of blue sky, seen from overhead, but there was a
Night, when the place seemed tenanted by the Good and the Evil Angels
of the shadowy world.

The moon rose over the eastern woods. A globe of pale golden light,
she hovered on the tops of the leafless trees, and shot her sad beams
along the summit of the giant rock, and far down the glen of Wissahikon.
That sad light shone upon the stream, as it chafed onward,
among rocks of ice, and rocks of stone; it gave a spectral glare to the
leafless woods, and revealed a sky, which, deepening into an intense
blue, and strown with points of light, looked like a tremulous curtain,
hung between man and Eternity. A tremulous curtain, veiling the awful
secrets of the World Beyond, and quivering in soft light, ere it was rolled
aside.

On the last night of 1774, as the moon rose in the east, you might
have seen two figures crouching under the giant rock, and have heard
their subdued whispers, breaking the Sabbath stillness of the air.

At their feet dashed the mill-stream, plunging into the Wissahikon,
with no bridge shadowing its tumultuous foam. The mill rose in the
south, its dark walls encircled by leafless branches. Above them, projecting
as it rose, the giant rock flung a deep shadow over the wide forest
path.

Seated on a log, beneath that rock, they conversed in whispers. One,
a stunted and withered form—like a strong oak, blasted by lightning—
brushed the long hair from his face, as he gathered the coarse mantle
around his distorted figure. The other, a tall and robust man, in the
prime of his manhood, grasped his rifle with a firm hand, and turned
his frank, earnest face, toward the horse-like visage of his companion.

“At what hour?”—said a bold voice—it was the voice of the Hunter,
Gilbert Morgan.

He gazed into the face of the hunchback, with a sensation of involuntary
awe. That long visage, shadowed by the matted hair, and resting on
the muscular breast, with the shoulders rising on either side, had a wild,
unearthly look. The small white hands were pressed against the hollow
cheeks, and a lurid light played around the eyes. It was more like the
face of a demon, than the visage of a man.

Stout Gilbert, whose tall form combined, in every outline, a rude beauty
with an iron vigor, was awed, not only by the vision of this deformed
figure and unnatural face, but by the awful night which encircled him,
the deep blue sky, made spectral by the light of the rising moon, the
Wissahikon, filling the dell with a never-ceasing echo, the trees, with
leafless branches, standing like wierd sentinels by its waters.

“At what hour?” he whispered.

“At the hour of twelve—” said Black David; his voice was soft and
musical. “Through the grove of pines, in front of the mansion, into the
front door—by this key—and up the stairs. Then, you will turn to the
right, traverse a corridor, and discover the small door leading to the
tower. The old man—”

“Isaac the Wizard?” asked Gilbert, his voice broken by a tremor.

“Isaac the Wizard!” a smile displayed the white teeth of the Deformed—“Yes,
Isaac the Wizard. You will find him in the tower.
Secure his gold. And at the hour of one, present yourself at the House
on the opposite side of the Wissahikon—you remember it?”

Gilbert shuddered. Was it from fear, as a dark Memory rushed upon
his soul, or did the accent with which Black David pronounced the italicized
words, strike him with involuntary awe?

“You are—you—” he began, but the words died on his lips.

“What am I? Tell me. I have a vast curiosity to know what the
good people of the valley and the dell say of me. A poor, deformed
wretch—eh?”

He pronounced these words with an inexpressible bitterness.

“Now look you, my friend—” Gilbert spoke in rough yet manly tones
—“No one ever yit caught me a-makin' fun of any man's personal appearance.
Don't keer how sticky the burr is, only so there's a good
chesnut inside. But I was goin' to say—”

“Well?” Black David drew nearer to him. The hunter imagined
that he felt the intense light of his eyes, shining into his face. “That
you're a queer fellow,” whispered Gilbert, as though he had relieved
himself of an important secret.

“Queer? How?”

“To day, you're seen in the service of Old Isaac. To-morrow, you are
found in the Black-House 'way up the Wissahikon, in the service of the
Priest and his Son—the—the—Monk of Wissahikon. You don't seem
to have any place to live, and nobody knows much about you, anyhow!”

“Would you like to see me raise the Devil?” said that low musical
voice, and again the expression, which we cannot depict, passed over
Black David's face.

Gilbert started to his feet, and clutched his rifle with a firmer grasp.

“Take keer, I say! None of your dark tricks here!” and he brought
the rifle to his shoulder.

The deformed arose. He raised his white hands. The moon, streaming
over the top of the rock, bathed them in soft light, while his face and
figure were wrapt in shadow.

There was something horrible to Gilbert, in that face veiled in shadow,
while the uplifted hands glowed in the pale moonlight.

“Take keer!” he shouted again, his form agitated by a perceptible
tremor—“None of yer devil's tricks on me, I say!”

“Shall I invoke his presence from the stream, which spreads black and
vague beneath us? On this rock shall I stand and say the words, and
speak the spells which will bring to your side—to yours, strong man—the
Enemy of Mankind? Oh, you feel your blood curdle, you grow cold
with fear—you—you—the stout hunter, who never felt before what it is
to fear!”

The moon shone upon Gilbert's face. Those brown features were
agitated with an intensity of fear. The eyes glassy, the lips parted, the
veins along the bared throat writhing as if in extreme physical torture—
he looked like an embodied image of fear.

“Take keer!” he growled again—“One word more, and I fire!”

“You have dared to prate of me? You, a miserable earth-worm,
whom I can crush with a word? By my soul, I have a strange whim, to
punish you for your impertinence. Shall I give you into the power of
the spirits who people this wintry air? Shall I speak, and lo! do you
not feel it already? That invisible hand, cold as death, pressed against
your cheek?”

The stout hunter shook as with an ague-chill. And yet, in his very
trembling, he was firm and brave. Awed by Black David's words,
chilled by his voice, fascinated by the strange power of his eyes, he
raised his rifle, and took deliberate aim at the breast of the hunchback.

“Now raise your Devils, if you kin. Just try it, and I'll put this
bullet through yer breast!”

Black David murmured some words in an unknown tongue. A sharp
report broke the grave-like silence, and was redoubled in a thousand
echoes. Up, slowly into the moonlight floated the blue smoke of the
rifle. The aim was deadly; the muzzle almost touched the breast of
the victim.

As the smoke rolled away, Gilbert—his brow damp with moisture—
started forward, and looked, with dilating eyes, for the mangled form of
that victim.

Black David was there, but neither mangled nor bleeding. There, before
the affrighted hunter, his horse-like face framed in his matted hair
and beard, his small hands uplifted in the moonlight.

The rifle fell from the Hunter's palsied hands.

He had endured much in his time; wandered far away among the gorges
of the Alleghanies for days, without food; he had tracked the panther into
his lair, deep in the shadows of some pathless cavern, and faced the Red
Savage, in his deadliest rage; he was a man of iron nerve and fearless
soul. It may be, that his hands were stained with innocent blood, for his
life had been nurtured into robust vigor, among scenes and with men of
the darkest and most lawless character.

But now he trembled like a child in the dark, frightened at its own
footstep. He did not fear the hunchback, with his distorted form, and
long unnatural face, but he was afraid of that which palsies the stoutest
arm, and chills the firmest heart—that terrible something, which we express
in the simple words—

“The other world!”

Therefore, as the rifle fell from his stiffening fingers, he stood trembling
in every nerve, with arms outspread, and face bathed with cold moisture,
while the moonlight still glowed upon the white hands of the Deformed.

“Yer no man, but a Devil! I aimed at yer breast—and my eye's good
to snuff a candle at a hundred yards! I loaded the rifle myself; 'twas
a sure ball, and there yo' ar', 'live as ever!”

In answer to his incoherent exclamations, the voice of Black David
broke softly on the stilled air.

“Do you feel the hand upon your cheek? It is cold—very cold, for it is
the hand of a dead man. You may turn—but you cannot see it! Still
it is there, pressing its icy fingers on your cheek, invisible, yet palpable as
life, and cold as death!”

With his small hand, he lifted the matted hair from his forehead. Gilbert
beheld it, saw the fair white skin—much fairer and clearer than the
lower part of the face—marked by a livid cross, like the half-healed cicatrice
of some hideous wound.

“And did you think to kill me?” he cried, in that voice, which, scarcely
audible, thrilled the listener to the heart, and startled the stillness with its
unearthly accent. “Me? Do you behold that sign?” His eyes gleamed
a sad and tender light. “Take the knife from your belt; strike at my
heart—strike!”

He flung the mantle from his shoulders. The hideous deformity of his
figure was made more painfully distinct, by a close-fitting dress of dark
hues, which revealed the large body supported by crooked and slender
limbs, the wide chest, with the face resting upon it, the long arms, high
shoulders, and back rising in a shapeless hump.

“Take your knife. Strike. Do not fear—the sharp blade may drive
the life from this distorted form!”

Gilbert did not touch his knife. His senses were enchained by the
eyes of the Deformed; that steady gaze held him, dumb and motionless.

“Let—me—go!” he faltered in a whisper. “Take yer eyes off o'
me—I can't move. Mercy—if yo' b'lieve in a God—mercy!”

He fell on his knees, yes, sinking on the snow which covered the sod,
and, by its spiritual white, made the clear Wissahikon look black and
spectral, he folded his arms upon his brawny chest, and his head drooped
slowly, until his face was hidden from the moon.

It seemed to him—the hardy woodsman—as though all power of mind
and body had passed from his form into the breast of the hunchback.

Even the power of speech failed him. His senses were dulled by a
drowsy languor; the sound of the Wissahikon, roaring over its rocky bed,
seemed afar off, and soon died away in a hollow murmur.

Gazing upon the prostrate huntsman, Black David stood erect, with the
moonbeams—stealing over the edge of the rock—slowly lighting up his
strange face, and brow seared by a livid cross. Around his lips, a smile
of inexpressible scorn played fitfully, while the light of his eyes grew
more intense and spectral.

“Rise!” he said, after some moments had passed.

The herculean hunter slowly rose, stretching forth his arms with a
gesture of pain, like a man who has lain for hours in a cramped and
uneasy posture.

“Take up your rifle!”

Gilbert obeyed.

“Go on your way. Do your duty, without fear. At the hour of One
—remember—the House of the Brothers! Go!”

Retreating toward the rock, Black David pointed to the west, with the
delicate fingers of his right hand.

Slowly, Gilbert passed him. Without looking to the right or left, he
hurried into the shadows of the narrow dell, through which the mill-stream
poured into the Wissahikon. He crossed the brook, now leaping
from rock to rock, now passing securely over the ice. Ascending the opposite
hill, with one foot advanced towards the west, he turned his head
over his shoulder, and, with a shudder, looked back.

Beneath the rock, Black David stood, his form lost in shadow, while
the moon played freely over his face, and revealed his white forehead,
marked by the livid cross. With his left hand, he raised the matted hair,
with the right still pointing to the west—

“When I call, you will come to me!” Gilbert heard his voice, rising
in deep emphasis—“Miles may separate us, mountains may intervene,
rivers howl between us, still you will hear my voice, and you will obey!”

At the same moment Gilbert saw a form advance from the pines, and

stand in the bright moonlight, on the summit of the rock. It was the
figure of a man, whose black attire was tinted by the rays, as, with hands
clasped, he stood motionless upon the level summit of the granite mass,
his shadowed face turned toward the Wissahikon.

“The Monk!” he cried, and—utterly bewildered by the events of the
last hour,—rushed on his westward way, his head bent upon his breast,
and his rifle on his shoulder.

Meanwhile, upon the summit of the rock stood the motionless form,
clad in a sombre robe reaching to his knees,—the face turned from the
moon—and the long, flowing black hair, surmounted by a velvet cap.

His hands were clasped, and the silver cross gleamed faintly on his
dark dress. It was a noble form, and the face, wrapt in half-shadow, was
softened by an emotion which parted the lips, and gave the large eyes a
light at once sad and tender.

Alone upon the rock—the wild woods around—the intense sky above—
he stood, while his dark form rose boldly into light, from the snow-covered
earth.

He raised his gaze to the sky—it was there, so deep, so bright, so beautiful,
like a great curtain, hung between his eyes and that awful World of
Eternity, crowded with spirits of Light and Darkness.

The air was breathlessly still. The long prolonged howl of the watchdog
came from afar with an unearthly cadence; the waves of the Wissahikon
filled the hollows in the rocks with faint murmurs.

Save these sounds, all was still.

The eyes which gleamed from that bronzed face grew brighter and
more lustrous, even as they were wet with tears.

For the soul of the young man was elevated and purified, by the supernatural
solemnity of the winter night upon the Wissahikon. To him,
the great sky was no vague blank in the Universe. It was crowded with
the Spirit People of many tongues, tribes and forms. The Stars above
were the Homes of Souls, many good, many evil, some lost in crimes,
and some pure as the light of God.

And even through the blue sky, he could look up, and see these spirits
—or to speak in language which may be more intelligible—these Men
and Women of a purer and diviner creation, circling in myriad throngs
of light and darkness. Some with their faces glowing ineffable love, and
others wearing upon their foreheads the fiery scorn of passion, defiance
and despair.

For, from very childhood, he had been taught to believe, that even as
the chain of physical existence begins with rudest beasts and almost
imperceptible reptiles, and extends upward to Man, so from Man up to
God, the chain of Spiritual Life extended in one unbroken line, creation
crowding on creation, and tribes of spirits rising above other tribes,

until the universe beheld its supreme source and fountain in the Great
Father of Eternity.

Therefore, to him, the beautiful sky did not seem a vague blank in
creation, peopled only with stars, that were desert worlds.

Nor did the rivulet, tossing among its ice-covered rocks, nor the leafless
trees around it, rising bleakly from the snowy earth, nor the deep glens,
sunken here and there on the borders of the gorge of Wissahikon, wear
only their external forms of wildness and beauty.

They were peopled with absorbing associations; not a rock but had
its own interest, not a tree but waved in the moonlight, stirred by some
hand, to him invisible. The very air was thronged—dense—with the
Spirit People.

Ere you smile at the young man, and scorn his spiritual belief, let me
impress a few facts distinctly on your minds.

He has never passed the space of an hour's journey from the gorge
of Wissahikon.

His mind has been shaped in solitude; in an ancient mansion, centered
among these woods, he has lived since that hour of childhood, which has
but a faint mist, in place of Memory.

For some reason—hereafter to be explained—a solemn charge has
been laid upon his soul, never to permit his footsteps to wander from the
valley of Wissahikon, nor to gaze long upon the faces of men, much less
to enter into the spirit and the purposes of their every-day thoughts.

Within the Block-House, with no companionship save the aged man,
his father, and the fair girl, his sister, he has grown up to young manhood.
That sister he loves, but it is with a love, calm and serene as the stars.

That Love which burns and devours and maddens, has yet to come!

And he has yet to behold that horrible libel on the Universe of God,
that ulcer on the bosom of creation, that foul Congress of demoniac passions,
some tinseled with gold, and others naked as unveiled Devils—
he has yet, and for the first time to behold—the Great City.

Look upon him now, as he stands upon the rock, so serene in his
young manhood, his bronzed face softened by emotions vast and ineffable
as the great Universe which shuts him in.

His voice is heard; he speaks aloud, while, crouching in the shadow
of the very rock on which he stands, Black David hears his every word,
and smiles.

“Shall I—I—that have been nurtured among these solitudes, and taught
to see God in every flower, to hear his Spirit in every breeze—shall I
ever share the tumult and the hatred of the great world, which lies be
yond the Wissahikon!”

He paused, and raised his eyes to heaven.

But, in the shadow of the rock, Black David spoke—

“You shall! With the hilt in your hand, and the point to the heart
of your foe, you will wield the sword, and feel how deep the joy of
shedding blood!”

He did not hear that voice, which, like a mocking echo, spoke, ere his
words had died away.

“And woman—shall I ever look upon her, but as some Pure Angel,
enshrined in the light flowing from the fountain of her own holiness?
This madness of passion—of which the Poets speak—this devouring
frenzy, which tramples alike on truth and honor, and reaps its harvest
in the desolation of some virgin soul, in the infamy of some unpolluted
body—shall it ever burn within my veins?”

Still, from the shadow of the rock, the hunchback answered, with his
smile, that was cold as the moonbeam playing on the snow:

“It shall! Even at this moment, she gazes proudly in her mirror,
and surveys the passionate beauty of her heaving breast, and wonders
when he that is to love her will appear!”

Still this voice, speaking its scorn and its prophecy from the shadow,
did not reach the ears of the young man who stood upon the rock.

With his face, so bold and thoughtful in every outline, hallowed by an
emotion that was very much like Prayer—Prayer at once sublime and
voiceless—he uncovered his brow, and his long black hair floated freely
on the wind.

His lustrous eyes upraised, he stretched toward the sky his
sinewy arm, and again his bold deep voice startled the Sabbath stillness—

“Here be my lot forever, O Father! Here, where Thy name is written
by the stars in the bosom of the waters, and the heart dwells with
itself, and has no ambition but to tremble nearer to its God! Here, as
long as my soul wears this drapery of mortality, may I dwell, and seek
no purer joy than to lead my father softly down the last steps of life
that lie between him and the grave, and know no deeper care than to
watch the soul of my stainless sister—and love it more serenely—as it blossoms
into its perfect bloom!”

As he spoke, a voice, sudden and abrupt, sounded at his side—

“Lord of Ardenheim”—

He turned with a sudden gesture, and saw a deformed figure, bending
respectfully, nay, in an attitude of servile obedience, before him.

“It it you, David?” he cried, somewhat startled by the voice, and the
strange words, which had been uttered, so abruptly, in his very ear.
“The poor hunchback, whose reason is lost in a hopeless chaos!” he
muttered to himself.

At the same time, clasping his hands and bending his head, until the
matted hair concealed his face, David stood before the young man, like a
servant who awaits his master's commands.

“What were those strange words which you uttered, but a moment
past?” he said, looking in compassion upon the deformed wretch.

“Nothing—my good master, nothing—only—but poor David's mind
wanders. David is cold—he cannot remember what he has heard. An
old man in danger. Yo' see the robbers are a-goin' to murder him; so
I heard them say. An old man with white hair—alone in a big house—
and a daughter—poor David's brain is very—very dark—”

“There is some dark truth in this chaos of confused memories”—the
thought flashed over the mind of Paul Ardenheim—“Robbers, did you
say? An old man in danger? Where, David—speak to Paul—he is
your friend. Tell him of these robbers.”

In his compassion for the wandering intellect, the bodily and mental
decrepitude of Black David, Paul was wont to speak to him as to a way-ward
child.

“It was—it was—” and the hunchback laid his hand upon his forehead,
as if in the attempt to fix some vagrant memory.

“Yes—the robbers—the old man—” gasped Paul, with impatient
earnestness.

“On the Wissahikon—” slowly exclaimed Black David—“The
mansion on the hill near the Schuylkill, under the tall pines—”

“Isaac Van Behme?” asked Paul, laying his hand on the hunchback's
arm.

“Yes—Isaac the Wizard!” cried Black David, with a sudden joy
flashing from his eyes—“That's the old man. I heerd 'em jist now—
under the rock—they've gone to murder him. You see, poor David is
weak. Paul is strong. And—”

There came over the young man's face an expression of determination,
which compressed his lips, and gave a deeper light to his eyes.
His arching brows—black and almost crescent-shaped—were shadowed
by a slight frown. As he turned to the moonlight, the silver cross rose
and fell, on his heaving chest.

“Thanks, good David,” he said, kindly pressing the hunchback's
hand. “By the blessing of God, I will save the old man!”

He descended from the rock, and presently, his form, attired in its
sombre robes, was seen on the opposite side of the mill-stream, on the
very spot where Gilbert had stood and looked back, but a few moments
before.

And from the top of the solitary rock, Black David contemplated him,
folding his arms, and standing as motionless as the great mass beneath
his feet, as he beheld that commanding figure—the face whose features
were shadowed in the gloom—the breast glittering with the silver cross.

The eyes of Black David grew vivid in their light, as, brushing aside
the matted hair from his forehead, he disclosed the Dark Cross, traced
on its fair hues.

“You go on a strange pathway, my Lord Paul, Count of Ardenheim
and Baron of Lyndulfe! Nero was once a dreaming boy, and Judas a
pure Disciple! Borgia, the Pope, was, in his young manhood, an example
of generous friendship and chivalrous honor. And yet Nero
made merry music while Rome was in flames—Nero looked with licentious
curiosity upon the dead mother, whom his own hand had slain.
Judas betrayed the Lord, who had broken bread with him, and sent the
Man-God who had loved him, to an ignominious death. Borgia became
the Demon-Pope, the lover of his own child, the—”

He paused, and the moon, shining upon his brow, scarred by the livid
cross, revealed the strange agitation of his large eyes, his quivering lips,
and hollow cheeks, as once more he whispered in his musical voice—

“You go on a strange pathway, my Lord Paul, Count of Ardenheim
and Baron of Lyndulfe!”

And the words had not passed his lips, when Paul disappeared among
the shadows of the leafless trees.